What is competitive intelligence?

Competitive Intelligence is a systematic program for gathering and analyzing information about your competitors’ activities and general business trends to further your own company’s objectives.  Competitive Intelligence can build market-share, launch new products, turn companies around, or destroy a competitor.

Competition is a fact of business life.  If you have a customer/client there is someone else trying to take them away from you.  If a prospect needs your product or service, someone else is trying to beat you to them.  New competitors are popping up all the time, and old competitors are constantly changing their products, strategies, pricing and advertising.

Does your company really know who the competition is?  Do you understand how to minimize those competitors’ strengths, and take advantage their marketing weaknesses?  The Competitive Intelligence report will show you how to “WIN”, in your market.  Circle 3 will evaluate your competitions strength in the marketplace… the main differences between your company and the major players in the industry.

We will probe after information such as:

How we evaluate each target company.

There are ten (10) dimensions that we use to evaluate the marketing of professional services. We took each marketing piece and evaluated on the following dimensions. The ranking of the competitors is based upon both the evaluations and the information gathered. Below is a summary of the points that we use.

• A measure of the use of platitudes
• The Marketing Equation
  • Attention
  • Interest
  • Desire
  • Action
• Does the message match the emotional situation of the prospect?
• The argument points
  • Expected Results
  • Customer Service
  • Affordability or Price
  • Guarantee

Some additional sources

The competitive research covers a wide range of competitors, and potential competitors. There are sources that are freely available that allow
gathering additional information. These are labor intensive, but the payoff is worth the work. Most if not all the sources listed here are online.
Here is the list of some of the additional sources:

1. Economic Census,
   i. http://www.census.gov/epcd/www/econ97.html
2. Harvard Business Online
   i. http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/home/index.jhtml?_requestid=9549
3. Advertising Age
   i. http://www.adage.com
4. FedStats
   i. http://www.fedstats.gov
5. Statistical Abstract of the United States
   i. http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-02.html

The steps of competitive intelligence

1. 1. List all direct competitors, gather all the possible sources of marketing
   • Lead Generators
     1. Print Ads
     • Faxes
     • Yellow Pages
     • Newspapers, both “Penny Savers” and popular
     • Magazines and Trade Journals
     • Flyers and Door Hangers
   2. Signage
      • In-Store
      • Billboards
      • Benches, Buses, other transport
   3. Broadcast
   • Television commercials
   • Radio ads
   4. Mail Pieces
   • Postcards
   • Letters
   5. Web or Blog
      • Social posts
      • Blog posts
      • Newsletters
      • Banner ads
      • Directory posts
   6. Marketing Tools
      • CDs
        • Audio
        • CD-ROMs
      • DVD
      • Video
        • Seminars
        • Reports
        • Websites
        • Samples
      • Scripts
        • Secretary
        • Sales
        • On-Hold
   1. Evaluate and Rate each marketing piece
   2. Summarize Results
   3. Perform the Competitive Intelligence Calls
      • Perform a “Shopping” Call to each competitor.
      • Perform an “Ad Survey” Call to each competitor.
   4. Summarize Results