Understanding your competitors is a crucial step when starting to plan your communication strategy. However, this is often only ever carried out at the start of the process… well, guess what? You have to keep doing it. I will share why today, especially given the year we have all just had when lots of businesses have had to pivot.
I share the 3 types of competitors to look out for, plus when and how to start to make plans to utilise this information as part of your business planning.
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Full Transcript
Hello and welcome to this episode of Communication Strategy That Works with me, Emma Drake.
Hi, everyone. How are we all doing today? I hope everyone is okay. For those of you who have listened to the podcast for a while now would know this, but just in case you’ve tuned in today, I’m an in-house expert and external advisor of businesses. And I’ve worked with many types of businesses, but I love to work with businesses that are funded to grow and have ambitious plans to be bigger companies one day. I am making it my mission to help you break down some of those big topics in communicating about your business and help you work out how to implement these into your business, to create value, to build trust, and save you time, money, and energy.
This week I want to talk to you about the importance of understanding your competitors when starting out with your strategy. Now, this is an often overlooked step or it’s only ever carried out right at the start of the process. And then the piece of paper is shoved in a drawer or an online folder, never to be seen again. Well, guess what? You have to keep doing it. And why is that? Well, your business grows and develops all the time and so do your competitors businesses, especially in the year that we’ve just had. We’ve all had a really, really tricky year where lots of businesses have had to pivot so things have changed, the landscape has changed. Whatever sector you’re in, fundamentally, there will have been some sort of shift in how or who would have been your competitors are offering and delivering their products and services.
One example is the online space. So whether that is training or food or health services, so many businesses have had to pivot into an online model and the competitive landscape has completely changed because of that. So how does this affect you communicating with your customers? Well, if you want to make sure you are offering something they really need, it’s worth checking out what’s already on the market, and how it’s offered so that you can make yours truly unique to you and your business. And when I talk about how it’s being described so that customers want it, and need it, and take the time to engage and act. So let’s dive in.
It’s important to remain really authentic and believable when communicating with your customers. So every so often we want to check in where we are against competitors to make sure that we still have that edge and we’re offering something really truly unique. You can then use this in your communication with customers via key messages and statements that will resonate with them about why you are different, why you are unique, and why people should buy from you, or engage in your initiative and not the other company’s products or other initiatives. There are three main types of competitors really and I’m going to run through those with you. And I’m also going to give you some tips on how to get started.
The first one is direct competitors, and these can be identified as the most obvious, really. They will be people or businesses that are selling a service or product that’s the same as yours and to a similar audience in a similar way or the same way. So they will be serving the same customer needs as you.
The second one is indirect competitors. Now, these companies or people may be selling something similar to you, say products and services, and offering similar outcomes but for a different need or a different audience. Now these guys are important to keep an eye on as they can pivot easily into your space because of how close they are to you already. Also, may talk in a similar way as you do about customer benefits already. So for example, if you sell shoes and your indirect competitor sells trainers but you use similar outlets and customers could easily switch to trainers instead of shoes. And if they think that trainers are going to be more lucrative, then that company because it already sells footwear in a similar space, in a similar way to you, they can quite easily pivot into the trainer space.
So the third is, I like to call them outliers. So these are the ones to watch as they may be making something different to you or sell a different service, but it’s not going to be that far away from what you already do. And again, they could easily pivot into your space.
So how to make a start? Well, it’s important, number one, to do your research. You need to make a list of these companies and start to analyze them. Now, there’s ways you could do this. You can ask around, you can do some desktop research of your own. You will have an idea of most of them, but if this is about you looking for ones you may not know about and making a comprehensive list. So even the obvious ones to you, as I said previously through 2020 with the global pandemic, it’s likely that you might have some additions to that list or actually some may have disappeared or been replaced, unfortunately. So that’s the first one.
The second one is you need to find some way of listing them down. So you need to start a Google Sheet or whatever works for you. A Trello board and start listing them out and their characteristics, so how they’re close to you, and you want to have your three big buckets: your direct customers, your indirect customers and your outliers.
So number three is, I like to make a visual map of how these companies fit. I am a really visual person so I like to map stuff out. If you could see my office now I’ve got big pieces of paper on the walls with my maps and things. So I like to map them out with a simple axis on a grid, and I map out where everyone fits against the two criteria that I choose on the axis.
So if you’re in a service-based business, you may want to look at price point versus number of years in business, for example. If you make products, you may want to look at high-volume manufacturers versus low-volume manufacturers or suppliers, and if they are B2B service setting through an intermediary or if they direct to customers, for example. Because I said about the pivoting, you might want to see where they fit in those two spaces. I’ve actually included for you in the show notes a really simple map so you can use that. So don’t worry to be scribbling notes wherever you are. I’ve got a link in the show notes to a map that you can use and you can download and you can implement today.
So finally, you need to stand out and you need to cut through the noise and be unique to you. But because you’ve done the groundwork, you can rely on your research and you can revisit this year-on-year to see what’s changed and if you need to tweak anything yourself. So when your device is useful to do at the beginning, when you’re starting out, because you can start to craft your message around in-between what other people are saying and make sure that you use a voice that’s very different and that you can talk about the product benefits in a very different way, and the benefits to your customers.
I’ve given you a really simple overview today of this particular topic and how it can help you. I hope it’s been useful. Please head over to my Facebook page, where I drop hints and tips and there’s more on this topic. You can also join my email community where I share advice and insights on a weekly basis. And you also get access to stretch out, which is my monthly newsletter, which contains offers and more advice. So, look in the show notes for those two links and I’ll see you next time.
Finally, thank you for listening to this episode of Communication Strategy That Works. Don’t forget to check my show notes for those links that I mentioned. And I’d really love it if you would subscribe to my podcast and leave me a review. And also if you think there’s someone that could benefit from listening to this podcast, please share this within your networks. So, I’ll just say bye for now and see you next time.