S74 Top Tips - How to Keep on Top of Your Competitors
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As business owners, marketing managers, and decision-makers, we’re always seeing the latest our competitors are doing and wonder ‘does that work?’ and ‘Should I be doing that as well?’ Don’t worry, in this blog, we’ll cover three tips and tricks that you can utilise straight away to gain insight into your competitor’s marketing initiatives as well as identify areas where we can help.
First, let’s take a look at what a competitor analysis really is made of.
Competitor research (also known as a ‘competitor analysis’) in marketing can be defined as a method or practice to better understand your competitor’s marketing strategies and tactics. This information is then used to inform and develop your own marketing strategy to further evolve and distinguish your brand from your competitors. There is no one way to perform a competitor analysis at a tactic-focused level.
However, when we look at the competitor research principles, it’s simple:
Gain data and clarity through high-level research
Draw insights from the data
Take action on the analysis
And repeat, repeat, repeat
There are several tools that can accomplish this, so we’ve narrowed down our list to methods that are quick, easy, have ZERO barriers to entry, and provide you with excellent insights into your competitor’s marketing strategy.
1: Find out what your competitors are promoting right now on Facebook
We all know that you can research your competitor through their Facebook page and the organic content there. However, we can also see their paid promotions that they are running on Facebook, too.
To do this, you’ll need to start on your competitor’s Facebook page.
Once open, scroll down the page until you see a section with ‘page transparency’ in the column on the left of the page. Once you’re here, click the ‘see more’ button. This section will show you the ‘Ads from this page’.
If the section says ‘This page is not currently running ads’ – that means that your competitor is not running any paid promotion on Facebook (this would be a great opportunity to jump on paid advertising!).
If the section says “This page is currently running ads”, click on the button ‘Go to Ad Library.’ And voilà! You can now see all their paid advertisements on this platform.
Take a moment to look at the different parts of the ad.
When did the ad start?
Typically, if it’s been running for a while (over a month or two) – then it is likely gaining the results that your competitor wants! If this is the case, you may want to think about competing here with similar contentWhat tone of voice and style do they have?
Who are they talking to? How are they doing it? You both share the same target market, so it’s a perfect time to see how your competitors are talking to the same people you’re trying to attractWhat headlines, ad text and descriptions do they use?
Why do you think that is? Critical analysis of every component of your competitor’s Facebook page and ads are essential in understanding their marketing strategyWhat call to action do their ads have?
Each call to action is designed to drive one of three core objectivesAwareness
Consideration
Conversion
Knowing their motivation behind the campaign allows you to better understand the tone and language they use, as well as how they want their target market to see them.
2: How to find out your competitor’s targeting strategy on Facebook
Now that you know the ads your competitors use, don’t you want to better understand how they target those ads to their customers? Well, you’re in luck – because this is possible!
When you see their ad pop up on your own newsfeed, click the three dots in the top right corner. Click the ‘why am I seeing this ad?’ button. Facebook will now provide a couple of reasons that you may be seeing this ad. It gives a great foundational understanding to their audience. It may be broad (people aged 18 - 65) or more specific (people following Facebook pages similar to…). Copy this data and compile it, try to see if you can do this for multiple posts.
Of course, the downside to this strategy is that it has to be advertised to your account first, however, you’ll be surprised at how many times you will find their ads while your scrolling randomly. You’ll want to complete the first tip in order to know whether or not they are in fact running ads, otherwise, you’ll be scrolling for no reason!
3: Set up Google Alerts!
Here’s one that is both Google and Facebook related!
Google Alerts is a Google platform that sends you information relating to the business, keyword, or in this case, your competitor as it comes out. This is perfect for larger businesses due to them releasing frequent content and news stories.
4: Conduct a SWOT analysis on each competitor
If you’ve read our first blog of the Small Business Marketing series, then you’ll already know the importance of effective SWOT analyses. This form of analysis provides an in-depth understanding of each competitor’s strengths and weaknesses. Typically, you’ll only need to look at your shared opportunities and threats as these are external factors within the market that cannot be influenced by a company and since you share the same market with your primary competitors, there’s no need to repeat the work you complete the first time.
And that’s a wrap
We’ve shared four quick tips and tools that you can jump on board with to research your competitors, but before you go, why not stick around? We’ve got our Small Business Marketing series blog here that covers a wide range of topics from marketing strategy to social media management. We also provide a variety of marketing services that may interest you, including marketing strategy, social media management, photography, videography, web design and SEO. And finally, don’t forget to sign-up for our newsletter to receive the latest news and tips/tricks for marketing your business. Let’s chat.