The following are two very practical methods to collect information about a specific competitor.
The first is to ask about competitors through customers with whom you have a good relationship. It would be even better if you can get the company manuals and product samples of competitors through customers, so that you can learn more about competitors from the manuals and competitors’ products, even including the price information of competitors.
The second is to search through the Internet. When using the Internet to conduct competitive research, the first thing we need to do is to determine the most commonly used English keywords for the product, and then search on major search engines. Currently, the three major search engines are Google, Yahoo! and MSN. I am used to using Google. Our search targets are mainly the websites of manufacturers, the websites of agents/sellers, and the websites of newspapers, magazines and other media and exhibitions where competitors do market promotion.
After finding these websites, we can find various information such as the functions, characteristics, technical specifications, prices, etc. of competing products, and understand how competitors do market promotion. Please save these URLs. We should visit these websites frequently in the future to understand the dynamics of competitors. If we only use product keywords when searching, we may find millions or even tens of millions of web links. It is impossible and unnecessary for us to open all the web pages. Generally speaking, it is enough to open the first 100 web links, among which there must be many websites we need.
In order to make the search more purposeful, we can directly search the manufacturer’s website. At this time, the keywords should be the product keywords plus the words indicating the manufacturer, such as manufacturer, producer, supplier or vendor. Some competitors put their agent information around the world on the company website, so we don’t have to search hard. Some competitors do not disclose agent information on their websites, so we can directly search their agent/seller’s website. At this time, the keywords should be the name of a competitor’s product plus price or sales.
As for the websites of newspapers, magazines and other media and exhibitions where competitors do market promotion, it is also easy for us to search. Let’s first study how to determine which printed newspapers and magazines our competitors have advertised in. The first step is to search for newspapers and magazines related to our industry, and then contact them to tell them that we plan to advertise, but we must first understand whether our competitors have advertised in them.
Generally speaking, they are happy to answer our questions and will even send us the issue of the newspaper or magazine where the competitor is advertising. Some newspaper and magazine websites provide a search function, and we can enter general product keywords and product model keywords to search to see if there are any traces of competitors there. Competitors now also like to advertise on search engines, so we have to search for general product keywords on several major search engines to see if there are any competitor ads in the advertising area.
It is even easier to investigate the exhibitions that competitors participate in. They generally list on their websites which exhibitions they will participate in each year, and some will even retain information about exhibitions they participated in in previous years. In addition, you can also get some information by searching for “Competitor Name + Exhibition”. On the websites of these exhibitions, we may also find some other competitors, potential customers or partners.