When Lead Generation Conflicts With Competitors

When Lead Generation Conflicts With Competitors:
from Business 2 Community by Matt Ford


There is no question that lead generation campaigns can be competitive in nature. Your rivals want the market attention of your prospects as much as you do. Hence, you do everything to outdo each other’s campaign. It sounds dirty. It sounds heated. But still, such is better than a lead generation campaign that produces no leads out of fear of conflict.

Competition Has Subtler Ways Of Clashing With Your Lead Generation Campaign

However, not all competition is overt. Sometimes even the most peaceful lead generation strategy finds itself clashing with that of another company’s in subtler ways. It is like a game of shadows (and yes, that certain Sherlock Holmes movie can be considered one illustration). The following are just some of the usual ways it is played:
Conflict of advice
Suppose your lead generation campaign involves handing out bits of free advice. For example, if you were in financial services, you would acquire sales leads in exchange for tips regarding the best ways to manage and spend a business’ revenue. Somewhere along the way however, you meet a prospect who actually takes your advice only to come back saying it did not work out and worse, they consult a competitor who backs up their grievances.
The solution is to simply realize that you now have a fight on your hands. Use your lead generation tools to know more about what happened. And at the same time, be aware that your competitor is already on to you. While this sounds like more trouble than what lead generation is usually worth, offering to make amends can potentially interest prospects further into going the sales process. It is critical however for you to maintain their trust from here on.
Clash of costs
You also cannot ignore the more primitive and commonplace situation where you are losing out to someone offering the same services but at a lower cost. Financial lead generation strategies emphasize on budgets for situations like this but many experts are never clear on how to compete more directly in terms of price.
Although, you can start turning this challenge on its head by being skeptical towards such costs. Lead generation campaigns can also double as awareness ones that warn against underhanded cost-reduction methods like corner-cutting. If such is the case of your competitor then you still have a chance at victory.
Competitive influencers
Sometimes your competitor’s own customers enter the fray. You will know how this works if you have been using customer influence for your own lead generation campaign. It is easy to tell who they are by their similarities they share with your competitor. They both disagree with your approaches and exert their influence to discredit your own.
Tempting as it may be to fight fire with fire, you have to make sure you do not make it obvious even to your own customers. A lead generation campaign that employs your own customers as participants increases the risk of turning the entire market into a business war zone. Remember, you are supposed to generate business leads for the sake of serving clients. Using your competition to draw attention will provoke backlash once neutral parties intervene.
Again, there is no question that lead generation campaigns conflict with those of competitors. What is riskier however is that clashes occurs even between the least outspoken rivals. Make sure your lead generation strategy is equipped to handle these unseen confrontations.