Secret 5: Ethically Steal Your Competitors' Customers
Lesson 9 from: Viral Marketing: 7 Secrets to Promote Any ProductJon Youshaei
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Secret 5: Ethically Steal Your Competitors' Customers
Lesson 9 from: Viral Marketing: 7 Secrets to Promote Any ProductJon Youshaei
Lesson Info
9. Secret 5: Ethically Steal Your Competitors' Customers
Lessons
Lessons
1Introduction
01:47 2Secret 1: Sell The Problem, Not The Solution
14:37 3Quiz - Secret 1: Sell The Problem, Not The Solution
4Secret 2: Think Like a Magazine, Not a Salesman
04:30 5Quiz - Secret 2: Think Like a Magazine, Not a Salesman
6Secret 3: Content Is King, but Consistency Is Queen
03:55 7Quiz - Secret 3: Content Is King, but Consistency Is Queen
Secret 4: Punch Above Your Weight Class
10:59 9Secret 5: Ethically Steal Your Competitors' Customers
08:11 10Secret 6: Bulid an Audience By Borrowing
10:24 11Quiz - Secret 6: Build an Audience By Borrowing
12Secret 7: Be a Shadow, Not a Ghost
05:19 13Bonus: Tips to Be a 5 Stars Freelancer
05:36 14Closing Thoughts
03:14 15Final Quiz
Final Quiz
16Final Quiz
Lesson Info
Secret 5: Ethically Steal Your Competitors' Customers
the fifth secret of viral marketing is to ethically steal your competitors customers. So in this video, we're going to talk about how to grow a huge customer base while letting your competition do all the hard work for you. So in most business schools will teach you about this thing called the first mover advantage. It's the notion that the startup who enters the market first will control an insurmountable amount of market share. So by the time that competitors enter it's kind of like game over right. The first one to enter is the first one to win, as they say, and we've seen this time and time again, right? Uber enters the ride sharing market, then dominates it. Air B. B enters the home sharing market and then dominates it and so on and so forth. But you know, I like to take the opposite approach. I would argue that there's also a first mover disadvantage and there's a whole set of reasons why entering a market later can actually work in your favor, which is great news for most of us ...
because let's face it. Um, most companies aren't totally revolutionary, even if they claim to be disrupting the world, they're more evolutionary right? They're improving on something that already exists. So I'm always shocked when I see new companies trying to reinvent the wheel when the first mover has done so much of the hard work for you and it's much more efficient to go after your competitors customers by going to their playground and persuading the customers why they should be on your team instead. And let me explain what that means to illustrate, Let's talk about a case study and this case study is of the fastest growing company you've probably never heard of. They're called Intercom and you see intercom is a live chat software company that's grown from 0 to $50 million in annual recurring revenue. To put that in context, they've done that faster than any other SAS startup that includes Shopify and includes hubspot and other big ones that you've probably heard of. But best of all, intercom has gotten all this growth without, without spending ridiculous money on an advertisement. So I want to show you how to do the same. You see while most startups burn money bidding on general keywords. When it comes to google Adwords Intercom was very strategic and what keywords they bid on specifically, they bid on their competitors names. For example, Intercoms main competitor is named Oh Lark and every month tons of people go on google and search for Olaf right? They may be searching because a friend told them about it or because they saw an old lark add or social posts. But the point is that whole arc has invested a lot in trying to get people to their website and what does intercom do they intercept those, those customers by placing their ads on top of the search results for old lark talk about a savage and savvy move, right? You can see the ad here. It says live chat alternative. Try Intercom free today. So intercom is saying to all the people interested in old lark that hey, maybe it's time to try something new, but it gets even better. This is my favorite part. You see those who click this customized link, go to a customized landing page and that's where you can sit here. Here's, here's what that looks like. And the landing page says Olarn First Intercom for live chat. Looking for an alternative to old lark, You've come to the right place. There's a better way to chat with visitors on your website. So you see with this copy, they're just taking jabs at ole arc. Do you see the Jedi mind trick that intercom is doing right there asking you if you're looking for an alternative. So suddenly it places the question in your head, even if it wasn't there before, was pretty smart. Like um I wasn't looking for an alternative, but now you mention it. Alright, intercom, tell me more. Tell me more. And that's where this lesson. Again, it connects back to a lesson about punching upwards right on this targeted website. Intercom takes so many punches at ole Arc, They provide a side by side comparison and they tell you specifically and categorically why they're