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Competitive Analysis: Definition, Benefits, And Strategies
Conducting A Competitive Analysis Is Essential To Business Success. But Where Do You Start?
While the ideas, products, and services around which you centre your business may be unique, various marketing practices and business strategies are often not. Taking the time to better understand how those in your industry are achieving their level of success is as simple as conducting a competitive analysis.
But what exactly is competitor analysis, and how do you go about conducting competitor research to improve and refine your own business strategy? In this guide, we’ll break down what a competitive analysis is, what it achieves, and how you can conduct your own to achieve a greater level of success in your own business model.
What Is A Competitive Market Analysis?
A competitive market analysis (also called competitive analysis or competitor analysis) is a type of research strategy that is designed to help you learn more about how your competitors function.
A competitive analysis is quite comprehensive, and your own will help you learn more about the products, marketing strategies, sales, and other aspects of direct competitors in your industry. Why?
There are many benefits that come with conducting regular competitive market analysis. A few of the most notable benefits worth mentioning include the following.
- A competitor analysis can help you better understand what level of success your competitors have reached and how well they’re performing. You can then use this as a benchmark for your own performance and growth as you work on scaling your company over time.
- It can help you figure out how your competitors are advertising their products and services and how these products or services compare to your own. By identifying your unique value proposition, you’ll know how to distinguish yourself from the competition and highlight the aspects of your product that your competitors don’t offer.
- Continuing with the previous point, a competitive analysis can also inform you about the shortcomings of another business’s product or business strategy. With that information, you can identify areas of opportunity in which to insert or improve your own business. For example, if their product is missing something that consumers are desperately wanting, you can add this to your own product. If they’re missing something in their marketing strategy, you can incorporate this missing element into your own for greater results.
- A competitive analysis can help you better understand what your competitors are doing right so that you can stay relevant, keep your business growth and profitability steady, and thrive in your niche.
Put simply, competitive research is critical to understanding how other companies have thrived in your space and how you can too.
What Is Competitive Market Research?
So, what is competitive market research? Competitive market research helps you better identify the key differences between your products and services and those of your competitors by searching for and comparing key market metrics. It’s also a great way to discover who you might be targeting, their attitude towards certain products, and beyond.
A comprehensive wider market focus, as well as an in-depth look into individual competitors, will equip you with all the information you need to effectively compete in your industry.
Competitive Analysis In Marketing
So, we understand what a competitive analysis is and how it will apply to your marketing and business strategies. But what exactly do you accomplish? What will a competitor analysis help you do? With a competitive analysis, you will be able to:
- Fully understand your market, identifying any gaps that you can leverage to your advantage.
- Spot industry trends that will help you market your product or service more effectively.
- Identify weaknesses and strengths in your competitors’ businesses as well as in your own.
- Establish benchmarks with which to track future growth.
- Create new products and services that are better suited for consumer wants and needs (which can help you set yourself apart from the competition and experience greater growth).
How To Do A Competitor Analysis?
1. Analyse how your competitors market their products.
Marketing is everything, and regardless of the quality of your competitors’ products, you need to take notes if they’re marketing their products well enough to place themselves at the top of the market.
But what should you be looking for in their marketing strategy when you’re conducting a competitive analysis? A few of the key things to pay close attention to include:
- The type of content they’re producing: Do your competitors have blogs on their own? Are they creating digital assets like e-books and whitepapers? What about things like articles, press releases, or case studies? Are they creating more engaging types of content as well, such as infographics or videos? Content covers a lot of ground, so it’s important to see what they release and what kind of engagement it receives.
- The marketing channels they’re using: Do your competitors have podcasts? Social media? What types of marketing channels are they using, and how effective are they?
- Their approach to marketing: How transparent are they about their business? What is their tone? What does their brand look like? How do they frame their missions and values? How does that translate to the customer experience? Be very thorough when conducting a competitive analysis for each competitor!
2. Take note of your competition’s content strategy.
Your competitors’ content strategy is important because it’s what allows them to generate interest and organic traffic.
Evaluate the quality, type of content, level of depth, and other important aspects like formatting. You might also want to take note of whether content is handled in-house or if they have others writing for them. Finally, analyse their domain authority, their content publishing schedule or frequency, and their growth over time.
3. Observe how they promote their marketing content.
An in-depth look at their SEO strategy and marketing strategy can reveal more about what you need to do to be successful.
This part of the competitive analysis means seeing what keywords they’re ranking for, how they link to internal content, the ALT tags they use, and other critical aspects that play a role in on-page SEO.
Of course, you shouldn’t stop there. Which social media platforms are they using to generate brand awareness? What does their backlink profile look like (you can see if the same sites will link back to you)? What are their most viral pieces, and how are they written and promoted?
All of these questions can help you tailor your own content campaign that gets you the traffic and online visibility you desire. Once you have a better overview of their strategies, you can incorporate them into your own SEO strategy to improve your results.
4. Learn more about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Performing a comprehensive SWOT analysis can help you identify opportunities and problem areas that need to be addressed in both your competitors’ and your own business model.
What are they doing well? What could they improve on? How does this apply to you? What are they missing that you can capitalise on? What do they have that poses a major risk to your growth? The more you know about your competitor, the better you will be able to help your business thrive.
That being said, a competitive analysis might be tricky to tackle on your own. Having the support of a SEO agency in Sydney can help!
Begin Your Journey With The Support Of Sydney Digital Marketing
Conducting a competitive analysis and applying what you’ve learned to advance your business can seem like a major undertaking. However, you don’t have to do it alone! The experts over at Sydney Digital Marketing are ready to help you analyse your competitors, create a strong digital marketing strategy, and achieve the growth you want.
Need high-quality SEO agency Sydney support? Contact us at Sydney Digital Marketing today!
Article by
Ben Kinnaird
General Manager / Sports Nut / Dad
Our captain of operations, Ben has over 15 years of experience in sales, marketing and all things digital. Before joining SDM in 2014, Ben worked as the Head of Marketing for Reebok APAC.[…]
Article by
Simon Gould
CEO / Founder / Dad
Founder and leader, Simon established SDM back in 2012. Since then, he has helped 150 clients (and counting) to achieve their digital goals.[…]