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Add You - Competitive Analysis - No Company Exists In A Vacuum Online
Event management companies offer expert and skillful managing and organizing of various events. Theses companies combine organizational skills and experience to provide expert services in organizing any event. They offer cost-effective solutions for your event management requirements.A common event management company handles all sorts of events from small to large, including fundraisers, galas, weddings, conferences, conventions, exhibitions, expositions, seminar, and trade shows. They also provide event concept development, sponsorship, sponsorship consultation, marketing, budget reconciliation and advertising and public relations. They have a team of experienced planners whose have knowledge in every aspect of event management from budgets to acknowledgements.Event management companies do all of the planning and footwork necessary for any type of function. They should consult with you about your needs and wishes regarding the event or events you would like to see occur. Through the course of conversations with them, they should be able to discern exactly what is necessary to pull your project together, to a high degree of success.
http://www.meclabs.com/CompetitiveAnalysisSupplement.doc
3. Identify the competitive strengths of each company in the analysis, including your own. What makes each company unique? Do they own patents or copyrights that give them a competitive edge? Is there a dominant company with market share at or near "critical mass" level?
4. Identify the revenue models of your competitors. How do your competitors make money? Are you overlooking potential sources of revenue?
5. Do your competitors utilize partnerships, outsourcing, or other strategic relationships? Could your own company benefit from such relationships?
6. KEY POINT: In the course of your analysis, make note of unique or creative elements or approaches your competitors may use. Often, the greatest insights will come from where your competitors depart from convention.
7. Utilize search engines to discover the sources of your competitors' incoming links. These sites may be potential link partners for you as well. For more on linking strategies, see our research brief on that topic:
http://meclabs.com/cgi-bin/pl/pl.cgi?mls
8. If practical, make purchases from your competitors. How is their customer service? Are they utilizing drop-shipping or other forms of outsourcing? What can you learn from watching how they do business?
9. Monitor your competitors over time. Sign up for their email lists and analyze their marketing messages. How strong are your competitors' brands?
10. Analyze your competitors' Google, Overture, and other PPC ads. Knowing the best keywords for you
Two days before St. Patrick's Day I was telling a friend that I had to rush to the mall and buy a green shirt to go to a St.Patrick's Day party. (Can you believe it? A genuine Irish lady who doesn't possess a green shirt!)She replied that the scarf I wore the day before had a green pattern on it and I could wear that. But I knew she was wrong so I said: "No, it doesn't. That scarf is purple and pink."The next day I was driving to a meeting wearing the same scarf. I looked down as I drove and what did I see - a green pattern woven through the purple and pink. I began to wonder if I was going crazy! What happened was that I had originally bought that scarf to match a purple suit and I only ever wore it with that suit so to me the scarf was purple and pink. My mind had never registered the color green until someone pointed it out to me.What has this to do with marketing and writing? Lots!It shows how we perceive selectively through our own filters, whatever they may be. We see what we want to see because it’s relevant to us. We hear what we want to hear because it has some meaning to what’s going on with us right now.Knowing who your competitors are, as well as their strengths and weaknesses is an essential part of assessing the market for your product for your product or service. Most businesses have direct and indirect competitors.
1. What is competitive analysis?
A competitive analysis is a formal evaluation in which you review the businesses of one or more companies that compete, directly or indirectly, with your own. Online, competitors have access to each other's company information and marketing materials that they might not be able to gather as easily in the offline world. This allows for even greater opportunities to benefit from competitive analysis data. But how can companies improve by analyzing their competitors? And what is the best way to implement a thorough competitive analysis? For a business to succeed, you need to know almost as much about your competitors as you do about your own company and customers. Unfortunately most business owners make the mistake of waiting until a competitor opens up shop across the street and is cutting into profits to find out who and what they are up against.
A Competitive analysis allows you to identify your competitors and evaluate their respective strengths and weaknesses. By knowing the actions of your competitors, you will have a better understanding of what products and services you should offer; how you can market them effectively; and how you can position your business.
