Gathering competitor intelligence statistics can increase your business’ chances of success. This post provides examples from my own business to help you with your competitor analysis.

Competitor Intelligence Statistics
Who Are My Major Competitors?

I started my business as a publisher with a traditional, print-and-bound book on publication design. So I’ll begin by gathering competitor intelligence statistics for other publication design books. However, many general graphic design books also compete with mine, so I also need to gather competitor intelligence statistics for these books and their publishers.

Still that’s only a small part of my competitors.

People who provide consulting and workshops on publication design are competitors. People who publish books on individual publications like newsletters, magazines and identity symbols must also be considered competition.

People who provide publication design information on Web sites and in e-books also compete with my book. Thus I need to gather competitor intelligence statistics on all these people and their businesses.

Graphic design, public relations and advertising agencies, free lancers and print shops who provide publication design services are other competitors that I need competitor intelligence statistics on.

Because many people don’t think they need to know anything about publication design if they are hiring someone else to produce their publications, freelancers may also eliminate buyers for my book and are competitors for whom I need to gather competitor intelligence statistics.

I believe that people outsourcing their publications, still need to know enough about publication design to direct and evaluate the work of those who design their publications. But that is a marketing message I have to convey to my target market of small business owners.

Otherwise I loose sales because of agencies. Thus, I should consider agencies as competitors and gather competitor intelligence statistics on them.

Competitor Intelligence Statistics
You Can Use This Same Process

If you go through a similar process to what I did for my business, you can better identify your major competitors for whom you need to gather competitor intelligence statistics.

Tomorrow’s post will continue the example from my business to answer the question

“What Statistics Give You A Competitive Edge Over Your Competitors?” You can access it by clicking the link above.

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Posted 6-2-08:
Competitor Intelligence Statistics
Major Competitors Example

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 7:16 am and is filed under Marketing Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.