In the battlefield of Business everyone is fighting to get more and more customers. Winning over a competitor’s customer is also very satisfying. This can be a faster way of acquiring the new customers. But breaking a loyal customer from competitor is not easy primarily due to two reasons
Brand loyalty with existing supplier
Fear of unknown
You can start with the dissatisfied customers of competitors. I have helped many clients in winning customers from their competitors. You can adopt the time-tested strategies as given below:
Create deeper connect with prospect: Once you have identified a prospect start building a deeper connect. Do not only remain in touch with the decision maker but also ensure to go and build relationship with actual user, technical person and people in purchase department. Offer them certain service favours at low cost or free, to win over their heart. Adding massive value shall help build deeper ties with prospect. He will consider you for future business due to law of reciprocity.
Word of mouth marketing: Find out some connect who can talk good about your product and services. As per research more than 89{2facf265810d5c64deca339a00197305ceb917dadef902f2426694cb75f36e2b} prospect tend to trust on word of mouth for buying decisions. Constantly keep on building your brand advocates. When a satisfied customer promotes you Infront of a prospect, his statement is most trustworthy, and sales is almost done. I have experienced that conversion rate of a referral is far better than a lead. The reason behind this is ‘word of mouth credentials. Your existing customers will be able to change the mindset of your competitor’s customers. The fear of unknown gets reduced remarkably when a prospect get recommendation about your product and services from a known some existing customer.
Brand Awareness: If your brand is well known than it will create a strong pull to your competitor’s customers. If your brand is strong and has good reputation for good products and customer service, then changing brand loyalty for your competition customers may not be difficult. Therefor it is recommended to create strong marketing awareness about your products. Your presence on social medial shall help. We always recommend creating a strong social media presence about your brand.
Create a differentiator: A prospect must have a good reason to change his brand loyalty. If your product or your brand has something which is better than your competitor, then a prospect shall have a good reason for change. A USP or a differentiator shall be a great pull for your prospects. Once you have created a differentiator it is always recommended to market it strongly. You can also look for a gap / need which your prospect is aspiring to get filled. Communicate how your product is filling up that gap. If your product is fulfilling an unmet need it will automatically pull your competitor’s customers.
Overcome the fear of Unknown: Fear of unknown is the biggest obstacle in any sales. There are various ways to minimize the fear of sales. One of the ways is to offer some low-cost high value product to your prospect. By this prospect will get an opportunity to experience your quality himself which will help him decide, in other words reduce the entry barrier. Fear of unknown can be reduced by lucrative warrantee and guarantee terms. 100{2facf265810d5c64deca339a00197305ceb917dadef902f2426694cb75f36e2b} money back guarantee can be a good assurance and will help a great deal in overcoming the fear of unknown for the prospect. Another good way for minimizing the fear of unknown is ‘Try and buy’ offer.
Lower your price: lots of companies use price to attract and break into the competitors’ market. Pricing is very common differentiator and go market strategy for lots of companies. Especially when you are entering newly in market, and you are not a well-known established brand lower pricing helps a great deal to penetrate the market. Certain companies brand themselves as low cost alternative. But this cannot be a long-lasting strategy. When your competitor is a well-known brand, you can offer a high-quality product at a lower price. Low price, high quality product with all other strategies as mentioned above shall help in attracting your competitor’s market.
