Top 10 Ways to Run A Competitive Analysis & Uncover Hidden Opportunities

Dying to dunk on your competitors, but wondering why they seem to be crushing it in the Google game? Well, it’s not rocket science. In this guide, we’ll discuss competitor analysis -- and how you can use it to own your competitors & uncover hidden opportunities in your desired market.

KNOW YOUR OBJECTIVE

Before we go gangbusters with tips you can use to nail your competitors, it’s essential to understand this piece of advice: always have an objective for the analysis.

Having a clear objective at the start of the process will enable you to set the scope of your search (direct competitors only or larger

competition). This will also enable you to look into the areas that most interest you. For example, are you trying to analyze competitors' communication avenue to come up with better brand positioning? If so, you would analyse their organic content, visuals, copy, etc. If the objective is to compare a competitor's product with your own product/service pricing is on target, you would look at a competitor's pricing. It may seem simple, but often these core elements are overlooked. This may lead to a broader than desired analysis, which is far less insightful.

DEFINE YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION

Before you sell the product, you must first sell the idea. A good value proposition makes or breaks a product. Your value proposition is the number one thing keeping your customers engaged with your product or service. It’s how you drive sales, and is far more than just a fancy tagline.

0For the sake of this blog, let’s just say you’re the founder of a digital marketing agency, or maybe a Facebook ads agency in Sydney. You’ve compiled your research, and you know that many companies need a strong social media presence to thrive, yet those same companies won’t implement proper strategy or consult with you for fear of costs, or perhaps the technical jargon associated with the space. How would you change that? First, assess your company's value propositions.

Some clear value propositions would be:

Identifying your customer’s pain points

Identifying your products benefits

Describing what makes your product valuable

Connecting this value to the customer’s pain

Now take those propositions and weigh them against an industry competitor. It could be an seo agency in Sydney, or maybe an seo agency in Australia. Analyse your product offering, and how you stack up in the market, and differentiate yourself from your competitors. Once you figure out what makes your competitor’s unique, you can figure out a way to be different difference and drive it home!

FLUENCER MARKETING GAINS INDUSTRY INSIGHT

Partnering with influencers should be a core pillar of any successful competitive analysis. Influencers with a strong history of involvement with ambassador programs, influencer marketing, or other partnerships will have had numerous experiences with your competitors brands. This can inform you of numerous metrics within your market niche that may otherwise have gone over your head, and help drive further success within your strategy.

RUN A SWOT ANALYSIS

What is a SWOT analysis you might ask? SWOT analysis looks at these four pillars:

STRENGTHS

WEAKNESSES

OPPORTUNITIES

THREATS

You can use SWOT analysis to gain a competitive advantage in many ways. For example, comparing your business reviews to that of your competitors. Are there any common themes across your reviews? Perhaps standout benefits or features people are loving? Gather this information then run the same analysis across your competitive set.

You can utilize the same analysis parameters across messaging, SEO and your competitors content marketing to really dial in your strategy.

COMPARE YOUR COMPETITORS’ CUSTOMER SERVICE

A great practice to follow is delving deep into a competitor's customer service model to determine where they’re failing and succeeding. You shouldn’t necessarily choose the top 3-5 in the industry -- rather the ones you are in direct competition with.

Be sure to read customer reviews across all their platforms, pay attention to what users are saying about them, their services/products, prices, customer service, etc. This will give you a clear outlook on the areas you can directly pick up the slack and have a massive impact on your own position within the market.

JOIN THEIR MAILING LIST

Subscribing to a competitors’ mailing list is essentially taking a peek under the hood of their operations. It’s where company’s share unique, privileged information.

By signing up to a newsletter, you gain an insight to their strategy, which content they highlight, what keywords they’re doubling down on, and can give you tonnes of direction on counter that process with insight from the inside.

MONITOR YOUR COMPETITORS’ FACEBOOK ADS

Facebook is an incredible digital marketing tool. The platform has made it incredibly easy to spy on your competitor’s facebook ads. All you have to do is locate for Facebook Ad’s library within the facebook app or web browser and search for your competitor’s business page.

Here you’ll be able to see all the active ads that they are currently running. Hot tip: scroll all the way to the bottom to see the ads they’ve been running the longest, these are the ads most likely performing with the greatest ROI. Check back frequently to see how their strategies are changing, and adapt your strategy accordingly.

FOLLOW THEIR BRAND MENTIONS

Delve into social listening traits to assess where your competitors advertising attention is focused. Using Google Trends you can assess such metrics as where are they garnering media attention, how broad is their PR coverage is, what core platforms are they focussing their ad campaigns on, as well as which journalists, bloggers and influencers they’re working with, and how.

In doing so, you can put together a relevant media list based on the journalists that write about and reach out to them. You can even track mentions of your competitor’ website URL with certain tools.

CHECK THEIR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

This may seem fairly straightforward, especially after some of the more in depth tips we’ve listed above, but you can learn a tonne of information through tracking the digital presence of the brands you respect.

You can even automate this info gathering through two tools developed by Peakfeed. This tool gives you insight into their social publishing, but also how often, what time of day, or day of the week they send emails. This information can be crucial in gaining the upper hand on your competitors.

IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT THE INTERNET

Online analysis is the best way to gather insight into your competitors, but it’s not the be all and end all. Try to engage with your competitors physical offerings as well.

Place orders on their products, study their delivery time and fulfillment methods, visit their headquarters, understand their company values and cultures. This will help sculpt a clear direction in which they’re going, and help bolster your business mantra to combat anything they may be able to throw at you.

Competitors with a driven analysis strategy today.