Using Competitive Research to Drive Marketing Strategy

updated March 11, 2026

One of the best ways to drive incremental revenue for your business is to study the marketplace and identify ways to generate additional value for customers. All companies share the goal of generating profit while serving customer needs. The better you understand how others in your industry are solving problems, the better positioned you will be to communicate how your company is different and why someone should choose to seek products or services from you instead of other options in the marketplace.

Here are the 5 steps you should take when conducting competitive research.

1. Define Your Competition: Identify the 3 to 4 companies that provide similar products or services.

2. Explore Competitions' Digital Footprint: Review the services, messaging, and images.

3. Define Competitors' Strengths: Evaluate what makes your competitors special and unique.

4. Find Their Gaps: Identify what your competitors are not talking about. This can be a space where you can communicate differentiation.

Define Your Competition:

The first thing you should do is define your main competitors. Start by identifying 3 to 4 companies that provide similar products or services to your company. The US Chamber of Commerce recommends that small business owners take a customer perspective when conducting competitive research. This will help you see why a customer would choose to purchase from your competition.

Your research should include local and national companies. Start with a Google search focused on your #1 product or service. Explore the digital footprint of the top-ranking companies in your search results. PWC research has found that 55% of consumers rely on search to pre-screen which companies they should purchase products and services from. Examining your competitors' websites and social media can help you to determine how to position your offering for success. If you are having a hard time identifying your competition, ask your favorite AI tool, "Based on what you know about my business, who are potential competitors?"

When defining competition, ask yourself:

• Who else in the marketplace is offering similar products and services?

• What alternatives do customers have to solve the problem my company solves?

• What unmet needs does my company not currently serve?

Example: If you do a Google search for executive coaches, Korn Ferry and BetterUp are at the top of your search. Both are huge organizations with large marketing departments tasked with studying the marketplace and converting prospects into clients. Their websites can serve as an example of how to market your business. Both have bold images, clear messaging, and direct paths for consumers to learn more about their companies.

Pro Tip: Once you have identified your competitors, ask your favorite AI tool to review their websites for strengths and weaknesses and provide a summary.

What AI Tool do you use for research?

• CoPilot
• Gemini
• ChatGPT
• Claude

See All Options

Explore Competitions' Digital Footprint

Now that you have defined 3 to 4 companies, you can review and explore their websites like a customer.

When exploring their website, ask yourself:

• What things do you like about how they talk about their company, products, and services?

• What images resonate with you?

• How do they nudge prospects from consideration to close?

The goal of this research is to understand your competitors' customer journeys. In doing so, you can capture ideas for improving your own. For tips on documenting a customer journey, check out this resource from User Interviews.

If your competition has a mailing list, sign up for it to understand the frequency, messaging, and calls to action it uses to attract and retain customers. Marketing is a multi-level process.

You start by building awareness and then creating interest, which leads to consideration, with the ultimate goal of a customer making a purchase. Email campaigns provide visibility to companies' methods of walking prospects through the sales process.

You should also follow the company on social media. Examine how frequently the company posts, what it talks about, and how people engage online. By following your competitors, you will gain valuable insight into their reputation, customer perspective, messaging, and positioning. The more you understand how your competitors communicate their offerings, the easier it will be to identify potential weaknesses.

Example: When Nintendo developed the Wii console, it intended to create an easy-to-play system that the entire family could enjoy. It studied the market and learned that many children and older adults did not purchase their competitors' consoles because they were too complex. By understanding their competitors' strengths and weaknesses, Nintendo could exploit this weakness and tap into a new market.

Pro Tip: Ask your favorite AI tool to review Google, Yelp, and other customer review resources and provide feedback on what customers say about the company.

Define Competitors' Strengths.

Defining your competitors' strengths can help you determine your marketing strategy. Start by writing down the strengths you observe while reviewing their digital footprint.  Pay attention to what people like about your competitors.

For example, when I was conducting competitive research for a pest control company, we found that clients from his competitor mentioned things like:

• "The service is affordable."

• "The customer service is responsive."

• "The company is dependable."

These are all attributes your potential customers are looking for. We kept this in mind as we updated the language on his website. We wanted to make sure we were using words and concepts that were important to the customers we aspired to attract. Integrating these keywords helped us to improve his organic traffic by over 15% in less than 60 days.

There will be times when you identify that a competitor is stronger than you in a particular segment of business. When this occurs, you have a few choices. You can invest time and money to get better. Or you can shift your focus towards other parts of the business where you have a competitive advantage. Defining your competitors' strengths can help you make these strategic decisions.

Example: Over the last decade, many American car manufacturers have shifted their focus from sedans to trucks and SUVs. This shift was partly driven by Asian car manufacturers, who began making cars that were perceived as equally, if not better, valued. American manufacturers determined their competitive advantage was in building larger vehicles, so they shifted their focus to a market they believed they could win.

Pro Tip: Identify your competitors' strengths and rank them against yours. Identify what you believe you can do better than your competitors, and focus on those aspects in your marketing and outreach.

Find Competitors' Gaps:

As you explore your competitors' digital footprint, take time to read customer reviews. When customers take the time to write a negative review, they signal to the market that they will spend their money elsewhere. Your role is to listen to those customers and communicate how you can better serve them than others in the marketplace.

When doing research for the pest control company I mentioned earlier, we found comments like:

• "They did not honor their commitment."

• "Seemed expensive based on what I received."

• "I found the company to be unresponsive."

Complaints are signs from customers to companies that their needs are unmet. As you identify unmet needs, you should break them into two groups.

• Needs we can meet now

• Capabilities we should build for the future

When you have products or services that are better than your competitors', your primary focus should be on raising awareness. There are many ways to raise awareness, but all involve communication, marketing, outreach, and promotion.

Example: Illy, a premium coffee brand, identified that consumers had a growing desire to purchase coffee from ethically sourced companies. Seeing this demand and the lack of focus among other coffee manufacturers on ethical sourcing, they decided to embed environmental and social responsibility into their marketing plan. They put processes and procedures in place to ensure the beans they purchased were ethically sourced. Then they began to market this commitment to customers, which has led to consistent year-over-year sales and profit growth for the company.

Pro tip: Identify areas that are strengths for you but weaknesses for your competition, and embed messaging addressing these gaps into your website, social media, and other content development elements.

Using Competitive Research to Drive Marketing Strategy

Conducting market research is a great way to develop ideas to improve your revenue and refine your marketing strategy. Driving revenue growth is a two-step process.

• Step one is to identify the unique problem your company can solve for customers.

• Step two is to communicate your solution effectively to prospects.

Competitive research can raise your awareness of marketplace opportunities and give you ideas for improving your positioning, messaging, and customer journey.  

Thank you for reading the latest installment of this 15-week blog series about Your Path to Business Success in 2025. If this is your first time reading, we encourage you to revisit the first four articles. Next week's article will be on refining and optimizing your offerings.

If you have any questions about this topic, feel free to email me at dcuion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com.

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