How can you use competitive intelligence to assess your market position?

1 Define your goals and scope

Before you start collecting and analyzing CI data, you need to define your goals and scope. What are the key questions you want to answer? Who are your main competitors and what are their strategies? How do you measure your market share and growth? What are the external factors that affect your industry? By clarifying your objectives and boundaries, you can focus your efforts and resources on the most relevant and actionable information.

2 Collect and categorize data

The next step is to collect and categorize data from various sources, such as websites, social media, reviews, reports, surveys, interviews, and observations. You can use tools like Google Alerts, SimilarWeb, BuzzSumo, and SpyFu to automate and simplify this process. You should organize your data into four categories: product, price, promotion, and place. These are the four Ps of the marketing mix that influence your customers' decisions and perceptions.

3 Analyze and visualize data

Once you have collected and categorized your data, you need to analyze and visualize it to extract insights and patterns. You can use tools like Excel, Tableau, Power BI, and Google Data Studio to create charts, graphs, tables, and dashboards that illustrate your findings. You should look for gaps, trends, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in your data and compare them with your competitors' data. You should also use metrics like market share, customer satisfaction, retention, and loyalty to evaluate your performance.

4 Communicate and act on findings

The final step is to communicate and act on your findings. You should share your results and recommendations with your stakeholders, such as managers, teams, and partners. You should use clear and concise language, visuals, and stories to convey your message and persuade your audience. You should also create and implement action plans based on your findings. You should monitor and measure the outcomes of your actions and adjust them as needed.

5 Update and improve your CI process

CI is not a one-time activity, but a continuous process that requires regular updates and improvements. You should keep track of the changes in your market, competitors, customers, and industry and update your data accordingly. You should also review and refine your goals, scope, methods, tools, and metrics to ensure that they are aligned with your current situation and objectives. You should seek feedback and learn from your successes and failures to enhance your CI skills and capabilities.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?