Have you had many mentors or coaches or trainers telling you to do competitor analysis? But when you've tried to do it, it's made no sense to you, and you haven't really understood what it's all about. In today's episode, we're going to dive into what is the purpose of competitor analysis for your business, how much valuable information you can gain By googling your various competitors. I know competitor analysis is something that I've procrastinated about, And when I did have attempts at looking at it over the years, I never really found anything worthwhile. However, recently, I had a mentor go through with me how to do competitor analysis properly, and I found a wealth of information from doing it. It gave me confirmation that the niche that I'd been looking at and working towards for many months was a genuine niche and that there was at least 1 competitor who was making a large amount of money from working with the people I want to work with.
So why are we looking at our competitors? One of the reasons, as I mentioned just then, was about validating your niche, And while you may think that it's bad to have competitors as you would if you had a bricks and mortar store, having no competitors when you're looking up your niche is worse because if there is no established market in the area that you're wanting to focus on, It's possibly telling you that there is no one out there who is looking for your solution or willing to pay for it anyway. It may not be so and if you market your product or service well, you may be able to find your potential clients. But it also might mean that there may not be a viable market for what you are currently proposing to sell.
Whereas, if there are people out there having a successful market already, it means that there could also be a viable market for your product and service. So what do you need to do when you are googling for competitors? You need to ask like you are your potential client, and type in the questions that they would be typing in, in order to find a business that can provide them with the answers they seek. And this moment right now is the reason why a really specific niche rules, because potential clients will more often be typing in a specific question and if they do happen to type in a vague question, They are going to be inundated with businesses fighting for SEO dominance with their broad similar niches. Whereas, in answer to a specific question, they will find a limited number of businesses focusing on answering that specific question. It is worthwhile trying a few different questions and see which businesses appear in answer to those questions Because you may find there's 1 who shows up with all the questions that you ask, and there may be different businesses who pop up with the different questions.
A really good business focusing on your particular niche will likely not just be on all the pages with their website, but they may also be showing up with Google Ads as well, just to make it a sure thing. Once you find that there are competitors who are currently successfully selling to a niche similar to yours, you can begin to look at what your competitors are doing. And there are a number of things that you can look at here, including who they appear to be marketing towards, what their marketing messages are, Is their marketing message consistent throughout their website? Is their marketing message consistent across their website and social media where they are active which social media sites these competitors are active on what products and services they are selling, and in some cases, what the prices are, although not everyone includes prices on their websites.
It may include whether or not they have a blog or a podcast, whether they do webinars or a challenge, And what other things they're using in their marketing, including what they're using for their lead magnets, as well as things like branding, colors, Logo and business name. So when I looked at my competitors recently and with discussions I've had with some of my clients, one of the standard things that you find is that websites that some competitors have who are active in the market are not very good quality And I mean some websites are really disorganized, or they're just complicated to find information, Oh, they just have really hideously clashing color screens that make you wanna run away. At least in itself, this is very reassuring from the point of view that there people who are managing to be in business and be successful even if their website is not very good.
While it means that you don't need to have a brilliant website be successful, it does mean that if you do spend the time and effort to get a really good website, it is going to hold up well against those competitors that don't have a good website. I've also found that some of my competitors and competitors of my clients did not have a consistent message across their website and their social media. For instance, for one of my clients, there was a social media site where the competitor named themselves as exactly the type of coach that this client was wanting to be. But when we looked at the website, there was no mention of that type of coaching on the website at all. And this is such an important lesson because one of the things that potential clients are looking for is certainty.
And if you do not have consistent colours across your brand and all your brand sites and a consistent message across all your brand sites, If a potential client is looking in more than 1 place at your product and services or where they're offered, then they're going to be confused by what is there when they go to one site and it's offering them what they need, and then they go to another site and it's not offering what they This situation is likely to end with the client going to someone else who has a consistent message, who has consistent branding because Then it's going to initially, at an emotional level, give them that feeling of certainty they are seeking. And as you look at your competitors, you can try and connect to that feeling yourself about how it makes you feel when you look at a competitor who has inconsistent branding colours or inconsistent messages and tap into the feeling of what it would be like as a client looking for Certainty and seeing that inconsistency.
