No matter what type of business you run, you will have competitors. Even if you have a business in a small town, chances are someone there is courting the same customers as you. Have you ever thought that it would be helpful to know what your competitors are doing to attract customers? You can go into their shop and look around, but that won't help you understand what brings customers to their door. What will help, however, is spying on them online.
Why you should spy on the competition
Manche Geschäftsinhaber schrecken vor der Idee zurück, ihre Konkurrenten auszuspionieren. Das Wort „Spionage“ kann einen negativen Beigeschmack haben, aber in dieser Situation muss es das nicht. Wenn Sie einen Konkurrenten hätten, der im Fernsehen wirbt, würden Sie sicherlich nicht weglaufen oder Ihre Augen verbergen, wenn dessen Werbespots ausgestrahlt werden. Im Gegenteil, Sie würden sie höchstwahrscheinlich mit großem Interesse verfolgen. Sie würden wissen wollen, was er sagt und an wen er sich wendet. Ihre Konkurrenten online auszuspionieren unterscheidet sich nicht von der Beobachtung ihrer Werbespots oder der Beachtung ihrer Anzeigen in der Lokalzeitung. Es ist eine Möglichkeit, sie zu bewerten. Es kann Ihnen nicht nur helfen zu verstehen, wer Ihre Konkurrenten sind, sondern es kann Ihnen auch helfen, Chancen zu erkennen, die sie vielleicht verpassen. Lassen Sie uns ein Beispiel betrachten. Stellen Sie sich vor, Ihre Konkurrenz hat eine Facebook-Seite mit einer großen Fangemeinde. Wenn Sie sich die Seite ansehen, stellen Sie jedoch fest, dass es dort einige Kundendienstbeschwerden gibt, die nicht bearbeitet wurden. Was sagt Ihnen das? Es bedeutet, dass das Unternehmen die sozialen Medien nicht nutzt, um die Erfahrungen seiner Kunden zu verbessern. Diese Beobachtung kann eine Chance für Sie sein. Ein guter Kundenservice auf Ihrer Facebook-Seite kann Ihnen helfen, sich von der Konkurrenz abzuheben. Das Ausspionieren Ihrer Konkurrenten kann Ihnen nicht nur beim Aufspüren von Marketingmöglichkeiten helfen:
- Understand how they want to be perceived online
- How they stand out from the competition (that means from you!)
- What their future plans are
- How much traffic your website and social media pages receive
- How committed your customers are
- What her customers say about her
The above information can help you better reach your customers and stand out from the competition - and the only way to get it is to spy on your competitors. If you need an extra incentive, remember that there's a good chance your competitors are already spying on you! You might as well return the favour.
Tools that help you spy on the competition
It may seem time-consuming to spy on your competitors online, but it doesn't have to be. You can take the time to gather some basic information yourself and then utilise the dozens of useful tools available to make your job easier. Collecting basic information To spy on your competitors, you first need to gather some basic information. For example:
- The URL of the company's website
- The address of their Facebook page
- Your Twitter handle
- The keywords they are targeting on their website
Once you have this basic information, you can use it to set up automatic monitoring. There are a variety of tools you can use, and many of them are free. Here are some of the most useful:
- Google Alerts is a free tool from Google. It allows you to set up alerts and receive an email every time one of your competitors is mentioned online. You can also use it to monitor keywords if you wish.
- SocialMention is a free search tool that allows you to find out when your competitors are mentioned in social media, blogs and videos. You can use it to search for the names of your competitors or keywords. You also have the option of subscribing to an RSS feed for your chosen search terms so that you don't miss anything.
- Marketing Grader is another free tool that assigns you (or your competitor) a score based on how successful your online marketing efforts are. It's particularly useful because it pulls information from multiple sources to determine the score, including blogging, SEO and social media.
- MonitorBacklinks is a paid tool, but a free trial period is offered. You can use it to check your competitors' backlinks - an important tool for SEO - and while you're at it, you can check your own too!
- Topsy is a free tool that allows you to track your competitors' activity on Twitter and other sources back to 2006. There is also a premium option that allows you to monitor links, videos, photos and industry influencers.
- SEMRush is another free tool that gives you a wealth of information about your competitors' websites. It provides you with data on keywords, search rankings, keyword traffic and ad performance. Even better, all the data is presented in an appealing graphical format, making it easy to read and analyse.
- SpyOnWeb is a free tool that allows you to track down all your competitors' websites. Some companies have blogs or secondary websites, and with SpyOnWeb you can track the sites by IP address so you can connect the dots.
These are just some of the tools you can use to spy on your competitors. Of course, it can also be helpful to do some of your spying yourself. You can learn a lot by following your competition on Twitter or Facebook or subscribing to their blog's RSS feed. Most importantly, the more information you have, the better you can differentiate yourself from the competition. As a local business owner, you know that you are competing for the same customers and sometimes you don't have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to online marketing. Sometimes you can turn your competitors' good ideas into profits for your own company with a little clever spying.
Deutsch 
English (UK)