From the course: Lead Generation Foundations (2019)

Know the competition

From the course: Lead Generation Foundations (2019)

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Know the competition

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- I always remind people, you can't operate in a vacuum. You need to understand the context of your product or service compared to the competition. We all can feel really excited to get our lead gen program going, you want to go to market and grow your business. That's totally understandable, but before you launch, make sure you've properly analyzed your competition. A competitive analysis helps you differentiate so you don't offer or communicate the exact same thing as everyone else. It highlights opportunities for you to stand out from the crowd and offer something better to prospects. One of the most informative ways to learn about competition is to become their customer. Yes, you heard me correctly. Be a customer of your competitor. See what it's like from that perspective. Walk in those shoes. See what that experience is like. Learn what your competition does well, or not well. You can discover lots of opportunities. You might learn how to improve your product or service, your website experience, or how your salespeople interact with leads at industry events. A competitive analysis may seem daunting, so let me share some ways you can access information easily. You probably already search online for information, but did you know that you can also set up search alerts? You can choose exactly which competitors to follow and how often to receive information. These alerts collect information from lots of sources, like articles, news, and customer reviews. Here are more ways to learn about your competition. Read their websites and ask, is information easy to find? What do they offer? Are their prices the same, or different than yours? Join their mailing list, or sign up for a free trial. Read their annual financial report, contact their customer service department with questions, join their online chats, or follow them in social media. A competitive analysis is only as good as it's actionable. After you've collected competitive information, analyze strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities. To learn more about my innovative way to approach this analysis, you can watch a chapter about identifying opportunities and anticipating future trends in my course about business-to-business marketing. To get started, go online and set up competitive alerts for your top five competitors. After a few weeks of reviewing this information, decide whether to leave your alert settings as-is, or if you should add or delete competitors, or change the frequency of how often you receive information.

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