Study Your Competition for Amazing Insights
Often ignored, checking in on your competitors is a sure-fire way to generate ideas that lead to more success for your organization.
Duh!
We know we should do it regularly and we know it’s important. But we often ignore our competition as we grapple with the duties for our own business.
Studying our competition is vital for thriving businesses to stay thriving! From how your competitors describe their business, to what they offer to how customers view their offerings, it’s all important to continuously fine tune your business.
Make the Competitor Information Come to You
The challenge is there is a lot you can study so where do you start? Use some simple techniques to have the competitor information come to you. Sign up for their emails and use RSS feeds to receive their blogs. Follow their social channels and their LinkedIn business pages.
Talk to Your Customers
It’s a simple concept but few businesses actually do it. When Taylor Guitars was young and rapidly growing, the CEO and the Senior VP of marketing went on a road trip and visited hundreds of dealers across the United States. The dealers were impressed that these executives cared about what they thought. Taylor received a wealth of information that they put into practice that made them even more successful.
Talk to Your Competitors
While this may seem counterintuitive, it makes complete sense if you foster those relationships. Develop industry friendships and talk on the phone regularly. Meet up with competitors at trade shows and conferences.
Websites
Obvious of course, but when was the last time you went to your competitors’ websites? How do they get your attention on their home page? Do they tell you what they do differently and better than other companies? What content do they provide that instills credibility? Do they provide a compelling company story? Do they offer an email opt-in offer to nurture email readers?
Is your website looking a bit dated compared to your competitor websites?
You’ll learn some things you might want try and also identify weaknesses in your competitors strategies you can take advantage of.
Use Competitor Analysis Tools
Competitor analysis tools for social media can reveal good insights. Sprout social enables you to understand competitor performance using various parameters. It also lets you build fancy listening queries for brand health, industry insights, and more.
Phlanx lets you measure a competitor’s social engagement which is a true measure of fan/follower active interest. Find competitors with high engagement rates on social then look at what they do to maintain this performance.
Kompyte is an AI driven competitor analysis tool that pulls competing information into a single dashboard. Crayon is another AI tool that helps with both competitor analysis and competitive intelligence.
Organic Searches
Clear the cache on your browser (so your searches aren’t influenced by your past searches) and search for companies that do what you do. Notice what they say in the search meta data and if it is dialed in for their value proposition. (This meta data is the copy that comes up under the search result for that specific organization.)
Regular Competitor Research Can Provide Great Insights
So take time on a regular basis to study your competition. Many things change over time and it’s important to keep up with trends and changes within your industry.
