Know Your Clients Better Using Google Alerts
Written by: Alex
In the old days, big companies hired clipping services to keep track of mentions of their company, competitors and specific markets. Today, using tools like Google Alerts, it’s possible for anyone to have real time, targeted information delivered for free.
We tested a number of the web clipping services (from free to very expensive) and just didn’t find anything as easy to use or as effective as the free Google Alerts system. Once you have a Google account (typically meaning you have a gmail account) you just sign up for the alerts. You can enter in whatever search terms you want to cover. If you’re looking to overload your email box, just put in something broad like ‘iPhone’, but I’d recommend using extremely targeted searches for things like client company names, key members of their team or competitors. A great way to help get the right articles is to use the exact person or company name enclosed in double quotes in the search so you can be sure it is an exact match.
The intelligence provided by these alerts can give great insights into the challenges clients are facing, where they are headed and changes in their organization that you might not normally hear about. It will also tell you when they update their web site so you know when to take another look. It’s a great feeling being able to bring a positive article about a client to their attention.
Don’t forget to include a search for your own company and your name to see what press you’re getting or any web comments that may be referring to you too.
