Competitive intelligence, commonly abbreviated as “CI”, is a competitive strategy term that refers to the collection of information about your competitors and their strengths and weaknesses. CI information provides insights that you can use to gain an unfair advantage over them. Competition for top talent and customers can be fierce. The tools in this article will help you compete by using your competitors’ weaknesses against them to get ahead of the competition.
The Best Competitive Intelligence Tools Used by Leading Companies
1. NetBaseQuid
NetBaseQuid is an all-in-one social media and competitive intelligence software. It helps users find out what their competitors are saying about them so they can gain an advantage over them. NetBaseQuid tracks all social media activity from any competitor, using keywords and locations to quickly identify messages that are relevant to your business. It also offers an analysis of news articles related to your industry helping you easily identify top influencers in the market, competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, and potential partnerships.
2. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the largest professional social media site in the world. It’s a great place to find and follow your competitors, hone your professional skills, and keep up with industry news. LinkedIn provides you with access to over 1 million potential connections (who can be potential customers). By following your competitors’ pages on LinkedIn you can see what they’re up to, look at their resumes, and find new people to connect with. You can also see who is connected to your competitors and how you might position yourself to leverage these connections in your industry.
3. Oso Technologies
Oso Technologies provides real-time competitive intelligence, competitive analytics and predictive lead scoring that gives the world’s leading brands an unfair advantage over the competition across all industries. Oso helps its clients predict future customer behavior and build long-lasting, trustful customer relationships based on high-quality information.
How to Choose the Best Competitive Intelligence Tool
If you have access to a large database of information, tools that can analyze text on the web are good to have. If you don’t have this data, tools that can help you find the information are important. If you have limited data, an all-in-one database and analysis tool (like NetBaseQuid) is probably overkilling for your needs. Tools that can help find and analyze competitors’ social media activity and news articles are good enough if all you need is competitive intelligence on one or two competitors.
A great way to find the right CI tool is to talk to your competitors. Learn what they’re doing and which tools they’re using. Give them a call and ask them how they use their social media channels, what their goals are, and who their customers are (there will be no reason for them to lie). If you don’t have the budget for software or need help with a project, check out some of the best online training available on CI. It also helps if you’ve used similar tools previously. If you’re familiar with one tool, chances are you’ll have an easier time learning a similar one.
If you don’t have the time to learn (or help with) a project, hire someone who has experience in this area. Many professionals offer CI services and they can get your project up and running quickly. In the end, CI is all about staying ahead of the competition. If that isn’t worth your time and money, you’re already losing.
How to Use These Tools to get an Advantage in the Market
With these intelligence tools, you can easily figure out your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. This information will help you identify what kind of services or products your competitors are offering (and the areas where they’re not delivering), which types of advertising and marketing campaigns work for them (and the ones that don’t), which types of customers they’re targeting, and how much they charge for their services or products. All this data will help you improve your strategies, identify areas where you need to step up your game, develop new products and services to offer customers (or at least undercut your competitors’ prices), and better understand how to appeal to your target audience.