How To Find Competitors Of A Company | Techniques & Tools

Looking to outsmart your competition? It all starts with knowing who they are!

True, finding and analyzing your company's competitors is a key first step in making your mark. Once you know who you’re up against, you can see where you stand, find new opportunities, and improve your offerings.

Why Is It Important To Find Your Company's Competitors?

As a company owner, you need to know who and what you’re up against in order to:

Benchmark Your Performance

By checking what your competitors are doing, you can compare your pricing, features, marketing strategies, and customer service to theirs in order to gauge your market position and see what you need to work on.

Identifying Opportunities

Competitor analysis can reveal market gaps, unmet customer needs, and all kinds of opportunities to differentiate your products/services or target overlooked customer segments.

Improving Your Offerings

A deep dive into competitors’ strengths and weaknesses can reveal what works and what doesn't. Such information helps improve what you offer and how you market it.

Developing Effective Marketing Strategies

What’s your competitors’ message? Who do they target, and how? Looking into questions like these may well show you what resonates with audiences similar to yours or what approaches aren’t working for your competitors.

But before analyzing your competitors' strategies, you need to find them first!

How To Find Company Competitors

There are lots of different channels and sources to dig in and identify competitors. Here are some suggestions:

Use Search Engines

Kick-start your quest for competitors with keywords related to your industry or product. Then, see which websites come up on top.

Check Industry Directories & Review Sites

Search by niche category or location on websites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, or G2 to get a list of potential competitors.

Attend Industry Events & Trade Shows

This rather old-school PR tactic still works! Why not look for competitors where they hang out in person?

Read Industry Publications

Industry news sites often share interviews, case studies, advertorials, and company-focused articles. They can help you spot new entrants or up-and-coming competitors.

Monitor Social Media

Follow industry-related groups and discussions on social media where your potential competitors are active.

So, now that you’ve put together a nice list of competitors, the next step is to categorize them.

Categorizing Your Competitors

There are four types of competitors:

• Direct competitors
• Indirect competitors
• Substitute competitors
• New entrants

Let’s look into each group in more detail.

What Is Direct Competition?

Direct competition describes businesses that offer very similar products or services to yours and have the same target market as yours. Essentially, these businesses are your rivals in the market, vying for the same customers and aiming to capture a larger slice of the market share.

How To Identify Direct Competitors?

To identify your direct competitors, consider these factors:

Do They Offer The Same Products Or Services As You?

Direct competitors have significant overlap in their product or service offerings, targeting the same customer needs.

Do They Share Your Target Audience?

Analyze your customer demographics, buying habits, and preferences. Direct competitors will target a similar customer profile.

Are They Competing In The Same Geographic Area?

Local competitors are nearby brick-and-mortar businesses. They may run paid ads and local SEO campaigns - or not.

What Do Your Customers Say?

Direct feedback is an excellent way to get real answers from real people. Ask your clients which other businesses or products they considered before choosing yours or any other information that influenced their purchasing decision.

What Are Indirect Competitors?

Indirect competitors are businesses that offer different products or services but still fulfill the same customer need or solve the same problem. They may not be your direct rivals vying for the exact same customers, but they can still impact your business by attracting customers who might have otherwise chosen your offerings.

How To Identify Indirect Competitors?

To find your indirect competitors, you need to dig a bit deeper. Here are some things you can do:

Analyze SERP Results

Examine websites and businesses that rank for keywords relevant to yours.

Give extra attention to the featured snippets that come up in individual searches - especially the "People also ask" section. Also, check the "Related searches" that often highlight indirect competitors.

Website Traffic Analysis

Website analytics include the referral sources driving traffic to your website. So, if you see visitors coming from websites or platforms unrelated to your direct competitors, this could indicate possible indirect competitors.

Online Advertising Analysis

Examine the online advertising strategies of your direct competitors. Platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads offer free peeks into keywords and demographics that others target. So, why not use them to your advantage?

What Are Replacement (Substitute) Competitors?

Replacement competitors offer different products or services that fulfill the same need or solve the same problem as your business. While not directly similar, they target the same customer pool by providing alternatives - e.g., bicycles and public transportation may compete with car companies by serving as transportation options.