Competitive analysis is an ongoing process. You should always be gathering information about your competitors. Look at their Web sites. Read their product literature and brochures. Get your hands on their products. See how they present themselves at trade shows. Read about them in your industry’s trade publications. Talk to your customers to see hoe they feel about competitive products or services.
2. What are the benefits of conducting a competitive analysis?
The benefits of conducting a competitive analysis include:
1. You will identify WHO you are competing against. You will be able to assess the threat levels presented by other companies in your market.
2. You will identify your own weaknesses. Companies who do not pay attention to their competitors may not understand just what they are doing wrong because they have no frame of reference. Studying your competitors offers you a perfect opportunity to find out how you can better serve your customers.
3. Once you've identified those weaknesses, you'll be able to improve your business in a number of ways. The order in which those improvements should be implemented will often be dictated by the analyses of your competitors. For example, if all of the other companies sharing your target market have a certain feature considered essential to that market, this will be one of the first things you will want to remedy.
4. You will also identify your strengths. By comparing your own online presence to those of your direct competitors, you will discover what sets your business apart from theirs. These qualities can then be emphasized in your marketing efforts.
5. Additionally, you will be able to identify or confirm your Unique Value Proposition (UVP). Your UVP is the single most important element of your business that sets you apart from your competitors. Do you have the largest catalog of products? The lowest prices? The best customer service? Competitive analysis will help you develop your UVP and test the validity of the claims you make about your business.
6. You will be able to determine what factors drive success in your market space. These may vary greatly from market to market, and may not be what you originally expected.
You will identify what specific actions you need to take in order to improve your competitive position
Identify your competition
Every business has competitors; you need to find out who your customers can approach to get a product or service that fills the same need as yours does. Even if your product or service is truly innovative, you need to look at what else your customers would purchase.
Begin looking at your primary competitors. These are the market leaders, the companies who currently dominate your market. Next, look at your secondary and indirect competitors. These are the businesses who may not go head-to-head with you, but who are targeting the same general market.
Finally, look at potential competitors. These are companies who might be moving into your market and who need to prepare to compete against.
Analyze strengths and weaknesses
After you have figured out who your competitors are, determine their strengths and find out what their vulnerabilities are. Why do customers buy from them? Is it price? Value? Service? Convenience? Reputation? Focus on as many “perceived” strengths and weaknesses as you do on actual ones.
Tabulate the strengths and weaknesses in a table format. This will allow you to see, at a glance, where each competitor stands.
Look at opportunities and threats
Strengths and weaknesses are often factors that are under a company’s control. But when you’re looking at your competition, you also need to examine how well prepared they are to deal with factors outside their control. These are called opportunities and threats.
Opportunities and threats fall into a wide range of categories, such as technology, regulatory and economic. You should consider the following guidelines when conducting competitive analysis.
1. Utilize a multitude of resources to identify your competitors. Who else is bidding on your PPC terms? What sites come up as natural search results for your terms? Check trade association memberships and business registries. Use your referrer data to identify what sites your visitors are coming from. Don't overlook word-of-mouth information from your customers and investors.
These sources should yield a number of direct and indirect competitors. Narrow the scope of your analysis if necessary, but the most effective competitive analysis will compare at least three to five leading companies in your market.
2. Identify key success factors (KSFs) for your industry and rate yourself and others on each of them. One useful tool is the "strategic group map", which is part of a supporting Word document available for download:
http://www.meclabs.com/CompetitiveAnalysisSupplement.doc
3. Identify the competitive strengths of each company in the analysis, including your own. What makes each company unique? Do they own patents or copyrights that give them a competitive edge? Is there a dominant company with market share at or near "critical mass" level?
4. Identify the revenue models of your competitors. How do your competitors make money? Are you overlooking potential sources of revenue?
5. Do your competitors utilize partnerships, outsourcing, or other strategic relationships? Could your own company benefit from such relationships?
6. KEY POINT: In the course of your analysis, make note of unique or creative elements or approaches your competitors may use. Often, the greatest insights will come from where your competitors depart from convention.
