If you want your business to grow, then staying ahead of your competitors is no longer an option. It has become a necessity. You must understand your strengths and weaknesses and analyse what your competitors are doing better than you to stay one step ahead of them.
In this blog, we will discuss everything about competitor analysis, including why it is important and, step-by-step guide on how to conduct it. We will also discuss what competitive market research is and how you can make better decisions for your business with competitor analysis.
What Is Competitor Analysis?
Competitor analysis is often also known as competitive or competition analysis. It means to examine and analyse the brands or companies that are similar to your business to get an idea of what they are offering and what their market approach is to increase sales and do branding. This provides deep insights into your competitor’s business, helps you to take corrective measures, and helps you stay ahead of them. Whether you are a business owner, a marketer, a start-up founder, or a product manager, analysing your competitor’s business offers several benefits, like:
- It helps to measure your growth
- It helps you to understand industry standards so that you can meet them
- It also helps you to differentiate between products and services
- It allows you to distinguish your brand
- It also helps you to stand out in the market by taking corrective measures
Competitive analysis is an opportunity to learn from others; it is not
- copying from your competitors
- trying to let down other brands (similar to yours)
- trying to undercut others’ pricing
Read More: Web Scraping Explained – Tools, Techniques, and Real-World Uses
Why Should You Do A Competitor Analysis?
Competitor analysis is done to compare your current position with that of your direct competitors. By performing competitor analysis, you get a clear picture and deep insights into others’ businesses, which helps you to improve yourself.
Have a look at the six main reasons why you must perform competitor analysis, especially when you are working with a brand for the first time.
1. Find Competitor’s Strengths and Weaknesses
Are your competitors performing better than you in the industry? There might be something that you are not doing right. By digging in and analysing your competitors, you can get to know their strengths and weaknesses and compare yours with theirs to look for opportunities to improve.
You can look for audience reviews to find out the weaknesses of your competitors. Reviews will help you understand what major points are bothering your audience and you can subsequently work on those to attract the audience to your brand.
2. Identify Opportunities
Conducting competitor analysis for your business provides multiple benefits. It is an affordable way of identifying opportunities to improve your business and perform better. For example, Rachel Andrea Go (a marketing director) suggested that instead of saying ‘Best Project Management Software’, you must say ‘Get time back by letting our software manage your projects’.
Now, this is a persuasive way of attracting the audience. By mentioning your software as ‘time-saving,’ you are providing a solution for project managers, along with saving time.
Read More: Summary Statistics: Definition, Examples, Types, and Importance in Data Analysis
3. Distinguish your brand
Analysing your competitors is a chance to learn more about your own business and find out what sets you apart from the crowd. You will definitely find out some of the key points that will be different from your competitors and make those your strengths.
Don’t be afraid to think big, but make sure to maintain a balance between the analysis of big companies and the brands that are closer to where your business currently stands.
4. Get closer to your target audience
Whenever we talk about businesses, the audience is the most important aspect that is discussed alongside. The audience also plays a crucial role in the growth of the business. You must focus on finding out how your audience talks about competitors and what they like and dislike about them.
Competitor analysis is incomplete without analysing your audience. You have to make sure that you know about your audience’s likes, dislikes, and preferences, as it will help you to understand your target audience and give them satisfactory results.
5. Find new competitors
In this digital world, it is nearly impossible to keep track of all your competitors. It is important that you keep an eye on all the competitors that you can and categorize them on the basis of the types of competition.
Many times, brands fall into the trap and analyse just the aspirational competitors and ignore other brands that are actually attracting the audience. The best way to find out your competitors is to check for brands that are ranking for the same keywords your business is targeting.
6. Set benchmarks for success
You have to set realistic and achievable goals for your business. Competitor analysis helps you to understand how to stay ahead of your competitors. It is a way of mapping your progress with success.
Irrespective of your competitors offering the same services or products as you, every business is different, and you will have to make your own strategies and plans for the growth of your brand. Whether you are starting a new business or working on an existing one, a competitive analysis gives you information to build your business strategy by eliminating guesswork.
