Article from the February / March 2013 issue of SA Guide to Business Magazine.
A competitive business environment can help you to optimise your business to its fullest potential; by innovating and refining new ideas constantly to stay ahead of the competition it can only showcase and benefit your own business.
Why is it important?
It is important to conduct research on competitors as your findings should influence the development of your own company. Your company should offer something different from all your competitors. You should also allow the information gathered to shape your marketing strategy, which should aim to exploit the weaknesses of competing businesses.
By gaining information about the activities of your competition, you will be able to counteract them more easily, identify why they are taking business from you and aid your company in defending established client relationships.
Cost and Time
The cost and time spent on researching competition depends on your company – you can employ measures that can be executed for free or even hire an agency to do opposition research on your behalf. Be sure to not waste time and resources researching too many different firms. Set a maximum of five companies that are all truly competing with your business. Keep an eye out for new businesses or established ones moving into your industry so as to not be caught unawares by newcomers.
Competitive Intelligence
There are four corners that make up the basics of Competitive Intelligence (CI); they are to determine what the goals of the competitor business is, which strategies and tactics the business employs to reach those goals, determining how well are they equipped to meet those goals and what their management assumes about the market.
The tactics you use to keep track of competitors should thus be modelled to make sure all the information on which the four corners of CI is based, is gathered. Here are 5 practical tips to keep tabs on competitors in the digital age.
1. Business Websites
Virtually all businesses have an online presence in the form of a business website. By thoroughly studying your competitors’ websites, you should be able to gather information on the business of your competitor and determine what they place value on, what are the primary benefits or services offered by them and who their target market is and whether it overlaps with your business’ target market.
You can also find out who is linking to your competitors’ websites by making use of the URLinfo tool on FaganFinder.com. By knowing who links to your competitors’ websites, the business network, suppliers and customers of your competitors can be revealed.
As it is believed that websites with blogs associated with them, receive up to 54% more traffic than those without, most companies now have blogs maintained by executives. It is recommended you read these blogs on a regular basis to stay on top of what they are working on, in which ways they are innovating and to see what their future plans are.
2. Search engine research
You can set a Google Alert to make you aware of any mention of your competitors in digital media. Google will send you an email as-it-happens, daily or weekly, depending on your choice. The alert is triggered whenever one of your keywords are made mention of in the online media of your choice, be it in an article, blog, video or discussions. The service is free.
Google Trends is another Google service which might be of use. On Google Trends you can research the number of searches conducted for your own and competitor businesses, thereby effectively measuring the differences in brand awareness, stay on top of what’s happening online regarding your industry
Spyfu is another very useful website which provides detailed reports of the most successful search engine and advertising keywords – paid and organic – associated with your competitors’ websites. This could be particularly useful in determining the keywords most likely to be of value to your company should you make use of Google AdWords campaigns.
3. Social media
It is recommended that you follow your competitor’s social media accounts, by liking their Facebook page, following them on Twitter and connecting with them on other relevant platforms, particularly on LinkedIn, where you can also connect with the businesses associated with your competition.
By following your competitors on social media, you will be aware of any specials or new product launches they are offering or advertising. You can also see how they gain a social media following, their interaction with their following and what type of content they’re sharing. If they are doing any aspect of these things well, you can draw inspiration for your own social media marketing, while if they are failing in an area, you can know what to avoid.
Furthermore you can use make use of social media management platforms to monitor the posts or tweets posted within a set period of time about keywords concerning your competitors, to know what the public is saying about them.
4. Newsletter subscriptions
Most companies nowadays have a newsletter to which users can subscribe free of charge. By signing up for your competitors’ newsletter, you can stay updated with the offers and information they are sending to potential customers.
5. Benchmarking
By using statistics offered like websites like Alexa, you can gain knowledge about the popularity of your own business as well as your competitors’, and how it fluctuates. By making a study of and analysing the data available, significant information about not only competitor businesses but also the needs of potential customers can be gathered.
Going to all this trouble of gaining information on competitors is of no value if it isn’t appropriately analysed and influencing the development and strategies of your own company in some manner. It is also of great importance that all staff has access to the relevant information, as it might influence the thinking of the marketing department in a massively different way to the sales department.
Finally make sure that you don’t focus so much on the competition that you lose focus on developing your own company and truly being competitive.
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