Seeking information about your competitors is a must in this day and age. Market research may just be the key to being one step ahead of your competitors.
By Craig Falck for Africa Report
Photograph: © Alain Lacroix | Dreamstime.com
It cannot be stressed how important it is to conduct research and learn every single, tiny, minute, minuscule detail about your competitors. The world is in the middle of an economic crisis and business is tight. If you know all there is to know about your competition, you’ll be able to stay one step ahead at all times.
Face the facts. Your competition is your competition because they are able to match you and your products or services. They offer the market another option to whatever it is that you have, and they’re still around because they have a loyal customer base. Understanding them is key because they are not the same as you, and there is something that differentiates the two of you enough for customers to keep coming back. And if you want to beat them, you’ll need to know what these differences are and why their customers keep coming back. If it’s a product, the easiest way to do research is to go out and buy a product and strip it down, tear it to pieces to see what’s different to yours and understand how it works. That’s the hands-on method of research.
It’s also important to understand what the customers see in your competition. This type of research can be conducted by using a research company who are experts in the field and will undertake a number of research events and quiz market consumers. They will then quantify the results and provide you with their findings in a format that you will be able to interpret. This is just as important research as the hands-on method mentioned above as you will gain valuable insight into how customers decide on the products or services. You cannot put yourselves in their shoes, you need them to give you this information, and market research is the way to do it.
Conducting research is well worth the time, effort and money that you put into it. You will find yourself gaining valuable insight into what your competitors are doing, how they’re doing it, why customers choose their products and services over yours, and so much more. And rest assured, whether or not you’re doing research on your competition, they’re doing research on you as they attempt to be the best in your industry.
They say that knowledge is power, and with the knowledge of what your business competitors are doing, you will have the power to overcome them should you choose to. It cannot be emphasised how important research is, whether it’s physical, like dissecting their products, or simple question-and-answer based. Without it, you might as well put on a blindfold and go out into the world without being prepared for what’s to come.
