Most businesses are already doing the work that would set them apart from competitors. They just never say so, and customers have no way to know the difference.
On today’s episode of Strategic Edge, Jay Abraham, Executive Coach and Founder and CEO of the Abraham Group, explains a strategy he calls preemptive marketing, a way to claim ground in a customer’s mind before competitors get the chance.
Defining preemptive marketing
A business can claim ground in a customer’s mind before that customer ever has a chance to compare options. Abraham calls the tactic preemptive marketing, and it starts with a simple idea: describe something true and specific that competitors also do, but never bother to say out loud.
"I'm going to own mindshare in a way and from vantage points no one else does, and I'm going to own it in the very beginning before they even have any chance to compare."
Abraham recalled an old Schlitz beer commercial as an example. The ad walked viewers through the brewing process in detail. Every brewer used the same process, but Schlitz was the only one that explained it. That alone made the beer sound superior.
The same logic applies to a collision center chain with hundreds of locations, one of Abraham’s clients. The company had $400,000 diagnostic machines in every shop, technicians with 20,000 hours of training, a 40-point inspection checklist, and its own $3 million training facility. Every detail was likely standard across the industry. None of it had ever been said out loud to a customer.
Specificity, not size, is what matters
Scale has nothing to do with whether the strategy works. What matters is specificity, whether the business has one location or six hundred.
A deli could describe five slices of premium meat, cheese aged 78 days, and a sauce built from a family recipe. None of that requires a national footprint, just detail.
The same logic extends to nearly any small business, from a bakery to an ice cream stand. Size has no bearing on whether the tactic works. What matters is whether the business is willing to describe what it already does instead of assuming customers already know.
Owning mindshare
A business can claim mind share in several ways beyond simple description. One is creating the buying criteria itself: telling customers what to look for before choosing a provider, then positioning the business as the only one that meets every point on the list.
Another is what Abraham calls divide and conquer. A business acknowledges that thousands of competitors exist in its category, credits them as capable and hardworking, then explains that it operates at a different level of performance, materials, training, or support. Competitors are never named or criticized directly.
A third tactic involves risk reversal. Abraham advises setting a warranty, guarantee, or return policy at two to three times the industry standard. Owners often resist this out of fear of redemption costs, but a properly tested and clearly communicated guarantee tends to multiply sales by far more than it costs in returns.
“You can make your warranty, your risk reversal, your guarantee, your pro rata adjustment, all these things, two or three times the industry average,” Abraham said. “And the truth is, if you test it conservatively, almost always properly articulated and credibly communicated, you are going to get more redemptions, but you’re going to multiply the sales by orders of magnitude.”
Brag, but avoid arrogance
Arrogance is the fastest way to undo a preemptive marketing strategy. The tactic depends on describing a business’s own strengths, not attacking competitors.
A gold brokerage client from years ago illustrates the point. The owner believed the economy was headed toward inflation and wanted promotions that stated that outright. Abraham pushed back, arguing that blunt predictions do not persuade customers.
Instead, Abraham built promotions around historical trend lines, showing what had happened to the dollar and to gold prices during past inflationary periods, letting customers reach their own conclusions from the evidence.
"You give them the case. You give them the facts. You guide them to a self-induced conclusion where the conclusion is theirs."
Own the due diligence
The process behind a product can become the story itself. Abraham built one campaign for a luxury handbag and shoe company by tracking and documenting the work behind every item on the shelf: trade shows attended each year, vendors evaluated, and shoe samples reviewed before four styles made it into stores.
All of those details taken together told a story about the scrutiny behind every product the company sold, a story competitors were likely living out too but never told.
Most businesses already do the things that would set them apart. The advantage goes to whichever one says so first, clearly and specifically, before a customer starts comparing.
“If you just come up with the fundamentals, you’ve already put yourself way ahead of the competition,” Abraham said.
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