Competitor analysis is crucial if you want to keep up with bigger brands and eventually surpass them. After all, the end game here is to dominate the industry and be the go-to provider of your product or service. You can’t do this by making vague assumptions about a rival’s plans or the quality of their content. You need to go and find out as many details as possible to get a more comprehensive overview. Once you know what they’re doing that’s so beneficial and where they might be going wrong, you can use these insights to form your own strategy.
The sooner you decide what you want to find out, how you’re going to go about it, and how to implement changes, the better. The information you gain now could give you the tools you need to grow through the next quarter. Regular reports and analytics will then allow for a more effective process that gets you closer to the top of the industry. So, you need to think about all the factors you want to analyze. Remember that the more you take into account and use to your advantage, the better your prospects. Here are 10 examples.
10 Factors To Pay Attention To With Competitor Monitoring
Traffic
It’s always a good idea to get a clear picture of the traffic coming into your own website. However, it also pays to see how the competition fares. Are their numbers significantly higher than yours, or is the gap closer than you think? What insights can you gain about this traffic regarding any “rush hour” behavior at peak times or other trends?
Email content
Email marketing is a tool that can get results when utilized effectively. The right content sent out at the right time can engage subscribers, bring in more traffic, and lead to significant conversions. If you’re curious to see how your nearest rivals handle this, you can use software to get all the emails and analyze the content. You can see how effective they are with their links, visual branding, and the way they promote new products and services. You can then tweak your own schedule where necessary.
Social media posts
Social media is just as important as a marketing tool for connecting with prospective consumers. Yet, with so many platforms out there, it can be difficult to keep up with everyone’s content. A strong competitor monitoring system can analyze everything from Twitter posts to Instagram images and look at content in depth.
How much of it is an invitation to try a new product or promotion? How much relates to general community engagement?
Social media mentions
At the same time, it helps to have a smart AI system look at social media mentions. How do these rival brands talk about you on social media? Are they talking about you at all? Negative posts aren’t ideal, but they at least keep your name in the minds of consumers looking for alternative options. Complete silence might suggest they don’t see you as a threat. You can analyze the language and any use of your company branding to see what action you need to take.
Online ads
Then, there are online ads as marketing tools. Whether this is a Facebook ad or a Google ad, the right approach can increase traffic and conversions. So, how do your rivals approach these ad campaigns? Are they going for a hard sell on several platforms or staying more low-key? What could you do to beat them at their own game?
Blog posts and website pages
Analyzing competitor content also means going into their website and digging around there. All businesses should take the time to update their website content to stay fresh and interesting. This includes modernizing landing pages, adding new sections with important information, and updating the blog. As with social media, it takes too much time and effort to manually check these websites all the time. You’d also be adding to their traffic metrics. The right software can do the hard work for you and alert you to any changes.
Price changes
This is a big one that will have massive implications for the success of a brand. It’s crucial to know how much rival companies charge for their products and services – especially if they have something that directly competes with your business. Are they charging a lot more for something more high-end or undercutting you with better deals? How is this affecting their current success, and should you adapt your own pricing structure to stay competitive?
Website upgrades
Beyond the more obvious changes to website content, there are potential internal changes for SEO. These website upgrades aren’t immediately obvious unless you can go in deeper with AI. You can find out more about the navigation and structure of the website and how these changes affect conversions and performance.
SEO keywords
On the subject of SEO, it’s also a good idea to run some keyword analysis and see how the website content ranks with search engines.
The use of keywords is a balancing act. You can’t stuff them in and sound unnatural, and you can’t underuse them either. You need the right search terms and phrases to outrank the competitors. Find out how the opposition did this and do better.
Online feedbacks
Finally, you can use competitor analysis tools like Competitors App to check online feedbacks for companies. These programs can highlight important trends and phrases across on-site and third-party testimonials. This can offer a different perspective on how consumers view your rivals.
Getting The Ultimate Out Of Competitor Analysis
This is a good framework to use when deciding what to analyze when monitoring the activity and success of rival companies. It sounds like a lot to deal with, but a comprehensive approach pays off. With the right software and analytics team in place, you can learn a lot about competitors. You just need to put those insights to good use and learn from any mistakes.