How to Complete A Successful Competitor Analysis Template and Guide

Develop a comprehensive understanding of your competitor’s positioning, value propositions, digital marketing efforts, and customer relationships.

Woman looking at various competition components

Your Competitor Analysis


Too often, business owners and executive-level managers lack a comprehensive understanding of their competition. Successful, value-driven leaders have a good knowledge of their competitor’s various initiatives. To better identify what advantages their competition might have over their brand.

Our Competitor Analysis template and guide provides you with a step-by-step direction for identifying your top competitors and evaluating their initiatives to determine their positioning, offerings, customer relations, and digital marketing efforts. Equip yourself with the necessary details you need to outperform your competition. Start your process towards developing a comprehensive understanding of your competitors as you look to establish or improve your brand’s authority.

When you complete your Competitor Analysis template and guide, you:

  • Identify and segment your competition into four key groups
  • Gain an overview understanding of each of your competitors
  • Analyze their product offering, price, and uniqueness
  • Identify the channels your competitors use to advertise and deliver their products
  • Discover overlooked or missed opportunities
  • Analyze the satisfaction level of your competitor's customers
  • Analyze threats to your brand
  • Learn how to benchmark your competition's positioning
  • Breakdown your competition for a competitive edge

    • 🎉 Let's Get Started

    It's essential to be as accurate as possible with the information you include in your Competitor Analysis. Use the free template PDF to the best of your ability on each corresponding block of your Competitor Analysis template and guide.
    FREE Competitor Analysis Template and Guide

    Getting started is simple! Download your FREE Competitor Analysis template and guide, grab a pen, and print out your FREE PDF. Kick-off your work session and take your next step towards improving your brand's authority with clarity, focus, and the information you need to succeed!

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    1. Competitor Identification
    The most important part of starting your competitive analysis is selecting the competitors to analyze. This first set of questions will help guide you to identify who your competition is.

    Ask Yourself
    • What industry are you competing within?
    • What brands are already thriving in that industry?
    • Who are the up-and-coming brands in that industry?
    • Who are your target customers?
    • Which of your competitors share the same customers as you?
    • What problem do you solve for your customers?
    • Which of your customer offer the same value proposition as you?

    Remember
    Your competition analysis is essential to your band’s success because it allows you to identify trends, strategies and stay one step ahead of your competitors. So choose the competitors you want to research efficiently.
    2. Segment Your Competition
    With a list of your top competitors, segment your competition into four groups: Aspirational, Direct, Indirect, and Up and Coming. This will provide you with a better understanding of the current market space and help you set goals.

    Aspirational
    Your aspirational competition are the brands that are already thriving in your defined market. They are a prime example of where you would like to be. Use them to set benchmarks and understand what the industry standard is.

    Direct
    Your direct competitors are the brands in your market that offer the same product(s) or service(s) as you do to the same type of customers.

    Indirect
    Your indirect competitors are those who don’t offer the same product(s) or service(s) as you but provide something similar to a customer group you are looking to serve.

    Up and Coming
    It’s essential to stay one step ahead. For your up-and-coming competitors, think of those companies in your market that may not be competing with you yet, but could potentially develop into a direct or indirect competitor.
    3. Competitor Details
    With your list of competitors split into four segments, it’s time to start your competitor analysis. Kick things off by doing a bit of essential due diligence on your competitor’s brand.

    Answer the Following
    • Company Name?
    • Where are they located?
    • What is their website?
    • What is your competitor's market dominance?
    • How long has your competitor been in business?
    • Is your competition expanding?
    • Can you estimate your competitor's growth rate or revenue?
    • What social platforms do they engage their customers?
    4. Analyze Messaging
    Your competitor’s messaging is the most visible part of their positioning. Messaging is what enables a brand to communicate clearly and concisely with their customer. Effectively presenting your message is such a large component when it comes to customer acquisition. It’s a little bit easier to identify your customer’s positioning by what they are saying. It’s necessary to understand what your competition is saying about themselves to help you know where they are positioning their brand.

    Ask Yourself
    • What story are your competitors communicating?
    • How is your competition positioning itself?
    • What are some repeated phrases or text?
    • What features/products are they emphasizing?
    • What customer pain points are they openly addressing?
    • What problem are they promising to solve?
    • What is the process to work with them?
    • What does the first set of text on their website homepage communicate?
    5. Evaluate Offerings
    The next step is to evaluate your competitor’s value propositions, such as the product(s) or service(s) they offer? Be sure to include as much detail as possible, such as their pricing strategy, the quantity/quality of their product(s), service(s), market share, and distribution system.

