9 Surefire Tips To Conduct A Solid Competitive Research

Competition is out there, and other businesses are keen on capturing your customers too! The competition is simply cut-throat, and you need to devote considerable time to competitor analysis.

The benefits of competitor analysis are many. Apart from offering critical insights into the ways and practices of your competitors, it also helps you understand their behavior, which enables you to anticipate their upcoming moves. This keeps you ahead of your competition.

Today, when we look on the internet, the place is full of e-commerce sites, but top ecommerce sites remain at the top for a reason. They do extensive competitor analysis to develop their products and promotions.

Below are nine such tips regarding competitor analysis that can keep you ahead of the pack.

1. The first and obvious step that people take when doing competitor analysis today is a Google search.
   Yes, Google search can be an efficient tool for competition analysis, to begin with. But there are more tools available in the market to do the job. Resources like Google Trendz or Google Alerts can help you get insights that drive your competitor analysis to the next level.
2. Industry analysts do a lot of work that helps you leverage your competitor analysis to the next level. These are great and inexpensive resources available on the internet. At times you may have to pay for some of the detailed analysis. Be assured that they are worth your money and time. You can find more about where the market needs filling up and where demands are being created.
3. Social media is one of the best resources today to find things that would probably never show anywhere else. The trends of the market and customer perception can be easily understood from social media. By keeping a watch on tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram Posts, and similar social media handles, we can analyze the behavior of our competitors. Following review websites also provide insights.
4. Feedback from customers is a sure-fire way to learn many things about yourself and your competitors. Don’t miss the fact that your customers are the pillars of your business. What they say is critical to your success. When you gain a new customer, you should learn what they used earlier and why they left. This information can help you immensely.
5. Attending conferences, conventions, and industry trade shows offer you an opportunity to learn about your competitors and their offerings. These shows often have many competitors who set up their booths, and you can gain insights by watching them interact with the customers.
6. In the manufacturing industry, you can get some vital information about your competitors through the suppliers. More often than not, a single supplier caters to many businesses. This is a boon for competitor analysis. You may not get direct answers like what your competitors are ordering and in what quantity. But, you can definitely ask questions on the volume of materials you ordered and what new materials the supplier has in store. This will give you an idea about what your competitors are ordering. 
7. You can go a step further if you wish to and hire the employees of your competitor. It is a fact that no one knows better about a company than the employees of the company. If you onboard disgruntled employees of your competitor, especially from the sales team, you will surely get an abundance of vital information.
8. Keeping a watch on who your competitor is hiring can also help you in understanding their strategy. For example, if a competitor is hiring a sales manager, you should note which location they are hiring. There can be multiple such combinations that can give you critical insights into your competitor’s plans.
9. A survey about probable competition or a direct call to your competitor can be vital in getting the final bits of your jigsaw puzzle together as far as competitor analysis is concerned. This way, you can ask questions you feel that need to be answered. The more answers you get, the clearer your understanding of your competitors shall be.

With these nine ways, you can surely get a much better understanding of the competition. Once you have a clear competitor analysis report at your disposal, you can plan ways in which you can stay ahead of them.