Market intelligence is the information that your company gathers about the industry or market it operates in. This information plays a vital role in competitive strategy and decision-making. In today’s competitive market, market intelligence is essential for optimal performance. There are three basic types of market intelligence that can help grow and streamline your marketing strategy.
Market Intelligence Vs. Marketing Intelligence
Marketing Intelligence focuses on your company and product. Market intelligence takes a broader view. It focuses on the market as a whole and includes competitors, emerging market trends, and how customers interact with the market.
Competitor Intelligence
Many businesses make assumptions about their competitors. Unfortunately, assumptions are often wrong. Wrong assumptions can have far-reaching consequences when used in decision-making. You’ll find competitor intelligence in a variety of places, some of them unexpected. The Game Stop stock price surge is an excellent example. The intelligence could be found on Reddit, but Reddit isn’t typically considered a source. Employee and customer reviews, patents, and price changes are also great sources of intelligence.
Competitor intelligence isn’t just about what a company is doing at the moment. It’s what they are going to do and how they will do it. Perhaps most importantly, how will it be received by consumers. NetBase Quid offers pre-made dashboards and widgets that give you an overview of competitor intelligence while allowing you to do a deep dive as well.
In addition to understanding your competitors, it’s important to monitor your reputation. Your customers are talking about you, but they may not always mention you by name. The intelligent AI offered by NetBase Quid will capture sentiments even when you aren’t mentioned directly. This puts you in control of the conversation about your product. Competitor intelligence also allows you to spot mistakes your competitors are making, and avoid making them yourself.
Product Intelligence
Understanding your own product or service is also part of market intelligence. How does your product measure up to the competition? What are your strengths and weaknesses compared to your competitors? Can you expand your market share or move into new markets? Product intelligence is understanding your product and the space it occupies within the market. Netbase Quid analytics can give you insight into where you are in the market.
Customer Intelligence
You likely know that it costs 5 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. Customer retention is the lifeblood of any business. It’s important to know more than target demographics. In addition to who your customers are, you should know why they are your customers. Why do they choose your company? What need do you meet, and do you do it better than the competition?
This type of market intelligence can help you answer questions including where to devote more resources and identify new markets. NetBase Quid gathers customer intelligence from structured and unstructured sources to bring you a 360 degree of customer across 8 key areas.
Putting It All Together
To successfully use market intelligence, you’ll need to combine these three areas into actionable intelligence. A holistic view of the market sector and your business allows you to make the best marketing decisions for your company. It takes out the guesswork, making market intelligence easy to understand and access.
