Competitor
analysis
to understand
Competitor analysis, or benchmarking, is an essential activity for companies, both B2C and B2B, that want to grow and position themselves strategically.
That is why Parklab puts its specialists and its experience to work to analyze competitors, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses, any niches left uncovered, the digital marketing techniques they use and much more.
Essential information to apply an effective strategy, get ahead of the competition and pick up all the best practices in the industry.
Focus
on the target
We start by identifying who the competition actually is. This study covers direct competitors, the ones offering a very similar product, and also indirect and potential ones, which can meet the same customer needs or could do so in the future. The research is therefore based on a careful, preliminary analysis of the target, of its needs and of the products and services available to meet them.
Qualitative
and quantitative
A thorough competitor analysis is the ideal way to gather qualitative and quantitative information on the competition, in terms of marketing and sales strategy and beyond. Having all this data available generates insights and guidance on how to design strategies and processes, come up with ideas that make a difference, improve the products and services offered and win niches and gaps in the market. In short, it makes real, valuable differentiation possible.
For marketing
too
A careful analysis of the competition covers their processes and positioning, and their digital marketing strategies as well. For example: how did a competitor reach the top positions in Google’s SERP? With which keywords? How do they manage their social channels? How do they interact with their audience? Answering these questions helps to understand the best practices in the industry, and also to identify the weak points of the competition and the market needs left uncovered.
SEO,
studied in detail
Technology, content created and published, and backlink strategy are the three central aspects to focus on in an online competitor analysis, and they are not the only ones. A careful study of the rivals ranking higher in the SERP gives a deep understanding of how they are winning Google’s favor. The analysis must also pay attention to the fastest growing ones, since SEO is a digital marketing technique that takes time.
A matter
of technology
One of the key points to analyze, as we saw above, is technology. In a good competitor analysis it is important to collect data on the technology profiles installed on the competitors’ websites. Among them, analytics and tracking systems, widgets, e-commerce channels, and also frameworks, CDNs, mapping, mobile-first technology, A/V media…
Structure and
Core Web Vitals
A good analysis must also cover the structure of the competitors’ websites, through mapping, and other factors that matter to Google, which no longer looks at speed alone. The technical term is Core Web Vitals, a set of factors that gives the search engine a unified guide to the quality signals that are essential for an excellent user experience. Analyzing them and comparing them with your own gives an interesting view of the targets to reach.
SWOT analysis
We build a comparison, often based on the SWOT methodology.
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats.
This business design tool takes its name from the acronym of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats and gives a clearer picture of the starting point and of the room for improvement.
It has four parts, which sum up the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats identified through competitor analysis. To fill it in, it helps to ask specific questions.
For strengths, for example, good practice is to ask «What are competitors better at?», «What are they known for?», «What makes them attractive to customers?» and «Why do customers choose to buy their products and services?».
When it comes to weaknesses, spotting recurring complaints among the competition’s customers, problems with products or services or gaps in the catalog helps to see what is missing.
The opportunities section brings out possible business and growth openings. It helps to note services provided only in part, gaps in the catalog, recent changes that have affected how customers perceive them.
The last section covers threats, and brings out possible risks. «Have they lowered their prices recently?», «Do they offer innovative products or services?», «Are they moving to a new location closer to you?» are all very useful questions in a competitor analysis with a SWOT strategy.
Social Listening
A good competitor analysis must also be grounded in Social Listening.
Listening to the opinion of end users , that is, of customers.
We go beyond a careful study of the features that our clients and their competition have more or less in common.
A good competitor analysis must also be grounded in Social Listening. This makes it possible to confirm the answers that come out of the SWOT analysis, by listening to the opinion of end users, that is, of customers.
Listening to consumers means stepping into their shoes, trying the services offered by competitors first hand, and also analyzing how their audience interacts.
To step into the customers’ shoes, for example, you can test the competing service or sign up for the newsletter to see how often emails are sent and what topics they cover.
Looking at the competitors’ social pages shows how often they communicate, the quality and the content of their posts, the results in terms of interactions and the tone of the comments.
