Competition is increasing day by day. Promotions have become increasingly important as companies fight for market share. In a competitive market, it’s critical to uncover your competitors’ offers and promotions in real time so you can take action and strategically respond.
How to automate promotion detection
Don’t be caught off guard by a competitor’s promotion. Tools, including competitor tracking solutions, give you an edge by monitoring the competition’s moves. This enables you to react quickly with a planned response.
Software, such as Kompyte, can automatically track your competition and alert you when a promotion is launched. The first step is to identify your top competitors and enter their key web pages and social channels into the platform. If you’ve noticed the competition typically announces their promotions on a particular web page or social channel, make sure to set-up an alert to notify you of any changes on these pages. Kompyte automatically gathers page changes and new promotional insight for you, then sends the alerts to you via email or another integrated platform of your choice.
Tip: Monitor your competition’s behavioral trends regarding promotions. Companies may launch a new promotion every quarter or, perhaps, every year around the holidays. Watch for your competition to see if they follow any patterns to gain a crucial advantage in the future.
Tips for countering promotions:
Be proactive. Develop a plan of action to counter promotions and maintain your position in the market. A poorly executed plan can result in worse results than simply not responding.
Ideas to consider for your proactive promotion plan:
Provide a Rebate: This is not the same as price cutting! For a service based company, a promotion could be “sign a one year contract and get one month free”, or for retail, this could be “free shipping on a purchase over $50.”
Show your Strength: You know your unique selling points and what makes your product or service better than the competition. Make sure your customers know too! One example of this could be adding a web banner stating you offer 24-hour customer service included in every contract when you know the competition charges extra for this.
Remember to not engage in a price war–no one wins! Discounting not only reduces profit margins, it can also erode your product value. Sell your value to differentiate from lower cost competitors.
How to calculate the ROI?
Measure the impact of your faster response time to the latest competitor promotions. How did spotting the promotion and responding faster save your bottom line? Were you able to save your conversion rate and minimize lost revenue? Compare the lost revenue from the competition’s last promotion to this time around when you spotted their promotion immediately.
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