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
Some business owners shy away from the idea of spying on their competitors. The word "spying" can have a negative connotation, but in this situation it doesn't have to. If you had a competitor advertising on TV, you certainly wouldn't run away or cover your eyes when their adverts were broadcast. On the contrary, you would most likely watch them with great interest. You would want to know what he is saying and who he is addressing. Spying on your competitors online is no different from watching their commercials or paying attention to their adverts in the local paper. It's a way to evaluate them. Not only can it help you understand who your competitors are, but it can also help you recognise opportunities they may be missing. Let's look at an example. Imagine your competition has a Facebook page with a large following. However, when you look at the page, you notice that there are some customer service complaints that have not been addressed. What does that tell you? It means that the company is not using social media to improve their customers' experience. This observation can be an opportunity for you. Good customer service on your Facebook page can help you stand out from the competition. Spying on your competitors can not only help you identify marketing opportunities:
- 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.
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