Does your business put a priority on its business intelligence process? Does it monitor your competitive analysis, marketplace trends and its understanding of market change? And most importantly, does it put a priority on making changes as a result of insights from this analysis? This will be a four-part series. This third part will discuss how a business should conduct a competitive intelligence. Whoever tries the most stuff usually wins.
The Business Intelligence Process Part 4 SWOT Analysis
Before we continue, let me ask you a question.
What works best for competitive analysis in your business? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? It would be greatly appreciated by us and our readers.
The ultimate goal of all the points I list below is this: eliminate the fluff from your marketing strategy and focus only on the things that work.
Do you want to freshen up your business success abilities? Have you thought about looking at your competitors for inspiration as well as good ideas? Checking out what other companies are doing can often help you brainstorm your own business tactics.
In this article , you’ll discover how to analyze your competitors’ to inspire new ideas and improve your competitiveness.
Researching your competitors not only provides an overview of your industry, but it also gives insight into the current habits of the audiences you’re targeting.
By answering a few key questions, you’ll see what kinds of ideas are most effective for the customers you want to reach.
No business attribute is more important today as that of adaptability, as many, many businesses are on the brink of irrelevance unless they change as fast as change itself. Your strategies do run out of steam, get old and become ineffective … you need to keep refreshing them based on your anticipation of the next change.
A competitive analysis is critical in helping with your anticipation of market and customer change. Read on to understand why.
A vigorous competition watch kills two birds with a single stone – helps with better understanding of rival tactics and opens a window through which you can see your own problem areas. Further, I’m sure you’d agree that knowing where you stand is highly important.
Still looking for reasons to use competitive analysis in improving business success? Read through the following reasons and find out for yourself.
Identify opportunities to serve newly acquired and prospective customers.
Determine the size of the market – identify service gaps and areas for self-improvement where competition is exploiting at the moment.
Find the tested ways to cater target market.
Update and add unique value propositions.
Conclude if your marketing strategies are effective.
Obtain an understanding of what your competitors have done that has been successful without re-inventing the wheel.
Isolate trends that make a positive difference.
Competitive intelligence … who are your competitors?
Most companies believe they know who their competitors are. But when we do a little research on identifying them, they are usually surprised by the results. Here are the questions and facts you need to know and be asking yourselves:
Whether you work internally or were hired as an outside resource to help with your client’s SEO campaign, you probably have some idea of who the competition is in your space. Some companies may have good offline marketing but poor online marketing.
If you’re looking to be the best, it’s a good idea to do your own research and see who you’re up against.
In my experience, it’s always good to find and verify 5-10 competitorsin your space from a variety of sources. You can use tools for this or take the manual approach.
Make sure to capture the basic information for each competitor including their company name, location, and website. These tools will be useful at a later time. Record these in the “competitor research” tab of a spreadsheet.
Standard Google searches for competitors
This is pointing out the obvious, but if you have a set of keywords you want to rank for, you can look for trends and see who is already ranking where you want to be. Don’t limit this to just one or two keywords, instead get a broader list of the competitors out there.
To do this, simply come up with a list of several keywords you want to rank for and search for them in your geographic area. Make sure your Geographic preference is set correctly so you get accurate data.
Collect a list of keywords
Search Google to see which companies are ranking in the local pack
Record a list of the companies’ names and website URLs in the spreadsheet under the competitor research tab.
Outside of the basics, I always find it’s good to see who else is out there. Since organic and local rankings are more closely tied together than ever, it’s a good idea to use 3rd party tools to get some insight as to what else your website could be considered related to.
This can help provide hidden opportunities outside of the normal competition you likely look at most frequently.
What should you find about your competitor and where?
A local store is not your competitor online if they don’t offer their service via the internet. Your competitors based online could be entirely different. Examine new and emerging players in the market.
Evaluate the premise of your rivals – if you share similarities, look for areas where a certain edge can be established and nurtured.
Competitive intelligence – How to do it effectively
Taking a sneak peek at competitors requires a little undercover work from your office and occasionally doing walk around surveillance.
Look for rivals’ social media engagement – how frequently they respond to their clients, are their social media reps doing a decent job or not and subtle indicators of customer acquisition via self-promotion.
What to review: The Business Intelligence Process Part 4 SWOT Analysis
Unique value propositions
Learn how your rivals are playing the game, so you can beat them to the punch. The unique value proposition sheds light on the fraction of clients that your rival is fixated on.
On-line strategy
How many followers do they have? Are their posts mostly internal, external or a mix of both?
How on-brand are their photos? Do they show the product or service in each shot, or do they follow a more lifestyle-oriented content strategy?
What hashtags do they use?
Competition store walk through
Occasionally put your customer hat on and do a simple walk through of your key competitors’ store. From a customer’s point of view, what are the strengths and weaknesses? Which ones could you employ to make your business better?
