Why competitive analysis

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About Us A team of data-driven marketers obsessed with generating revenue for our clients. Case Studies Because the proof is in the pudding. How can we help? Get in touch with our team today. Oct 24 read. Sales Brochures Sales brochures provide a wealth of product information.

You can learn how your competitor is positioning their product and company and what features and benefits they're using to sell their product. Try to obtain all new sales brochures and literature your competitor publishes. Significant changes in the content will indicate that new strategies are being employed. Newspaper and Magazine Articles Articles in newspapers and magazines are a source of information you can use to get an idea of what your competitor is planning for the future, how their organization is run, and what new product information or innovations they have.

Journalists may also uncover and reveal unflattering information about your competitor that may prove valuable to you. Be on the lookout for product reviews in magazines; they will reveal a competing product's strengths and weaknesses. Visit a college or public library. The reference librarian will show you how to find pertinent articles online much more quickly and easily than you'll find them by browsing.

Reference Books and Databases The publications listed in this section are available at most public and college libraries that have business resources.

Ask a librarian to help you find them, as many are likely to be online and not listed in the library catalog. State agency publications such as industry directories, and statistics on local industry employment, production, and equipment capabilities. Data can be selected alphabetically, geographically, by line of business, and officers and directors. Ward's Business Directory of U. Private and Public Companies annual , provides profiles of over , companies small and mid-size companies as well as large corporations, most privately held across the U.

Profiles include assets, gross earnings, revenues, and other pertinent information. Online versions of these products not only make their pertinent statistics easy to find. They often permit you to download data so you can combine it with other data to produce your own statistics. Annual Reports If your competitor is a publicly-held company, many of its reports to the U.

Annual reports provide financial information, including sales volume, revenue increases, and their total market share. Annual reports from privately-held corporations are sometimes available through friends, relatives, and business acquaintances who own stock in a competitor's company.

Your Sales Force Your sales staff probably has more access to competitive information than anyone else in your organization. Customers often show salespeople sales literature, contracts, price quotes, and other information from competitors. Part of a salesperson's job is to get customers to discuss problems they have with a competitor's product.

Customers will also reveal your competition's product benefits, strengths, and customer service programs. Instruct your sales force to ask for copies of any competitive literature if and when that's possible. Your entire sales staff should keep a record of all competitive information they discover — even if it's just a rumor or gossip. Devote a regular portion of each sales meeting to a discussion of the competition.

Other Employees Your employees working in other areas of the company also become exposed to competitive information. They interact with others in their industry area and often learn what your rival is doing or hear gossip and rumors. Make sure your entire staff knows they should share any information concerning the competition immediately. Former employees of a competitor can provide you with insight on: your competitor's new products, marketing strategies, how-to improve productivity and employ other resources more effectively, and what your competitor's general working environment is like.

Trade Associations Most professional trade associations compile and publish industry statistics and report on industry news and leaders through trade association magazines and newsletters. Most trade associations also sponsor trade shows and other professional meetings.

This is an opportunity to see first-hand what your competition is producing. It also provides the opportunity to discover new players who may soon become your competition. Direct Observation If you own a flower shop, you should visit all of the flower shops in your geographic region. Act as a prospective customer; ask questions. You can learn about their selection and service and compare it to your own.

Do not use an alias or disguise to gather intelligence from competitors. It may seem like a trivial deception, but it is dishonest, and could come back to haunt you. Call an number and pretend to be a customer with questions and problems. If you sell products through a catalog, you not only want to be on your competition's mailing list; you should order a product from them to determine how long it takes to arrive, the method of shipment, and how it was packaged. Buy your competitor's products.

Products can be evaluated and reverse engineered to provide meaningful information about your competitor's capabilities and weaknesses, technological innovations, manufacturing costs and methods. Your Competitors You probably see the owner of a rival organization at trade shows, association meetings, and perhaps even socially. You can garner a great deal of information through a simple, friendly conversation.

People like to talk about themselves and share their success stories and concerns with business associates. Assign someone to check the competitions' Web sites regularly for pertinent changes and news. And take a good look at your own: Do you say anything there that you'd just as soon not have your competitors see? Analyze Competitive Information Once you've gathered all of the competitive data you have been able to locate, it's analysis time.

You should analyze to determine product information, market share, marketing strategies, and to identify your competition's strengths and weaknesses. Product Evaluation You should know from your sales staff and customer feedback what product features and benefits are most important to your customers and potential customers.

A product's or service's competitive position is largely determined by how well it is differentiated from its competition and by its price. Make a list of product features and benefits in order of importance, and prepare a table to show whether or not each of your competitors fulfill them. For example, Medium-sized companies that purchase copier machines may look for the following product benefits and features when making buying decisions: Competing Company: A B C D Features: 1.

Auto paper feed 2. Auto enlarge or reduce 3. Collates 4. Staples 5. Briefly, a competitive analysis is a living document that identifies and evaluates your competitors strategies to determine their strengths and weaknesses in relation to your own products and services.

More generally, understanding and applying the insights gained from a competitive analysis will help you identify strengths and weaknesses that relate to brand health, community management, content strategy, and more. Why your brand? This question is the deciding factor in separating you from your competition. The best way to do this is to compare mission statements, products, services, integrations, and anything else that may yield distinguishable talking points that your brand can leverage over your competition.

One way to anticipate those needs and expectations is to analyze owned customer reviews as well as your competitors' customer reviews. For instance, a restaurant that sells pizza is in direct competition with another pizza parlor down the block, but it is indirectly competing with hamburger stands and catering companies.

Potential customers want food, and they can satisfy that need in a variety of ways. Finding your competition begins with research. Use keywords that describe your company in a Google search. Be thorough and search every term and combination of terms you can think of, taking care to include terms that cover your indirect competitors as well. Identify the top search results for businesses in your product or service area.

Determine how your offerings compare to theirs and what differences stand out. Dig deeper into your biggest competition by investigating:.

If possible, contact their current and former employees. They provide invaluable insight into how a competitor's business strategies, best practices and potential pitfalls. Once you've identified your main competitors, analyze their capabilities and the health of their businesses.

A long-standing economic tool known as SWOT analysis focuses on four sectors to determine a company's viability: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. For each competitor, use a whiteboard, draw a large box and separate it into four equal parts. The top two quarters contain strengths and weaknesses, the bottom two contain opportunities and threats.