When I hear people talking about the Internet as a “marketing channel” I can’t help smiling: I wish it were that simple!

 

Instead, the Web is not just a channel, but a broad set of many different channels; some of them are best known and established, others sprout day by day.

 

If this were not enough, these channels are closely intertwined with each other, composing the so-called “digital presence” of a company.

 

Spying on a competitor’s digital presence is a great way to understand what’s working for them and what’s not, to compare your strategy and to prevent yourself from doing the same mistakes!

Therefore, to map what a brand is doing online you can’t simply analyze its website, or take a look at its Facebook page…

 

…it would be like judging a store just watching the window, without going inside or talking to the clerks!

 

On the contrary, when you want to know more about what a company is doing (or even what YOUR company’s digital presence is!), you should do it very carefully and in a comprehensive way.

 

After uncountable analyses of companies in different industries, we at CMI have identified four key areas to simplify the analysis. Let’s have a look!

 

1. Website

You guessed this one, didn’t you? Of course this is the starting point, a gate that shows how the company wants to present itself to its audience.

 

The elements that immediately catch the eye are the images, the text, the architecture of the pages and the links, then the presence of a blog.

 

Immediately after we ask ourselves how is it technically realized: for example, does it load quickly, it is optimized for mobile devices?

 

But above all, we need to understand if the site reaches its goal or not: how much traffic does it convey and how is it able to engage the users?

 

Of course, when you are studying your company you have access to you Google Analytics… and you can’t just go to your competitors asking for their username and password! 😜

 

But using the right marketing tools, it is even possible to have some information about the level of traffic of websites you don’t own, getting a glimpse of what’s going on in their online space.

 

2. Visibility

You can build a wonderful shop, but if it is located in a place impossible to access then it is totally useless.

 

The next step of the analysis is to understand if the site is visible and what initiatives does the company put in place to reach more customers and generate more leads.

 

The easiest thing is to analyze how visible is it on the search engines (SEO) and which words do people search for in order to access the website: do they look for the company name, a product or a general topic?

 

In addition, is the company advertising on search engines (SEM) and how much is it spending each month?

 

3. Social Networking

Here, this is one is easy! You are already used to look at the social pages of the company and compare the number of fans and followers.

 

Right, but you must also understand what is the publishing strategy:

• How many times a week do they post?
• What type of posts?
• Which hashtags do they use?
• What is the engagement of users, i.e. if they reply and share? 
• What are the posts that get the best results and why?
• And so on!

 

When studying a competitor, this analysis is vital to avoid making the same mistakes and use his achievements to our advantage.
 

4. Reputation and Buzz

This is the area that everyone forgets, because it’s only partially controlled by the company.

 

On the other hand, by its very nature the Internet is a democratic place: everyone talks about everything!

 

One of the most important areas of the digital presence analysis is then to understand who is talking about the company, whether they are talking in positive or negative terms and what are the topics of conversation.

 

Plus, who are the people talking, where are they located and who are the so-called “influencers” in your sector and what do they say?
 

Too much information? 😱

 

Obviously we must not exceed: the analysis must be commensurate with the results we want to obtain.

 

Anyway, a look at these different areas will give us a clearer idea of what the company is doing online, where it is focusing its resources and in which areas does it still needs to improve.

 

So never underestimate the importante of these areas to fully understand the digital presence of a company!

 

And of course, if you need help we CMI agents are here to support you and to spy the digital presence of the companys you want on your behalf!

 
Talk with a Detective of the Web!
 
Just contact us at this page, we’ll call you back to talk and understand your needs: 

 

Keep on the lookout,

 

Agent 007