When creating a marketing plan, there are many different factors to look at: successful marketing campaigns in the past, failed campaigns, your priorities and goals for the upcoming campaign, and more. One major factor that doesn’t get taken into consideration enough, however, is what your competitors are doing. Learning from your competitors marketing efforts can help you make better, more informed decisions about your own campaign. Here are some ways you can use your competitors to improve your upcoming marketing strategy.

See What Your Competitors are doing on Social Media

Assuming you already have a presence on social media (If you don’t, now is a good time to start) it’s a good idea to see if you’re competitors are doing anything differently. Are they the first hit that shows up when you search industry hashtags on Instagram? Do they have a decent following on Facebook? That’s because they have an understanding of how to utilize the tools available on those platforms. Here are a few things to look for on your competitor’s pages.

What kind of conversations are taking place on their page

Is there conversation happening about industry happenings or advancements in their company? If you notice that your competitors are having active conversations about certain topics, it might be a good idea to start those conversations as well.

Look at the content they are posting

You should look at how your competitors are interacting with their customers, such as pain points their customers have inquired about. See which types of posts customers engage with the most as well. You can learn a lot from your competitors’ social media pages, just be sure not to make your posts identical, and use this tactic as inspiration to take the extra step or think outside the box when it comes to engaging with your customers on social media.

Explore their Keywords

You can really get a feel for how your company stacks up against your competitors by seeing which keywords they rank for. If they are getting those high page rankings, what is it that they are doing differently?

Google and other search engines reward new content, therefore it’s likely your competitors are producing new content regularly. Instead of competing against your competitors for the same keywords, you might want to focus on the ones they have ignored. Tools like SEM Rush can also help you discover the keywords your competitors are bidding on in Google Search. If they are willing to pay for visibility, it’s likely they are getting value from those visitors.

See What They Blog About

Blogs are a good form of content when you’re looking to focus on keywords, but it’s important to remember that your customers are reading your blog to find an answer to their question, or a solution to their problem.

What topics are your competitors blogging about that you’re not, and vice versa? Consider why you’re not providing that information to your clients. Certain factors may contribute to a difference in topics such as customer demographics.

How Can You Offer Additional Value to Your Website?

By analyzing your competitors, it’s clear that your goal is to offer more to your customers than your competitors. Whether this means a wider content library, or more engagement on your site or social media pages, carefully consider how your brand can add value over your competitors to help increase customer loyalty to your website and brand.

Your competitors can be a great source of information when it comes to structuring your marketing strategy. Want to find out how effective your digital marketing is? Check out our self-assessment marketing grader to see how you stack up against your competition.