Key Elements To Give Your Marketing Strategies That Extra Boost
What is a Competitive Market Analysis
Why is it worth your time to collect and review information about what your competitors are doing? We are in a world where businesses are becoming more competitive day in and day out, everyone is trying to be at the top of the game. With the help of competitive market analysis, you will be able to understand how your business, product, or brand is positioned in the market. With an effectively competitive market analysis in place, your business can identify its direct and indirect competitors using research to reveal their strengths and weaknesses with your own. You can compare the product lines competitors are using, their pricing rate, and their model of distribution.
Indirect and Direct Competition
Direct competition is any company that offers the same/similar product or services to the same customer base and also attracts the same target audience.
Meanwhile, indirect competition refers to a business whose products or services are different from yours but it’s different enough to act as a substitute for your product or service.
The main way of managing both direct and indirect competition is to stay aware of trends, new products, and economic influences, and use them to create better opportunities for people to engage with your company.
The Key Elements To An Effective Competitive Market Analysis
1. Identify Your Competition
The main purpose of a marketing approach is to gain an advantage over your competitors, creating a competitive advantage to succeed. Having a broad knowledge about your direct and indirect competitors will help you strategise better on how to outperform them. Then develop a profile of your competitors by identifying their products, supply chains, pricing, and marketing tactics.
You should use this to identify your competitive advantage. Look at the things that set your business apart from your competitors. Your business should also identify the strengths and weaknesses of your internal processes to help improve performance compared with your competition.
You could make good use of Google Search. This search may display firms that weren’t on your radar, search for whatever product or service you are offering, and see what comes up. You could also use the traditional way such as through annual reports, trade associations, financial filings and databases, and local newspapers.
2. Analyse Your Competitors’ Content
Through your competitive market analysis, determine what content creation your competitors are focusing on. And also look at the opportunities they have left open. There are many platform threads to follow that provide clues to your competition’s sales approach and target market. Such as blogs, videos, whitepapers, case studies, ebooks, webinars, podcasts, press releases, and more.
Ensure to assess the quality and not just quantity. Look at how often they upload new content, their post engagement rate, and analyse the gaps that your business could bridge.
3. Examine their Social Media Platforms & Website (SEO)
One of the best ways to interact and share useful content with clients and fans is through social media. Search and see how often your competitors show up on social media, check their profiles, the kind of content they produce, and the images they use. Examine which social media platforms they are using, is it Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snapchat, or Pinterest? The platform they use less, try to capitalise on it and build your niche.
Being the first on all search engines is the goal of every business. With a Search Engine Optimised website you’re more likely to get a high ranking in search engines. To understand how customers might use your competitor’s website and how search engines latch on to it, click every link in the header and dropdowns, every link in the footer and check out their web page titles, URL architecture, H1 tags, internal links, image text and keywords use.
Note that after analysing where they have left holes/gaps there is an opportunity that you can fill.
Why Do Businesses Need to Conduct Competitive Market Analysis?
Wondering if it’s possible to analyse all of your business competitors? Yes, there are several markets where it is relatively easy to name every competitor, so it’s recommended you do so if possible. But in a case where you are selling in a market with dozens of competitors, it is unrealistic to collect and maintain information on each one. In this case, it would be inefficient to analyse every single one of your competitors.
Here are some benefits of conducting an effectively competitive market analysis:
- It enables your business to stay informed on the latest market trends, audience buying habits, evolving technologies, and competitor activity.
- It also gives you knowledge of the types of products and services that are already popular within your target market and identity which competitors are employing the most efficient marketing mixes to offer these products and services.
- Analysing whether there are any opportunities or gaps within your niche that will allow you to fine-tune your products and services and let you market and sell more effectively. You have an identification of your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses, and a mechanism to develop effective competitive strategies in your target market.
- Effective market research provides a data-driven approach to creating a high-impact and realistic plan for better business and marketing decisions and strategies.
How to Conduct Market Analysis
- Identify your competitors
- Perform a competitor SWOT analysis.
- Analyse competitors’ online presence and client experiences.
- Determine your competitors’ market positioning.
- Check out their pricing and current offers.
- Have fresh knowledge about the technology your competitors are using.
- Review social media feedback and performance.
Take note of your competition’s content strategy and analyse the level of engagement on their content.
To achieve and maintain a competitive advantage, you must possess a thorough knowledge of your competition. Having an in-depth understanding of competitive market analysis will help your business stay ahead of its competitors.
If you’re looking for ways to attract more potential clients and to give your marketing strategies that extra boost, Xanda digital marketing experts are eager to work with you. For more information, contact us.