Page 58 - 100 Great Marketing Ideas (100 Great Ideas)

25 SHOW PEOPLE THE
COMPETITION

Most of us are a little bit afraid of our competitors. All too often,
they come over and eat our lunch—we lose customers to them, and
if we keep on losing customers to them, we lose our business. What
is easily forgotten, though, is that they are probably just as afraid
of us as we are of them. After all, we have a better product, better
customer relationships, and we are all-round nicer people.

So why not be up front about it with our customers? We don’t have to
run our competitors down, in fact that is usually counterproductive
because people feel sorry for the underdog, but there is nothing
wrong with telling people what our competitors have on offer—after
all, it’s hardly a state secret.

The idea

When Judy Kearney was director of sales and marketing at Holiday
Inn, the company lost a large corporate customer to a rival hotel
chain. Kearney tried persuasion, but to no avail—the lost customer
was happy with the new chain. However, the decision-makers were
not the people who stayed in the hotels—the guests were actually
salespeople, engineers and executives on business trips. Kearney
asked them if they were happy with the new hotel chain, and found
that they preferred Holiday Inn.

Kearney suggested to the management that they survey their staff
themselves and find out if they were happy. She pointed out that
unhappy employees are unproductive employees: the company
management carried out the survey and found (to their surprise)
that employees preferred Holiday Inn.

100 GREAT MARKETING IDEAS • 49