4 Ways to Identify Your Top Competitors

As companies strive to remain competitive, business leaders know that researching their competitors is necessary to stay ahead of the competition. With sufficient information on their competitors, such as their strengths, weaknesses, and offerings, they have the upper hand to gain success within their industry.   

For that reason, some businesses today use tools to surf the internet anonymously to gain insight into their top competitors. They spy on their competition to monitor their digital marketing strategies, learn from their success, and avoid wrong business decisions.   

In essence, knowing your top competitors can help you gain a competitive advantage that differentiates your business from other players within your market. With the knowledge of who your top competitors are, you’ll be able to know their business strategies and apply their successful marketing tactics to your business. Additionally, identifying your top competitors can help you gain a clear insight into your flaws and improve your unique selling proposition.  

Accordingly, if you’re looking for ways to know your competition, read the valuable tactics below to learn how to identify your top competitors within your industry.  

1. Conduct Competitor Keyword Research  

Competitor keyword research, also known as competitor keyword analysis, is a process of finding high-value keywords your competitors use that drive traffic to their websites. You can see competitor keywords based on the search engine queries that users or your target audience tend to search online. It’s an excellent method in digital marketing trends that enables you to find your competitors, discover the keywords they rank for and utilize them to create better content that helps outrank them in the search engine results pages. In essence, keyword analysis enables you to identify your top competitors; it gives you a clear insight into the most profitable keywords that help your competition rank higher in the search results.  

That said, when conducting competition keyword research, digital marketing tools can help you monitor your competition, create a list of your top competitors, and discover high-value keywords they use in their content strategy. But note that it’s impossible to conduct this approach without using any competitor research tools.    

2. Conduct PPC Competitor Analysis  

While PPC competitor analysis is well-known in digital marketing for creating an effective advertising campaign, it’s also an excellent method you can use to identify your top competitors. With PPC tools, you can gain valuable insights into the biggest competitors in your industry that can save you time manually studying each of your competitors. Consequently, conducting a PPC competitor analysis can help you determine your top competitors’ types of clienteles, ad strategies, product offerings, and bidding techniques.  

In terms of using PPC competitor analysis tools, note that each has a unique set of features distinct from the other; hence you may need to use various tools to conduct adequate PPC competitor analysis. Notably, if you want a PPC tool that covers as many metrics as possible, you should look for a tool that allows you to explore ad copy insights, ad group insights, keyword insights, and landing page insights.  

3. Create A Competitive Matrix 

When developing a competitive matrix, note that you need to use tools that enable you to collect and visualize data on your competition. Competitive research tools can help you create a competitive matrix, which allows you to determine your top competitors and rank your brand’s features against them; that way, you can use their weaknesses to your advantage. 

A competitive matrix is a critical part of a competitor analysis that you can use to get a clear insight into your leading competitors. It’s an excellent method to determine your company’s position in the market, how to differentiate your business from the competition, and how to improve your business processes to beat your top competitor in the market.  

In essence, the purpose of creating a competitive matrix is to get a clear picture of the competitive landscape and your business’ market position; that way, you can determine your top competitors and discover market opportunities. 

4. Ask For Customer Feedback 

Asking your current customers is another excellent way to identify your top competitors. The good thing about this method is that there are already tools available that allow you to learn which of your market competitors they’re considering buying from beside your business. Alternatively, you can also use well-known methods like sending a follow-up email to ask for their feedback regarding other companies in your market.  

Whatever ways you use to get customer feedback, you can start researching your top competitors once you get information about them from your customers. Just note that when asking for their feedback, it’d be better to ask open-ended questions, create a rating scale, and avoid loaded questions. 

Conclusion  

Knowing your top competitors and what they’re offering can help you take advantage of their weaknesses and create better marketing strategies. It also enables you to discover other marketing opportunities and stay ahead of the competition. Accordingly, consider the tried and tested methods above to help you identify your top competitors.