As a business owner, you need to create growth goals and do all you can to achieve them. Profitability is one of the main things you should be concerned with as the owner of a business. A recent study found that only around 40% of the businesses in the United States are profitable. One of the best ways to boost your profitability is by expanding your audience. 

Well-planned marketing campaigns are a crucial component of expanding your reach. Developing plans designed to help boost your presence on popular search engines like Google is a lot harder than you might realize. Before you create new marketing campaigns, you need to become familiar with the term competitive analysis. Read below for more information and how to use it to your advantage. 

What is Competitive Analysis? 

When a business owner researches their competition to gain insight into their marketing tactics, it is referred to as competitive analysis. Competitive analysis can also be used to find out more about a competitor’s products, services, and sales. The information gained from competitive analysis allows a business owner to strengthen their own marketing campaigns. 

Benefits of Performing Competitive Analysis

Performing a competitive analysis is a time-consuming and difficult process. However, there are a number of benefits that come with performing this type of analysis like:

  • Helping identify what makes your products/services unique
  • Easily identify where your competitors are falling short with their marketing messages
  • Identify what your competitors are doing right and implement it in your marketing campaigns
  • Create benchmarks to measure your success and growth

If your business is relatively new, then conducting competitive analysis is a great way to chart your course to the top. 

Tips For Performing an Effective Competitive Analysis

Now that you know more about the benefits of performing a competitive analysis, you need to start figuring out how to approach this process. If you want to conduct a thorough analysis, you need to consider these tips. 

Make a List of Your Competitors

The first thing you need to do when conducting a competitive analysis is to gather information about your competition. Making a list of your competitors and what similar products/services they offer is a wise move. Once you have a list of your competitors, you can start researching them online. 

Assess How Competitors are Marketing Their Products/Services

The next thing you need to focus on is your competitor’s online presence. Assessing how your competition uses the Internet to market their products/services is a good idea. With this information, you can start to structure your own marketing campaigns. While you don’t need to copy your competition’s marketing strategies directly, you can use them as inspiration when developing your approach. 

Ideally, you want to conduct a competitive analysis a few times a year. The time you invest in performing this analysis will pay off due to the helpful information you will obtain.