No matter the industry,
businesses are likely looking to their top competitors for different kinds of inspiration, including for their marketing and social media strategies. While keeping your competitors in mind is wise, take caution with this approach; you don’t want to create irrelevant or repetitive content.
Social media oversaturation makes it easy to confuse strategies that will help you stand out from overused tactics that will leave your brand swimming in the sea of sameness on social channels. If your only step for collecting content to inspire your next post is to look at your top competitors, you may be missing the full picture.
Several mistakes can arise from this approach.
You may not recognize, for example, which posts actually performed well for your competitors. Even if you can easily spot the post with the most engagement on your peer’s social channels, you have no access to their data, which makes it nearly impossible to pinpoint the aspects of that post that generated the positive response you see.
If you attempt to do the same things as your competitors, just a bit better, you will be stepping on your own feet when it comes to your customer base. Customers will likely be doing their own research into several options. They will likely have seen posts made by your competition already. If what you put out into the world is similar, you will more than likely blend in with the long list of options your customer base has to choose from. The execution of an original campaign will gain more attention, and stay top of the mind for the consumer as well. Stand out and get the results you are looking for by taking a Renaissance approach to your marketing.
The Renaissance is a period characterized by the diversity in the interests of leading figures from the time.
From Da Vinci to Michaelangelo, the prominent minds of the Renaissance learned and spent time working within several different genres like art, literature, and science. If you google the term “Renaissance man” the definition you’ll find is “a person with many talents or areas of knowledge.” A Renaissance marketing approach, takes a similar broad approach. It encompasses three steps:
STEP 1: Peek at Your Competitors
What you see your competitors doing should not act as a guide for your own campaign, but it is important to keep an eye on what else is out there.
STEP 2: Take Inspiration From Outlets You Enjoy
From fashion to sports, or even health foods – every industry has a marketing strategy. If there are brands and companies out there that you personally identify with, they are a strong starting point for your marketing mood board. A person’s best work shines through when they work on something they are passionate about.
STEP 3: Blend Strategies to Create Your Own, Fresh Take
Embrace the things you are passionate about and see how they may fit into the marketing strategy for your business. Taking a strategy typically used in high fashion, and applying it to the marketing campaign for a local bakery is going to stand out!
