As the world’s largest network of digital marketing agencies, we have seen first-hand how COVID-19 has affected the businesses we work with. To help overcome these challenges, and as a way of giving back to our valued clients, we have created this webinar series called “Ahead of the Curve”. Here is a recap of our webinar on how to analyze the marketing activities of your competitors to get ahead by Francois Muscat from Johannesburg, South Africa.
Why Doing an Updated Competitive Analysis is Important During COVID-19
To tone up your digital marketing strategy, you need to stay on top of the latest trends and understand how consumers’ behavior has changed. As part of an overall marketing audit, a competitive analysis indicates where your strengths and weaknesses currently exist by benchmarking against others.
Take the time to plan for a successful marketing strategy moving forward. Instead of pausing your efforts, you should continue with the momentum of the time, effort, and resources you have already invested into your digital marketing.
Especially because search engine optimization (SEO) takes time to show results, the effort you put in now will pay off in the latter part of 2020 – when we are hopefully back to normal.
Which Types of Marketing Audits We Recommend Every Business Should Complete
Website audit. Check that your communication – from marketing message to call-to-actions (CTAs) – reflects the current situation. Fix errors such as slow pages and broken links.
SEO audit. Use tools like SEOMinion (free) or SEMRush (paid) to determine how well your keywords and organic rankings are performing; and compare them to how well your competitors’ sites are doing. This will give you ideas about pages you may need to add to your website
Content audit. Content drives search traffic and improves visitor conversion. Review the quantity and quality of your content, especially its relevance in 2020. Republish updated blogs or merge them to create pillar content.
Social audit. Especially now that your clients can’t pop in, social media is an easy way to communicate directly with them. Again, review your size and relevance on appropriate social networks. Visit your competitors’ pages for inspiration on how to improve your engagement.
How to Identify your Strengths and Weaknesses by Benchmarking Against Competition
If this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that we need to pull together rather than step on competitors. However, benchmarking your digital presence against that of your rivals helps to reveal where and how you can strengthen your position.
With the input of your local WSI consultant, create a competitor positioning chart to easily visualize where you need to direct your focus.
How to Prioritize Your Efforts When Implementing Your Research and Insight
- Use analytics to see how current events are impacting users and adapt your digital strategy accordingly.
- Work on improving your website’s lower-ranking keywords with inbound links.
- Customize content strategy ideas from your competitors’ best-performing pages.
WSI Healthy Digital Solutions – here to help in any way we can to keep your business moving forward
For more details on a Competitive Analysis, contact us or read the article about Competitive Analysis.
