Competitor research isn’t just about seeing how good their website is compared to yours. You need to focus on how you differentiate your services, marketing and value. Establishing an edge over your competitors is part and parcel of business, but simply knowing what they offer is not enough.
You may currently be the market leader in your sector. But failing to keep a keen eye on the competition still puts you at risk of being left behind. Avoid getting comfortable – you should especially try to understand the competition in the good times so you can stay ahead of the game.
A Full Investigation
A comprehensive competitor analysis helps you to understand your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses in your marketplace. So you can implement effective strategies to improve your competitive advantage.
Who To Analyse
Your business could have hundreds if not thousands of competitors – it’s impossible to analyse them all. But you’ll find that some are of more interest than others because of your niche or geographical location.
To thoroughly scope out the competition, you need to understand:
• Their products, services, pricing and how they operate
• How customers perceive working with them (gathered from reviews or testimonials)
• Their financial position: are they profitable, expanding or scaling back?
• How they market the business: the good and the bad
• How they rank in terms of customer service, employee retention, quality of products or services and resources
• What opportunities are there to differentiate your business
• What do you do better than them
• How can you make ground on them from a marketing perspective? For example, by adapting to new channels, dominating search or becoming THE thought leader in your industry.
How will you find out this information?
• Review their marketing collateral: their website, brochures, events, digital marketing etc.
• Monitor their social media channels: to learn how they are promoting themselves and engaging with customers and prospects. Also, check positive or negative reviews!
• Evaluate their content: how are they using blogs, social content and video?
• Examine how they are covered in the press: a lot of information can be found
about your competitors by reading stories about them in the press
• Scour government sources and databases: you will gain a lot of information about financial performance, company size, services offered and much more.
• Interview your customers, prospects, partners and employees: don’t miss an opportunity to find out first-hand information on your competitors from those who have worked with them.
• Review their digital marketing: conduct an audit of your competitors to learn how they are performing in and how you can take the lead. Ask:
• Are they advertising on Google? Is there social media up to scratch? Do they use remarketing? Are they advertising on other websites and platforms?
These are just a few of the questions you should ask when evaluating your competitions marketing performance.
Take a lead on your competitors
Combine all the information you gathered in a central place. Learn as much as you can about each competitor and identify particular areas you need to improve or how you can differentiate. You’ll doubtless find many areas which you are outperforming your competitors and others where they are a step ahead.
Undertaking this process will help you refine your value proposition, provide ideas for content creation, identify improvements to search engine optimization and social media engagement, and much more.
