Day by Dé Marketing
Offense Marketing vs. Defense Marketing
After listening to a trusted speaker discuss armor for battle this past weekend, I knew that an often-overlooked topic is offensive and defensive marketing.
What do these terms mean? Well, in marketing, to have an offensive mindset means that you are in attack mode hustling and advancing your product and/or service through promotions, public relations, advertising, or Twittering, Twittering, Twittering. Pretty much anything to disrupt the category leader. On the hand, a defensive mindset usually involves the strategies the market leader enlists to hold off the attacks of the offender. Let’s take a closer look:
Defensive Marketing:
· The market leader should only pursue defensive strategies. It is unwise for a firm to pretend that it is the market leader for the purpose strategy selection. The market leader is the firm who has attained that position in the consumer’s mind.
· Attacking yourself is the best defensive strategy. Introduce products that are better than your existing selection.
· The leader needs to always block strong offensive budges by the competitor. If the leader fails to do so, the competitor may become entrenched and gain and take over market share.
Offensive Marketing:
· The challenger’s (the one with the offensive strategy) should be the strength of the leader’s position, and not the challenger’s own strengths and weaknesses.
· The offender should seek a weakness in the leader’s strength.
· Attack on a narrow front
One example of a successful offensive marketing strategy came from FedEx. FedEx had a broad mindset when trying to overtake UPS. Like other companies that are number two and three, FedEx tried to increase market share by broadening their product lines to compete with UPS by offering a wide array of transit times including overnight, two-day, and three-day delivery. FedEx’s success came when they set their focus on next-day delivery and won the coveted ‘consumer’s mental image’ with the slogan: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”
Are you a new business? What offensive strategies are you implementing? Or are you an established entity that enjoys market share? Let us know your strategies! Email me at dominic@vujadestudios.com!
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