In the previous article, we looked at how you can respond to the price war with your prices. In this article, we look at other methods to win a price war. The keyword: awareness. One must know that you exist, that your products are the best choice, etc. In this article, we will talk more about branding than about how to play with your prices. Branding is extremely important, especially in times of a price war. If your competitors are cheaper, you still want people to buy from you. That is why you have to create goodwill and make sure people want to buy from you, even if you are not the cheapest. Be smart and creative, think not only of traveling brick roads, but also dare to depart from it. How?
Keep a watch
Make a competition analysis based on online presence. Create a simple overview in Excel or Google Spreadsheets, and write down per column what your competitors do in the field of Social Media accounts (followers, frequency of posts, topics), website Content (photos, videos, ebooks, whitepapers, blogs, tone of voice, keywords), Google services (SEO, SEA, Google MyCompany). Then compare this with your own company, where are the opportunities? It may be worthwhile, if you have a budget for this, to hire a bureau that can gain these insights and help you draw up a unique plan.
Remarketing
Have you ever thought about remarketing? What is remarketing: Advertising based on website visitors. With Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, you collect data about website visitors, which you can link to services like Facebook (Pixel) and Google Adwords (Tags). You can organize these website visitors (target group) in lists and start targeted advertising campaigns. In short: you advertise on online platforms, but only those people get ads that have actively searched for products you sell, so they probably want to buy it. So really relevant and potential prospects.
Influencers
Collaborating with influencers can greatly increase the reach of your webshop. Take a good look at which influencers are active in your market or branch and, more importantly, what fits your company and products. Of course, there is a price tag here!
What is an influencer? That is someone who has a lot of authority within a certain branch. Some extreme examples: Bill Gates has a lot of authority in the software industry, but also in the charity world. Angela Merkel has a lot of authority in foreign politics, Serena Williams in the tennis world, etc. These are of course the creme de la creme, but there are more, less well-known authorities with a large network. In short, find people in your branch who have many followers and try to make your product or company known through them.
For example, you can share updates about such an influencer on your social media, mention his / her name on the blog page on your website, etc. People who search for that person will probably also find your website. You can use it in many more ways, be creative! For example, if you sell sports equipment, it may be worthwhile to blog about major sports events.
A good friend of mine is Rechtspraak Reporter and has quite a few followers. She received a free bleaching treatment for her teeth and they asked if she would promote them. She did, and a few hundred people watched when she received the treatment. The action might cost $50, -, but there was interest and it undoubtedly resulted in some sales!
Viral
How does your brand instantly become extremely popular? By a viral. But how do you do this? By creating spontaneous, fun but original content – often in visual form – and of course a bit of luck. Furthermore, you can use currents events/news with the help of a issue calender, but know where the boundaries are. So is an April 1st joke really no longer of this time, and not every company has to participate in thousand and one challenges. In addition, it is not very smart if you use the International Day Against Hunger to sell bicycle parts. This is quickly seen as the misuse of a serious problem for your own profits. In that case, you can better use the National Day of the Movement.
Also remember: you do not necessarily have to go viral with your webshop! You can also go viral as a person and use that for sales. You can be sure that Trump did not suffer economically during his time when he became president. All top athletes have their own brand with which they sell all sorts of products: clothing, knick-knacks, balls, books, etc.! Their person is the medium with which they stimulate sales.
How do you go viral? Well, not by skydiving from a high building, more people do that. Going viral is often an ‘accident’. So always try to do fun, creative and original things, both with your webshop and personally. And then hope that this will be successful and shared a lot. Unfortunately, you can not predict what does or does not go viral, that really depends on who sees your content, likes it, shares it and how many people see it and like it again.
Provide service, no price war
An important point that webshops often overlook is how important service is for customers, so you can certainly score points with this. Clients do not care that there is a price war going on, they still want good service. Try to use all contact moments and to make it as smooth as possible. Personal contact with a professional attitude is the best way to communicate.
And above all: listen to your customers! Take a step extra and surprise! In fact, create a bond. If a customer has a question, look for him on facebook before you answer him. He may be a doctor and maybe you can use him to organize some event for people on his terminal department, with which you may go viral. People like this and will share it! Perhaps the customer is a celebrity and you can offer him a free test set which he/she can to promote on his social media channels. Maybe you will meet a chairman of an association and you can agree to become the standard supplier of that association and thereby create more online visibility.
Be creative! And here, too, others can help you.
