Some years ago, I had a client who was president of a well-known Fortune 500 consumer products business unit.   What I recall most vividly about him was how desperately he wanted to thrash his equally well known competitor.  He even had his battle cry printed on T-shirts.  I pictured him praying to Sun Tzu every night in bed, eyes shut tight, fists clenched in determination before sliding off to a fitful dreamland where he almost -- but not quite – succeeds in vanquishing his enemy.   He reacted to his competitor instead of figuring out how to lead the marketplace.   

Like anything else consumed in moderation, the business-as-war metaphor can be useful in thinking about how to describe your competitive advantage.   Because once you secure the strategic high ground in people's minds, more of them will want to do business with you.  Prospects will want to become customers.  Their pocketbooks will open easier.  And doors will open more readily for your salespeople.  

That means getting your words right.  Call it combat copywriting.

• Combat copywriting gives compelling reasons for people to call or come to your business.
• Combat copywriting inspires visitors to dig deeper into your Web site.
• Combat copywriting motivates people to read, listen to or watch your entire ad.
• Combat copywriting compels prospects to want to read your brochure all the way through.
• Combat copywriting pulls visitors into your video and creates believers.     
• Combat copywriting helps you open up a conversation and close sales.

Combat copywriting isn't about being confrontational ... it's about being direct.  It presents your competitive advantage decisively and without wasted words, whether in the form of a tagline, social media post or sales presentation.  Because every customer, every client counts.  Every profit dollar is important.  And every share point matters.  So if the message you use to describe your stock-in-trade isn’t working, it may be time to get tough – that is, if you’re serious about making your business, brand or product stand out in an authentic and  enduring way. 

Why bother?

Because the marketplace is alive with a blizzard of competing claims that seek to win over your customers or clients.  So the words you use to distinguish yourself from the “other guy” must attract people's attention, hold their interest and convince them to take action in your favor.  Truthful, benefits-packed positioning creates believers.   Believers are more likely to become buyers -- and are less likely to want to beat you up on price.

Therefore, instead of losing sleep over what your competitor may be doing, think about the "combat copy" you plan to use to set yourself apart, the frontline soldiers in a battle for the mind that continues every business day -- a battle you must win!  Because if you don't tell a compelling story about your business or brand in today's unforgiving competitive environment, you may never get another chance. The prospects you claim rightfully belong to you and not your competitor.   So tell them the unvarnished truth about why they should do business with you -- up front.   I like the way New York University Stern School of Business professor Sonia Marciano puts it:

“We each sell a little piece of happiness. You are elevating someone's spirit in some way, and to do that you have to understand the source of their angst and then you have to frame your product as a solution.”

Sun Tzu had it right: business is like war.  But he also said that the “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”  That’s your job.  Including the use of well-crafted words to describe your business, brand or products:  words that fight for you!

TakeAway:  The words you use can make a tangible difference in the way in which you are perceived by your future customers, who by rights belong to you instead of your competitors.

I must admit to being an automotive classified ad junkie.   My morning newspaper read isn’t complete ‘til I’ve glanced at the “cars for sale” at the back of the paper, which typically takes less than two minutes.  A section that used to bulge with interesting fare seven days a week nearly has faded into obscurity, not unlike the Help Wanted listings.  Dealer marketers in my city used to jockey for the best page positioning and vie with one another to make their ads stand out.  I know, because I was one of them for ten years.  Now, the few large dealer ads placed in the paper are sprinkled throughout the publication.  There is no cluster of pages where people in the market to buy a car can find a critical mass of ads to compare dealer offerings.  Auto classifieds these days – at least here -- are limited to personal listings, and from time to time some interesting lessons can be drawn from them.

This morning’s gleanings were more compelling than most.  One headline that caught my eye was atop a small ad for a 2007 Cadillac Deville DTS.  It read, “Not a misprint!” and fairly screamed “Look at me!”   The sparely worded copy described a low mileage car “that hardly ever had been driven in the rain.”  I was tempted to call and snap that one up, and if there weren’t already two perfectly serviceable cars in my garage, I might have.

The other ad that got my attention had an equally arresting headline: “My wife’s car.”  Whoa! -- got to be a story here!  The text described a “Torch Red” 2002 Mustang convertible with only 27,000 miles.  My mind raced.  Here’s grist for that novel I never got around to writing.  I wanted to call just to get the dirt. Was the husband a control freak who only let his wife drive to the grocery store and kept close track of her mileage?   Did she sneak the Mustang out for a top-down fling every now and then, hair flowing in the breeze, casting inhibitions to the wind while hubby was at work?   Or were the two of them total lovebirds who only drove the Mustang on Sunday picnics?  The truth probably was far more mundane than any of my coffee-fueled scenarios, but reading that ad got my morning off to a good start and also got me thinking about why one ad works better than another.

When I was doing dealer advertising, I advised my client about two important success points.  First, an ad has to grab the reader’s eye, which has to do with arresting headlines (see above), strategic use of white space and other characteristics of good graphic design -- get people's attention and then tell them why they should want to do business with you (like the two classified ads that "sold" the Cadillac and the Mustang to their readers).  That's the second point: it is the dealer’s responsibility to describe, or "position" their business in such a way that more people want to buy from them – regardless of the brands they may sell.  My client got the first idea readily enough, and our ads (newspaper and radio) always stood out.   But they never truly got comfortable with that second idea, the one that would have done them the most good over the long run, and eventually that was my undoing.  We'd make a little progress and then they'd retreat to their "price" comfort zone.   After a while, I think they just got tired of hearing me talk about “positioning” and bought into a your-name-here campaign that used a wildly humorous theme to attract attention but failed to communicate their unique story – which had several compelling strong points.

It’s so easy (and so lazy) to sell on price, which is why so many retailers do it.  And since lots of them do it, it can seem like the right thing to do.  Then, like lemmings, they all follow Pied Piper Price into the sea of wasted ad dollars. 

A friend of mine who has a piano store gets it, and the piano business may be even worse than the car business when it comes to hammering the public with sale after sale.  He has one sale a year and one sale only, which is incredibly successful.  The rest of the year – with next to no advertising, he does a consistently good business based on his enduring reputation for integrity, service and impeccable piano prep (an important selling point for serious players).  So qualified prospects think of him first when they want to buy a high end piano, leaving his competitors to beat each other’s brains out about price, an all too common occurrence in the piano business that can result in diminished profits and a weakened market.

Takeaway:  Resist the urge to sell on price, set your business apart and you won't find yourself drowning in a sea of sameness.