Identifying the competitors is a basic foundation in any marketing strategy. By looking at the competitors, you’ll get a clear idea about their approaches towards marketing and accordingly outperform them.
1: Market Research
Market Research in finding the competitors is meant to search for the products and services relevant to your niche in the market. This enables to find and evaluate the companies that are selling similar products or services. By conducting surveys about your products or services, customers could be asked about the other companies are approaching. These companies must be actually considered as your competitors.
Example:
If your business is related to a fashion boutique, conduct a survey with the customers to know where else they go for their fashion needs. These can be identified as your competitors.
2: Google and other Search Engines
Through searching in google or any other search engines, you can find out your competitors organically. Look for the keywords relevant to your product or service and then by entering that keyword in google or any other search engine various websites of the company will be displayed. These displayed websites of the companies for that keyword are identified as your competitors.
Example:
Search in google a keyword related to fashion like clothing, accessory shops and see the websites or the business pages appearing on the top list of google. Evaluate their websites and shortlist a few of them as your competitors.
3: Social Media and Community Forums
A better view of your competitors can be derived from various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linked In, and also community forums like Quora and Reddit.
In social media by searching a keyword related to our products and services on these platforms, the various company’s posts will be shown.
In the case of quora and Reddit, you can find out the competitors just by typing the questions. By closely looking at the customer’s comments and conversations especially in the community forums like Quora and Reddit enables to identify the competitors.
Example:
In social media platforms search for any fashion-related keywords or just type fashion boutique. The list of fashion boutique posts will be displayed. Shortlist only those profiles as your competitors which has the website presence.
In social community forums like Quora and Reddit, enter a question relevant to fashion or simply type Which is the best fashion boutique. These community forums will provide answers to your queries. Then you can decide on your competitors.
4: Google My Business
Google my business is easy to use tool in identifying your competitors. When you enter a keyword related to your product or services, a panel will be displayed near the top of the page. This displayed panel shows the listing of local businesses including their website, contact number, address, map, photos and so on. By this way the nearby competitors similar to your business can be identified.
Example:
Search for a fashion boutique near me or just type fashion boutiques in google search. The 2nd result after ads you will be able to see google my business, list of fashion boutiques near your location will be displayed with all the information like contact numbers, addresses, and websites. Then you can decide on your competitors.
5: Competitor Research Tools
There are some tools like Spyfu, similar web, and others that help in evaluating your competitors and their data. It gives a list and in-depth information about your competitors by just entering a company similar to yours. But these types of tools can only be useful if business are very well established i.e worldwide reach.
Example:
Enter the name of some established fashion stores like Myntra, Nykaa, or by simply type the name or website URL of these fashion boutique on the competitor research tool, a similar fashion boutique store list will be displayed. This list can be further shortlisted as competitors. Note that fashion boutiques must be established and must have a worldwide reach.
