If you look at your competitors as something to be feared and avoided you’re living in the dark age. These days offer us plenty of ways to make the most out of these competitors. No longer should they be avoided. Embrace them instead! Not sure what we’re talking about? That’s okay, because today we are going to show you how you can use your competitors to help advance your own business- and without crushing anyone else on your rise up.
Interacting
If your competitor has a blog, follow it. Comment on the articles they write. Comment on social media accounts, and respond to tweets. It may seem contradictory but doing this will put you in front of your competitors audience. That isn’t all either. This will also help you build a solid online, working relationship with these competitive businesses which will help you to move forward with our other suggestions.
Join Together
If you can’t beat them, join them. Everyone has heard that old saying. Interestingly enough it proves true for our intents and purposes here today. Once you have begun to develop an online relationship with your competition through interaction you may want to try setting up a joint venture. We aren’t talking about something huge like a new company, but rather small things which will merge the two distinct audiences together. Here are a few ideas:
- Run a sale spanning both businesses and websites.
- Create a workshop together where your business covers one topic and their business covers another.
- Run a mutual online giveaway boasting items from both stores. If you use Rafflecopter there are Facebook like and Twitter follow options which can help both businesses increase their reach.
- See if another successful business is interested in becoming affiliates. This means you are able to advertise on their site, and vice versa. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.
- Guest blog on their site and allow them to write a guest blog for yours in return.
Offer A Helping Hand
There are several ways you can help your competition while helping yourself at the exact same time. If you think about it you will see it is possibly the smartest thing you could do as far as your marketing efforts. You don’t appear to be getting anything in return, but the truth is that every nice thing you do for another company will end up benefiting you in some small way. A prime example is interviewing the owner of a competitive company for your blog site. Chances are high the company will promote the piece, which gets your own business out in front of their customers. Another idea may be to offer your competitor a spot in a promotion or business write up you are doing for the same exact reason. A little bit of time and effort should give you unique ways to offer a helping hand. Get creative and you sure are to reap the benefits.
