14 Jul Do you know if your competitors outperform you?
If you have ever wondered – then you can learn a lot from your competitors using web data extraction.
Web data is accessible in many public domains – corporate websites, news forums and even social media like Twitter and Reddit. But even the most technically minded among us may run in the opposite direction when they hear anyone suggesting a data extraction project.
But, as an insights agency, we do not run away from data science – we run toward it. After all, it is quality data that drives our clients’ business strategies. And, dare I say it – what is so scary about that?
Web Data Extraction
Accessing web data can be leveraged in a way that diversifies your data – but web data extraction using the traditional “Google search” can require a great deal of time and effort given the size of the “web jungle” out there.
Our extraction solution is simple – by using proprietary software and processes, Insightrix can crawl the web using advanced programming capabilities, and scrape it for valuable information related to your brand or organization or any topic of interest.
We have seen our clients use web data extraction results with great success – and since the internet is continuously growing, the volume of web data analyzed is increasing.
In market research, web data extraction is employed for many facets of business:
Historical data is valuable – Think about it this way; whether you are a public service, in agriculture or a consultancy, having insights into historical trends can be critical for any kind of trend analysis – especially pricing data.
Support your R&D – Spending more time in R&D could mean… spending more money. Web scraping can provide brands with enormous insight – monitor competitor websites, forums and news articles to confirm your hypotheses.
Drive your competitor analysis – Rather than employing another traditional, search-and-find approach to competitor analysis, vulnerable to error and blind spots competitors can exploit, consider an ongoing, real-time web extraction approach to competitor monitoring where you can act quickly to maximize potential opportunities.
Read the room – Knowing what the other person in the room is doing is vital when it comes to brand strategy. For brands, having access to real-time data can give you a leg up in knowing what you competitors are up to, which could be highly beneficial to your business strategy.
Gauge the tone – Online sources of consumer sentiment like customer feedback and review websites, social media posts and forums are today’s town squares or coffeehouses when it comes to places your customers go to make their opinions heard – either to you or anyone else who is listening.
Web extraction allows researchers to efficiently crawl online news sites, blogs, review sites, forums and social media posts to gather sentiment data you need to inform your brand image, content and communications strategies or products and services – and act. Data extraction empowers you to see what your competitors are up to in real time – what their strategies are as they unfold and how they are communicating with their customers (and super importantly – how their customers are communicating with them).
Having an understanding of where your competitors are failing and succeeding will give your brand an advantage in knowing ahead of time what will work in the real world, outside of the boardroom.
A data partner can support your data extraction needs
The amount of data generated through web extraction has a lot of value – it can monitor your brand sentiment, pricing histories and competitor trends – getting valuable Ci without the need for more ad hoc research.
If you would like to learn more about how web data extraction can differentiate your data streams, contact us.