Competitive analysis is determining the strength and weaknesses of your business competitors and comparing them to yours. The study will be your basis for creating a marketing plan. When creating a competitive analysis for a marketing plan, you need to start with an overview of your competitor’s business, compare your products of the same category with the competitors, and conduct research to determine their customers’ buying behaviors and industry trends.
In this article, we will discuss further in detail the points that should be included in the analysis created for a marketing plan.
Overview of Your Competitor’s Business
The first thing that you need to identify is your competitors. It is important to compare sets of data between two businesses in the same industry. You should learn their share in the market and revenue. It is also an advantage to know the company size (number of employees and their organizational chart), their reputation in the market, and how the customers perceive them.
With all the information you gathered, you will identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses and compare them to yours then learn your competitive advantage over them.
Compare your Products with the Competitors
There are two types of competitors that you need to be familiar with: direct and indirect competitors.
1. Direct Competitors.
These are the businesses that offer the same products as yours, and you compete with the same market and target to satisfy the same customer’s needs. So, if you are selling surfing equipment, your direct competitors should also offer the same products for surfers. So both of your businesses are competing for the same market, which is surfers, and satisfy the exact needs which are the surfing equipment.
2. Indirect Competitors.
These are businesses competing with you for the same market and satisfying the same customer’s needs but offering different products. For example, if you are selling burger meals, your indirect competitors may be the ones selling pizza. Targeting the same market and satisfying the same needs but offering different products: burgers and pizza.
When comparing products, you should go for the products of your direct competitors. Analyze their product line and its qualities. You must also consider the price or if they are offering discounts on the identical product line.
Conduct a Research
Conduct extensive marketing research to determine your customer’s buying behavior and industry trends. With the information that you may gather, you will understand your customers and identify the opportunity to learn and grow. These pieces of information can also be used to determine the trends in the industry.
Your research should also include the following:
1. Competitor’s Sales strategy and results.
In determining the competitor’s sales tactics. How are they distributing their products? Do they have multiple branches? You also need to know if they are expanding or they have a reseller program. If you learn any customer who ends the contract with the competitor company, you have to find out why and why and why to stop buying.
2. Pricing tactics.
Determine their pricing of the same products you have. You should know if the product that they are offering has the same quality as you have. If yours are superior, your sales rep must explain this part well, especially if you are charging higher than the competitors. You also have to discover if there are perks involved when they avail of such product or service. It could be a discount on the next purchase or a free trial. This will give you a chance to make a strategy to make a counteroffer.
3. How competitors market their products.
In determining how competitors market their products, you also have to learn how to analyze marketing campaigns. First, check the competitors’ websites. Next, check if they have a blog that would entice the customer to purchase. Are they featuring their products and services through blogging? Finally, check if they are using videos to market their products or podcasts.
4. Discover the level of engagement they have with the customers.
For example, if they have a comment section on their websites, check if they reply to the customer’s inquiries. If they have a social networking site, check how many shares or likes they get. Some companies use hashtags or keywords to make sure they rank in search engines when people search for the same products or services.
5. Content strategy and how they promote marketing content.
Once you have figured out their online presence and their engagement with customers, you must conduct a digital marketing analysis. And by now, you should be able to come up with a marketing plan.
Conclusion
With the number of companies that have adopted the current setup of digital promotion of products and services, you need to do a competitive analysis for marketing plan. This should help you create opportunities to grow and compete fairly. And there are a lot of ways to compete online.
If you are uncertain about what to do and how to do it, reach out to us. In Techna Digital Marketing, we have a team analyzing your business and developing a good strategy for promoting your products or services online. You will not run out of options; with the experts in content creation, you will be able to get ahead of your competitors and increase your revenue.
