Conducting a Competitive Analysis Using Video Explanation

A competitive analysis (CA) is a very valuable exercise, giving a company clarity about their market and confidence in making knowledgeable decisions. It involves researching, analyzing, and comparing competitors in relation to your company. The aim is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, find strategies that will provide your company with a distinct advantage, establish barriers to prevent competition from entering the market, and identify weaknesses that can be exploited. If you want to succeed in today’s business world, conducting a competitive analysis is a necessity.

Questions to Ask for a Competitive Analysis:

A competitive analysis should answer the following questions, for each one of the competitors identified:

1. What are the strengths of the competitor?
2. What are the weaknesses of the competitor?
3. How effective is their marketing plan?
4. How strong is the competitor’s financial reserve?

How to Find Relevant Information:

1. Use a search engine, like Google, to find articles and reports that shed some light on how each competitor’s business operates.
2. Visit your competitors’ premises in order to determine what they stock, who they employ, how they sell, etc.
3. To examine their marketing tools, take note of local advertisements, sign up at their website, or request information as a customer.
4. Look through content mediums like their website, magazines, even the local newspaper – local companies may feature in the area newspaper, which may reveal valuable information about your competitor.

Applying the Information:

All information gathered needs to be made available to your team, so that your company’s strategy can be adapted if necessary. The Competitive Analysis can be shared in the form of a report that summarizes where you have an advantage over each competitor, and where you have opportunities for improvement. However, a far more engaging way to share the findings with your team would be to make use of short explainer videos.

Using Explainer Videos in Competitive Analysis:

1. In addition to providing your team with copies of a CA report, also create and share explainer videos on each of the categories in the report. Then, lead your team in a discussion session in order to come up with ideas for gaining an edge over your competitors.
2. Another approach could be to use explainer videos at the beginning of the CA process. Reveal your main competitors to your team by means of mysimpleshow videos. (For example, create a short video on each competitor, in order to explain the competitor’s business and highlight why they can be considered competition.)

Using this as a starting point, guide your team to tackle the following areas:-

-Identify the customers that your competitors tend to attract.

-Investigate how your competitors price their products and services.

-Examine how your competitors’ marketing works.

-Determine what makes each competitor unique.

-Consider all the aspects of your competition’s business and determine whether they are strengths or weaknesses.

-Review your own competitive advantage – try to identify areas where you can do much better than your competitors.

3. Once a competitive analysis has been completed, the team can report back by means of mysimpleshow videos to ensure optimal engagement and to take potential laboriousness out of the whole process – i.e. the need to read your way through never-ending reports will be minimized.
4. For each competitor, create a video that explains their product or service, prices and profitability, growth pattern, marketing strategies, organizational structure, strengths and weaknesses, and sales of the competitor’s business. Again, this will help your team to decide what to do next in terms of improving your company’s own position in the market.
5. For each of the areas in your competitive analysis, create different videos – each showing your product compared to your competitors’ products, or your pricing compared to your competitors’ pricing, etc. Other categories that you may want to consider include distribution, promotion, marketing, and advertising.
6. Communicate your strategies by means of explainer videos. Once your competitive analysis has been completed, you need to determine key assets and skills necessary to excel in your business field. By communicating your competitive advantage clearly in each video, your team will understand your strategy and understand how you intend to reach your goals.

To ensure that your business not only survives, but actually thrives, it is paramount to conduct an analysis of your competitors and how your business compares. From time to time, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your competition in order to formulate how to give your company an advantage.