Companies gather competitive intelligence to divert consumers’ attention from competitors. Ethical ways include analyzing competitor-initiated sales and marketing campaigns, products, consumer opinions, and structured market research. Use public, non-proprietary information to develop a sales strategy that highlights your product’s strengths and competitors’ weaknesses.
The task of gathering competitive intelligence or competitive intelligence is something many companies do on an ongoing basis. Knowing what the competition has to offer and how those offerings compare to similar products on the market can provide businesses with tools to divert consumers’ attention away from the competition and entice them to spend elsewhere. Of course, there are ethical and unethical ways to gather competitive intelligence. Here are some examples of ethical processes that can be used by companies of all sizes.
One of the first places to look for CI, or competitive intelligence, is in competitor-initiated sales and marketing campaigns. Often, carefully analyzing how the company promotes its products to the buying public will provide clues as to what the products won’t do and what they will do. It’s also often possible to use this public information to help tailor an advertising campaign that sends the subtle message that your products do the same thing, but cost less or have different additional applications that your competitor fails to mention in their ads.
In addition to analyzing your competitors’ advertising, gathering competitive intelligence also involves analyzing the products your competitor sells. This requires nothing more than purchasing a few of the products and learning everything you can about them. You can take note of which ingredients are listed in the product and also try them in every possible application. This may help you discover that some of the ingredients are more fillers than the active agents, and that your product contains an ingredient missing from their formulas that actually enhances the performance of the product.
With the advent of the internet it is now possible to get consumer opinions quickly and easily. Many different types of products are discussed on various consumer message boards. By simply using keywords to locate these listings, you can gather thoughts and ideas from consumers about what your competitor’s products do and don’t do, how well they work, and what they would like to see in the way of expanding uses for your products. This type of competitive intelligence can help you identify recurring trends in consumer desires that could be integrated into your product line and advertised to great advantage.
Structured market research is also an effective way to analyze other businesses. Direct mail campaigns that focus on comparing different competitor products can provide great ideas on how you can successfully compete against your competitors. As with message boards, these direct mail questionnaires can also ask for ideas on what consumers want to see in products of this type. This type of competitive intelligence can be very helpful in shaping future advertising that highlights how your products do things that other similar products do not.
The idea behind ethical competitive intelligence gathering is to use every bit of information that is considered public and non-proprietary. Advertising campaigns, information contained in product labels and consumer opinions and ideas can be extremely useful in developing a sales strategy that highlights the strengths of your products by subtly identifying weaknesses in the company’s product line. competition.
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