Competitive Analysis
A competitive analysis examines and assesses your rivals’ tactics in order to establish their strengths and weaknesses in relation to your brand. A SWOT analysis is typically included in a competitive analysis to assist the marketer build a competitive marketing strategy.
A competition analysis is an important aspect of any marketing strategy. With this assessment, you’ll be able to determine what makes your product or service unique–and, as a result, what qualities you should emphasise in order to attract your target market.
Assess your rivals by categorising them into strategic categories based on how closely they compete for a customer’s money. List the competition’s product or service, profitability, growth pattern, marketing goals and assumptions, current and previous tactics, organisational and cost structure, strengths and weaknesses, and size (in sales) of the opponent’s company for each competitor or strategic group. Respond to questions such as:
- Who are your main rivals?
- What kind of goods or services do they offer?
- What is the market share of each competitor?
- What have been their previous strategies?
- What tactics do they have in place right now?
- What kind of media do they utilise to promote their goods and services?
- How many hours per week do they spend buying ads in the media that this market uses?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of each competitor?
- What are the possible dangers posed by your competitors?
- What chances do they provide to you as a result of their efforts?
Making a competition grid is a fast and simple approach to compare your product or service to comparable ones in the market. Write the names of four or five items or services that compete with yours along the left side of a sheet of paper. Consider what your consumers would purchase if they didn’t buy your product or service to help you create this list.
Competitive Analysis is Required
Understanding how your competitors operate and think may have a significant influence on your own company. If you’re competing for the same market share, you need to understand how they get business and what you can do to get some of your own.
When done correctly, your study may assist you in identifying possible market gaps and developing new goods or services to address them. As a result, your marketing will be more effective, and you will be able to keep ahead of your competition (or at the very least, have a greater ability to shift faster when they change up their strategy).
Entrepreneurs worry about how to set their service or product apart from the competition, and a competitive analysis is likely the greatest way to do it. You may better personalise your own plan to take up where your rivals left off by discovering gaps or vulnerabilities in their tactics.
Today’s technology has made it simpler than ever to conduct clever competitor research and get reliable data. Let’s take a look at the steps involved and how you may do your own competition analysis like an expert.
Competitive analysis advantages
Competitive analysis should be considered as a continuous process in which your organisation learns about the competition’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and dangers. Although most firms collect information about their competitors, many small company owners may not recognise this as competitive analysis. The quality of information acquired or lost as a result of contracting an outside source is the difference. The most essential thing to remember, in our opinion, is to recognise that any information about your competitors qualifies as competitive analysis, and to think about it in that light.
Having insight into the competitive environment may provide a number of business advantages, especially if you follow goods, pricing, personnel, research and development, and other areas of the competition on a regular basis. “This is so that a company can comprehend both the external and internal settings in which it operates,” says Ken Garrison, CEO of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP).
There are several advantages to having detailed knowledge about your niche market’s terrain, particularly if the information is itemised. If your firm sells computer monitors, for example, analysing your competitors’ goods, price points, staff numbers, social media activity, and promotion schedule might provide valuable information into their business over the course of a year, and much more knowledge over the course of five years.
The following are some of the advantages that may be derived through competitive analysis:
- Recognizing the market
- Customers can be better targeted.
- Forecasting market potential
- Monitoring the state of the economy
- Product monitoring for competitors
- Pricing compared to competitors
- Possibilities in the tertiary market
- Getting new customers