Are you new to the online business world?

If yes, here is how your Competitor Analysis can pave your way to great opportunities. 

Competition is everywhere. Few look at it as competition, few find an escape, few try to avoid them, but few take them as role models. It is this few who succeeds and set benchmarks. 

Competition analysis is an important processfor strategic planning. However, often digital marketers tend to overlook this important aspect.

Some marketers think why to hunt for competition analysis. They believe it is best to get on with their own plans and overlook the competition. Well, I would say competition analysis helps a big way.

WHY COMPETITION ANALYSIS?

• It helps to understand your competition, the potential consumer and the market
• It gives you a picture of the keywords they use, the search volume, the link wheel that they created so far, their presence and so on
• It gives an understanding of competitors’ strategies
• It creates a platform for you to develop your strategies, targets, audience and market

Before you collect and categorize competition analysis data it is essential to understand your keyword to purchase funnel.

As you begin with your keyword research it’s important to breakdown your keywords as per your purchase funnel. This gives you a better clarity on your audiences. Once you understand which people you lose and which people actually make it through the buying process, it will help you decide your keyword strategy, it will help you identify which terms and phrases your visitor go after.

After all, no one wants to target every keyword.I won’t say it’s impossible, but then it calls for huge budgets or as we call it “burning money”. 

PICK UP COMPETITION THAT TARGETS THE SAME AUDIENCE

When you target traffic i.e. quantity it doesn’t much matters, but when the target is quality i.e. quality you need to strictly optimize your campaign and streamline your keywords. Else, your significance and your conversion get really difficult. When the target is heavyconversion, I would strongly recommend to go after competition with the same audience as you.

SKIP-NOT QUESTIONS WHILE DOING YOUR COMPETITION ANALYSIS

• Who’s your competitor? 
• What is the market share of your competitor? 
• What’s your Competitor’s profile 
• What’s their objective?
• What kind of audience they are targeting?
• What’s their communication strategy
• What online platforms are they using?
• SWOT analysis of the competitors and market

CATEGORIZING COMPETITORS ANALYSIS DATA

You can categorize your competition analysis into three categories – 

1 CHRONICLED DATA 

This is documented data that is easily available and accessible. This includes annual reports, blogs, articles, tweets, website, brochure, reports, uploads, infographics, presentations, etc.

2 EVIDENT DATA

Evident data needs attention and dedication. This can be gained through observation. It is accumulated from several sources. It includes – online and offline campaigns, keyword strategy, content strategy, POP branding, microsites, promotion, online paid campaigns, price list, websites, literature and so on.

3 LUCK-BY-CHANCE DATA

To get a hook of this data requires a lot of planning. Much of it comes from discussions with ex-employees, growth partners, suppliers and distributors, customers or perhaps any internal source. This includes – meetings, trade shows, analytics report, customer database, communication strategy and so on.

The task is to amass as much data as possible and to connect them into an overall strategy of the competitor. This enables you to identify the gaps and to bridge them.