Competition is a funny thing. It can drive a marketer crazy, even borderline paranoid.

But at the same time, the entire concept doesn’t even exist in the real world. Normal people just see choice.

A whole bunch of alternatives equally worthwhile to consider, and most importantly they can span across multiple categories as well.

Too NArrow

Because that might just be the number one thing we get wrong about competition, isn’t it? We often have a view of it that is way too narrow. Sometimes that’s a clue that we don’t actually understand what our customers are trying to achieve when buying our brand.

If you’re selling jewelry for instance, a whole lot of your buyers are probably looking for a gift. So that means you’re not just competing with other jewelry brands, but also with flowers and gift cards among other things. Because of course, these are all potential solutions to the problem of gift buying.

So, more competition = More Paranoid?

Now I’m not making this point to send you and myself down a spiral of paranoia and (even more) sleepless nights.

The point is, that there’s a simple way to view competition without overestimating or underestimating how important it is. And that’s to see it as 1 of 3 ingredients for your positioning.

As my professor Mark Ritson called them, the 3 C’s: consumer (or client if you’re selling to businesses), company and competition.

Review the 3 C’s

So every now and then or whenever it is that you’re doing your research, get to the bottom of these 3 things:

• The Consumer C: What is it your customer is looking for?

• The Company C: Do you still offer that thing in the best way?

• The Competition C: Are you positioned in a distinctive (and who knows maybe even a different) way among all the different alternatives in that space of potential solutions to the problem of your customer?

  • And remember: look both within and outside your product category.

So is it still clear what makes your jewelry solution different from buying flowers? Or from another jewelry shop? Or from a new competing solution that might have entered the market?

If you keep this in check, there’s less of a need to laser focus on any specific competitors and spend a ton of time on that.

The short version for Sleepyheads

• Competition doesn’t exist in the mind of your customer, they just see viable alternatives

• Competition in your mind should not be too narrow: you’re competing with brands both within and outside your category

• Treat competition as 1 of 3 ingredients for your positioning, and review that annually

• Don’t go and overestimate the importance of competition, spending too much time on studying competitors