Competitive analysis & competitive intelligence to learn the secrets of your competitors

Competitive analysis and market study: this is how entrepreneurs and managers make surefire winning choices.

One of the most famous passages in “The Art of War” perfectly sums up the main purpose of competition analysis. And he does it like this, with a lapidary sentence:

“If you know the enemy and yourself, your victory is sure.”

To be fair, General Sun Tzu also adds that if you know yourself but not the enemy, your chances of winning and losing are equal. If you do not know the enemy or even yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

But can you really say you know your competitors inside out? What about your company?

Knowing your competition doesn’t mean knowing what products or services are better than your direct competitors or their price to the public-that’s information anyone can get by visiting a company Web site, browsing a product catalog or attending an industry trade show.

Even knowing what their profit margin may be more or less will not make a difference.

If this is all you know about your rivals, it means that you don’t yet have any relevant information that you can use to your advantage. And on the other hand, the good news is that if that is all they know about you and your business, you are in no danger.

Before going any further, it is important to point out this: you do not analyze competitors to copy them but to do the exact opposite: distinguish yourself from them. Emergence. Getting noticed.

There is no marketing manual that does not repeatedly emphasize the importance of differentiation to stand out. The point is that standing out from competitors is one thing, but it is doing it consciously that makes the difference. If all companies produce a product in a certain color (e.g., black), choosing to make it red does not automatically mean that it stands out efficiently. In fact, it may be a flop. Perhaps instead of color you should focus on the shape of that object.

Only to know this you need data. And that is exactly what you can achieve through thorough competitor analysis.

The truth is that more and more SMEs and Large Enterprises periodically commissioning analysis of their competitors. It is no coincidence that we at Central Marketing Intelligence are receiving more and more requests in this regard. Yet there are still many entrepreneurs who prefer to put their heads in the sand convinced that they already know everything they need.

But any entrepreneur–and I emphasize any–who has already done a competitive analysis based on competitive intelligence will tell you that they have discovered information and scenarios they did not even suspect possible. In short, an analysis through competitive intelligence often holds surprising results.

And that is not an exaggeration…. Let’s see why.

What is competitive analysis?

Competitor analysis or competitor analysis represents that set of actions of collecting and sorting through a huge amount of data on the web about known rival companies and rivals you didn’t know you had (that’s right, you can unearth those too with online big data…).

But for now, let’s focus on the fact that these are mountains of data coming in from different and not always homogeneous sources: website, social media, industry forums, online trade magazines… A body of data that needs to be studied so that it can return only the relevant information that can really be useful for competitive analysis.

And that is where we at CMI stand out.

In fact, we do not just research the information and analyze it, but provide our clients with a real detailed report in which targeted guidelines and actions are included that, based on the results that emerge from the data analysis, can give your company a positive turnaround.

We do this by using advanced Competitive Intelligence software, tools capable of performing complex Web searches, collecting and sorting Big Data online according to a set of parameters defined by our data analysts. In addition to enabling (really) in-depth knowledge of the competition, this targeted research is the first step in developing more effective marketing strategies and increasingly informed business choices, timely

But how does it come to that?

Let’s see it now!

The tools for performing competitive analysis?

Underlying the processes of developing an analysis are competitive intelligence tools and software.

These intercept, analyze and catalog the immense amount of data available on the Web, making available to us what we need to know in depth about your competitors.

Competitor analysis tools, through deep and analytical listening to the web collect data in an accurate, secure and completely legal manner. These in fact do not catalog sensitive data but only public data, so they have nothing to do with industrial espionage.

If in business economics competitive intelligence is regarded as the set of systematic activities aimed at providing corporate management with useful or strategic information about the external environment of the enterprise (market, customers, competitors, trends, innovations, norms, laws) to support C-Level decision-making processes, market research allows this type of intelligence to be harnessed in an even more practical and concrete way.

What is the purpose of competitor analysis?

As we have already mentioned, when we think of competitor analysis we end up imagining a simple list of competitors accompanied by some additional information.

In fact, thanks to the online Big Data analysis processes managed by our Data Analysts, it is possible to access a privileged point of view through which we can accurately understand the strengths and weaknesses of our competitors.

Knowing how to exploit Competitive Intelligence software to its full potential allows us to discover:

• Who are your direct competitors (and potential competitors)
• How they communicate online
• The traffic volumes of their websites and eCommerce
• Their products sold online
• Their active campaigns to attract new customers
• The search keys for which they are ranked on Google and major search engines
• What users say about them on social networks, blogs, and forums (e.g., mentions, campaigns, and results);
• Software used by competitors;
• What online advertising strategies are they adopting
• Identify what your competitors’ target customers are
• How they move on marketplaces and third-party platforms such as Amazon.

How much of this information do you really possess in depth today?

In addition to answering this question, you are probably already wondering how to use this information once you have obtained it. And certainly you will have understood how these will enable you to:

• Avoid missteps, because you will know in advance what is not working in your market
• Analyze the winning moves of your direct competitors to customize, replicate, and even enhance them

In addition, we at Central Marketing Intelligence. we are not content to just provide you with this information but help you make it concrete turning them into concrete actions through a series of customized reports based on the data that will clearly indicate which areas you need to work on and with which strategies to improve your positioning in your target market.

How can studying your competitors’ sites improve your results?

Regarding your competitors’ sites, we can help you get much more information than you would get with the most common online competitor analysis tools. The latter give you an often superficial view of:

• positioning on Google
• keywords for which competitor sites rank (and how)
• Most common keywords between your site and competitor sites

Studying your competitors’ sites is certainly the starting point for understanding how the company wants to present itself to its audience through content, images, the texts, links and any blogs.

But that’s not all: you need to find out if the site loads quickly and is optimized for mobile devices. Most importantly, find out whether the site achieves its purpose or not: how much traffic it can drive and how well it can engage users.

Our analysis allows you to delve into all these aspects and get a better overview of the results of their websites by finding out the actual traffic levels and, most importantly, the results of this traffic i.e., conversion rates.

Optimizing online advertising strategies? You can “spy” on what your competitors are doing!

How successful have online advertising campaigns really been?

And again: is the company advertising on search engines (SEM)?

If yes, how much are you spending each month?

As we have already mentioned, knowing this information is the starting point for not making the same mistakes (in case they were a flop) and taking the right cues to expand their success in case they had a positive impact.

You know how many people know that the risk of wasting their resources on online campaigns is particularly high and even becomes a certainty when they do not have the right tools to plan and monitor campaign performance. That’s why competitor analysis through competitive intelligence is a tool you shouldn’t let slip through your fingers if you want to be sure you’re investing your money wisely in online campaigns.

But there is more… And it is about social management.

Competitor analysis to know (and adopt) the right social strategies.

What social networks do your competitors use, what social media marketing strategies do they employ, and what results do they get?

Again, it is certainly not enough to follow the competition as followers to get a true picture of their strategies on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all other social media.

All companies today use multi channel or even omni channel marketing and communication strategies. In addition, the majority of users spend two and a half hours a day on social media (source Statista), just to understand it + 61% compared to 2012. Here then, knowing how to manage these channels is crucial. With this information and our suggestions, you can better define goals and plan successful social strategies.

In conclusion

In short, the Central Marketing Intelligence method not only uncovers the key information of all your competitors (current and potential) but also gives you an unprecedented and privileged view of their actual results and supports you in maximizing your company’s potential.

Remember that passage from “The Art of War” with which we began this article (“If you know your enemy and yourself, victory is sure”)?

If you think it is time to put it into practice…. Contact us now

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