Every business knows who they are and what they stand for. Whether you realise it or not, the chances are you’ll already have some form of message or image that you want to put forward. That’s the easy part of building a brand. It gets a bit more challenging when it comes to understanding how to communicate this message with your target audience in the most effective way possible.
But there’s good news. You can learn from others. You can gain valuable insight into how different approaches to communication can impact the way that customers feel about and perceive a brand.
This is why it’s important to know your competition.
But first things first. To know your competition, you have to find them…
Who’s your competition?
In terms of selling products or services, it’s easy to see who the competition is, isn’t it? Your toughest competitors are those who have the best market share. They’re the ones who are managing to attract, engage, convert, and retain those highly desirable buyers. Because of this, it’s also easy to know how to use the competition to your advantage; you see what they’re doing, and you echo the sentiment.
But when it comes to branding, things are a little trickier. Your competition isn’t just the organisations that are selling more. This isn’t about sales. It’s about standing out. So it’s important to consider a wider selection of businesses operating within your niche, regardless of how they’re performing. And the value here comes not from imitating what successful brands have already done. It comes from identifying what isn’t working, and building upon and improving the elements that are.
How to conduct competitor research
The first step is to decide which competitors you’re going to evaluate. Ideally, you should be looking to analyse four businesses from across the performance spectrum. Exactly which businesses you choose will depend on how you operate. For example, it’s not as valuable to research a business with a global brand if you’re planning to market and sell products or services only within your local area.
When you’ve decided on your sample, consider these four crucial factors for each business:
- Brand message
- Product/service quality
- Marketing efforts
- Customer reviews and sentiment
Armed with this information, you should be able to answer the following questions:
- How are each of these factors individually approached by the business?
- How do all of these factors align with each other?
- What is the overall impact of these factors on brand perception?
For example, a business may be offering a ‘cheap and cheerful’ product, but marketing it as a luxury item. This could result in a confusing brand message, and ultimately, negative customer reviews. In this instance, it should be easy to see that the misalignment between product/service quality and marketing efforts is having a detrimental effect on the ability to communicate the brand message.
It can be easy to think of the competition as being the enemy. It’s natural to want to do better. But when it comes to branding, it’s not about being better. It’s about being different. And when that’s the case, your competitors aren’t the enemy; they’re your ‘cheat sheet’ into how to build your brand.