7. Utilize search engines to discover the sources of your competitors' incoming links. These sites may be potential link partners for you as well. For more on linking strategies, see our research brief on that topic:
http://meclabs.com/cgi-bin/pl/pl.cgi?mls
8. If practical, make purchases from your competitors. How is their customer service? Are they utilizing drop-shipping or other forms of outsourcing? What can you learn from watching how they do business?
9. Monitor your competitors over time. Sign up for their email lists and analyze their marketing messages. How strong are your competitors' brands?
10. Analyze your competitors' Google, Overture, and other PPC ads. Knowing the best keywords for your
You want customers. I want customers. We all want customers. And traffic alone is not enough. We need “interested” customers. Customers ready to listen, ready to buy. So you may find yourself asking, what do they want anyway?.... and how can I get them to buy?Instead of concentrating on the “getting”, why not try to “educate” them and sales will follow --- not once, but many times. Why is that? Credibility!If you are writing Articles, or publishing an Ezine, then you are an Internet Marketer with some measure of success. Your goal might be to help them understand that there are ways to make money without spending a fortune, and without plunging over cliffs with the “herd mentality” of the latest get-rich-quick idea: the biggest single reason for failure on the Internet.I have never filled a matrix with “spillover”, and only once did I ever get my money back – and that was like Vegas – a tease to keep me in the game. But if you made $10,000 in three months, send me the proof and I’ll join under you.You have had successes, BUT you have also had failures. Share these with your potential customers. Show them
2. What are the benefits of conducting a competitive analysis?
The benefits of conducting a competitive analysis include:
1. You will identify WHO you are competing against. You will be able to assess the threat levels presented by other companies in your market.
2. You will identify your own weaknesses. Companies who do not pay attention to their competitors may not understand just what they are doing wrong because they have no frame of reference. Studying your competitors offers you a perfect opportunity to find out how you can better serve your customers.
3. Once you've identified those weaknesses, you'll be able to improve your business in a number of ways. The order in which those improvements should be implemented will often be dictated by the analyses of your competitors. For example, if all of the other companies sharing your target market have a certain feature considered essential to that market, this will be one of the first things you will want to remedy.
4. You will also identify your strengths. By comparing your own online presence to those of your direct competitors, you will discover what sets your business apart from theirs. These qualities can then be emphasized in your marketing efforts.
5. Additionally, you will be able to identify or confirm your Unique Value Proposition (UVP). Your UVP is the single most important element of your business that sets you apart from your competitors. Do you have the largest catalog of products? The lowest prices? The best customer service? Competitive analysis will help you develop your UVP and test the validity of the claims you make about your business.
6. You will be able to determine what factors drive success in your market space. These may vary greatly from market to market, and may not be what you originally expected.
You will identify what specific actions you need to take in order to improve your competitive position
Identify your competition
Every business has competitors; you need to find out who your customers can approach to get a product or service that fills the same need as yours does. Even if your product or service is truly innovative, you need to look at what else your customers would purchase.
Begin looking at your primary competitors. These are the market leaders, the companies who currently dominate your market. Next, look at your secondary and indirect competitors. These are the businesses who may not go head-to-head with you, but who are targeting the same general market.
Finally, look at potential competitors. These are companies who might be moving into your market and who need to prepare to compete against.
Analyze strengths and weaknesses
After you have figured out who your competitors are, determine their strengths and find out what their vulnerabilities are. Why do customers buy from them? Is it price? Value? Service? Convenience? Reputation? Focus on as many “perceived” strengths and weaknesses as you do on actual ones.
Tabulate the strengths and weaknesses in a table format. This will allow you to see, at a glance, where each competitor stands.
Look at opportunities and threats
Strengths and weaknesses are often factors that are under a company’s control. But when you’re looking at your competition, you also need to examine how well prepared they are to deal with factors outside their control. These are called opportunities and threats.
Opportunities and threats fall into a wide range of categories, such as technology, regulatory and economic. You should consider the following guidelines when conducting competitive analysis.
