As more businesses move their marketing efforts online, the competition for consumers’ attention is becoming more fierce.
In order to be successful, every company needs to have an advantage over its competitors. In order to be successful, small businesses need to be unique and stand out from the competition. Large businesses need to have an advantage in order to attract new customers and keep the ones they have.
It is very difficult to be successful with just a great product or service. So what do you need? A strong content marketing strategy.
You can use the information you have collected to do better than your competition and invest more time and resources in what has been successful for them.
By understanding what topics or niches your competitors excel in, you can tap into other areas where you may have an advantage.
It’s a great time to promote your distinct voice and illustrate how you could improve your customers’ lives. Here are some ways to use interactive content to stay ahead of your competition.
1. Do your research
There are many ways to keep track of what your competitors are doing. In order to stay up to date on what your competition is doing, follow them on social media, sign up for their newsletters, or set up Google Alerts. Every successful content marketing strategy starts with due diligence.
You can also see what type of content works best for them with an all-in-one SEO suite like Ahrefs:
Ahrefs is great at digging into your competitor’s site and identifying their top-performing content by analyzing important web and social metrics:
- Content that has the maximum number of links
- Content that has attracted the most links lately
- Content with the top number of shares across social networks
Looking at what your competitors are doing well will give you a better idea of what readers and consumers within your industry care about, so you can adjust your own content to match.
You should not try to copy what your competitors are doing based on your research. Use the strengths of others to your advantage and their weaknesses to further your goals.
2. Have a clear brand voice and personality
What makes your brand different from the next one? What precisely does your company stand for?
One way to set your business apart from competitors is to have a clear, defined voice to supplement your brand’s personality.
General Electric is well-known for their clever personality. GE’s #GEInstawalk campaign gave influencers the opportunity to visit GE facilities and share their experiences on social media.
They created an engaging call to action which gave consumers a rare look at their operations. They gave off an image of being transparent and professional, with a little bit of humor.
At the end of the day, your brand personality is what makes you seem human and forms the foundation of building trust for new and potential customers. By having a strong and relatable brand personality, you will be able to connect with your target audience on a more personal level, which in turn will help boost your sales and grow your business. They want to know that you’re a company that is committed to making a difference. People want to know that you are more than just a company that sells products or services; they want to know that you are a company that is committed to making a difference.
Before you get the creative juices flowing, ask yourself:
- What will the content you create sound like?
- Will your tone be casual, informative, funny or authoritative?
- What is the emotional reaction you want from your audience?
You should always think about who you are trying to reach when you are creating your brand’s message and voice. And of course, you need to show consistency. If you are always changing the tone, composition and character of your content, it will be difficult for people to understand your brand identity.
3. Encourage user-generated content
This is true user-generated content, not the kind that is carefully curated and shaped by marketing teams. User-generated content is the most authentic form of content, not the kind that is curated and shaped by marketing teams. 93% of consumers said that content created by other customers influenced their purchase decisions, according to a survey by Offerpop.
For example, Calvin Klein encourages users to post photos of themselves wearing Calvin Klein products on social media using the #MyCalvins hashtag. The recipes that are the most liked by users are promoted to CK’s official website.
This campaign is successful because it creates a personal connection between the brand and a wide range of people, from celebrities to everyday consumers.
Other companies are also using their audiences to provide content. Brands that use user-generated content (UGC) see an increase in customer loyalty and engagement. UGC is a great way to connect with fans in real-time.
The trust of customers is something that few of your competitors start with, and it is a great way to build something. When people see others who are like them interacting with a company, it creates social proof.
A positive photo or review can help you grow your audience more than any other element in your content marketing strategy.
4. Use interactive content
The internet is saturated with content. people are forgetting information soon after consuming it because they are overloaded with information Unfortunately, this does nothing for your brand.
If you create content that requires the viewer’s full attention and interaction, there is a higher chance they will watch it until the end and it will make a lasting impression.
Your content needs to be interesting enough to engage your audience from the beginning, and concise enough to avoid overwhelming them with information.
Interactive content is a great way to accomplish this. The Demand Metric survey found that 70% of marketers believe that interactive content does a good job of engaging buyers.
Interactive content is very successful in holding people’s attention, and there are many different interactive platforms you can use to create interactive content in various formats. There are a few types of engagement that come to mind, such as quizzes, polls and surveys.
Buzzfeed, of course, is notorious for creating captivating quizzes. They are usually quick to complete, and they encourage social sharing. Buzzfeed’s mix of serious and light-hearted content is a great example of how to use interactive content marketing effectively.
