Competitor Research - Identify Your Competition

What is competitor research?

Any way the customer is solving the problem now is competition. Competitor research is the backbone of a strong marketing strategy. After all, if you can’t identify your competitors and their marketing tactics, you’ll struggle to differentiate yourself and your product from the crowd. Finding your competitors doesn’t have to be taxing or complicated. The first step to finding your competitors is to differentiate between two major categories of competitors that should be on your radar, and you’ll approach the analysis of them in different ways.

• Direct competitors are the brands that first come to mind when you think about competition. They’re in your sector or neighborhood, marketing products and services that do the same like-for-like job as yours. Your target audience is the same as theirs. For example, you’re a local business selling garden supplies, and so your direct competitors are all the local garden supplies stores.

• Indirect competitors are trickier to spot. They address the same customer needs as you, but they do it in a different way or with a different product. Your target audience will overlap with theirs but won’t be an exact match. So an indirect competitor to your garden supply business might be a large chain of supermarkets. Gardens aren’t their core business, but if they offer a garden range, they may use their economies of scale to undercut your prices or offer convenience to consumers as a one-stop-shop.

 

How do you use competitor research for your business?

Once you understand the different types of competitors out there, use the following steps to find your competitors.

1. Run a Google search with keywords associated with your business like “printed T-shirt” or “website design services.” Write down the name of businesses that show up on the first and second page of the search results in the “Competitive Landscape” template with provided.

2. Conduct customer interviews to find out how customers are solving the problem you’re trying to solve - this should be based on your value proposition.

3. Find your competitors through advertising, this can be through social media, physical ads, events, conferences etc.. How do you want to promote your business? Your competitors might be promoting their business the same way.

4. Once you listed your competitors, complete a competitive analysis.

Why is competitor research important?

Customers will choose one competitor over another for a better price, for better, faster, personalized or more convenient service or for better overall quality. While we understand you want to beat your competition on all three, we recommend that you focus on 2 out of the 3. Some competitors will also have an unfair advantage, or a core competency that cannot be copied or bought. Like deep domain expertise (hospital systems), an amazing hard thing (Google algorithm), authority (existing reputation in market), dream team (previous startup success). Understanding your competitors will be just as important as understanding your customers since it will allow you to understand why customers use products or services offered by existing providers.