Most of us want to do better against the competition – it’s just in our nature. 

I think there’s an abundance of wealth and opportunity everywhere, so I want everyone to do well.  I don’t really want to literally obliterate my competitors, but I also want to do better than them, and I know I can - especially when I put my marketers mindset to work.

For most marketers to beat their competition, it’s really hard work.  It’s a boxing match – a constant struggle.   But it doesn’t have to be like that.  For the most part, beating your competition is only about “one inch” away.  What do I mean by that?

What makes the difference between being just good, or being excellent, including being “off the charts” compared to your competition?  Just about one inch.

In the case of flying an airplane, maybe one inch off course doesn’t mean much.  But over a period of time, it could mean that you could miss your destination by a long shot.  How does this apply to your business?

Well, to reach the destination of overcoming your competition, it just means that it only takes a little bit of extra effort in a few areas to beat them.  If you can beat your competition by “one inch” in just a couple of categories that matter to customers, you will WIN.

Identify, Implement, and Conquer.

Here are five categories that are important to your customers.  Dominate three or four of these, and you will crush your competitors:

1. The look and “feel” of your website.  If you’re just an “inch” better here, you have a big edge, and if you can combine this with #2 below, or #3, you’ll win an overwhelming victory.
   
   
2. Follow up marketing.  Get their contact information, follow up with useful information, specials, one-time-offers, etc.  Put this on autopilot, and use a sequence like this: info, info, tip, sales offer . . . info, tip, article, special offer.  I find three content pieces to one offer works best for me, but the next step “testing and tracking” will help you decide what works best for you.
    
   
3. Testing and Tracking.  You might say “testing and tracking” isn’t important to my customers, how does that help?  They don’t even know about that.  That’s true, they don’t, but “testing and tracking” is all about finding out the language of the customer and the words, phrases, and offers they respond to most.  Whether they’re conscious of this or not, they’ll see the difference between you and your competition (who probably isn’t testing at all).
   
   
4. Google AdWords Campaign.  Most online marketers don’t spend any time at all on their AdWords marketing.  When you’re good at AdWords, or just one inch better than your competitors, you have the ability to “slaughter” them.  Your Google AdWords research will also have beneficial side effects on other parts of your marketing – like search engine optimization, local search domination, and you can learn a lot about your competitors by analyzing their Google campaigns.
   
   
5. “Back End Sales”.  Most marketers look at this as “they don’t want me to sell anything else to them”, and that’s totally true.  But they want to BUY.  Don’t customers want to buy more of the stuff they’re interested in?  If they’re a golfer, how much golf stuff do you think they have?  You get the point.  Customers want more of what they want more of.
   

You can probably come up with more than five categories, but start with these, get “one inch” ahead of your competitors in a few of them, and you will dominate your market – Guaranteed!  [now it's time to take something away . . . the subtraction mindset]