Interactive content is a crucial platform that companies cannot afford to miss out on. Some benefits of data mining include the ability to create more emotionally resonate content for consumers in the future.
Consider content marketing a constant work-in-progress. A content strategy that is collaborative and user-focused is the best way to gain an advantage over any competition.
5. Find what they are publishing
Make sure you are getting updates from your competition by signing up for their newsletter or subscribing to their blog’s RRS feed.
Create a folder in your inbox for each competitor you want to track. You can also create Google Alerts for their company name, products, and executives at their organization. This can help you stay up to date with the latest information about them.
Be aware that Google Alerts may not detect everything, such as social media references, so you should follow your competition on all the social media platforms they use. Social Mention is a platform where you can set up social media alerts.
6. . You can see how popular their content is on social media.
You can use content search tools like BuzzSumo to get an idea of what content is popular among your competitors by searching for their website URL. This service provides you with a list of your competitor’s most popular content, including articles, infographics, and videos, as well as social shares for each piece of content.
A Pro plan with BuzzSumo will allow you to see which influencers have shared specific content. This will help you understand what topics are of interest to influencers in your industry, which you can follow up on social media, and begin to build relationships with them.
If you want your content to be amplified by influencers, create something that they would like and share it with them.
7. Find out which keywords they rank for
SEO tools such as SEMrush and Moz can help you find out which keywords your competition ranks for and is bidding on, as well as their percentage of organic and paid traffic.
These tools can also help you understand how well your content is doing in comparison to your competition, which sites are linking to your content, and which keywords are driving potential customers to your site.
Focusing your resources on the marketing efforts that drive value for your business will help you generate more quality leads and sales.
8. See how their social media is performing
In addition to following your competition’s brand channels, you can use free and paid tools like Fanpage Karma, Twitter Audit, and FollowerWonk to see how well their social media is performing and how engaged their following is.
Fanpage Karma lets you see how well individual Facebook pages are doing, including their most and least popular posts, the types of posts they publish, and how their audience is growing and responding.
Twitter Audit is a service that lets you see if your competitor’s followers are real or fake. This way, you can follow legitimate accounts that are actually following them. FollowerWonk allows you to find the most influential followers of your competition. This way, you can follow the accounts that will be most beneficial to you.
9. Find out how their site is performing
All else being equal, a faster website will rank higher than a slower one. Mobile optimization is also a ranking factor, so if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you may be at a disadvantage. To improve your website’s performance and learn how your competitors are faring, use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights and Mobile-Friendly Test.
QuickSprout is a useful tool to see how your website measures up to your competitors websites. You can get a ranking for each key score.
Regarding the HubSpot Website Grader tool, it is good for getting information about how well your website is doing in areas such as SEO, mobile phone optimization, and security.
10. Complete an SEO audit of their sites
Screaming Frog and other similar tools can help you get a more detailed look at your competitor’s websites, including their structure and content. Some people find these tools too technical, but they do give you a more in-depth look at your competitor’s sites than the tools listed in #5.
11. See where they got their links
Some marketers may have stopped trying to get links to their site to try and boost their ranking, but there are still many that see the value in it. In order to be successful, it is important to know where your competitor’s strongest links are coming from. That way, you can target those same sites and hopefully receive some backlinks in return.
Majestic can help you to understand which links are most and least valuable.
Before settling on a content marketing tool, it’s a good idea to try out a few options and see which one works best for you. Many tools offer free trials, so you can test them out before making a commitment.
12. Find out what customers are saying about you
You should include your competitors’ performance on review sites like Google and Yelp in your analysis, regardless of whether you are a local business.
Look at the number of reviews and the ratings to get an idea of quality.
Look at both the positive and negative ratings to see if there is something your competition is not doing well that you could improve upon. Could you find any needs that have not been met to help your business grow?
Conclusion
You will need a a legal-sized page spreadsheet to capture all of the information.
You should try to limit the amount of data you use to avoid experiencing “analysis paralysis” which would defeat the purpose of doing the analysis.
No matter your opinion on the competition, content marketing can help you get ahead.
Your tactics should provide a deeper understanding of your brand to your target audience and include a clear call to action.
The key to creating memorable content is being innovative. Don’t be afraid to think creatively to build and promote a unique brand experience. You never know when you might strike gold!
Every brand needs an edge over their competitors. Small businesses need to be adaptable to survive and prosper in today’s difficult marketplace. Even brands that are large and have been established for a while need to continue to work hard to win new business.
The Marketing Director at Wasp Barcode TechnologiesBrian Sutter claims that in today’s market, a good product and great customer service are not enough.
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