Marketing intelligence : an essential process !

So, what is marketing intelligence ?

Firstly, marketing intelligence is a concept that applies to companies that already have one or more products marketed. Secondly, the simplest definition of marketing intelligence is informational monitoring around your products and market, intended to modify your marketing actions in a growth-oriented approach.

Therefore, a company must follow the technological developments in its sector and the innovations of its competitors. Consequently, for a brand, intelligence gathering is a constant updating of information closely or distantly related to the marketing of its product. This marketing intelligence allows the structure that practices it to stay in tune with the evolution of its market. And thus to stay one step ahead of the competition. It can also involve collecting information to anticipate changes in its economic environment.

On the other hand, to grasp the importance of marketing intelligence in the digital age, it’s necessary to understand what marketing intelligence consisted of before the digital era, and therefore how digital technology has radically changed the approach to marketing intelligence.

Marketing intelligence before the digital era

Before the digital era, communication and marketing actions for a product went through two channels. Firstly, physical presence. Secondly, the media. Marketing intelligence therefore consisted of a company monitoring these two types of channels related to their activity.

Physical presence

So, physical presence is the set of actions that require an exchange between two people. Concretely, this ranges from direct door-to-door sales by a traditional salesperson, in-store sales with a customer advisor, to sales in supermarkets with tasting actions as can still be seen in some large stores for products that differentiate themselves through high added value (luxury products, very original products).

The media

Before the arrival of digital technology, media was summed up in two types: media for information purposes and media for advertising purposes. Information-oriented media include the three major media families : television, press, and radio, in their informative aspect. Therefore, all advertisements that appear on these three types of media must be excluded from the information media category. Only content produced by journalists and program managers should be considered, without any remuneration in return.

The category of advertising media includes all communication supports for which the advertiser has paid to carry out their communication operation (television advertising, advertising insert in a newspaper, promotional flyer, billboard in the street). They ensure greater visibility but are often neglected by consumers, who know that it is content with a commercial purpose.

And in practice, how did it work ?

Marketing intelligence therefore consisted of cross-referencing all publications related to our sector, our products, our technology, and the global economic environment. However, as the information came from different sources, in heterogeneous formats, it was quite complex to synthesize all the information from the intelligence gathering into a single document, or even a single file. Indeed, how could one preserve a billboard and a television report in a file that is transmitted to colleagues and directors to analyze the evolution of our sector.

Moreover, the absence of any centralization of information prevented marketing intelligence from being exhaustive. Because an employee, no matter how qualified, could not manage to obtain all the information about their company. No tool allowed it. This is also why the activity of information monitoring was very underdeveloped. This task was only truly carried out in large companies, which worked on technological products capable of generating several million to several billion euros in turnover.

Marketing intelligence since the digital age

The very principle of digital has revolutionized the functioning of information. All digital data can be summarized as an accumulation of 0s and 1s. Everything digital is therefore made up of the same language, and the same unit of measurement, whether it’s a video or a text. From a purely technical point of view, digital has thus made it possible to standardize documents into a single format.

Information overload

Data overload is a logical consequence of this standardization of the information format. With digital, the cost of content production has become very low. More precisely, digital has induced a very low marginal cost, close to zero. This means that costs are generally lower for a digital business than for a physical company on the one hand.

And on the other hand, the majority of costs are borne by the sale of the first unit. This implies that selling one product, or selling 10,000, costs us about the same on the Internet. Previously, launching a newspaper meant having the means to print this document in several thousand copies. Today, this is no longer the case: anyone can launch their media. This is what makes your marketing intelligence more complex because relevant information for you can be found everywhere: on major national media sites, or on so-called ‘niche’ websites, or even on anonymous consumer blogs.

Search engines

Faced with this information overload, search engines were created to allow internet users to sort through the information present on the Internet (the first of them being Google). These search engines allow us in a few clicks to obtain relevant data related to our query. Search engines are now indispensable for any marketing intelligence because, by hierarchizing information, they classify it and allow, with their criteria, relevant in the digital age, to differentiate between content essential for our marketing intelligence and a more secondary article.

There are even search engines specialized in marketing intelligence. For example ‘Mention‘ (https://mention.com/en/) allows you to monitor your online presence. For one or more keywords related to your sector, your brand, and your competitors, you can receive every news item related to them.

Using the same principle, Google has set up a similar service called ‘Google Alerts’, which sends you an email every time your keyword is mentioned. In this case, be careful : you need to set up alerts for keywords that are truly related to your sector. Don’t underestimate the risk of homonymy, as Google doesn’t differentiate between ‘Tesla’, the car brand (and related publications), and ‘Tesla’, the Czech physics genius. Work on Google Alerts meticulously, otherwise your marketing watch will be poorly targeted and ineffective.

RSS Feeds

Similar to keyword alerts, we recommend creating RSS feeds with keyword targeting. But also targeting sources. This RSS feed will update as articles and other content related to your ‘target’ queries are published. Thus, your marketing watch will be largely automated.

In the digital age, the principle of marketing watch makes perfect sense. Because each company faces increasingly fierce and globalized direct and indirect competition. It is therefore essential to adopt digital tools that automate information gathering, to then focus on processing it. Indeed, digital technology has led to an acceleration of time, and reactivity has become a key characteristic for companies. Adaptability is necessary to survive in the face of competition, adopt disruptive practices, and be attentive to the market.

