When a Competitor Closes: Smart Marketing or Taking Advantage?
When a business closes, it rarely affects only the people running it. Customers may suddenly lose memberships, bookings, services, subscriptions or simply a place they have supported for years. Employees are affected, suppliers may be left with gaps, and an entire customer base can suddenly find itself looking for alternatives.
For other businesses in the same industry, this naturally creates an opportunity.
It is becoming increasingly common to see businesses respond by offering affected customers complimentary passes, special rates, waived fees, discounted packages or other incentives to move across.
From a marketing perspective, it makes perfect sense.
But does every good business opportunity need to look like an opportunity?
What I Like About It
There is something genuinely positive about a business recognising that a group of customers has suddenly been displaced and making the transition easier for them.
A complimentary trial or preferential rate lowers the barrier to trying somewhere new. It gives customers options at a time when they may not have planned or budgeted for a change.
Done properly, this is good customer acquisition strategy.
Instead of simply shouting, “Come to us”, a business is giving potential customers a reason to experience its product or service first. If the experience is good, the promotion may bring someone through the door once, but the product, service and relationship are what eventually convert that person into a long term customer.
That is marketing doing its job.
What I Don't Like About It
The uncomfortable part begins when the marketing becomes less about helping affected customers and more about capitalising publicly on another business's misfortune.
There is a difference between:
“If you're affected, here's something that may help.”
and
“They're gone, so come to us instead.”
The commercial objective may ultimately be similar, but the way it is communicated says a great deal about the brand.
Aggressive discounts, comparisons or campaigns designed to draw attention to another company's closure can easily feel opportunistic. What looks like clever competitor marketing internally may look very different to customers who had an emotional connection with the business that closed.
And customers notice tone.
The Opportunity Is Real. So Is the Reputation Risk.
Competitor closures create what marketers would call a change in the competitive landscape. Demand does not necessarily disappear simply because one provider leaves the market. In many cases, that demand moves elsewhere.
Businesses would be foolish to pretend the opportunity does not exist.
The question is how to approach it.
There is nothing wrong with introducing your business to customers who now need an alternative. There is nothing wrong with running a promotion. And there is certainly nothing wrong with competing for new customers.
But there is also no need to celebrate someone else's loss in order to promote your own business. A stronger approach is to focus on what you can offer, rather than what someone else can no longer provide.
Good Marketing Can Still Have Empathy
Some of the best marketing decisions are not necessarily the loudest ones.
Offer the complimentary pass. Extend the special rate. Welcome new customers. Make it easy for them to try your business.
But communicate it with some sensitivity. There are real people behind a business closure. There are also customers who may have spent years supporting that brand.
Marketing does not exist separately from human behaviour. Brand perception is shaped not only by what a company sells, but also by how it behaves when circumstances favour it.
My Takeaway
I like businesses being commercially alert. I like seeing brands move quickly when the market changes. And I like creative customer acquisition strategies that give people genuine value.
What I don't like is when opportunity turns into opportunism.
There is a very fine line between the two.
Take the opportunity, absolutely.
Just don't make someone else's difficult moment the headline of your success.
Because promotions may bring customers through the door, but how a business conducts itself is often what people remember long after the promotion ends.
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