Stealing Customers from Your Competitors

What I'm going to talk about today is a very sensitive topic because some people might think it to be unethical or just plane old, "not right."

But like it or not, the fundamental premise of marketing is to...

1. Capture your customers attention (better than your competitors).

2. Engage them in your message (better than your competitors).

3. Close the sale (before your competitors).

Here's Three Live Examples of Stealing Customers Would like to read about a few examples of companies that have, in some cases, gone to great lengths to steal customers from their competitors? Well, here's three live examples.

Example # 1 - Putting up a billboard sign in front of your competitors place of business There's an electronics store here in Houston that did a ton of radio and television advertising. As you might expect they generated a lot of store traffic.

Their competitor, whose store was down the road, paid a premium price to rent the billboard sign that was right in front of the electronics store.

The sign said, "For Lower Prices on Electronic Stuff, Keep Driving Two More Blocks." Ouch!

Example # 2 - Roll out your product the day before your competitor In the spa and pool industry, one of the major conference promoters moved their big event forward this year so that it takes place exactly 2 weeks before the first association conference of the of season (that got the pool and spa association pretty darn mad!)

Example # 3 - Do a flyover on the day of your competitors big event When I lived in California there was a big furniture retailer that was having a major annual sale. They spent a lot on advertising to create excitement.

Well, on the day of the event, their competitor rented a plane and did a fly owner the store with a huge banner that said, "Save More Money at Smith's Furniture."

The plane kept flying over again and again for about 3 hours. I can only imagine that the furniture retailers management was livid.

Example # 4 - Run a yellow page ad in the same section as your indirect competitors Here's another example from the pool and spa industry. Nearly every pool that is built, has an inground hot tub.

Well, a San Antonio hot tub retailer figured that every hot tub that was being built with a pool was a sale that he was missing out on.

So he called me up and asked if I would write an ad that he could put in the "swimming pools" section of the yellow pages to attract hot tubs.

I told him to go and write a special report titled, "6 Things You Should Know Before You Add an Inground Hot Tub to Your Pool."

The special report explained how foolish it is to build an inground hot tub when you could buy an above ground hot tub with 10 times the features for less cost.

Here's the yellow page before the ad was put in.

url123.com (868k pdf file)

And here's the yellow page after my ad was place in.

url123.com (891k pdf file)

Very sneaky indeed. It's a typical "warning" ad, but it gets people's attention and makes the phone ring. (A few of those phone calls were from swimming pool companies requesting the report :-)

NOTE: By the way, if you want to learn more about yellow page advertising you should consider investing in www.YellowPagesProfit.com by Alan Saltz. It's a great resource.

My Personal Thoughts On Stealing Customers...

I have mixed feelings about using these types of tactics to steal customers. From my observation, 99% of small businesses could get a whole lot more customers by simply doing a better job of marketing.

They don't need to resort to other tactics to steal customers. Heck, most businesses could have all the customers they want if they just took some time to learn HOW to market their business.

If you want to more about small business marketing, I mean a WHOLE LOT MORE. Then you should consider investing in the www.TheMarketingBible.com.

It's packed with over 312 pages of marketing ideas for your business. Look at it as a small investment in your marketing education.



Stealing Customers from Your Competitors - To learn more about this author, visit David Frey's Website.

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