Begin by mapping ALL your rivals – not just the major ones. Throughout our investigation, we found that our biggest threat wasn't the famous Business Rival Assessment we were tracking, but a emerging company with an novel model.
A few days ago, a company director complained that his online presence was costing thousands of riyals with little performance. After reviewing his tactics, I found multiple critical errors that are remarkably frequent among Saudi businesses.
Essential modifications included:
- Clear delivery estimates for various areas of the Kingdom
- Various shipping choices including same-day fulfillment in urban centers
- Comprehensive monitoring with native updates
- Changeable arrangements for arrivals
For a financial services company, we produced a material collection about household money management that incorporated halal investment concepts. This information outperformed their previous typical investment tips by 417% in response.
For a technology company, we discovered that their foreign language material was significantly stronger than their Arabic content. After improving their native information excellence, they experienced a one hundred twenty-nine percent growth in sales from Arabic-speaking readers.
A few months ago, a retail chain allocated over 200,000 SAR in traditional marketing with disappointing results. After transitioning just 30% of that investment to smartphone advertising, they saw a three hundred twenty-eight percent improvement in foot traffic.
With extensive testing for a store chain, we discovered that messages delivered between night time significantly exceeded those sent during traditional working periods, producing substantially better readership.
I spend at least a substantial amount of time each Monday examining our competitors':
- Digital structure and user experience
- Content strategy and posting schedule
- Online platforms activity
- Customer reviews and evaluations
- Keyword strategy and rankings
Working with a medical center, we transformed their word-based medical information into visual storytelling with visual elements. This strategy increased their material readership by over two hundred percent.
Powerful techniques included:
- Featuring products appropriate to Saudi tastes
- Adjusting product descriptions to emphasize features important to Saudi customers
- Special assortments for Ramadan
- Size adaptations for Saudi expectations
I suggest categorizing competitors as:
- Primary competitors (offering equivalent solutions)
- Peripheral competitors (with limited similarity)
- New disruptors (new entrants with innovative capabilities)
When I started my online business three years ago, I was convinced that our unique products would stand out naturally. I ignored competitive research as superfluous – a choice that almost cost my entire company.
I currently utilize several applications that have dramatically enhanced our market intelligence:
- SEO tools to analyze rivals' SEO strategies
- Brand monitoring platforms to follow competition's online presence
- Site monitoring solutions to track updates to their online presence
- Email capture to receive their promotional messages
Recently, I watched as three competitors spent significantly into expanding their operations on a specific social media platform. Their attempts flopped as the medium proved to be a mismatch for our sector.
Two quarters into business, our revenue were disappointing. It wasn't until I happened to a comprehensive study about our market sector that I understood how ignorant I'd been to the competitive landscape around us.
I use a straightforward document to track our competition's costs adjustments weekly. This recently helped us to:
- Spot periodic promotion cycles
- Recognize special offer strategies
- Understand their value positioning