Attending conferences has been regarded as one of the best ways to gather info about your business rivals, and it’s considered to be extremely crucial in competitor intelligence; of course this holds true only under the assumption that even your close competitors frequently attend such conferences, exhibitions, and similar events.
Let’s talk about what kind of competitive intelligence knowledge you can gain, by attending such conferences. The first aspect you need to look into, is the number of business rivals that are attending the event, and their reasons for being a part of the event. This information can offer you a general clue of whether the event is a significant area of trade for them or not. Supervise all different events that would take place throughout the year, which will allow you to get a clear picture of types of conferences your rivals prefer to attend.
Check if any of your key competitors are sponsoring the event, (which will be a significant investment), and that happens to be the case, then it clearly goes to show you that the theme of the event definitely focuses upon primary areas of business of your rival(s). Additionally, try to gather information about approximate levels of funding, which would roughly help you in determining your contender’s marketing budget.
On the whole, attending conferences that your rivals actively participate in, can prove to be very productive, when it comes to competitor intelligence, and it is a vital part of all sorts of BI programs.
Furthermore, if they don’t sponsor the event, and just try to be a part of it, then you’ll have to find out the reason behind their attendance; it’s quite possible that they’re also trying to do just what you’re doing! In such cases, this can help you in identifying other potential business rivals.