If all you do when analyzing your competitor's marketing strategy is check their website and social media presence and call it a day, you are missing out on the big picture.
Competitor analysis is more than just going to a link and merely observing your competitor's activity while making educated guesses. That's not what analysis is for!
When you do competitor analysis the right way, you reap several benefits:
- You will be able to identify your major competitors and know who you are up against
- In the process of conducting your analysis, you can determine their products, sales, and marketing strategies
- You can learn the nitty-gritty of how your competition works, what they do, and how they achieve their goals
- Competitor analysis will give you insights on where you stand and what you are stacked up against
- You can identify opportunities that you could be missing out on
- You will spot gaps in the market and thereby create new products or services to fill that gap or position your products and services so you get a larger market share
To truly analyze your competitor’s marketing strategy, you’d need to dig deeper. Here’s a step-by-step primer on how to analyze your competitors’ marketing strategy properly:
Identify your competitor (or competitors) and their product
Your business can have direct competitors and indirect competitors.
Direct competition are competitors who provide a similar basket of products and services.
On the other hand, indirect competitors are those who provide other products and services that’ll still be able to serve your target market and solve the primary problem your products help solve.
Note: Identifying only your direct competition (while ignoring the indirect competitors) is a big mistake.
Once you identify and mark both your direct and indirect competitors, take note of their products, services, their unique selling proposition, and how their products and services are positioned.
Ask yourself questions such as:
- Who are your competitors with leading market share, and how did they get there? How long have they been in business? What’s the general pulse of the market that use their collective base of products?
- Are any of your competitors providing a distinct USP (Unique Selling Proposition)?
- How are their products priced? High-cost (with a higher perceived value), low-cost (focusing on volumes)?
- How are your competitors positioning their respective brands against the known needs of the target market they cater to (which is the same market you’ll cater to)?
- What kind of issues or problems does the intended target customer base still have, despite a sea of offerings that already exist in the market?
Asking yourself these questions immediately puts you in a position to think about how to price your products, how to position your brand, the unique selling proposition that you can boast of, and more.
When you are ready, you know exactly how to align your marketing strategy and the steps you need to take to carve out your own space in the market.
How your competition uses technology to further their business tells you a lot about where they’ll go. Technology has the power to make (or break) a business. Choose the right technology stack and you are well ahead of the market and your competition already.
Dig into their sales tactics, marketing strategies, and branding
This is where you put your head down to the drawing board. It’s time to find out just how your competition goes about doing its business.
What are the sales tactics they use? How does your competition do marketing?
Start with their websites, check out their social media presence, and how they use digital marketing strategies.
Take a look at their comprehensive content strategy (eBooks, videos, podcasts, PDFs, online courses, workshops), SEO, and paid online advertising (Google, Facebook, Twitter, or any other form of online advertising).
In addition, spy on their landing pages, sales funnels, and email marketing strategies.
How do you do all this?
Start with a general preview and research what’s already readily visible to the entire world (websites, social presence).
Then, with careful research and the right benchmarking tools or software, you can dig deeper into the nitty-gritty of their marketing campaigns (their exact SEO keyphrases,strategies, backlinks, traffic, email marketing design and messages, ads).
Analyze their technology stack
How your competition uses technology to further their business tells you a lot about where they’ll go. Technology has the power to make (or break) a business.
Choose the right technology stack and you are well ahead of the market and your competition already. A few questions to ask yourself when you analyze your competition's tech stack:
- What platform is their website based on? Which CMS does your competitor use to run and manage their blog?
- What software tools does your competition use to manage social media, email marketing, lead generation, and more?
- Does your competition use CRM at all? If yes, what CRM do they use?
- What other tools do they use for web presence, marketing, sales, customer service, operations?
Using simple tools, you can easily find the answers to those questions above. You’ll get most of the answers to the questions above such as the CMS (content management system that powers your competitor’s website), the platforms they run ads on, other software tools they use, and more.
Once you have all the answers you need, you’ll have a very good idea about:
- Who your competitors are and how they market their products
- How they build their brand
- Their USP (Unique Selling Proposition)
- The products or services they offer
- How they position their products and services
- The price they sell their products and services at
- Whether or not they can serve their intended target customers well enough (including the usual slew of complaints, issues, and problems that are not being resolved).
Knowing all of the above and the willingness to act on this information can put your own business in an infinitely better position than where you started.
Interested in benchmarking your email marketing campaigns?
Would you like to know how other businesses run email marketing campaigns within your industry instead of individually signing up for every email marketing campaign that your competitors run?
See how Panoramata can help you save time, provide you with insights and inspiration, and put you on the fast lane to email marketing success.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What should I look for when analyzing a competitor’s marketing strategy?
Focus on their target audience, messaging, content types, and channels they use. Pay attention to their strengths, weaknesses, and unique selling propositions.
2. How do I conduct a thorough competitor analysis?
Start by identifying key competitors, then analyze their website, social media, SEO, and advertising strategies. Use tools like Panoramata, Ahrefs, and SEMrush for data-driven insights.
3. How often should I perform a competitor analysis?
Weekly (or as regular as possible) to stay updated on market trends and competitor moves. In fast-paced industries, more frequent analysis may be necessary to adapt to changes.
