There are a lot of ways to win some leads and clients from your competitors. In fact, by just by being around them can keep you head-to-head in the competition or even get you ahead of the track.
However, the game requires more than just having an afternoon coffee or watching ball games with your competitors – secretly watch their webinars, browse their website, follow their blogs and do a competitive analysis are some of the further steps you need to take. These semi-stalking tactics may look very striking, however, still, may not guarantee success with every lead you poach. So here are some key competitive analysis tips to help you get new leads and clients.
Follow Them
You’ll surely cross paths with your competitors in events or trade fairs and or even randomly bump into them in some restaurants, but such won’t make an impact on your goals. Following their trace, strategically, is what will help you out.
Convince&Convert suggests:
- Uncover the keywords your competitors are targeting for paid and organic search, and use this information to identify any keyword they are currently missing
- Analyze their ranking against keywords using tools that can track your progress against them
- Research their most shared content
- Stay alert for new content and track the traffic for each
- Track new links as these might lead you to some more important information
- Monitor their social activity
- Read their blogs and newsletters
Be in the places they frequent
While Inc says get involved with the things your competitors engage with.
- Gather both online and offline research and studies from reports like Gartner about your competitors and see which tactics are doing well for them
- Pick interesting facts about your competitors via social media
- Speak to new customers and find out which or who they used before and maybe probe on why they switched to you
- Learn deeper about your competitors by joining industry associations, trade shows, and conferences
- Get some information from your suppliers
- Hire people from your competitor or better yet hire your competitor
- Watch who they hire and profile the potentials
- Conduct a survey to get comprehensive reports of all industry players
- Call them and talk to them directly. Know how to play “who” in the game
Tie up with them
There’s no better way to know your competitors than working with them.
- Join them in a charity work
- Collaborate business potentials with and enter a new market
- Work together to cross up-sell – your core product and your competitors’ accessories may set a new trend in the industry
And as the Godfather said: “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer”, now how’s that for a business strategy?
