Now more than ever it’s vital to adapt your services, marketing, and proposition to the evolving needs of your consumers or clients. It’s time to be agile, innovate, and learn from competitors.
I’m working with a media client and in just a few weeks we have seen several new entrances launch into this space. These new companies potentially bring with them a new perspective and different ways of communicating their services. By getting visibility of these players it’s created healthy internal debate and accelerated positive transformation.
So it is definitely the time to review your competitors and open your horizons.
Here are a few of my top tips and tools.
1.Firstly don’t just revert to your usual list of competitors, the landscape has changed. Consider companies that a) target the same consumers/customers b) offer the same or similar products c) That have similar challenges to your clients.
2. Websites are the shop windows, review services & tools, tone of voice, and processes. This information gives you significant insight into positioning, allows you to differentiate your services as well as consider new tools & services.
3) What is their sales strategy, understands how they are initiating a relationship, how do they collect data. Can you download a White paper, set up a Demo, request a newsletter? What can you learn and implement?
4) Experience; how do they explain and demonstrate the value they have added and who have they done this for.
5) Content; What type of content do they publish. Blogs, whitepapers, surveys, or culture pieces. Buzzsumo (Free tool) is useful to show most shared posts, so you can get inspiration for your posts and better ideas of the kind of content that resonates with your target audience.
6) Social Media performance. What are they posting, how are they posting and how frequently? A great tool for this is Rival IQ which has a 14-day free trial.
7) Set up an on-going competitor monitor with the tools suggested or just a google search.
A competitor review is a key element of any Strategy so if you need help with your strategy to “Join Up The Dots” between marketing and new business, to deliver new leads, loyal clients, and new talent, please get in touch.
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