Competitors Analysis
Analyzing the competition is the most important work that the marketer need to do before building the brand but how to identify the competition is more important task that needs to be done.
Bases for the Competition – The analysis of the customer is done on following basis :
- On the basis of the customers which includes identifying who are the customers, when they use the product and why they use it.
- On the basis of marketing activities like advertising, promotion, distribution channel and media promotion for their product and most importantly the price for the product.
- On the basis of the resources like staff, finances available, raw materials and the machinery
- On the basis of the geographical region
Level of the competition
- Product form competition: This only focus on the products that are similar in terms of the outward appearance and this is the most serious competition because those products are considered which are used in daily basis.
- Product category competition:This type of completion is for those products that are similar in type of feature they deliver.
- Generic competition: This is the third most level of the competition which is carried out at long run and is defined for those product which aims at fulfilling the similar type of customer needs.
- Budget competition:This is the most broad type of competition which considers all type of product and service for similar customer share of wallet.
Competitor’s Selection
For selecting and deciding the competitors the product manager should keep some important points in mind which are:
- The product manager should try in selecting a competitor focus which means he can decide which competitors to focus upon, which can be decided on examining certain factors like the time in which the marketing plan was developed and the changes in the technology.
- After selecting the appropriate levels of competition i.e., by defining the “market”, the next step is choosing relevant competitors. This assessment may require preparing a preliminary competitor analysis or updating the previous plan’s competitor analysis.
Collecting the information about the competitor is another important step in analysing the customers. The information can be collected through primary and secondary sources. Primary sources of information can be:
- Local newspapers
- Annual reports
- Patent filings
- Government
- Electronic databases
- News releases
- Trade associations
- Promotional literature
- Internet
Secondary sources can be:
- Customers
- Staff
- Investors
- Suppliers
Therfore for establishing a brand image it is very necessary to analyse the competition.
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