Marketing Intelligence Analysis Essay Example

overviews, key market data, trends, and indicators. Business journals and trade magazines serve as valuable sources of intelligence for both market intelligence and competitive intelligence. The organization utilizing this intelligence must be able to interpret and make sense of the information.

Intelligence preparation encompasses the consolidation and contextualization of pertinent information for both short-term business requirements and long-term market strategies. Newsletters, whether in physical or digital form, are an effective means of keeping customers and partners informed about updates and promotions. This not only aids in customer retention but also grants a competitive edge by enabling customers to compare products and service offerings.

Large corporations often overlook Individual Intelligence Subscriptions, leading to difficulty in keeping track of the number of subscriptions being ordered and offered to staff. Additionally, subscription providers themselves do not prioritize consolidation. Furthermore, employees are typically unconcerned when asked to openly acknowledge their subscriptions to market websites, news portals, or periodicals.

Market Intelligence includes various sourcing strategies such as Wholesale Sourcing, Drop Shipping, Bulk Wholesaling, General Wholesaling, and Liquidation/Overstock Sourcing. These strategies require and naturally generate a significant amount of both market intelligence and competitive intelligence.

External Soft Intelligence is the vast amount of intelligence about customers, market players, associations, industries, and events that sales forces and other field operators possess and handle. Not utilizing this intelligence in any organizations is a significant competitive disadvantage. Internal sources for business intelligence are the most important and generally of extremely high value.

Exploiting legacy systems, ERP, transactional data, as well as soft information like meeting transcripts and verbal communication with customers, suppliers, and partners is crucial. The intelligence present in internal resources such as

management, marketing, and sales force is invaluable for making business decisions. Major databases like ERP systems, legacy systems, and archived transactional data are essential sources of intelligence that serve as the foundation for data comparison and measurement.

In addition to external intelligence, internal soft knowledge held by employees regarding markets, customers, competitors, and other business variables can be extremely valuable for overall intelligence. Utilizing internal soft knowledge is crucial for enhancing marketing intelligence. There are steps a company can take to improve its marketing intelligence. Firstly, training and motivating the sales force is essential. They are responsible for gathering intelligence on current market trends and can provide information on the company's market offerings, potential improvements, opportunities for new products, and competitor activities. The sales force is a credible source of knowledge on consumers, distributors, and retailers. Companies also hire specialists to collect marketing intelligence.

Mystery shoppers are used by retailers and service providers for various purposes. They assess production quality, employee behavior towards customers, and the facilities provided. These shoppers also help firms evaluate the customer experience in their shops. Additionally, competitive intelligence is an essential practice for organizations to monitor their competitors and remain competitive.

There are various ways to gather competitive intelligence, including purchasing competitor's products, reviewing their advertising campaigns and media coverage, and reading their published reports. It is crucial to ensure that all activities related to competitive intelligence adhere to legal and ethical standards. Another approach involves establishing a customer advisory panel comprising the company's largest customers, representatives of customers, or vocal customers. This panel can offer valuable knowledge and expertise for shaping the company's course curriculum. Additionally, governments frequently release

reports on population trends, demographic characteristics, agricultural production, and other pertinent data that can serve as a foundation for planning and policy-making within companies. Lastly, companies may also acquire information from specialized external suppliers who provide useful data such as television ratings for TV programs.

An agency that calculates and generates data provides it to companies in need. Collecting Competitive Intelligence is possible through online customer feedback, which is crucial for any company. The customers' viewpoints play a significant role as they are the ones purchasing the products. Thus, it is important to gather customer feedback. Platforms such as chat rooms, blogs, discussion forums, and customer review boards can be utilized to generate customer feedback. This allows the firm to gain a better understanding of customer experiences and impressions.