Posts Tagged ‘research’

People are not too keen on admitting failure. We want to see things succeed and prosper, and we want to know that it was our contributions that led to that success. Nevertheless, failure is an essential exercise. To not fail is to not have accomplished anything.

With that said, I will admit that this blog failed.

I hope that got your attention, so let me clarify. The blog as a whole did not fail, but a critical element did. It’s not necessarily bad that it failed as I learned some important lessons that I’m going to share.

So, what failed? In January, I introduced a new weekly series aimed at homepage improvement. In the initial post, I laid out a plan for the series and announced that it would occur every week.

That didn’t happen.

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Some would argue that it’s important you understand your competition before your audience. I think it depends on the level of understanding you need. In many cases, you must first fully understand your audience before you can even begin to understand what your competitors are doing right (and wrong).

And so it’s with that sentiment in mind that we open up the third part in our homepage re-design series – understanding your competitors.

Having a solid comprehension of your primary competitors’ movements, philosophies, strategies and tactics, audiences, and offerings is essential at the most basic level of marketing. You can’t beat what you don’t know.

By knowing the competition – especially on the web – you open yourself up to two important avenues: imitation or creative distinction.

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