In order to be successful as a business, you need to know your market as well as your competition. After all, knowledge is power and being prepared can help you get ahead. Launching a business without knowing what to expect is the quickest way to be left behind, whether today or tomorrow!

Let’s look at why a competitive market analysis is important and how you can make sure you’re doing it right.

Why Prioritize Competitor Research and Market Analysis?

Competitive market analysis helps you understand how existing companies are doing business and what you can do better. It gives you deeper insight into market demand for goods or services you offer, along with the availability and pricing of products your target customers may be seeking.

Knowing what your competitors are doing helps you figure out how to improve on it and stand out from them. This could be in terms of pricing or quality of goods and services, marketing and advertising strategies, delivery timeframes, production efficiency, customer loyalty programs, and more.

Even if you have a unique product, online surveys and other market research tools help you find out which audience group you should be targeting, how to get the word out and make sure you provide a great customer experience.

How to Research and Analyze Your Competition

There are many ways to conduct competitor analysis, and these six tips will help you get started:

1. Search for Competitors Online – Use the Internet to your advantage. With the growth of e-commerce and online marketing, practically every company has a website or social media page. A web search for the product you offer will give you an idea of who else is in the same market, as well as their online presence.
2. Invest in Market Research– If you’re willing to spend money on advertising and marketing, why not on studying the market? Professional market research tools and agencies can help you save time and energy while getting more detailed and focused data than you would while collecting information on your own.
3. Dive Deep on Social Media – Today, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have become powerful networking tools. Go beyond web searches and into social media, to see how competitors are interacting with their audience, projecting their brand image and collecting customer feedback.
4. Use Surveys to Collect Data – Despite being the simplest method used for market research, surveys are still the most effective. If you can conduct one with customers, employees, and suppliers who are connected to competing businesses, you will gather valuable information about their strengths and weaknesses.
5. And, Speaking of Employees  – Study your competition’s hiring patterns to know what kind of candidates they’re recruiting. This will help you decide what to look for in potential employees when you have a job opening. It can also reveal details of competitors’ current and future projects, company structure, etc.
6. Test What Others Are Offering – Sometimes, acting as a customer is the best way to know how competitors deal with them. Sign up for their email newsletters, follow their social media pages and buy their product the same way anyone else would. You will learn first-hand about the customer experience they provide.

Remember to put yourself in a potential customer’s shoes. You wouldn’t buy the first thing offered to you without shopping around for the best offer, would you? Well, any market works exactly the same way. Everyone wants the maximum bang for their buck, especially when supply is higher than demand!

About The Author: Bhavika Sharma is a survey designer at SurveySparrow—Survey Software, where she designs surveys that are conversational and engaging. When she isn’t designing killer surveys, she loves to travel, searching for adventure and meeting new people. Her travel experiences have taught her the importance of conversation, and that is what she brings to the table while creating surveys or content for her readers.