How To Find Replacement Competitors

Though there are all kinds of methods to identify replacement (or substitute) competitors, here are some tangible ways to go about it:

Consult Industry Reports & Market Analyses

Credible market research reports often segment the market and identify key players, including indirect competitors. Looking into market analyses also helps you identify potential indirect competitors that leverage new technologies or approaches to fulfill customer needs.

Shift From Needs To Outcomes

Instead of solely focusing on the problem a customer is trying to solve, consider what they ultimately want to achieve, in other words, their desired end state.

Analyze Customer Value Perception

Discuss with your team: What aspects of a solution do customers value most? What motivates their choices, and what trade-offs are they willing to make? Understanding these factors can reveal unexpected replacement competitors.

What Are New Entrants/Competitors?

New entrant competitors are companies that are relatively new to a market or industry and pose a potential threat to existing businesses. They often bring new ideas, technologies, or business models that can challenge established players. Identifying new entrants is crucial to remain competitive and adapt to evolving market dynamics.

How To Identify New Entrants?

Keeping track of new entrants helps you remain competitive. Here are some things you can do:

Set Up Google Alerts

In your Google account, set up alerts for specific industry keywords and competing brand mentions. Alert notifications will help you spot new companies as they gain media attention or start promoting their products and services.

Use Social Listening Tools

Select a social listening tool, like Sprout Social or BuzzSumo, to track mentions of your industry, competitors, and relevant keywords. This can help you identify conversations about new entrants and understand how the market perceives them.

Utilize Competitive Intelligence Platforms

Subscribe to competitive intelligence platforms that track new entrants and emerging trends across various industries. Some also provide comprehensive information about startups and private companies, including their founding date, funding history, team members, and industry focus.

Read Through Conference LineUps

Keep an eye on the speaker lineup and exhibitor list for conferences and webinars. New entrants often use these platforms to gain visibility and establish themselves as thought leaders in their respective fields.

And remember, you don’t need to waste lots of time and resources filtering and analyzing competitors. There are many online tools you can use.

Tools For Identifying Competitors

Here’s a list of the popular applications that’ll facilitate competitor discovery and analysis.

Tools To Analyze Competitor Strategies

Contify & Crayon

Competitive intelligence platforms that specialize in gathering and analyzing competitor data. They provide insights into other people's strategies, market positioning, pricing trends, and more.

Software Company Review Apps - B2B

G2, Capterra & Clutch

These online apps include competitor information and B2B user reviews, mainly for SaaS companies. It is a great way to see what their customers say, read detailed pricing and features comparisons, and, in essence, get a better idea of how your offerings stack up against the competition (shape your strategy accordingly!)

Company Directories Databases

Crunchbase & Owle

Provide business information about private and public companies and their competitors. Use them to identify new entrants and find information about a company's funding, investors, founders, employees, news, and acquisitions.

Such information lets you understand your (potential) competitors’ financial standing, growth trajectory, and overall business strategy.

Industry Report Tools

Gartner & Forrester

These leading research and advisory firms provide insights, analysis, and recommendations on technology and business trends. Their reports often include competitor analysis, market share data, and predictions about future trends that’ll help you benchmark your company against competitors and identify potential threats and opportunities.

Website Visibility Apps

SEMrush, Ahrefs & Moz

Powerful SEO and digital marketing tools that analyze traffic, keywords, and backlinks for competitor websites - as well as your own. You can use them in all kinds of ways to outrank your competitors in SERPs.

Tools For Building & Maintaining Competitive Intelligence

Kompyte

A competitive intelligence platform that provides real-time insights into competitor activity and tracks their websites, social media, and news mentions to provide you with a comprehensive view of what they are up to.

SimilarWeb & Crayon

Digital intelligence platforms that monitor website traffic, engagement data, and insights into competitor strategies and social media activity.

How Search Engine Optimization Helps Find & Outperform Your Competitors

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques can help you identify current and emerging competitors and, most importantly, strengthen your SERP presence before others do.

SEO is also the best way to outperform competitors online without ephemeral paid ads. It helps improve website visibility, target the right audience organically, enhance user experience, and much more.

To reap all the benefits SEO has to offer, contact our team at Atropos Digital SEO Agency and book a strategy call.