Don’t copy your competitors!

Posted by Laura Bergells

February 4, 2008

Track your competitors online with 3 basic online techniques.

By all means, sign up for free Google News Alerts to find out when your competitors release news, as well as to keep tabs on mainstream media and blog mentions.
Subscribe to competitive blogs — anonymously — with RSS aggregators like Bloglines.
Use services like compete.com to find out how your site stacks up against your competition.

These 3 are bare-bones techniques for PR, IR, and marketing departments in 2008. They provide valuable industry information: the barest minimum in need-to-know online business intelligence.

Just don’t copy your competition! Awareness is one thing: copying is another. Especially when your competitors aren’t doing as well as you! Balance your competitive research with your own site metrics.

The real world example. Let’s say many of your competitors design their sites for high speed. They thoughtlessly use big, fat, images instead of streamlined, web-optimized images . How much sense does it make to say,

“Well, if our competitors do it — golly, we will, too!”

Instead, what about saying,

“I smell a strong opportunity for a competitive advantage!”

Why not check your stats? What if your stats reveal that 19% of your visitors use dial-up? How might using this knowledge give you a competitive marketing advantage over your competition?

Or say… what if you see that 7% of your visitors use an 800X600 monitor resolution — how much sense might it make to “copy your competition” — and design for 1280×800? And how much sense does that make, anyway — when almost no one uses the full size of their monitor when they browse, anyway?

To heck with your competition! Instead of cluelessly copying the worst practices of your competitors, carefully study your own web metrics. Chances are, you can find out more about your customers and prospects….and you’ll smash your competition!