It’s no secret that any business that wants to get ahead, must stay ahead of its competition. This is especially true when it comes to your marketing strategy, because so many companies are vying for the same audiences’ attention and business. A weak spot in your marketing strategy can essentially mean handing your key audience over to your competitors. So how do you manage to outsmart the competition? Here are some best marketing solutions and marketing hacks to beat the competition at every turn. 

1. Check Your Product & Offer‍

The basic truth still stands – the best way to get ahead of your competition and achieve success in your business is to have a great product, offer a delightful experience to your customers, and leave yourself a margin of profit. These basics don’t change, and they need to be in place if you want to see any success from your marketing efforts.Though they aren’t the only things you need to get your company ahead of its competition, they are a necessary basis to a successful business foundation. 


Now, let’s look at some supplemental strategy you can use to outsmart the competition. 

2.  Take Advantage Your Competitors’ Facebook Following‍

Although Facebook doesn’t give you the option to target your ads with keywords or page likes, it does let you target users based on their interests. In other words, you can identify an audience that has expressed interest in your competitors, which means they will inherently be interested in your product or service as well. Facebook’s list of “interests” range from very wide to very specific, so find some combination of your competitor’s name, their product, or website URL. When you’ve successfully found their audience, you’ve also found yours! 


3. Target Your Competitor’s YouTube Ads‍

Imagine if you could play your ad before your competitor had the chance to play theirs, and intercept their audience. Well, thanks to YouTube ads, you can! To take advantage of this marketing strategy, you’ll need to craft the best possible video ad your budget will allow. Once you have your watchable ad, you can use any number of targeting options, but to truly take on and outsmart your competition, you’ll want to target their ads specifically. Play your cards right, and the viewers may not even go on to watch your competitor’s ad, so aim for the best quality and impact you can afford. 

4. Target Your Competitor’s Email Marketing ‍

Another clever way to poach your competitors’ leads is by targeting their email ads through your own Gmail Advertising. What this means is that every time your competitor sends out an email using their keywords and business name, you can send targeted ads to be included along with that email. Your ads will appear in the “Promotions” tab in your audience’s inbox, so to effectively win them over from your competition, you’ll need to put your best marketing content forward. That means using the most engaging and click-enticing subject lines. Make it known what service of product you offer and what makes your offer unique and valuable over your competitors. 


5. Set Up Alerts To Track Your Competitors’ Content‍

Regardless of your current marketing strategy, it is always useful to brush up on your competitors’ techniques and tactics. You should obviously start by looking through their website and social media to find out what type of content they’re publishing and what type of keywords and links they’re utilizing. But to really keep abreast of all of their newest marketing efforts, you should set up Google alerts for their name as well as top products or services. You can do the same thing for their social media by taking advantage of sites like SocialMention.com or Mention.com. 


6. Know Their Metrics ‍

Some other ways that you can keep an eye on your competition’s marketing strategy is to familiarize yourself with all of their key metrics, from their SEO and keyword rankings to their social media growth rate. Take advantage of the following services that are designed specifically for this purpose: 

  • Top Performing Posts -  BuzzSumo.com: Just type in your competitor’s website and you’ll get a list of top performing articles and content they have published. 
  • Keyword Ranking -  SpyFu, Moz & SEMRush: These sites give you insight into what keywords your competitors are bidding on.  
  • Social Media Growth - Fanpage Karma: This is a useful tool for analyzing your competitor’s rate of engagement and growth on social media, including the most popular posts. 
  • Most Influential Followers – FollowerWonk: Find your competitor’s most influential followers and then follow them yourself. 
  • SEO Audit - Screaming Frog & Kapost’s Content Auditor: These tools will let you perform an SEO audit of your competitor’s website. 

Final Thoughts‍

If you find your company falling behind, it’s time to implement some of these marketing hacks to beat the competition! Remember, that you must have a solid offer and product or service in place in order to do this. The rest is a matter of strategic thinking and clever use of current technology to put yourself a step ahead of the competition every time. Be sure to build engaging and high-quality ads and you’ll be able to beat your competitors at their very own marketing game.



David Tsatava

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