Ever wonder what your competitors are up to?
You should. They might be creating new products, planning to enter new markets -- or maybe they're floundering. If you knew, it could give you an edge.
Uncovering competitive information doesn't require donning a trench coat or hiring a computer hacker. There are plenty of perfectly legal ways to get below-the-radar competitive information.
Here are some time-tested methods that predate the Internet, as well as newer techniques to mine the wealth of information readily accessible online.
Related: Five Ways Your Business Can Grab Market Share Today
Old School
1. Read the local papers. Subscribe to the daily newspaper and business weekly in the cities where your primary competitors are based. You'll be surprised what competitors might say when they think they're just talking to a small, local audience.
"I cannot tell you the information we've gotten this way, in regular articles, about inventory, staffing, new plants and expansion plans," says Seena Sharp, Los Angeles-based principal at Sharp Market Intelligence. For instance, one of Sharp's clients in the garden-products industry learned exactly how a plant fire had affected a competitor, the capacity of the rebuilt plant and the marketing plan for the next year, all from a local newspaper. With this knowledge, the client crafted a strategy that countered the competitor's efforts and increased the client's market share.
2. Tap your vendors. Product suppliers and service providers talk regularly with all their clients. If you're on good terms with your vendors, Sharp says, chat them up and see what you can get them to spill about your competitors. Don't be pushy, though. Keep the conversation casual.
3. Go to trade shows. You can stand near competitors' booths at a busy time when it's easy to blend in with the crowd and eavesdrop on what they tell prospects. New initiatives often are announced at shows, Sharp notes and chatty salespeople may reveal details. If you think you'll be recognized, send an employee or friend to listen.
4. Take a plant tour. For manufacturing competitors, see if the plant gives tours. Sharp says tour guides often brag about new products, new hires and expansion plans.
5. Play secret shopper. If competitors have stores, stroll the aisles and observe whether employees are responsive and facilities are clean--or shelves are empty and store phones go unanswered. Call the order line, too, so you can evaluate customer service, advises Sean Campbell, principal at competitive-research firm Cascade Insights in Oregon City, Ore.
6. Browse public documents. Publicly held companies must file reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Sharp also likes to read filings with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Patent and Trademark Office and local planning commissions to learn of building expansions and new products. Check with other state and federal agencies for signs of trouble such as tax liens, and comb legal filings for unexpected disclosures.
Related: Three Ways to Find an Edge in a Crowded Market
New School
7. Google your competitor's website. You can reveal hidden pages by doing Google searches such as: "filetype: doc site: companyname," says August Jackson, a senior competitive intelligence analyst for Ernst & Young in McLean, Va. http://www.ey.com/ Change the file type to .pdf, .xls, or .ppt to turn up data or presentations. "It's surprising how many companies put this information up and think, ‘If I don't link to it, no one will find it,'" Jackson says. You also can view the site's source code to see the meta-tags or key words being used to optimize its position in searches.
8. Explore LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, you can sign up to follow a company and get notices when updates are posted on its LinkedIn page. You also can search a company's name on LinkedIn to find former employees and new hires, Jackson says. Salespeople may identify and brag about their clients on their personal LinkedIn page updates. If you're worried the company might recognize and block you, ask a colleague to follow the page.
9. Troll Twitter and Facebook chatter. If members of your industry hang out on Facebook, monitor their conversations. Music-rights agent Jennifer Yeko, president of True Talent Management in Beverly Hills, Calif., says she gets the scoop on the clients her competitors sign and the royalty rates they offer from posts made by her Facebook friends.
Many events have a Twitter hashtag that people use to chat and post speakers' comments live. If a competitor is speaking, tune in. Jackson has had success asking follow-up questions by responding and using the same hashtag.
10. Find competitors' job ads. Job portal Indeed is a great place for sussing out postings because it aggregates listings from many online job boards. Watch the skills a company may be hiring for; they're a leading indicator for new initiatives, says Campbell of Cascade Insights.
"We had a client curious about which American wireless carriers would offer Android phones," he says. "Just looking at job listings you could see who was trying to hire people with Android experience."
11. See Who's on Quora. Popular with techies and venture capitalists, Quora holds a vast database of interesting competitive questions on such topics as a company's future plans. Often, company employees provide the answers, Campbell notes, and they generally reply using their true identities, unlike people on most Q&A sites.
12. Check Slideshare. Companies frequently use this popular portal to share slideshow presentations but forget to take them down, Jackson says. Presentations to potential investors, for example, may contain financial data, forecasts and information about new projects.
One note of warning: When researching online, be sure to consider the source. There are plenty of half-truths, gossip and misinformation online.
Related: What's a Competitive Advantage for a Young Entrepreneur?
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Comments:
all of 12 ways for Ways to (Legally) Spy on Your Competitors are very effective.
