The purpose of a competitor analysis is to understand our competitors' strengths and weaknesses in comparison to our own and to find a gap in the market. A competitor analysis is important because It will help us recognize how we can enhance our own business strategy.
Below are some questions you can ask yourself in the competitor analysis:
The Product
Are their products the same as yours?
What is their pricing positioning like?
Do their products have any unique selling points (USPs) over yours?
What keywords are they using to describe their products?
The Brand
Does their brand target the same audience as yours?
Who do competitors target?
Are there a lot of mentions of their brand on Google?
Marketing
What channels do they use to market these products?
Do they use social media? If so, then how are they using it? Look at content, followers, activity and engagement.
Do they have marketing materials like a podcast, webinar, blogs, eBooks or anything else?
What campaigns are they running? (both online and offline)
What kind of content are they writing? Is this something you can replicate or do better?
What tone of voice do they use?
Technology
What is their website made with (you can use the tool Built With to identify this)
Is their website easy to use?
What is their website page speed like?
What other sites are linking back to your competitor's site, but not yours?
Customers
Do customers engage with them? How do they communicate?
What sort of content do they respond well to?
What platforms are they using to engage?
Almost all marketing activities are executed online. You can learn a lot about the competitor's strategy just by checking their social media pages, their website, or even the reviews they're getting. Sometimes, one quick search in Google is all it takes.
Below is a quick video on how and where to begin gathering information for your analysis.