1. Utilize a multitude of resources to identify your competitors. Who else is bidding on your PPC terms? What sites come up as natural search results for your terms? Check trade association memberships and business registries. Use your referrer data to identify what sites your visitors are coming from. Don't overlook word-of-mouth information from your customers and investors.
These sources should yield a number of direct and indirect competitors. Narrow the scope of your analysis if necessary, but the most effective competitive analysis will compare at least three to five leading companies in your market.
2. Identify key success factors (KSFs) for your industry and rate yourself and others on each of them. One useful tool is the "strategic group map", which is part of a supporting Word document available for download:
http://www.meclabs.com/CompetitiveAnalysisSupplement.doc
3. Identify the competitive strengths of each company in the analysis, including your own. What makes each company unique? Do they own patents or copyrights that give them a competitive edge? Is there a dominant company with market share at or near "critical mass" level?
4. Identify the revenue models of your competitors. How do your competitors make money? Are you overlooking potential sources of revenue?
5. Do your competitors utilize partnerships, outsourcing, or other strategic relationships? Could your own company benefit from such relationships?
6. KEY POINT: In the course of your analysis, make note of unique or creative elements or approaches your competitors may use. Often, the greatest insights will come from where your competitors depart from convention.
7. Utilize search engines to discover the sources of your competitors' incoming links. These sites may be potential link partners for you as well. For more on linking strategies, see our research brief on that topic:
http://meclabs.com/cgi-bin/pl/pl.cgi?mls
8. If practical, make purchases from your competitors. How is their customer service? Are they utilizing drop-shipping or other forms of outsourcing? What can you learn from watching how they do business?
9. Monitor your competitors over time. Sign up for their email lists and analyze their marketing messages. How strong are your competitors' brands?
10. Analyze your competitors' Google, Overture, and other PPC ads. Knowing the best keywords for you
What do you want to be when you grow up? The answer to that question has changed drastically over the past two years. The newest research on university campuses around the nation says that this year, new graduates are more likely to be seeking audit jobs than just about any others. That shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that’s been following the news in economics and accountancy. Firms that do global business are increasingly concerned with compliance to international standards of accountancy. The need to comply with SOx and IFRS has opened hundreds of new positions in firms and offices throughout the country.There’s also a change in where the most sought after audit jobs are. Over the past five years, the trend has been toward jobs with the BBC or in public service. This year however, the most desired positions are with the big accountancy firms. Those firms are offering excellent starting salaries – as much as 25% higher than a few years ago. Entry salaries at accountancy firms averaged ?18,000 to ?23,000 at the end of last year. This year, say audit recruitment firms, employers are seeing the need to offer higher salaries to attract the
6. You will be able to determine what factors drive success in your market space. These may vary greatly from market to market, and may not be what you originally expected. You will identify what specific actions you need to take in order to improve your competitive position
Identify your competition
Every business has competitors; you need to find out who your customers can approach to get a product or service that fills the same need as yours does. Even if your product or service is truly innovative, you need to look at what else your customers would purchase.
Begin looking at your primary competitors. These are the market leaders, the companies who currently dominate your market. Next, look at your secondary and indirect competitors. These are the businesses who may not go head-to-head with you, but who are targeting the same general market.
Finally, look at potential competitors. These are companies who might be moving into your market and who need to prepare to compete against.
Analyze strengths and weaknesses
After you have figured out who your competitors are, determine their strengths and find out what their vulnerabilities are. Why do customers buy from them? Is it price? Value? Service? Convenience? Reputation? Focus on as many “perceived” strengths and weaknesses as you do on actual ones.
Tabulate the strengths and weaknesses in a table format. This will allow you to see, at a glance, where each competitor stands.
Look at opportunities and threats
Strengths and weaknesses are often factors that are under a company’s control. But when you’re looking at your competition, you also need to examine how well prepared they are to deal with factors outside their control. These are called opportunities and threats.
Opportunities and threats fall into a wide range of categories, such as technology, regulatory and economic. You should consider the following guidelines when conducting competitive analysis.
