Want to gauge how well your business do in your industry? Well, there’s an app for that – a pretty powerful one. SizeUp – super-easy-to-use business intelligence tool that can help you analyze your competitors and industry; to find exactly where’s you in the comparison charts.
How SizeUp works
It’s easy to underestimate SizeUp: Entering the site, you are presented with a clean-looking layout with only 2 fields to fill out: Your niche and your location.
What you see is just the very tip of the iceberg: Once you’re in, you will get valuable insight about your niche and your competitors.
It’s easier to see some screenshot than put things up in words… so here they go.
Log on to http://www.sizeup.com/ and enter your niche and location. Let’s try this:
To test, I enter “Multimedia Services” at “Orlando, FL”. Right after that, you will be brought to a screen which allows you to choose among 3 options: “My Business” will let you compare your business to your competitors; “Competition” will give you a map of your competitors, suppliers and customers; “Advertising” will suggest you the best location to advertise your products/services.
So, let’s have a look at each of them, shall we?
Let’s start with “My Business.” Inside, I will see a form with some information to fill. But don’t be fooled by the simplicity of the form – because once you enter a figure, you will be brought to wealth of business intelligence information.
Carrying on with my test, this section will let me compare my business to the competition in the Multimedia Services industry in Orlando, FL. To test, I enter my annual revenue to be $500,000, click “Run Report” – and voila:
Very useful intelligence information, I must say.
My fictional business’ revenue is more than 6 percent of competitors in my industry in my city. You can get comparison data based on ZIP code and view more data if you want.
Please notice the sidebar – you will get more information about your business: Is your business is a startup, you can get more tips on how to grow your revenue. If yours is an established business, you will also get tips on how to grow your business.
Now, let’s move on to the next section, “Competition“…
As you can see, my fictional Multimedia Service business has 109 competitors, mapped for easy navigation. Want to learn more about a competitor, click on the business name, and you’ll see more information, such as address, phone number, type of business and years in business.
And check this out: On “Customers” tab, you can get intelligence info on your potential customers in the same way: Enter the industry you wish to target, and there you go – more information, including the location of your potential customers. “Suppliers” tab will give you information on local businesses which supply to your business.
Very cool!
But you ain’t seen nothing yet! See that “Consumer Expenditures” button on the right? Just click on it and you will see a color coded map with average customer expenditures on a particular ZIP code in which your competitors/suppliers/customers reside.
Wow.
Okay – now what’s you are going to do with all the data? Well, customizing your strategy based on your target market is one thing. The other thing is where to advertise your products/services to your target market?
This section, “Advertising,” will give you just that:
you will get a map with some “hot spots” – located within 13 miles from your location, ZIP-based. Of course, you can filter that to your liking.
As you can see, there are 3 spots on the map coloured red – that means the spots are 3 businesses with business revenue between $2 million to $11 million. There are obviously more spots, but you have to sign up to see more data.
This section will tell you the best location to promote your products and services, assuming that you would want to promote your products to locations with the best buying power (obviously!)
But wait – again, you ain’t seen nothing yet!
Clicking on one of the 3 location suggested will give you more intelligence data: Population, the number of small businesses, household expenditures, labour force quality, and so on.
Obviously, those red-hot spots is where you should promote your business. However, you need to consider the location of your competitors (via the “Competition” section) – if the lucrative market is packed with many competitors, then you are fighting over a smallish pie of the market, which is not ideal. You might want to have a look at other less lucrative locations but with few competitors on sight.
Takeaway
SizeUp is very powerful. You can draw numerous analysis from the data presented, and I view this tool can help your business development team to devise a highly targeted campaign which will yield more return on your marketing budget. As a biz owner, you can use the data to help you make a better-informed decision on where to direct your business to for better growth.
So, what do you think? Will SizeUp help your small business to stand above the competition? Please share your opinion by leaving your comment on this post!
