Republic of the Philippines

NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFIED

SAN ISIDRO CAMPUS

Overview
This part of the paper it consist in finding out and processing about competing businesses
or product in order to generate the key information about them, categories them and identify their
key competitive differences. Competitors profiling is the part of the competition analysis.

Learning Objectives
At the end of the discussion you will be able to;
 Define profiling competitors
 Determine its importants and;
 Identify the five tips on profiling your competitors marketing strategies.

Lesson Proper
Profile your competitors
Knowing who your competitors are, and what they are offering, can help you to make
your products, services and marketing stand out. It will enable you to set your prices
competitively and help you to respond to rival marketing campaigns with your own initiatives.
You can use this knowledge to create marketing strategies that take advantage of your
competitors' weaknesses, and improve your own business performance. You can also assess any
threats posed by both new entrants to your market and current competitors. This knowledge will
help you to be realistic about how successful you can be.
All businesses face competition. Even if you're the only restaurant in town you must
compete with cinemas, bars and other businesses where your customers will spend their money
instead of with you. With increased use of the Internet to buy goods and services and to find
places to go, you are no longer just competing with your immediate neighbours. Indeed, you
could find yourself competing with businesses from other countries. Your competitor could be a
new business offering a substitute or similar product that makes your own redundant.
Decision making should not be based on assumptions but on facts. Competitor profiling is one
way of getting valuable data on the competition and therefore plays an important role in our
strategic decision-making. As part of the competition analysis, competitor profiling influences
pricing, marketing strategy, competing differences, but it can also lead the company to focus on a
particular area with weaker competitors.

Transforming Communities through Science and Technology

 Republic of the Philippines
NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFIED

SAN ISIDRO CAMPUS

Product planning can get affected too by competitor profiling since it can lead, for instance, to
the enhancement of one of the product features. Large businesses can benefit from competitor
profiling while making decisions about acquisitions - e.g. identifying businesses to purchase. A
quality competitor profiling can result in creating an effective defense or offensive strategy.
Profiling gives you the tools not only to better understand your competitors, but also to overcome
them.
Just as profiling customers or vendors, profiling competing companies also leads to sorting them
into segments. Of course, a sample of competing firms is usually smaller than a sample of
customers. Profiling involves gathering of all important data about the competition - their market
position, market share, price, additional services, strengths, weaknesses, and so on. We should
always aim for the most complete competitors’ profile possible. Naturally, a different
categorizations apply for different industries. Often, the categories are only being defined during
the profiling itself because this process help developing the idea of what is important and what is
not.
A supply chain includes every step that is involved in getting a finished product or service to the
customer. The steps may include sourcing raw materials, moving them to production, then
transporting the finished products to a distribution center or retail store where they may be
delivered to the consumer.
Pricing
Pinpoint how much your competitors charge and where they fall on the quantity versus quality
spectrum.
Marketing
What type of marketing plan does each competitor employ? Look at competitors’ websites, their
social media strategy, the type of events they sponsor, their SEO strategies, their taglines and
current marketing campaigns.

Important to profile your competitors

The purpose of a competitor profiling is to understand your competitors’ strengths and
weaknesses in comparison to your own and to find a gap in the market.
The five tips on Profiling your competitors marketing strategies
1. Interview distributors, suppliers and other industry players

Transforming Communities through Science and Technology

 Republic of the Philippines
NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFIED

SAN ISIDRO CAMPUS

One of the first points of contact should be to connect with those at the centre of the
supply chain, such as distributors, agents and importers. As they are in frequent contact with
manufacturers and sellers alike, these stakeholders often have very detailed knowledge of the
market and can prove particularly useful. In every industry, it is worth mapping out the supply
chain to find these contacts and assess who might be able to provide the most valuable
intelligence. In addition, the majority of markets have a number of independent ‘experts’ of some
kind who are often willing to share the information they possess. Examples include industry
associations and journalists at industry-specific media outlets.
2. Speak to your customers
In the digital age, particularly since the birth of social media, there is no more effective, reliable
or valuable source of competitor information than your customers. Buyers are now more willing
than ever before to say exactly what they want and how they want it, or even to complain and
publicly take their business elsewhere if their needs are not satisfied.
Customers can display an astonishing level of honesty when talking about their suppliers, even
those that they have a close and collaborative relationship with. Details such as price, service,
contracts and technical information are often topics of discussion, as well as ‘industry gossip’
such as who is launching what product and when.
3. Engage with your competitors
Although conducting competitor interviews can be difficult, they are a valuable means of gaining
important insights. This doesn’t need to be a senior level respondent. Many middle management
employees, such as sales managers, can provide a great deal of information on new products,
overall strategies and various other topics. Unlike other staff within a business, these employees
are trained to talk about the firm’s offering, and a ‘mystery shop’ – where a market research
agency makes contact as a prospective customer and obtains answers to a range of predefined
questions – can prove to be very effective.

4. Speak to the competition about the competition

While it may be difficult to ask a rival to provide you with details of their own business, asking
them to talk about other players in the market is more easily achievable. Staff at all levels tend to
move between different firms, and competing businesses certainly talk to each other, so it can
prove fruitful to ask competitors to ‘dish the dirt’ on their peers. This can be an extremely
effective method of gaining competitor insight as well as an overview of the market as a whole.

Transforming Communities through Science and Technology

 Republic of the Philippines
NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFIED

SAN ISIDRO CAMPUS

5. Always remember to use company websites

It may be an obvious source of competitor information, but it is an increasingly effective one that
is commonly overlooked. With the vast majority of b2b decision-makers searching for their
information online and the increasing use of content marketing strategies, facts and figures –
which a decade ago may have only been obtainable by a company visit – are now freely
available. Information and data on company vision and strategy, product innovation sales figures
and targets, staff credentials and a host of other intelligence is often available for anybody
willing to sift through volumes of content. Although profiling the competition is integral to
informing many business decisions key to a firm’s success, it’s surprising how many companies
don’t have any structured research in place. While collecting the data can appear a large burden
on internal resource, putting the right market research strategies in place can help a firm get the
right competitor information quickly and effectively.

Summary
In profile your competitors , its similarly as part of your marketing strategy you should
develop a profile of your competitors by identifying their products, supply chains, pricing, amd
marketing tactics.
Use this to identify your competitive advantages- what sets your business apart from your
competitors. You may also want to identify the strength and weaknesses of your own internal
processes to help improve your performance compared with your competition. Also there are
impotants and the five tips of profiling your competitors this are interview the distributors,
suppliers, and other industry players, speak to your customer, engage with your competitors,
speak to the competition about the competition and last , always remember to use company
websites.

Activity
Enumerate the five tips of profiling competitors marketing strategies.
1-5

Transforming Communities through Science and Technology

 Republic of the Philippines
NUEVA ECIJA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFIED

SAN ISIDRO CAMPUS

Answer key.
1. interview the distributors, suppliers, and other industry players.
2. speak to your customer.
3. engage with your competitors.
4. speak to the competition about the competition.
5. always remember to use company websites.

Transforming Communities through Science and Technology