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Understanding and Beating the Competition – Part 6 of the 2009 Marketing Plan Series

March 25, 2009 :: Steve Fisher

This is the second part of the situational analysis which deals with the competition and appropriately called “Competitor Analysis”. I mentioned in Part 5 that the Situational Analysis is probably one of the hardest sections you will write and this section validates that statement. You believe your product/service is the best on the market but not just to validate yourself but to validate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats along with trends of those competitors.

Here is how the Competitor Analysis sub-sections break down:

Competitive Landscape
First you need to identify major competitors: name, location, and market share. The best thing to do is create a table that allows clear comparisions of your product/service with that of your major competitors (brand name, quality, image, price, etc.).

Then you need to perform a SWOT (Strengths, Weakenesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis (coming in a future post) and compare your firm with that of your major competitors. Include factors such as company reputation, size, distribution channels, location, financial standing, target market perception and if relevant, research and development capabilities.

After your SWOT analysis is complete, use that as sounding board to honestly evaluate your chances as the new competition and how successfully you would be able to enter this market. Include your thoughts and observations on what you have learned from watching the competition and you can learn from the good and bad parts of their business models to increase your chances of success.

Competitive Opportunities

While in the competitive landscape doing much of the SWOT analysis, you should include a section that really expands on the opportunities you uncover because those usually end up being the foundation for things like your marketing messaging and web site content. It is designed to really expose the differentiators that make you stand out in a competitive marketplace.

Competitive Trends
This section is where you should discuss the trends of your competitors. This includes whether your competitors’ sales increasing, decreasing or steady. Answering those questions clue into the growth or decline of competitors from a shifting market share perspective and also from a more macro market size perspective. This should also help you identify any future competitive threats that your team should be made aware of but not focused on, yet.

• Describe direct competitors in terms of:
  • Target markets served
  • Product attributes
  • Pricing
  • Promotion
  • Distribution including the distributor network
  • Services offered
• Discuss competitor’s strengths and weaknesses:
  • May need to consider much more than just marketing issues such as:
    • financial standing
    • target market perception
    • R & D capabilities

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