Speaker 1: By conducting a competitive analysis, you can collect the data you need to make sure your business stays ahead of the competition. What's up? It's Jamal from HubSpot, and welcome back to the channel. In this video, I'm going to show you a foolproof method for conducting a competitive analysis and walk you through the six steps of how to conduct one so that you can strengthen your marketing strategies and earn a bigger market share. Through competitive analysis, you can determine how viable your products and services are, see how your marketing efforts compare to your competitors, and discover creative ways to reach new customers. That's why it's essential to do one for your business. First things first, though. If you want to easily follow along and have a simple-to-use pre-made template, you can download HubSpot's competitive analysis template in the description below. With that template, let's dive in. If you don't already know what a competitive analysis is, it involves researching your main competitors to gain insight into their products, sales, and marketing tactics. It pretty much helps you determine your unique value proposition, uncover new opportunities, and stay on top of what's next for your competitors. When you're starting your competitive analysis, the first thing you want to do is identify which competitors you want to analyze. Who are your direct and indirect competitors? You'll want to look at both for a well-rounded analysis. Direct competitors offer products and services that are similar to yours and serve the same customer base. For instance, Netflix and HBO Max could be considered direct competitors. Both companies offer streaming services to entertain their customers. Indirect competitors provide a different product than you in a similar category. Think of Amazon and Target as indirect competitors. Though they offer similar products, Amazon focuses on convenience and fast shipping so you don't have to leave home, whereas Target is a one-stop shop offering a strong in-person shopping experience. My indirect competitor? Michael B. Jordan. Not because I can act really good or I'm nearly as handsome as he is, really just his hairline. I envy it greatly. I'd like to take him out of the running for it. Once you've narrowed down which direct and indirect competitors you want to include, go to their website or LinkedIn page and do a bit of fact-finding. When were they founded? How were they founded? Where are they located? How many employees do they have? Use your competitive analysis template to track what you find. Step two, evaluate the products your competitors are offering. What makes your competitor unique? Do they offer low- or high-cost products? Which of their products serve the same need for the customer as yours? While evaluating your competitors' product offerings, you'll also want to look at how they distribute their products. Are they direct-to-customer or do they rely on retail partners? Use the product data you find to estimate how much market share your competitors have. Step three, research your competitors' sales process. What channels are they using to contact potential leads? What is their sales process like? As a business super-spy, do some investigating to see how a new customer moves through your competitor's sales process. If the information is available, you'll also want to look into their revenue and sales volume figures. This data is typically found on the income statements of company earning reports. The fourth step is understanding their pricing strategy. How much are your competitors charging for products that are similar to yours? How does your pricing compare? Do your competitors offer any perks, such as referral discounts or a free trial on popular products? If your competitors sell online, do they offer free or low-cost shipping? If your competitors do offer enticing discounts and perks, how can you match or exceed them in a way that works for your business? And if your competitors don't offer any special perks, how can you consider implementing perks to stand out? Step cinco, which is five in French. Do some sleuthing into your competitors' marketing tactics. To do this, you can use an online tool such as Ahrefs or SEMrush to check out competitors' web traffic and SEO performance. How many unique visitors are they getting to their site each month? How many keywords is their website ranking for? Or in other words, when a potential buyer searches for a product or search term in Google, how likely is it that your competitor's website pops up? To find this information, pull up your SEO tool of choice and type in your competitor's URL. This will give you a snapshot into their monthly web traffic and the keywords they're currently ranking for. Head to their social media profiles and note which platforms they're most active on. How often do they post? Are they using paid ads to get in front of new customers? What is their content mix? Do they share unique content or do they rely on user-generated content? Are they working with influencers to promote their latest product? You'll also want to take a look at any press they're getting. What's making headlines and getting coverage? And for the sixth step, certainly last but not least, you're going to want to conduct a SWOT analysis to see how your company measures up to the competition. Take the data you've collected during the previous five steps and compare it to your company's performance. In this step, you'll identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, SWOT, for your company and your competitors. This exercise will help you uncover new tactics to convert customers that your competition may not be doing, and it'll help you understand what your competitors are doing well that you can learn from. Before you know it, you'll have a clear roadmap of strategies you can implement to win over more customers and earn greater market share, which I think we can all agree is a good use of our spy skills. And again, to really bolster your espionage skills and make your competitive analysis easier, head to the description below to download our free competitive analysis template. For more business and marketing tips, hit the subscribe button so you don't miss a video. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go try to get cast in Spy Kids 4. I'm pretty sure there's a third movie, I don't think there's a fourth, I'm going to be the lead actor, it'll be Jordan, boom, hairline game, already on lock, you guys know what it is. Until then, I'll see you next time.