What Is Competitive Market Research?
Competitive Market Research is a broader process that is much more than just comparing your products or services with your competitors. It is a process of gathering data about your competitors’ marketing strategies, customers, and industry trends. It is an in-depth analysis of the market to find out the offerings that distinguish you from your competitors.
It helps you to understand what people want, how much they are willing to pay, and what trends are currently shaping the market. When you combine competitive analysis with market research, you get a clear picture of where your business stands and how you can grow further.
Join Our Digital Marketing WhatsApp Channel
How To Conduct Competitive Analysis In 5 Quick Steps?
If you want to grow your business or start a new business, it is essential that you perform competitor analysis and find a way to stay ahead of your competitors.
Also, you have to keep in mind that just searching for competitors and finding out what they are doing won’t give you results; you have to follow the right process, analyse thoroughly, and take corrective measures to grow your business. Have a look at the step-by-step quick guide that you can follow to conduct a competitive analysis.
1. Identify and categorize your competitors
The first step you need to take to conduct competitor analysis is to identify all your possible competitors from the industry, even the not-so-famous or lesser-known. The goal is to be aware of all the competitors instead of intentionally ignoring some that you think won’t help. Once you find out all the competitors, categorise them into the 4 main categories: Direct competitors, Indirect Competitors, Legacy competitors, and Emerging Competitors.
- Direct Competitors: These are the ones who offer the same product or service as you to the same target audience. Customers often compare products from similar brands while purchasing, and there is are high chance that your product or service will be compared to these brands (direct competitors). For example, Swiggy and Zomato are direct competitors in the food delivery industry.
- Indirect Competitors: These are the competitors who solve the same problem but with different solutions. For example, Ola and Indian Railways both solve the problem of travel, but Ola does it through a cab, whereas Indian Railways does it through trains.
- Legacy Competitors: These are the companies that have been in your industry for several years. They have a good reputation and a strong brand image, due to which customers trust them. For example, Amul is a legacy competitor in the dairy industry.
- Emerging Competitors: As the name suggests, emerging competitors are the newcomers in the market with an innovative business model that threatens the existing brands. For example, Zepto is an emerging competitor in the quick commerce space with its 10-minute delivery promise, challenging existing companies like BigBasket and Blinkit.
Read More: Social Listening: A Complete Guide for 2025
2. Determine each competitor’s market position
Once you know all your competitors, start analyzing their position in the market. This will help you understand your current position in the market. You will also find out about the leading competitors to prioritize your analysis report.
To exactly find out the market positions of your competitors, prepare a graph with two factors: market presence on the Y-axis and customer satisfaction on the X-axis. Now, place your competitors in one of the following quadrants:
- Niche: These are the brands with low market share, but they rank high on customer satisfaction.
- Contenders: These brands rank low on customer satisfaction but have a good market presence.
- Leaders: These are the brands that own a big market share and even highly satisfied customers.
- High Performers: These are a type of newcomers who have highly satisfied customers, but they are low on market share.
3. Benchmark key competitors
After you determine the market position of competitors, it will allow you to focus on the few most important competitors rather than focusing on dozens of competitors. Now, you have to examine each competitor and prepare a benchmarking report.
You have to remember that this step is not a shortcut, so you have to analyse and find out all the good and bad aspects of each brand. Keep in mind the following factors while preparing the benchmarking report of competitors:
- Quality: Check the quality of products or services for each of your competitors. You can compare product features to find out what gives them an edge to stay ahead.
- Price: Note down the price of each of your competitors, especially the ones that offer the same product or service as you.
- Customer Service: Check how they support their customers, through chat, phone, email, or anything else. You can even check for customer ratings through various apps.
- Brand Reputation: Brand reputation is one of the most important aspects, as it shows how people look up to the brand. Look out for something critical that people say about your competitor brands.
