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What are your competitors doing

Written by: Mark Gwilliam

Article Overview: An important aspect in any strategic marketing plan is solid market research or analysis. Others may call it competitive research/analysis/intelligence, but they all boil down to one thing: knowing what goes on in your industry from trending to movement in your competitors’ businesses and such before laying down your marketing campaign.

What are your competitors doing

The data you have gathered will help you analyse each critical part of your business and, accordingly, conceptualise your next steps taking into consideration the information you’ve learned about the activities of your competitors, including their physical presence in strategic locations, their advertising campaigns, newest launches or re-launches and even their soon-to-be releases.

Hence, your market analyses (and who does them) are very important in the creation of your counter-attack plan, so to speak, which will be instrumental to capturing your share (and a larger share at that) of the market that you have in common with your competitors.

Down on All Fours
When doing your research, it is important to remember that your job is not only to find out EVERYTHING there is to know about what your competitors are doing but also to protect your company or brand in the process.

The last thing you need is to be accused of spying, although in the competitive business industry, market analysis is an accepted part of any company’s research and development sector; it is acceptable as long as it is accomplished without doing anything illegal. Nevertheless, your research should be as thorough as possible.

You may be required to go down “on all fours”, figuratively speaking, just to get relevant information on your competitors’ movements and activities. Not to make it sound like a dirty business, the point here is that your chosen researcher/analyst should be able to gather relevant information by exhausting every legal means possible.
Otherwise, your efforts will be in vain.

What They’re Doing
Based on what you’ve learned, you can make a few sound assumptions on what works and what needs improvements. From here, you can conceptualise strategies that will have better results than your competitors’ and you can learn from their mistakes.

Be careful not to copy whatever successful formula they have already concocted, though, since you could also be sued for infringement. You may however, base your campaign on what they’ve done. Repetition and copying is not only devious but also pointless. What would be the point of offering exactly the same services that your competitors are already providing the market?

Your services should be distinct enough to make a difference and to generate interest. Instead of copying your competitors systems, products or services, what you should do is veer away from strategies that have failed; you’ll learn what these strategies are through a thorough competitive research.

You can also find a way to improve your services, products or systems so that they exceed that of your competitors. In any business, knowing what your competition is doing is an integral part of success. This will help you avoid any accusations of being a mere copycat, help you develop your products or services in a way that your niche market will be happier about and basically become the natural choice among everyone in the same field.

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Article Tags: advertising campaigns, all fours, assumptions, attack plan, business industry, development sector, dirty business, improvements, infringement, job, launches, market analyses, physical presence, research and development, researcher, taking into consideration, what your competitors



Related Forum Posts
Re: Onpage Optimisation - That is a good point and one I hope to use to my advantage with my software. I use the very latest technologies and I'm not constrained by previous versions. Having said that, I am new to the market and being better than my competitors isn't enough, I have to convince people that my software is better than my competitors.
Re: Onpage Optimisation - Yes, they are very important in onpage optimization. However, competition is main in SEO whether you are doing on-page or off-page. Suppose if any competitor is 5 years old and you started to compete that site then you would be able to us new technologies which your competitors may not have used hence it is easy to overcome the competitors.
Re: Let's talk about financial stress - Well then should an entrepreneur be more concerned about what his/her competitors are doing or what he/she needs to do in order to succeed? You could always look at it like the "glass if half full" rather than half empty. For example, if your company is struggling during the financial crisis then maybe it will help to take out some of your competitors in the process.
Do Market Analysis First - I think you should analysis of your market first, so you can come up with a business plan for yourself . You should know what is your strength /weakness and competitors/customers..... what is your strategy to get your business out beat your competitors.. The more you study the market , the better plan you have. The business plan usually include the what to do /who do it/ when will do / when finish / what's budget/ and may be contingency plans ... Good Luck!
Max's offbeat (off the wall, crazy, super) marketing ideas - okay maybe they are not that exciting but here they are: 1. forming alliances with non local competitors to streamline business processes, and share marketing information and sales success/horror stories. This will save both companies time and money and make them both stronger. 2. Taking your competitors promotions and using them against them by honouring their promotions if presented to you. 3. Using youtube video and viral marketing (especially if you sell toys) to get brand awareness and newsletter sign ups.


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