Skip to page content or Skip to Accesskey List.

Work

Main Page Content

Seeking Intelligence Online Competitive Research

Rated 3.05 (Ratings: 4)

Want more?

 
Picture of ideahamster

troy janisch

Member info

User since: 08 Jul 2002

Articles written: 17

Finding online information

about your competitors is easy - the difficult part is finding meaning.

When researching the competition, you can avoid pitfalls by seeking

'intelligence' instead of 'information'.

The difference between

'information' and 'intelligence' is twofold: purpose and process.

Having a purpose and a process for gathering information ensures that

the results will be useful - instead of merely informative.

A well-defined purpose allows

you to search the Internet broadly and deeply without drowning

in a flood of marginal information.

The process for gathering good

competitive intelligence is straightforward: identify industry/market

trends and competitors; define your questions; find the answers;

analyze the results; and act on them.

The process begins with a wide

search of the Internet to define trends in your industry/market and

competitors.

Useful

resources include search engines, newspapers, business journals, and

trade press and online newsletters. Consider resources such as title="opens in a new window" href="http://www.newsisfree.com"

target="popup">NewsIsFree

and other topical news 'clipping' sites. href="http://www.prnewswire.com" title="opens in a new window"

target="popup">PR

Newswire and title="opens in a new window" target="popup">Business

Wire
can be useful sources for

news releases and competitive PR.

Beginning with a broad

industry/market search decreases the likelihood that you'll overlook

potential competitors and non-competing businesses in the industry that

may pose as sources of benchmarking, market insight and inspiration.

Once you've identified trends

and competitors, you can identify the questions you want to answer

about your competitors. Finding competitors' identities, pricing,

plans, strengths, weaknesses, suppliers and customers play a very

important part in formulating an effective business strategy.

Finding answers often begin at

a competitor's own web site. When visiting competitors' web sites look

beyond product/service information. You can also learn by viewing a

competitor's employment opportunities, organization chart, supplier and

vendor lists, and press releases.

  • Explore

    their news/press area.

    Often, you can download their press kit or add your personal email

    address to their email subscription list.
  • Search engines make it easy

    to

    find PowerPoint presentations, speeches and white papers. Use search

    terms such as .ppt,

    .doc

    and .pdf
  • Topics such as Investor

    Relations often include annual reports (even for private companies).
  • Forms that ask "How did you

    hear about us?" provide a list of locations where the company is

    spending marketing dollars.

After you've explored a

competitor's web site, use other web sites to learn about their

organization. Conduct keyword searches on search engines, public

records sites, discussion groups and blogs.

Notable

sites:

These

represent only a handful

of sites that are useful for gathering competitive intelligence. Based

on your industry, competitors, questions and creativity, it is possible

to find a wide selection of useful online/offline resources.

According to the title="opens in a new window">Society

of Competitive Intelligence Professionals,

more than 95% of information that is required for gathering competitive

intelligence is publicly available from open sources.

Troy Janisch is president and founder of Icon Interactive™, an industry leader helping companies integrate Internet and other Interactive media into sales channels, marketing strategies, and overall branding. He can be contacted by email at tjanisch@iconinteractive.com.

The access keys for this page are: ALT (Control on a Mac) plus:

evolt.org Evolt.org is an all-volunteer resource for web developers made up of a discussion list, a browser archive, and member-submitted articles. This article is the property of its author, please do not redistribute or use elsewhere without checking with the author.