Agile Competitive Analysis: Trade Show Best Practices

Trade shows and industry events are a great way to keep tabs on competitor developments and emerging trends. In fact, that’s typically why people show up — according to Exponents, 92% of trаdе show attendees go to find out more about new products and services on the market.

For competitive intelligence professionals, trade shows and events can be a goldmine of information. But if you’ve ever been on a trade show floor, you know it can be tough to stay on track with all your other day-to-day tasks and analysis too.

Modern mobile research technology is giving competitive intelligence professionals the ability to develop a more agile approach when it comes to collecting and relaying data on-the-go. Here are some of our tips for maximizing your mobile search to make the most of your next trip:

Collecting and relaying competitive analysis data in real time

One of the benefits of collecting competitive intelligence at events is that you’re in the moment, and you can take action in real-time.

For example, you could:

• Identify legacy or emerging competitors getting a lot of attention at an event
• Collect demo or presentation data from your competitors
• Speak to current and potential customers and get feedback on you or your competitor’s products.
• Catch a market-moving announcement at a keynote or breakout, often before an official release is issued

A mobile research platform can be your biggest sidekick here. You can get caught up to speed quickly and with discretion, download important research to view offline, take notes to share with your team, and compare internal or historical documents — all on your mobile device. A speedier collaboration process means you can relay crucial updates immediately — allowing for faster turnaround times if strategic movement needs to be made by your company in response to an event.

Keep an eye on press releases…and what the press is saying

As we’ve written about before, press releases and breaking news are inherently timely pieces of content. Events and trade shows are prime opportunities for companies to announce new products or services, key hires, or other strategic initiatives. The press will also be putting out their on-the-ground coverage, which can include more color than a typical structured release.

Since these releases come in waves in the days surrounding the event, you can expect to be faced with an influx of information in very short periods of time. But with an agile strategy in place, you can make sure you’re gathering all the relevant insights you need, without feeling overwhelmed by data.

Some mobile search quick tips:

• Set up watchlists: If you’re only focusing on a few companies within your competitive landscape, curate them into a watchlist. That way, you can run searches on only those companies, and filter out the noise.
• Search by headline or title: Searching for the name of the event or conference and restricting keyword filters to “title only” allows you to aggregate all event-specific mentions within press releases, news, and industry research.
• Keep proximity in mind: Smart NLP-based research tools have the ability to “read” for proximity — as in, account for how far apart multiple keywords are from each other in a document you’re searching through. In the case of events, close proximity searches can help you focus in on precise mentions of multiple keywords in context. When combined with a headline or title only search, wider proximity limits can allow you can identify and focus in on more general themes within a document, while still limiting your document volume to event-only coverage.
• Leverage mobile push alerts: Once you have your watchlists set and your keyword searches identified, set up a series of real-time push alerts so you can account for all incoming data that matches the exact requirements you’re looking for. Since mobile push alerts are delivered directly to your home screen, you’ll have a continuous feed of only the most relevant data that you can access at a glance.

Agile competitive intelligence at trade shows

Trade shows and events can be a great opportunity to collect vital market-moving information. With an agile mobile research strategy, you can ensure you’re collecting the most relevant information for your company, and relaying back to your team in real-time — allowing for speedier decision-making and a more confident competitive advantage.

Ready to make your competitive intelligence process more agile? Download our latest whitepaper to learn how to leverage mobile tools to for better workflows, wherever your job takes you.