A short guide to competitor analysis

Most teams know this matters. Fewer have decided who owns it. Everything we would tell a client about competitor analysis in the time it takes to drink a coffee.

Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.

The reason this keeps coming up

Look for the gaps, not just for what to copy. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

The practical version

Their weaknesses are your positioning. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

The mistakes we see most

Check what they rank for that you do not. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.

The short version

The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. Three things worth confirming about competitor analysis before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Their weaknesses are your positioning — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.