A Free-Reprint Article Written by: Scott Bywater Article Title: How To Stop Competitor 'Copycats'
See TERMS OF REPRINT to the end of the article. Article Description: Competitors will try to duplicate what it is that you do to become successful, but if they don't know how you reach your customers... How will they be able to duplicate your success? Additional Article Information: =============================== 609 Words; formatted to 65 Characters per Line Distribution Date and Time: 2009-12-31 09:00:00 Written By: Scott Bywater Copyright: 2009 Contact Email: mailto:[email protected] Scott Bywater's Picture URL: http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/images/scott2.jpg For more free-reprint articles by Scott Bywater, please visit: http://www.thePhantomWriters.com/recent/author/scott-bywater.html ============================================= Special Notice For Publishers and Webmasters: ============================================= HTML Copy-and-Paste and TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of Article Are Available at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/b/stop-competitor-copycats.shtml#get_code --------------------------------------------------------------------- How To Stop Competitor 'Copycats' Copyright (c) 2009 Scott Bywater Copywriting That SELLS http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/ The problem with marketing is in the majority of cases your competitors know exactly what they are doing and can copy exactly what you are doing. For example, let's say you're a company who sells specialised books to architects. You advertise in tne local trade magazines and everyone knows what you are doing. You advertise in there month after month and people really start to notice what you're doing. And they start to think to themselves. Heck, if he's doing it, why don't we copy what he's doing and get the same results. So how do you fight the 'copycat syndrome'? Well, there's a few ways. Firstly, rather than whacking an ad in your local trade magazine or newspaper, why not try direct mail. Here's how you do it. Look up mailing list brokers online and find a company who can help you source a mailing list. I've referred my clients to a company called www.prospectshop.com.au in the past and they are a good place to start. Anyway, the list broker is going to ask you: what list do you want? what's the purpose of your mailing, etc. For instance, you might want to target architects in Sydney. Or accountants in Melbourne. Or whatever. And they'll find you that list. So that means while you are sending letters to all of the architects in your local area - you won't be sending letters to your competitors. In fact... they'll have no idea what you are doing. But even if they do, let's look into this a little deeper. Most companies have no follow up once you actually call them. So let's imagine you are selling a product at $500 - your profit margin is 50% ($250) and it's costing you $30 a lead. But because you have a thorough follow up process which includes direct mail, emails, teleseminars, webinars and plenty of content, you are able to convert 1 leadout of 5. * Cost to generate sale = $150 * Profit per sale = $100 So you can do it at a profit. But your competitor isn't willing to do all the work to follow up the lead once it comes in. So while he may be able to model your approach to advertising (if his copywriter has the smarts) and generate a lead for the same price of $30. But if he's not willing to do the work to create a comprehensive follow up system, he'll get a far lower conversion. It might look something like this: * Cost per lead = $30 * conversion = 1/10 * Cost to generate sale = $300 * Profit per sale = $250. He'll shake his head, pull the plug on the advertising and think you've got some magical powers. When all that was really happening is you were willing to put a bit of elbow grease in and create a comprehensive follow up strategy. The good news is with creating something like this is you only need to do it once. And most of your competitors won't be bothered to take the effort to copy your approach. They won't be willing to pay a copywriter big money to create a campaign for them. They won't be willing to think it all through in detail. They won't be willing to do the work - and as a result, they won't get the rewards. The good news for you is - once you learn the skills of effective copy you won't need to pay thousands of dollars for a professional copywriter. In my opinion, every business owner should master the art of writing for themselves. And you can start your journey today by getting your hands on http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/cashflow --------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Bywater is a direct response copywriter and the author of "Cash Flow Advertising" and "More Customers Made Easy". Although Scott is accepting very few clients, he generously shares his experience on copywriting at his web site at http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au/ --- END ARTICLE --- Get HTML or TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of This Article at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/b/stop-competitor-copycats.shtml#get_code ..................................... 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