Competitive Analysis Template

Understanding your competitors is Business 101. A competitive analysis template helps systematically evaluate and compare your competitors, giving you insights to stay ahead.

What is a Competitive Analysis Template?

A competitive analysis template is a structured document designed to help businesses systematically gather, record, and analyze information about their competitors. It typically includes sections detailing competitors' products, pricing, marketing strategies, strengths, and weaknesses.

Why Do I Need a Competitive Analysis Template?

Using a competitive analysis template ensures you cover all critical aspects of competitor evaluation. It provides a clear framework to collect consistent data, identify trends, and make informed strategic decisions.

Get the product competitor analysis template here 🏅

Pro-Tips for Conducting a Competitive Analysis

Even an excellent competitive analysis template won’t help if you don’t know how to identify the right insights.

Here are some pro tips to nail your competitive research:

Identify Key Competitors

Start by pinpointing your main competitors. Utilize online tools like Google Search, social media, and industry reports to find businesses with a similar offering to yours.

Now, this doesn’t mean they sell the same products and services as yours. If you’re building a CRM, for example, trying to identify all the alternatives might take months (and doesn’t give you any useful info, really).

Instead, look for companies that position themselves in a similar way to you. If your CRM is angled more towards social selling, you should look for competitors that try to do the same.

Knowing who your competitors are is crucial to understanding the competitive landscape and developing strategies to differentiate your offerings.

Gather Data Consistently

Regularly collect data on your competitors. Monitor their websites, blogs, and social media channels. Employ tools such as Semrush, Ahrefs, and Google Alerts for continuous updates. 

For instance, set up Google Alerts for key competitors to receive notifications about their latest activities and strategies. 

Consistent data collection helps you stay informed about your competitors' latest strategies and moves, allowing you to adjust your strategies promptly.

Analyze Strengths and Weaknesses

Conduct a SWOT analysis to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to each competitor. Focus on their strengths and where they fall short. 

For example, if a competitor excels in customer service but lacks in product innovation, you can emphasize innovation in your offerings while maintaining strong customer support. 

This analysis helps you understand where you can capitalize on their weaknesses and defend against their strengths.

Compare Marketing Strategies

Examine your competitors' marketing tactics. Analyze their SEO efforts, content marketing, social media presence, and advertising strategies. 

Identify what works for them and areas where you can improve. 

For instance, if a competitor has a strong social media following, consider enhancing your social media strategy by engaging more with your audience and creating shareable content.

By understanding their marketing strategies, you can refine your own approach to attract more customers.

Evaluate Product Features

List and compare the features of your products with those of your competitors. Highlight your unique selling points (USPs) and note any features your competitors offer that you don’t. 

For example, if a competitor offers a mobile app and you don’t, consider developing one to match or exceed their offering. This evaluation helps you identify gaps in your offerings and opportunities for innovation.

Assess Customer Feedback

Read customer reviews and feedback on your competitors' products or services. Identify common complaints and areas where you can excel to meet customer needs better. 

For example, if customers frequently complain about a competitor's complicated user interface, you can focus on simplifying your own interface.

 Customer feedback provides valuable insights into what customers value and what frustrates them.

Keep an Eye on Pricing

Analyze your competitors' pricing models. Understand their pricing strategy, discounts, and promotions. 

Use this information to adjust your pricing to remain competitive. 

For instance, if a competitor offers a lower-priced version of a product with fewer features, you might consider a similar tiered pricing model.

Use Visual Tools

Utilize visual aids like charts, graphs, and infographics to present your analysis clearly. 

Tools like Fibery’s Whiteboard can help create visual breakdowns of your competition.

For example, create a comparison chart that highlights the features of your product versus competitors’ products. 

Visual tools make it easier to convey complex information and insights to your team.

Advanced Analysis Techniques for Competitive Analysis

To actually benefit from your competitive analysis, you have to go beyond the basics. Here are some advanced competitive analysis methods to consider:

SWOT Analysis

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis is a strategic planning tool that helps identify internal and external factors impacting your business.

• Strengths: Assess what your company does well compared to competitors. For example, if your product has unique features or better customer service, these are your strengths.

• Weaknesses: Identify areas where competitors outperform you. This could be higher pricing, limited features, or weaker brand recognition.

• Opportunities: Look for external factors that could benefit your business. Market trends, new technologies, or gaps left by competitors can be opportunities.

• Threats: Recognize external challenges that could harm your business. These might include new competitors, market saturation, or changing regulations.

Say you’re developing a SaaS project management tool. Your strengths may include unique collaboration features, weaknesses like limited integrations, opportunities like the rise of remote work, and threats like new competitors offering similar solutions for free.

Porter's Five Forces

Porter’s Five Forces is a framework for analyzing the competitive forces that shape every industry and helps determine an industry's weaknesses and strengths.

• Competitive Rivalry: Examine the intensity of competition among existing players. High rivalry limits profitability.

• Threat of New Entrants: Consider how easy it is for new competitors to enter the market. High barriers to entry reduce this threat.

• Bargaining Power of Suppliers: Assess the influence suppliers have over your business. Few suppliers with unique products increase their power.

• Bargaining Power of Buyers: Determine how much power customers have to drive prices down. More choices for customers increase their power.

• Threat of Substitutes: Identify the presence of alternative products that can replace yours. More substitutes mean more competition.

A SaaS company offering CRM solutions can use this to understand the competitive rivalry among CRM providers, the threat of new CRM startups, the bargaining power of software vendors, the bargaining power of large clients who can negotiate lower prices, and the threat of substitute tools like spreadsheets or other CRM systems.

PEST Analysis

Political, Economic, Social, and Technological (PEST) analysis is a framework for evaluating the external environment affecting your business.

• Political: Understand how government policies and regulations impact your business. Tax policies, trade restrictions, and political stability are key factors.

• Economic: Assess economic factors such as inflation rates, exchange rates, and economic growth that influence your business.

• Social: Evaluate social factors like demographics, lifestyle changes, and cultural trends that affect demand for your products.

• Technological: Analyze how technological advancements can affect your industry. This includes new innovations, automation, and R&D activities.

For example, a SaaS business offering financial software can analyze political factors like regulatory changes, economic factors like market growth, social factors like increasing demand for financial transparency, and technological factors like advancements in AI and machine learning for financial analysis.

Value Chain Analysis

Value Chain Analysis involves examining the activities your company performs to create a product, aiming to identify ways to create value and competitive advantage.

• Primary Activities: Look at inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and services. Improving efficiency in these areas can reduce costs and enhance value.

• Support Activities: Assess firm infrastructure, human resources management, technology development, and procurement. Enhancing these areas supports primary activities and adds value.

Suppose you’re a SaaS company providing marketing automation tools. You can analyze primary activities like:

• Software development

• Cloud deployment

• User support

• Sales

And support activities like:

• Infrastructure management

• HR

• Tech development

 To find ways to streamline operations and enhance user experience.

Benchmarking

Benchmarking means comparing your business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and best practices from other companies.

• Identify Key Metrics: Determine which performance metrics are crucial for your business success, such as customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, or financial performance.

• Compare with Competitors: Measure your performance against that of your competitors. This helps identify gaps and areas for improvement.

• Implement Best Practices: Adopt strategies and practices that are proven to be effective in other businesses to improve your own processes and outcomes.

For example, a SaaS provider of HR management tools can benchmark user satisfaction scores, feature adoption rates, and customer retention rates against industry leaders to identify performance gaps and adopt best practices.

Install the Product Competitor Analysis template