discuss on identifying your competitors which will really be focused on the

competitor analysis this is very important for any business especially when you're designing your
marketing strategy and what to do so many times I've come across businesses that really don't
understand the competition or ifthey think they do they don't take itseriously there's different types
ofcompetitors first one is the directcompetitor but these are ones that areprettymuch offering the same
exactthing that you're offering to theconsumer this can also include directsubstitutes of anything that
you'reoffering our second type of competitoris the indirect competitor these are notdirectly in the same
industry of themain they may not be in the sameindustry but they do compete alongsidethe industry so
a really good example isthe fitness centers and the gyms they'rein direct competition would be
awellness clinic were a beauty a beautyclinic that may include some type ofnutritional information
maybe some lowweight type of thing so you need to lookat the indirect competition and then thelast
one is emerging competition sothese may appear sometime in the futurestaying with the whole Fitness
theme oneof the things that emerged over the pastcouple of years is wearable technologynow wearable
technology is emergingcompetition because when people use thewearable technology they may not
havethe need for a personal trainer or go tothe gym because they have that the otherthing that most
recently is starting toemerge is the virtual gym so now you canput on your goggles and you can
becomepart of various physical activitiesthrough a virtual means so these aresome things especially for
those in thiscase the fitness industry or anyindustry is to really be aware of whatcompetition is is
emerging especiallywhenintegrating technology into the fieldplease do not discount that we don'thave
time to go into that in thissession we can talk about it much morepower technology is impacting
yourindividual industry later on well howwell do understanding your competitorsthese are some
questions you need to askyourself who are your direct indirectand emerging competitors to your
productor service are they online offline orboth in today's world everything likefor anybody who wants
to be serious inbusiness they need to have an onlinepresence so if you say look we don'thave any
competition if your answer tothat question of relational competitionyou say you don't have any I
wouldreally question if you did a hard coreanalysis on your industry on your ownbusiness when your
products because Ican be pretty sure unless you are a verymuch far ahead of the game in your
ownindustry there is probably a competitorsomewhere around the world for youanother question to
ask is do you knowwhat your competitors are doing that iswhat what are the benefits of theirproducts
and how they market it so evenif you don't have time to look thisstuff up you can easily outsource
thisinformation and get somebody to do thecompetitor analysis of a particularproduct or even your
general industrythird question is what are yourcompetitors strengths and weaknesses andthis can easily
be done by a SWOTanalysis the good old strength witnessesopportunities and threats and reallylooking
at well and being be very honestwith yourself you know there willprobably be some competitors out
therewho have more strength than you do and there may be some out there that actually are weaker
than you do and youneed to be honest with yourself what do consumers think about your competitors
products and services this can easily be found out just doing an online search there's many pages right
now out there that are recommendation sites and there's testimonials and there's

you know sites that will grade or give likes for a particular product search you can your competitors
Facebook pages if you're in the restaurant or a food industry check out any of the restaurant pages that
are there local and national depending on what what region you're in if you're in the travel industry you
know TripAdvisor is obviously one of the key ones to see if anybody's talking about you or if your own
hotels calm or bookings were Expedia many of those so