However, I would caution you not to dismiss outright the competitors who have that inconsistent messages or branding because they can still be value in the messages that are there as there may be messages that are useful for your potential clients that you can think about getting your version of that message into your branding or marketing and this is another of the valuable things you can find from your competitors. If a competitor is aiming at a similar niche to yours and a similar ideal client here, Then you can look at their messages, the titles that they have on their websites or on their social media, and look at how the message appeals to you, particularly if the issue you're solving is one that you've had in the past and have gone through it, because you can think back to when you had the issue and what you felt like at the time, and look at those messages and see if they would have appealed to you back then. And with messaging, if you've done your potential client interviews by now or you've started doing them, you can look at whether or not your competitors are aiming their messages At the deeper issue that the clients are not aware of or the issues that they are able to allow themselves to have awareness of,
This is another way of assessing how good your competitors' messaging is, but it also gives you examples of when they are getting their messages right. It gives you ideas on what messaging you can use in your website and even in your posting because you can also look at your competitors' social media sites for the ones that are doing a good job with their marketing, and you can see the kinds of issues that they're posting about and what versions of marketing they are using that may be feeding into their success. Hopefully, you will find a competitor that has consistent messaging and consistent branding colours across their various sides and who we appear to be quite successful. In the case of my biggest competitor, They actually mention having sales of $100,000 per month or more that they make, which makes it easy for me to identify that they are successful.
However, not all competitors are going to be this useful for you and they won't have that kind of fear on their website or in their other marketing, One thing you can look for is the range of products that they are selling. If a competitor is only selling individual coaching or consulting, It's likely that they're early in their journey, although again I would not dismiss them for that reason because they may still have a very good set up and they may still have messages in their marketing that are worth looking at for your business.
However, those with a larger range of products or services Suggest that the person has had success, and therefore, they may have more to consider for you in your business. In this case, you can look at What online courses they are selling? What are the components of those courses? How long they do it over? They you know what group coaching or consulting products they have. And in this case, you can also consider what lead magnet they are using, As in what is the free product they are offering people to warm them up and move them along the journey towards becoming a purchaser? Because the fact that they have a range of products and services suggests that the process has worked well for them, And of those competitors that you've identified as being successful, it may be worth considering signing up for their free product in order to see what is being produced, although keeping in mind that people don't often actually read the free product in the case where it's an ebook. It's worth looking at particularly the title, what it's supposed to be offering, and what's the colors and styles of the ebook are And particularly whatever photo is on the website, because that's obviously what's drawing the eye and helping the person click on the button to go through and collect that free product.
If you have been procrastinating about setting up your website or organising your marketing messages, Looking at successful competitors can provide you with a great deal of information for working in the area of your selected niche. It can also help you choose brand colours that are working for the potential clients you are looking to attract, as well as the set out of the websites that are appealing and what to stay away from in websites that are not working well or are making you wanna feel like you wanna run away from them.
Now as I said at the start of the podcast, I did some really good competitor analysis only a couple of months ago with the help of a mentor who gave me a better understanding of what it is I should have been looking at and the information that I could have had months or even years ago. So I highly recommend that you go out and Google what it is you believe your potential client is looking for and pay attention to what businesses that are there and find whatever information you can about who's in that market and it's who is doing really well, and you send information to help you get your business up and running.
So why are we looking at our competitors? One of the reasons, as I mentioned just then, was about validating your niche, And while you may think that it's bad to have competitors as you would if you had a bricks and mortar store, having no competitors when you're looking up your niche is worse because if there is no established market in the area that you're wanting to focus on, It's possibly telling you that there is no one out there who is looking for your solution or willing to pay for it anyway. It may not be so and if you market your product or service well, you may be able to find your potential clients. But it also might mean that there may not be a viable market for what you are currently proposing to sell.
Whereas, if there are people out there having a successful market already, it means that there could also be a viable market for your product and service. So what do you need to do when you are googling for competitors? You need to ask like you are your potential client, and type in the questions that they would be typing in, in order to find a business that can provide them with the answers they seek. And this moment right now is the reason why a really specific niche rules, because potential clients will more often be typing in a specific question and if they do happen to type in a vague question, They are going to be inundated with businesses fighting for SEO dominance with their broad similar niches. Whereas, in answer to a specific question, they will find a limited number of businesses focusing on answering that specific question. It is worthwhile trying a few different questions and see which businesses appear in answer to those questions Because you may find there's 1 who shows up with all the questions that you ask, and there may be different businesses who pop up with the different questions.
A really good business focusing on your particular niche will likely not just be on all the pages with their website, but they may also be showing up with Google Ads as well, just to make it a sure thing. Once you find that there are competitors who are currently successfully selling to a niche similar to yours, you can begin to look at what your competitors are doing. And there are a number of things that you can look at here, including who they appear to be marketing towards, what their marketing messages are, Is their marketing message consistent throughout their website? Is their marketing message consistent across their website and social media where they are active which social media sites these competitors are active on what products and services they are selling, and in some cases, what the prices are, although not everyone includes prices on their websites.
