Every company needs key performance indicators (KPIs) to gauge its success and objectives to pursue. However, evaluating your performance solely against your past results is insufficient. Growth necessitates understanding your company’s position within your market. This is where competitive analysis comes in.

This article will delve into seven distinct types of competitive analysis. For each type, I’ll provide a definition, illustrative examples, and a template. Gain an edge by exploring these before your rivals do!

Table of contents

• What is a competitive analysis?
• Basic marketing competitive analysis
• SWOT competitive analysis
• Keyword competitive analysis
• 7P competitive analysis
• Social media competitive analysis
• PEST competitive analysis
• Porter’s Five Forces competitive analysis

What is a competitive analysis?

Competitive analysis involves systematically comparing your business to its competitors based on specific criteria. However, systematic doesn’t imply inflexibility. In reality, competitive analyses are highly adaptable:

• You can analyze direct or indirect competitors.
• You can focus on your entire business or particular strategies.
• There are no fixed criteria.
• There are marketing, sales, project-based, and numerous other forms of competitive analysis. Your objectives ultimately determine the approach. You can utilize competitive analysis to:
• Determine your current market standing.
• Enhance performance in your existing market.
• Stand out from your competitors.
• Introduce a new product.
• Expand into a new market. The possibilities are vast, so let’s dive in.

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7 competitive analysis templates and examples

With that said, let’s explore seven distinct types of competitive analyses. Consider the examples and templates as starting points, and modify them based on the marketing metrics most relevant to your business.

1. Basic marketing competitive analysis template

If you’re uncertain about what to measure or your specific goals, this basic marketing competitive analysis template covers the essentials about your competitors. This includes:

• Tagline: A concise yet impactful statement revealing their intended value proposition.
• Target market: Their primary audience.
• Personas: The personality types, lifestyles, wants, and needs they cater to.
• Top organic keywords: Their areas of expertise.
• Top paid keywords: Where they allocate their budget.
• Main marketing channels: Email, social media, website, listings, reviews, etc.
• Content types: Blogs, guides, videos, newsletters, ads, etc.
• Reviews: Do they actively manage reviews? Which platforms have the most, best, or worst reviews?
• Social presence: Which channels do they use, and how active are they?
• Overall brand voice: Their brand’s look, feel, and tone. This provides a comprehensive understanding of each competitor and sparks ideas for your business.

Go to the basic marketing competitive analysis template

2. SWOT analysis

The SWOT analysis, a cornerstone of competitive analyses, stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

• Strengths: Your advantages over competitors.
• Weaknesses: Areas where competitors outperform you.
• Opportunities: Untapped potential for you or your competitors, or areas where your strengths offer a competitive edge.
• Threats: Potential obstacles to your growth or areas where competitors could gain an advantage.

SWOT competitive analysis example

Consider a SWOT analysis for a local restaurant:

• Strengths: Prime location, high foot traffic, strong local reputation, seasonal menu, eco-friendly practices, locally sourced ingredients.
• Weaknesses: Higher prices, longer wait times, limited brand awareness, single location restricts reach, no online reservations.
• Opportunities: Growing demand for sustainable and locally sourced food; seasonal menus provide variety; potential for expansion through food delivery services.
• Threats: Increased competition from established chains; uncertain economic environment; rising ingredient costs, challenges posed by food delivery platforms.

SWOT analysis template

Our SWOT analysis template provides a checklist of questions for each category, ensuring a thorough analysis and revealing actionable insights. It also includes a comprehensive blog post covering all aspects of SWOT analysis.

Go to this SWOT analysis template

3. Keyword competitive analysis

A keyword competitive analysis elevates your keyword research by comparing your organic and paid keywords with those of your competitors. The goal is to identify realistic keywords for outranking competitors and avoid wasting time and budget on keywords you won’t rank for.

