Something really entertaining occurred at the Daily Deal Media Conference€¦ Multiple daily deal software companies were hanging out, collaborating, learning from eachother, and actually having a good time together all in one room.
Yes, we ended up cheersing to €the enemies' together :: but it was all in really fun spirits.
The way that I see it, (and it seemed the other companies saw it also), is that the daily deal industry is incredibly new, fast growing, and profitable; and we have only just begun to scratch the surface of potential in this arena.
Heck, our company HC Consulting Group, has two almost competing products in the daily deal space; Daily Deal Builder and DOD Aggregator€¦. I stress almost because the products are actually very closely aligned and really do compliment each other quite well.
There are a few train of thoughts about dealing with your competitors.
Marketers (and all human beings) are well trained to follow the leader. The natural instinct is to figure out what's working for the competition and then try to outdo it €" to be cheaper than your competitor who competes on price, or faster than the competitor who competes on speed. The problem is that once a consumer has bought someone else's story and believes that lie, persuading the consumer to switch is the same as persuading him to admit he was wrong. And people hate admitting that they're wrong.
Instead, you must tell a different story and persuade listeners that your story is more important than the story they currently believe. If your competition is faster, you must be cheaper. If they sell the story of health, you must sell the story of convenience. Not just the positioning x/y axis sort of €We are cheaper€ claim, but a real story that is completely different from the story that's already being told.
€"Seth Godin, author/entrepreneur (from All Marketers Are Liars)
There are a few major thought leaders that state to pick a fight€¦ Not a bad thing to do in some circumstances€¦ My personal opinion is that in the daily deal space, there is plenty of room for differentiation and picking a fight would just be a big old waste of time.
When we are talking about McDonald's versus Burger King :: there really isn't much room for differentiating yourself :: and picking a fight is one of the main ways to go about your marketing effort€¦
Luckily, we are not talking about fast food restaurants; but rather technology and software companies :: and more specifically, Daily Deal Software companies.
There are plenty of open markets and great ideas to go around in this industry and there is just simply no time for us to pick a fight.