What is your competition doing? Don’t know? Or, don’t know enough? Keep reading and we’ll show you how to stay on top of what they are doing.
A LITTLE STORY…
We once heard a story about a real estate agent who was going for a listing at a particular condo building. They uploaded a PDF of their presentation to the Internet so that they could email it ahead of their appointment. It was picked up by Google Analytics and sent to their competition! The competition was able to call the homeowner and ask to be interviewed, as well.
We are going to use Google Alerts for today’s task. It’s really simple, you do not even have to have a Google account to do so.
Google Alerts are free and allow you to monitor the web for, not only your own brand, but anything you might find interesting. We think monitoring your competition is the perfect use of Google Alerts.
START HERE:
www.google.com/alerts
SUGGESTED USES:
- First and foremost, have an alert for your own business! Enter the name (and any shortenings of that name) and your own personal name/names of all your owners, heck, even managers and staff!
- Enter the name of your competitor’s business. If it’s a common name, add your City: “Applebee’s Littleton”
- Search the name of the business owner for your competition, maybe they’ve applied for a new permit?
- Enter what you do for a living or what your business is: “bowling alley Dayton”
- Do you blog (if you need help with that, check out Intersect)? Find more information on your area by entering the names of the schools, cafes, stores, and more…free blog content will be delivered to your inbox!
REAL ESTATE AGENTS (SEE ABOVE AND BELOW):
- Do you follow a particular neighborhood? Enter that name!
- Do you want to be the specialist in condo building? Enter the address in one alert and create a second alert for the condominium name.
- Put in your clients’ addresses! It’s good to know if anything is posted online.
- And, to say it again, enter the name of your competition! Do you work a neighborhood that another agent(s) specializes in, too?