Small Business Marketing Kit For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Winning Your Share of the Market

You win market share by taking business from your direct competitors, thereby reducing their slice of the market pie while increasing your own. Here’s what you must do:

1. Get to know your direct competition.

If prospects don’t buy from your business, where do they go instead?

2. Find out why your customers buy from competing businesses over yours.

3. Determine how to win business from direct competitors by enhancing or communicating the value of your offerings in a way that makes them more attractive than the competing alternatives.

The following sections go into more detail on how to accomplish these steps.

Defining your direct competition

The first step toward gaining market share is to acknowledge that you have competition and to get real about which businesses are winning the sales that you’re working to capture. On an annual or regular basis, ask yourself the questions outlined in this section.

With which businesses does your business directly compete?

When people consider buying your product or service, which other businesses do they think of at the same time?

Be realistic as you name your direct competitors. Just because a retailer sells jewelry in New York City, it doesn’t necessarily compete with Tiffany’s. Your direct competitors are businesses that provide your customers a similar offering and a reasonable alternative to your product or service.

If you have a service business, your direct competitors are those companies that you ...