What Is Competitors Monitoring?

Competitors monitoring, also known as competitive intelligence, involves systematically tracking and analyzing your competitors’ activities, strategies, and market positioning.

This process helps businesses understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats posed by their competitors.
By monitoring competitors, companies can gain insights into pricing strategies, product launches, marketing campaigns, customer reviews, and overall market trends.

This information is invaluable for making informed decisions, staying ahead in the market, and adapting to changes in the competitive landscape.

Essentially, competitors monitoring enables businesses to identify gaps in the market, anticipate industry shifts, and craft more effective strategies to maintain a competitive edge.

Why setting up a competitors monitoring strategy?

Competitors monitoring is basically a SWOT analysis of your ecommerce competitor. It makes you aware of each and every move of your competitor, especially regarding its marketing strategies, pricing policy and stock.

• The main goal of a business is the profit maximization and to have the biggest market share.
• It is greatly important for a business to monitor the strategies of its competitors.
• A comprehensive analysis will help you stay on top of the competition.

Why monitor competitors and what to monitor?

In a competitive market, a business should enbrace changes to survive. A business aims to satisfy consumer needs and wants do that more efficiently than any other competitor. Underestimating or ignoring the competition might cost you your business. Monitoring competition is an important part of your overall marketing strategy. Monitoring competition gives prompt and suitable information about competitors in a short time, improves business responsiveness and gives better knowledge of potential threats from both already established competition and newly entered businesses.

The following should be monitored when carrying out a competitors monitoring:

Pricing strategies

It helps businesses use competition based pricing strategies. It is the prices charged by competitors which are a major influence on business’ prices. The business can either use the going rate pricing which is choosing a price broadly in line with the competition. Or the business can use the destroyer pricing strategy which involves cutting prices for a long time to drive out completion.

Marketing strategies

It helps you to respond to rival marketing campaigns with your own initiatives. You can also use this knowledge to create marketing strategies that take benefit of your competitors’ weaknesses and boost your business performance.

Social media

Social media presence is a great deal these days. It will help you closely monitor both the current and future activities of the business and how engaging are they with their customers.

How to recognize who your competitors are?

Every business faces competition. Competition is no longer limited to any geographical area but the world is becoming global means you are competing businesses from other countries. You should not only think about direct competitions but indirect competitions.

• Direct competitors are those businesses that offer a similar product like yours.
• Indirect competitors are those businesses that provide different products but target similar needs.

In order to understand your market, you need to look out for what your competitors are up to. The number of your companies you monitor will depend on your business’ budget. In order to be certain that you get the extensive information, you can choose a couple of businesses from both categories. Knowing who your competitors will give you a competitive edge.

How to monitor your competitors?

To be a successful business you have a keen eye on what your competitors are doing. That surely doesn’t mean you should do anything unethical with the information. After you’ve established who your competitors are, you can begin to monitor and analyze.

There a number of ways in which you can monitor your competition which is also provided by competitive monitoring agencies.

Price Monitoring

You should always keep track of your competitors’ products prices. Mainly because you must exit on the market with the lower price to gain the customers but is not the only reason. You could also use the competitor price monitoring to better understand your competitor’s pricing strategy or market positioning and predict his business life, because nobody can sell underpriced products for too long.

There are plenty of services offering a Price Monitoring service but only few are so well done an readable that could really help you, here some links:

• PRICEFY – Free up to 100 products – From 99$ to 499$

• COMPETERA – Price on demand

• INTELLIGENCE NODE – Price on demand

• PRICEGRID – Price on demand

Social Media Monitoring

Every business tends to have a social media handles. Giving them a follow and subscribing all their social media handles will give in a great insight. Social media serves a huge part in the running of the business. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. acts as a bridge between business and both the customers and potential customers.

Majority companies usually release different and unique kind of promotional strategies on their social media handles in order to engage consumers. So if you don’t follow their social media accounts, you may be left behind as a business. It also helps you in gaining knowledge regarding the relationship they share with their consumers, how they position themselves in the market. It will also help you learn that what kind of strategies were successful and what led to major losses that will enable you to avoid similar mistakes.