1. Utilize a multitude of resources to identify your competitors. Who else is bidding on your PPC terms? What sites come up as natural search results for your terms? Check trade association memberships and business registries. Use your referrer data to identify what sites your visitors are coming from. Don't overlook word-of-mouth information from your customers and investors.
These sources should yield a number of direct and indirect competitors. Narrow the scope of your analysis if necessary, but the most effective competitive analysis will compare at least three to five leading companies in your market.
2. Identify key success factors (KSFs) for your industry and rate yourself and others on each of them. One useful tool is the "strategic group map", which is part of a supporting Word document available for download:
http://www.meclabs.com/CompetitiveAnalysisSupplement.doc
3. Identify the competitive strengths of each company in the analysis, including your own. What makes each company unique? Do they own patents or copyrights that give them a competitive edge? Is there a dominant company with market share at or near "critical mass" level?
4. Identify the revenue models of your competitors. How do your competitors make money? Are you overlooking potential sources of revenue?
5. Do your competitors utilize partnerships, outsourcing, or other strategic relationships? Could your own company benefit from such relationships?
6. KEY POINT: In the course of your analysis, make note of unique or creative elements or approaches your competitors may use. Often, the greatest insights will come from where your competitors depart from convention.
7. Utilize search engines to discover the sources of your competitors' incoming links. These sites may be potential link partners for you as well. For more on linking strategies, see our research brief on that topic:
http://meclabs.com/cgi-bin/pl/pl.cgi?mls
8. If practical, make purchases from your competitors. How is their customer service? Are they utilizing drop-shipping or other forms of outsourcing? What can you learn from watching how they do business?
9. Monitor your competitors over time. Sign up for their email lists and analyze their marketing messages. How strong are your competitors' brands?
10. Analyze your competitors' Google, Overture, and other PPC ads. Knowing the best keywords for you
Marketing, advertising, and branding are closely related and are a key to successful business. Promotional products are wise, effective, and powerful tools for promoting a business and making it successful. They go much beyond sales promotion and help business organizations to establish a strong image and create goodwill. They are a cost effective way to market a business and to create awareness about its products or services. Promotional products can be distributed at trade shows, sales events and can also be given as free samples or corporate giveaways.Promotional products must reflect your company’s values.Ideally a business promotional product must represent company ideologies and beliefs. Since promotional products reflect your company’s image and can go a long way in establishing business connections, therefore, it is very essential to make them attractive, useful, and durable. Whenever placing order for a promotional product, don’t forget to include important information, such as its name, logo, tagline, contact information, and website address. Logo and tagline helps in branding and play a key role in a company’s succ
Tabulate the strengths and weaknesses in a table format. This will allow you to see, at a glance, where each competitor stands.
Look at opportunities and threats
Strengths and weaknesses are often factors that are under a company’s control. But when you’re looking at your competition, you also need to examine how well prepared they are to deal with factors outside their control. These are called opportunities and threats.
Opportunities and threats fall into a wide range of categories, such as technology, regulatory and economic. You should consider the following guidelines when conducting competitive analysis.
1. Utilize a multitude of resources to identify your competitors. Who else is bidding on your PPC terms? What sites come up as natural search results for your terms? Check trade association memberships and business registries. Use your referrer data to identify what sites your visitors are coming from. Don't overlook word-of-mouth information from your customers and investors.
These sources should yield a number of direct and indirect competitors. Narrow the scope of your analysis if necessary, but the most effective competitive analysis will compare at least three to five leading companies in your market.
2. Identify key success factors (KSFs) for your industry and rate yourself and others on each of them. One useful tool is the "strategic group map", which is part of a supporting Word document available for download:
http://www.meclabs.com/CompetitiveAnalysisSupplement.doc
3. Identify the competitive strengths of each company in the analysis, including your own. What makes each company unique? Do they own patents or copyrights that give them a competitive edge? Is there a dominant company with market share at or near "critical mass" level?
