Most modern businesses will have a website that they use to share information on their products and services. Keep an eye on the web traffic of your competitors to gain competitive intelligence.
Customer reviews are a great source of competitive intelligence. Using aqute.com/competitive-intelligence, you can analyze themes across thousands of reviews to get insights into your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
What Is Competitive Intelligence?
Competitor intelligence goes beyond the cliche “know your enemy.” It is a structured approach to gathering, analyzing and communicating information about competitors to make more informed business decisions. It involves a deep-dive into a competitor’s strategy and operations in order to uncover actionable insight that can help a business gain a competitive advantage. It is important to filter and gather information in a systematic way to ensure it is useful and reliable. It should also be ethical and in line with a company’s core values.
Competitive Intelligence is a powerful tool that can help you understand how your competitors are positioning themselves on the market, and what their future plans are. This allows marketers to develop better marketing strategies by identifying strengths and weakness, anticipating threats in the market and testing their plans against competitor’s reactions.
There are two main types of Competitive Intelligence – tactical and strategic. Tactical intelligence is aimed at improving short-term decisions. This is usually related to increasing market share and revenues. Strategic intelligence, however, is a long-term approach that aims to provide insight into key strategic questions. Businesses need to know the difference between the two types of intelligence, so they can prioritize their activities and resources.
A variety of sources are available for collecting competitive intelligence. These can include online research (such as websites and social media profiles), press releases and industry news articles, and even competitor’s customer service calls or product demos. It is important to also look at the nuances of competitive data. This includes how the age and gender, income, and location of the customers may impact their marketing and product strategies.
Interviews with key stakeholders are one of the best sources of competitive intelligence. They can be formal or informal, and they can cover any topic that is relevant to a business’s strategy. Interviews with clients, for instance, could reveal how customers use competitors’ products and services and which features and benefits they are most interested in. They can also identify gaps in the products and customer experiences you offer. Internal messaging platforms such as Klue allow you to conduct these interviews in a scalable manner and foster a culture of competitive Intelligence amongst all your stakeholders.
How Can I Collect And Analyze Competitive Information?
Competitive intelligence is the process of gaining information about your competitors’ strategies so you can improve your own. The key to collecting and analysing competitive intelligence is not to collect as much information as possible, but to gather high quality information that is applicable and useful to your business.
Clarifying your goals for CI will help you narrow the scope and yield more valuable insight. For example, if you are an online-only company that doesn’t have the resources to monitor physical competitors, it makes sense to focus your efforts on those companies who pose the biggest threat in terms of market share and customer base.
Once you know what you need, the next step will be to collect and analyze this data. This process is time-consuming and complicated, but by using a combination tools, techniques and software you can streamline it.
It’s essential to have a system for organizing and categorizing your intel, such as using a spreadsheet or dedicated CI software, so it is easy to retrieve and triage new information when necessary. It is also a best practice to regularly review and update your existing competitive intel so it is up to date and relevant.
Analyzing your competitor’s intel can be complex, but with a little bit of effort and a good plan, you can create invaluable insights that will supercharge your business strategy. For example, if you notice your competitor is running a campaign with messaging that is very different from yours, it could provide the perfect opportunity for your marketing team to develop more effective and targeted campaigns.
Win-loss interviews are another important source of information that sales teams can use. They are a great tool to discover what motivated prospects to choose you over your competitors. This is especially valuable for B2B businesses. With this data, you can pinpoint the areas where your business needs to improve or even take a backward step and reevaluate the value proposition.
How Do I Present The Results Of My Competitor Analysis?
As with any other business process, you should communicate your results from competitive analysis to stakeholders so they understand what has been learned. This is especially true when you want to share your findings on how competitors use social media, customer satisfaction, and other data. The way you present your report can make or break the impact of your analysis. A strong, compelling report design can inspire your team to take action and make improvements based on your findings. A poorly designed document can undermine your analysis’ credibility and lead to a misinterpretation.
It’s one of the most effective ways to keep your staff up-to-date with the latest industry trends. It’s an excellent way to communicate updates on the strategic moves of your competitors and how these might affect your position in the market. Companies that create a culture for competitive intelligence through a dedicated intel platform within their internal message platform are at a distinct advantage over those who don’t.
You can also use competitor intel to compare your product features against those of your competitors, identifying areas for improvement or new opportunities. Competitive intelligence can help you decide whether you should expand your product offering or differentiate your products to target different customer segments, for example, if you’re competitors offer a certain feature that you do not.
Lastly, using competitor information can help you identify gaps in the marketplace so that your product can better match customer needs. For instance, if you find that your customers are seeking nail services that don’t currently exist in your local area, this could be an opportunity to expand your service offerings to meet these customer needs.
To be successful at conducting a competitive intelligence analysis, it’s important to first determine the objective of your research. Are you looking to improve the customer experience, benchmark your marketing efforts, or review your business as a whole? This will determine the type of activities that you undertake. You can then select the right tools to gather competitor information that will help you reach your goal.
What Is The Value Of Competitive Intelligence?
Competitive intelligence is a valuable tool for businesses. While the specifics vary from company-to-company, there are a handful of core goals for which every CI group should strive. A comprehensive CI program will help you identify growth opportunities, mitigate risks, increase sales capability, and much more.
Getting to know your competitors is essential for any business strategy, and competitive intelligence is the tool that helps you do just that. Through detailed research you can learn who your competitors are, their activities, and the kind of customers they attract. This gives you an advantage when creating targeted marketing campaigns to deliver the right message to people at the right moment.
There are a variety of ways to gather information about competitors. Which method you use will depend on the budget and resources available. Nevertheless, there are some universally effective methods for gathering competitor intelligence that should be considered when setting up your CI program.
Start by identifying your direct competition. This will include any businesses that sell similar products or services to your customers, as well as those that are targeting the same demographics. It’s also helpful to identify indirect and aspirational competitors (i.e., leading companies within your industry) and perceived competitors (i.e., those that may come up in sales discovery but don’t compete with you for business).
Websites and other social media can be a great way to gather competitor data. They provide valuable insights into the topics that your competitors cover, their positioning, and how people perceive their brand. Google Search Console and other online tools can also provide valuable insights into how frequently your competitors’ websites are searched for, as well as what keywords they are ranking for.
