B2B Competitor Research for Better Marketing

As a B2B, you naturally want to gain an advantage over your competitors. For many businesses, this feels a bit like an abstract concept that is not routed in reality. That is, unless you know how to use this desire in your favor. When you do competitor research to benefit the business as a whole In particular, you can use competitor research to improve your marketing. Here’s a look at how you can do that:

Find New Marketing Opportunities

When we set out to market our own businesses to the target audience, we may have developed gaps and not even realized it. It’s these gaps that can give your competitor an advantage over year. Competitor research can help you find these gaps and close them. This, in turn, will improve your marketing.

For example, if you notice that your competitor shows up well in the search engines for certain keywords, you may have just unlocked an opportunity for yourself. If you see your competitor running ads on a social media site, this could also present a gap that you might need to close.

However, be careful that you don’t blindly adopt strategies. Just because your competitor is doing them doesn’t mean that you should. You should test each opportunity to make sure it is viable for you.

Enrich Your Content Strategy

Researching your competitors can give your content marketing new life. Often, when we put together a content marketing strategy, we tend to fall into a rut without even realizing it. Checking on your competitors can uncover new topic opportunities that will give your own strategy some life. When your audience sees that you are doing the same thing all the time, they may stop reading your content. Checking on your competitors can give your content a fresh perspective.

However, not every topic that serves your competitor well will work for you. Be sure that the topics will be well received with your audience. There could be some subtle differences in your audience that will affect the way this content performs for them.

Bring New Life to Your Existing Marketing

While we don’t believe that B2Bs should jump on every bandwagon, we do feel that certain trends are worth adopting. Too often, we have seen B2Bs stagnate in their marketing. They might think that since their sales cycle is on the longer side, they don’t need to mix things up too much with the marketing that they do to attract and nurture their leads.

Well, since the sales cycle is so long, stale marketing can lose you some prospects. If your marketing isn’t fresh and engaging, they may leave your sales cycle in order to enter your competitor’s. You don’t want this. Analyzing your competition can give your marketing new life. It can help you find new opportunities and ways of positioning your messaging.

Competitor research can absolutely help you improve your marketing. You just need to keep an open mind and make sure your observations are viable for your own business.