Competitors or alternatives?
Why considering the alternatives rather than just your competitors is a great way to understand the needs and wants of your customers.
Good morning, my name is Kiri I’m the Business Growth Strategist here at Tiny Hunter. I read a really great article this week which was all about ‘who is your real competitor.’ Now according to Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings their biggest competitor isn’t Prime, or Stan, or Binge or any other streaming service. It’s sleep, I found this really interesting. Sleep isn’t investing millions in advertising or constantly producing new shows. But when you think about it, come 10 o’clock at night it’s likely you’re either going to watch Netflix or go to bed. Starting to think about alternatives instead of your competitors, is a really great way to tap into the psychology of your customers.
Most audiences build habits around these alternatives that come with a very specific set of actions and motivations. You need to build against those things to break that habit and establish it with your product. While it’s important to be aware of your competitors and of their competitive landscape focusing solely on them can be very narrow and shortsighted. A great way to start thinking about your alternatives is to ask yourself what would our competitors do if we didn’t exist? Or, what did they do before we existed? For a company like Slack, this was email. For Pinterest it was cutting and pasting pictures from magazines. By understanding what customers are looking for in that alternative, is a really great way to identify ways to improve your product or your service offering.
I want you to think about these alternative ways that people solve their problems or their needs instead of using your product or service offering. Ask your team what they could be. Ask your customers what they are, and then think about ways to make that experience 10 times better. This is a really great way to not only innovate but also to differentiate. That’s it from me, it’s time for brekkie.
Written by: Kiri White
Published: March 29, 2023