How to Perform Competitor Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide

Key takeaways:

• What is competitor analysis? Examining similar brands to understand their offerings, branding, and sales strategies.

• Benefits: Helps understand industry standards, discover niche markets, differentiate products, fulfill customer desires, and measure growth.

• How to perform it? Identify competitors, analyze their structures, value propositions, marketing efforts, brand identities, and customer journeys, and conduct a SWOT analysis.

Competitor analysis is a way to understand what similar brands and organizations are doing so you can best position yourself within the market. This helps you find your niche and understand where your offerings fit into the broader consumer landscape. To learn how to take advantage of these insights, explore what competitor analysis is, its benefits, and how to perform this type of analysis.

What is a competitor analysis?

A competitor analysis, also called competitive analysis and competition analysis, is the process of examining similar brands in your industry to gain insight into their offerings, branding, sales, and marketing approaches. Knowing your competitors in business analysis is important if you’re a business owner, marketer, start-up founder, or product developer.

Benefits of conducting competitor analysis

A competitor analysis offers several benefits, including: 

• Understanding industry standards so that you can meet and exceed them   

• Discovering untapped niche markets  

• Differentiating products and services

• Fulfilling customers’ desires and solving their problems better than competitors

• Distinguishing your brand

• Standing out in your marketing 

• Measuring your growth 

How to perform a competitor analysis?

The sections below provide a competitor analysis framework for evaluating your industry’s competitive landscape. Return to this framework regularly and apply the insights to develop your business.

1. Identify your competitors.

• Review your business values, goals, branding, products, and services: Helps identify brands that target similar customers.

• Google search: Type in product names or categories to find competitors.

• Social media search: Use hashtags or keywords to find relevant brands.

• List up to 10 brands with comparable alternatives: Identify direct and indirect competitors.

2. Analyze competitors' business structures.

• Review websites and social media profiles: Gather information about company size, years in operation, job openings, and areas of expansion.

• For publicly traded companies: Review annual reports for revenue, debt, and performance metrics.

For publicly traded companies, you may be able to review their annual reports and gain insight into how much revenue they’re generating, their debt and liability, and other performance metrics.

3. Evaluate your competitors and their value propositions. 

• Site copy and blog analysis: Examine "About" or "What We Do" pages and blog content.

• Identify pain points, desires, benefits, supporting data, and pricing structures: Compare value propositions.

• Answer these questions for each competitor: 

  • What problems and pain points do competitors’ products solve? 

  • What desires do the products fulfill? 

  • What benefits or outcomes does the product deliver for customers?

  • What data do they cite to support their claims about products’ benefits?

  • What pricing structure do competitors use? 

4. Evaluate your competitors’ marketing efforts.

• Social media influencers, affiliate programs, paid advertising: Examine marketing channels and strategies.

• Content types: Articles, videos, ebooks, reports, commercials, digital ads, etc.

• For each competitor, answer these questions: 

  • What social media influencers does this company partner with to leverage their authority, authentic content, and personal connections to target customers?  

  • What affiliate marketing or brand ambassador programs does this company offer to leverage the recommendations of satisfied customers? 

  • What kind of digital or traditional paid advertising presence does this company have?

  • On what marketing channels do competitors publish organic content, including websites, landing pages, social media platforms, and email? 

  • What type of content do you see, including articles, videos, ebooks, reports, commercials, and digital ads?  

5. Audit your competitors’ brand identities.

• Brand personality, messaging style, visual elements: Analyze customer loyalty factors.

• Emotional connection: Evaluate brand elements that evoke emotions.

• For each competitor, answer these questions: 

  • If this company were a person, how would you describe its personality? 

  • What words, phrases, tone, and style does this company use in its messaging?  

  • What values do competitors communicate through their messaging? 

  • How would you describe the visual elements of this company’s branding? And how do those elements correspond to the brand’s values, voice, and personality? 

  • What emotions do the brand elements evoke in customers? 

6. Follow each competitor’s customer journey. 

• Social media, email subscriptions, product purchases: Experience customer journeys firsthand.

• Touchpoints, ease of progression, content types, post-purchase experiences: Gather detailed insights.

• Gather information on the following: 

  • What are the different touchpoints along this company’s customer journey?

  • What elements make it easy to keep moving along the customer journey? 

  • What calls to action and instructions are there to clarify how to proceed?

  • What kinds of content educate and entertain you at each touchpoint?

  • What elements create friction or make advancing to the next step difficult?

  • What do you experience after subscribing or making a purchase? Do you find customer support, upsells, and access to a community? 

7. Examine audience engagement. 

• Customer reviews, social media interactions, employee reviews: Assess competitors' reputation.

• Share of voice: Measure market visibility and popularity.

• For each competitor, explore the following:

  • How do followers and subscribers interact with this company’s public content?  

  • What is the general public sentiment regarding this company, based on mentions, product reviews, and social media likes and comments? Include praise as well as complaints. 

  • What experiences do employees have based on reviews on job sites like Glassdoor and Indeed? 

Share of voice measures how much of the market your brand owns compared to competitors. By determining the share of voice, you can gauge how visible, authoritative, and popular your brand is in the marketplace.

8. Conduct a SWOT analysis of your competition.

A SWOT analysis is a classic exercise for identifying the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats that exist within the competitive landscape. Conduct a SWOT analysis of your competitors to consolidate everything you’ve learned into a succinct story.

• What are your competitors’ strengths in branding, marketing, customer journeys, and products?

• What are your competitors’ weaknesses in branding, marketing, customer journeys, and products?

• What opportunities do you see for your business to capitalize on?

• What is your competition doing that might pose a threat to your business?

You can also list the strengths and weaknesses of your business as it currently stands and compare them side-by-side with those of competitors. 

For more on SWOT analysis, watch this video from the Business Strategy Specialization:

How to use competitor analysis 

Once you’ve conducted a competitor analysis, your next step is to apply the insights to your business. Use the following prompts to differentiate your brand, products, and services from competitors and gain market share:

• What product features can you add that differentiate your product from competitors?

• What pricing strategy can you use to attract new customers to your offerings?

• What design features can you add to your brand to make it stand out?

• How can you compose a value proposition that stands out from competitors? We help [target customer] achieve [outcome, benefit, experience] by offering [product or service].  

• How can you design a seamless, frictionless customer journey that leads consumers to purchase and become loyal brand ambassadors? 

• How can you create content that improves on that of your competitors, including covering new topics, addressing ignored pain points, recommending new solutions, and offering more exciting experiences?  

• How can you improve your social media strategy to reach new potential customers?

• What approaches can you take on marketing channels where your competitors have a presence to distinguish your messaging and present your offerings as the best choice?

• Which marketing channels do your competitors not (yet) have a presence in? What steps can you take to establish and grow a presence on those channels? 

Competitor analysis key takeaways

Remember that conducting a competitor analysis is a crucial step in developing your business. It can help you differentiate your brand and present your products and services as the best on the market. Return to your competitor analysis efforts regularly, such as every quarter, six months, or year, to account for shifts in competitors’ tactics and new competitors that arrive on the scene. Always look for ways to give your brand and products a competitive edge. 

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