How Important is Competitor Analysis in Digital Marketing

1. How Important is Competitor Analysis in Digital Marketing Competitor analysis is a crucial component of planning and launching an effective digital marketing campaign wherein you have to collect crucial information about your main competitors in the market. It gives a broad idea about the types of digital marketing services you should choose to succeed in your marketing campaign. Also, it allows you to plan and execute the right digital marketing strategy to let your brand easily distinguishable from others. Competitor analysis helps you to price your products and services that are almost identical to what already exists in the market. In addition, it allows you to identify new opportunities,

2. latest trends and gives you information about any potential threats. It involves conducting in- depth research to analyse the marketing strategies adopted by your main competitors. Various steps to follow in a competitor analysis Here, we list various steps that you need to follow to perform a comprehensive and accurate competitor analysis. The conclusion that you derive from this analysis will help you to formulate your product pricing and marketing strategy. Identify your competitors The first step in a competitor analysis is to find out who your competitors are! There may be scores of companies selling products that are similar to yours and it would not be feasible to do a competitor analysis for all. So, you have to choose about 4 to 5 companies who are in direct competition with you. However, while selecting them make sure they operate in the same geographical area where you want to offer your products or services. These companies should be targeting the same set of customers that you want to target and their products should be in the similar price range that you are going to offer, etc. Identify the metrics to track and analyse Once you have identified your main competitors, the next step is to select the metrics that you want to analyse. These metrics will help you to figure out the performance of your competitors and let you chalk out your digital marketing strategy. Some of these metrics may include the social media strategy, website traffic pattern, keyword ranking, and so on. Paid ads study There are various paid tools available in the market that you can leverage to study paid ad campaigns. By using these tools, you can check the countries your competitors are targeting to run their Google search ad campaigns, their ad copies, and the keywords they are using. You can implement these actionable insights to optimize your campaigns and reach your target audience in an effective way. Research their social media ads strategy You must analyse the social media strategy followed by your competitors before formulating yours. To find their social media strategy, you should look into their Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube accounts. Some of these social media platforms also allow you to research the strategy followed by your competitors. For example, ‘Facebook ad library’ will

3. give you a complete list of the active ad campaigns of a brand if you search for it by typing a keyword. Analyse the products offered by your competitors You must critically examine the products of your competitors to find out how they stand beside yours in terms of quality and price. In this, you have to be objective and figure out the value proposition of products that are sold by your main competitors. You should check their distribution channels and the messaging strategy they have adopted to attract customers. This will help you to chalk out your business model and be effective. Critically analyse their SEO strategy SEO services are extremely important to improve the ranking and visibility of your website. When you analyse the SEO strategy of your competitors, you should focus on some key areas. These include the number of people who visit their websites, the keywords used, and the rankings on SERPs, among others. Analysing these metrics will give you an idea of what is working in their favour and how you can use the knowledge to make your SEO strategy more effective. Study the feedback of their customers Look at the types of customer feedback received by your competitors’ customer touchpoints such as websites, mobile applications, social media pages, and Google reviews, among others. These will help you to know the positive things that people like about their products/services and the negative ones as well. Thereafter, you may work on the negative aspects of your products to eliminate any shortcomings or glitches. This will help your business to prevent the types of feedback your competitors receive. SWOT analysis Once you have gathered all the information by performing a competitive analysis, you should do a SWOT analysis. This will help you understand the Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats your business may possess and face, and the path you should take to boost your market share. In SWOT analysis, you can find out the areas where you have a clear advantage to get ahead of your competitors with minimum investment. Further, you will be able to gauge the benefits that you are likely to derive in the short term and the strategy to adopt to achieve long-term success. Put the main points in writing

4. After you have completed the competitor analysis and figured out the marketing strategy to follow by doing a SWOT analysis, you have to put the insights in a document and share the same with other stakeholders. You can refer to this document while formulating your digital marketing strategy to improve search rankings, visibility, leads, conversions, and the credibility of your brand online, among other things. Conclusion Competitor analysis is a continuous process that you have to perform regularly to complement the digital marketing services carried out by your business. You have to do this task once in three months or at least once a year so that you are not upstaged by any new strategy adopted by your competitors. We hope this article will dispel any doubts you may have about the importance of performing competitor analysis. You will now be able to understand how it enables you to get a bird’s eye view of the market, which in turn can help you to strategize and launch an effective marketing campaign. Resource: https://www.techdirectory.io/articles/how-important-is-competitor-analysis-in-digital- marketing ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… WebGuru Infosystems Y8, Block-EP, Sector V, Salt Lake, Kolkata-700091, India Website: https://www.webguru-india.com/ Email: enquiry@webguru-india.com Phone: +91-8420197208 Follow us on: