How to do a competitive analysis with Xtensio
- Click and start editing, no account or credit card required.
Follow along with the instructional copy on the competitor analysis template. Add charts, graphs, images, and videos to customize your competitive analysis. Drag & drop. Resize. It’s one of the easiest free competitive analysis templates ever.
- Customize everything in the analysis to match your brand guidelines.
Define your style guide. Add your (or your client’s) brand fonts and colors. You can even pull colors directly from a website to easily brand your analysis.
- Work on key details of your competitor analysis report together on the cloud.
Add colleagues (or clients) to collaborate on your competitive analysis report. Changes automatically save and sync across all devices, in real-time.
- Share a link. Present a slideshow. Embed. Download a PDF/PNG.
The living competitive analysis matrix seamlessly adapts to your workflow. No more jumping from tool-to-tool to create different types of deliverables.
- Reuse and repurpose.
Save your own competitive analysis templates. Or copy and merge into other documents.
Follow along step-by-step with the competitive analysis how-to guide.
What is a Competitive analysis template?
Whether you are running an organization or playing football, understanding your contender is crucial for victory. The method of preparation for business and sports is similar. Once you understand your strengths and weaknesses versus your opponents’, you can stand out from the competition and score business deals with clients or win customers with your products.
The Competitive Analysis Template (also known as the competition mapping template, competitive audit template, or competitor audit template) isa model for understanding the competitive landscape. Competitor research is crucial to the success of your business and this framework analyzes the market competition and allows you to quickly adapt to changes to stay ahead of the trends.
Market research is crucial for any business in order to stand out. For example, if your pricing strategy is too high compared to current market stats or direct competitors, then most likely you’ll be missing out on many new customers. Competitor analysis tools allow you to build a successful marketing strategy and give your sales team a chance to convert maximum leads.
An effective competitor analysis helps you:
- Gain valuable insights into your relevant competitors. Also, align your marketing efforts.
- Examine your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities to define your own competitive advantage. This is crucial for your marketing teams.
- Understand marketing tactics and market opportunities to help position your business for success.
- Identify and adapt to the current competitive market trends. You can do this by analyzing competitor websites and their content marketing strategies.
- Reduce risks and threats by quickly adapting to changes in the industry.
What information do I need to create a competitive analysis?
The first step in competitor research is identifying who the competition is. There are many ways to identify competitors, but the easiest is just Googling yourself – seriously! You may also use tools like Ahrefs to do a SERP analysis.
Start with a simple web search and relevant social media platforms for your business name, product ideas, and overarching business idea. From there you can explore the competition’s digital footprint as deep as you need to get a comprehensive view of the competitive landscape.
Search the competition’s website content and social media presence, news mentions, support threads, reviews, and online communities – to name a few! Also, look for competitive analysis examples relevant to your business niche. Use this free competitor analysis template to edit and share with your marketing team.
As you’re documenting your competitors track the basics:
- Name of the business
- Location
- Mission statement
- Product offering
- Messaging
- Pricing
- Target customers
- Competitor’s products
When analyzing each competitor’s products or services, make sure you take a close look at the customer experience on their website, content marketing, social media, and digital footprint.
- How solid is their product photography and copywriting? How do they display their offering and communicate value?
- Where are their calls to action on the website? Are they obvious or do they get lost?
- How long does it take for them to respond to emails, live chat, and contact form submissions?
- What’s their market share?
- What information is included in their marketing banners and callouts? How about their email campaigns?
- What is the frequency of their promotions? What benefits do those promotions provide to their customers and potential shoppers, as well as their business?
- How many people follow them on social media? What is the engagement rate of their audience?
- How many employees do they have? What kind of tasks do their employees perform?
How do you write a competitive analysis?
Writing a competitor matrix is the easy part. Once you’ve done a deep dive into the competitive landscape, you’re ready to create a side-by-side comparison of your business and the competition to help your team strategize better, plan business growth, content marketing, customer success, social media and other communication strategies to provide a clearer vision for the organization. Get started with Xtensio’s competitive analysis template.
Step #1: Describe your competitors
Introduce your competitor analysis with your target audience in mind and outline the general market landscape. You’ll list your three main competitors and their basic information: product, mission, location, company size, web presence, social media channels, and tagline.
Step #2 Analyze the competition’s strengths and weaknesses
It’s easy to notice what your competition is doing wrong, but what about the things they’re doing right? In order to compete, dissect all aspects of your competition by completing a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threat Analysis) for each competitor. What are their customers happy about? What are they complaining about? Use this opportunity to dive into some qualitative competitor analysis.
Go online and collect YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter comments. Chat with your competitors’ customers if you can interact with them. You can use all of this information to find your own strengths, weaknesses, and your competitive advantage.
After summarizing your strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, it’s time to look at the bigger picture as to how this fits in with your marketing strategies. It’s time to figure out where every major competitor currently fits into the competitive landscape.
What’s each competitor’s position with respect to the market landscape criteria? Add new data pieces to compare across the board. Surely, this will help your audience understand the market and where your competitors stand concerning one another.
A competitive analysis will allow you to plan effective strategies to battle the competition and establish your own company in your target market. Remember, the competitive analysis is meant to help your team plan and strategize to stay ahead of the competition.
A report that communicates the findings of your competitive analysis will ensure stakeholders are on board and in the know. Add your team to collaborate or share a link so you can analyze your report together.
Check out Xtensio’s competitive analysis template how-to guide for more tips. Take advantage of other strategic frameworks to review the broader picture:
- Porter’s Five Forces Analysis
- PESTLE Analysis
Pair your Competitive Analysis with other strategic planning tools such as theSWOT Analysis and its alternatives,andEcosystem Mapping.Findings from this analysis will also inform yourBusiness ModelandBrand Positioning.
Frequently asked questions
What is Competitive Analysis?
Competitive analysis is the process of identifying, evaluating, and comparing your competitors to understand their strengths, weaknesses, and market positioning. This analysis helps businesses develop effective strategies to gain a competitive edge.
What is in a Competitive Analysis?
A competitive analysis typically includes an overview of competitors, their market share, product offerings, pricing strategies, marketing tactics, and SWOT analysis. It provides actionable insights to make informed business decisions.
How Do You Conduct a Competitive Analysis?
Conducting a competitive analysis involves several steps such as identifying key competitors, gathering data on their operations, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, and comparing them against your own business metrics. The findings are then used to formulate strategies. using Xtensio’s Competitive Analysis template.
What are the Benefits of Competitive Analysis?
Competitive analysis offers benefits like identifying market gaps, understanding competitor strategies, and discovering opportunities for differentiation. It helps in making informed decisions that can lead to increased market share and profitability.
What are the 5 Steps Parts of a Competitive Analysis?
The 5 key parts of a competitive analysis are: 1) Identifying Competitors, 2) Analyzing Competitor Products and Services, 3) Evaluating Competitor Marketing Strategies, 4) Conducting a SWOT Analysis, and 5) Synthesizing Findings into Actionable Insights. See the how-to guide here.
What Tools are Used for Competitive Analysis?
Tools commonly used for competitive analysis include Xtensio, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Google Analytics. These tools help in tracking competitor keywords, backlinks, and customer engagement metrics and put together the analysis.
What are the 6 Steps of Competitive Analysis?
The 6 steps of competitive analysis are: 1) Market Research, 2) Identifying Key Competitors, 3) Data Collection, 4) SWOT Analysis, 5) Strategy Formulation, and 6) Implementation and Monitoring.
How Often Should You Do a Competitive Analysis?
The frequency of competitive analysis depends on the industry and market volatility. However, it’s generally advisable to conduct one at least quarterly to stay updated on market trends and competitor activities.
Is SWOT Analysis a Competitive Analysis?
While SWOT analysis is a component of competitive analysis, they are not the same. SWOT focuses on internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats. Competitive analysis is broader, encompassing various aspects of competitors and market dynamics.
How Do You Present a Competitive Analysis?
A competitive analysis is usually presented in a report format, often including tables, charts, and graphs for easy interpretation. Xtensio lets you share your analysis as a presentation, as a document, or with a responsive link.
