You Don't Know Your Competition, Do You?

I bet you look at Google ads, websites, yellow pages, direct mail and any other ad your direct competition has out. I bet you think that is your main competition, and you would be wrong.

Sure, your competition is like products or services for people actively looking, but not those not looking.

When you utilize direct response vehicles such as mail, space ads (on and offline), flyers or whatever... your competition is massive.

Now you are competing with everything from a new car to a new pair of shoes. When these people get your offer they were not sitting there thinking about it, they were thinking about something else. Something they want.

You have the incredible task of blasting through those other wants and replace it with your product or service. You literally need to scramble their thinking.

Most of my clients (and it is safe to say almost all business owners) never go beyond getting their product or service in front of people. Most think that people seeing their name over and over creates customers down the road... which is horse dung.

I know Budweiser very well, yet I never drink it. I know Ford very well but never owned one in 40 years. Why is that? If Ford and Bud can't get me to buy spending billions on ads how is your teeny ad going to convince me?

To eliminate the ego ads and redirect your ads from comparing yourself to similar products or services, you should be more worried about Nine West.

In this economy people do think more than they used to. Most control their splurges. You need to make your offer very appealing from a point of view they can relate with.

To illustrate the point I found this massively successful ad (it has not been beaten in more than 25 years!). It shows a different angle on how ads can be created. It is an ad that brings people into the the thing being sold.

When creating ads keep it in mind. Here is a snippet of the very successful ad for a newsletter about offshore real estate-

You look out your window, past the gardener, who is pruning
the lemon, cherry and fig trees...amidst the splendor of
gardenias, hibiscus and hollyhocks.

The sky is clear blue. The sea is deeper blue, sparkling with
sunlight.

A gentle breeze comes drifting in from the ocean, clean and
refreshing, as your maid brings you breakfast in bed.

Go get some

Paul