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B2B Competitive Analysis – An Overview

Even if you’ve never done a formal competitive analysis, you probably have at least taken a look at the competition by strolling past their booth at a trade show or picking up their brochures. How important is competitive analysis to your b2b website and what tools are available to get a view of the competitive landscape online?

Where to start? The best way to start is just to take a look at your competitor’s website. What types of content do they have on the site? Do they have a blog, a board, videos, podcasts, case studies, etc.? How often does it look like they update the site? Take a look at the design and layout of the site. Is it is pleasing to the eye? Is it easy to find everything?

Don’t know who your competitors are? A simple google search for keywords in your industry (that you would use to describe your own business) can give you a good list of competitors. Also, take a look at google local for geographically close competitors. Even if you do know your major competitors, taking a look at a couple of searches every few months can keep new ones from sneaking up on you.

Now what? Obviously you should look at your competitor’s products and services to know what they are offering. As far as their website design and content, these will give you an idea of the type of customer support they are giving. Websites with more content (useful content), that is updated frequently, are typically more customer-centric. Customers are more likely to visit their website to solve problems and keep up with what’s new. The more times a customer visits a website, the more likely they are to become repeat customers. In order to become the destination for information within your industry, you will need to invest some time and effort into useful information for your customers and potential customers.

Next we’ll take a look at a couple of tools to use in your competitive analysis.

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B2B eNewsletters – Content is King

eNewsletters can be a great way to drive traffic to your website and keep your brand in your customers’ minds. Once you have an enewsletter vendor and an audience of people who have given you permission to send them information, you need to put together content for your enewsletter. In order to be most effective, you’ll need to send out an enewsletter at least monthly, preferably more often. What types of content are valuable to your customers (and potential customers)?

Announcements

Information about upcoming product or service releases, company information, and events are easy to write about. They are good information to keep your readers informed, but keep these short and sweet as most people are not as interested in your press releases as you are. If you have longer releases, post them on your website and link to them (this is the driving traffic to your website part).

Tips

Information about how to use your products or information your readers can use to improve their own work can be extremely valuable. Again, keep this information short and link back to longer articles on your website.

Case Studies

Put together a case study (or two) which shows how your products have been used. This is a great way for current customers to get ideas on how else to use your products and excellent advertising for potential customers. If you prepare a case study for each enewsletter you put out, keep an archive of these on your website and add an archive link on your enewsletter. Longer case studies should always be put on your website, with just a short summary in your enewsletter.

Surveys

eNewsletters are a great way to reach your customers and gather information that is valuable to your business and improving your products by adding short surveys (1 question is best!). Surveys are also a great way to make your readers feel involved with your business and create a sense of community. Share your findings with your customers by posting them in your enewsletters and keeping archives on your website.

Feedback

Encourage feedback and communication with your customers by adding your contact information (email and phone) and just plain out asking for it in every enewsletter.

Summary

While you should take the time to spell check and properly format your content, keep your voice friendly and relatively informal to make it easier to read. Provide your readers with valuable and timely content in short segments which link back to longer information on your website. eNewsletters can take a little bit of effort to create and write, but are a great way to connect with your customers and drive traffic to your website.

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B2B Social Networks – A Review

So far we’ve taken a look at several social network software vendors: Leverage Software, Community Server, Prospero, Small World Labs, Pluck and Ning. These vendors run the gambit from very expensive to free, but their core functionality is very similar. Differences come mostly with integration into your own current website, single sign-on, and analytics.

If you’re a small company or not sure how social networks are going to work for you, Ning is an excellent place to start since you can get an ad-driven version for no cost. You can then upgrade to a non-ad version (and run your own ads), but keep in mind that Ning is for smaller networks and does not offer integration with your own website.

For larger companies, my current forerunner is Small World Labs, with their full set of features, modular implementation, and php-based system. Their 3 price-points make them very affordable and their offerings can be tailored to meet the needs of your specific social network. Content from your website can appear within the network and content from the network can appear on your website – effectively pulling your website into the network. Most importantly, I feel this option offers the best opportunity to scale cost-effectively if your network takes off.

I just came across GroupSwim who built community software that can be used internally, externally, with customers, users, developers, or audience. This may be very useful for B2B companies hoping to interact with their customers, so I’m going to try to get a demo set up for next week.

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