To be fair, it was hard to not notice the gentleman. He was clearly in his 30s; he was clearly shopping with his mother; and, he was clearing shopping for literary action figurines. He was polite to his mom when she found one more shelf of brightly colored boxes that she thought he might be interested in. Their conversation was limited, but they were talking. ?It never hurts to look,? when they clearly did not find anything of interest.
The average passerby may have let the encounter pass, but the more nosey person might want to know more. That passerby who witnessed the encounter with the action figures could easily have made a quick judgement about the adult son and his mother. By paying closer attention, however, you could tell more about the two if you watched them leave and get in their car. It may have initially looked like the man lived with his mother, the mother was in charge, and she would be the driver, the one making the decisions. If you slow your pace, however, and look over your shoulder, you might be surprised to see who was the driver and who was the passenger.
Turns out the son was the driver and if you listened for a few minutes more you would have heard him ask his mom if she wanted to stop anywhere else before eating. He was just a kind and thoughtful son taking his mother out for a little shopping before an early Friday evening dinner at her favorite restaurant.
You can learn a lot about someone by listening in on their conversations, watching where they shop, and tracking what they buy. And while no marketing team can actually create a competitive intelligence program that will physically follow a consumer in and out of stores as they shop, marketing teams can employ competitive intelligence and market analysis to learn virtually everything about online consumers. In fact, companies that are not using competitive intelligence programs to help them understand their current and potential customers are missing out on a vast amount of important information.

• Meatloaf or steak? By using competitive intelligence programs companies can fine the answers to many questions. For instance, what kind of food does your family eat during the week? Do you buy your groceries all at once, or are you drawn in by a high value coupon? You had to know that it was no mistake that the coupons that the cash register spits out are no accident!
• Are you someone who will follow up on a purchase if your social media feed reminds you? Many consumers spend hours looking at products online, but never really order online. Others make the majority of their purchases online. A competitive intelligence agency can help your company decide which customers will respond to those social media posts that are really advertising for products that were just searched for.
• Remember all of those times that you made the decision to stop or to ignore those consumer satisfaction survey questions that popped up on the screen after a purchase? Although they may seem like something that is annoying to you, they actually drive many of the decisions that a company marketing team makes.
• Keeping an image in the mind of a customer is the ultimate goal of any employee branding strategy. It may seem nice that an employer offers work shirts to their employees, but there is actually a very specific method to that madness. When a customer sees the company branding on every employee in the store, the employer is making use of an effective advertising strategy.
• Executive teams around the country understand that competitive intelligence programs and analyzing the experience of customer service will help them reach future customers.
• Timing is important. Throwing social media posts in front of a potential consumer several times within the first few hours of a product search may help push the purchase.
• Intelligence strategies are the newest marketing trend.
• Never underestimate the power of tracking previous purchases. They will help you predict your customer’s future needs.
• Googling a favorite product is one way that consumers let companies know what future services and products they may buy.