Competitive Intelligence: How to monitor competitors' product placements
With the digital change where data is connected, having up-to-date and truthful information is paramount and demanded. Having real-time information helps to anticipate and make a quicker decision in the face of economic change in any industry. Having real and up-to-date information will help all companies to know the needs of the public.
To quickly find relevant information among all the information disseminated on the web, itis still necessary to master the tools necessary to start an efficient competitive intelligence.
So what are these indispensable tips, essential for a good competitive intelligence? How many levels do you have to climb for your layout to be efficient? All these questions are necessary to succeed in competitive intelligence. It is necessary to take the time to find the answer so as not to go in the wrong direction. The latter could have a negative effect on the sale of your products.
A new monitoring system, how does one define effective competitive intelligence?
This method requires means and resources for effective monitoring, study and exploitation of the manoeuvres chosen by competitors, with the aim of finding new opportunities for the company. It aims to identify mainly the market, agrees to follow the competition scrupulously and to be informed about what is happening in the company.
Indeed, the purpose of competitive intelligence is to observe its product on the website that presents it, control the calls for tenders, intercept the advent of a new type of keyword that contributes to draw innovative concepts.
The purpose of competitive intelligence is to control all elements where there is a marketing strategy, to locate any announcement of changes in a competitive prerogative by competitors. To define the evolutions and sectorial trends, competitive intelligence can also be set up.
The observation of the opponent should only be done for a defined period of time.... It is a broad and habitual procedure that the company will apply, devoting a large part of its time to examination and not to the search for information. Given the development of web sales, knowing the activities of your competitors should not be done lightly.
Who are the influencers who collaborate with the competition and what kind of partnerships do they have?
We already know the strength of influence marketing in relation to product visibility and company notoriety. It is therefore essential to benchmark the competition in order to get to know bloggers, journalists or other players in social networks, acting in our field, who have a relationship with our competitors, but do not mention our product.
This information allows us to know which influencers we have not been able to find and what steps we need to take to compensate for any mistakes we might make in trying to work with them. By doing an overview on other companies' blogs, we can see if there are new products and if these contents are taken up in the media and blogs.
Typically, this can be done by looking at our competitors' brand names, products, company representatives and Twitter accounts. All of this must be done quickly in order to be able to intercept the majority of their tweets, perceive the hashtags they are exploiting and whether they are invoking different brands.
The question is: what are our opponents, the users of social networks, talking about on the subjects that affect our society?
Competitive intelligence can be directed particularly at the monitoring of other brands, but it can also be developed for content monitoring. This act has the precise objective of assimilating captivating discussions in which we would know how to take part, themes to insert in our content strategy and questions that deserve an answer from us. My advice is to be aware of the terms applied in the market and to keep a watch on these terms in social networks. However, beware of elements that could have a negative effect on your monitoring.
What is the main objective of competitive intelligence?
It is a set of methods used by a company to permanently check the approaches and products of its competitors. This marketing tactic will help the company to find the best strategy to adopt in order to get a good position in relation to competitors.
So the watch is the smart part of the business. Different types of monitoring can be applied to improve the sales system of any product. Complementary to each other, they must be applied individually:
- Competitive intelligence
- Legal watch
- Strategic watch
- Commercial Intelligence
- Technological watch
- Marketing intelligence
Each standby mode will be able to inform the concerned departments of the company.
To stay ahead of competitors' future actions, competitive intelligence is essential.
They say you have to keep your opponents closer than your friends. This may seem absurd, yet it is the best way to know in advance what they are going to do. In business terms, this is all the more true, since it will allow you to be aware of the practices of your competitors.
It is therefore advisable to pay close attention to their marketing systems and strategic practices. To do this, observation should be carried out to collect their data, checking their offers at trade shows, followed by their financial results and changes in their structure. In short, there are still many interesting topics. A drastic approach is therefore essential for effective monitoring.
