As the world around us evolves, a business’s original USP or unique selling proposition may no longer hold true.
Changes in politics, society, and of course technology can all have an impact.
In my previous article Who Do You Think You Are Talking To?, I discussed the value of regularly conducting market research in order to understand your audience. Another essential aspect is knowing the competition. In this article, I look at why we should keep learning from our competitors as we grow and evolve.
Always learning
As a global pandemic continues to rock the world, businesses that haven’t invested in digital transformation are feeling the effects.
For some B2C high street stores, this was arguably a long time coming. Could Paperchase or the Arcadia empire of clothing stores (Topshop etc) have avoided administrators through better analysis of the competition? It’s hard to judge, but with the likes of Moonpig and ASOS* going strong it’s fair to suggest some brands would have benefited from earlier investment into online services. It’s the demise of Blockbuster and the rise of Netflix all over again.
It’s not so different with B2B businesses.
You can really go to town on competitor analysis, but for the purposes of this article we’ll stick to analysis of marketing efforts. That said, anyone involved with marketing will understand it is woven into the fabric of the business, so anything and everything you know about your competitors will be of interest to your marketer.**
If your competition is going from strength to strength don’t wait for them to take the market share before learning from their successes. Why reinvent the wheel? (Unless it is patent protected of course). This doesn’t mean copying your competitors endeavours, it means being aware of the market and vigilant about newcomer activity.
