You need to know your market, and especially your competitors and what they are doing, and how they are doing it, and if their strategy works for them to get them more customers.
With analyzing your competitors you will learn either you want to copy them or go an entirely different routes. You might even find out what they are missing and that will give you a competitive advantage.

First, you learn, then you act!

Here are 7 actions you need to take in order to get to know your competition.

Subscribe to their email list and follow their emails.
Figure the way they are sending information out and they learn how to do it better.
Figure if there is a certain pattern that they use in their mailing list or maybe some trend that they see they will focus on, like new technology etc.

Kinda self-explanatory but still worth to mention.
follow your competitors on all social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube..
See what content they are producing and how can you measure yours in comparison.

Go to a trade show.
Find your competitors stand and look where are they located. Look what kind of marketing materials did they bring with them.
Look if they are in media plan of other people at the trade, did they partner up with somebody and with who. How big is their stand, is it regular or bigger than the rest of them.
Are they maybe a trade show partner, if so are they basic, gold, or platinum member? All of this information will make you learn more about them.

Check out their web page.
Analyze it good. Take note of everything that stands up out there and the things you can use to improve on your web page.
Is it a good web site? Is your better? How could you improve yours to be better than theirs!

Make sure when you ar eon their web page to read their blog.
People tend to write blogs such as this and share their latest updates.
That way you will be “in touch” with what is going on inside their company.

Make sure to find any of their publications.
Publications can be found Online – such as blog posts or where somebody mentioned them in online news or did an interview with somebody from within.
When you get the publication, try to find the lastest published. In one year a company can go thru a massive change so make sure you find the latest publication available.

One easy and great way to follow your competitors online is to put in this free online tool called Google Alerts.
Very simple and useful. Just put in your competitor’s name and make a Google alert about them so whenever they are mentioned online you will get notified in your email.