Experts in the field of influence marketing believe a firm can double to triple their the return on their investments online if they have the proper competitive intelligence.
But what does that mean exactly? More and more firms are finding ways of utilizing such intelligence to help their operations grow and excel.
Specifically, law firms have been making use of this to serve their clients in increasing numbers.
Some are using formal intelligence programs while others have management or executive committee endorsement.
Many are increasing funding for competitive intelligence.
The resources they are using are numerous, including: Bloomberg, Capital IQ, D & B GRS, Debt Market, Google, Lexis, OneSource, just to name a few.
With lawyers making use of so many different tools to gain competitive intelligence to help their clients, what are marketers doing? Currently, it seems that companies are doing a good job of defining their target buyer, identifying where the buyers are online, and understanding the customer's motivation.
 Yet, on the downside, companies don't know yet how their clients prioritize among influencers, which channels the influencers use to target buyers.
They do however seem to have an idea of potential influencers.
Also, companies are lacking when it comes to knowledge of how their competitors are using the web to influence consumer behavior, and have no comprehension of who's supporting and not supporting their competitors.
As beneficial as competitive intelligence is to revenues, it's time for companies to step up to the challenge of getting to know their competitor.