A new profession : economic intelligence

Until the 1990s, marketing watch was the prerogative of very large companies that needed to be at the forefront of their sector. With the widespread arrival of the Internet and digital technology in the 2000s, marketing watch has become much more democratized. Now, this activity is more easily achievable because, as we have seen previously, the file format has become standardized. Nevertheless, the 2010s marked the rise of ‘Web 2.0’, where interactivity has become the norm.

Thus, from the second decade of the twenty-first century, the web has become democratized and the quantity of quality blogs has increased considerably. Anyone is now able, via ‘CMS’, to create their website (previously this activity was reserved for developers) and make it a reference in their sector. As a reminder, ‘CMS’ is the abbreviation for ‘Content Management System’. The best known are ‘WordPress’, ‘Wix’ or ‘Shopify’.

As a result, the 2010s brought an explosion of content available on the web, making marketing watch increasingly complex. This is why a profession has been booming since the late 2010s: economic intelligence.

Economic intelligence is complex to define: intelligence should be understood primarily in the Anglo-Saxon sense of the term, meaning information gathering. Economic intelligence agencies offer in-depth monitoring, not just focused on marketing, but versatile, on all aspects of the business. The objective of these companies is to inform you about the competition, and to reveal opportunities for growth in your sector.

Distinguishing between marketing watch and digital watch

As you understand, marketing watch tends to become more complex. Digital has multiplied the potential of this task, which was previously confidential. However, marketing watch and digital watch should not be confused. Marketing watch is not just digital watch, and digital watch is not only oriented towards marketing.

Digital watch encompasses all operations of monitoring web content on different subjects (marketing, R&D, operations…) while marketing watch concerns only the monitoring of marketing but on all media (digital, print…)

To learn more about ‘digital watch’, we invite you to read our article :

Four Major Types of Marketing Watch

There are, concretely, four major categories of marketing watch. None is less important than another. We recommend, in your approach, to break them down to better focus your research. We will analyze each of them to highlight their specificities.

Commercial intelligence

Commercial intelligence is the subcategory of marketing intelligence that you master best, even unconsciously. Its definition is simple : it involves monitoring the commercialization of your products. It is most directly linked to your revenues. Thus, the subjects vary according to your sector, but commercial intelligence includes the evolution of distribution, pricing policy, or your available stock.

Competitive intelligence

Also called benchmarking, competitive intelligence consists of monitoring your direct and indirect competition. What are the new practices of companies positioned in the same sector as you ? Are they launching new products ? Do you have information about them in terms of sales levels or turnover offering elements of comparison with your situation?

Technological intelligence

Technological intelligence involves observing the regular evolution of technologies closely or distantly related to your company. This intelligence involves a thorough study of specialized press. For example, if you are a software publisher and you learn that a new programming language has been created, investigating the potential of this new coding language in relation to your business falls under technological intelligence.

Environmental intelligence

Environmental intelligence can be summarized as intelligence on everything that surrounds the company without directly concerning it. It can be split into two categories : legal intelligence and societal intelligence.

Legal intelligence

In France, legislation evolves at a very rapid pace. Each year, parliamentarians adopt several dozen laws that significantly change daily life. Some sectors are particularly regulated in nature. While others, on the contrary, were until now very little regulated and suddenly become the subject of several impactful laws. Legal intelligence allows you to observe the evolution of the regulatory situation in the sector in which your company operates. With such information obtained upstream thanks to meticulous marketing intelligence, you will be better able to anticipate new legal provisions.

For example, platforms that allowed converting euros to bitcoins were very little regulated until 2020. With the surge in prices, many individuals are buying cryptocurrencies and states are beginning to regulate this sector, which was until then a legislative no man’s land. Legislation can even become a threat to the economic model. This is the case for delivery platforms for which more and more jurisdictions are reclassifying service contracts as employment contracts.

Sometimes, new laws impact you indirectly. For example, since June 1, 2021, e-commerce merchants must apply double verification during online payment by their customers. This obligation does not specifically impact the clothing sector or food trade. But as soon as a company sells on the Internet, it must comply with this change in legislation.

Societal intelligence

Finally, societal intelligence is the most difficult to carry out. It involves observing the evolution of practices and mentalities in society. To draw concrete consequences on the evolution of our business. These major societal changes are not always palpable. Let’s take real estate as an example. It may involve, for instance, the trend of reducing the number of people in a household (linked to divorces, increased life expectancy, and people’s mobility). And thus the increased need for small housing units (studios, one-bedroom, two-bedroom apartments). In the shorter term, the trend is towards the countryside. Medium-sized cities and rural areas have been ‘on the rise’ since the lockdown. While Paris and large cities are being neglected by buyers.

To conclude

In conclusion, marketing intelligence is essential in our globalized economy. Therefore, it should not be viewed as a subsidiary activity. Instead, it should be taken into account from the very creation of your company, and even before, when you conduct your market research. Moreover, intelligence gathering can be time-consuming if not well-managed, so don’t hesitate to outsource it to marketing professionals who will carry out this valuable task for you with all their expertise.