In any business, true situational awareness requires not just knowing where your customers are, but where your competitors are, too. In fact, the two go hand in hand. To understand your customer base, you need to know how they interact with other businesses in the region — where they shop, what they want and how they get where they need to go.
Competitor territory mapping is a useful tool for strategic planning and market analysis. Regardless of what industry you're in, your business can benefit from an increased awareness of your competition and the customers they attract.
A competitor territory map is a visual representation of the location of your competitors. On its own, it can be a powerful tool for identifying your biggest threats and most lucrative opportunities. However, when overlaid with other information — such as your previous sales records or demographic data from the U.S. Census, it can yield insights that will be extremely useful in big-picture strategic planning.
For example, a competitor research map can show you the local demographics of the neighborhoods where your competition has a significant presence. From there, you can target your marketing specifically to appeal to these groups, eating into their customer base. Alternately, it can show you which types of customers are currently underserved in a region.
Mapping competitors is useful when creating sales territories, in that it helps you assign your strongest team members to areas where their expertise is needed most. It's also a powerful tool for site selection when expanding your business, as it shows you the areas with the most risk — and greatest potential for reward — when planning for a new location.
MapBusinessOnline contains multiple tools for competitor mapping and analysis. Some of the ways you can organize your data include:
These are just a few of the many competitor mapping features you'll find in MapBusinessOnline. Keep exploring this website to learn more and read detailed case studies. To try out MapBusinessOnline today, sign up for one of the many convenient subscription packages or download a risk-free 1-month trial.
"I had an excellent experience with MapBusinessOnline because my company works in the agriculture industry and makes maps showing where our fields are and these maps need to be viewed and shared in a database. Your product seemed to fit our needs. Overall good support, ease of use, and quality of maps created!"
Seneca Foods
Billy Taylor of Stop Hunger Now, one the world’s great nonprofit organizations said:
"Thanks for the great product, I use it all the time in our non-profit."
Billy and his team use MBO to create regional lists from their organizational data. MBO is a great data segmentation tool supporting market analysis. Users can segment data geographically and append a variety of data layers to exported results.
Billy Taylor
Director
Stop Hunger Now
"In a large company, with many layers of sales teams, sales management, territories, operations teams and distribution, it is vital to have a solution to quickly and easily display country and regional maps. I have tried multiple other mapping solutions in the past only to be frustrated by their limitations or by their complexity. MapBusinessOnline perfectly fits my need. MBO has the versatility to allow me to build somewhat complicated maps but also allows me to knock out the quick, one-off request. MBO continues to add features and I am excited to see what new features come out next."
Dave Perek
Sr Business Analyst
Schneider Electric