You can also look out for any hashtags by them that are trending. Hashtags are a popular method to create a trend in the social world. It raises awareness within the market and indulges the consumers in having discussions about the brand which in turn helps generate more sales and consequently profits

Some of most famous services that help you track your competitor’s social media activities:

• HOOTSUITE – Free up to 10 social media profiles – From 19$ to 499$

• COMPYTE – Price on demand

• HOWSOCIABLE – From 9$ to 99$

SEO Monitoring

Every business is now caught on to the significance of a good SEO strategy by now. SEO is competitive by its nature. In order to be number one, you need to knock your competitor down. In order to get ahead of your competitors, you need to look out for the keywords they’re targeting and backlinks they are generating.

Business SEO essentially, and its most basic form, means the business’s ability in achieving a greater rank in search engine return results. This is important because the greater the rank of a business is on the returned results list, the more likely it is that those searching will click on the result link. A click may not exactly mean profit, but it surely increases the chances of this occurring in comparison to those competitors that fall short of their ranking.

SEO is determined by several different factors, aspects, rules. Different aspects like keyword usage and web content come together and help to create the rankings that are extremely important to a business. If you leave it inactive or neglect it will only lead to potential problems in the future.

Some of most famous services that help you track your competitor’s SEO progress:

• SEOMOZ – From 99$ to 599$

• WOORANK – From 49$ to 299$

• SERENKING – From 5$ to 139$

Advertisement Monitoring

Another important aspect of monitoring is to monitor advertisements. You should track both social, and media advertisements of competitors and other all other forms of advertisement on the internet of either goods, services or any promotions as that can be a threat to your business since it may take away your customers.

Also, you can know what kind of advertisements generate great results and which site for advertisement is most profitable. You may not just only be able to compete with your competition but also help in knowing the changing trends and choices of the market. It will help prevent you product going outdated. As important it is to understand and identify your consumer needs and wants, it is also important to understand your competition in the market

Some of most famous services that help you track your competitor’s SEM campaigns:

Social Media Monitoring

Every business tends to have a social media handles. Giving them a follow and subscribing all their social media handles will give in a great insight. Social media serves a huge part in the running of the business. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. acts as a bridge between business and both the customers and potential customers.

Majority companies usually release different and unique kind of promotional strategies on their social media handles in order to engage consumers. So if you don’t follow their social media accounts, you may be left behind as a business. It also helps you in gaining knowledge regarding the relationship they share with their consumers, how they position themselves in the market. It will also help you learn that what kind of strategies were successful and what led to major losses that will enable you to avoid similar mistakes.

You can also look out for any hashtags by them that are trending. Hashtags are a popular method to create a trend in the social world. It raises awareness within the market and indulges the consumers in having discussions about the brand which in turn helps generate more sales and consequently profits

Some of most famous services that help you track your competitor’s social media activities:

• HOOTSUITE – Free up to 10 social media profiles – From 19$ to 499$

• COMPYTE – Price on demand

• HOWSOCIABLE – From 9$ to 99$

SEO Monitoring

Every business is now caught on to the significance of a good SEO strategy by now. SEO is competitive by its nature. In order to be number one, you need to knock your competitor down. In order to get ahead of your competitors, you need to look out for the keywords they’re targeting and backlinks they are generating.

Business SEO essentially, and its most basic form, means the business’s ability in achieving a greater rank in search engine return results. This is important because the greater the rank of a business is on the returned results list, the more likely it is that those searching will click on the result link. A click may not exactly mean profit, but it surely increases the chances of this occurring in comparison to those competitors that fall short of their ranking.

SEO is determined by several different factors, aspects, rules. Different aspects like keyword usage and web content come together and help to create the rankings that are extremely important to a business. If you leave it inactive or neglect it will only lead to potential problems in the future.

Some of most famous services that help you track your competitor’s SEO progress:

• SEOMOZ – From 99$ to 599$

• WOORANK – From 49$ to 299$

• SERENKING – From 5$ to 139$

Advertisement Monitoring

Another important aspect of monitoring is to monitor advertisements. You should track both social, and media advertisements of competitors and other all other forms of advertisement on the internet of either goods, services or any promotions as that can be a threat to your business since it may take away your customers.

Also, you can know what kind of advertisements generate great results and which site for advertisement is most profitable. You may not just only be able to compete with your competition but also help in knowing the changing trends and choices of the market. It will help prevent you product going outdated. As important it is to understand and identify your consumer needs and wants, it is also important to understand your competition in the market

Some of most famous services that help you track your competitor’s SEM campaigns:

• SEMRUSH From 99$ to 399$

• SERPSTAT From 19$ to 299$

• SPYFU From 33$ to 299$

Exploring their websites

A company’s website gives out a whole lot of information about the business. By visiting your competitor’s website, you can analyze their strengths, weaknesses and the mistakes they are making. It will give you information on how you can enhance your website either in terms of options, outlook or some changes in data.

