If you want to build a lasting business, you must keep an eye on your competitors and the market as a whole. Market intelligence is information that is gathered from the business world. In the past few years, this field has grown and added new tools like location analytics and predictive analytics models.
Modern market intelligence gathers data from various sources to give you a big-picture view of your industry, customers, and other important factors. It makes finding new ideas for products and services, niches in the market, competitors, and regulatory frameworks easier.
Business Intelligence vs. Market Intelligence
Corporations often mix up business intelligence and market intelligence. There is a clear difference between them. “Market intelligence” is information about the market, while “business intelligence” is information about how a business works.
Business intelligence can tell you how many products are made and sold, while market intelligence looks at the demographics, location, buying habits, competitors, and more of target markets.
Market Research vs. Market Intelligence
People also often use the words “market research” and “market intelligence” incorrectly. Some people think that they are both the same. Don’t both of these need to be looked into in the end? True, but most research in this area is done to learn more about what both new and old clients like and don’t like. The first one covers much more ground than the second one, which is more focused.
Academics are trying harder to find out how people think, what they need, and what they want to buy as customer-centered strategies become more popular. Most of the time, the questions you need to answer are specific to a product, service, or competitor. The information is used to study the competition and develop a sales intelligence and marketing plan.
Why Market Intelligence Platforms are Necessary
Know Where You Stand In The Market
If you have a strong market intelligence platform, you’ll be able to learn useful things about the market and your place in it. You will find out what the market wants, what your competitors are doing to meet market needs, who your target audience is and what they want, and so on.
Using different reports, metrics, and tools, you can look at your current market position. Using a leading market intelligence platform, you can plan for future growth based on what you’ve learned from their reports.
Taking A Look At Your Product
A market intelligence platform, which is just as important, can help you find out:
- What’s on the market now?
- What’s trending?
- What features and specs are in demand?
You can look at this information to figure out how to improve your product or service so that it sells more.
Getting The Right Customers
With a market intelligence platform, you can find out the exact demographics of your target audience and meet their needs. You need to know their age, race, location, and interests to do this. You can choose from various market intelligence strategies based on your business size, type, and growth rate.
If you know who the right customers are, you can develop better marketing plans and spend less time and money on customers who don’t fit your customer profiles.
Analysis of Competition in the Market
Market intelligence, which used to be a separate field of intelligence, now includes an analysis of the competition. With market information, you can do a competition analysis to find out what your competitors do well and what they could do better. So, you’ll be able to look at their successes and failures, learn from their mistakes, and then devise ways to do better than them.
How Does Market Intelligence Platform Help Small Business?
The best market intelligence answers specific questions about your company’s current and potential customers and competitors and helps you set long-term goals for your business. Market research could help you answer the following:
- Do I want to put more money into this or that?
- Better market perspectives?
- Understanding the customer better?
- Can you cross-sell other products to your current customers?
- Where and how to launch new products?
Businesses might find it helpful to get information about the market to understand their work environment better. When your company can see these risks and opportunities, it can make better decisions.
Conclusion
If you have access to market intelligence platforms, you can learn more about your business and find ways to improve it. But how well it works depends on how well the information is collected. This is vital in surviving as a small business in 2022. This can easily make or break your company/brand.
