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A brand can’t walk blindly into the interactive marketing realm. Before any marketing plan can start take shape, a brand has to have an expert understanding of the playing field and the strategies and techniques its competitors have already put into action.
To gain this valuable insight, a brand needs to consider a competitive analysis. Without the level of understanding that can be received from the findings of such an analysis, a brand’s major marketing investment could prove to be money that is misspent.
According to Alan Gilleo, Executive Vice President and Creative Director of LeapFrog Interactive, a competitive analysis serves three key purposes.
one: Survey the marketplace and determine what interactive marketing approaches have been successful and if any can be adapted for the brand.
two: Understand the marketplace and the challenges that exist to protect the investment made when a brand engages in interactive marketing.
three: Provide the brand’s interactive marketing agency partner with a good means to examine the industry’s best practices and use this to fuel the development of original creative ideas for the brand.
If it is truly serious about interactive marketing, Gilleo asserts, a brand needs to invest in a comprehensive competitive analysis to gather all of the information it can so it can develop its interactive marketing strategy more confidently.
On average, LeapFrog Interactive invests over 300-400 hours of research and preparation into a comprehensive competitive analysis performed by a diverse and experienced team of interactive marketing professionals on behalf of its clients. Such an analysis examines the brand, its competitors, and all aspects of the competitors’ websites, from functionality to usability to availability of the site. “We examine all the angles to determine the best course of action a specific brand should take,” Gilleo states. “This is a deep dig and has a huge impact on a brand’s interactive marketing strategy.”
A wide gamut of information is gathered to compile a comprehensive competitive analysis for a brand. “We first check out a brand’s position statement and message,” Gilleo explains, “then we move on to the creative side and branding and brand position. We try to determine if the approach is effective and works for its intended audience. We examine the content and messaging and a site’s usability and architecture. We test drive a site’s tools and features and how easy it is for users to access information. We also check out how competitors’ sites are coded and the programming language they use.
“Aside from breaking down their websites, we also determine how involved a brand’s competition is in interactive marketing and check out their efforts. We examine the keywords they are buying and using, how they rank on the search engines, their social media efforts…the whole length and breadth of what they are doing.”
After all of this volume of data is compiled, rankings are developed for the best practices amongst a brand’s industry competitors. The best competitors are identified in a series of categories along with the rationale of why they have been chosen as deserving of praise. In the end, a brand’s industry, its competitors, and the shape interactive marketing is taking in this marketplace are put into perspective. Once this industry view is established, the actual creation of a brand’s interactive marketing strategy can commence.
Brands in need of an online competitive analysis should consider partnering with an interactive marketing agency like LeapFrog Interactive to analyze the findings. An interactive agency brings the advantage of being outside a brand’s industry and this objectivity, coupled with our own knowledge of and experience in interactive marketing, enables us to better report on whether a brand’s competitors’ efforts are good or bad and recommend a plan of action to the brand.
Because they are based objectively, the findings of the competitive analysis will sometimes not paint a picture that a brand might want to see. “We present what we find,” Gilleo explains, “whether it is popular or not. We tell it like it is—that’s why our clients hire us."
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