Great summary, and I'd like to add two points: First, before looking for sources of information regarding competitors, I think any business needs to make sure it asks the right questions. If you know what the question is, then the places to find the answer also immediately emerge. Second, there are also other very agreeable sources of information, some of the most powerful of which are company employees - and managers in particular - needing to boast about their accomplishments. Conferences, exhibitions, written case studies, appearances on various talk shows and TV interviews, loud chats with colleagues in public places like airports, and similar events can make for a wealth of information. One variation of this is academic case studies: If your competitor has any staff that study further and need to submit a paper or a thesis, for the price of a library membership at a decent business school you can have access to an enormous amount of data - all analysed on your behalf. (It doesn't matter how many times the word "Confidential" is stamped on the front cover: the information in the paper or thesis is available for a small effort.) Finally, I also like looking for competitor intelligence from all entities associated with the company: customers are a good source of information, but so are suppliers, especially disgruntled suppliers, love to talk about their experiences. Consultants love to collect information, and never mind the NDAs that they may have signed, they also like to "share" information to show you how clever they are. Spouses, children and friends of employees can also inadvertently share critical data. And, of course, past-employees, particularly those that left involuntarily, will also share good data if properly prodded. Good article.
that is a good one :)
Interesting tool! Do you have other tools you could recommend??
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Many local papers are also online so it's easy to see what is being written about a company.
Yeah! That column on new hires is always great for seeing who's hiring interesting people.
There are still many weekly business journals, and they are not dying out. Many small local ones, too, and they cover local biz in great depth. I used to write for one, so I know they can be a great resource! We should probably amend that to include reading your local Patch entries, and whatever other online local-news sources you have. Local news websites are springing up everywhere, and sometimes they've got interesting stuff.
Thanks for adding another resource -- I haven't used that one...yet.
Gotcha
Great post! It not only breaks it into new media techniques but also old school techniques that most of us forget are available to us. Great insight, thanks!
Good tips about how to spy on competitors legally in the business. I hope this post would be more helpful in getting some idea about developing our business. Nice informative post.
This was very interesting and insightful. Many of these ideas were completely new to me!
Very interesting post! To identify new competitors that you might not know about yet, check this post: Tune Your Radar: How to Find Competitors Online http://t.co/me4TvZYy
Very intresting post in deed. I discovered some documents of one particular company I was interested in using the google filetype: operator. Great reading, nice findings!
Well there are about 2500 local papers and many of them can be digitally monitored for detecting business opportunities: new school, new hospital, building upgrade, land acquisition, police/fire station upgrade, hiring ...
Though I spend most of my time on the web (I'm a research ferret) I do read the local business section (i.e. Jan Norman's column, and the column about who moved to another company, got promoted, etc.) to get information. Then I'll go online to sites like Yelp to find out more.
Great article--thanks! Also, try Strategator (http://www.strategator.com) - to see what they've posted or where they've been featured online. It's Google Alerts on steroids!
Wait a minute. "Read the local papers." There are no "local papers" anymore. They're dying so fast, no one knows what to do anymore.
Great tricks in this post. Thanks to the authors. Indeed the Internet contains a LOT of information that has never so easy to access. I am looking forward to reading the next article describing when/how often those searches should be run, for how many companies, products and how those piece of information can be put together. I feel access to information is no longer the big issue for competitive intelligence professionals but rather its aggregation and its analysis.
wow!! top notch information!! I think that searching google and twitter and facebook and quora You will find a better article than this!
13. Check their back link profile.
You can use "PureAnalyzer" (Social Media MArketing Tool) for Competitor, and Competitor Prduct Analysis
Good suggestions all. I dig deeply into LinkedIn Groups which might focus on the competitor's technology or industry. Q&A on LI can be a real goldmine too. Sometimes people even share their phone number on LI. I also like to tap a company's customers for competitor intelligence. Win/Loss interviews with customers/prospects can render great information, and are an ongoing source of current and relevant intelligence.
I almost put that in the story! The expert said, "And after you do it on the competition, then do it on your own site, and start pulling things down!"
Great list of 12 007 spy tactics. I especially like No. 10. Find competitors' job ads because it's watching the skills a company may be hiring for; they're a leading indicator for new initiatives. Please keep your great ideas coming... Sandy Barris Fast Marketing Plan.com http://www.FastMarketingPlan.com
Couldn't agree more Ed, but unfortunately 'spying' certainly grabs more reader attention than 'competitive intelligence'. Semantics aside, there are some great ideas here to keep abreast of the competition.
Google alerts...
Note to self: Do a google search with my business name and file types to see what documents I may have unknowingly made public.
The term 'spying' is critically misplaced in this article. Competitive Intelligence is a process of analysis and is not spying.
great tips. especially, checking file types cos people put up stuff they don't know
Knowing what your competition is doing is very important and can be the difference between success or failure. Do not focus too much attention on the competition and not on your own operations but just enough to stay well informed and capable of maneuvering past their tactics. http://entrepreneurialambitions.com/2011/10/25/know-thy-competition/ entrepreneurialambitions.com
Excellent article! Some of the points like google search ,local papers , also the effective use of linkedin and all these points made so aware for such things that i missed to observe for. And for any organisation it is necessary to know the strategies and plans of the competitor to be ahead in every thing than the competitor and this way to attract people first to us by new things and to drive more success. Thanks for sharing this best information.
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