How to Utilize Competitive Benchmarking to Inform Marketing Strategy

One way to gain an edge in a highly competitive business landscape is to benchmark competitors in order to inform marketing campaigns. Competitive benchmark analysis typically includes comparing your marketing strategies, tactics, and performance against those of your competitors. To make the most of competitive benchmarking in marketing, it's essential to follow best practices that ensure accuracy, relevancy, and actionable insights, as outlined below.

Clarify Marketing Objectives

Before embarking on competitive marketing benchmarking, it's crucial to establish clear marketing objectives. Determine what you want to achieve through your marketing efforts. Are you aiming to increase brand awareness, boost online sales, or enhance customer engagement? Having specific marketing goals will guide the entire benchmarking process and help you focus on what's most important. The most common objectives include entering new markets, increasing market share and/or brand awareness, securing new customers, altering brand perception, and decreasing customer acquisition costs.

Identify Competitors Thoughtfully

Selecting the right competitors to benchmark against is pivotal in the realm of marketing. Your competitors should be chosen based on factors such as target audience, marketing channels, and similar product or service offerings. Ensure that they are relevant to your business and reflect the competitive marketing landscape accurately. I recommend selecting a mix of competitors based on size, geographic proximity, and marketing savvy.

Evaluate Strategies and Tactics

One of the primary focuses of marketing benchmarking is assessing the strategies and tactics employed by your competitors. Consider elements like website structure, content marketing, social media presence, email campaigns, SEO strategies, and paid advertising. For example, if your competitor is excelling in content marketing, analyze their content creation frequency, quality, and engagement metrics to identify areas for improvement in your strategy.

Monitor Competitors’ Organic Search Engine Presence

In the digital age, a strong online presence is crucial. Benchmark your website's performance, organic search ranking, and backlink profile against competitors. Tools like Moz, SEMrush, or Ahrefs can help you gather and compare data on keyword rankings, domain authority, and backlink quality. Analyzing these metrics can guide your SEO efforts and content optimization strategies.

Analyze Social Media Presence

Social media is a key marketing channel for most businesses. Analyze your competitors' social media presence, including the number of followers, engagement rates, and the types of content that generate the most interaction. Tools like Socialbakers or Hootsuite can provide insights into competitor social media performance. Be sure to check all major platforms for profiles, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

Evaluate Email Marketing Efforts

Email marketing remains a potent tool for connecting with customers. Benchmark your email marketing campaigns against your competitors in terms of open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. Pay attention to factors like subject lines, email content, and segmentation strategies for improved results. Gaining insights into competitors’ email campaigns may be difficult without expensive third-party platforms or data.

Assess Customer Reviews & Feedback

Customer feedback and reviews can provide valuable insights. Compare your competitors' online reputation by examining review platforms and social media comments. Address any recurring issues or negative trends in customer feedback to improve your own reputation. Additionally, audit content for ideas on how to improve your own products and services based on competitive customer feedback.

Understand Advertising Spend

Understanding how much your competitors invest in marketing can be enlightening. While you may not have access to their exact budgets, you can make educated estimates based on their advertising spend and the types of campaigns they run. Tools like Semrush, SpyFu or Adbeat can help in this regard. The most valuable (albeit difficult to obtain) data is click-through and conversion data.

Measure and Report Results

Don’t forget to track the results of your marketing benchmarking efforts and communicate them within your organization. Share successes, lessons learned, and areas for improvement to ensure that everyone understands the value of the benchmarking process. Use these insights to further refine your marketing strategies and tactics. My general rule of thumb is to ensure parity with competitors in terms of overall presence and content strategy, then look for opportunities to differentiate further.

While there are many components to an effective competitive benchmarking program, following the best practices outlined above provides invaluable insights that inform marketing strategies. By focusing on marketing-specific elements, brand marketers can gain insights that drive the success of marketing efforts and ultimately provide a strategic advantage. Keep in mind, the benchmarking process is more than a one-time exercise; it’s an ongoing commitment to staying ahead of the competition in the dynamic world of marketing.