Set your business apart by studying your competition. 

If you’re running a race, seeing other runners in your peripheral vision affects your performance. Someone slightly ahead of you will motivate you to push a little harder–as will someone who you sense is gaining on you. 

In team sports–football, basketball, soccer, and more–a key part of training is understanding how other competitor teams set up their plays. Who are their top players? What are their strategies? And, knowing all of this, how will we respond and beat them?

Businesses (and their CEOs) ask the same questions about their competitors. After all, knowing what companies customers can choose between is a key component to making your offering the best possible one. 

Most startup and small business CEOs I speak to can rattle off a list of direct competitors. They know what products or services those competitors offer. Often, they also know details about their competitors’ operations (ie, how they actually deliver those services).

But there’s often one big gap in CEOs’ understanding of their competitors: rarely do they know their competitors’ marketing strategy. 

Knowing competitors’ marketing strategy is a foundational aspect of building your own marketing strategy. Once you know how your competitors position themselves, you can set yourself apart from the crowd.

How do you find out what your competitors’ marketing strategy is?

Good news! A lot of marketing is public-facing. You can start to piece together your competitors’ marketing strategy by doing the following:

• Visiting their website to understand how they position themselves and their services

• Following them on social media channels to see what content they share and how frequently

• Signing up for their emails to monitor what drip campaigns they have and what type of regular email content they share

• Tracking their search engine optimization (SEO) performance by using a tool such as ubersuggest

These are easy ways to identify your competitors’ market positioning, brand voice, and messaging choices. 

Some activity may be harder to track:

• Digital ad strategy and spend

• Ads in non-public spaces such as tradeshows, industry-specific publications, or newsletter sponsorships

• Email segmentation messaging

How do you use your competitors’ marketing strategy to improve your own?

Analyzing your competitors’ marketing strategy can help you in two domains. 

1. Understanding industry marketing standards:

Your competition’s marketing will outline marketing and communication standards in your industry. You’ll be able to see trends such as content types or messaging frequency. These tell you what your target audiences expect if they are already interacting with your competitors. 

2. Getting more creative with your marketing:

Once you understand themes across your competitors’ marketing, you can establish how to set yourself apart from them. Here are some questions you might ask yourself:

• If they all have similar brand personalities, how do you develop one for your business that’s different?

• If they all use social media in a similar way, how does your business do so differently?

• If none of your competitors are using a specific marketing channel, how can your business do so with great impact?

How do you monitor your competitors’ marketing regularly and efficiently?

Doing a yearly deep-dive into your competitors’ marketing is key. But keeping an eye on their activity during the rest of the year can be time-consuming. 

Here are three ways to stay connected to your competitors:

1. Pay attention to them on social media: follow them on any platform that you browse.

2. Read their emails: open each one, and consider it part of your job.

3. Undertake brief competitive research on a quarterly basis: build this into your marketing team’s quarterly content planning sessions.

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An initial competitive analysis can be time-consuming, but that investment will pay off through improved marketing strategies. 

If you want to generate even more creative marketing ideas, you can expand your definition of competitors. A broader competitive set will spark more inspiration. Intrigued? Read my blog post on the topic.

Here are two ways I can help you:

1. Serve as your business’s Fractional CMO.

2. Analyze and optimize your marketing strategy.

Interested? Send me a note.