4. Identify the revenue models of your competitors. How do your competitors make money? Are you overlooking potential sources of revenue?
5. Do your competitors utilize partnerships, outsourcing, or other strategic relationships? Could your own company benefit from such relationships?
6. KEY POINT: In the course of your analysis, make note of unique or creative elements or approaches your competitors may use. Often, the greatest insights will come from where your competitors depart from convention.
7. Utilize search engines to discover the sources of your competitors' incoming links. These sites may be potential link partners for you as well. For more on linking strategies, see our research brief on that topic:
http://meclabs.com/cgi-bin/pl/pl.cgi?mls
8. If practical, make purchases from your competitors. How is their customer service? Are they utilizing drop-shipping or other forms of outsourcing? What can you learn from watching how they do business?
9. Monitor your competitors over time. Sign up for their email lists and analyze their marketing messages. How strong are your competitors' brands?
10. Analyze your competitors' Google, Overture, and other PPC ads. Knowing the best keywords for you
Some people are saying that customer service is the pits these days with surly sales people leading the way. Just in case you haven't conceived of every method to further alienate your clientele, we have come up with a list of ideas that are certain to drive customers away from your business. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, we offer the following tips to you:Customer Service in General:1. A closed mouth gathers no foot…speak boldly!2. When the only customer service tools you have to work with is an axe, you will have hours filled with fun.3. Try to come to an amicable conclusion…the place where you and the customer both got tired of arguing.4. An irate customer is its own reward. Make someone's day.5. Freely and frequently tell customers that you HATE your job.6. Only provide one-word answers when customers ask questions.7. If you're having a bad day, the quickest way to feel better is to take out your frustration on a customer.8. Your day is not complete until you've sent yet another customer running away.9. Pass the buck to another coworker; you're not i
http://www.meclabs.com/CompetitiveAnalysisSupplement.doc
3. Identify the competitive strengths of each company in the analysis, including your own. What makes each company unique? Do they own patents or copyrights that give them a competitive edge? Is there a dominant company with market share at or near "critical mass" level?
4. Identify the revenue models of your competitors. How do your competitors make money? Are you overlooking potential sources of revenue?
5. Do your competitors utilize partnerships, outsourcing, or other strategic relationships? Could your own company benefit from such relationships?
6. KEY POINT: In the course of your analysis, make note of unique or creative elements or approaches your competitors may use. Often, the greatest insights will come from where your competitors depart from convention.
7. Utilize search engines to discover the sources of your competitors' incoming links. These sites may be potential link partners for you as well. For more on linking strategies, see our research brief on that topic:
http://meclabs.com/cgi-bin/pl/pl.cgi?mls
8. If practical, make purchases from your competitors. How is their customer service? Are they utilizing drop-shipping or other forms of outsourcing? What can you learn from watching how they do business?
9. Monitor your competitors over time. Sign up for their email lists and analyze their marketing messages. How strong are your competitors' brands?
10. Analyze your competitors' Google, Overture, and other PPC ads. Knowing the best keywords for your market, it shouldn't be hard to locate your competitors' ads. These may give you ideas about how to modify your own campaigns.
11. Analyze your competitors' ratings and rankings on a number of platforms, including Google PageRank, Alexa, BizRate, comparison engines, and incoming links from other websites. The following spreadsheet may be useful in helping you track this analysis: http://www.meclabs.com/CompetitiveAnalysis.xls
Once you have compiled this data, you should be able to use it to gauge the effectiveness of your competitors' marketing efforts compared to your own.
12. Depending on entry and exit barriers for your industry, your competitive environment will change over time. Competitors will enter and leave and the most resilient among them will learn and evolve. Continue to analyze your competitors as time progresses. Consider performing a competitive analysis update on an annual or semi-annual basis. No company exists in a vacuum online. If you ignore your competition, you will lose the opportunity to discover your own strengths and weaknesses. Effective competitive analysis gives you the information you need to "remove the blinders" and see your company as your customers and investors do, and to tune your marketing and business strategies for success. March 11, 2007
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