    Ask Yourself
    • What is their flagship offer?
    • What product features are unique to your competitors?
    • What are the price points for their offer?
    • What is the minimum price your competitor charges?
    • How many of their offers are the same as yours?
    • How does their offer make your customer's life better, easier, or both?
    • Do they have multiple offers?
    • Do they value-bundle their offers?
    • Does your competitor support multiple environments?
    • Do their offers provide any secondary benefits?
    • How do they deliver on these offers?
    • What is their sales process - what channels does it involve, how long does it take, how involved is the sales team?
    6. Analyze Marketing
    How are your Competitors marketing their product(s) or service(s)? Thoroughly analyze all of their marketing efforts via their website, social media channels, and advertisements. It’s essential to know how your competitors use social media channels and paid channels like Google Ads and Facebook Ads to reach their target audience. Outside of their online efforts, what activity are they engaging in offline?

    Ask Yourself
    • Do they advertise on Youtube, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, or other social media platforms?
    • Where else do your competitors advertise?
    • What keywords are they buying on Adwords?
    • Do your competitors focus on specific verticals?
    • How does your competitor market its product?
    • What does their welcome email series look like, if any?
    • Do they participate in events, meetups, conferences?
    • Do they have a podcast?
    • Do they have a blog?
    • We suggest you take the time to sign up for their email or newsletter.
    • Do they have a FAQs section?
    • Do they create guides or ebooks?
    7. Analyze Social Media
    How does your competition drive engagement with their brand through social media? Get a sense of how frequently your competitors are publishing. Find your competitor’s most commonly used hashtags. You may be able to use the same ones in your posts if they’re relevant and get exposure to more people. Look at your competitor’s most popular posts. Why are these posts performing well? Find out what these posts have that your content doesn’t and use it to improve your social media accounts.

    Ask Yourself
    • What platforms are your competitors using?
    • Which of those platforms is working for your competitors?
    • Do the conversations vary from platform to platform?
    • What content are they sharing, and is it currently working for them?
    • What are the demographics of your competitor's followers?
    • What kind of content are they posting?
    • Where and how are they driving traffic?
    • How does your competition interact with their followers?
    • Are they working with any influencers?
    • What hashtags are they using, if any?
    8. Analyze Customer Experience
    Look at their reviews on Google, Yelp, or any other platforms they are available on. Find out the pros and cons of their business from their customers themselves and see how loyal they are to their business. Also, take note of how o$en they respond to any good (and bad) reviews.

    Ask Yourself
    • What companies or individuals is your competition selling too?
    • Who is their primary decision-maker/buyer?
    • What does their customer want and need?
    • What are their customer's daily struggles that your offer can help solve?
    • What do their product or service reviews look like?
    • What are the recurring complaints or successful reviews?
    • What do positive customer results reveal?
    • How do the negative customer results provide you with an opportunity?
    • What’s the Net Promoter Score (NPS) of your competitors?
    • How often does your competition respond to their customer reviews?
    • How often does your competition respond to their customer service questions on social?
    9. Analyze Tech Stack
    Identifying how they are implementing technology and how it has impacted their business—understanding what types of technology your competitor uses can be critical for helping your own company implement the same or similar tech solutions. We recommend using Built With, a website profiler tool that tells you what a website is built with and provides insight into what technology is being used.

    • Builtwith - a website profiler, lead generation, competitive analysis, and business intelligence tool providing technology adoption, eCommerce data, and usage analytics for the internet.

    • SEMrush - helps you understand your competitor's focus in search engine marketing, including best-performing keywords, along with their spend.

    • NielPatel - is an SEO and website analyzer that will help you break down your competition, identify better SEO keywords, and improve your website's traffic.
    Your Completed Competitor Analysis Template and Guide
    Whether you are a founder or executive level manager, a comprehensive understanding of your competition’s various initiatives and positioning will help you identify what advantages your competitor might have over your brand and how you can outperform them.

    Your Next Steps
    Now that you have the clarity and the necessary details you need to outperform your competition, it’s time to identify and benchmark your strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities within your industry. Gain clarity, focus, and the introspection you need to strategically enter new markets or engage in any new or revamped initiatives. Learn More Here.
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