Sun Tzu, a philosopher-author, once said that you have to know your enemies for you to be able to effectively create a counter defense and offense. Another idealist also said to have your friends close and your enemies closer.

Both are talking about the same principle – know your competition. In order for you to move up, you need to know who your enemies are and keep them in your line of vision. The better to see them, as the big, bad wolf would say.

In business, you also need to gather all your resources to learn everything about your competition. In order for you to move up the business ladder, you got to learn "competitive intelligence".

In the world of marketing, one of the essential factors to help you be successful and to stay on top is "competitive intelligence". It is gathering all the information you can get about your competitors to make your own business more competitive if not the most viable. It is your company’s means to get you the market share you deserve.

Competitive intelligence is more like market research. But instead of looking at the overall market trends and movement in your business niche, you get information on your competitors to help you create a good defense as well as an offense to your marketing campaign. Hence, the more you know about your competition, the more chances you have of creating better marketing campaigns such as your postcard printing pieces and newsletters that actually get the attention of your target audience.

Competitive intelligence is all about gathering information. Like a spy, the more information you have, the better your postcards and newsletters would be. But these days, it is also not just about collecting and gathering anymore. Even with so much information, it won’t be any help to you if you don’t know how to use it.

Smart business owners would tell you that information is the key. But if you know how to use that information to your advantage, then you’ll be able to open the treasure chest to success.

So gather your information and then analyze what you have. These two are essential parts of working through your marketing campaign. You need to be able to adjust and update your strategy according to the actions of your competitors. If they run, you run faster. If they leap, you leap higher.

And it’s not just a one time deal. For you to be successful, you need to do it regularly. Competitive intelligence should be neatly ingrained into your marketing campaign that you cannot do without it. It would be your force to help you make the right decisions to grow your business. And when you do it right, success would be a regular fare in your business.