In digital marketing, it's crucial to analyze your competitors' marketing strategies. By analyzing their tactics, you can gain valuable insights to refine your approach and better position your brand's efforts for success. We have created this webinar series called “Ahead of the Curve”. Here is a recap of our webinar on how to analyze the marketing activities of your competitors to get ahead by Francois Muscat from Johannesburg, South Africa.
What is a Competitor Analysis in Marketing
This is the process of evaluating your marketing competitors to understand their strategies, strengths, and weaknesses. A competitor analysis identifies opportunities to differentiate your brand, improve your own marketing efforts, and ultimately gain a competitive edge in the market. By understanding what your marketing competitors are doing, you can make informed decisions that capitalize on gaps in the market and better position your business for success.
Why Doing an Updated Competitive Analysis is Important
To tone up your digital marketing strategy, you must stay on top of the latest trends and understand how consumers’ behavior has changed. You should conduct competitive analysis regularly as part of an overall marketing audit. This indicates where your strengths and weaknesses currently exist by benchmarking against others. By continuously analyzing competition in marketing, you can spot new trends, identify gaps in your business's strategies, and find opportunities to gain a competitive edge against your rivals. This process isn't just about knowing what your competitors target; it’s about using that knowledge to make informed decisions that drive your business forward.
Take the time to plan for a successful marketing strategy moving forward. Instead of pausing your efforts, you should continue with the momentum of the time, effort, and resources you have already invested in your digital marketing.
Especially because search engine optimization (SEO) takes time to show results, the effort you put in now will pay off later.
Types of Marketing Audits We Recommend Every Business Should Conduct
Website audit. Check that your communication—from marketing messages to call-to-actions (CTAs)—reflects the current situation. Fix errors such as slow pages and broken links.
SEO audit. Use tools like SEOMinion (free) or SEMRush (paid) to determine how well your keywords and organic rankings perform and compare them to how well your competitors’ sites perform. This will give you ideas about pages you may need to add to your website.
Content audit. Content drives search traffic and improves visitor conversion. Review the quantity and quality of your content, especially its relevance in 2020. Republish updated blogs or merge them to create pillar content.
Social audit. Especially now that your clients can’t pop in, social media is an easy way to communicate directly with them. Again, review your size and relevance on appropriate social networks. Visit your competitors’ pages for inspiration on how to improve your social media engagement.
Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses by Benchmarking Against Your Competitors
We need to pull together rather than step on competitors. However, benchmarking your digital presence against your rivals helps reveal where and how you can strengthen your position.
With the input of your local WSI consultant, create a competitor positioning chart to easily visualize where you need to direct your focus to gain a competitive advantage.
Prioritize Your Efforts When Implementing Your Research and Insight
- Use analytics to see how current events impact users and adapt your digital strategy accordingly.
- Work on improving your website’s lower-ranking keywords with inbound links.
- Customize content strategy ideas from your competitors’ best-performing pages.
How Can AI Assist With Conducting a Competitive Analysis in Marketing
AI can enhance the process of researching competitors by automating data collection, providing real-time insights, and suggesting strategic improvements. It can monitor competitors' content, ad campaigns, and SEO efforts, offering a clear view of what drives their success. AI tools also analyze customer sentiment and engagement, revealing strengths and weaknesses in competitors' strategies. By benchmarking your performance against competitors and predicting industry trends, AI helps you stay ahead and refine your marketing approach to outpace the competition.
WSI Can Help You Gain a Competitive Edge
For more details on all of the above, watch the recording from our webinar, “Competitive Research: How to Analyze the Marketing Activities of Your Competitors to Get Ahead” (posted here). Contact WSI today to learn more about analyzing your competitors’ marketing.
