Start Competitive Analysis today with these easy steps
Your market is getting very competitive. And I t’s the usual suspects. As well as the startups and traditional business wanting a bit of your market. This article how to start Competitive Analysis today with these four steps.
1. Understand you must differentiate
Change in your market is rapid. Now more than ever, you have to differentiate yourself from the rest. You have to know your competitive landscape.
It’s incredibly important that you differentiate your value proposition. You have to you know your competitive landscape. From who your key competitors are to how they stand up to each other.
What is Competitive Analysis?
Competitive Analysis determines the attractiveness, customers, competitors and the dynamics of a particular market within a specific industry sector. Develops an understanding of the relationship between supply and demand, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for your product or service to enable you to make more informed decisions about potential marketing strategies.
Competitive Analysis helps you understand whom you’re competing against. And where each company stands, and how you compare to them.
2. Understand the basics
Focus your analysis on each of your key competitors’ financial stability, growth and profitability. Understand if their performance is above or below expectations. Determine what influence they have on your market. And their value proposition and messaging.
Competitive Analysis can start with the basic and financial information. Start by answering questions like these:
- When were they founded? Divide the established players with mid-market and start ups
- How many people work for them?
- How well funded are they? Where did they raise the funding?
- How long have they traded?
- What’s their annual revenue?
- What are their profits?
- Their revenue per employee?
- And many more
Answers to questions questions like these provides you with a foundation for your analysis. It’s important to differentiate between the established players and startups. Look at which competitors are accumulating funding. The number of employees your competitors have is interesting. How many are they recruiting. Their funding history and revenues can be important, but they will not give you the whole story.
3. Market positioning and messaging
Take a look at how each competitor positions themselves in your market. Work out their value proposition is. What value does the competitor bring to the market. And how your competitor articulates their position within your mutual target audience. Start by answering questions like these:
- How do they position themselves?
- What do they say to their prospective customers?
- What messages do they articulate to the market?
- Does it make them unique?
- What makes them better than you?
Companies have a habit of keeping to their values for the long term. They may change their products, marketing and message, but their values tend to stay the same. Value changes could indicate a systemic organisational shift. Understanding their values and messages will allow you to anticipate strategic change. It will also keep you on your toes, so your own message doesn’t become boring.
What is Competitive Analysis?
Competitive Analysis determines the attractiveness, customers, competitors and the dynamics of a particular market within a specific industry sector. Develops an understanding of the relationship between supply and demand, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for your product or service to enable you to make more informed decisions about potential marketing strategies.
Competitive Analysis helps you understand whom you’re competing against. And where each company stands, and how you compare to them.
4. Market reach and influence
Who’s attracted to their message? A place to start is to look at each competitor’s target audience. Answer the following questions. Keep in mind what could I do to make myself more attractive than them:
- How popular is their website?
- How popular are they on social media?
- What are they saying on social media?
- How many followers do they have?
- And how engaged are their followers?
- What are they trying to portray on social media?
- Are they seen as an industry authority?
- Are they controlling the conversation?
- How does their social media presence compare to their website popularity?
- Which platforms do they publish content on?
- How many followers do they have on the platforms?
- Who is engaging with them by liking, sharing and commenting? What does the engagement tell you?
Ubersuggest (we are not affiliated) provides this sort of data for a reasonable price. They are plenty more like Ahrefs and SemRush and many others who go into greater detail. But it may not be necessary. You are looking at their website for clues to beat them, not managing their website operations. But remember, the best insight you will find will be by looking yourself.
Conclusion
Start Competitive Analysis today with these four steps.
Your market is getting more competitive. It’s not just the usual suspects. It’s the startups and established brands thinking they can steam roller over you. This article suggested how to start Competitive Analysis today with these four steps. In our experience, we find that companies miss the basic stuff because it’s deemed as unimportant and a waste of time. But it’s the bedrock for the foothills of insight.
Do you know enough about your competitors?
