The best brands don’t just keep a finger on the pulse of their customers and target audience — they carefully track their competitors as well. How is your brand is stacking up to the other players in your industry, and why is it struggling or thriving?
This type of competitive intelligence can make or break your business. Today’s advancements in artificial intelligence allow you to gain that intel easier than ever with social analytics. Trillions of online conversations surrounding your brand and industry are ripe for listening. Let’s dive into the specific data you should be looking into to uncover the why behind your defeats as well as your victories so you can keep ahead of the competition.
Share of voice: who’s dominating the conversation?
Share of voice: also known as who’s getting the most mentions and generating the most conversation among the competition. Let’s use smart speakers as an example. How much of the conversation is about Amazon Echo versus Google Home?
While the online popularity of these two items ebbs and flows, when it comes to share of voice Amazon Echo owns 60 percent of the conversation. Getting even more granular about the emotional response from consumers, peak joyful conversation around the Amazon Echo coincides with peak overall conversation volume around the holidays. This means that the majority of customers were happy to receive their Echo.
Consumer emotions can be especially valuable for brands. For example, if you are scoring high on anger, maybe you need to take a deeper look at your customer service. Or if you’re scoring low on surprise, maybe you need to release new flavors more often to keep customers guessing.
What’s the content of the conversations either pre or post purchase? If consumers are raving about a particular feature that Amazon Echo has and Google Home doesn’t, they can use that competitive intel to inform future product development.
Whose line is it anyway?
Remember, it’s not just about what consumers are saying but who is saying it. A deep understanding of your audience is critical to competitive intelligence. This includes important demographic information like age, geographic region, and gender (and so much more).
If you’re selling shoes and you notice that your audience trends female (but your intended audience is both male and female) that means you need to adjust your messaging or your product mix. Maybe you need to make shoes that appeal more to men. Better yet, if your biggest competitor is ranking well among men you can ask yourself what they are doing differently.
Let’s get beyond demographics and into who your consumers are as people. What are their likes and dislikes? What issues are they most passionate about? This knowledge is priceless when it comes to competitive analysis. Knowing what’s important to your competition’s customers compared to yours can give you that competitive edge you need. Let’s say your competitor is Ben and Jerry’s and their customer base is also more likely to be fans of The Tonight Show. It makes sense because they have a Jimmy Fallon inspired ice cream flavor.
Insights like these can help you differentiate your product from your competitors, create more targeted marketing, or identify a new audience to go after. The bottom line is consumer conversations are essential for understanding the competitive landscape.
Buyer’s remorse and competitive intelligence
Competitive intelligence isn’t just about analyzing the intent to purchase, but also about looking at post-purchase behavior. The consumers that purchased your product went through one buyer’s journey – from awareness, to intent, to purchase. And those that purchased a competitor’s product went through a different journey. But the next step is equally important. After consumers purchase a product, they evaluate it and, often, share their thoughts online. What happened to the online conversation post-purchase? Did the product meet the customer’s standards?
Fortunately, the trillions of online conversations allow us to gather this information. Analysis of the Apple TV versus Roku conversation showed that while Apple TV had more traction online in the awareness stage, Roku actually rated higher post-purchase, including conversations around product advocacy. This proves that no matter how established the brand is, product quality is second to none. Digging further into features and capabilities of Roku is essential in this scenario.
Gaining an Edge on the Competition
Artificial intelligence and social media data allow brands to gain more competitive intel than they’ve ever been able to get their hands on before. This intel allows brands to see themselves as well as their competition in the eyes of consumers in real time to improve product development, distribution strategies, new markets, and more.
These breakthrough tools take trillions of online conversations and turn them into actionable data. The best part is that it’s great for the brand, and even better for your customers.
About the Author: Lou Jordano is the CMO at Crimson Hexagon.