Learning from your competitors (2/2)

In part one we discussed the importance of competitor intelligence for developing clear and differentiated messaging and communications for your marketing campaigns.

Our methodology

The service that we offer includes an independent study and comparison of a range of companies’ communications to determine what messages and brand values you and your competitors are projecting to customers and prospects in your markets.

We keep the research project short, sharp, and relevant to your immediate needs. For each of your key competitors and for your own company, we:

• Review served market segments
• Perform a target audience analysis
• Explore key communications objectives
• Explore projected differentiation
• Explore key product and service attributes
• Take a look at web strategy

A bottom-up approach

The competitor information that we collect is publicly available, obtained through ethical means – largely through web research. Essentially, the approach that we take is bottom-up: we review marketing materials, key messages, partners, frequency and content of press releases, positioning, web rankings and other salient materials to identify each player’s positioning.

If appropriate, we also develop a strategic view of where each company is now and where it thinks it’s going. We use simple but effective tools to analyse and interpret the information, providing a strategic inference on each competitor’s strategy and direction.

An outside view

Providing you have the expertise, it is of course possible for you to perform your own competitive communication analysis in-house. However, an outside independent view is more likely to provide a straightforward and substantiated view that will help you and your management team to see things in a different light.

 

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