Nicole Bryan — July 10, 2018 — July 10, 2018
With the payments industry growing every single day, Value-Added Resellers need to work even harder to stay ahead of their competition. Competitive analysis helps give resellers useful and valuable insights about how they are performing against others in the industry. Not only will it help you identify new opportunities and stay on top of industry trends, it will also help you to increase your business revenue.
Keeping up with the competition will help you to analyze your strengths and weaknesses. It will equip you with a new set of knowledge that you can apply to your sales strategy. Putting in the time and energy to research the competition will help you to develop a strong strategy in order to achieve realistic business goals and stay ahead of other resellers.
- Keep Up With Industry Trends and Visit the Competition’s Sites
Putting in the time and effort to keep up with industry trends will help you stay ahead of the curve. Just simply knowing what the new and hot trends in the payments industry are will help you to generate ideas and make plans to expand your business. Checking out websites like PYMNTS.com, PaymentWeek, and Payments Source can give you a deep understanding of what trends are affecting the payments realm.
Aside from industry websites, simply checking in on your competitor reseller websites will give you a wealth of information related to their products, services, and potential pricing structure. Get a good understanding of how their offerings differ from yours. Another good thing to look out for are buzz words and key words – check out every page structure and get a good idea of how they word their product descriptions. Having a firm grasp on key words can help with search engine rankings for your own site.
- Interview Your New Customers
New customers can offer a great deal of information about you and your competition. You can ask them the reason they left their previous situation, why they prefer your services over others, and what you could offer to make your services even better. Not only will these one-on-one interviews help you re-evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, they will also help better your relationship to the customer. Asking them questions and taking a vested interest in their feedback will show them that you value them as more than just a customer.
- Sign-up for Free Newsletters
Newsletters are a great way to keep track of the competition. Zero in on your competition and subscribe to the resellers that you have identified. Once you have subscribed to their email newsletters, you will be able to regularly keep up with all the latest information that they send out. This is an easy way to stay up-to-date on what your competition has going on because it goes straight to your inbox. This can also help you better your current e-newsletter or potentially push you to start your own if you haven’t already.
Bettering your own newsletter will help you get closer to your current customers and also potentially rope in new customers. If your competition sends out information about promotions, upcoming events, or industry tips, that could be a great indicator of what you should include in yours, if you haven’t done so already.
- Monitor the Social Media Accounts of Your Competition
At this point in 2018, a majority of your competition will have some form of a social media presence. Keep an eye on their accounts across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Having a firm grasp of their social media accounts can provide you insight into how you should be running yours or at least give you an idea of the kind of content they put out. Having an understanding of how other resellers create online buzz through social media can help you to improve your own presence. More importantly, you can get an idea of the kind of information that works best over social media.
- Attend Industry Conferences
Attending conferences in the payments industry are an absolute must, especially since it puts you in a position to be face-to-face with other resellers. These events expose you to a number of ideas and marketing tactics that might work for you. Conferences that are related to your niche or expertise are an incredible opportunity to know the best business practices out there. A lot of them also offer classes and seminars that can provide you with the kind of information you need for selling your point-of-sale products. These events also give you the opportunity to interact with new vendors and suppliers that can help you to grow your current business and offerings.
Staying ahead of the competition is essential. The payments industry has grown so much and will only continue to expand. The reseller market is poised to get bigger, with more unique and diverse people selling the latest and greatest payment technology. Bettering your own business practices and sales strategies with the competition in mind will yield the kind of results and revenue generating that every reseller hopes to have.
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