Do You Know What Your Opponents Are Doing? Create a Competitor Evaluation in 5 Simple Steps

By Dwayne Charrington

“A horse never runs as fast as when it has other horses that can catch up with it and outperform it.” – Ovid

If you’re not the first in the cacophony of heated business, you are last. Increased competition has forced seed-stage startups to start walking before they even learn to crawl.

According to leading marketers, most Americans are exposed to between 4,000 and 10,000 ads every day. Just take a quick look around. They lead a life that was implausible even to those born with a silver spoon in the last century. This means your target customers now have more options than ever before and the wheel may not need to be reinvented.

Serial entrepreneur, billionaire and Shark Tank judge Mark Cuban rightly believes that business is the most competitive sport. His advice to modern entrepreneurs? “Work like someone is working 24 hours a day to take everything away from you.”

Cut-throat competition drives young entrepreneurs, and this has made America the new breeding ground for competitive and technology-driven entrepreneurs. So if you want to stand up and assert yourself against your competitors, competitor analysis can be the way to go.

The golden question: what is competitive analysis?

When was the last time you decided to pay attention to your existing competitors and new entrants? If your answer takes you a few months back, then you need to pull your socks up and seek out as much knowledge as you can about your close challengers.

First, let’s start by defining competitor analysis. Competitive analysis is defined as a business strategy that identifies both existing and new competitors in the market. Once this process is identified, you can begin researching your competitor’s products, services, sales and marketing strategies.

You need to be aware that building the right framework for analyzing competitors means a lot more than just tracking your competitors on social media or scrolling through their website. Proper competitive research can help you identify key parameters like market share and dominance of competitors, their service standards, product / service differentiation, and more.

Speech by the elephant in the business jungle

An old proverb might say that ignorance is bliss; In today’s concrete business jungle, however, one cannot afford to ignore even the smallest competitor. Perhaps the only way to survive is to watch out for your rival’s every possible move.

Contemporary business owners have a lot to do, such as: B. Build the next best product, hire the best talent, and manage the finances. However, most entrepreneurs are still undermining the potential of their competitors and most do not know where to start.

Do you feel trapped in the relentless pursuit of overcoming your competition? Well, you are not alone on this journey. The presence of a dominant player in the market doesn’t mean that you pack your bags and let them rule. Competition has helped companies improve and bring better products to the masses. Take the case of Google and Yahoo for example.

Google wasn’t a household name if you rewind the clock to 2000. It only had a 1% market share and Yahoo, on the other hand, dominated with 56% of search engine referrals. By 2002, Google had improved its algorithm significantly, resulting in faster and more accurate search results. The rest is history. According to Statista, Google has a dominant market share of 86% worldwide.

How to properly conduct a competitor analysis

Comparing or analyzing competitors is not a one-day job, but an ongoing process. We have compiled some proven steps to help you become a research-driven company and overcome any prevailing prejudice.

1. Identify your top competitors

You can start with a small list of six to ten competitors using Google search results and the Alexa ranking. Try to include companies that operate in your location, sell similar or identical products, share the same audience, etc. You can also do a survey asking your users about similar brands that they don’t care about you.

2. Create a competitive analysis template

By creating a template, you can write down various criteria for comparing your brand with others. The following comparison parameters must be taken into account: product range, price structure, sources for lead generation, marketing channels and offers / discounts for new customers.

3. Divide the competitors into primary and secondary

Primary competitors are your company’s direct competitors as they sell similar products / services to a common audience. Secondary competitors, on the other hand, sell identical products, but to a different audience.

4. Collect data with the right tools

Once you’ve got the list compiled, it’s time to start looking for the right data using tools and platforms like Facebook Audience Insights, Alexa, and BuzzSumo. You can also use bug tracking software to track security related bugs and prevent your competitors from breaking into your business data.

5. Analyze the data obtained

They say the devil is in the details. This captured data will help you to get a clearer picture of your position in the market. You can also do a SWOT analysis to identify your key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Ascent via “analysis paralysis”

Analysis can help you add a pinch of clarity to your competitive research soup. A little excess, however, and you may find yourself in a paralyzed process. You need to be aware that overvaluing the competition in the marketplace can cause you to lose track of what makes your brand unique. Instead of focusing all of your energies on your rivals, take enough time to explore your competitive advantage.

Plus, competition shouldn’t always be about playing the wrong tactic or letting others down. You can improve your creative play and marketing to get your target users’ attention. Take this fun yet creative burger war, for example.

Fast food giant McDonald’s has come up with a fun and creative billboard to troll one of its all-time rivals, Burger King, in Brussels, Belgium. The large banner read, “Served by a king or served as a king? Discover our table service at McDonald’s. “

Stop living in denial

There is no such thing as free lunch in the business world. You have to stop living in denial and accept that competitors are out there and wait for you to make a mistake.

Researching your competitors can give you a bird’s eye view of your market so you can spot each rival. After all, nobody motivates you better than those who want to see you fail.

About the author

Contribution by: Dwayne Charrington

Dwayne Charrington is a technical writer currently on ProProf’s Help Desk. He has hands-on writing experience for the customer service industry. Dwayne is insightful when it comes to industrial challenges, emerging customer service trends, and how organizations address these challenges. Dwayne enjoys making connections between different industries and companies while creating his blogs.

Company: ProProfs
Website: www.proprofsdesk.com
Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.