What marketing efforts are your competitors using?
Out-marketing your competitors takes some research:
You want to find out what your competitors are doing.
What are their strengths and weaknesses?
What major marketing efforts they are involved in?
How could these efforts hurt you in any way?
How can you out-market your competition?
The following are some inexpensive ways to find out what your competition is doing:
- Call your competitor on the telephone and pose as a prospective client.
- Talk to their sales staff
- Ask the right questions and most salespeople will tell you exactly what you want to know about their business. Many salespeople love to talk about themselves and their business. This can help you with your research.
- Collect your competitors’ brochures, ads, and sales letters.
- Record their voice messages and their radio and TV commercials.
- Visit their booths at trade shows and go to their showrooms.
- Also, check out their Web site(s).
Most Web sites will give you a lot of information about how the company does business with its clients. The site may even provide a list of clients, which can become a great “target list” for your own sales efforts.
While visiting the Web sites of your competitors, request more information regarding their companies and their products/services. Then, keep an accurate record about how quickly they respond.
“The ability to learn faster than your competitors
may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.”
-Arie P. De Gue
Any one of these ideas could help you to find a competitive weakness that you can turn to your advantage.
What other ideas can you develop for gathering marketing information on your competitors?