- Digital marketing
- Competitor analysis , SWOT analysis , Understanding who your competitors are , How to do a competitor analysis , What is a competitor analysis
How to do a competitor analysis: the first step to create a marketing strategy
Competitor analysis is the first step to create a solid and goal-oriented marketing strategy. However, not everyone knows how to do it and, trivially, they mistake it for a superficial monitoring of the marketing activities carried out by competitors. It’s actually a very thorough study that, when done right, can grow your business. Read on to find out how a competitor analysis is done.
What a competitor analysis is NOT
First of all, let’s define what a competitor analysis is not. We have already said it: it is not a more or less summary monitoring of the online activities of your competitors. A look at the site of your main competitors or a subsidiary of their active promotions cannot be defined as “competitor analysis” . This will not allow you to outline a communication plan, nor will it make you really competitive with them.
What is a competitor analysis
Analyzing competitors means studying how the competition moves, and understanding what the strengths and weaknesses of your product may be on the market compared to theirs, and vice versa. A correct analysis of the competitors examines everything related to their online presence, but not only: website, marketing strategies, positioning . A well-done analysis will help you understand if you are missing out on any opportunities, compared to your competitors, and if you are doing the right thing.
Thanks to the analysis of competitors, you will need to be able to identify the weaknesses of your sector and fill any gaps that may exist, developing new products and services, or discovering market trends. It will also help you understand how to better communicate with your customers and ultimately sell more.
Obviously, you will then decide whether to do your own competitor analysis, or to rely on professionals.
How to do a competitor analysis
When analyzing competitors within your market segment, you cannot improvise. If you want to achieve your goals and place yourself in a position of real advantage over your competitors, you need to follow a method.
First you need to identify who your competitors are, then you need to establish which products they entered the market with and how they are selling them, understand what sales strategies they have adopted and what results they are achieving. Additionally, you will need to study what content they are producing, where, how and when they publish it. Then you will move on to examine the SEO aspects , up to finish with a SWOT analysis.
Understanding who your competitors are
It may seem obvious, but it is not. Sometimes it happens to believe that a company is its own competitor, but in reality it is not so because your two brands are perceived differently by the public. The first subdivision is between direct and indirect competitors, that is, between those who are on the market with products and services similar in all respects to yours, or indirect ones, who have different products but satisfy the same needs as yours. A direct competitor can be defined as such only if your company is able to completely replace it in responding to your customer’s needs. Then there are the potential competitors, that is, companies that do not currently sell products like yours, but that could start to do so.
The analysis must be done on direct competitors, but it must not neglect indirect ones either.
To identify your competitors starting from scratch, imagine with which keywords you would like to see your company positioned in an online search. The SERP that Google will provide you may also include competing companies but, to be sure, you will need to check some aspects. That is: what services do they offer, who their audience is, how they communicate and through what channels, what are their strengths, which are their weaknesses, and how they work on prices and communication.
Products: which ones they sell and how
Once you have identified the direct competitors, you will have to analyze the offer of products they offer. So focus on prices, offers, but above all on sales strategies. One of the most important points to consider is understanding which customer needs the products meet, and how they do so.
Try to be as accurate as possible and determine what are the positives and negatives of their strategy. Today the web is the main stage on which companies move so monitor your competitors online. Try to understand how they present themselves, what they write about their products on the website and if they have sections such as blogs, FAQs or Case Histories. You could create an email account to receive your competitors’ newsletters, for example. It will be useful for you to understand how often they send emails and what updates they communicate.
It is also important to know what the results of your competitors’ sales strategies are. In this way you will understand whether to apply the same strategy to your products or to change, perhaps improving it.
Content created by your competitors
Your analysis must also consider all the content produced by your competitors. Blog articles, press releases, where they are published, how often and how much engagement they have. Additionally, also consider how often they post this content: whether once a week or once a month, and what kinds of articles they write. This information will be essential when it comes to building your SEO publishing plan.
Badly written, low-quality content or content that is not in line with what interests your audience, and obviously theirs too, should set you off an alarm bell. It will be an area where you can have a good advantage if you decide to write better and more targeted content.
Of course, it is also important to see what the public’s response is to this content, especially on social media.
SEO analysis
A key aspect to take into consideration when doing a competitor analysis is SEO. Then, analyze the keywords your competitors are using to find out if there are any that you don’t use, and see if there are any links or backlinks on their site.
Also check if the images they post on their website or blog have an alternative description.
Of course, to do this, you can use tools. There are both free and paid, and will allow you to monitor and analyze your competitors, up to an excellent level of depth.
The social pages
When it comes to engagement, you shouldn’t neglect your competitors’ social pages. Then, find out how they move on all the platforms they are present on: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and all the others. Most importantly though, check out where they get the best engagement results. In this way you too can choose where and how to invest. Also, be careful if they ask followers to share their posts, if there are links to their site in the content they post, or if they use calls to action. This is all information that could be useful to understand how much to invest in a particular instrument or not.
SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis is one of the most important parts when you want to understand how competitors are doing. The name is an acronym that includes Strengths, or Strengths, Weaknesses, Weaknesses, Opportunities, then Opportunities, and finally Threats.
You can also implement it in an excel file or in a table, entering for each competitor the successes, the best feedback obtained from the public, the weaknesses, in which aspects your company is better, where they are better than you and what are the threats to your business, such as a lowering of prices that could penalize you or the introduction of a new product, or even a new location closer to yours. We also recommend that you read the reviews and online ratings of the products and services offered by your competitors.
What are the useful tools
To carry out a complete and precise competitor analysis, there are some tools that may be useful to you. Here are the best ones, in our opinion.
Kompyte
Kompyte is a paid tool to analyze your competitors. Thanks to this tool you will be able to track data and extrapolate information on competitors you already know or have it suggested by Kompyte in relation to the keywords you are monitoring.
With Kompyte you will be able to compare the traffic of various sites, referrals, analyze visitor behavior, keywords and search ranking, monitor paid ads, social metrics and analyze email marketing strategies.
SEMrush
SEMRush is a competitive SEO analysis tool, and it works for a fee. It will be very useful to analyze your competitors from an SEO point of view and extrapolate data relating to traffic and the most clicked queries.
SEO Zoom
SEOZoom is one of the most used tools, which will allow you to perform very advanced competitor analyzes. In addition, it is continuously updated and improved. It is a paid tool, which will help you to analyze in detail entire websites or specific web pages, compare multiple domains or pages, use advanced editorial tools useful for writing articles, analyze keywords and link activities building and finally, manage reports.
Mention
It is a very useful tool especially for keeping your brand monitored. Its operation is reminiscent of Google Alert, but it is much more precise. Mention is especially recommended to all those involved in Digital PR .
Conclusions
As you will have seen from this article, a competitor analysis requires a lot of strength and expertise if you want to get a clear and detailed picture of how your competitors are doing in your market. Carrying out a superficial competitor analysis will not only bring no advantage, it could also harm you. However, it cannot be avoided and it is a fundamental step if you have medium- and long-term objectives to be achieved. If you think you can’t do it alone, contact me; I will follow you in the analysis of your competitors and we will put together the foundations of your Web strategy!
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