It may include whether or not they have a blog or a podcast, whether they do webinars or a challenge, And what other things they're using in their marketing, including what they're using for their lead magnets, as well as things like branding, colors, Logo and business name. So when I looked at my competitors recently and with discussions I've had with some of my clients, one of the standard things that you find is that websites that some competitors have who are active in the market are not very good quality And I mean some websites are really disorganized, or they're just complicated to find information, Oh, they just have really hideously clashing color screens that make you wanna run away. At least in itself, this is very reassuring from the point of view that there people who are managing to be in business and be successful even if their website is not very good.
While it means that you don't need to have a brilliant website be successful, it does mean that if you do spend the time and effort to get a really good website, it is going to hold up well against those competitors that don't have a good website. I've also found that some of my competitors and competitors of my clients did not have a consistent message across their website and their social media. For instance, for one of my clients, there was a social media site where the competitor named themselves as exactly the type of coach that this client was wanting to be. But when we looked at the website, there was no mention of that type of coaching on the website at all. And this is such an important lesson because one of the things that potential clients are looking for is certainty.
And if you do not have consistent colours across your brand and all your brand sites and a consistent message across all your brand sites, If a potential client is looking in more than 1 place at your product and services or where they're offered, then they're going to be confused by what is there when they go to one site and it's offering them what they need, and then they go to another site and it's not offering what they This situation is likely to end with the client going to someone else who has a consistent message, who has consistent branding because Then it's going to initially, at an emotional level, give them that feeling of certainty they are seeking. And as you look at your competitors, you can try and connect to that feeling yourself about how it makes you feel when you look at a competitor who has inconsistent branding colours or inconsistent messages and tap into the feeling of what it would be like as a client looking for Certainty and seeing that inconsistency.
However, I would caution you not to dismiss outright the competitors who have that inconsistent messages or branding because they can still be value in the messages that are there as there may be messages that are useful for your potential clients that you can think about getting your version of that message into your branding or marketing and this is another of the valuable things you can find from your competitors. If a competitor is aiming at a similar niche to yours and a similar ideal client here, Then you can look at their messages, the titles that they have on their websites or on their social media, and look at how the message appeals to you, particularly if the issue you're solving is one that you've had in the past and have gone through it, because you can think back to when you had the issue and what you felt like at the time, and look at those messages and see if they would have appealed to you back then. And with messaging, if you've done your potential client interviews by now or you've started doing them, you can look at whether or not your competitors are aiming their messages At the deeper issue that the clients are not aware of or the issues that they are able to allow themselves to have awareness of,
This is another way of assessing how good your competitors' messaging is, but it also gives you examples of when they are getting their messages right. It gives you ideas on what messaging you can use in your website and even in your posting because you can also look at your competitors' social media sites for the ones that are doing a good job with their marketing, and you can see the kinds of issues that they're posting about and what versions of marketing they are using that may be feeding into their success. Hopefully, you will find a competitor that has consistent messaging and consistent branding colours across their various sides and who we appear to be quite successful. In the case of my biggest competitor, They actually mention having sales of $100,000 per month or more that they make, which makes it easy for me to identify that they are successful.
However, not all competitors are going to be this useful for you and they won't have that kind of fear on their website or in their other marketing, One thing you can look for is the range of products that they are selling. If a competitor is only selling individual coaching or consulting, It's likely that they're early in their journey, although again I would not dismiss them for that reason because they may still have a very good set up and they may still have messages in their marketing that are worth looking at for your business.
However, those with a larger range of products or services Suggest that the person has had success, and therefore, they may have more to consider for you in your business. In this case, you can look at What online courses they are selling? What are the components of those courses? How long they do it over? They you know what group coaching or consulting products they have. And in this case, you can also consider what lead magnet they are using, As in what is the free product they are offering people to warm them up and move them along the journey towards becoming a purchaser? Because the fact that they have a range of products and services suggests that the process has worked well for them, And of those competitors that you've identified as being successful, it may be worth considering signing up for their free product in order to see what is being produced, although keeping in mind that people don't often actually read the free product in the case where it's an ebook. It's worth looking at particularly the title, what it's supposed to be offering, and what's the colors and styles of the ebook are And particularly whatever photo is on the website, because that's obviously what's drawing the eye and helping the person click on the button to go through and collect that free product.
If you have been procrastinating about setting up your website or organising your marketing messages, Looking at successful competitors can provide you with a great deal of information for working in the area of your selected niche. It can also help you choose brand colours that are working for the potential clients you are looking to attract, as well as the set out of the websites that are appealing and what to stay away from in websites that are not working well or are making you wanna feel like you wanna run away from them.
Now as I said at the start of the podcast, I did some really good competitor analysis only a couple of months ago with the help of a mentor who gave me a better understanding of what it is I should have been looking at and the information that I could have had months or even years ago. So I highly recommend that you go out and Google what it is you believe your potential client is looking for and pay attention to what businesses that are there and find whatever information you can about who's in that market and it's who is doing really well, and you send information to help you get your business up and running.