From these, and from online reviews and ratings, you can spot any flaws and weak areas of the competitors, and how they handle problems, in terms of process and timing.
There are online tools that make this analysis easier, collecting information and organizing the data.
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter…
Social networks are by now a key element in building a digital positioning strategy. For that reason they belong in a complete competitor analysis.
The first questions to ask are «Do competitors use social media?» «Which ones?» «Why?» Once you have decided which channels to analyze, you can go into detail.
For Facebook, for example, beyond a standard look at how often the page is updated, competitor analysis looks at the number of fans and at the volume of interactions from users.
Competitor analysis on Instagram, on the other hand, looks at how on-page content is shared and at the creation of new hashtags. Other elements to consider are the constant search for related hashtags to grow the number of target users.
Another very important channel to consider, in some industries, is Twitter.
More relevant for companies with an international presence, it allows an analysis based on data such as the average number of daily tweets, the level of user engagement, the number of mentions, hashtags and retweets.
There are dedicated software tools for each of these channels, which extract data and generate insights.
TO START THE STUDY, IT IS ESSENTIAL
TO KNOW THE COMPETITION, AT LEAST THE MOST RELEVANT PART OF IT.
…and LinkedIn too!
Competitor analysis on LinkedIn is perhaps one of the most interesting for B2B markets, since this channel is widely used by professionals and decision makers.
Once competitors have been identified, the analysis looks at data such as the number of followers and connections, the type of content published and how often, the tone of voice, how the company page and the employee pages are built, the interactions generated (reactions, shares and comments), the hashtags used…
The type of content is a key factor, because LinkedIn is used for lead generation and to move leads through the various steps of the funnel. What content does the competition offer? Do they hand out freebies? Do they run events, such as webinars? And if they do, what topics do they cover?
Data can also be collected using dedicated software, but the trained eye of a professional is still the best tool for identifying strengths and weaknesses, uncovered niches and content and strategies that can be improved.
Companies often use LinkedIn paying attention to the main company page and to the pages of individual employees and managers, to offer a unified narrative and encourage employee advocacy.
So it is worth paying attention to the content posted by employees, to whether their pages follow a unified style, to their interactions with the main page and with its content…
All these elements give you pointers on how to improve the way you run LinkedIn.
SEO Content
Competitor analysis also runs through SEO Content.
Understanding in depth which content and which keywords work.
Understanding in depth which content and which keywords work for competitors is a key part of the analysis and it is often the easiest element to check and use to grow organic traffic to your own site.
Which queries drive traffic? How is content organized on the competition’s website, both in terms of structure and of search intent?
Answering this kind of question about content through competitor analysis brings out best practices, and also opportunities not yet identified, for example highly relevant keywords and potential new business openings.
Moreover, although ranking on Google may no longer be so tied to elements such as meta tags (thanks to the Knowledge Graph), having a clear roadmap for both users and search engines is still a relevant factor.
There are professional solutions on the market designed to understand the relationship between your own site and the competitor site under analysis, covering elements such as page title, meta tag description, keywords, counts, main long tail keywords and so on.
These programs are particularly useful when it comes to identifying the patterns that search engines like, Google first of all.
From social to web,
from sales to marketing:
competitor analysis
is global.
Benchmarking and cartesian charts…
Once all the possible information has been collected on how and why competitors are meeting consumer needs, and on what sets them apart from one another, the data can be organized and compared in a benchmarking table.
It takes into account elements such as the product and its features, company information and the marketing and brand awareness strategies applied.
From this information you can build a cartesian chart, ideal for checking how your brand and those of the competition respond to different needs, different targets and market niches.
…to identify the Value Proposition.
After benchmarking and building a cartesian chart, a careful competitor analysis must also look at your own value proposition.
This is what makes the company unique and valuable and sets it apart from the competition. It is a key point of a good communication and marketing strategy, for example.
To do it, it is advisable to analyze the Points of Parity, of Difference and of Irrelevance, and Porter’s five forces as well.
The latter takes into account the company and also suppliers, potential entrants, substitute products, buyers and competitors, giving a very complete picture of competitor analysis.
