When you do a competitive analysis, you look at your rivals and understand their actions. The goal is to learn about your competitors to plan your business actions around them. Competitive analysis can help you determine where you stand in your industry by showing you where you are improving and falling short.
This kind of research is essential when there is a lot of competition in a market. This is because it’s easy to get behind on new products and marketing ideas. By looking at where you are in your competitive market, you can see where you need to be.
What Kinds of Competitors Are There?
When you do a competitive study, you need to look at two different kinds of competitors. Here they are:
- A direct competition is someone who sells the same product or service as you do, usually to the same group of people. You could sell high-end vacuum cleaners to people in the New York area. Your main competitors are other stores in the same place that sell the same thing as you.
- What is a competitor that is not direct? These people are not straight competitors because they sell different things than you, but their items might meet the exact needs. For example, companies that make skirts and shorts are indirect rivals of a company that makes jeans for women.
How to Look at Your Competitors
A competitive study can take time, but it is worth the time. This study on your competitors can help you determine where you need to be in your field to succeed. Here are six steps you need to take to do a competitive study.
1. List and organize your competitors
Please list at least ten rivals and divide them into direct and indirect competitors. Think outside the box if you don’t have ten competitors in your market or area. Check out the more prominent names that already have a lot of space in your market.
2. Look into how customers feel
To begin, make a map of your rivals’ customer experiences with these businesses. Check out their blog to see how well they’re doing. Is one of your competitors doing better than the rest? Are you living up to these expectations?
Check the reviews of each competitor to see if the general mood is good. Is there a problem that comes up a lot in studies that you can fix with your business? Thoughts like these can be found on Google Maps, social media, Yelp, or other well-known review sites in your field. This study and analysis of your competitors can help you find your unique selling point (USP) that makes you stand out.
3. Find out how your competitors are positioned in the market
From there, you can check out how much your competitors charge. It might be challenging to do this if your rivals show it online. You should know this so you can decide whether to charge more or less for your business. The study you do on your competitors will help you decide if raising prices in the future is a good idea.
4. Look into employees of competitors
With this competition landscape analysis map, you can start looking at how your competitors hire people to determine what they will do next. They might be improving their technology if they hired more workers. There might be a stronger push to gain market share if more salespeople exist. If you see that your rivals are hiring, it could tell you much about their plans for the future.
5. Add your company to the mix
Now, add your company to the map of competitors and see which companies appear next to you. Are you happy with this? Please do not skip this step because it could help you change how you place your brand or aim for bigger things. You now know which names are most popular in your market. In addition, you know who you need to pass for your hard work to pay off.
6. Make a SWOT list
Finally, use the SWOT method to determine your chances, threats, strengths, and weaknesses.
What are some good things about a competitive analysis?
There are many great ways to learn about your competitors, and competition analyses are one of them. How to grow your business? You can only know what to do next if you check out your competitors’ actions. Here is a list of some of these benefits:
Gaps in the market
A competitive study will help you find holes in your market that you might not have found any other way. There might be a need for an app that offers specific services that no other app does. Another possibility is that buyers want extra services that will be relatively inexpensive to cover. This hole in the market could give you a lead over your competitors.
Creating New Products
A competitive study can help your business develop new products, like a market gap. You wouldn’t have known these things otherwise. One example is that a rival might sell a better outcome than yours. You can see from the reviews that customers want to change how this rival does business. You can move these changes up in your roadmap since your customers wish to speed better.
Trends in the Market
It’s possible to find a market trend toward something you have not considered through a competitive study. All of your rivals are making mobile apps or custom products. Many things can be missed in busy places that a competitive landscape study can bring to light. You can stay ahead by looking at your rivals every three months.
Dealing with
You can get new ideas by looking at how often your rivals post on social media, write blog posts and emails, and use their overall marketing strategies. You may have yet to think about video marketing, but your main rival is getting attention from people who watch their videos. Or the things you write on social media are too dull, and people would rather see more positive posts. Because every business is different, their marketing will also be other. However, you can learn from what they do.
How to Set Prices
How you set your prices might work well for you right now. But all of your rivals may be going the route of an annual or monthly plan. You can either stick with the prices you’re charging now or change them to something more familiar.