Great products may not be enough for you to stand out from the pack. A competitor brand analysis can help businesses like yours develop a unique value proposition or a clear reason that consumers should choose your brand over others. The more you know about what the competition is doing, the easier it is to carve out a unique lane for your brand to own.
This guide covers the importance of competitor research, how it can support strategic development, and how to conduct an actionable competitive analysis.
What is a competitor brand analysis?
A competitor brand analysis is a structured way to research and evaluate companies with similar products or target users as yours. In this research process, you examine how competitors are positioning their brand and what kind of strategies they’re employing to convert their target audience. You also look at the kinds of marketing materials they’re using to position their products, and how they meet (or fail to meet) customer expectations.
A pivotal part of a competitor brand analysis: customers’ perceptions. You want to read customer reviews, testimonials, and discussions online to identify where your competitors fail to deliver on their brand promises. Those gaps between what competitors say they deliver and what they actually deliver present opportunities for you to step in and be the solution customers are looking for.
A competitive brand analysis isn’t something to do just when you’re launching a new business. Conducting an annual analysis could help your business stay competitive and keep up with market trends. Use it as an opportunity to review your brand strategy and critical brand assets like your logo, brand voice, and packaging.
Reasons to conduct a competitor brand analysis
A competitor brand analysis can help you identify how your branding efforts are paying off and what needs to change. Here are some reasons to conduct a brand analysis
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Refine brand positioning. When you understand your competitors’ branding, tone, and target demographics, you can differentiate your brand by carving out a unique brand identity. This helps you create a more engaging voice that speaks directly to your ideal customer.
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Evaluate pricing strategy. Competitor prices affect how consumers interpret your prices. Keeping tabs on the competitive landscape can help ensure that your pricing strategy reflects your position in the market. If competing products are significantly less expensive, for example, value-focused marketing efforts might miss the mark.
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Discover ideas for marketing and advertising campaigns. Identifying competitors’ target channels and key marketing messages can reveal opportunities, such as content gaps or overlooked market segments.
How to conduct a competitor brand analysis
- Define your goals
- Identify your competitors
- Choose research methods
- Look for unmet consumer needs
- Assemble a strategy to gain a competitive advantage
Successful competitive analyses use market research to provide valuable insights. Starting with clear goals, focusing on key competitors, and collecting the right data points can help give your team a competitive edge. Follow these best practices to conduct a competitor brand analysis:
1. Define your goals
What you compare depends on the questions you want to answer and your desired goals. For example, a prelaunch market assessment requires different data points than a revaluation for your pricing strategy. The former requires a broad view of the landscape (i.e., who the key players are, and how they’re positioning their brand and products). The latter needs a much more focused look at specific numbers (i.e., competitors’ pricing tiers, what’s included at each level, and whether they’re positioning themselves as luxury or value-for-money solutions).
To clarify your goals, consider writing a brief that explains what you hope to learn from a report and how you will use the information. For example, “We want to understand how competitors are positioning their entry-level plans so we can decide whether our $29 tier is competitive” is a much more useful starting point than “We want to know what competitors are doing.” The more specific your goal, the easier it becomes to know which competitors to look at, what to look for, and when you have enough information to act.
2. Identify your competitors
Research your competitors and select several to track. Focus on identifying influential businesses succeeding in your industry. These can be companies that offer a similar product, also known as direct competitors, or brands with a slightly different product marketed to the same target audience, also known as indirect competitors. Methods for identifying direct and indirect competitors include:
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Customer feedback. Read feedback and take note when consumers mention other products.
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Industry events. Research brands featured at industry events or conferences. Look for businesses with similar products or the same target audience.
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Third-party research websites. Purchase market reports from third-party research platforms like Statista and Nielsen.
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Review platforms. Check reviews like Trustpilot and G2. These websites often list alternative products.
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Social media search. Search for your product category on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Read product recommendations and reviews on Reddit.
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Keyword research. Use SEO research tools like Google Keyword Planner to identify competitors that rank for your target keywords.
