If you want to be successful, do what successful people do. No matter what business you're into, it is good to observe and analyse competitor's activities . I always say it's best to analyse and learn from a competitor that is more successful and also learn from a competitor that is not doing as good as you. Reason is you get to learn from their successes and failures and use this to improve your own brand. So here are some essential things you can learn from your competitors;
1. What audience appeal do they address; You can research into what appeal your competitor use in campaigns and other related elements. Are they using fear, happiness, family, motherly love, sex appeal, etc. Also analyse how effective the appeal used has been. The essence of doing all these research on the competitor is to know what to incorporate in your own product or service and what to avoid.
2. What their public like and dislike about them: This is one of the easiest things one can learn by simply paying attention to what the competitor's customers are saying about the product. Research into what customers like about the competitor's brand or product(s) that you don't yet practice or have in your product. By knowing this, you can then use this to improve your own brand.
It is also much better to know what their audience dislike about the brand. This will prevent you making same mistake and also reduce the risk of a crisis.
3. What promotions they are running: This can be easily seen from their online and even offline activities. Learn from the strategies they are using in their promotions, the audience engagement and reaction towards the promotion and you might pick up a few things that might be useful to your organisation.
4. Their problem solving ability: This involves learning from how they handle challenges and if customers are satisfied by it. Here, you examine if their problems are quickly resolved or recurring. This you can get from customer's feedback and reviews. If their problems are not quickly resolved, then you can ensure your own organisation is not also facing the issue.
5. Their customer retention: Do they have more customers than you or less customers? What are they doing to retain customers? what are they not doing to retain customers? What reasons are the customers giving for being loyal to their brand? Find answers to all these and see how you can better your brand.
6. What does their market research say about their public: Since you both target similar public, you can also benefit from the result of their market research. There will definitely be few helpful results from their research that you might not have in yours. This will give you a better understanding of your target public and how you can serve them better.
7. Competitive analysis: I heard this point years ago and I think it's a must-do for every organisation that aims to do better than their competitor. Competitive analysis is simply buying and using the competitor's product or service and critically analysing it (constructive criticism). Take note of the strengths and weaknesses and see how you can better develop your own product.
It is important to know what exactly to look for so that you don't just embark on an aimless journey. Find out their strategies and the rationale behind their actions. In summary, find out what works and do something similar and better still find out what failed and avoid it.
If you have any more tips, please share.
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