“Am welcome to this session. We re gonna discuss identifying your competitors which will really really be focused on the competitor analysis. This is very important for any business especially you re designing your marketing strategy and what to do so many times. I ve come across businesses.
That really don t understand the competition or if they think they do they don t take it seriously there s different types of competitors first one is the direct competitor. But these are ones that are pretty much offering the same exact thing that you re offering to the consumer. This can also include direct substitutes of anything that you re offering our second type of competitor is the indirect competitor. These are not directly in the same industry of the main they may not be in the same industry.
But they do compete alongside the industry. So a really good example is the fitness centers and the gyms they re in direct competition would be a wellness clinic. Were a beauty a beauty clinic that may include some type of nutritional information maybe some low weight type of thing so you need to look at the indirect competition and then the last one is emerging competition so these may appear sometime in the future. Staying with the whole fitness theme.
One of the things that emerged over the past couple of years is wearable technology. Now wearable technology is emerging competition because when people use the wearable technology. They may not have the need for a personal trainer or go to the gym. Because they have that the other thing that most recently is starting to emerge is the virtual gym.
So now you can put on your goggles. And you can become part of various physical activities through a virtual means so these are some things especially for those in this case. The fitness industry or any industry is to really be aware of what competition is is emerging especially when integrating technology into the field. Please do not discount that we don t have time to go into that in this session.
We can talk about it much more power technology is impacting your individual industry later on well how well do understanding your competitors. These are some questions you need to ask yourself who are your direct indirect and emerging competitors to your product or service are they online offline or both in today s world everything like for anybody who wants to be serious in business. They need to have an online presence so if you say look we don t have any competition..
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If your answer to that question of relational competition. You say you don t have any i would really question if you did a hard core analysis on your industry on your own business when your products because i can be pretty sure unless you are a very much far ahead of the game in your own industry. There is probably a competitor somewhere around the world for you another question to ask is do you know what your competitors are doing that is what what are the benefits of their products and how they market it so. Even if you don t have time to look this stuff up you can easily outsource.
This information and get somebody to do the competitor analysis of a particular product or even your general industry. Third question is what are your competitors strengths and weaknesses. And this can easily be done by a swot analysis. The good old strength witnesses opportunities and threats and really looking at well and being be very honest with yourself you know there will probably be some competitors out there who have more strength than you do and there may be some out there that actually are weaker than you do and you need to be honest with yourself what do consumers think about your competitors products and services.
This can easily be found out just doing an online search there s many pages right now out there that are recommendation sites and there s testimonials and there s you know sites that will grade or give likes for a particular product search you can your competitors facebook pages. If you re in the restaurant or a food industry check out any of the restaurant pages that are there local and national depending on what what region you re in if you re in the travel industry. You know tripadvisor is obviously one of the key ones to see if anybody s talking about you or if your own hotels calm or bookings were expedia. Many of those so it s very easy now to find out what consumers think about your competitors products and services.
Another question to ask is how are you going to position yourself in comparison to your competitors. Would you want to meet the competition do you want to beat the competition. Where you do you want to counter the competition are you competing one price product quality or another point of difference. Once again this is you need to look very hard in the mirror of your own products and then that also gives you an opportunity to look at your competitors and have something to compare it to if li.
You can analyze your competitors on the following location. Where they located are they located near station train station any other kind of public transportation. What products do they offer what services do they offer what markets are they serving you know you might in a similar industry. But you re servicing a totally different market.
A good example here in australia is back in the days. When in the fitness industry. Fernwood..
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Came on board and their whole market was just women. Well that s a different point of difference for those gym goers that were just going to a a gym that served both men and women where are the various points of sale a consumer can purchase the product what s the pricing structure. I go casual can i go monthly do i have to pay an annual fee one of the strengths also what are the weaknesses. What i would suggest is for every business out there business owner is to identify five to ten of your major or direct competitors and then when you do your direct competitors.
