Competitor Analysis is the key to be the market leader in digital marketing in order to attain competitive advantage. Competitor Analysis can be conducted via Digital Marketing Methods like SEO, PPC, SMM and Content Marketing by using SEMrush and Similarweb.
1. Who are Competitors?
There are four types of competition in a free market system. Such as:
- Perfect competition
- Monopolistic competition
- Oligopoly
- Monopoly.
Perfect competition : It does not exist in real life where as a company is so small that none can influence the total success of business such as price level or extremely unique product compared to its competitors.
Monopolistic competition : Many sellers offer differentiated products which serve similar purposes By making consumers aware of product differences, sellers make sure they have a different pricing strategy over their competitors to rule the market.
Oligopoly : A very few sellers sell limited products in the market. They have some control over price. When one company lowers prices, consequently the others follow the same price as a pricing strategy to sustain in the market.
Monopoly : There is only one seller who rules the market. The market could be based on a geographical area, like a city or a regional area and does not necessarily have to be an entire country. The single seller is able to decide the prices where as per his/her own wish to attain the business goal. Most monopolies fall into one of two categories. Such as:
- Natural monopolies : Basically public utilities, such as electricity and water. They inhibit competition, but they’re legal because they’re important to society.
- Legal monopoly : If a company receives a patent giving it exclusive use of an invented product or process for a limited time like twenty years is known as legal monopoly.
2. What is competitor Analysis ?
Competitor analysis is a never ending process. It helps to identify current and potential competitors which influence the attainment of business goals. The competitor research gives a bird eye view on what other brands in your niche markets are doing to acquire and retain customers.
The analysis evaluates as many factors as possible to bring insights into what drives traffic to your competitors’ pages and leads to their ads. It highlights the gaps and estimates your potential and opportunities to fill them which makes sure you have the competitive advantage over your competitors in all aspects that helps you to sustain long term in the market.
3. What is the importance of spending time on Competitors Analysis as a Digital Marketer?
- Coversion to identify the channels which perform better to the competitors that gave them better conversion than you.
- To identify the season trends whereas the overall demand of the industry suddenly increases or declines by every particular time. It gives you an idea to create different market strategies in order to win the market as a market leader.
- To learn from competitors’ mistakes which should not be performed in the particular industry.
- Update your marketing mix in order to avoid unnecessary efforts on time or money that does not attract the customers to drive into your online presence.
- To predict competitors’ next step where as you can make sure you perform well to gain competitive advantage.
4. Digital Marketing methods to perform Competitor Analysis.
The following digital marketing methods can be used to perform competitor analysis. Each area of digital marketing can be researched or tracked by different tools and parameters based on the development of tools. Now let’s take a look at what are the major 4 methods that we are going to combine in order to perform competitor analysis. Such as :
- Social Media Marketing (SMM)
- Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Content Marketing
4.1. Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Social media marketing utilizes social media and social media networks to market a company’s product. Such as :
- What’s app
- Tik tok
- YouTube
It allows companies to engage with existing customers and reach potential customers in a short span of time and helps to attain marketing goals which align with the business goals. Such as :
- Brand awareness
- Reaching new target audiences.
- Lead generation
- Increasing sales
- Increasing page clicks.
4.2. Pay Per Click Advertising(PPC)
It is an inorganic digital marketing method whereas you pay for Google ads in order to attain your marketing goals through Google’s online products with different types of ads. Such as:
- Search ads
- Display ads
- Remarketing ads
- Video ads
- Shopping ads
- Gmail sponsored ads
4.3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is an organic marketing strategy which is a process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines like Google & Bing by appearing in the SERP with higher ranking which fulfills the Google algorithms.
4.4. Content Marketing
It is a marketing strategy that attracts, engages and retains an audience by creating and sharing relevant articles, videos, podcasts and other media. There are 14 content marketing KPIs you should be tracking.
- Unique and page visits
- Downloads
- Time on page
- Inbound links
- Shares
- Comments and Interaction
- Cost per click
- Cost per lead
- Lead generation
- Annual contract value
- Influence
- Conversion rates
- Followers and/ or subscribers
- Growth
5. Tools to Conduct Competitor Analysis in Digital Marketing
5.1. Competitor Analysis in Digital marketing based on SEMRUSH
5.1.1. Identify Competitors’ Market Position.
By using SEMrush Market Explorer, you have to enter one website in the search field. then the tool will provide you a complete competitor mapping.
