Build a Better Brand by Analyzing Your Direct Competitors

There’s nothing wrong with a little healthy competition. Beating your competitors in business will help you grab a larger slice of the pie, but having competitors can also push you to achieve and do more with your brand. If you really want to come out on top, you need to know who you’re competing with and how to overcome them.

This is where competitive market research can make a world of difference. Whether you’re launching a business or searching for new opportunities in your market, this guide to analyzing your direct competitors will help you build a better brand and extend your customer reach.

Find Your Audience

To start a competitor analysis, you should identify at least one competitor to study. Ideally, you’ll want to identify between three to five competitors to cover a wider range within your market. Then, you can dive into the research to understand the customer each company targets.

While doing so, pay attention to the type of language they use in their brand messaging. You should also look at each platform they use to spread their messaging. For example, are they on Twitter, Instagram, or both?

Learning this type of information will help you better understand your brand’s audience. If one competitor owns a chunk of the market for a certain customer type, you could focus on a niche within that base or a different customer instead. You can also learn from their communication techniques, which will help you understand how to better position your brand.

Fine-tune Your Brand Voice and Messaging

When you know where your competition posts, you can begin studying the type of content they create and the cadence at which they publish it. You can also take a look at the level of engagement each post receives. In essence, you will learn what works for your competition and what doesn’t.

If you see that positive, light-hearted posts work well for your competition on Instagram, you can try emulating that approach in your own brand voice. If you see your competition doesn’t post often on Twitter, you can increase your cadence and gain more ground on that platform. Through this research, you can find unique ways to stand out from the competition.

These methods will help you refine your own brand voice and messaging, leading to higher engagement rates and more brand recognition with customers.

Discover Hidden Opportunities

A marketplace analysis may also reveal information about your customer base you never knew in the first place. For example, you may realize a segment of your customers have a need that no other competitor is addressing. You can capitalize on this hidden opportunity by filling that gap before the competition.

These hidden opportunities don’t stop there, either. You can uncover a variety of new ways to approach the market and edge out the competition.

Analyzing Your Direct Competitors Can Help You Beat Them

To beat your direct competitors, you must know everything about them. A competitor analysis will reveal their strengths and weaknesses, and in the process, you can find the edge that will take your brand to the next level.

Interested in doing a competitive analysis but don’t know where to start? Reach out and schedule a free consultation with our branding services team today.