How to Monitor Your Competitors and Analyze their Marketing Strategies
Monitor Competitor Marketing: How to Effectively Track Your Competitors
No business operates in a bubble. Every business operates as a functional part of the larger global market as well as smaller local markets. For this reason, it’s important to understand what you’re up against and what your competitors are up to.
Competition is an inherent part of doing business. Conducting a competitor analysis can help you better understand your industry and help you uncover impactful information about your target audience. You’ll also get to assess your brand’s strengths and weaknesses compared to your competition.
Think of competitor monitory and analysis as scouting for your business – a tool that helps you design a game plan for success.
4 Ways to Monitor Competitors in Your Industry
Before you can monitor your competition, you must first identify them. There are two categories of competitors you should be monitoring.
- Direct competitors – These are the businesses that offer products or services that are similar to yours. They require regular monitoring because they’re the most immediate threat to your business.
- Indirect competitors – These are the businesses that target the same audience as yours but offer different products and services.
Your competition affects how you sell, market, and operate your business. Because of this, you must keep an eye on companies dominating the market, the biggest competitors in your niche, and newcomers.
Here are some strategies you can implement to monitor your competitors:
1. Monitor your competitors’ online activities
It’s imperative to monitor your competitor’s online activities and analyze their marketing strategies. You must know:
- What marketing channels do they use
- Where are they mentioned
- What products and services do they concentrate their marketing on
- Whom they are working with
Employ media monitoring and social listening to find out what your competitors are up to and what people are saying about them.
2. Keep an eye on your competitors’ content
Content marketing is the backbone of digital marketing. Because of this, you’ll want to keep a close eye on what they post on social media.
- What social networks do they use?
- What type of content do they produce?
- What are their engagement rates?
- How often do they post?
- Do they work with influencers or brand ambassadors?
Evaluate your competitors’ best-performing content, including blog posts, mentions from third parties and social media posts, and run a fine-toothed comb through their social media strategies. How much of the content they produce is original? Are they focused on generating new leads or increasing engagement rates?
More importantly, how would your rank your competitors’ content marketing strategies in comparison to your own? Analyze the level of engagement, observe how they promote their marketing and evaluate how much of their content is socially shared. Doing so can help you better position your brand in the market and create more compelling content.
3. Take a look at your competitors’ pricing pages and any perks they offer
A price match analysis can help you gain insight into how you can price your products and services. Tracking competitors’ pricing ensures you’re not overcharging or undercharging your customers.
It can also help you meet competitive shipping costs. Free shipping is a major perk for customers, influencing which brands they choose to buy from, but it can be costly to implement. Competitor analysis allows you to see how you can differentiate your brand. For instance, if free shipping isn’t a practical option, you can offer giveaways on social media or create a loyalty program.
Watch out for any new products or services in the market and how customers respond to the marketing efforts.
4. Invest in a competitor monitoring tool
There’s a lot to keep up with, so you may want to invest in automation software that:
- Monitors relevant keywords
- Assesses your competitors’ SEO performance
- Tracks their ads and social media activity
- Tracks online activity on various pages
- Keeps an eye on their content marketing efforts
Once you’ve gathered these insights, you can analyze your marketing performance against theirs. This will give you a better idea of what you can improve on so you can optimize your marketing strategies. For this, you must keep an eye on their email marketing, PR presence, paid search, email marketing and more.
Tip: Pay attention to your competitors’ customer reviews to give you an idea of their strongest and weakest points.
So, How Does Your Business Stack Up?
Competitor monitoring enables you to take a more objective look at your business and gain insight into how you can enhance your marketing strategies. It can help you improve your marketing and pricing strategy, launch new products, and attract more customers.
Remember, the competition never sleeps. It’s time to get tracking!
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