Almost everything you can think of is likely to be sold by someone.
That’s excellent news in some respects but terrible news in others. Fortunately, competition is an excellent indicator of the client’s interest. And where there is a need, there is an opportunity to expand and produce money. Pepsi and Coca-Cola would not compete if they were as excellent as each other.
When done correctly, competitor analysis may provide important information.
What is competitive analysis?
There is always more than one vendor seeking to attract clients with the same wants in every market. By studying the competition, your company may learn who the major players in a certain industry are, what techniques they use to achieve success, and what advantages it has over them.
According to the MBV strategic framework, the only factors influencing a company’s performance are its industry structure and competitiveness.
In short, competition analysis is a multi-step process that looks into the following:
- Who are the most important companies in this market?
- What internal and external factors affect the industry’s current state?
- Who has what resources, and how can they be used?
- How they’ve used their strengths to stand out.
- Find out how your company’s strengths and weaknesses differ from your competitors.
- What tools do you already have (or will need) to fix these problems?
Prepare A Brief Market Report
Make a list of the top five to ten rivals for your business. Choose rivals that provide comparable products or services and operate their companies like yours. Select a variety of direct and indirect rivals to explore how growing into new markets may affect your company. You may broaden your study’s scope by investigating new and old rivals.
Take Part In Market Research
In-depth market research will commence after the target rivals have been identified. This inquiry will make use of both first-hand and second-hand information. Primary research, on the other hand, entails gathering data from the target audience or the product itself.
Contrast And Compare The Goods
Following that, you’ll want to examine how your product compares to others on the market. The best examples are the top brands in food industries. Everyone sells the same thing, but how are some more popular than others? They study and compare themselves with others and try to improve their products and marketing.
Examining Product Marketing From Various Perspectives
Instead of evaluating the qualities of your rivals’ goods, you will analyze how they promote their products. You’ll have to go further than you did for the product features matrix to learn how each firm intends to advertise its items.
Use The SWOT Analysis
After gathering information on your rivals as part of your competitor research, you may return your focus to your own company. A SWOT analysis may help you determine what your firm does effectively and where it might improve. It’s also an excellent technique to transform your shortcomings into strengths and determine your opponents’ dangers.
Find A Market Position
The last stage in a comprehensive competition analysis is determining where you are regarding the competition. This may be accomplished using a graph with an X-axis and a Y-axis. The two axes should be used to indicate which aspects of your market strategy are most significant.
Important Factors to Consider
Make Sure You Take Action And Follow Through
You should not just acquire information to do competitive research; you should also utilize it to assist you in making strategic choices. The statistics can only show how you stack up against other individuals in the market. The primary purpose of this kind of study is to address issues and enhance a company’s strategy by using competitive analysis.
To Avoid Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias refers to the propensity to perceive evidence in ways that support one’s viewpoint. If you want to make sound judgments, use all available information.
As a result, when companies do social media market research, they may only uncover information that confirms what they already believe, even if their rivals are statistically superior. However, they could overcome this prejudice if they employed all the information available.
Make careful to keep your research up to date.
A report on how the competition is performing reflects how the market is currently doing. You may use the information in this report to make sound business choices, but you should only return to it if it is constantly updated. Even though it is time-consuming, updating your report will ensure that you always have the most up-to-date information on your rivals and the industry.
Conclusion
You may be able to enhance your marketing strategy by knowing about your rivals’ strengths and limitations. You can’t beat formidable opponents if you don’t know who they are. Investigating your competition may enable you to strengthen your marketing strategy and reach your target audience more quickly.
