In any business industry, it is one of the planning stones to study and analyse your competitor’s products or business models. This analysis is important as it will dictate how you will position your own product or app against your competitor. It would be fool hardy to create an app that is similar to Skype, but the app does not have a differentiating factor that is unique from Skype yet popular with users.
What Do You Analyse?
The analysis is important as it will give you an insight into what you are up against.
You have to analyse the same things about your own product or app as you do with your competitor. Whatever that you offer is what your competitor can fight against. Therefore, prior research on the features you offer is important.
You have to know what the app can do and what it cannot do. This is a simple comparison of your competitor against other apps in the market. Find a rating checklist on features, content, design, functionality, user-friendliness etc.This comparison will also tell you what areas you are lacking and what areas need more focus on. It will also tell you that you may need to add new features that are popular and yet unique to others.
You have to rate it against your own and those in the market. This rating will tell you where you are against your competitor and what you need to do further to succeed.
You have to see how many and what USPs (unique selling points) competitors have and compare them with your own and others in the market. You can then consider what USPs to leverage on. This depends on whether you are better than a competitor at an existing USP, or if you should introduce a novel USP.
You have to compare against them based on their marketing strategies and their customer demographics. By knowing what strategies they employ to reach their customers, you can formulate your own marketing strategy to reach a similar customer profile. Alternatively, you can differentiate from competitors by reaching a different customer demographic with less or no competitors.
Besides analysing the same things about your app as competitors, the features and limitations, the rating, the USP and the marketing strategy, you can also start off by asking the following questions to gain a deeper understanding of your competition:
- Who are your competitors?
- What products or services do they sell?
- What is each competitor’s market share?
- What are their past strategies?
- What are their current strategies?
- What type of media are used to market their products or services?
- How many hours per week do they purchase to advertise through the media used in this market?
- What are each competitor’s strengths and weaknesses?
- What potential threats do your competitors pose?
- What potential opportunities do they make available for you?
If your app is in the development phase. Take a moment, pause and do a detailed analysis of your competitive landscape. You may find that you have to revise your app or strategy, but it ultimately leads to increased sales when you enter the market.