For detailed reports, focus on three to five competitors. Limiting the scope will help keep the workload manageable and allow your team to go into greater detail on each competitor.
3. Choose research methodologies
A competitor brand analysis relies on both primary and secondary research. Primary research, information that your team collects directly from the consumers, can come from sources like customer surveys and focus groups. Secondary research uses publicly available information, such as competitor white papers, reports, and social media mentions.
On an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast, Tara Lundy, chief brand officer at LifeStraw, described how competitor research influenced the marketing strategy for the company’s new filtration device. Her team conducted secondary research by reading competitors’ reviews and “saw that across the market, people were getting really frustrated by the vessel breaking down in the field, not the filtration system.” This helped identify the product’s value proposition: “Having a much more durable and robust, squeezable flask.”
In addition to reading reviews, other helpful research methods for competitive analysis include:
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Reviewing branding assets. Studying brand assets like a company’s logo, colors, and website design can reveal information about its target customers and visual identity.
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Testing out the customer journey. Consider downloading competitor apps, signing up for emails, or joining loyalty programs to understand the business from the consumer’s perspective.
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Trying products. Brands may purchase and test competitor products to compare features, quality, and user experience.
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Social listening. Monitor mentions and replies on social media platforms to assess brand perception.
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Consult ad libraries. Use tools like the Google Ads Transparency Center and the Meta Ad Library to access a competitor’s ad archive and review messaging strategies.
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Reviewing financial records. Publicly available financial records, like earnings reports for public companies or funding announcements for start-ups, can hint at a competitor’s growth trajectory and future business goals.
4. Look for unmet consumer needs
After you’ve gathered competitor information, see if you can spot something they missed. Any forgotten consumer segment, overlooked use case, or unmet customer need can be a market gap, and finding one can lead to major growth.
Brand competitor analysis helped Mike Xhaxho, co-founder of Waterboy, refine the company’s product offerings and brand positioning. While researching the electrolyte mix market, Mike noticed that his competitors all offered one-size-fits-all hydration solutions, even though users reach for electrolytes on different occasions.
Mike identified this opportunity to create “a more functional product, more tailored to those specific needs.” In response, Waterboy developed three different electrolyte mixes (weekend recovery, workout hydration, and daily hydration), each formulated and marketed toward a different use case.
5. Assemble a strategy to gain a competitive advantage
Compile all the data you’ve collected into an organized report. The right structure will make it easier to analyze your findings and spot patterns in the data. Using a competitor analysis framework, such as a SWOT analysis or Porter’s Five Forces, can help establish structure and make it easier to compare results. Bringing your findings together sets you up to make observations that lead to actionable insights.
This was the case when electric toothbrush company SURI was conducting pre-launch market research. Initial market share data revealed that two main brands dominated the electric toothbrush market. On its own, this information might seem to imply strong, well-established competitors. Combined with findings from SURI’s primary research, it told a different story.
Cofounders Gyve Safavi and Mark Rushmore conducted customer interviews and used platforms like SurveyMonkey and Attest to run market surveys. They discovered that most consumers couldn’t name the brand of their own toothbrush, even if they had paid $100 for it. This led Gyve to conclude that “people weren’t in love with the brands they were using” and there was room for a new business to succeed.
Competitor brand analysis FAQ
What is a competitive analysis?
A competitive analysis is a report examining the strengths and weaknesses of other businesses operating within your target market. Competitor analyses help businesses identify opportunities and understand how to best position their own products to gain a competitive advantage.
What are the four Ps of competitor analysis?
The 4Ps, short for product, price, place, and promotion, is a marketing mix. According to this framework, successful marketing materials address each of these key elements. To use the 4Ps for competitor analysis, review the competitor’s marketing materials and ask yourself how they address each primary pillar.
Why should I run a brand competitor analysis?
Conducting a brand competitor analysis can help you understand how your direct and indirect competitors are positioning their brands and products. This can help you identify market gaps that you can capitalize on or ways to improve your current brand positioning to appeal to your target audience.
