Business is like sports: you must understand your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses to level up. Doing so is not easy; it requires critical thinking and careful calculations. Fortunately, completing a competitive market analysis can simplify your task. Let’s discuss what it is and how such a tool can improve your business.
What is a competitive market analysis?
In short, this is using research to identify your direct and indirect competitors. Then, you compare their strengths and weaknesses to your own. Now, you can evaluate the market landscape where you operate. Seeing the complete picture is critical to predicting and preparing to face upcoming challenges. But where do you start, and what should you include in your competitive analyses?
You can begin your research by looking for examples. Contact dissertation writing services that can explain major principles or Google case studies in which companies face the same hardships as you. Since such type of writing is meant to improve your business strategy, it usually describes the targeted market.
Specify as much as possible and deliver your products or services to particular individuals, not somebody abstract with an unknown background. A competitive analysis also often includes extra details about your and others’ products, current and projected pricing and revenues, marketing strategy analyses, and customer ratings. You can rely on the following steps to succeed:
Focus on a competitor overview.
Choose approximately ten companies with similar products or services. Their business model should also be the same as yours. This way, you can compare their strategies and achievements to yours logically. Be careful to include both direct and indirect competitors.
The first ones offer the same product to the same audience as you, while the second ones target different audiences. Don’t hesitate to diversify your analyses further by researching several startup companies.
What advantages and perspectives do they have? Google your services and write out the top results. Those are likely your significant competitors.
Research the market
This is a complicated step that requires you to combine different types of research, interact with customers directly, and test various products. Loads of data can be found online, but you also need to get additional information first-hand.
For instance, primary market research may require purchasing competitors’ products and services, interviewing customers, and conducting online surveys. Meanwhile, secondary research is about examining websites, diving into the current economic situation, and analyzing companies’ records.
Everything mentioned will help you get a complete picture and keep moving in the right direction.
Compare products
Compare products, and don’t be afraid to break them! Particularly breaking them down feature by feature. While every product has unique characteristics, they are also pretty similar at their core. You may get a list so impressive that it will be hard to analyze it. Therefore, try focusing on features you consider the most critical, such as:
- Price. It often defines customers’ preferences, isn’t it?
- The age of the targeted audience shapes the marketing strategy.
- Style and design, which often reflect the company’s mission and vision.
- Quality, which you have likely already tested.
- Customer support and warranties.
Compare marketing strategies
You can organize this step similarly to the previous one or even use the same template. The major difference: now, you’re comparing marketing efforts instead of the products’ features.
How do your competitors raise awareness of their products or services? They surely focus on different social media. Those offering products for teens may have bright Instagram profiles, while those targeting older people prefer Facebook. How do their websites reflect their customers’ values? How do they design paid ads? Consider whether press releases work and how critical the brand voice is.
Notably, most successful companies try to tell the story and bring particular values to their customers. Once you analyze how others do this, it will be easier to shape your strategy.
Business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategies
What about you?
It’s time to shift the focus from others to your business. Now, you’ve gathered enough information to complete a SWOT analysis. You must list your companies’ strengths and weaknesses, consider how they bring new opportunities, and project potential threats. This way, you’ll define areas you are already good at and those requiring improvement. Where do they put you in the market landscape? Create a graph based on coordinates like presence in the market and customer satisfaction. Such visualization will help you identify the most threatening competitors.
Wrapping up
You must know your competitors to beat them. However, the journey doesn’t end here. Any competitive market analysis is pointless if it doesn’t lead to action. Of course, there are several pitfalls, such as updating your analysis constantly or tracing bias. However, the most treacherous is the temptation to give up at this point.
