The Importance of Investing in Competitive Landscape Analysis for Small-Scale Businesses

Why is it important to invest in Competitive Landscape Analysis (CLA) for small businesses? Because, it’s pretty standard for small-scale businesses to lose clients to larger competitors. Most small-scale business owners are accustomed to these types of market actions.

However, when smaller businesses can’t figure out why they’re getting left behind by their competition, what’s frustrating is when smaller businesses can’t figure out why they’re getting left behind.

Are the products your business is selling not good enough, or is your firm’s marketing dull uninformative?

These ‘mysteries’ can leave business owners highly disturbed. Thankfully, there are systematic approaches to uncovering these mysteries.

Numerous organizations that we go over once in a while take part in any formal contender examination. If you’re one of them, read on to discover why contender examination is a significant piece of showcasing the development system.

The motivation from this post came from, as of late, participating in the Round The Island Race. This is a yearly race around the Isle of Wight in the Solent, with more than 1,000 yachts contending.

It attracts everybody from proficient groups to novices hoping to partake in the experience of the day.

What Is Competitive Landscape Analysis?

competitive landscape analysis (CLA) is a practical approach to figuring out how a business competes with its peers from the industry. The long-term objective of conducting competitive landscape analysis is to leverage the business’s strengths and gradually reduce the gaps with competitors.

Unlike reactive approaches that require little planning, Competitive landscape analysis processes are structured and highly detailed ways of researching your competitors. 

Smaller businesses can start their competitive landscape analysis process by conducting detailed investigations into how their competitors are developing products and services, how they’re marketing those products and services, and what their sales figures are like in comparison with their sales.

Even such a brief analysis will allow smaller businesses to forge accurate and data-based counter-strategies. But, modern-day competitive landscape analysis procedures go way more profound than just these essential details.

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Creating a Formidable Competitive Landscape Analysis Strategy

The Importance of Investing in Competitive Landscape Analysis for Small-Scale Businesses 1

Modern-day competitive landscape analysis strategies are ever-evolving and ever-active. Your business’s competitive landscape analysis can’t ever stop because your market is constantly inviting new players and forces.

To truly understand who your business is competing with and exactly where these companies stand in the greater scheme of things (concerning your own business’s position), your competitive landscape analysis needs to be focused on these details –

  • Who your business’s key competitors are?
  • What extra products/services they competitors provide?
  • The main strengths and weaknesses of your business’s key competitors.
  • Assessment of the competitors’ annual strategies that they use to achieve their quarterly objectives.
  • The long-term market objectives of your business’s key competitors.

Once you assess your competitors, you’ll find it easier to overtake some businesses in the pack. If your business is focused enough, the regular analyses of your competitive landscape will hopefully help you attain the title of an industry leader.

To make competitive landscape analysis processes much more effortless, experts have divided them into three separate parts –

  1. Assessing the growth and industrial direction of the competitors.
  2. Assessing their overall marketing reach.
  3. Reviewing how the competitors are positioning themselves in the market based on the marketing messages they share with target customers.

All businesses can benefit from competitive landscape analysis. Even if you’re part of the smallest startup in your state, learning what your competitors are doing to enhance their bottom lines will help you enhance your own.

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Here’s a detailed look at what a comprehensive competitive landscape analysis should look like –

1. Assessing the Growth and Industrial Direction of the Competitors

Your competitive landscape analysis should feature the fundamental financial and firm-related data of your competitors. So, start by assessing basic details of each competitor such as –

  • What is their market capitalization?
  • What are their annual revenues?
  • How many workers do they employ?
  • How long have they been in business?

Addressing these fundamental questions regarding each of your competitors will enable you to create a strong foundation for the rest of your competitive landscape analysis.

Bear in mind – competitive landscape analysis is never about copying the competitors. Instead, it’s about learning their strengths, weaknesses, and the opportunities they receive from the market.

Based on these data-backed tactics, smaller firms can improve their commercial strategies and discover newer business opportunities.

Also Read: Business Analysis Training: 5 Key Skills of Business Analysis

2. Assessing their Overall Marketing Reach

To truly get a sense of how a competitor is performing in the market, merely assessing how many workers they employ or their annual revenue rates aren’t sufficient.

Businesses can only understand their competitive landscapes once they get a sense of their target audience’s interests. So, the competitors with the most popular websites or with the most numbers of followers on social media sites are the ones you need to focus on.

Learning about these details will give your business a clear idea of which entities are in control of the public conversation in your industry. Here’s how small businesses can start assessing the overall marketing reach of their competitors.

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3. Analyzing the Content Created by the Competitors

Gaining a clearer understanding of what types of content your best-performing competitors are publishing will help your business make better content-related decisions.

Assess their content to learn where your business is missing opportunities in terms of creating customer engagements –

  • Assess their press releases to learn about the latest business developments
  • Review what images and text they use in paid ads
  • Do your competitors invest in video and audio content such as podcasts or webinars?
  • What types of blogs, articles, white papers, eBooks, newsletters, etc., are they sharing with their customers?

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SEO Analysis

Assess these details to determine what they’re doing that your business isn’t.

Try to rectify these deficiencies to enhance your company’s overall marketing reach. Also, analyze your key competitors’ SEO strategy.

To outrank them in Google’s Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs you should be checking details like –

  • Which keywords your competitors use?
  • What website elements do their business websites feature?
  • How do they title their web pages?
  • What URL architecture is their website built on?
  • Their domain authorities.
  • Whether their websites are optimized for mobile devices?
  • Which third-party websites are linked to their business websites?

Use the information gained from these investigations to remodel your business website. Soon enough, your company’s digital presence will be just as good as your competitors’.

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The Competitors’ Market Positioning

This last stage of competitive landscape analysis procedures helps businesses understand how they position themselves in the market and how the target audiences perceive these positions.

Market positioning is all about outlining the unique value that your business provides to the market. For instance, if your jewelry store offers instant cash payments, you’re offering a service that’s unique to the market.

The way you advertise this unique value of your store is key to entering the minds of your target audiences.

Conducting competitive landscape analysis procedures enables smaller businesses to learn from the best, adopt strategic changes to the company’s marketing strategies, and ensure their brand’s marketing messages are always relevant.

Also Read: Digital Marketing For Real Estate – Why Is It Important And How To Get Leads?

Conclusion:

Competitive landscape analyses are much more efficient than other techniques of understanding your business’s relationship with competitors.

For instance, SWOT analysis is a highly biased tactic. On the other hand, competitive landscape analysis is unbiased, systematic, and helps smaller businesses set the directions for where they want to end up in the long term.

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Images by Gerd Altmann

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