it's very easy now to find out what

consumers think about your competitors

products and services another question

to ask is how are you going to position

yourself in comparison to your

competitors would you want to meet the

competition do you want to beat the

competition where you do you want to

counter the competition are you

competing one price product quality or

another point of difference

once again this is you need to look very

hard in the mirror of your own products

and then that also gives you an

opportunity to look at your competitors

and have something to compare it to if

Li you can analyze your competitors on

the following location where they

located are they located near station

train station any other kind of public

transportation what products do they

offer what services do they offer what

markets are they serving you know you

might in a similar industry but you're

servicing a totally different market a

good example here in Australia is back

in the days when in the fitness industry

Fernwood came on board and their whole

market was just women well that's a

different point of difference for those

gym goers that were just going to a a

gym that served both men and women

where are the various points of sale a

consumer can purchase the product what's

the pricing structure I go casual can I

go monthly do I have to pay an annual

fee one of the strengths also what are

the weaknesses

what I would suggest is for every

business out there business owner is to

identify five to ten of your major or

direct competitors and then when you do

your direct competitors you can also use

your indirect competitors and possibly

emerging competitors as well

once you identify those competitors

identify the products and services that

they offer describe the products and

services that they have to offer

what factors contribute to their success

assess their weaknesses how will you

address their strengths and capitalize

on their weaknesses and one of their

current market shares in various

segments of the industry so I've put

together this table this is a very brief

table I've used this myself for various

times in entering a market now this you

can broaden this out as much as you want

but hopefully by just doing this simple

table you'll get the idea

so with this competitor analysis office

you have I like to put my company at the

top my location actually that's a typo

it should be like you know you can put

the actual address and then put in your

own pricing structure what services or

products you have so if you have more

than those than like a gym or Group X

this is obviously for the fitness

industry but you can do it for any

industry that you're in you want to have

a column for each industry for each

product and service that you have to

offer this can easily be done on Excel

because at the end I can either put an X

or number one and I can add up all the

various products and services that an

organization has to do if I'm looking at

the price I can put in if everybody's

charging per month I can do an average

price per month that people are offering

so I would have that table with all the

various prices and services as you see

there with the product and service there

and then I can have a column of

strengths and also weaknesses I can go

back to that previous slide I can add as

many columns here as I want to get a

really good comprehensive competitive

and now

and then once I have that I can see

where I fit into the bigger scheme of

things

am i where's my location I can even put

a collar column in here of public

transportation availability am i near a

train station am i near a bus station

can people walk to my gym is it what am

i surrounded by a highway that because

may become quite dangerous so all the

various information that you can put

here and also your competitors will make

things much easier for you when you

start to decide what market strategy as

well as how do I want to position my

business for the potential consumer when

we look at competitive advantage after

you do that competitor analysis

hopefully you'll be able to flush out

your competitive advantage and this

competitive advantage looks at the

feature or set of features together with

the associated benefits which make your

product and services meaningful from

those of your customers and valuable to

the consumer your business must be cost

effective and it must be able to offer

products and services which the

customers regard as preferable to the

products and services offered by rival

suppliers so you can have a competitive

advantage in various there is the depth

of your lines so for example if you are

retail shop and you're focusing on

tennis you could maybe increase your

line of the number of shoes tennis shoes

that you have or maybe increase the

number of tennis rackets that you have

you might take one another brand that's

just one minor example you could be have

the quality quality as your competitive

advantage or your uniqueness maybe you

are designing personal clothing for

people all right so you only design one

for people and then that design is done

knowledge skills and experience might be

your competitive advantage your

marketing approach and strategies your

image your reputation

maybe the level of customer service can

be your competitive advantage your

location might be it because you are

located

well at the various forms of public

transportation your price your

availability in the fitness industry one

of the big disruptors were gyms going

24/7 so now those people that wanted to

work out after work say after nine

o'clock if they were working a late

shift they could now go and train in a

gym because they were 24/7 going back to

that days and hours of opening and also

parking facilities you know do you have

free parking is it easy to park is it

safe to park your car near the gym other

questions for your competitive advantage

do you have the necessary resources to

pursue your target marketing

successfully can you gain a competitive

advantage by differentiating yourself

maybe on the products and services that

you offer when the customer services

that you offer it may be based on the

points of sale offered to the consumer

and also may be based on price long

terms long term success is really based

on the strengths of your business

it's also based on the meaning and value

meaning and what's valued by your target

customers your long term success is also

you have to question is it substantial

enough to actually make a difference and

lastly is the long term success the

question is is it sustainable in the

face of competitor action and changes in

the market because in today's world

especially with technology on market in

every market in every industry is

changing fairly rapidly thank you for

your attention and we will talk about

target marketing in a later webinar so

stay tuned