Tap local business leaders for local intelligence / advice
Never hesitate to reach out and ask local business leaders their opinions on trends they are seeing and how they see your business in relation to its competitors.
Compare your website value versus your competition
Our research has shown customers will visit at least three websites before making a purchase. The larger the purchase, the more sites they’ll visit. Therefore, you need to look at your website in the context of your competition.
Seek to understand the customer journey as they move from one website to the next. Pay attention to the promotion incentives your competitors offer and how they compare to yours.
If the competition’s website is easier to use, offers more enticing incentives, and contains more compelling messaging, you will have a hard time generating online leads.
Be on the lookout for trends and shifts.
Trends and shifts
Watch for marketplace trends and shifts. Look at the fringe of the environment, for that is where trends first appear.
Anticipation
Work at developing anticipation of changes in your market.
Study how trends start to interact with each other as well as customers and businesses.
Useful tools
Rival IQ
Rival IQ is perfect for getting full intelligence coverage on what your market is about. You can setup landscapes (up to 30 sites in the pro version) in your category or content publishing niche, find the hottest and most engaged (hello conversion possibility) topics and channels.
You can spot gaps where your competition is not present and mine the top 100 SEO keywords for search volume, traffic share and search rank positions.
You can go deeper and map up the entire editorial flow for each channel and get topic ideas. You can also see what changes RivalIQ does to titles, Meta descriptions and social bios and even track web site changes (design and mostly home page).
Site Alerts
Site Alerts is another great tool for looking under the hood to see what your competitors are using technology-wise (which ecommerce platform, mail provider, plugins, tech enhancements). It’s great for seeing what social referrals work best for them and what percentage of traffic they represent.
Additionally, you can see what other traffic sources they get (and the share for each) and a list of referral sites, related sites, and organic keywords.
Google Alerts are great little inventions because they allow you to track virtually anything and have it delivered either to your email or RSS. What kinds of stuff should you be tracking? The name of our competitor’s company, their employee names, their CEO, product names, locations, mentions of new features, etc.
What kinds of media are you looking for? Their blogs, social profiles, photos, videos, Flickr accounts, Facebook pages, etc. ? Why? The more you know, the better off you are to make smart decisions.
Follow your competitors on Twitter. Follow their employees. Follow the people that engage most often with your competitors. Follow the people your competitors are following. Private lists are a goldmine for researching.
The bottom line
Continually rework all of your techniques, particularly your discrimination and value proposition. We recommend short revisits on these topics every 3-4 months.
The key to success here is realizing that this is a marathon and not a sprint. If you examine the competition in the top areas mentioned above and create a plan to overcome, you will win long term.
Monitoring your competition is a small, but important component of a successful digital marketing plan. No business exists in a vacuum, so you must be aware of your environment.
Will you be the one to stand out? Please join the competition below.
Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s leadership, teamwork and collaboration? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a team or leadership workshop?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?
Do you have a lesson about making your learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on a business process from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Whoever tries the most stuff usually wins. Does your business put a priority on its business intelligence process? Does it monitor your competitive analysis, marketplace trends and its understanding of market change? And most importantly, does it put a priority on making changes as a result of insights from this analysis?
This is a four-part series on critical elements of business intelligence. This first part discusses an overview of business intelligence and the three types of business intelligence that are most critical to the average business.
Here are links to all parts of this series:
The Business Intelligence Process Part 2 Market Analysis
The Business Intelligence Process Part 3 Competitive Analysis
The Business Intelligence Process Part 4 SWOT Analysis
What is the meaning of business intelligence?
Business intelligence (BI) is an umbrella term that includes the applications, infrastructure and tools, and best practices that enable access to and analysis of information to improve and optimize business decisions and performance. It is the set of techniques and tools for the transformation of raw data into meaningful and useful information for business analysis purposes.
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BI technologies are capable of handling large amounts of unstructured data to help identify, develop and otherwise create new strategic business opportunities.
Goal of BI
The goal of BI is to allow for the easy interpretation of these datasets. Identifying new opportunities and implementing an effective strategy based on insights can provide businesses with a competitive market advantage and long-term stability.
This is a very large number of business intelligence tools. Most businesses would do very well with these three: market analysis, competitive analysis, and SWOT analysis. These are the ones we will discuss is this 4 part series.
These BI analyses can be used to support a wide range of business decisions ranging from tactical operational to strategic. Basic operating decisions include product positioning or pricing. Strategic business decisions include priorities, goals, and directions at the broadest level.
In all cases, BI is most effective when it combines data derived from the market in which a company operates (external data) with data from company sources internal to the business such as financial and operations data (internal data).
When combined, external and internal data can provide a more complete picture which, in effect, creates an “intelligence” that cannot be derived by any singular set of data.
Though the term business intelligence is sometimes a synonym for competitive intelligence (because they both support decision making), BI uses technologies, processes, and applications to analyze mostly internal, structured data and business processes while competitive intelligence gathers, analyzes and disseminates information with a topical focus on company competitors.
