A popular phrase in the marketing world states, “always be one step ahead of your competition.” But, how do you accomplish that? Develop a competitive analysis.

Why are your competitors outranking you? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What are their marketing strategies? All of these questions are answered through a competitor analysis.

What is a competitive analysis?

A competitive analysis identifies and evaluates your competitors in comparison to your business. More specifically, your analysis should include the following:

• Identifying your competitors and highlighting those that pose the biggest challenge
• Researching information about your competitors
  • i.e. pricing, financials, marketing campaigns and social media, company history, their marketed demographic, and locations they cover
• Evaluating their strategies
  • Determine their strengths and weaknesses to your brand’s

Why do competitive analysis?

Competitive research is crucial to your success as a business because it helps you create better marketing strategies. Moreover, it allows you to make educated decisions about your strategy and guarantees you can create competitive advantages. A competitive analysis gives you the ability to quickly identify industry trends and adapt to other marketing campaigns. As a result, all of these enable you to stay ahead of your competitors.

Conclusion

It cannot be a one-time thing. In short, frequently completing a competitor analysis gives your business the advantage to outsmart the competition. 

As I skim materials for my upcoming Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Marketing and Sales class, my mind wanders (Hey, a squirrel! Or is it procrastination, perhaps?). I must blog. Now.

This post builds on my colleague Jacqui Chappell’s last blog on differentiating against competition. She is known as being the writer extraordinaire on the Porch, so I do not want to disappoint as I follow a post from her! So just read this blog for content and nuggets of marketing and sales knowledge. Puhleeeease!!

There is no one size fits all marketing and sales strategy. And this post does not suggest it, either. Period.

However, as I stare at a document asking me to define “current and aspirational competitors and their market share,” I realize Front Porch Marketing has a million and one competitors. I do not watch them daily, nor do I care if they are watching us.

I was asked recently by a client if they should list names of their clients on their website, collateral materials, etc. My answer: Heeeelllll, yes! If you are doing your job well, then no competitor can cold call your client list and take them away from you.

Doing your job well is obviously the first way to weed out your competitors.

Here are five more:

1. Define your brand. Know your pillars.
2. Communicate your brand consistently inside and out. If you look like every other company in your category, you are not doing this, nor is your brand defined.
3. Look outside your industry. Take key learnings from strong or unique brands in other spaces and consider how you can use them to help your brand.
4. Talk to your clients / customers. Ask them why they selected your company or product over others? What didn’t they get from their last partner or other product?
5. Ask yourself if who you consider your main competition is really that. Speaking to two business owners independently recently, they named each other as direct / primary competition. The more we learned about said businesses, the more we found them to be great complements to each other’s concepts and thought of more than a dozen ways they could leverage each other to grow their businesses. (Maybe if they use our ideas, they will let us blog about them specifically in the future.)

Identifying and evaluating your competition is an important exercise, there is no doubt. But it’s a delicate balance. Knowing they are there keeps you on your toes, pushes you to do your best work, and provides occasional inspiration. But ultimately, what will differentiate you from your competitors is your brand, the work that you do, and the way that you do it.

So rock your brand, rock your work and rock your competitors! TTFN!