Sometimes, the best way to create a successful digital marketing plan for a website owner is to start by evaluating what their competitors are doing. Comparing how the website owner is piling up against competitor businesses, a practice commonly known as “competitor analysis” in the digital marketing industry. It can be of great help in uncovering potential opportunities and growth areas for
Read on for everything you need to know about competitor analysis and how it can help the website owner take their digital PR campaigns to the next level.
Why Is It Important to Perform Competitor Analysis?
Competitor analysis is an essential component of a versatile advertising campaign.
> Your competitors' strengths and weaknesses
> Which advertising strategies can give you more advantage over your competitors?
> How can you prevent other potential competition from entering your target market?
How is Competitor Analysis Performed?
Conducting competitor analysis is a comprehensive, multi-step process that includes:
Step One: Identify the Competition
This may seem easy, but the first step in conducting a competitor analysis is to make sure you define the competition correctly. Who will your website meet today? And who could emerge as a direct competitor in the future?
These questions can be answered in one of two ways:
Think like a website owner - Think about what other website owner base in your industry is like and what their expectations are. Then group and rank your competitors based on their effectiveness in reaching this target audience and meeting their expectations.
Think Like a Competitor - Consider the most important factors that will theoretically motivate a competitor's advertising approach. What strategies would they use to showcase their strengths? How about hiding your weaknesses? Next, group your competitors according to these strategies.
Step Two: Investigating the Competition
Once you have determined which companies are offering yourself direct competition, both today and in the future, learn important information about them by answering the following questions:
Who are they?
What is their status in their industry?
How much market share do they have?
Who are in the senior management team?
What do recent press releases and commendations say about them?
What else has been said about them in the news?
Which publications have they been featured in?
Ad Placements - Where do they place their ads (television, radio, print etc)?
What kind of content do they contain in a typical ad?
What unique opportunities do they create for themselves through their advertising strategy?
Have they stuck with the same strategy for a long time, or have they changed something recently?
Strengths and Weaknesses - What assets and skills do they bring to the table that help them succeed in the industry and develop brand loyalty among competitors?
Do they offer a premium quality product or service?
Or are they doing a job that no one else has done?
In what areas are they vulnerable?
Where are they not?
Step Three: Plan Your Findings
Now that you have analyzed the competition's assets, past media coverage, and past advertising strategies, organize this information into three separate graphs. This provides clear visuals and tools for you to better understand where your competition thrives and where your website leaves the door open.
You should also embed it in your website's asset chart to give you an honest look at your website's strengths and weaknesses.
What Do I Do With These Findings?
Creating the above competitor analysis charts will provide valuable insight into how your website's competition sets the bar in the industry. However, just knowing what the competition is doing is not enough. You should also know how to turn that insight into a winning digital marketing campaign for your website.
Here are some tips on how to get all the rewards for your competitor analysis report:
The Importance of Originality: While
it may be tempting to mimic what your website competition does well and expect similar results, remember that advertising is not a copycat league. On the contrary, it is an arena where originality wins day by day.
Instead of dealing with the success of the competition, focus on the unique (or capable of being) ways of your website. Shift your focus where your website's competition isn't yet covered, and look for creative ways to raise your website's flag there.
Possible examples include:
Taking part in publications and media outlets that have not covered the competition of your website in the past, and presenting new story ideas to those who already own it.
Creating key messages in ads that highlight the singular power of your website or an industry aspect that is ignored by competition.
Using a digital marketing strategy that your website's competition has not used in past digital marketing campaigns.
Conduct Complementary PEST Analysis
Internal factors motivating your competition can be better understood by weighing external factors that may affect them. This can be achieved with a PEST analysis.
PEST is an acronym:
Political - Is your website influenced by political decisions?
Economic - Is competition suffering from the current suffocating economy?
If your website is prone to the same economic disadvantages, is there an adjustment your website can make to change its image or business operation?
Social - Is your website industry and your company vulnerable to concerns of the general public regarding social issues (unfair treatment of employees, animal cruelty, etc.)? Can your website address these issues through advertising? How about setting up new Business models (for example adding vegan options to the menu)?
Technological - Is your technology advancing so fast, putting your industry at risk of falling behind the times (eg Newspapers)? Are there areas your website owner can set up to receive modern technology (eg deliveries, online orders, etc)?
Also Perform Complementary Social Media Analysis With
social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, many brands that allow advertisers to reach an unlimited audience in the blink of an eye create social media accounts and shift their attention to digital marketing techniques such as:
Instagram Stories
IGTV
Facebook news area
Live video on Facebook and Instagram
Sponsored ads
In addition, is your website cited language by language by satisfied customers?
Influencer Marketing - Influencer marketing requires a brand that hires a reputation or any person with a mass social media presence to promote their product or service. Promoting an influencer that tells a company's products to thousands or even millions of followers is a very reliable method for advertisers to direct their conversations on social networks surrounding their brands.
User Generated Content - Brands that don't want to spend money on influencer marketing have started to gravitate towards user-generated content or any content someone creates without an expectation of payment.
If your competition has been successful using one of these digital marketing methods, find new ways your website can benefit from similar success in that venue. And if your competition is missing any of the above gems, consider whether your brand has the potential to take advantage of it first.
Consult a Database
You should analyze digital competition using tools such as Google Analytics, google search console and semrush. You can measure with the following metrics.
Reach - How many people visit a site to view an ad and how many of those visitors fall within the target demographic of the company.
Bounce Rate - The number of people who visited a company's website but surfed after viewing only one page.
Domain Authority - A score from 1 to 100, which measures how well a company's website does in SEO ranking.
Collaboration is Important
Remember, the overall goal of a competitor analysis report is to get an honest assessment of your website's strengths and weaknesses against competitors. Inevitably, the more resources you use to analyze the data, the more objective the assessment will be.
Therefore, you should do competitor analysis as part of ongoing teamwork. Schedule regular meetings where you and your team members discuss new relevant data and information as they arise, and reassess where your website currently stands compared to the competition.
Conclusion
Competitor analysis is an efficient way to explain where your website is currently standing in the competition and the actions your website can take to circumvent them. Following the steps above will help you and your team create a competitive digital marketing campaign for your website.
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