I've often wondered how God feels about competition. When two teams in a sporting event pray before a game, whom does God favor? This could have been a serious prayer in the Roman Coliseum!
I thought about this once when I was marketing the grand opening of a McDonald's across the street from a Burger King. I prayed early that morning for a successful opening. I wondered if the Burger King marketing guy was also praying.
Marketers need to be thankful for competitors. In any industry, competitors offer alternatives to consumers. As long as we don't think of our product or service as "me too," we have an opportunity to demonstrate competitive advantage.
Our competitive advantage must clearly explain how the customer will benefit from our product over another.
Ideally, we will create a class of one. If we tightly define our target market and create a message just for them, we can eliminate consideration of other offerings.
Average competitors will speak to the masses and describe the greatness of their product.
We choose to speak directly to felt needs of a small group of people. Our message isn't about us but about felt needs.
We will be known for our content. We gain trust because we have volumes of information available regarding how we meet needs.
We will send our messages with high frequency. We don't need to advertise to reach a massive Super Bowl audience. We prefer to send messages to people who have told us they need us through an opt-in vehicle.
We pray for customers and competitors.
But we don't pray with selfish ambition.
We are servant marketers.
Dr. Steve Greene is the publisher and executive vice president of the media group at Charisma Media and executive producer of the Charisma Podcast Network. His book, Love Leads: The Spiritual Connection Between Your Relationships and Productivity, is now available.
Leaders, Dr. Greene wants to help you understand the spiritual connection between relationships and productivity. Read his new blog, here.
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