Competitive Research

By Joshua Botello

Is your business ready to compete in the market? In this video, you’ll learn how to conduct your competitive research. If you are just starting your business plan or you've been at this game for a while, you need to know who your competition is. Many business owners fail to do this research and then wonder why they aren’t winning new customers or growing. In this video, I'll give you a 3 step process to competitive research where you’ll:

1. Identify your competitors
2. Gather intelligence
3. Finally, put it into a form you will be able to use to grow your business.

So let's get started.

Step 1: Identify Competitors

As you start on your journey of competitive research you first need to identify your competitors. What? You don't have any competitors? Wrong. You do have competitors whether you know them or not. Now it’s time to find them.

Use Google

If you never thought about your competitors before now it is time to find them, but how? When doing this research you need to put your customer hat on and search Google. Throw in your product or the problem a customer would have and see what businesses are solving that problem. Note which ones are Ads and which come up organically or matched according to Google’s algorithm. This will be useful later.

Surveys

The next tool you can use to identify competitors is by pounding the pavement and asking customers or prospective customers if you're just starting out. Asking questions about what companies or products the customer currently uses and why will give you insight on what these people will find most important. Where do you find these customers? Go to small events like farmer’s markets or use a current email list if you have one.

Crunchbase

Our final tool is for more tech-focused startups. Crunchbase is a tool for large corporations and tech companies with funding and other information to get a sense of who these competitors are. This is only the first step so don’t think you need a ton of information out of the gate. We are only finding the names of these competitors.

Step 2: Gather Intelligence

Once you have your competitor list, of say top 10 or top 5, it’s time to gather your intelligence. What do you look for, you ask? You want to gather intelligence about Products, pricing, customer service, reputation, online presence, and how close they cater to the market. How do you find this information? I'm glad you asked.

Website and Basic Info

First, let’s get some basic information on a business from their website. This is going to be their most basic platform. What information can you get from this? Many websites talk about who their customers are, what their product does, and how long their business has been around. What if there is no website, don't worry. Sources like Linkedin or a Google My Business listing will have the basic info you need.

Online Presence

Next, we need to figure out if your competitors are on social media. If they are, great! Here’s what intelligence you need to gather. How much of a following does your competitor have? Are they utilizing the platforms and are they on the right platforms according to the target market? You can also use these platforms to gauge the general sentiment of the followers and customers.

Reputation

Our final piece of intelligence to gather is the reputation of your competitors. Namely through reviews. This is fairly easy to do. Let me give you a quick rundown. Start with a Google My Business listing. This is the most basic that a majority of businesses will have. Note their rating and how many reviews they have. Next head to Facebook and do the same thing. This should give you what you need, but other services like Yelp, Angi, Thumbtack, and YP.com are good sources for different kinds of businesses.

Step 3: Put it Into an Understandable Form

Now that you have done all this research and it's a lot, it’s time to be honest with yourself. Let’s compare your business with your competitors and put it in an easy format to understand.

SWOT Analysis

The first format is one you should be familiar with is a SWOT analysis. Under Strengths and weaknesses put your business information for those sections. Now pick a competitor and put their strengths under your threats and their weaknesses as your opportunities. This is now your at-a-glance strategy document where you can figure out where you need to invest time and resources and build up your business.

The Battle Card

The other type of document is a battle card. No, we’re not playing Pokemon or Magic: the Gathering. A Battle card is an actual document that gives you at a glance competitive information. Much of the information you gather and are able to develop into a SWOT analysis can be taken one step further for your marketing messaging to win customers in the sales process. Check out the companion article for links to resources.

Conclusion

Conducting competitive research is a straightforward 3 step process: all you need is to identify your competitors, gather your information on those competitors and finally put it into a form that's useful to win new customers. All owners should prepare for a competitive market and research their competitors for a successful, growing business. But let me know what you think? Have you done competitive research lately? Do you know what your competition is doing and how to win new customers? Let me know in the comments below.

Funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.