Competitor analysis: What is it for?

Competitor analysis is essential for any business. Your product may have been successful in the market for several years. But, if the customer lifecycle and conversion rate leave much to be desired, this means that someone else has a better offer. In this case, you need to analyze your competitors’ operations, to see how their products differ from yours, and offer consumers something unique. Before you start competitor analysis, you’ll understand what it is and what tasks it addresses.

You’ll find a competitor analysis checklist in the supplementary materials.

In this lesson we’ll discuss Porter’s method. It is used to analyze the competitive environment in a particular sector, to assess the extent of its threats and to develop an effective business strategy. According to this method, market competition depends not only on existing competitors – they are just one of the five major forces. The combined strength of all five factors determines the industry's profit potential and attractiveness. We’ll explore each one in detail with examples from the aviation industry.

The supplementary materials contain a template for forces analysis in an industry according to Porter.

We’ve covered the competitor analysis basics, so let's move on to more specific tasks. In this lesson we’ll discuss the 4P method, which will allow you to take a comprehensive approach to researching your market competitors.

Additionally, you will get the tools and methods to analyze a competitor's products.

Competitors' products need to be looked at from all sides without missing a single detail. It is important to discover its key unique features and specific differences from its peers. So this lesson will focus on competitor product and price analysis. Competitor price analysis is a way to assess your prices competitiveness in the current market conditions. It’ll help you to optimize your procurement and pricing, to always provide customers with attractive offers, and to increase your sales and profits.

The supplementary materials contain metrics for competitor price analysis. You'll also learn factors to consider when re-pricing your products.

A website, an application and, of course, social media are important components of modern marketing. Today, the following expression becomes a rule: "If your business is not on the internet, your business will be out of business". Indeed, in today's world, almost every company has its own website or app and maintains social networks through which it offers its services. In this lesson, you will learn how to analyze your competitors' websites, apps and social media.

Additionally, you’ll get a list of the best resources for competitor website analysis. You’ll also get acquainted with UX metrics for competitor analysis.

You need an effective purchase funnel to increase consumer awareness of your product, to get them interested, to convert them into buyers or customers and to make them loyal. In this lesson you’ll learn how to analyze your competitors' purchase funnels to help you draw on their experience and build into your own strategy successful ways to reach out to customers.

Additionally, you'll learn the stages of the marketing funnel.

This lesson will focus on your competitors' email marketing analysis. You’ll learn how to monitor it and how it can benefit you. Email marketing is a way of promoting products or services through email newsletters. It is a top digital media tool that can attract and retain customers and also increase brand loyalty.

The supplementary materials contain a table for competitor email marketing analysis.

In the previous lessons you learnt how to analyze various parts of your competitors' business. This lesson will focus on communication strategy and the way to analyze it. Communication strategy is the comprehensive impact of a firm on the external environment. Its main goal is to ensure stable and effective activities to create demand and promote goods and services in order to meet customer needs and to make a profit.

Additionally, you’ll study the PESO model and get a SWOT analysis table.