Today’s business competition grows ever stiffer. The quality of your business’s competitiveness deserves immediate attention and should not be neglected. Losing the competition might mean the business sinking. As such, every business company should conduct a competitive test.
Competition is a natural and inherent part of business. However, business owners will do well not to take it for granted. Consumers converting to competitor products for various reasons is a common occurrence. To avoid losing the competition, business owners must learn of their position in the competitive landscape. How strongly positioned is your business to compete?
Therefore, competitive tests are necessary. Detailed below are steps to identify and research various strategies from competitors, covering their marketing, sales, and product strategies. All these are crucial in devising the best business strategy to win the competition. To conduct a competitive test, there are a series of steps to execute as below.
1. Identifying competitors
Start by identifying your competitors. To determine this, classify competitors into direct and indirect competitors. Direct competitors are those in the same exact business field as yours, whereas indirect competitors are businesses that can offer substitute products or services to yours.
Once they are identified, companies should not take account of direct competitors only. They are indeed the main focus, but indirect competitors remain crucial to monitor and consider.
2. Assessing the products or services offered by competitors
Conduct an analysis of products or services being offered by competitors. There are many facets to take into consideration; including quality, price, and even promotional discounts they are giving out.
Gather as much information as possible. Some things that can be referenced are the size of their market, their market strategy, and their differentiation in the competitive landscape.
3. Finding information on competitors’ sales strategy and sales results
Find information on competitors’ sales strategy. If the competitor happens to be a public company, this can be sourced from their release of annual reports. On the other hand, Customer Relationship Management can be utilized to analyze private company competitors.
Pinpoint consumers that state preference for your competitors, then probe for
their reasons. Find deeper insight on competitors’ product appeal, consumer demographics, and target market. Also take note of their pricing, discounts, and other bonuses they offer. All these will provide a basis for deep-dive analysis.
Further Reading : Market Expansion: Building the Best Strategy
4. Analyzing competitors’ marketing strategy
Competitors must have a specific strategy to market their products. Do an analysis of their marketing strategy in an equally comprehensive measure as their sales strategy above. This is crucial to serve as a comparison for your business’s own implemented strategy. Find the strengths and weaknesses to learn of your business’s product or service positioning in the market.
5. Studying competitors’ content marketing
Another factor of note is to study competitors’ content marketing. Nowadays, most businesses execute such marketing. Find out in more detail; what are their various forms of content marketing, their strategies, and finally how they interact with customers. Competitors’ social media presence should also be observed. There is a good chance that social media is their channel for content marketing. Hence, monitoring their social media engagement will be necessary.
6. Finding out competitors’ technology employment
In this day and age, utilizing technology to support and aid work is commonplace. It is likely that competitors are also implementing technology support, and this can be their area of superiority. Therefore, as part of a competitive test, it is also necessary to study their employment of technology. Assess the strengths and weaknesses, then compare them to the technology that your business is using.
7. Building SWOT Analysis as a conclusion
As a conclusion, summarize all collected data as a basis for your business’s SWOT Analysis. Evaluate all facets in detail, covering marketing, sales, and overall business. SWOT Analysis will show business conditions relative to competitors. Hence, it is possible to learn your business’s positioning in the competitive landscape.
From this, various strategies and measures can be made. In the case where your business is still losing the competition, build steps to overturn this. Meanwhile, if your business is already leading, maintain the condition and keep improving quality to retain the leading position.
Competitive tests are very beneficial for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of competitors. Ultimately, this will be advantageous in measuring your own business’s strengths in the competitive landscape. Conduct a robust competitive test to find the best business strategy and win the business competition.