Keyword competitive analysis example

Imagine you’re a communication platform streamlining email, text, and phone communication for home improvement businesses. Your strength lies in text automation, and you want to run PPC ads for it. This is where a paid keyword competitive analysis is beneficial. Numerous tools can help you uncover competitor keywords. In this example, I used Semrush to analyze Podium’s domain, filtering for keywords NOT containing “podium,” having an average position of one, and sorted by traffic to the corresponding landing page.

The top keywords include:

• Reviews for google (310 visits monthly)
• Converge pay (310)
• Online reputation management (310)
• Hvac marketing (169) “Sms marketing” ranks lower at 70 visits per month. Podium seems to prioritize online reputation management and payment processing, presenting a potential opportunity. Additionally, “HVAC marketing” receiving comparable traffic suggests a potential niche they specialize in or a lucrative market.

Need help finding the right keywords? Try our Free Keyword Tool!

Keyword competitive analysis template

nexus-security’s template includes columns for the keyword, search volume, competition, cost per click, funnel stage, intent, competing domain, and corresponding page. It also has checkboxes for tracking your targeting efforts and actions needed, such as improving your strategy, adding new keywords, or dropping existing ones.

Go to this competitor keyword analysis template

4. 7P competitive analysis

The “7 Ps” represent the seven elements of the marketing mix. While initially designed for understanding your own company, applying this framework to competitors helps identify growth opportunities. The 7 Ps are:

• Product: Analyze features like quality, variety, customer support, use cases, availability, warranty, and more.
• Price: Consider not just the cost, but also discounts, payment options, financing, add-ons, and other pricing aspects.
• Place: Where is the product sold, and which channels are most effective?
• Promotion: Evaluate their marketing strategies, including SEO, social media, branding, PR, PPC, etc.
• People: Analyze their organizational structure, culture, skills, talents, and hiring practices. LinkedIn can provide insights into team structure.
• Process: How do they deliver the product/service? Is there interpersonal interaction, self-service options, etc.?
• Physical evidence: How do they validate their solution’s effectiveness? What tangible assets legitimize their business?

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7P competitive analysis example

Let’s analyze a video advertising company using the 7Ps:

• Product: Video advertising services with in-house videographers for custom ads, proprietary budget optimization technology, access to a unique network, and a helpful website for choosing ad types.
• Price: Higher than most agencies, but the inclusion of design, optimization, and multi-channel strategy results in a lower overall cost. Effective ads also lead to lower cost per click and higher ROI.
• Place: Operates and serves clients remotely across the US.
• Promotion: Showcases strengths through its own high-quality video ads, leverages industry content and DIY guides for SEO and website traffic, prioritizes branding over PR.
• People: Large development team focused on proprietary software, small marketing team due to in-house designers, large sales team involved in customer success. Remote work environment emphasizing culture and social responsibility.
• Process: Primarily a done-for-you service with regular performance reviews, complemented by self-service features.
• Physical evidence: Portfolio of client video ads and video testimonials, large YouTube and Spotify followings.

7P competitive analysis template

This spreadsheet template lists each “P” with columns for your business and competitors. It also includes columns for importance level, key takeaways, and action items.

Go to the 7P competitive analysis template

5. Social media competitive analysis

This involves analyzing your competitor’s social media strategy in comparison to your own. It helps understand their ideas for social media content, differentiate your brand voice, identify relevant hashtags, and more. While numerous social media metrics can be analyzed, I recommend focusing on:

• What platforms do they utilize?
• Which platform do they prioritize? For each platform:
• Target audience
• Tone of voice
• Types of posts
• Posting frequency
• Follower count
• Engagement
• Hashtags

Social media competitive analysis example

Here’s a basic analysis of Chirrp, a texting automation software:

• Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn
• Favored platform: YouTube
• Facebook: 937 followers, 1-2 posts/month, 790 likes, promotional/testimonial content, videos and quotes, 1-3 likes/post, #chiirp; tagline: “Don’t be fooled by the cuteness of our little bird… she is the most dangerous marketing tool on the planet.”
• LinkedIn: 137 followers, one post (five months old) for a job listing; tagline: “Chiirp is the ultimate communication and marketing automation toolbox for hind service companies.”
• YouTube: 441 subscribers, 177 videos, 1-2 videos/month; content includes interviews, webinars, and product demos. This reveals that Chirrp prioritizes YouTube over other social media platforms. Further investigation is needed to determine if this is due to resource constraints (presenting an opportunity) or because social media isn’t the ideal channel for this target market.

