Startup Marketing Journal

13 Oct How to Monitor Your Competitors Like a Pro

Here’s an informative article by Patrick Whatman, a Content Marketer at Mention, about monitoring competitors. See my comments at the end of this post.

“Every smart brand knows the value of analyzing competitors. To really nail your own business strategy, it pays to have a sharp eye on your neighbors’.

You can study their social media strategy, how they work with influencers, and their broader PR approach. Or you can get super precise and focus on the way they deal with customer complaints.

By doing this, you’ll understand whether your own plan is sound or if you need to make some tweaks.

Here’s a summary of the suggested steps:

1. Figure out which competitors you’ll analyze
2. Choose what you want to monitor
3. Choose the tools you’ll use
4. Pull the trigger”

There’s much more about each of these steps in the complete source article.

From my perspective, the most important aspect of competitive analysis is understanding how your product or service is positioned, vis a vis competitor offerings, in the minds of the buyers.

If you can’t definitively answer these 2 questions, you haven’t finished evaluating competitors.

What factors do people / companies consider important in making their buying decision. 

How does your offering stack up against your competitors’ regarding these factors?

Market positioning is an area that LaunchHawk excels in helping startups with. Get in touch with me if you’d like to discuss this.

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Jim Berkowitz

Jim is a startup growth consultant and technology coach. Over the years he's assisted hundreds of organizations with getting, keeping and growing customers.

 Now his focus is on helping startups.

With experience in agile marketing, lean canvas, growth hacking, digital marketing and CRM technology, Jim and his team at LaunchHawk Marketing offer a comprehensive range of consulting services designed specifically to help startups successfully scale their businesses.