As a startup, does it make sense to study and incorporate what your competition has done, or should you try to chart your own path? It’s one of those sticky subjects I’ve been wrestling with a lot lately.
Taking Advantage Of What Others Have Already Done
On the “pro” side of the argument are the following points:
- “If X doesn’t put their pricing on their web site, we shouldn’t either. They must have done that for a reason.”
- “Company X spent thousands designing their landing pages, and they make a lot of money. Therefore, we should make ours look just like theirs.”
- “A company similar to ours got 60% of their leads from TechTarget. We should be able to do the same.”
It’s a pretty convincing idea: Another company has done ___________ and they are successful, so if we do _________ we will be too. Perhaps the most seductive rationale for copying the competition is precedence. If you incorporate something you’ve copied from your competition and it fails, it’s easy to say “that doesn’t make sense…..it worked for X, so it should work for us.” That’s pretty convenient copout.
The Problem With Competitive Mimicry
Now that’s a pretty good one, isn’t it? Competitive mimicry? Whatever you want to call it, there are a few problems with doing what the others have done:
- At best, you’ll only do as well as your competitors
- Unless you know your competitor personally, you don’t know how well they’re doing
- You miss out on a chance to do something new
The second bullet is important. Let’s use the example of a landing page. Simply ripping off the layout and design of a competitor’s landing page because you know them to be successful could be a very bad idea. Maybe they have terrible conversion rates on their PPC pages, but do a great job at cold calling. You might end up copying something that isn’t working for them at all.
The third bullet is something to think about. Looking at almost every B2B web site, you’ll find that a user has to fill in a form to get any information whatsoever. Want to read a whitepaper? Well, you’ll have to tell us your name, email and phone number for the privilege.
So, if you’re a “copy the competition” type, you’ll probably do the same and put up a wall between a visitor and a whitepaper. Everyone else does it. But maybe you’re missing an opportunity. Maybe visitors hate the mandatory forms with the intensity of a thousand suns. Maybe simply allowing visitors to get the information they want would make them like you more than your lame competitors. Maybe you could even build a campaign around the fact that your company believes visitors shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get information about a product.
Maybe. But that would take more effort than doing what the other guys have done.
