Competitor analysis is that indispensable step of any activity related to online and offline marketing. There is no difference, it is always important to have an external point of reference to understand what is happening beyond your borders. To move in the dark, without knowing whether competitors have already taken some virtuous steps or not, is to lose sight of the goal. That is, to optimize every useful step.
You want to reach the customer, and conversion. Every online and offline marketing process is based on certain pillars such as analyzing the target audience, defining the core business and company mission.
There are other aspects of well-structured and effective planning that have a decisive strategic profile, among them include competitor analysis. Here is what you need to know about this topic.
What is competitive analysis
Competitor analysis is a strategic step in understanding how companies, organizations, or freelancers operating in the same industry as you are. This gives you insights with respect to goals to achieve and benchmarks to overcome.
It is no coincidence that competitor analysis often merges with benchmarking work, that is, comparing yourself with your main competitors by setting metrics to compare the evolution of the work you do.
To read: how to improve buyer personas
Why this step is important
Competitor analysis is key to studying your competitors. This allows you to optimize your business strategy in all aspects, including but not limited to your online presence.
Studying competitors in depth brings several advantages. First, you can avoid mistakes made by others and find out competitors’ weaknesses to exploit. But also strands or niches in the market that other brands are starting to preside over successfully. By monetizing their own efforts.
Unfortunately, there are also kinks to be avoided: in many cases, competitor analysis is seen only as a way to find out what competitors are doing and spy on them so as to copy interesting ideas and solutions. But making up for lack of inventiveness and initiative in this way is to be avoided.
How to do competitor analysis
You need to identify competitors to include in your analysis lists, selecting those who share the same industry as you. Then you need to gather information on these names so you can get as much data as possible to sort through, figure out what is worth considering and analyzing.
Having lots of data available is important, but analysis can only be done if there is selection. Comparing and reflecting on the information at hand, obtained during data collection, can be done with Excel templates: an example is the one you find right on Hubspot’s site.
One of the basic principles is to bring the result into a SWOT analysis, which is a matrix to relate strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The latter points are related to factors external to the company and are reflected in the strategic analysis of competitors.
Thanks to this operation, in fact, I can discover possible points that can threaten my dominance in an industry, but I can also identify weaknesses in the competition to find space in a profitable niche. All of this is essential to emerge and monetize.
What aspects to analyze about competitors?
There are several ways to handle a competitor analysis. And you can put different elements, both general and specific, under the magnifying glass. Generally speaking, and depending on the needs of a route with a good leaning toward digital and web performance, we can conduct a competitor analysis by basing research, data collection and reflection on a few points.
SEO
One of the first parameters to emphasize when you want to do a good competitor analysis: SEO. That is, search engine ranking. The work is done using advanced tools such as SEOzoom, Semrush, Majestic and Ahrefs (just to name a few). The goal is to understand how competitors work, where they have gained results in the serp and in what venues you can fight them.
Or you can work strategically and use SEO analysis in a Blue Ocean key (echoing the well-known sales tactics and strategy book): find out where competitors are going strong and where they are holding back. Then avoid the fight in the first area and gain position precisely where they come up short.
Is there a tool to highlight? Very useful is the function of some SEO tools that allow you to compare two domains to identify keyword GAP and overlap.
You can identify areas where two competing websites intersect and others that develop differently. So you can decide how to move your keyword research and content marketing efforts.
ADV
Again the same tools-especially Semrush, which presents itself as a platform that is not limited to SEO work but also embraces SEM-can help you create analyses of keywords used to invest in Google Ads. This way you can figure out where and how to compete.
With these analytical tools you can monitor the competitive landscape in terms of PPC and what choices your competitors are making. Discover new rivals in the world of online advertising and compare yourself with those you already know to anticipate moves. As always, without copying techniques and strategies.
Do we want to include newsletters in advertising? Then you need a specific tool called Mailcharts.com, its function is to monitor the email marketing work done by competitors. So you can understand where and how to improve your sending of DEMs and newsletters.
Reviews
Reviews should also be monitored because with this tool you can gain substantial information about your competitors’ weaknesses. If I can identify a sore point, repeatedly reiterated by customers, I can strengthen my brand on that very front.
The same goes for praise left for other brands: you can use these insights to figure out what is missing in your work. Or what can be optimized. In these cases I recommend using Google Alerts to monitor any mentions of the brand name. If you are looking for competitive analysis tools that can track the web more in depth you can use Talkwalker which works well that in forums and social networks.
Ecommerce
Another key aspect of competitive analysis concerns the work that goes into ecommerce optimization on a daily basis. Those who have a site designed to sell online need to keep an eye on every detail of competitors and, especially, prices. This is not a detail.
Pricing is a pillar of marketing strategy: in order to be competitive, you need to keep an eye on the price changes set by your peers so that you can set a strategy.
For example, if many people decide to lower the cost of a product you can react accordingly. And decide to raise. How so? Simple, you want to position yourself as a high end, high end product. To do that you have to raise the price, and you always have to know when to do it and how to communicate.
Are there adequate competition analysis tools for the job? Sure, you can use visualping.io which also has a free version but with some limitations. But you can monitor not only price changes: you have under control with alerts the changes of any element of the web page.