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3 Things You Can Do to Outperform Your Online Competitors

Are you concerned that your competitors may be stealing existing customers from your business?

You’re not alone. In our recent survey, 46% of businesses told us this was their greatest fear. Another 27% were worried that competitors’ prices were lower, while 18% reported concerns that their competitors have better marketing.

But business is competition, so how can your company gain the advantage?

How to get ahead of online competitors

In order to outperform your competitors, you’ll need to think strategically about the differences between your business and theirs. Here are 3 steps you can take today to make it easy.

1) Get to know your brand, reputation and customers.

Your business is your brand – without a strong brand and a good reputation, you’ll find it much harder to convert and retain customers.

• Check out online reviews to see what customers are saying about you. When customers give you a glowing 5 star review, what do they praise the most? When they’re unhappy, what are the most common complaints? Many customers feel more able to voice their opinions online than in person, so this is an excellent way to learn what customers really think of you.
• Understand your brand’s appeal from the customer’s perspective – why do they buy from you instead of your competitors? Does the customer perspective align with your company’s presentation of the brand?

Once you’ve explored opinions of your brand, get to know your customers’ needs and desires:

• What do they want from your product or service?
• What do they want you to start doing?
• What do they want you to stop doing?
• What do they want you to continue doing?

One of the simplest ways to discover this information is to conduct a consumer survey. As the majority of consumers use mobile devices, a mobile survey lets you reach them wherever they are and provides an easy way for them to respond.

2) Get to know your competition and their customers.

It’s important to keep track of what advertising and marketing tactics your main competitors use, from SEO and SEM to social networking and email marketing. Notice any changes in their approach so you can gain insight into their broader strategies.

Take the time to audit your competitors’ online performance:

• Do they rank well for they search keywords your company targets?
• Do they publish great content online on a regular basis?
• Do they have an active following on social media?
• Subscribe to your competitors’ email marketing campaigns to see how they’re using this channel. Use a non-corporate email address for this, to avoid flooding your business inbox with competitor marketing campaigns or tipping off your competitors about your research activities.

Now learn more about your competitors’ customers (and how they could become your customers).

• Keep track of comments left on your competitors’ social media profiles, websites, review sites and blogs. Try to get a sense of your competitors’ typical customer profiles.
• Look for opportunity gaps you can exploit. Are your competitors lacking a service or product that your company can deliver?

3) Gain insight to inform your decisions.

Guesswork won’t give you the insight you need to make the right decisions, but accurate data will.

To obtain data on your customers and how they interact with your brand, consider using lead conversion software like ReachLocal. This allows you to keep everything on one platform for easy analysis.

Some of the key metrics to track with your lead conversion software include:

• Impressions compared to click-through rates
• Conversion rates of different customer segments
• Conversion rates of different landing page designs
• How your chosen metrics change with the time of day, the day of the week, or the seasons

This should be enough to get you started on the way to improved customer retention.

If you’re interested in finding out how ReachLocal software can help track your online marketing efforts, visit the website today.

Paul Liascos - Managing Director, ReachLocal UK

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by ReachLocal UK .