What are your competitors doing? If you don’t know the answer to this question, you may be missing out on a great marketing opportunity.
Competitor analysis is one of the most effective ways to determine your market position. Once you understand this position, you can make the most of it and develop a marketing strategy that will help you reach new customers and audiences.
If you haven’t done a competitor analysis, it’s easy to get started. Thanks to the internet and social media, we can know almost everything about a company and its marketing strategy. You can use this information to see what they’re doing right, what you might be doing wrong, and vice versa.
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What steps should I follow for a successful online competitive analysis?
To get all the information you need about your competitors, you need to follow a few steps.
These 5 steps will help you create an online competitive analysis strategy.
1. Identify Your Competitors
Your Competitors? There may be other companies that are invisible but could destroy their customer base with just a few tweaks.
Make a list of all companies that offer similar products or services, compete in your area, or target a similar market. If you are new to competitor analysis, narrow your list down to the 4-5 companies that pose the greatest threat to your business.
You can then dig into the marketing strategies of companies that are not direct competitors, such as: B. Similar Companies Nationwide
Your customer base may not overlap, but their strategy could offer some great ideas.
2. Use Online Tools to Analyze Your Strategy
Before the Internet came along, you had to put a lot of effort into learning more about a company. Details were not always exacting, but annual reports, leadership profiles, and other documents had to be requested. Then you either have to wait for those items to arrive in the mail or visit the company’s headquarters and facilities.
Get information about your biggest competitors with just a few key presses.
Scan our website to learn about our products, services, leadership and values. Download our annual report and press release. Visit their social media pages to find out what they share and how they communicate with their followers.
In addition to this public information, you can also use competitive analysis tools such as SEMrush and SpyFu to analyze your website. See what pages are most valuable, what keywords they rank for, and what kind of content they create.
The more we know about our key competitors, the better prepared we are to handle the challenges of operating them.
3. Compare them to each other
We want to compare all our competitors to ourselves, but it is also helpful to compare them to each other. After all, these companies may be vying for your customers, but that doesn’t mean they operate the same way
Once you’ve gathered information about these companies, build detailed profiles to see how they do business and how big a threat they pose.
The easiest way to do this is to make a direct comparison. Include the products and services you offer, business categories, locations, target audiences, sales channels, unique features, and anything else that sets your company apart. Save where you write your own business profile. This will help you in your next step.
4. Conduct a SWOT Analysis
Consumers are always looking for new places to get what they want.
Online competitor analysis allows you to see your business as your customers see it. reveals its strengths and weaknesses, potential opportunities and threats to its existence. This is exactly the information you need to do a SWOT analysis.
Use your company and competitor profiles to identify:
Strengths: What is your company good at? What do our competitors not offer?
Weaknesses: Are there areas where your competitors are better than you?
Opportunities: Potential benefits for your business in the long run Are there any new trends or competitor changes?
Threats: What trends or competitive activities could disrupt your business?
This analysis identifies areas that may need improvement and areas that can be leveraged in future marketing and branding efforts.
5. Identify Your Unique Position
Even if there are obvious similarities with your competitors, there should be enough differences for each company to have its own market position. what is yours
Thanks to competitive analysis, you can better understand what your competitors are offering. Now is the time to find out where you stand in relation to them
Use profiles and SWOT analysis to identify what you are doing, what other companies are not doing or what they are not doing well. This can be a unique product or a wider range of products. It may be a unique service such as. B. Customization or Free Technical Support.
Perhaps your business approach is in line with your customers’ social or environmental priorities, or simply lowering your prices. Whatever it is, make sure it’s an honest assessment based on competitor research and analysis.
How does it compare to your competitors?
No marketing strategy can exist in a bubble. You need to understand what your competitors are doing and develop a plan to differentiate yourself from them. The Internet has made this information easy to find, but it can still be difficult if you’re not familiar with competitive analysis.
If you want to dig deeper into what others are doing in your industry and use that information to improve your own strategy, Xekera Systems can help. Contact us today to talk to a strategist about how our internet marketing team can use competitive research to help your business grow.
