SIZING UP THE COMPETITION - The Wright Marketing Blueprint, Inc.

Sizing Up the Competition
By Maggie Wright

In addition to knowing your target consumers' needs and their perceptions of your product or service, it is extremely important to know who your competitors are... to understand their strategies and game plans.  Here's a quick checklist to help you analyze the competition:

• Who are my major competitors and how are my brands being perceived by consumers to be different from these competitors?
  

• What segments of the market are they pursuing?  What are their market shares?  Are they growing or declining?
  

• How do they market their brands? Do they advertise, and if so, where? Are they in Social Media.  If so, where and how do they position themselves?  How often?  Do they do sampling and/or demonstrations?
  

• How do their messages compare to my brand's messages: packaging, pricing, promotion and the advertising message? What are they communicating in their messages?
  

• What are we communicating?  How are the messages different?  What can I learn from this?
  

• What consumer needs are they meeting? What needs is my Brand meeting?  How is this different from the competition?  What can I learn from this to make mine stronger?
  

• What are their philosophies behind their marketing strategies?  Aggressive or reactive?  State-of-the-art or me-too? Volume mix?  How do their companies view their products?  Do they "milk" them to place marketing emphasis elsewhere or do they have a history of investment spending and brand building?
  

• What are their historical trends?  Marketing spending patterns?  Pricing strategies?  New product introductions?
  

• What have they done right or wrong?  What can I learn from them?
  

• What advantages do they have over my brand?  Image?  Geographic?  Product quality? Pricing? Production effectiveness?
  

• What advantages does my brand have over them?  How can I make things even better?
  

• Based on their behavior, where will they go within the near future? How could this affect my brand?  What strategies do I need to employ to protect and grow my business?  
  

Small businesses and entrepreneurs... let's work together.  Let's rebuild America!

Margaret T. Wright (Maggie) is President of The Wright Marketing Blueprint, Inc. (www.WrightMarketingBlueprint.com)  She helps clients build strong emotional
connections between their brands and consumers.

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