The importance of knowing your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses should not be underestimated.
Many small business owners are less likely to conduct extensive competitor research as it feels dishonest – a little bit like peeking over your classmate’s shoulder to see his answers to the test questions.
This article will show you three reasons why knowing your competitors is important, as well as provide a few tips to get started with your competitor research.
The Importance Of Knowing Your Competitors
1. Know where your brand really stands
Many businesses will only monitor their own numbers and customer feedback when evaluating their position in the marketplace.
However, you will only be able to see the real picture if you know how you measure up against your competition.
What are their competitive advantages? How can your brand stand out among them?
2. Learn from your competitors’ mistakes
One of the greatest advantages of digital marketing is the amount of information available online.
Whatever strategies your competitors have experimented with in the past, chances are, there is evidence of their successes and failures.
By doing competitor research, you can find out which strategies you should emulate and which ones to avoid.
3. Reach potential markets and customers through your competitors
Sounds a bit backward, doesn’t it?
However, if you do competitor research right, you could easily discover untapped markets they are neglecting.
By looking through the feedback from their customers, not just yours, you can find out what’s missing from the offerings currently available on the market.
How To Find Your Competitors
So how do you actually get started with competitor research?
You will need a solid understanding of your own products and services first.
Take stock of your primary offerings, then pretend you are a consumer looking to buy one of them.
You can start by simply typing the name of your product or service in Google, or ask around to see if any of your friends and acquaintances have purchased similar products before.
We suggest keeping a spreadsheet of your competitors’ information (positioning, marketing strategies, strengths, and weaknesses) and updating it frequently.
Want to know more about doing your own competitor research?
Here’s a 7 step process you can use to identify competitors.
How Handmade SEO Can Help
Keeping a close eye on your competition, you can learn from their mistakes, expand on their ideas, and even discover new strategies.
Here at Handmade SEO, we do extensive competitor research to position you as the number one voice of authority in your industry.
We want to know your competitor’s inside and out to make sure your marketing strategy blows them all out of the water.
Want to see how you can stay ahead of your competition?