You can also use your indirect competitors and possibly emerging competitors as well once you identify those competitors identify the products and services that they offer describe the products and services that they have to offer what factors contribute to their success assess their weaknesses. How will you address their strengths and capitalize on their weaknesses and one of their current market shares in various segments of the industry. So i ve put together this table. This is a very brief table.
I ve used this myself for various times in entering a market now this you can broaden this out as much as you want but hopefully by just doing this simple table you ll get the idea so with this competitor analysis office. You have i like to put my company at the top. My location actually that s a typo it should be like you know you can put the actual address and then put in your own pricing structure. What services or products.
You have so if you have more than those than like a gym or group x. This is obviously for the fitness industry. But you can do it for any industry that you re in you want to have a column for each industry for each product and service that you have to offer this can easily be done on excel because at the end. I can either put an x or number one and i can add up all the various products and services.
That an organization has to do if i m looking at the price. I can put in if everybody s charging per month. I can do an average price per month that people are offering so i would have that table with all the various prices and services as you see there with the product and service. There and then i can have a column of strengths and also weaknesses.
I can go back to that previous slide. I can add as many columns here as i want to get a really good comprehensive competitive and now and then once i have that i can see where i fit into the bigger scheme of things am. I where s my location..
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I can even put a collar column in here of public transportation availability. Am. I near a train station. Am.
I near a bus station can people walk to my gym is it what am i surrounded by a highway that because may become quite dangerous. So all the various information that you can put here. And also your competitors will make things much easier for you when you start to decide what market strategy as well as how do i want to position my business for the potential consumer when we look at competitive advantage after you do that competitor analysis. Hopefully you ll be able to flush out your competitive advantage and this competitive advantage looks at the feature or set of features together with the associated benefits.
Which make your product and services meaningful from those of your customers and valuable to the consumer your business must be cost effective and it must be able to offer products and services. Which the customers regard as preferable to the products and services offered by rival suppliers. So you can have a competitive advantage in various there is the depth of your lines. So for example.
If you are retail shop and you re focusing on tennis. You could maybe increase your line of the number of shoes tennis shoes. That you have or maybe increase. The number of tennis rackets that you have you might take one another brand that s just one minor example you could be have the quality quality as your competitive advantage or your uniqueness.
Maybe you are designing personal clothing for people all right. So. You only design one for people and then that design is done knowledge. Skills and experience might be your competitive advantage your marketing approach and strategies your image your reputation.
Maybe. The level of customer service. Can be your competitive advantage your location might be it because you are located well at the various forms of public transportation..
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Your price your availability in the fitness industry. One of the big disruptors were gyms going. 24. 7.
So now those people that wanted to work out after work say after nine o clock. If they were working a late shift. They could now go and train in a gym. Because they were 24 7.
Going back to that days and hours of opening and also parking facilities. You know do you have free parking is it easy to park is it safe to park your car near the gym. Other questions for your competitive advantage do you have the necessary resources to pursue your target marketing successfully can you gain a competitive advantage by differentiating yourself maybe on the products and services that you offer when the customer services that you offer it may be based on the points of sale offered to the consumer and also may be based on price long terms long term success is really based on the strengths of your business. It s also based on the meaning and value meaning.
And what s valued by your target. Customers your long term. Success is also you have to question is it substantial enough to actually make a difference and lastly is the long term. Success.
The question is is it sustainable in the face of competitor action and changes in the market because in today s world especially with technology on market in every market in every industry is changing fairly rapidly. Thank you for your attention and we will talk about target marketing in a later webinar so ” ..
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description:
“Identifying who your competitors are and understanding the approach they take in the market can help you to develop and sustain a competitive advantage. In this session, Dr Dion Klein explains the different types of competitors as well as shares some questions for you to ask when doing a competitor analysis which will help you identify your competitive advantage. He uses the fitness industry as an example.”,
tags:
competitor analysis, Dr Dion klein, competitors, fitness industry, fitness, competitive advantage
