Articles Index >> Marketing 2

Imitation, The Smartest Form Of Flattery

by David Geer

Unless you are an inventor, most likely you are selling a
product or service that is being offered by someone else,
somewhere, at some time. The first person to start your type
of business would have gone through a lot of trial and
error. Thank that person, as now you can not only profit by
not repeating the same mistakes, but by learning what they
do to get business.

The best way to do this is to practice what any
businessperson knows: know your competition. The most
beneficial thing you can do is to study what they are doing
to attract customers.

Go online, do a search, pull up the web sites of your
competition, and start taking notes. Here are some things to
look for.

* What do you like about their web site?
* How can they improve upon it?
* Is it user-friendly and easy to understand?
* Is it too wordy or complicated?
* Could someone browsing this web site learn quickly what
this business actually does?
* Does their web site move too slowly, due to an
over-emphasis on graphics that sacrifices the actual
message?

With your notes, you can begin to set up the key points that
you feel your target audience needs to know about your
product or service, and why it will benefit them to do
business with you.

Look at these different web sites and read the headline.

* Does it draw you in?
* Do you care to read more?
* Do you feel intrigued, or more than a little confused?

If you find one you like, there is nothing wrong with
re-wording it to fit your business. Remember that we are
talking about imitation, not plagiarism.

It has been said that there is nothing new under the sun.
While this may be the case, at least give what your company
is offering a unique slant, and make an effort to provide it
in a more informative and interesting format than what your
competition is doing.

====Side Bar====
This "unique slant", often called the "Unique Selling
Proposition (USP)", opens the door for effective competition
among businesses selling a simular product -- even the same
product.

Rosser Reeves was the first to coin the phrase Unique
Selling Proposition in his book "Reality of Advertising",
published in 1961.

Here's Reeves' 3 part diffintion of USP:

1. Each advertisement must make a proposition to the
consumer.
2. The proposition must be one that the competition either
cannot, or does not offer. It must be unique--either a
uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in
that particular field of advertising.
3. The proposition must be so strong that it can move the
mass millions.
====Side Bar====

Try to look at your competition with fresh eyes. Treat what
they have to say as if it is the first time you have seen
this information, because that may be the case for your
target audience. Make a list of the questions that come to
mind, or points that you feel you would want more
information on, if you were in the shoes of your audience.

Even what your competition does wrong with the information
they do or do not provide can be instructive. It serves to
get you to think of all the things that you can do to sell
the service better. You are building the structure of your
business on what someone else has done before you, but
improving the end product by going the extra distance in
covering the whole story in a clear manner.

Now that is smart business.

About the Author

Success 4U Marketing helps small business owners discover how to
market any product or service online –
quickly ... easily ... profitably ... successfully: http://www.cashflowseller.com/