If understood broadly, business intelligence can include the subset of competitive intelligence.
Comparison with business analytics
Business intelligence and business analytics are sometimes used interchangeably, but there are alternate definitions. One definition contrasts the two, stating that the term business intelligence refers to collecting business data to find information primarily through asking questions, reporting, and online analytical processes.
Business analytics, on the other hand, uses statistical and quantitative tools for explanatory and predictive modeling.
A market analysis is really exactly what it sounds like: determining the characteristics unique to your particular market and analyzing this information, which will help you make both tactical and strategic decisions for your business.
By conducting a market analysis, you will be able to gather valuable data that will help you get to know your customers, determine appropriate pricing, and figure out your business priorities and vulnerabilities.
Target market
In the initial market analysis, you were able to look at the general scope. In this target market section, you’ve got to be specific. It’s important to establish a clear idea of your target market early on. A lot of new entrepreneurs make the rookie mistake of thinking that everyone is their potential market.
To put it simply, they’re not.
This is a good thing—by narrowing in on your real customers; you’ll be able to direct your marketing dollars efficiently while attracting loyal customers who will spread the word about your business.
The target market section of your business plan should include the following:
User Persona and Characteristics: You’ll want to include demographics such as age, income, and location here. You’ll also need to dial into your customers’ psychographics as well. You should know what their interests and buying habits are, as well as be able to explain why you’re in the best position to meet their needs.
Market size: This is where you want to get real, both with the potential readers of your business plan and with yourself. Do your research and find out who and where your competitors are, and how much your customers spend annually on your product or service. How big is the potential market for your business?
The competitive analysis
The competitive analysis is where you dissect your competitors, which is important for a couple of reasons. Obviously, it’s a good idea to know what you’re up against, but it also lets you spot the competition’s weaknesses.
Are there customers out there being underserved? What can you offer that similar businesses aren’t offering? The competitive analysis should contain the following components:
Market: How big is the market for goods and services similar to what you plan on offering? What’s the growth rate? Include the general outlook and trends for this market. Who are your main competitors? Are there any secondary competitors who could impact your business?
Competitor strengths and weaknesses: What is your competition good at? Where do they fall behind? Get imaginative to spot opportunities to excel where others are falling short.
The importance of your target market to competitors: Ideally, you’re going after customers whose needs aren’t being met by your competitors.
Barriers to entry: What are the potential pitfalls of entering your particular market? What’s the cost of entry—is it prohibitively high, or can anyone enter your market? This is where you examine your weaknesses. Be honest, with investors and yourself. Being unrealistic is not going to make you look good.
The window of opportunity: Does your entry into the market rely on time-sensitive technology? Do you need to get in early to take advantage of an emerging market?
SWOT Analysis is a useful technique for understanding your Strengths and Weaknesses, and for identifying both the Opportunities open to you and the Threats you face.
SWOT analysis is a methodological tool designed to help workers and companies optimize performance, maximize potential, manage competition, and minimize risk. It is about making better decisions, both large and small. It can help you determine the efficacy of something as small as introducing a new product or service or something as large as a merger or acquisition.
Again, SWOT is a method that, once mastered, can only enhance performance. What makes SWOT particularly powerful is that, with a little thought, it can help you uncover opportunities that you are well-placed to exploit. And by understanding the weaknesses of your business, you can manage and eliminate threats that would otherwise catch you unawares.
More than this, by looking at yourself and your competitors using the SWOT framework, you can start to craft a strategy that helps you distinguish yourself from your competitors so that you can compete successfully in your market.
Using SWOT
Originated by Albert S Humphrey in the 1960s, SWOT is as useful now as it was then. You should plan on using it in two ways – as a simple icebreaker helping people get together to “kick off” strategy formulation, or in a more sophisticated way as a serious tactical tool in the competitive sense.
Consider these questions:
Strengths
What advantages does your organization have?
What do you do better than anyone else?
What resources can you draw upon that others can’t?
Consider your strengths from both an internal perspective, and from the point of view of your customers and people in your market.
Weaknesses
What could you improve?
What should you avoid?
What factors lose you sales?
Again, consider this from an internal and external basis: Do other people seem to perceive weaknesses that you don’t see? Are your competitors doing any better than you?
Continually rework elements of your business intelligence, particularly your market and competitive analysis, as well as your SWOT analysis.
The key to success here is realizing that this is a marathon and not a sprint. If you examine the competition in the top areas mentioned above and create a plan to overcome, you will win long term.
Monitoring your competition is a small, but important component of a successful digital marketing plan. No business exists in a vacuum, so you must be aware of your environment.
Will you be the one to stand out?
Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s leadership, teamwork, and collaboration? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a team or leadership workshop?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy continually improving your continuous learning?
Do you have a lesson about making your learning better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on a business process from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
