Once you determine whom you are going to target for your mobile app, then it’s time to analyze your competition to identify what your products is up against in the app market. According to the reports from Statista, it confirms that the users can choose from an estimated 6.5 million apps between the world’s leading app stores. With so many options, competitive analysis is an essential part of business strategy to stay ahead. Successful mobile app development delivers an end product which has added value to users and solves their pain points. However, your app won’t be successful if your competition has more to offer to the end users. So, below are the techniques which can help you to establish a competitive edge.
What is Competitive Analysis?
Competitive analysis is nothing but an identifying and evaluating your current and potential competition’s strengths and weakness relative to those of your whole app or even some of its features.
Know Your Unique Value Proposition - Know your unique value proposition is all about discovering your competition’s strengths and weakness so, building a product which offers the same features as the competition will not help you win end users. UVP is the backbone of your competitive advantage and arguably one of the most important conversion factors for your product. It is also a primary step which needs to consider in your overall product strategy. It helps to convince customers to choose your product over other available options.
Along with that, UVP should be the first thing customers should see when they visit your website. And when you are analyzing the competition look for their UVP to understand the value which they are offering with their product. Mostly app development companies provide product design and discovery sessions to help you set product goals. So, one of the primary steps in the design and discovery process is to identify your products vision statement, minimum marketable features, and target audience. All of the deliverables will help you to understand your competitive edge.
Profiling current competition - Once you are done with UVP, you should get the idea of who your current competitors are, make a list of five competitors to determine their strengths through a general search. If other companies use the same keywords, then you will most likely be competing for a resource who assembles data about your competition including revenue, events, company initiatives, etc. While conducting a general search look at your competitors target audience, revenue product offering and features, customer support, and marketing strategy. Research about the competing products is just as important as how they target, market and interact with their end users.
Examine Their Online Presence - For examining their online presence, social media enable multiple opportunities for competitive research which go far beyond the number of followers they have. Following your competitor’s social media accounts and subscribe to their newsletters and blogs to learn how they brand themselves online along with that take a look at who follows and how do they acquire their followers? You should look into ideas for engagement with these influencers.
Analyze Their Content Marketing Strategy - Analyzing your competitor’s content marketing strategy holds significant value. It helps to reveal insights into their targeted set of users. Analyze their publication frequency, quality, and relevance to their product or services and how they target their user with the help of their content. By looking at all the platform your competition leverages, you can gain a better understanding of what format types their audience enjoys. A significant advantage of examining marketing channels is each channel typically has a visible marker of popularity.
Ask Prospective Users - Collecting user’s feedback is a simple yet accurate way to confirm your assumption about the direct competition to improve your product and the marketing strategy.
Ask the Business Experts - Another useful technique while conducting competitive research is to talk with other business experts in the industry you can ask what has worked, and what hasn’t or any future trends which they foresee.
Keep an Eye on Indirect Competition - Maybe this technique does not seem significant although, it will prove beneficial because indirect competition still gives a threat when it comes to targeting the same set of users. Where they are not building mobile application development services, but still winning over your users somehow with another product or service. Don’t focus on the products or service which they offer but instead, look for how they are targeting and retaining their users. Also, what makes them successful in doing so? What areas do they need to improve? Where there is an overlap with your company? Will, they became a direct competitor in the future? Competitive research should go beyond the product itself to examine its overall branding strategy and management.
Attend Industry Conferences - Conferences help to learn about your competitors about what they are offering. So, here you will get to see how your competition interacts with customers and how they attract customers.
So, for wrapping up, it is essential to avoid imitating your competition after conducting research, but preferably, you should be able to understand the behaviors of how users are interacting with other brands whether it’s direct or indirect. A simple assessment of online presence is often not enough which is why this technique will help you to cover all bases so that you can enter the app market.
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