5 ways to learn your competitor’s secrets

This sort of article always generates a decent response. Many people don’t feel that it’s the right thing to do – learning from your competitors that is.

I’d suggest that you need to know how your competitor works, how they generate their business, what their price structure is, etc as part of any decent business strategy.

You need to know what your competitor is doing…..so you can beat them!

1. Check out their web site – most businesses (especially Business to Business places) proudly have a list of their customers on their web site. Here’s where you learn what market segment they attack.

2. Make a note of all their marketing – each time you notice your competitor’s marketing, make a note. Before long you’ll have an excellent idea of their main marketing strategies.

3. Ring them up/visit them/buy from them – our ‘Mystery Shopper’ forays (that we do on behalf of clients) always provide us with fantastic information. Try it on your competitors and you’ll soon learn what they are good at (and not so good at).

4. Flyers onto cars/billboards/sign written car out the front – a true guerrilla tactic. Let’s say you have a business selling wide screen TVs. Take a billboard ad as close as possible to your competitors place of business with the wording:

“Don’t buy a widescreen TV until you check our super low prices out!”

You’ll get well qualified prospects after they have checked out the competition.

5. Survey their customers – take that list from the web site and contact all of their customers that you can. Ask the question “How did you first hear about [whatever the service/product]?”

Within an hour you’ll know exactly how your competition attracts their customers.

Learning about your competitors is a fundamental aspect of business strategy. Once you are aware of their strengths and weaknesses, then you can develop your own strategy to be different and more effective.

Cheers,