How to Deliver Competitive Communications Overviews (10 Points to Include)
Summary: How to Deliver a Competitive Communications Overview
Identify Key Competitors
Start With the Home Page of Competitors’ Websites
Review Typical Section Head Web Pages
Follow All Competitors’ Social Media Platforms
Sign Up for Competitors’ Email
Review Competitors’ Offline Presence Where Possible
Profile Competitors’ Customers
Search Typical Keywords and Phrases
Include Your Client in the Overview
Do a SWOT Summary
In my agencies, we often delivered projects beyond copywriting, design, and programming. One of my favorite jobs was to complete a competitive communications overview. It was usually a project we suggested to the client, and they agreed to pay for it.
There are two key reasons to do this type of project: your client has never done it in an organized fashion, and you will uncover a wealth of information to help you in your communications.
In our experience, this overview was most effective for small and medium-size clients who didn’t have the bandwidth to do this themselves.
The focus of this was strictly communications—anything that the competitor’s customers and stakeholders would see or experience. We didn’t cover how the businesses were run, structured, or whether they were profitable.
For this overview, we reviewed as many aspects of the competitor’s communications as possible to better understand their messaging, positioning, offers, and media choices. Ultimately, our goal was to see how we stacked up, where we could improve, and where we saw the client’s best opportunities for growth.
10 Points to Include in a Competitive Communications Overview
1. Identify Your Key Competitors
Note the word “key”. Depending on your product or service, you may have dozens or hundreds of competitors.
Choose the ones that are most relevant to your client either because they go head-to-head against them in their markets or the competitors are new and innovative, and it’s important to keep track of them.
Agree to review up to a dozen competitors. It’s essential to limit the number of competitors, so you don’t find yourself in endless scope creep.
2. Start with the Home Page of Competitors’ Websites
A company’s home page gives you the perfect overview of their communications. Here you’ll see:
Style and design
Key messages, offers, loyalty programs
Audience segmentation—who are they talking to?
Links to their social media, email sign-ups
Other functionality which could include tools such as calculators, surveys
Footer links that often lead to secondary, yet critical areas of information
Make your first few pages of findings about everything you found on the home page.
3. Review Typical Section Head Web Pages
Sites that offer more than one product are usually built in sections where each section head page acts as a home page for that section.
Here you’ll see how they deal with product features and benefits. On B2B sites, this is where you’ll often find offers for white papers, specific newsletter sign-ups, customer service chat, etc.
This will give you an idea of how deep they dive into their communications for each product.
4. Follow All Competitors’ Social Media Platforms
Sign up for all social media, screen capture typical pages, and review messages and interactions. Note how they use social media (do they just broadcast or do they interact, handle complaints, etc.).
Compile stats such as followers and likes.
Depending on the client, observe how important any platform seems to be for their business. You can also “test” their responses by interacting and leaving comments to see whether or how they respond.
Pro Tip: Create a new email account for this. That way, you get everything for this project in one place and separate from your other email.
5. Sign Up for Competitors’ Emails
Similar to interacting with social media, look for opportunities to sign up for email newsletters and announcements, noting the sign-up process, incentive offers, funnel messages, etc.
Capture key screens along the way to comment on design and messages. Note the frequency of emails.
You can learn a lot from their emails. Email is often the closest relationship they have with their customers. What are they saying? What are the offers?
6. Review Competitors’ Offline Presence Where Possible
For clients whose products are available at retail, do store checks to find their products and displays. Discreetly, take photos, note packaging where appropriate.
If your client is a retailer, note the look and feel of the store, inside and out.
Some B2B clients have their own delivery trucks. If possible, find and photograph a truck.
For one of our clients, we used their trucks as moving billboards with super graphics. They became quite noticeable to their clients and within the industry. We then used photos of the trucks on the client’s website. “Look for our trucks!” Far cheaper than buying media!
7. Profile Competitors’ Customers
Since these are your client’s competitors, their customers are much like your client’s customers. So why profile them?
You want to learn how these competitors speak to their customers. What are they saying compared to what your client says to the same people? You may be surprised by the different approaches taken by various competitors. Is there something to be learned here?
8. Search Typical Keywords and Phrases
A competitive communications overview doesn’t encompass a technical SEO overview. However, doing searches of keywords, phrases, and product names can bring up reviews, mentions in articles, and other information that may be useful in an overview.
Watch and note how your client stacks up in search results. Take screenshots.
9. Include Your Client in the Overview
While looking at the competitors, make sure you also include your client using the same format and criteria. It will point out apparent gaps or strengths.
It may come as a surprise to you, but many companies never take the time to look at their own materials or campaigns in a holistic way. This is an opportunity for your client to review their messages and materials. Which, in turn, could be an opportunity for you to update them.
10. Do a SWOT Summary
Now that you have an overview of the competitors, do a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats summary. Your client will likely have a feeling for some of this, but again, it’s unlikely that they’ve ever seen it laid out with graphics in a document. It can be a powerful piece to determine future projects and emphasis.
Why You Want to Deliver a Competitive Communications Overview
The results of this kind of project are often very enlightening for your client. I remember one client shaking his head, thanking us for the project, and saying he had to take it home with him to study over the weekend.
Many clients are so busy with their day-to-day work, they simply don’t have time to look around and see what’s happening in their marketplace.
Your client may recognize that their communications are dated, that they really should pay more attention to social media, that perhaps their newsletter needs a serious revamp.
Selfishly, you want to do this type of assignment because it’s a change from your regular jobs, and you get an education while you’re doing it.
What You Need to Create a Competitive Communications Overview
To do this project, you need five things:
An outline. Create the outline for this when you write the project estimate for the client. Say what you’re going to deliver and use it as a framework for the job.
Curiosity to want to learn about the competitors and the ability to then write concise summaries and overviews for all of the findings.
Patience and judgement to follow through on all the threads you’ll discover as you go. You’ll also have to determine how and where to limit the project since it’s easy to go down endless rabbit holes here.
A designer to lay order to the document.
Judgement to answer the one question the client will surely ask: What do we do now? Pro Tip: In a separate document, have a recommendation ready. You’ve just uncovered a gold mine of information. Now act on it.
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