better and include a lot of testimonials to that end as well. If I don't draw an analogy, I'd say that this is like one of the most disappointing teen romances of all time. Right, Old lark dates a girl for years goes to the awkward puberty stage with her. And then on the night he goes to propose a big muscular guy named Intercom swoops in and persuades a girlfriend why she should marry him instead. Oh Lord. Put in all the time. But intercom still video. I'll see if somebody did that in real life would be pretty dirty. But in business. Well, that's just business. It's resourceful is taking advantage of the first mover disadvantage. But here's the thing. Intercom didn't just steal customers from old lark. They took the same approach with other competitors. Take a look at this other ad when you search for drift, which is the name of another intercom competitor and you can see the copy is almost identical except that this ad takes users to a targeted page that tells them what intercom is better than drift instead of just a lark. Again, same strategy. Different competitor drift did a lot of the heavy lifting just like, oh, lark did to drive people to the website and intercom swoops in at the last possible moment to say, hey, we're better try us out. Of course. Google isn't the only playground where you can intercept your competitors customers. I also recommend using a tool called similar web, which lets you analyze your competitors traffic sources and see the exact as a running at any time. It's pretty remarkable as an example. Let's say you're marketing a weight loss program and one of your biggest competitors is accompanied by the name of venus factor. So what would you do using similar web again? Let's do it together here. So you go to, you go to similar web dot com. You type in venus factor in the search bar and you'll immediately be led to a page where you can analyze their monthly visits there to visit her time on site and their traffic sources for our purposes. We're most interested in the latter category. So if you click on traffic overview, you'll see a page that looks like this. And if you scroll on that page, you'll see a link to the top referring sites and then you can click on that and that's where the magic happens. You get a breakdown of all the different traffic sources that are leading to venus factor, which again, as a reminder of your competitor in this, in this scenario. And what do we see at the top of this list of referrals? Well, it's a site by the name of life guru and they're the number one traffic source to venus factor. And now the rabbit hole goes even deeper. You see similar web literally shows you the ads that venus factor is running and how long they've been running for on these sites on these referral sites, meaning that you can know where your competitor gets a lot of their traffic and and you can see what adds a place there. So I know that's a lot of information. Let's put your knowledge to the test with a quick quiz just to bring it all together. So now that you know you can see your competitors ads on similar web. In addition to knowing where they put these ads, how do you exactly figure out which one of these ads is the highest performing? Is it a whichever one shows up first on similar web Be? Whichever one has been running the longest receive, which everyone has the best copy. The correct answer is B your competitor pays to keep an ad running longer without performing the other ads. So there you have it you now know how to find out where your competitor gets traffic, what ads they run there and which adds perform best. So does that mean you should just copy it all. Not exactly. I want to be super, super clear that this lesson is much more about elevation than imitation as they say with great power comes great responsibility. You know, there's a lot of power and learning what we just covered in this course. So I want to encourage you to always be responsible and do the right thing. Sometimes looking at what other companies are doing can simply be a source of inspiration, especially when you're stuck. I know I personally do it all the time. In fact over the years as I've been working with many, many clients, I've been building this treasure chest of great marketing emails, add the newsletters that I've seen over time and I want to share it with you because you're in this course, so you can find it in the link below. And best of all, I'll continually be updating this treasure chest and marketing materials so you will always be on the cutting edge as I come across new stuff with that, I want to say congrats on finishing this secret of viral marketing. In the next video, we're gonna talk about how to get millions of views, regardless of what industry you're in. So I'll see you there.
Ratings and Reviews
Muhammad Usman Abdullah
Amazing! I learned a lot. You made complex topics more exciting and easy to follow through real-world case studies.
Pam Atkinson
Amazing, I learned so much taking this course. Jon goes over a lot of tips that can really enhance any freelancer/business owners sales. Every step he mentions is actionable and can be applied right away. Thank you!
Art studio
well, superb! I learned a lot of new marketing strategies. That is very well explained.