Read More: Hurry! 5 FREE Digital Marketing Courses in 2025 – Enrollment Closing Soon!
4. Find out their marketing strategy
You also need to find out how competitors market their products, it is essential to find out their marketing strategies to understand how they promote their goods and services and attract the audience.
There are multiple marketing channels like website, email, paid ads, digital PR, social media, partnerships, etc. You can analyse all the marketing channels, then observe and conclude how your competitors speak to their audience and highlight brand personality.
5. SWOT Analysis
SWOT refers to Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This is the last step in the process of conducting competitive analysis, in which you analyse the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for each company. To compare their weaknesses against your strengths, you must look for answers to the following questions:
- What is your competitor doing better?
- Where does your brand have the advantage over your competitor?
- What could your competitors do better?
- Are there opportunities in the market that your competitor has identified?
What Are Competitor Analysis Tools?
To make your analysis easier and accurate, you can use some of the tools and ready-to-use templates to improve website traffic and content strategies. You can check out some of the most common tools used for competitive analysis:
- General Tools: It includes Google Trends, SimilarWeb. These are used to track visibility and traffic.
- SEO: It includes tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, BuzzSumo, etc. These are used for finding high-volume keywords, backlinks, and content gaps.
- Templates: You can use templates like SWOT charts, battle cards, and feature comparison sheets from sources like HubSpot and Asana.
What Are The Examples Of Competitor Analysis?
You must have understood the use of competitive analysis by now. To understand how competitive analysis works, let’s have a look at an example of competitive analysis. Let’s take an example of Swiggy and Zomato and understand how competitive analysis works.
- Identify competitors: Swiggy and Zomato are direct competitors for the food delivery industry, whereas Domino’s is an indirect competitor because it delivers food for its own brand.
- Collect Data: Both Swiggy and Zomato charge similar delivery fees and run frequent discount campaigns. Swiggy has expanded into Instamart (a 10-minute grocery delivery service), and Zomato has introduced dining-out deals with Zomato Gold.
- Analyze: Swiggy scores high on grocery convenience through Instamart, while Zomato is stronger in restaurant partnerships and dine-out offers.
- Look for gaps: Neither of the two offers healthy eating options or diet-specific meal options as a core category, even though demand for health-conscious food delivery is rising in urban areas.
- Act: A new startup could differentiate itself by focusing on healthy meal delivery options or tie-ups with fitness-focused restaurants to work in this niche.
Also Read:
- Push vs Pull Marketing: Complete Guide with Differences, Examples & Strategy
- 15 Best and Most Popular CMS Platforms in 2025 (Compared)
- What Is Domain Hosting? A Beginner’s Guide to Getting Started
- Mobile Optimization and Responsive Design 2025: Importance for SEO and User Experience
Learn Digital Marketing Skills with PW Digital Marketing Courses
For those aspiring to build a successful career as a Marketing Consultant, mastering modern digital marketing techniques is essential. PW Digital Marketing Course offer industry-relevant training in SEO, content marketing, social media strategy, and performance analytics, equipping learners with the practical skills and certifications needed to stand out in the market.
Whether you’re preparing for your first Marketing Consultant job or aiming to enhance your existing skill set, explore PW Digital Marketing Courses today and take the next step toward a rewarding marketing career.
Competitor Analysis FAQs
Q1. How often should you conduct competitor analysis?
Ans: You must perform competitor analysis at least once a year for an existing business or when you start a new business.
Q2. Are competitive analysis and SWOT the same?
Ans: No, SWOT is a tool used within competitor analysis. Competitor analysis is a broader concept and includes multiple methods.
Q3. How to find out competitors?
Ans: You can search for companies providing the same products or services as you. Also, find out which brands are ranking on the same keyword as you are targeting. You can use tools like SimilarWeb, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to find websites competing for the same keyword.
Q4. What are the 5 C’s of competition?
Ans: The five C’s of Competition are Company, Customers, Collaborators, Climate, and Competitors.
