If you want to succeed with your product or service in a highly competitive business environment, market research and competition analysis should be the basics you pay attention to. Why are they so important and how to do them right?
You should do a market research before you even start implementing your products or services. Namely, it may turn out that applying in the industry would be too complicated for you, impossible. How to proceed with market research and competition analysis to get relevant results?
Clarify your target group
Before you start looking for competition, analyze your own business plan in detail. It is important above all your target audience. Does it even exist? Who do you plan to sell your products or services to? Many start-ups think they have come up with a unique idea that simply has no competition.
However, the question is - if it has no competition, does it have any target group at all? Of course, you may have come up with a world-class solution. However, the likelihood that someone else has not thought of such a thing is very small.
When determining the target group, write down exactly what your ideal customer looks like. What is his age, what are his interests and what is his motivation to buy your product? These data are the starting point for further analyzes and procedures.
Find out who your competition is
Market research and competition analysis is primarily about finding your competitors. These are divided into direct and indirect. As a direct competitor, you can consider a company that sells the same or very similar products as you, in the same way. Let's say you have a portal for selling tickets to Slovak concerts. Your direct competition is other portals that also sell tickets for Slovak concerts. Indirect competition It may not offer the same services and products as you, but it does satisfy the same customers.
In this case, it could be a stall in the square where concert tickets are sold.How to do market research and competition analysis? The easiest way is to enter keywords related to your products and services into Google search. In the case of a portal selling concert tickets, these could be the words "concert tickets", "Slovak concerts" and the like. You are in detail go through all search results and write down the identified competitors.
Find out what your competition has to offer
Properly analyze your competitors' websites and investigate what they are specifically selling. Do they offer tickets for Slovak concerts, but also offer tickets to the theater or other events? Look for why this is so and what the reasons are. You may come across findings that can advance your business.
Practical tip - if you are analyzing the business of Slovak competitors, a good tool is Finstat portal. If your competition sells products or services as a limited liability company, you can see a detailed overview of its revenues, profits and other useful data for each year. You can estimate the potential of the business and how your competitors are doing.
Research sales tactics and prices
How do your competitors motivate customers to buy? Do they use certain forms of discounts or bargains? How much do their products or services cost? What marketing channels do they use for promotion? How do they deal with branding? By analyzing these questions, you can easily identify what tactics will work for your target group and, conversely, what does not make sense to try. If you do business in the field of product sales, also examine shipping prices. It is these that significantly influence the decision of potential customers whether to buy or not.
Analyze social networks
Today, social networks play an important role in marketing and communication with customers. Do your competitors use social networks? What posts do they publish on them? How do they communicate? Notice what content has the most interactions. Look for formulas that work and how to use it to your advantage. Take notes.
Write down your strengths and weaknesses
After you find all your competitors, analyze their websites, marketing communications, sales strategy and social networks, here comes the most important point - SWOT analysis. The fact is that you prefer his competitor to each competitor weaknesses, but also strengths. Also perform this analysis for your own business or project.
Compare the results obtained and based on all the data you should have clear formula of what works, where are the so-called. "Holes in the market" and how to outperform the competition as effectively as possible. Now all you have to do is turn individual solutions into reality.
Market research and competition analysis should be performed regularly, at least once a year. Namely, the market is constantly evolving and the competition is adapting to it. This way you can be sure that you will not be left behind and you will quickly adapt to new trends.
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