There is nothing wrong with keeping an eye on your competitors. After all, you’ve got to know what’s on offer and how your competition is marketing themselves to stay abreast of industry trends and keep innovating.

However, in your efforts to be competitive are you truly competing, or are you copying?

Is emulating your competitor’s content good for business?

The answer is both yes and no, so let’s look at both sides of the argument. 

Why you shouldn’t imitate your competitor’s content ideas

I can recount several occasions where senior managers have come running to me with a piece of content from a competitor (be it a blog, e-book, infographic, brochure or landing page) and - convinced it’s amazing - asked me to do the same thing for our company. 

On the face of it, imitating this piece of amazing content or idea for your own brand seems like an easy way to create something great that your customers will love. However, there are a few reasons why this isn’t a good idea.

Firstly, lifting content and simply rearranging or paraphrasing the copy and applying your branding can lead to serious plagiarism and copyright issues. If it is done obviously, you risk legal action from your competitors; resulting in financial losses and damage to your reputation.

Secondly, your customers are discerning and intelligent. They are constantly researching the same topic categories your organisation is releasing content about; hunting for something specific to their needs - and can spot a copycat a mile away.

Creating content that is too much like the competition makes customer’s lives more difficult – they need to know what sets you apart to be able to make an informed decision. This is particularly a problem if you are offering an almost identical product or service but at a higher price point. Our world is at breaking point with marketing clutter and noise, so if you emulate the competition too closely, you won’t get noticed, or you’ll get swept aside with everyone else.

Thirdly, how do you (or your senior managers) know that piece of content is working? Aside from top level SEO and traffic statistics you can find on Moz or Ahrefs, you won’t have access to their entire marketing and analytics suite for their subscriber and/or sales conversion statistics. You also don’t know how this piece of content sits within their wider marketing strategy. Copying content ideas in isolation without background information probably won’t give you the results you are looking for. 

Finally, you are overlooking your, and your team’s, own forces of creativity and innovation. You have power and expertise at your fingertips. The content topic, format and presentation ideas you come up with might be better than others in the market, but you’ll never know if you make a habit of emulating other businesses.

Why (and how) you should take inspiration from your competitor’s content

On the other hand, it’s perfectly reasonable to emulate certain content ideas in order to remain competitive. In some cases, it’s important to level the playing field by helping your customers compare your product or service with other providers. Customers also expect to be able to find similar information on the same product or service across a category. They also like to compare levels of expertise by reading a few blogs on the same topic.

With that in mind, how do you take inspiration from competitor’s content, remain a player in the market and avoid being a copycat?

• Work on perfecting your brand voice. Your writing should sound like you and your content should reflect your unique reason for existing. If you are struggling with this, ask yourself a few questions:

  • Why did you start your business?

  • What did you think you could do better than your competitors?

  • What do you think you offer that no-one else does?

  • What words best describe your brand’s personality? Authoritative and academic, or friendly and down-to-earth?

• Think about why your competitor created the content that you admire. Did they have specific expertise in-house that made it possible? Did they identify keywords that needed to be acted on? Have they listened to customers (via social media, anecdotes from salespeople or keyword research) and discovered an un-answered question? Once you know, you can then look at how you can address that reason in an original way.

• Weigh in on the same topic(s) but take your blog, podcast or webinar in a different direction. What new perspective can you provide? Customers want content that is fresh and connects with their values and perspectives, even if it’s on a topic that they already know a great deal about.

• Take the same concept - but execute it differently. Your budget is probably different to your competitor’s and your internal content creation process will be different. Use that to your advantage to create something original that still answers the same customer question or need. 

• When it comes to your website, ensure you offer and communicate the same basic features in a similar way to make it easy for people to compare. Then make a point of highlighting what you do differently.

Certain things just work - specific design, copywriting and UX principles and marketing tactics together with particular topics will be used by everyone in your market. However, in today’s crowded marketplace, it will be your authenticity and originality combined with covering the basics better than anyone else that will ensure you succeed.

Motivational speaker Tony Robbins said:

“If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.”

I think his statement needs to be amended to include “…do what they do in your own way, and make it better” to be truly accurate.

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