Ignore your competitors.

Pay attention to your competitors just long enough to make sure you're not like them, then ignore them. Completely.

Differentiate. The key to any business is limiting the ways in which you are similar to your competitors. The best marketing messages are different messages. The best experiences to work on marketing are experiences that are different from all the competitors in your market. As you get started in your business or product line, study and analyze your competitors. List what they do, what features they have, how they operate, how the market, where they market, know them better than they know themselves.

Then, completely ignore them. You heard me right. Ignore them. OK. Bold statement. Now, I'll tell you why.

You (currently) do not exist. That's right, you don't. You see the marketing fight is not between you and the competitor, it's between you and The Black Void. That Black Void is in the minds of people who don't know anything about you or your competitor. I've found over the years that, in general, the market is much bigger than I previously imagined.

Your market is, too. Spend your time and energy notifying people that you exist, not crafting a message that tries to make you sound better than your competitor. Most operations are so small compared to the potential market that expansion is infinite compared to current attendance.

For instance, if you and a competitor each have 10,000 visits in a season, not too bad for fall harvest farms, in a smaller market of 250,000 people, the battle isn't for your competitor's 10,000 people, it is for the REST of the 230,000 remaining! In marketing, notification beats (to quote George W. Bush) trick-er-a-tion. The math still works for bigger operations in big markets: If you've got 55,000 visits in a market of 1.2 million, you're still nothing compared to the total market.

You're more important. Any ounce of energy you spend chasing, watching, tracking your competitor is energy your not using to make your product, experience or farm better. I'm sorry, but you're just not that good, yet. You can't spare the time or energy. You need to pour everything you've got into your guests. So, set your plans and go full speed ahead on your project. What you do for your guests is more important than watching your competitor.

You have no control. Surprise! You can't control anything your competitors do, say, launch, sell, publish or advertise. You can watch (in horror) as their plan unfolds and wish you would have planned better, but you are powerless to do anything about it. So don't even watch. Ignore them.

You'll be tempted to copy (even if you don't admit it). Remember the key to marketing is to be as different as you can be? If you keep watching someone else, you'll be tempted overtly and subliminally to copy what you're watching. We can't help it! We all begin to mirror what we see and the people with whom we spend time. Repetition is how we, as humans, implant new ideas and new patterns in our minds. So if you want to be more similar to your competitors, just keep watching them. Then, the closer to identical the two of you become, the sooner you can start competiting on price! ('cause that's where we all want to be!)

Dare to be different. You don't (currently) exist in the minds of your potential customers. You are way more important, than your competitors. You can't possibly control them. You will be tempted to copy them and make yourself, not more, but less competitive. You need every minute, every dollar and every thought to be focused on doing the best job you can possibly do for your customers with what you've got.

Each year, go ahead - watch your competitors like a hawk. Study them. Make lists. Compare them to your operation or product. Get nitty-gritty. Get into the details. Know everything you possibly can. Plan to make your product or attraction or  farm market or customer service or educational programs as wildly different and completely, authentically your own. Differentiate yourself. Create the widest gap possible between you.

Then, completely, ignore them. And go about your business.

Have a great week.
-Hugh