Everyone wants to be unique, yet it’s virtually impossible to proceed across the business landscape without some form of imitation. Businesses have copied one another for generations; in many ways, it’s the best way to provide diversity and encourage innovation. A company sees what its rival is doing, then imitates it and improves upon its core weaknesses.
That’s the perfect example of the right way to copy your biggest competitors. We’ll talk more about it in a moment, as well as the other ways you can copy other businesses without it being a problem. Moreover, you’ll also see the wrong ways to copy a rival business – this will teach you what not to do and why these ideas are bad.
The Right Ways To Copy Your Competitors
Let’s begin with the right ways to copy and imitate your biggest rivals. When should you do this, and why does it make sense? The ideas below demonstrate the best way to copy without stepping over the line.
Build On Existing Ideas
As mentioned in the intro, you can build on a company’s existing business ideas/products. Look at what your rivals are doing, and then think of ways to improve upon it. A good way to do this is by looking at feedback and reviews from their customers. See what their target audience thinks about your rivals and pick out the key negative points.
You can see examples of this throughout different industries – like the food box delivery sector. Companies like Gousto and Hello Fresh basically provide the exact same service, but they build on each other’s existing ideas. Hello Fresh came first, but then Gousto saw a chance to improve by introducing a wider recipe range – and better options for vegans/vegetarians.
It’s one of many random examples where you can pluck a core idea/product/service and think of ways to make it better.
Innovate Their Marketing Strategies
Secondly, look at what your biggest competitors do for marketing. How are they promoting their company – and where are they seeing the biggest success?
For example, maybe your key rivals are killing it in search engines. Whenever you search for your product/service/industry, your biggest competitors are the first links that show up. It means they’re focusing a ton of effort on SEO and link building, so you must do the same. Craft a strategy to oust them from the top search results and ensure your business is the most seen.
Conduct research into your rivals’ marketing tactics to learn where they’re going wrong and what they’re doing right. It can help you avoid wasting money on marketing ideas that plainly won’t work while giving you some key tactics to consider. Of course, you don’t want to cut and paste what they’re doing and apply it to your business – learn from their approaches and innovate to make your marketing strategy even better.
Refine Their Business Models
Another brilliant way to correctly copy your competitors is by taking their business models and refining them. Again, this is something companies all over the world do. Netflix is possibly the best example of this – they weren’t the first subscription-based streaming service, but they took an existing business model and turned it into something incredibly profitable.
Look at how your rivals operate and consider their core business models. Do they have a standard model of selling products for people to buy? Are they running subscription services? You could adapt both of these models with simple changes to provide a service that goes beyond your competitors.
For instance, if you sell products for people to buy, then add things like free delivery or loyalty schemes for customers. With subscription business models, the natural approach is to offer tiered subscriptions with different price ranges. Customers can pick a cheaper subscription that’s more affordable, but the pricier ones unlock more features.
Once more, it’s all about finding what your rivals do and building on it. You know their business model works – but how can you make it better?
The Wrong Ways To Copy Your Competitors
In a nutshell, the right ways to copy your competitors revolve around improving what they’re already doing. You’re not taking their ideas and providing the exact same thing – that’s a prime example of the wrong way to do things.
With that in mind, here are some common ways businesses incorrectly copy other businesses and land in big trouble.
Steal Their Intellectual Property
The most obvious bad thing to do is steal or breach your rival’s intellectual property. They could have ideas, copyrights, trademarks, and all other kinds of IP secured behind patents and different legalities. Copy any of these things, and you’re on the fast-track express toward a lawsuit.
This is something to be wary of at all times – so make sure you do your due diligence and research IPs to be 100% sure you’re not breaching any contracts or patents. It’s also worth securing the correct licenses and patents for your intellectual property to prevent other businesses from stealing it.
Produce Complete Copies Of Their Products
This should be obvious, right? Never produce complete copies of another business’s products or services. Not only can it land you in hot water, but it’s also unlikely to yield success. Let’s say someone went out and developed a smartphone or tablet that was identical to an iPhone or iPad. Ignoring the obvious IP infringements for a moment, why would consumers buy these products over the existing ones? You’re making something that already exists and is backed by a trusted brand.
There’s simply no reason to copy things – you’re always at a competitive disadvantage. Instead, you can take ideas and produce better versions of your rival’s products/services.
Plagiarize Their Content
The previous two points might be extremely obvious, but this is something that catches many businesses out. You can’t plagiarize your competitor’s content – and this applies to their website and general marketing materials. As we mentioned earlier, you can copy elements of their marketing strategy – provided you innovate and put your twist on them. What you can’t do is take one of their blog posts and post it on your website.
Sure, that’s a blatant example, but plagiarism isn’t always about carbon copies. If you steal someone’s blog and make subtle changes, that still counts as plagiarism. By all means, take the blog post idea but rewrite it and make yours better than what’s already out there.
Plagiarism is a problem for a couple of key reasons, the first being that rival companies can try to take down your content if they think you’ve copied them. The second is that search engines don’t like plagiarized content. If they detect yours as such, you’ll get ranking penalties and will struggle to appear in search engines.
Conclusion: Use Imitation Wisely
When all’s said and done, imitation is a powerful tool for all businesses. It pays to know what works for your biggest competitors – if you can take what already works and make it better, then you’re on the path to success. Copying your rivals in the right ways will also help you work out some key pain points for your target market, which assists you in the whole product development cycle.
Nevertheless, you should never step over the line. Don’t copy everything from your rivals, and be 100% sure you’re not breaching any copyright or IP laws. Your business still needs to stand out and be different, so learn from your competitors and ensure you provide products/services that are a cut above the rest.
