5 Ways Studying Competitors Can Help Transform Business

Learning has its own benefit. It makes you to adapt, improve and solve problems way faster than you are capable off in the first place. When it comes to running a business, learning or studying means a completely different thing.

As a business owner, you may want to study about your internal employee structure, how they work, their needs and so on. But the real knowledge remains in the real world. For a business, it is the market that offers them the best insight. One part of the market is the competitors.

Competitors enable you to see your mistakes and help you to improve yourself. Not only that, but you can also copy them or their strategies and start experimenting. In this article, we will list five ways studying your competitors can help you transform your business. Let’s get started.

Content

You know what fuels the online business and gives them the visibility in the big online world? It is the content. Content is the best way to expand your thoughts, product, services or sell your product to your target audience. It is the medium that should be utilized in the best possible way.

Pick one of your competitors, and you will see how they are using blog posts, video, infographics and other content forms to reach their goal. Every business is unique, and it would be great if you study what makes them unique and differentiate you from them.

But, we warned, don’t copy their strategy. You need to learn what they are doing and improvise on it. Content is a great way to learn what your competitor is trying to do. For example, you can learn about their target audience, their sale pitch, their use of content on social media platforms and so on.

Customer engagement

When you are looking to transform your business, you should study how your competition handles customer engagement. Customer engagement is more than just replying to their email or support tickets. It is about creating a meaningful connection through all channels including website, social media platforms.

The best way to learn about your competitor’s customer engagement is to monitor their social media platforms and see how they interact with their customers. Try to learn their approach and then modify that to suit it for your business.

Case Studies

Case studies are yet another way you can learn from your competitors. There is a proper way to do a case study, and there is no better place to learn other than your competitors. Also, case studies provide a better way to showcase your business projects to your customer. You will find businesses have a dedicated webpage for case studies and this where you should start your research. Try to understand what made them choose a particular project and showcase it as “case study.” You can also hire experts to understand your competitor if you feel that there is more to learn about them.

Brand Management

Brand management is a crucial aspect of your business. If you mismanage it, you can lose both customers and revenue. The good news is that there are plenty of examples out there that will guide you. And, the best examples is with your competitor. By studying your competitor, you will understand the basics of how to manage brands and different attributes that are associated with it. This will give you an insight on what to do to maintain or grow your brand to new heights.

Product Development

Keeping a keen eye on what your competitor is doing regarding product development is the key to success. You don’t want to be left behind when it comes to your product core experience. If your competitor brings new features, you should be the first one to study the changes. We are not saying that you should blatantly copy their product, but the focus is to understand their approach to product development. This will also help you understand their philosophy and understand the differences. After carefully studying, you can add your own approach and create a product that is unique and more valuable than your competitors.

Conclusion

Before we end, we want to share a famous quote from JackMa, the founder of Alibaba.

“You should learn from your competitor, but never copy. Copy, and you die.”

Basically, never copy your competitor. If you do, you are becoming a copy of them, and there is no reason why a customer will choose you. Always innovate and solve the problem the way you see it. So, what do you think about the points? Comment below and let us know.