The Value of Competitive Intelligence

Benchmarking one’s business against competitors is a time-tested and proven tactic to define gaps and identify remedies to optimize against such weaknesses. Strength Weakness Opportunity Threat (SWOT) analysis is so common in business today, that it has been parodied for good reason in entertainment (e.g. the TV program ‘Silicon Valley’). While informative, the SWOT process isn’t nearly specific enough to define which marketing levers need to be adjusted. Herein for the first time, we will define the competitive intelligence methods and document those that have a real impact on email marketing revenue. Spoiler alert! Marketers must invest in Competitive Intelligence Applications (CIA), and implement a systemic process to harness the value of such insight. While one-off projects and market research methods can be helpful, they will not bring the same impact that providers of CIA can deliver. Marketers utilizing CIA enjoy 3x more monthly email revenue than marketers that do not invest in these applications.