A competitive analysis helps you identify your competitors, evaluate their strategies and determine their strengths and weaknesses. This easy-to-use formula is an effective way to improve your business’ marketing plans.
How to Perform a Competitive Analysis
Every company should regularly perform a competitive analysis to learn more about how their competitors are approaching essential business functions. After all the research and analysis is complete, you will learn many lessons that can help improve your company’s standing in its industry.
Research Competitors
A competitive analysis begins with research of the companies who may be cutting into your market share.
- Where are they located?
- What products or services do they sell?
- Do they have a website? Did they use professional web design services? How many pages is it? Do they have mobile friendly web design?
- What are your competitors’ marketing activities? Do they do pay-per-click? Are they on social media?
- What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses?
- How much do they charge for their products or services?
How you can Research this Information
- Online searches
- First-hand observations
- Surveys and interviews
- Competitive benchmarking
Identify Competitors’ Marketing Channels
Even though you and your competitors are in the same business, marketing strategy tends to differ according to a company’s needs and goals. An analysis of competitors’ marketing channels may offer your business ideas on what else you could be doing in the marketing realm.
Marketing Channels to Examine
- Website
- Email marketing
- Blogging
- Search engine optimization
- Social media marketing
- Premium content
- Podcasts
Analyze Key Metrics
Key metrics are simply measures of online marketing performance. They can show anything from how many people open your email blast to how many leads originated from Facebook.
Audience growth
Audience growth metrics detail increases and decreases in a brand’s online audience. For starters, you can analyze the amount of followers you have on social media networks.
Content distribution
You must also examine the strategy behind your competitors’ content distribution plan.
- Are they posting on Twitter regularly?
- How often do they publish blogs?
- How many email blasts do they send each week?
Then, you can refine your strategy by comparing your approach with your competitors’ content plan.
Content engagement
It’s also important to know how your content resonates with your target audience. By looking at metrics, such as comments or shares, you can compare your content’s effectiveness with your competitors’.
Create a Plan
After you have done all this research, you are ready to create a strategic plan to overtake the competition. This plan should include daily and weekly tasks as well as monthly and quarterly goals.
Ask yourself questions like these:
- What improvements to my business are necessary?
- How can we alter our strategy to be more competitive?
- What internal or external changes would benefit our organization?
- What marketing materials, campaigns or processes must be updated to help us gain an advantage?
From the answers to these questions, you can develop a plan of action that will help put your business ahead of the pack.
