Knowing the strategies and formulas to beat the competition has become essential for agents and suppliers in the property industry. It sometimes can feel like a jungle or a medieval battle, where your brand and your competitors continuously fight to gain territory, especially in these challenging times.

Having a clear idea of your products and services, your target audience and your marketing strategy can be relatively straightforward but putting all that into operation and having aligned objectives to stand out from your competitors can be a much more complicated task. In these uncertain times, in the middle of the economic crisis affecting the housing market, only a few will manage to beat their rivals and survive.

Firstly: who are my competitors?

When we talk about competition, we’re not only referring only about those businesses that offer the same products or services we do. If you’re a supplier, see below who else is trying to get your slice of the pie:

1. Existing competitors: The companies with which we coexist and offer similar products or services within your same field of business, targeting the same audience or niche.

2. Potential competitors: Companies that are not yet within your niche, but that could be, by developing a new business line or innovating with a new product or technology. Beware, as this type of competition might be trying to find competitive advantages to gain a foothold in our field!

3. Substitutes: This type of competitor is the one that, using different methodologies, services or products, offers the same result as you do.

You should have a clear idea of who are the 4 or 5 main brands that compete with you in the same environment. Analyse what they do well compared to you, and what you could do to differentiate yourself from them. You can monitor their content and their marketing activity across their marketing actions (blogs, social media, email marketing…). Don’t be afraid to follow them and subscribe to their newsletters, you need to know what they’re doing! Knowledge is power.

Draw a positioning map with them and your brand. Where are your competitors on that map? Where are you? And the most important thing: where do you want to be? Establish SMART objectives to know where you want to go and the direction you should take to get there.

What are the main formulas to beat the competition?

The next step will be to know how to differentiate yourselves and succeed. Here at Angels Media, we’ve put together a few strategies that will help you beat the competition and get successful results:

• Bring something different: Novelty is always welcome by prospects and clients. Doing something new and different, useful, that covers an unsatisfied need of the client can be a guarantee of success. Give them educational and value content that will offer them solutions to their problems. That’s the way you can gain their trust, and who are they going to buy from? From the one they trust.

• Innovation: an industry in crisis should not be an obstacle if your ideas are good. Don’t be afraid to take risks. If you’re clear about a new concept, product, service, methodology, a new feature… go for it!

• Engage with your audience: Capturing your clients’ attention and gaining their loyalty is crucial to keep them. Learn and apply loyalty techniques to retain customers. If they’re happy with your product, service, brand and the way you nurture them, they won’t go anywhere else.

• Diversify: If you can, develop and expand your range of products and services. Seeking to captivate a new audience will help attract new leads and clients and will help beat your competition.

• Communicate: Even if your product or service is of high quality, you need to sell it. Prospects and new audiences won’t necessarily know about you. Plan, design and invest in a marketing, branding and advertising strategy, especially online. Integrate both paid and organic campaigns so you can combine different objectives using different channels and strategies.

• Don’t be afraid, don’t give up: Competitors are likely to copy you. It’s fine, don’t be afraid, it means that you’re doing things well and that you’ve innovated before them. If that’s the case, your brand will probably be positioned as one of the market leaders. The key is in innovation and creativity.

If you’re unsure about the approach you should take in your advertising and marketing campaigns to stand out from your competitors, we’ll be looking forward to helping you identify what makes you different and unique.

Call us on 0208 663 4989, or email lee@angelsmedia.co.uk and we’ll contact you asap.