Why Monitoring Your Competitor’s Strategy Can Help You
In any industry, there is going to be competition. Because opponents are inevitable, learn to use them to your advantage! Ever heard the phrase, “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer?” To ensure your business is reaching its full potential, it’s important to monitor your competitor’s strategies. Keeping up with the competition provides you with the motivation to constantly improve. In the ever-evolving world of business, staying current and informed will give you the leg up you need to maximize your possibilities for achievement.
Benefits of Monitoring Your Competitors
If you need any convincing on whether you should be tracking the competition, read about some of the benefits you’ll reap:
1. Improve Your Own Strategy
When running a business, there are so many hurdles to jump over. If the competition is thriving in an area you may be struggling in, taking note of their methods could help you work out some of the kinks. After all, sometimes the best way to learn a new skill is to watch someone else do it first. To be clear – this doesn’t mean you should steal their strategy, but learning about theirs could spark inspiration for you to improve your own.
2. Feature Services They Don’t Offer
If the competition doesn’t offer a service that you do, use that to your advantage! Highlight the things you provide that your competitors don’t – it could be the deciding factor in customers choosing you over them.
3. Find Potential Leads
Read the competitor’s reviews online. If you notice unhappy customers, this could be a great way to find potential leads! Since customers are not satisfied with the service they’re currently getting, you can swoop in and save the day!
4. Stay Up-To-Date
The way we do business is constantly changing – especially in the age of social media. New trends pop up all the time. Your competitors may be catching on to things before you, so they could be a great source of information when you’re looking for new ways to market yourself.
5. Prepare for Potential Threats
If your competitors have previously dealt with industry-related threats, knowing how they handled the issue could give you great insight. Learning from someone else’s mistakes is the most cost-effective way to run your business because you’re not the one paying for them! However, should you ever come across the same issues you’ll already have an idea of how to solve them.
6. Predict their Next Move
After monitoring competitors for a while, you’ll start to become familiar with their thought processes. Understanding their methods can help you predict what they may do next, giving you the advantage of being one step ahead. You can plan your own strategies around making sure you don’t do exactly what they’re going to do.
How to Keep up with the Competition
There are plenty of ways to keep tabs on the competition so don’t limit yourself to just one.
1. Follow Them on Social Media
Most businesses are active on at least one social media platform, so following them is an easy way to keep track of what they’re doing. This gives you a firsthand look at how they interact with customers online and how they use that to their advantage. You may want to follow them on a personal or private account instead of your business’ official page as a way to stay anonymous. Added bonus – most popular social media apps are free.
2. Sign Up for Their Newsletter
If your competitors have a newsletter, sign up for it! Newsletters are put out on a monthly or quarterly basis and include what they’ve been up to lately. It could give you great insight as to what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.
3. Read All Reviews
Regularly, check reviews on Facebook, Google, and Yelp to see what people are saying about the competition. Because these reviews are more anonymous than social media, people will probably be more honest. It’s important to listen to what customers do and don’t like about the competition’s product or service.
4. Identify their Most Shared Content
Tools like BuzzSumo show you the most shared pieces of content, organized by topic. Research your competitors’ popular pieces to get an idea of what customers are searching for. From there, start producing relevant content for your own site that will grab your target audience’s attention.
5. Track their SEO Rankings
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing organic traffic to your website. On search engines like Google, aim to be at the top of the results page so consumers see your content first. You can do this by identifying what keywords and phrases your competition is ranking for, then try to improve your own standing.
Learn more: For tips on How to Create Content for Optimal SEO, read our blog.
6. Get their Google Alerts
Setting up Google Alerts is a simple way to keep up with what your competitors are doing. Emails come directly to your inbox when a competitor is mentioned in an article or news story.
7. Use a Social Media Management System
Tools like Hootsuite allow you to manage your own social media accounts, schedule posts, expand your reach, and more. On top of these services, they also have the ability to monitor both your brand and your competitors! Analyzing these insights gives you an understanding of how well your social media strategy is doing, how well the competition is doing, and how you compare.
How We Can Help
Do you think your marketing strategy could use a little help? For more ways to keep up with the competition, Pinckney Marketing offers digital marketing services that could be just the thing you need to get ahead.
