Webinar Intro:
The content below is an excerpt from the webinar posted above. In the webinar, we compared two different Montessori schools so that we could provide a clear example of how we start to build a competitive analysis.
How to Build a Competitive Analysis for Your Business
The goal of a competitive analysis is to identify your competitors’ weaknesses and strengths to see how your business compares to theirs. This will show you the areas in your digital marketing strategy that need improvement, which can help you reshape your strategy to stay ahead of the competition.
Our competitive analysis process is fairly in-depth, so instead of walking you through the entire process, we’ll go over the most important elements with which you can get started right away.
Our Competitive Analysis Process
When working with a client, the first thing we do is schedule a discovery call. This helps us to understand their business, their target markets, and their goals for growth. From there, we gather data about the client and their competitors. Once we complete the template, we conduct a data analysis to identify areas of opportunity and present our key recommendations to the client.
A competitive analysis includes two types of deliverables:
- an Excel spreadsheet containing the raw data, and
- a PowerPoint presentation with the key findings.
You can see a detailed example of the Excel spreadsheet and the PowerPoint presentation in the above video. The Excel template is available upon request.
The Core Areas of a Competitive Analysis
A competitive analysis consists of seven core areas:
- Market opportunity
- Website trust signals
- Reputation management
- SEO performance
- Paid search
- Other digital marketing strategies
- Website technical performance
Evaluating market opportunity involves using search terms and keyword ranking to identify the client’s potential in the market compared to their competitors.
After identifying their market opportunity, our first priority is to identify each company’s website trust signals and determine areas of improvement for the client. This involves going through a list of key points and seeing how many of them are present on the client’s website (see the above video for a detailed example).
From there, we compare the reputation management strategies of the client and their competitors on sites such as Google My Business, Facebook, and Yelp. We also look at various factors of the companies’ SEO performance to see how well their websites rank in search engines like Google or Bing, as well as how much they invest in paid search per month.
Other digital marketing strategies we evaluate in a competitive analysis include email marketing, social media marketing, display advertising, and remarketing. And finally, we evaluate the client’s website technical performance: average load time, utilization of Google AMP, CDN, etc. Note that these last two areas are generally for analyzing companies in highly competitive industries, so they may not be necessary for a competitive analysis of your business.
By building a competitive analysis for your business, you’ll be able to compare your company to your competitors and identify core areas of improvement in your digital marketing strategy. Get started with this tool today to stay ahead of the game!
Need help building a competitive analysis for your business? Watch the webinar video above for a detailed walkthrough of our process, and learn more about our Digital Marketing Competitive Analysis service!
Part 2: Tips for Increasing Enrollment at your Montessori school
