How to conduct competitor analysis in digital marketing? Part 1

Competitive analysis helps to effectively promote the product on the market. A competitive analysis shows:

• who is the real rival in the fight for the client;
• What strategy is the competitor using?
• What is your competitor’s unique selling proposition?
• in which direction you need to develop to increase market coverage and profits;
• how to stand out from competitors and find your advantage;
• how to show the uniqueness of the product and attract an additional target audience.

First, you need to make a list of competitors that we will analyze. After that, we will evaluate different aspects of their work: website, SEO, social networks, contextual advertising, email newsletters and content marketing.

Selecting competitors for analysis

To search for competitors, different methods are used:

1. Keyword search in incognito mode. Enter popular user queries and note which sites are in the top positions. In incognito mode, the algorithms do not take into account your search history and show the real positions of competitors.
2. Audience opinion. With its help you can create a survey and ask which brand products consumers prefer, why they choose this particular product, and what would make them pay attention to another brand.
3. Surveys of sales managers. Those who work directly with customers have a lot to say about customer needs. Including managers who know which brands they have to compete with in the process of increasing sales.
4. Industry ratings. You can search various rankings of companies and see who ranks first. There are also highly specialized ratings that cover only a certain niche.

Choose the true competitors. To do this, study each site separately, compare it with yourself and answer the following questions:

• Are your products/services intended for the same audience?
• Do the goods/services satisfy the same needs?
• Do your potential customers see a competitor’s offer when looking for a solution to their needs?

Leave in the list only those sites for which all answers turned out to be in the affirmative.

Next, select resources that:

• cover the region in which you operate;
• have a similar product range;
• stick to the same price level.

For analysis, choose a maximum of five strong competitors. This is enough to develop a strategy. Your task is not to explore as many competitors as possible, but to get a reliable picture of the market. If you see that you have only 2-3 strong competitors, analyze only them. Do not investigate those who are far behind you.

Researching competitors’ websites

Studying the sites of competitors will help you understand what to improve on your own resource. You can find working chips, peep original solutions, and determine your advantages and disadvantages.

When researching sites, we compare:

• range of goods/services;
• prices and their relationship with the cost of your products;
• geographical coverage (regions of sales, offices and representative offices);
• methods of communication with customers (email, instant messengers, phone);
• option of primary communication (subscription to the newsletter, consultation);
• terms of payment and delivery;
• guarantees and loyalty programs;
• usability and design features;
• availability of email distribution;
• the duration of the sales cycle (the number of stages from the first visit to the site to the purchase).

You may have additional criteria that are related to the specifics of the business. For example, when researching an online store, you can see how competitors draw up product cards. Perhaps they show video reviews of the product or highlight certain features.