Nimlok Tradepoints:
Plan a Competitive Intelligence Campaign - Part 1

If you are serious about growth in today's aggressive and fast-changing marketplace, you need to continually identify your competitive advantage to either hold or increase market share. Tradeshows are an excellent forum to research and collect information and gain an in-depth understanding of the competitive dynamics of your market.

Before starting your competitive intelligence campaign, it's important to identify the purpose or reason for doing it – what specific data you really need and exactly what you'll do with it once you have it. Once this plan is in place, you can start to identify those companies, direct and indirect competitors, whose information would be useful to your organization. Then put together a team whose job it is to gather pertinent information and decide on the format needed for presenting the intelligence gathered. Consider adding a time frame to the project so that it doesn't drag on endlessly.

Written by Susan A. Friedmann, CSP, The Tradeshow Coach, Lake Placid, NY, working with exhibitors and meeting & event planners to improve their event success through coaching, consulting and training.

Website: www.thetradeshowcoach.com