Guerrilla Competitive Analysis

So you have a business, and whether that business is selling a product or providing a service more then likely you have competition. Sure you can try and look a their website, or read the paper to find out what is going on with your rival or you can harness the power of FREE tools and let the information come to you. In today’s connected world it is now easier then ever to stay in touch with what you competition is doing.

So where do you begin, well let’s first start with writing down a list of all of your competitors. Since these ideas are all free, go crazy and list all of your competitors. Think about the movers and shakers in your field, the industry giants, as well as the hot shot startups. Once you have the list now you can go one step further and list down all of the industries that relate to your business as well. Need some help to get you started? I have listed some of my competitors and industries I watch below.

Competitors:

• Americansingles.com
• Jdate.com
• Engage.com
• Match.com
• Eharmony.com
• Lavalife.com
• Plentyoffish.com

My Industries:

• Online Dating
• Matchmaking
• Social Media

My Companies:

• Loovya.com
• Meshugalove.com

TOOL #1 – Google Alerts

Alright now that we have a list of our competition, industries, and our own company we can get to work. The first of two tools I am going to introduce you to is Google Alerts. Open your browser and point to the following URL – http://www.google.com/alerts.

Once you are at this page you will be able to enter in your first company under the search terms. Choose what type, I recommend comprehensive, and how frequent you want your delivery. You will get an email confirmation that will then allow you to go into an alert screen and enter in more search alerts. Now when news is written anywhere that is picked up by Google or the major PR newswires you will get a nice consolidated email once a day. You will notice above I listed my companies as well, that was intentional and has a lot of value as well. If you add your own company to the list you will now get alerts whenever you are written up anywhere as well.

TOOL#2 – Twitter Search

So Google Alerts is a great way to stay on top of your competition with websites, and blogs, and press releases, but what about hearing some of the dirty details about what people are saying. Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall listening to maybe some of the negative issues/problems with your rivals, or maybe hear idle chatter about what they are doing well? I knew that you would, so let’s look at the other useful tool to hear about your competition. I am assuming by now you have heard of Twitter? If you have not, think of it as a cross between text and instant messenger. Twitter has a great search tool that will allow you to listen in on conversations that are being discussed on Twitter.

We can use the same list as above and go to the following URL – http://search.twitter.com/ the interface for this tool is even easier then before. Enter in your first competitor and select the Search button. You will see conversations about what others are saying for that company. You can gain some real great candid opinions and views from people that are your competitor’s customers, and best of all they will never know you are reading all of the juicy details. As you read the information you can take it one step further and select the “Feed This Query” option and you can drop this into your favorite RSS feed and read this whenever you want.

So there you have it 2 great ways to stay on top of what your competition is doing, and what your customers are saying about you company as well. Have other great FREE ideas for Guerilla Competitive Analysis send me an email.

Need help designing your online strategy or website drop me an email or contact me through my blog below.

Peace
Frank