This step is relatively easy.  Enroll in their email program, and take notes and screen captures along the way.  Build a spreadsheet and map out their respective approaches. 

• Prominence and visibility of email sign-up.  Where is email sign-up promoted on their home pages?  Do they romance the call-to-action with a brief benefits statement?  Are email programs also promoted on interior pages of the Websites?  Do they immediately capture email addresses?

• The online sign-up process.  Do they use a registration page?  Do they re-state the benefits of opting in?  Do they provide a link to view sample emails?  Once registration is complete. do they bring people to a confirmation page?  What messaging elements are on this page?  

• Permission and choice.  Do your competitors offer options during sign-up for different types of email communications?  Do they require double opt-in, or do they employ less stringent standards?  Do they include a statement about how the information will be used internally by other departments or divisions? 

• Data and profile capture.  What fields are mandatory?  Do they collect interest preferences?  How much data do competitors collect?

• Welcome email.  Do they send a welcome email and how quickly does it arrive?  Is it a simple thank you for signing up, do they embed promotional offers, and do they provide additional benefits and tips?

Once you’ve finished this step in the review, determine whether there are any elements you’d like to incorporate into your sign-up process.

Map out your competitors’ calendars

This step is more painstaking; but if you do it right, you’ll have a better picture of your competitors’ marketing strategies.  The elements you choose to track are more arbitrary depending on your marketing focus.  We’ll base this example on marketers who send promotional emails.  Collect emails for at least a two month timeframe to do your analysis.

• Frequency.  How many emails did they send?  Are there particular days of the week they regularly use?  Can you determine whether any emails are off-cycle for a special reason?

• Events and holidays.  There are many Web resources that allow marketers to plan promotional calendars to take advantage of selling opportunities.  Holidays certainly provide the chance to develop a themed approach building up to the date.  How soon before the holiday do your competitors begin their promotions?  How many e-mails do they send around the holiday theme?

How soon before the holiday do your competitors begin their promotions?  How many emails do they send around the holiday theme?  Do they take advantage of current events?  For example, I received emails that tied-in with the inauguration or daylight savings time.
 
• Mix of products and offers.  Can you discern a cadence to their communications?  How often do they promote general sales and discounts that apply to all products available on their sites? How often do they feature specific products? When they do promote products, how many do they feature?

The example above shows email activity during the month of January for a marketer of beauty supplies.  Site-wide offers appear in orange and emails about products appear in red with the particular product line in blue. 

• Design.  Do they employ a mix of communication formats such as postcards, longer-form newsletters and text-only?  Do they take advantage of the preview pane, and what elements do they include?  Do they include navigational department links to take readers directly to their sites?  How many products are featured?

• Personalization.  Do your competitors use simple personalization in emails, and how often?  Do they personalize the subject line, the snippet in the preview pane or the salutation?

• Segmentation.  Can you determine whether they are using segmentation techniques based on location, gender or interests? 
 
• Subject lines.  Is there anything you can learn from looking at the subject lines they employ?
Once you’ve completed this step, you’re likely to have uncovered some insights into their overall approaches.  Find elements you believe they do exceptionally well, and plan to incorporate them into your program.

Gain intelligence from online services

Start with some of the free services that can provide you with a picture of competitors’ Web traffic and visitor profiles.  You have a better sense of your own true metrics, but this is a chance to view Web sources that use the same methodology to look at your site and others. Here are just a few favorites:

• General site traffic analysis — To see various traffic analysis, average number of pages viewed, time spent on the site and, in some cases, a demographic profile of site visitors go to the following: siteanalytics.compete.com   quantcast.com   alexa.com 

• Search engine pay-per click analysis — Get search engine marketing pay-per-click competitive intelligence at spyfu.com  

In this step use these and other sites to compare and contrast how your online marketing efforts compare with that of your competitors. 

Conclusion

Do a competitive analysis annually.  Remember, the goal is to solidify what you do right compared to your competition.  We can all learn from our competition—and if you take a structured approach to competitive analysis in the e-mail arena, you just might find pockets of opportunity for your company.

Regina Brady is president of Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions, a direct and email marketing consultancy. She can be reached at (203) 838-8138 or reggie@reggiebrady.com.


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