Viewing your competitor’s website is also a great way to collect information regarding the launch of any new products, any advanced changes they are making, special promotional strategies like discounts and complementary products. Also taking a look at their job section will tell you about in what areas they are planning growth

Sign up for the newsletter of your competitor

Many businesses make it easy for just about anyone to sign up and receive newsletters via email. Most websites link up to a sign up on their social media pages or on their website.

A great way to receive your competitor’s non-newsletter through emails (such as their lifecycle series, signup or other transactional emails, or purchase confirmations,) is to either make a small purchase or to sign up for a free trial so that you are considered a new customer. Be aware, though; some clever companies might “blacklist” competitor work email addresses.

When you receive emails from your competitors, it can help you see things from the perspective of a consumer within your industry. You can also get a good idea regarding the tone of the letter, creative outlook and offers you should include in your email, and which ones you should totally avoid. To consider a point of view or positioning that might either be similar or different to your opinion is always interesting.

Becoming a customer

Becoming a customer may give you an insight of your competitor which no other source can. You can make a small purchase through their online shopping facility. Look at their checkout process, know about their shipping policy and charges.

Also, see how the packaging of the product is when you receive it. You can also visit their stores and notice how the system their works, the staff policies and how they deal with customers

Giving your competitors a call

Almost every business has a customer support service. Giving them a call will further help you in monitoring your competition and will give an insight into the company. Through this, you can find out the pricing policy of your customers and how well they can convince their interested customers into buying their goods and services.

Moreover, the best part of this kind of monitoring is that you can get any kind of information on the phone. It may be time-consuming but is cost-effective

Establishing friendly relationships with a competitor

You can establish yourself as a friendly competitor so that you are able to learn from established businesses in your industry. Some experienced entrepreneurs wouldn’t mind offering advice to new business owners.

You will be able to feel out from your first introductions to see who is willing to form a relationship. After you’ve established a good relationship with some competitors, you can create an arrangement that is beneficial to both parties.

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is a type of marketing in which focus of the business is set on influential people instead of the target market as a whole. It recognizes such individuals that have great influence on the potential market and focuses promotional strategies around these influencers. Influencer marketing is now a key strategy for successful businesses.

There are chances that your competition has already reached out to influential people to help endorse their business. These could be paid advertisements (like endorsements), a favor for a favor, or simply because of the influencers like the product. These influencers could be industry bloggers, reviewers or just popular social media accounts. By looking out for these people, you can make sure if they’re aware of your products and services. They may be happy to indulge you once they get to know about your business.

Who should monitor competitors?

In today’s time when every field has become competitive and time can cost a lot to the business monitoring has become a necessity for businesses. With quickly changing trends and consumers changing tastes, it has become a lot of hard work for a business to keep track. A business cannot afford to lag behind but has to have a competitive edge in order to survive.

A business has a variety of options to choose from to do monitoring and can choose the most effective or whatever suits their budget. If you are unable to keep up with your competitors or ignore them, it may take a very short time to cost your business.

• All kinds of businesses should monitor their competitors no matter what their size i

• A small business can monitor other small businesses that share same geographical area.

• The larger businesses have a greater amount of competition hence extensive monitoring required

What things can you do with your competitor insights?

Once you have collected all the required data you just don’t sit on it rather should start working on it immediately. Below mentioned are some things you can do to bring your information to effective use.

Create a list of the PR media

Analyzing the information about the competitors’ PR approach you will know the influencers they hired to position their brand at a higher level. With that, you will be able to know which are the best influencers and agencies which you can hire in future.

Identify their marketing strategy

When you analyze a brand’s marketing strategies, you get to know what they release at what time and how successful they are in engaging their customers or how often their brand reaches a wider market and creates a stir in the market. Through this, you will know what ways work the best and what creates major losses that you should avoid in future

Collecting product feedback

Every business collects feedback. If a product doesn’t come out good, the consumer sure will put in a negative review of the brand which will enable you to find loopholes in your competitor’s product. Consequently, you are making your product secure from such faults.

FAQs about Competitors Monitoring

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