Competitor analysis is an important part of marketing planning, which helps to understand the state of the market and determine the strategy of your behavior in the market.
The first thing to look for when analyzing competitors is consumer behavior. Pay attention to what they praise what they prefer. Then proceed to the analysis of competitors directly: who is their target segment, what niches they occupy (if their products are niche).
Pay attention to their websites and social media criticisms: if they have serious flaws, they will be criticized. Pay attention to the announcements of new products, to the news feed on the site.
If you are producing something, you should pay attention to the vacancies of your competitors: if they are recruiting specialists in some narrow field, it means that they are planning to develop something, this information can be used to analyze new products that they release. An important aspect is also the quality control of the competitor's production, the strengths and weaknesses of its implementation.
It is worth identifying all the strengths, and thinking on each point, and what your company can answer. If a competitor is very strong in something, it may be worth directing efforts to something else, because it will be very difficult to catch up with him in this characteristic. But you can choose a different path: release a niche product or focus on something else.
An important characteristic when analyzing competitors is where the company is represented. If a company is poorly represented in a certain region, it may make sense to focus efforts on this region and occupy the market.
Marketer Porter identifies five forces that can be useful to analyze. These are competitors, consumers, substitute products for your products, the market (how difficult it is to enter it, what is the current situation, what are the features of the legislation), suppliers. If there are few suppliers, they can dictate their terms to both you and the market.
There can be a lot of competitors. It is impossible and unnecessary to analyze in detail the activities of everyone. It makes sense to group competitors into groups with the same target audience, and then look at direct competitors.
Determine which characteristics are key to your industry. For example, if you have a store that sells backpacks, the key characteristics are the age and gender of the person for whom the backpack is bought, as well as the scope of the backpack. For schoolchildren, one model of a backpack is needed, for sports - another, for tourism - a third. Analyze partners by strategic characteristics.
When choosing a strategy, you need to pay attention to the benefits that you have, as well as your goal. If you want to capture a narrow segment and trade a niche product, there will be one goal. If you want to capture a large segment of the market, the strategy must be different.
Take the time and energy to analyze your competitors - this is a key step in choosing a marketing strategy.