With this tool, you can:
- Map out the competitive landscape in a comprehensible form of a Growth Quadrant;
- Identify competitors based on
- Current audience size
- Market potential
- Online market shares
- Changes in their market positions over time;
- Traffic
- Market share numbers
- Create a Custom market to explore the marketing strategies and keep a constant watch on the competitors that matter.
- Turn on Benchmarking Report for further benefits to get the following results.
- Markets’ key patterns.
- To identify the best appropriate channels that should be listed out in your marketing mix.
- Emerging traffic sources
- Niche overview
- Seasonal trends
- Identification of most sustainable player
5.1.2. Identify competitors’ advertising platforms and media placement
By using Semrush Traffic Analytics, click Audience Insights Tab and enter up to 5 competitors. Use the Category filter to get more precisely and specific exploration to platforms that connect with your audience interests.
- Enter your website and your potential partner’s website into the tool
- It reveals the percentage of shared audience. It helps to
- Expand your audience reach if you have minimal count of the same users
- Get an extra touchpoint with customers-to-be (if you have a high audience match)
- It strengthens your audience acquisition strategy.
- Traffic journey analysis helps to get a crystal clear view of customer journey analysis.
E.g : which sites people visit before and after landing on competing sites
5.1.3. Learn from competitors’ top campaigns.
Competitors’ top offers, marketing campaigns and products never remain the same. It can be identified through the Traffic Analytics tool’s Top Pages report Which reveals the most visited pages of the competitors’ site
5.1.4. Analyze rivals’ SEO strategies.
By using Organic search tool you can identify more than 200 reasons why the competitors appearing in the SERP with higher rank than you. The following are some of the factors which determine the SERP page ranking.
- Total number of keywords with organic positions (in Google Top 100)s;
- Price organic keywords in Google text Ads;
- Estimated branded and non-branded traffic.
- Identify their most successful keywords;
- Get an idea of consumer behavior, based on search volume;
- Most popular pages that users found with organic search
5.2. Competitor Analysis based on Similarweb
5.2.1. Benchmark online presence compare your standards for better result of competitor analysis
- Get a 360° view of your digital performance
- Track the latest market trends as they unfold and adapt your strategy to meet consumer demand.
- Benchmark your performance against industry standards. Uncover opportunities to increase traffic to your website and outpace your competitors.
5.2.2. Research Markets, Analyze Industries, Identify Trends.
- Create your personalized view of your industry for in-depth analysis
- Understand macro changes that are impacting your industry and track historical trends over time
- Validate market size and entry as well as product launch strategies
5.2.3. Company Research & strategy Analysis
- Map out a company’s digital properties and evaluate their overall stats
- Identify competitors’ digital strategies
- Track recent trends in traffic and engagement metrics
5.2.4. Analyze Online Behavior and Grow your audience.
- Create a picture of your target market layered with consumer insights based on where and how they spend their time online.
- Deep dive into audience insights to understand consumer interests relative to your industry, competitors, or own customer data.
- Find untapped audiences to acquire and grow your audience.
5.2.5. Understand your customers and explore bottom-of-the funnel metrics. See what makes them convert.
- Identify high converting digital funnels and implement winning strategies
- Maximize sales by prioritizing the highest converting online channels.
- Leverage onsite search to pinpoint interest and conversion down to brand or product level.
6. Summary
Pros:
- Conduct fast and in-depth organic research
- Easily monitor the performance of brands in your niche
Cons :
- You can misinterpret data
- Too much Data can be Over whelming
A competitive analysis is your best bet at distinguishing yourself from your competition by working smartly and proactively in order to attain competitive advantage. No matter how big or small your business is, you can always benefit from an in-depth survey of your market niche.
Therefore, it is a cornerstone of any businesses’ successful marketing strategy and is the best tool to expand your business. If you work smartly and with the right tools, you can easily overcome this strategy’s few drawbacks.
Furthermore, competitive analysis is even more useful for small businesses that are looking to expand. Every company has competition, and every company needs healthy competition to grow. When you carefully analyze your competitors, you learn just how much room you have to grow.
by Author
Gayaney Vijayan – MBA – Marketing & HR
Digital Marketing Analyst, SEO Strategist, Content Marketing Strategist , Social Media Strategist
Follow me on LinkedIn : Gayaney Vijayan for more Digital marketing tips and collaboration for future projects.