Online Business Planning - Competitor Analysis
When running an online business, just as when starting an offline business, you need to analyze competitors.
In offline business you analyze nearby competitors and commercial districts, but in online business it is no exaggeration to say that the competition is unlimited.
For example, a customer in Busan can purchase a product or service from a company based in Seoul, meaning there are effectively no geographic limits.
The following outlines what should be analyzed about competitors.
1. Identify basic competitor information
- You should understand broad information such as the site name, URL, service provider information, and company information.
- This is necessary for selecting competitors and classifying their information.
2. Understand purpose and intent
- Once the competitor's basic information has been identified, you should understand the purpose of the business being run on that site and the form and intent of the services it provides.
- This serves as basic information for understanding how the competitor's service affects your business and becomes source material for developing differentiated services of your own.
3. Analyze the competitor's core customers
- The goal is to analyze the target customer segment so you can either create a strategy to absorb those customers or develop a strategy to create a new customer group outside the competitor's audience.
- It can also serve as benchmarking data for understanding how the competitor's service affects its core customers and applying that insight to your own online business.
4. Analyze the business model
- You should evaluate the competitor's revenue model, business process, and whether its items are appropriate.
- You should also analyze the strategy used to deliver that business model to customers.
- Based on this, you should develop a business model unique to your own company that is either differentiated or able to surpass the competition.
5. Marketing strategy
- You should analyze the marketing concept established by the competitor site.
- You should also understand the level of interaction between users and operators, the update cycle, and customer loyalty.
- Items to analyze include promotion, alliances, search engine registration, one-to-one marketing strategy, and all marketing channels operated both online and offline, then decide how to apply or differentiate those channels for your own business.
6. Customer service
- By analyzing the target site's customer response level, personalization, membership reward services, and other customer-facing services, you can apply those findings to your own business or create competitive differentiation.
- Many people complain that it is difficult to analyze a competitor's customers, and I do not want to casually say, "Just run an online survey through an online event." ^^ Online surveys have many problems, so even in online business I do not recommend relying on them.
- I recommend customer analysis through offline interviews and surveys, or through expert and consumer FGIs.
7. UI analysis
- From a planning perspective, you need to analyze the site's depth structure, navigation, interface, and overall composition in order to understand how many steps users must take to find the information they want.
- You should also understand the site's business model, content, services, community, and level of personalization in order to forecast the direction in which it may evolve.
- This provides information about the competitor's professionalism in online services while also serving as benchmarking material for online service trends that can later be applied to your own business.
8. Design analysis
- Analyze the site's layout, coloring, logo, multimedia usage and load, the main screen, and the full site map in order to benchmark its planning approach.
- I use design tools so I can communicate smoothly with designers, but I am not a professional designer, so I will speak from a planning perspective. In many benchmarking cases, people focus only on the core service of the benchmarked site, but that is the wrong way to benchmark. If you are only analyzing the core service, that is closer to a usability test than to benchmarking. True benchmarking should be done across all services based on the site map, while selecting and evaluating excellent services and content.
9. Content analysis
- You should analyze the types of content, delivery methods, creativity, quality, and update level in order to evaluate communication effectiveness, usage, and customer satisfaction.
10. Technical aspects
- Analyze the solutions and systems the site provides to users, and improve system-level performance and stability through that analysis.
- Online users are particularly sensitive to speed and stability. If the service suddenly stops or users are forced to wait indefinitely after clicking or searching, they will never use it again.
Beyond these ten items, you also need broad analysis of the competitor's core customer value, target customers, revenue, pricing, market share, cost position, product count, and distribution channels.
[Source] Online Business Planning - Competitor Analysis|Author Charles
