Competitor analysis
In today’s lesson, we’re doing a competitor analysis.
A competitor analysis is a critical strategy for you to learn what your competition is up to. It involves gathering and analyzing information about your competitors’ products, pricing, marketing, and positioning.
By understanding your competitors, you’ll gain valuable insights about what your market responds to (and what they don’t).
By the end of the lesson, you’ll know:
- What your competitors are doing
- How your website compares to theirs
- Which site your market likes better (and why)
Ready? Let’s dive in…
Video:
Next steps:
1. Review your competitors
2. Document your findings
- Update your research document (template)
- See an example research document with competitor data
Notes:
Competitor analysis
- Define your top competitors
- List your top 3 competitors in your industry
- Check responses from email surveys to see who your subscribers think your competitors are
Review their funnel:
- Paid ads
- Social media posts
- Landing pages
- Key website pages (homepage, product pages, checkout pages)
Pay attention to their:
- Overall strategy
- Unique selling propositions (USP)
- Products / services
- Features
- Pricing
- Messaging
Think about:
- What you like and don’t like
- What are your strengths/opportunities
- What are your weaknesses/threats
- Ask your sales people about the competition and what your leads and customers are saying
Add all feedback in your research document, so you can reference it later.
Comments:
Video transcript:
Introduction to Competitor Analysis
Let me ask you a question.
Are your competitors analyzing your every move?
If so, they’re learning and adapting to everything that you’re doing. If you find something that works, they’re going to pick up on it really quickly. If you’re doing something that doesn’t work, they’ve probably figured that out and they’re going in a better direction.
If they’re not analyzing your every move, that’s a huge opportunity for you to do all those things to them.
In either case, looking at your competitors is a smart move to understand the landscape and where you stand out and where you could be better.
Here’s how to do competitor research the right way.
Identifying Your Top Competitors
First, list your top three competitors in your industry. These could be ones that you know of right off the top of your head. But also you want to check the responses from your email surveys. One of the questions that we recommend asking in an email survey is what competitors did you consider besides us? And what made you choose us over them? If you have a bunch of your competitors mentioned in those surveys, you’ll want to look at those ones as well.
Reviewing Your Competitors’ Funnels
Once you have your list of competitors, you’ll want to review the funnels for each of them. Take a look at their paid ads, their social media posts, their landing pages, and the key website pages. So this could be the homepage, the landing page, the product pages, checkout pages, et cetera.
You’ll want to go through every step of their funnel, similar to how you did it when you were becoming the customer during your own funnel review. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you need to go back to the previous lessons and understand how that process works.
As you’re going through your competitor’s funnel, you want to pay close attention to the following.
Analyzing Competitors’ Strategy, USP, and Offerings
Take a look at their overall strategy. Is it similar to you or is it different? Are they trying to position themselves differently, for example, as a premium service or a low cost leader?
Look at the unique selling propositions. How are they standing out in the marketplace? Can you do better than them in that space? Or should you pivot and try another angle?
Take a look at their products and their services. Again, noting how it compares to what you’re offering.
Also take a look at the features. Do they offer fewer features or more features than what you do?
Evaluating Competitors’ Pricing and Messaging
Take a look at their pricing, both the amount of money as well as the offer itself. Do they offer a free trial? For example, that’s longer than yours. Do they have a lower monthly price?
As you’re looking at their pricing, ask yourself, are you really the better value here? And if so, how can you communicate that?
Which ties into messaging. How are they expressing their value?
As you’re going through the funnel, you want to be thinking about what you like and don’t like about every step of their funnel.
You want to think about your strengths and your opportunities, where do you stand out and where can you double down on that? You also want to think about your weaknesses or any threats that your competitor poses to you and ways that you can protect yourself from those threats.
For example, if they’re the low price leader, maybe there’s a way that you could position yourselves as a premium offer and explain why you’re better and well worth the extra investment.
Leveraging Sales Team Insights
You also want to ask your salespeople about the competition and what your leads and your customers are saying.
This is an absolute gold mine of insights. If you have a sales team or if you are the sales team, then you have a clear path to understanding exactly what people are saying and what they’re worried about when they’re trying to make a decision between you and your competitors. So don’t forget about that step.
As you’re going through this process, again, all of your competitors, make sure that you’re taking screenshots of their pages and writing down notes about what you like and dislike, the strengths, the relative weaknesses, other opportunities, or threats that your competitors are posing to you.
Be sure to speak to your sales team as well to get even more feedback and add all of these notes into your research doc.
Conclusion: Turning Insights into Action
I guarantee you that by the end of this exercise, you’re going to have a much clearer idea of what your prospect is thinking. Before they actually sign up with anybody.
And armed with those insights, you’re gonna have a clear idea of how you can stand out in the marketplace and ultimately increase your sales.
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