Brands and Businesses are out to find ways in which they can grow and make more profits. There are so many ways but there is one which if rightly applied would cause grief to your competitors.
As a brand, the focus should be on the consumers and not the competition, however, that does not mean that you should neglect your competitors as that is tantamount to slow death or it can even be fast depending on the Dynamics of the category or industry you operate in.
As a brand that wants to stand for something and grow as fast as possible, you should pay attention to the culture around the category or industry you operate and the culture and the manner in which the consumers view your industry and the brands in it.
Whenever, there is an issue in your category, as a brand, you stepping and solving the Problem positions you to gain better trust and patronage from consumers. One of the Problems that has remained of concern to consumers is privacy.
People value their privacy especially when it comes to post and conversation that was not created for people eyes. Whatever your strategy is as a brand giving people a reason to choose you over others is what will attract customers to you.
Whatapp new policy has been seen to threaten the privacy of its customer and this has caused them to shift the date for policy implementation while explaining to customers what this new policy means. This new policy lack of comprehension has however allowed a gap in which the competitor Telegram exploited. The initial lack of trust was exploited to the advantage of Telegram.
Telegram applying the principles of cultural strategy attacked the gap created by the new policy to steal WhatsApp users through Communication and product feature designed to help people choose Telegram over WhatsApp. A feature was even created to help WhatsApp users interested in migrating, to do that easily as their files and conversation history can be imported.
This move by Telegram has attracted more than 25 million new users. This gap created was also exploited by Signal, another competitor as Elon Musk endorsed the app.
While many see Telegram as less secured in data protection compared to WhatsApp or Signal. This new policy seems to have changed things. Many see this more as not something new as our data was probably harvested previously without our consent which leads to even deeper concern by those who feel unhappy with the move made by the Facebook-owned company.
The need to focus on your customers is essential but understanding competition and how it affects your brand and business is crucial. Do not leave your money on the table for competitors to pick.
