Your competition: where to find and how to define it

Greetings from the Salut team, and welcome to our University! 

Today we are going to learn how to define and analyze your competition. Even though many people don’t realize it, knowing who your competitors are, and what they are offering is a crucial element of your success, since it can help you make your products, services and marketing stand out. Without further ado, let’s start!

When making a list of competitors, we divide them into two categories:
Indirect competitors – they deal with resources related to your main topic and use additional ways of promotion. If you are a nutrition coach, then a fitness coach can be your indirect competitor. 
Leaders – the most popular and widely promoted people/websites/services that you can use as your benchmark. However, as far as most of these brands are world famous, you should not copy-paste their strategies of promotion and set the goal of surpassing them.

Now that we’re done with defining your competitors, let’s learn where we can find them.

1. Search engines. Simply make a request on Google and get the result – it does well when you need to analyze those of your competitors who have their own websites. Pay attention to their landing pages and lists of services they provide. 
2. Social media. Don’t forget to check your competitors’ Instagram, Twitter and other social media accounts. Learn what type of content they post and how their followers react to it. Also, you can search by hashtags in order to find more people who work in your field. 

If you want to gain an even better insight into your competition, your acting talent will come in handy. Make up a backstory, call your competitor and introduce yourself as their potential customer. Ask questions, listen closely to the answers and analyze the whole communication process.

Here’s an example:

Download this template, fill in the blanks and compare your business with its closest rivals. Use this knowledge to create marketing strategies that take advantage of your competitors’ weaknesses, and improve your own business performance.