Must Use benchmarking tools for FREE!!!
If your budget is discouraging you to purchase a superior competitive intelligence then there is no need to panic. The following three tools are enough to display the effectiveness of online labors.
If you are one of those marketers who are propelled by results and have been delivering powerfully for several years and you are shuddering to submit the latest report due to the economic meltdown then there is the perfect solution to your miseries.
A change in strategy might take you a long way. Firstly, you need to arrange all reports that compare with the last year reports. It is better if you do not print them. You should not worry about using red ink on slight decline in the acquisition growth rate and leave it to the finance department who might have used all of their red ink and hence change in toner cartridge may lead to disaster.
You need to focus on long term issues. All leading companies focus on staying ahead in the competition and you need to cash on this point.
If you have a convincing performance then you might adjust your budget and spend on valuable tools helping email programs, social media and search marketing initiatives which is actually helping your market share grow over the year.
First, a warning: Online bench marking and competitive intelligence requires proper tools. Premier and effective tools like Hitwise or Nielsen can provide access to key information regarding your competitor like source of traffic, behavioral patterns of visitors and also spending by the competitors. If such tools provide a pinch in the pocket then you can resort to the free tools provided by Google. There is a lot to be learned from these tools and is helpful in knowing your stand relative to your competitors.
Google Trends for your website: This tool can be used to trace unique visitors on a daily basis as compared to other multiple competitor websites. If you are signed in any Google product like Gmail then this tool will display the actual number of members. You can categorize in accordance to time or region. You can also view for yourself the interest of visitors visiting other sites.
Google Media Planner: Even though you find this facility in Beta but you do not need an invitation. You get demographic details for site traffic with details regarding age, gender, educational qualifications, income and others. Other information like average visits by a visitor, average time of usage and page views are also available. Such information will help you to know the exact people who are attracting traffic from vital markets and systematically retaining their interest.
Google Insights for Searching purposes: This is the latest tool on the block. You can compare and contrast the interest for different keywords which is essential for benchmarking competition. You can also filter data in accordance with region and industrial category. For example, you can actually compare the relative interest in Hilton versus the Marriot in two separate regions like the north east and the south east. An advanced tip: The charts containing the results of the search will be marked on a scale of 100. If you want to get hold of the actual search volumes then transfer the file to a spreadsheet and execute the Google keyword utility tool. You will get your actual results of search volumes over time.
