With the election not long ago, we all know that negative advertising exists. But what if it happens to you? How do you combat a competitor who is telling lies about your business?

Over the past few months we have fielded a lot of questions from operators about what they should do when the competition lies about their business. First off, you are most likely doing something right for the competition to go to such desperate measures.  When you dominate your market it is bound to happen but what can you do?

1. Keep emotion out of it — Stick to the facts, it’s just business
2. Ask satisfied customers to do the talking for you
3. Educate, educate, educate — give your customers resources to help them make better buying decisions
4. Don’t stoop to their level

We can relate here at Data Age, as we have experienced similar situations ourselves. We have had many competitors make statements that were so farfetched it actually made us laugh. Statements like PawnMaster doesn’t have a Windows-based solution or lofty claims about their service, even fabricated statistics. As the industry knows, we here at Data Age not only develop world-class products and have industry-leading services and support, we also work with our 3,000-plus clients to help them market to their own customers in a wide variety of ways. 

Many of our operators say their competition is “copy-catting” their marketing approach. Again, we understand this because it happens to us every day. The best way to achieve the desired results on any of this is to let your customers do the talking for you. We call it social proofing. Get testimonials, ask for referrals, ask for good Google reviews… Work hard to earn the right to service your customers’ businesses. Give it to them straight, deliver a solid product and white glove customer support.  All the rest will fall right into place.

Take a high-road approach with high integrity and make sure your visibility is there.  At the end of the day the consumer is smart enough to see through the fluff.

Our customers always reach out to us with awesome questions so we want to urge everyone to keep sending us your questions.

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