How to Write Competitive Analysis?

Discover how to write competitive analysis, that will enable any business to understand better its market, how to find your competitors, getting background information, analyzing competitors’ products and services, getting familiar with their targeting and positioning, discovering competitors’ distribution channels, conducting a SWOT analysis and more

You need to conduct a competitive analysis as a part of your market research. Only then can you develop an effective marketing strategy to steer the ship in the right direction.

What are the steps to write a competitive analysis?

1) Find your competitors

2) Get background information

3) Analyze competitors’ products and services

4) Get familiar with their targeting and positioning

5) Discover competitors’ distribution channels

6) Dive into communication strategies

7) Do some ghost shopping

8) Conduct a SWOT analysis

How to Find Your Competitors?

A competitor is any company that solves the same problem as you in your target market.

For example, Pepsi and Coke are competitors because they sell the same thing to the same market. However, not every similar business is a direct competitor, which is a common mistake people make.

Take restaurants and cafes, for example. Both of them are places to eat, but they don’t compete with each other. Restaurants are for meals, whereas cafes are for light bites or refreshments. It’s a similar story for freelance vs. enterprise solutions. The products might be similar, but the same solutions don’t appeal to both demographics.

Now that you understand that, your first step is to find 3–5 relevant competitors (anything more would be overkill).

Here are three ways to do it:

a) Look at keyword overlap

b) Look who’s advertising

c) Look at category listings

Read more here.

Additional Link:

What is Sentiment Analysis?