Discover What Makes Your Business Stand Out From Others with Competitor Research
Comparison creep is the thief of joy — and the biggest weapon against business success. Comparing your business to others in the industry and wishing you could measure up will never be a good way to progress. But knowing how to market yourself and highlight what makes your business stand out from others? That’s how you can stamp your place in the market — and the way to do that is with competitor research.
Competitor research is in-depth lurking on other businesses that do what you do and have the same/similar target audience as you, identifying their strengths and weaknesses, analyzing their products and services and marketing, and seeing how you measure up and what opportunities you can explore.
It’s a fine line, that’s for sure. But knowing your competitors inside and out is how you can figure out your sweet spot. That’s why I’m diving into how to do just that in this blog post. Let’s get into it!
Why Competitor Research Matters
According to Forbes, 57% of companies say that getting a competitive advantage is one of the top 3 priorities in their industry.
And that doesn’t mean copying everything your competitors are doing — which can be a common misconception about competitor research.
It’s mostly about finding benchmarks for success, figuring out your “why” so you can share what makes your brand unique, and finding any gaps you can fill!
With this information, you’ll be able to go from just selling the same thing your competitors sell to being a distinct, iconic brand that delivers something extra to your customers that no other brand could replicate.
It’ll be that much easier to define what makes your business stand out from others.
Identifying Your True Competitors
Your competitors are not just the people with the most followers on Instagram. You can have:
- Direct competitors: they offer the same or similar products or services to the same target audience
- Indirect competitors: they offer different products or services, but may satisfy the same customer needs
- Potential competitors: could become competitors in the future if they enter the market or expand their offers
You can find your direct competitors by putting this prompt into your preferred search engine: “[your job title] for [your target audience]”
For example, “Website designer for female entrepreneurs”
Then, you can look at the search results on the first page and look at the title tags and meta descriptions. See which lead to businesses with the same or similar offers and target audience.
To find your indirect competitors, type a prompt like “How to [solve problem]” in your preferred search engine, and you can get an AI overview that proposes a bunch of different solutions.
From there, you can use the prompt to find direct competitors to find more indirect competitors!
Other ways to identify your competitors:
- Ask your customers through consumer interviews and surveys
- Look at industry publications for the tea on what businesses are putting out
- Use tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Buzzsumo
What to Analyze in Your Competitor Research
To know what makes your business stand out from others, you’ll want to:
- Compare their offerings: what’s included in their products and services? Is there a lot of value and experience for the investment?
- Pricing strategies: Is their pricing better or worse than yours? Do they offer payment plans? Are there tiered offer options?
- Marketing and branding approaches: Are they bold and vibrant, or minimal and classic? Do they have an attention-grabbing social media style, or is it simple and follows a template?
- Customer experience and service quality: Do they have a seamless user experience from the moment their target audience lands on the website to the moment they become paying customers? What do their customers say about the brand, their offers, and the experience in reviews?
- Business operations and efficiency: Is their back-end up-to-scuff? You can analyze customer reviews and ask people with connections in the industry for this info
- Online presence and digital strategy: How do they show up online? Do they have a cohesive and tech-forward system, or something relatively simple and budget-friendly?
Finding Your Unique Value Proposition
I also mentioned this up top briefly, but finding your “it” factor is a key element in clearly distinguishing what makes your business stand out form others — and this can happen a few different ways.
By identifying gaps in the market — whether that’s with the offer itself, a feature of an offer, or how it’s marketed — you can figure out how to promote the value of your offer to fill that gap.
You can also do this by analyzing strengths and weaknesses across competitors. How are they better and then, on the flip side, how are you better?
That could be in their copy, their offers, their experience, etc.
You can use this to insight to figure out how to market your awesomeness, and also how to improve your brand to measure up to your competitors’ strengths.
Unique selling proposition formula
“I/we help [target audience] with/who have [problem] achieve/get [solution] with [thing you offer].“
Here’s mine:
“I help women-owned & BIPOC-led small businesses who have no website, or a website that doesn’t connect or convert, get long-term brand fans and conversions with compelling, conversational, and culturally-relevant website copy.“
Speaking of, website copy is my most requested service, and I love writing it for my clients. If you’re on the hunt for a copywriter who has written for brands like yours, who you can collaborate with, and for decent pricing options (because let’s be real, this economy is trifling), inquire now!
Implementing Your Findings
The easiest way I can put this is to answer every gap, every weakness, and every problem with the solution.
For example, if you find that the customers for one of your direct competitors cares a lot about hiring a website designer who’s professional, strategic, creative, and holds their hand throughout the project, then you need to communicate that you do the same thing in your website copy and marketing materials.
Another example: if you discover that one of your indirect competitors sells a product that’s cheaper and gets better results, you can create a plan to offer something in the future that solves the same customer need!
When it comes to your copy and messaging, you can showcase your unique advantages on your website and marketing materials in any place where your reader might start to think about how you measure up compared to your competitors. Places like:
- The hero section of the home page
- Your about page
- Services, sales, and product page
- Testimonials and reviews page
- Portfolio page
- Instagram bio
- Videos about your journey creating the brand and/or products
With this, you can do more research in the future to see how your differentiation efforts are doing! With consumer surveys, asking your new clients and customers about the experience, and comparing it against your success in the past.
Wrapping it Up
Now you know how to go from playing a game of copy cat and comparison creep to clearly stating what makes your business stand out from others! But if you need a little more help, I gotchu!
In my Market Research Master Pack™, I walk through how to conduct competitor research, using client examples to drive it home. I also show you how to do market, consumer, and SEO keyword research!
This is the all-in-one “how to do research” tool that helps service providers and small business owners streamline your research process so you can do more for your clients — and your own brand, too!