Social media competitive analysis template

This template covers the above points for popular platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube. It includes columns for top followers, notes, and profile links.

Go to the social media competitive analysis template

6. PEST competitive analysis

Consider this a deeper dive into the “threats” section of your SWOT analysis. As mentioned earlier, threats often stem from external factors beyond your control. These include:

• Political: Laws, regulations, taxes, and political forces impacting business operations in your market.
• Economic: Inflation, exchange rates, interest rates, labor costs, supply chain dynamics, sales cycles—anything influencing your finances.
• Social: Demographic trends, consumer behavior, cultural shifts impacting interest in your offerings.
• Technological: Tools, platforms, and technologies that compete with your offerings or provide competitors an advantage.

PEST competitive analysis example

Let’s examine some PEST factors affecting a communication platform primarily serving home service and improvement businesses.

• Political: New opt-in and consent regulations for texting are increasing. This presents an opportunity to create compliant templates, educational content, and product features.
• Economic: Supply chain disruptions and seasonality significantly influence demand within specific verticals.
• Social: Post-pandemic, DIY home improvement is declining as people turn to professionals. Millennials and Gen Z, less interested in DIY and more focused on social causes, contribute to the projected growth of the home service industry.
• Technological: AI, combined with personalized automation, presents significant opportunities for call centers to enhance efficiency and capabilities.

PEST competitive analysis template

Utilize this template to compare your business challenges with those of your competitors. Remember, their challenges can become your opportunities.

Go to the PEST competitive analysis template

7. Porter’s Five Forces competitive analysis

Developed by Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter in 1979, this model analyzes five market forces impacting companies in any industry:

• Threat of new entrants: Increased competition arises from more players, but some industries are harder to enter due to factors like upfront costs, training requirements, brand dominance, etc.
• Bargaining power of suppliers: This refers to the influence suppliers have on pricing, which can impact your profitability. Factors include the number of suppliers, availability of alternatives, and substitutes.
• Bargaining power of buyers: This reflects how easily customers can switch brands, often for better pricing. With numerous alternatives and price comparison tools readily available, customer bargaining power is high, emphasizing the importance of brand loyalty and differentiation.
• Threat of substitute products: Consider not just identical offerings but also those fulfilling the same need differently.
• Rivalry among existing competitors: Intense rivalry forces businesses to invest heavily in advertising and engage in price wars, impacting profitability.

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Five Forces competitive analysis examples

• Threat of new entrants: Entering the hotel industry is considerably more challenging than entering the home services industry, which in turn is more difficult than entering the food and beverage sector.
• Bargaining power of suppliers: In the restaurant industry, fast food restaurants have access to more abundant supplies than farm-to-table restaurants, resulting in higher supplier power for the latter.
• Bargaining power of buyers: Industries like real estate, hotels, and travel offer customers numerous price comparison tools, giving them significant bargaining power.
• Threat of substitute products: Spiked seltzer, while different from beer, serves a similar purpose and poses a potential threat to the beer industry.
• Rivalry among existing competitors: The airline industry, with its high barriers to entry, limited players, and high bargaining power for both buyers and suppliers, experiences fierce competition.

Five Forces competitive analysis template

Use this template to analyze your business and your competitors in relation to Porter’s Five Forces.

Go to the Five Forces competitive analysis template

Use these competitive analysis templates and examples to grow your business

While measuring performance is crucial, successful businesses go further by analyzing their performance relative to competitors. With these seven competitive analysis examples and templates, you’re equipped to gain a competitive edge. The best approach depends on your objectives, whether it’s solving problems, achieving goals, or uncovering new insights.