Some people know it by the name competitive intelligence, while others continue to use the English term. In any case, the summary is this: competitive intelligence (CI) can be an interesting scenario to operate in the field of marketing and promotion to push your brand.
Why all this reliance on the subject of competitive intelligence? Simple, thanks to this branch of analysis and monitoring of the operating environment you can have a flood of information to exploit when defining strategy. But also to implement specific operational tactics.
Want more information on this topic? This is why I place great faith in competitive intelligence and aim to use its dynamics in defining strategic plans for my clients.
What is competitive intelligence, definition
Competitive intelligence (CI) is a set of tools and activities to leverage data about competitors in a given industry. All to gain strategic advantages. In fact, we are well aware that competitor analysis is a key step in planning good marketing activities, both online and offline. Not least because then we can do a good job of benchmarking. Namely:
“A methodology based on systematic comparison that allows companies that apply it to compare themselves with the best and, above all, to learn from them in order to improve.”
WIKIPEDIA
Those who work in the world of web performance know how important this comparison is that can always raise the bar of performance a little higher. To achieve good results, and avoid mistakes already seen, it is useful to analyze the work of competitors. This segment includes competitive intelligence, an area of analytics that facilitates the work of studying and collecting the necessary data.
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Why is this strategic approach necessary?
Competitive intelligence work helps you, in general, to plan various marketing activities. In a more in-depth and specific view, we can emphasize how useful this approach is to complete a SWOT analysis work (image source) where threats are listed.
But also the opportunities that come along. With this approach you understand your environment, difficulties and opportunities. You have extra information to create effective business practices in different areas:
- New product launches.
- Pricing.
- Rebranding.
- Market expansion.
- Initiating advertising campaigns.
- Mergers and sales.
- Brand identity.
- SEO positioning.
Let’s take an example: why is it necessary to focus on competitive intelligence if I have decided to open an e-commerce? You can identify what competitors have done to make the most of the industry, whether they have opened an online shop only in Italian or are aiming for multilingual. And how many idioms has the site been translated into? Is there Portuguese? What about English for Australians? Do they invest in SEO optimization?
Do competitors focus mainly on ADV? The list could go on and on, but continuing this work continuously, as in a Deming cycle, helps you achieve great results.
What is the strength of competitive intelligence.
There are many solutions for collecting useful data when studying competitors. Why focus on this very condition? What is the strength of it? It is actually a process that is not only about the introduction of data collection tools but about an entire mindset devoted to the systemic organization of information about the evolution of markets and the decisions made by competitors.
From these activities then data are extracted that are used to influence short-, medium- and long-range business decisions. In summary, the strength of competitive intelligence-also known as economic intelligence or IE-is the implementation of processes that integrate tools and techniques into the decision-making phase.
They serve to analyze everything around the brand, from competitors to markets to laws and trends. In this process you can integrate audiences, subcultures and technological innovations.
What are the principles of Competitive Intelligence
To work best with competitive intelligence, and get the information you need for your practice, you need to operate with a few essential points. Points that are included excellently in this graphic found on the Talkwalker article devoted to this very topic.
Without anticipating the various steps I am about to describe, we can say right away that we are facing a redundant path: it never runs out but moves toward a continuous quest for perfection.
Identify the data
The first step needed to begin your competitive intelligence journey: finding ways to collect data. At this stage, it is very important to use the right tools. One of the most leveraged and recognized tools for working in the field of benchmarking is SEMrush. On the other hand on the social side you also have to exploit Talkwaker itself or the powerful Buzzsumo.
Organization of the process
Once you have gathered all the information to do competitive intelligence there is another job to do: manage the flow in an organized, streamlined, effective way. Eliminating what is not needed and gathering data according to categories, objectives, and flows. Our data analysis work has just begun.
Analyze the information
Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of data analysis: once the numbers are collected and organized, we proceed with the steps necessary to turn aseptic figures into strategic information to bring to the decision-making table. Before tackling this stage, it is important to use simple, intuitive metrics.
An example of competitive intelligence? Look at Google Analytics and consider tracking traffic through refined segmentation between organic search, social media, referrals, and email.
So you can optimize traffic from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. You can do the same with web conversations from customers and competitors, press coverage, and other internal and external data sources.
Share intelligently
The competitive intelligence process continues with the careful work of presenting data in one place, cleansed of background noise, and organized in a way that clarifies all useful information for the client and other team members. This means comparing and extracting valuable information.
On this front, for example, one can use a very powerful tool that is Google Data Studio. Leveraging such a tool in data storytelling work allows you to automate a number of processes and, at the same time, improve internal competitive intelligence work.
Define the goals
Competitive intelligence work goes forward and moves toward a higher goal: leveraging data to make useful decisions, not just to collect numbers and information to present to the customer.
Clearly, this point is also important but certainly not sufficient to justify this operational infrastructure. Competitive intelligence work finds its full realization when it helps to make changes, make decisions, and improve performance.