The Relationship Between Competitive Intelligence & Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategies seek to accomplish several goals. The primary marketing goal is to increase sales, but behind this object there are several purposes just as vital to a company. Marketing allows a business to target a specific customer group, increasing its local market, and provide consumers with a business brand that defines their image and value offering. Competitive intelligence plays a vital role in how a business attempts to reach these goals.
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Competitive Intelligence
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Competitive intelligence is simply data regarding the plans and actions of competing businesses. Most companies would also add a caveat: Competitive intelligence is only the legal data collected on competitors, the data that can be accessed using such public sources as government records and the internet. Companies can learn a great deal about a competitor's direction and future strategies by studying how it is marketing, what products it is releasing and what prices it is setting, among many other types of data.
Meeting Customer Needs
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Competitor marketing can offer a business valuable clues. If a competitor appears to be marketing to a particular audience or age group, the business has reason to investigate further. It could be that these market group holds new opportunities that the business should also be capitalizing on. It also gives the business the ability to seek out customers that competitors are NOT targeting, arranging marketing initiatives so there is little overlap, and therefore fewer competing messages.
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Pricing Models
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Competitor prices also give a business important information. If a competitor is offering discounts that a business cannot hope to match, there is little good trying to market less valuable deals. Instead, the business should probably keep prices steady and focus on value. On the other hand, if the competitor is not using promotions or discounts, these strategies can be a vital part of the business's marketing plans to help it gain the upper hand.
Meeting Competitors Head-On
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If a business wants to attempt an aggressive marketing stance, it can meet competitor claims head-on. This type of marketing takes a claim made by a competitor and reveals that the claim is somehow false, or that the claim made by the marketing business is actually better. This can create an unhealthy negative marketing war, but when used correctly can also help to win over customers.
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