What YOU Season 4 Taught Me About Competitor Analysis

Hello, You. 

It’s no secret that little value can be learned from a serial killer disguised as a lover. But Joe Goldberg is tactical and calculated. After watching (binging), YOU season 4; we’re eyeing up Joe for our latest vacancies.

Uncovering insights about your closest competitors can help you build a strategy that fits your industry and audience. And, fills the gaps left by your competition (and, in Joe’s case, get the girl).

Classic competitor analysis

Competitor analysis is researching your competitors to understand their products, sales and marketing. However, you can dive deep into specific sections of your competitors’ businesses.

Competitor analysis should really be completed within every stage of the lifecycle. This is to find new opportunities and trends that are rising within your industry. Ultimately, you must understand how you can use them to your advantage.

There are 3 key components to consider before you dive into competitor analysis:

1. Choosing the right competitors
2. Which aspects of the business do you want to hone in on
3. How to use the insights you find

What can be learnt from YOU season 4

Every season seems to start with Joe saying “never again”, and then inevitably, it all starts again. YOU season 4 was no different, and that may be one of the many things we don’t learn from him.

• Scope Out Your Competitors

If there’s one thing Joe can do exceedingly well, it’s finding out who poses competition. Seasons 1-3 see him scope out friends, family, exes and even therapists. For larger operating businesses identifying your key competitors may take a little bit longer. This makes it more challenging to pinpoint exactly which businesses pose direct competition.

For smaller businesses, and much like YOU season 4, you may not need to do much looking. Your biggest competitors could very well be your next-door neighbour or at least the shop down the street.

Whether competitors are direct or indirect, you need to know who they are and understand their business to compete effectively.

Direct competitors have similar products and services to you and are going for the same target audience.

Indirect competitors are businesses within the same industry but with different products or services.

• Background Information

If your business is at the start of its lifecycle, or this is your first analysis, start with the basics. And, if Joe has proven anything, it’s that the basics are seemingly pretty easy to find.

More often than not, with businesses, it’s even easier than a social media stalk (we’ll get to that later). Website about pages, Google Business Profiles and Companies House, make information easier to find now than ever.

The information you’re looking for are things like the company history, location and company size. So that you can determine how big of a competitor they are to your business.

• SEO Analysis

Admittedly this one didn’t instantly spring to mind from watching YOU season 4. However, after viewing, there is no doubt in my mind that as a marketer, Joe would love an SEO Analysis.

There isn’t a way to look at a business’s website and determine what its SEO strategy is. However, there are ways to tell whether a business has a finger on the pulse with SEO at all.

There are our top 5 tips to help you decipher a competitor’s SEO:

1. Take a look at the website performance (page speeds)
2. See where they rank for keywords
3. Look at the strength of their backlinks
4. How are they ranking for keywords ( blogs, resources, services pages)
5. Look at the top pages and traffic

For a helping hand in SEO analysis, ROAR’s DIY SEO Platform is perfect for YOU.

It offers you competitor analysis covering ranking keywords, backlinks and any historical changes. Boost your SEO and your knowledge with a 7-day free trial of ROAR’s DIY SEO Platform today!

• SWOT Analysis

Assessing both internal and external issues isn’t easy for any business, and as Joe has proved, no person either. But, being able to point out where your business’s faults lie will bring you a world of good.

So I present to you a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Assess the internal and external sources affecting your business’s performance. This is because you should be able to accept that the fire can come from inside the house.

Popular Content

Website

If you can determine which content performs the best for your competitors, you can inform your own content strategies. This will drive higher engagement and traffic from people who want to see and engage with your content.

For example, your competitor wrote a blog titled “The best books to keep you hooked”. You could write a blog or a long-form piece of content based on a similar but not identical topic. Consider things like, “Top 10 Books that’ll have you hooked from start to finish”

Social Media

The old faithful. It’s rare that, in this day and age, you can’t find what you’re looking for through social platforms. YOU season 4 has proven the art of a public profile nothing is off limits. If you dive deep enough, you can find everything you need to know about anything and anyone.

With so many social media platforms, identify where YOUR audience is and hone in on those platforms. Don’t waste time and resources on platforms that add no value to the business.

Within every season of YOU, we learn about the people in Joe’s life through their social media. Now you should know that you can do exactly the same with your competitors.

Find out how frequently they’re active and engaging online, the content they’re posting and who their audience is.

You’ll get a clear picture of how social media platforms and specific content are working for other businesses in your industry. This can help you make informed decisions as to what steps to take in your own social media strategy.

Do you want to give your business the best chance of succeeding in an increasingly digital world? Teaming up with ROAR is the answer! Speak to a specialist today.