Overcoming Message Competitions in Organizations

By Martin Hahn

Competitive message can be defined as an essential component of an effective marketing strategy that separates your business from your competitors. This advantage over competitors is gained by either providing greater value to customers or by offering greater benefits and services that justify higher prices. Competitive advantage is what keeps your business alive and growing, and it is the reason why the business is alive.

Unfortunately, very few senior managers can accurately communicate their company's unique value to their customers. Typically, when asked, a company's leaders can spit off generalized statements indicating where their company stands within the marketplace, but many times those statements do not truly resonate with prospects and customers.

Competitive messaging doesn't always reflect your company's strengths or product features, as those types of statements may only explain why you exist. Often, prospects and customers don't really care why you exist, it's your job to find out what they do care about and craft messages that will speak to those concerns, making prospects and customers want to learn more and eventually buy your product. The best messages are typically based on specific characteristics, actions, or behavior that set you apart, and the only way they will separate you is if your prospects and customers believe your messages and believe you offer unique value.

Furthermore, we are to look at the most important benefits of competitive messaging and how it works as a company -level strategy for business expansion, thereby we are going to look at the steps that are involved in developing a competitive messaging:

STEPS INVOLVED IN DEVELOPING COMPETITIVE MESSAGES

1. Examine your company's deliverables and develop a list of candidate statements that you believe might be good messages.
2. Conduct market research (preferably through an independent third-party) to test the statements for your target market.
3. Finalize the statements.
4. Roll out the statements throughout the company and incorporate them into marketing materials.
5. Adjust the messages over time.

WAYS TO OVERCOME MESSAGE COMPETITIONS

In order to overcome message competitions, the following approaches or ways can be adopted:

1. KNOW YOUR COMPETITORS: Find out who your competitors are, what they are offering and what their unique selling point (USP) is. This will identify the areas you need to compete in, as well as giving you a platform for knowing how they communicate, what yardstick do they use in their communication skills.
2. KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER: Customer expectations can change dramatically when economic conditions are unstable. Find out what matters to your customers now - is it lowers price, more flexible or premium service, the latest products? Revise your sales and marketing strategy accordingly.
3. STEP UP YOUR COMMUNICATION STRATEGY: Improve your market positioning statement. Make more effort to tell people who you are, what you sell and why they should buy from you. It doesn't have to be expensive; marketing can range from posters, leaflets and campaign.
4 LOOK AFTER YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMER: They will be your competitors' target market. Provide better customer service by being more responsive to their needs and expectations. If feasible, consider offering low-cost extras such as improved credit terms, discounts or loyalty schemes - remember, it's cheaper and easier to keep customers than to find new ones.
5. EXPAND YOUR OFFER: What related products or services might your customers is interested in? You might even consider diversifying into another area - many bars and restaurants have successfully offered business networking events, for example.
6. LOOK TO THE FUTURE: Businesses that plan for growth are more successful than those that are happy to stay still. Keep up with developments in your sector, follow consumer trends, invest in new technology and - crucially - have a clear idea of where you want to be in one, three and five years' time.

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