Keeping an eye on your competitors is an important part of your marketing efforts for your glazing business and crucial to ensuring you're a viable option for prospective customers. Figure out who your real competitors are and monitor their online presence, how they're targeting prospective audience, and where your strengths lie.
Find out who you're up against
Establish a credible list of competitors to your business. It's important that you're realistic about which glaziers and fabrication businesses you're actually up against when it comes to your target customer base. You probably already have a good idea about who your competitors are, but some extra research via Google and local business directories is never a bad idea.
Find out business information like:
- Who they are and where they are
- Services they offer
- What suppliers/brands they use
- What type of customer they're targeting
TIPS FOR GLAZIERS: You may find a template like this helpful to record your data ('print' the page as a PDF when you're done to save a copy).
What are they doing on web and social media?
This is by far the easiest way of monitoring your competition — visit their website! Also keep an eye on their social media profiles to see the kinds of things they posting and how their followers engage with them. Particularly look out for on promotions they're running posts that are getting a high amount of likes or comments. Are there things you can learn from and apply to your own social media presence? They may be having great success with techniques you never thought to try out.
Setting up a Google Alert on your competitor's brand name is a great way to keep up with what people are saying about your competitors online. Make sure you have a Google Alert set up for your own company name too!
Check out our tips for growing your glass network with LinkedIn; getting started with Facebook Pages for your glazing business; and 5 things you must have on your glazing website.
Where are your competitors advertising?
Monitor how your competitors are reaching your potential customers. Keep an eye out for their ads and make a note as to where you saw them — they could be in local newspapers, magazines, online, social media, or physical signage around town.
Why were you the best option for the job?
Ask your customers: 'why did they pick you over the competition?' It's a question worth asking — most consumers research products and services online before they make a decision. Chances are, they're aware of at least one or two of your immediate competitors and made a choice to work with you.
Alternatively, your customers may also be working with your competition, perhaps for good reason. You may be pricing some products or services much higher, or your customer may not feel confident in your skills in a particular area. Any feedback you get is valuable and should be treated as an opportunity rather than a criticism.
In summary
Build regular competitor analysis into your marketing activities, it will give you a better idea of what your prospects have available to choose from and how you're placed among the crowd. Of course, the tried and tested option of competitor analysis is to masquerade as a customer and buy from your competitor. This will give you the best idea of their buying process from start to finish, and give you a chance to assess what you think works better or worse.
