Competitor analysis is the first step in getting your project off the ground and making you stand out among all your competitors.
We will show you how this process will help you create an effective strategy to attract new customers or win new markets.
Let’s start right off by saying that an online competitor analysis, is nothing more than an in-depth study of what your main competitors are and how they operate online.
This information will be the parameters on which you base your web presence.
Competitor analysis: why is it critical?
In order to carry out an effective marketing strategy, it is first essential to proceed with ananalysis of competitors and the market since through this process you will be able to:
- Know the market:
you can get a complete overview of the market in which you operate and clearly assess your company’s position relative to others. - Check strengths and weaknesses:
of your rivals so you can see where you need to improve and where you can leverage a competitive advantage. - Gather insights for innovation:
online analysis of competitors can provide ideas and insights for innovation. By studying your rivals’ strategies, you can find the differentiator in your product or service and better meet customers’ needs. - Monitor new industry trends:
this helps you adapt your marketing strategy and respond promptly to market changes. - Evaluate the effectiveness of your strategies
by comparing your performance with that of your competitors. You can, in this way, evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing strategies and identify any areas in which to improve.
Competitor Analysis lets you know every aspect of your competition, any gaps in the market, and the right communication to implement.
“If you know the enemy and yourself, your victory is sure.”
The Art of War
Author: Sun Tzu
In an increasingly competitive market every day, to win, it is essential to know how our “enemy” is positioned in the field. In our case on the web.
Only in this way is it possible to win the trade “war.”
4 key points for effective competitor analysis.
The right message, at the right time, to the right person.
1. Competitive analysis: knowing means being competitive
Every company, every day, conducts a personal battle, on that playing field called the market.
We could paraphrase this by thinking of the game of chess.
If we want to make the right move, we must, first of all, analyze how the opponent’s pieces are placed on the board.
Having clarified the concept, it turns out that competitor analysis, also known as benchmarking, is strategic and forms the basis for the development of a company’s marketing plan.
Competitor analysis serves, also, to understand and assess the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors.
It allows us to outline a strategy, both offensively and defensively, for multiple factors that we will analyze later.
2. Define who our competitors are
This is definitely the first point. Identify what our competitors are on the web.
We can define competitors, those companies that compete with us in selling a product, to the same target customers.
So the products must have the same characteristics and positioning. It is not enough that they target the same potential market.
Rolex and Breil, both produce watches, but they are not competitors to each other. Their products are aimed at two target groups of people, totally different.
As we said earlier, it is preferable to include potential competitors as well.
3. Gathering information
After identifying our competitors, it is essential to collect and enter as much data and information into a database as possible.
This data and information, will be used to develop the new marketing and communication strategy.
The data are:
- Financial: turnover, cash flow, financial exposure, EBITDA (gross operating margin), useful for understanding the health of companies.
- Online positioning: includes both search engine positioning of sites and e-commerce, and positioning on various social channels.
4. Prepare the right marketing and communication strategy
Analyzing the competition, allows us to understand from a global perspective, and by individual channel, the communication strategy adopted by competitors.
Data Analysis allows you to compare the data you collect with Corporate data and thus get a REAL snapshot of how you are positioned against the market and your competitors.
In this way we can decide how to position ourselves in relation to the Market and Competitors.
Competitor analysis how to do it
The starting point is the briefing with the client, during which useful information about the company is gathered such as:
- Production processes
- Business structure and market positioning
- Product/service catalog and related margins
- Target
- Competitor Names
The next step isonline competitor analysis.
Online positioning is analyzed for several factors, both direct and potential competitors:
Positioning for specific keywords
Competitors’ sites, for which keywords are they ranking?
Which keywords do they preside over in a concrete way, and which do they disregard?
Is it possible to implement an SEO strategy that allows us to rank better than them?
Based on this information, one’s seo strategy is constructed, which is embodied in a document called the keyword tree.
Traffic estimation
This analysis allows you to make an estimate of traffic to competitors’ websites, broken down by keywords.
Technical analysis of the site
Using various tools, you can find out what technology your competitors are using. What the performance of their sites is.
The speed of loading. Whether they are properly usable on each device: Computer, Tablet and smart-phone, etc.
Investment in Google ADS Campaigns
Have competitors set up an advertising campaign through Google ADS (also known as Google Adwords)?
How much do they invest in Pay per click (PPC) Campaigns?
These are extremely important data, because they may be weak in terms of positioning, but strong in terms of PPC Campaigns.
This means that they can still intercept a good portion of our potential target audience.
Positioning in the SERP (search engine results)
Ranking for keywords, also indicates how they are positioned on search engine results.
For example, we may find that they are positioned for dozens of keywords in the top 3 search engine results, or they are positioned for keywords, which are defined as long tail, that is, from position 11 onward.
Link Building Strategy and PR Campaigns
It consists of placing several articles on third-party sites, which contain a link to our site. It greatly helps the indexing of the site. This analysis allows us to understand:
- Which sites are chosen by competitors, to carry out the link building strategy.
- What are the main anchor texts, used in competitors’ back-links, to promote their products and services
Content analysis
Knowing what keywords they use is critical. It is also important to analyze the content published. How they are structured and organized. What style of communication they adopt. What is the strategy adopted, as far as writing meta tags and content semantics.
Social media presence
- What social channels do they preside over?
- How many followers do they have?
- How often do they publish?
- How many interactions are generated by their content (engagement)?
Why it is strategic to carry out competitive analysis
Often times entrepreneurs, when asked what your competitors are, consider the historical ones, those who have always been in the Market.
Those they met at a Fair, or … worse … those who “took a Client away from them.”
But they do not know the “others.” Those who:
- Have recently been born.
- for a thousand needs they re-invented themselves or changed Market.
- perhaps, in a time of crisis, they focused on a different industry and adopted a good Web Marketing strategy, perhaps, focused on a certain main keyword.
What does it mean?
That they do not perceive them as competitors because they “have never met them,” but on the web they are strong, depopulated, and can be a strong threat to their business.
Probably because they have carried out market research, performed online competitor analysis and defined strategy.
Since the advent of the Internet, search engines and social networks have become two worlds in which people search for information about products and services.
They conduct research, comparative analysis, read reviews.
Basically, they build their purchasing process in total autonomy.
This means that it is necessary to be present, where and when, possible customers seek information.
Therefore, to carry out a proper competitive analysis, it is essential to understand:
- How users search for products online through search engines. What keywords (keywords) do they use ?
- What social channels do they use? Which pages do they follow?
- What are they interested in?
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