How to conduct market and competitor research for your online business according to Gilad Krein

Starting an online business is incredibly exciting. Gilad Krein, an entrepreneur and business owner, says that entrepreneurs leverage market and competitor research to clearly understand the competitive landscape and identify their target audience.

But how do you exactly go on about performing competitor research?

In this blog post, Gilad Krein gives simple yet effective tips to conduct research, so you can confidently launch your online business.

So, let’s get started!

Gilad Krein explains what is competitor research

Competitor research is the process of understanding who your competitors are, what they’re offering, and how they’re positioned in the market.

Gilad Krein explains that this research is essential for any business, but it’s especially important for online businesses. That’s because the internet has leveled the playing field and made it easier for small businesses to compete with larger enterprises.

So, entering a market with proper research about your audience and the current big players will help you make your business stand out from the competition.

While market research helps you understand the market landscape, competitor research will help you identify business growth opportunities.

Once you know your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, you can capitalize on the gaps left by them and prepare yourself for areas where competitors are already strong.

Gilad Krein’s competitor research methodology for online businesses

Gilad Krein is an entrepreneur and an online business consultant with a huge following. He is also a digital nomad and runs a personal blog where he shares his business wisdom.

Gilad has laid out an easy-to-follow, practical approach to performing effective market and competitor research for online businesses.

Six Steps for An Online Business’ Thorough Competitor Research

Gilad Krein’s competitor research methodology is based on the following six steps:

Identify your competitors

The first step is to identify who your competitors are. This may seem an obvious task, but it’s important to take the time to analyze them thoroughly.

You can start by doing a Google search for your target market or keywords related to your business.

For example, if you’re selling women’s clothing for curvy ladies, you might search for “women’s plus-size clothing.” It will bring up a list of websites that sell plus-size clothing.

Similarly, you can perform a competitive analysis on social media platforms.

Study their product range

Once you have a list of potential competitors, visit their websites and analyze their products, pricing, and presentation. Gilad calls them the 3 P’s of competitor research, and they give you a comprehensive understanding of the following:

What kind of products are they selling?
Do they offer a wide variety or stick to a tight niche range only?
What is their USP?
What are their top sellers?
What is their market share?

Once you answer these questions, you can understand your target markets’ needs, wants, and spending habits. These things will help you work on your niche and choose relevant products to focus on.

Study your competitors’ pricing strategy

Price is one of the driving factors behind customers’ purchase decisions, so your pricing strategy can make or break your online business.

Gilad Krein focuses on thorough competitor research that includes asking some crucial questions about their prices.

Do they use a premium pricing strategy, attracting customers for one-off purchases? Or do they use value pricing strategy, where they offer low prices for their products and leverage high volume sales?

So, analyze their product range, read customer reviews, and see if a similar pricing strategy will align with your overall business interests or not. Ask yourself the following questions to figure this out:

Are their customers satisfied?
Do they recommend their products to others?
What are their return and refund policies?

Finding this information is important to devise a smart pricing strategy to attract customers for your online business.

Besides pricing, also find out if your competitors offer any discounts or perks. For example, some businesses offer free shipping, giveaways, and membership rewards. These strategies help your business attract new customers.

Tip: Always look into your internal costs before spending money on promotions or discounts. The bottom line is always being profitable.

Analyze their online presence and marketing strategies

The fourth step is to analyze your competitors’ online presence and marketing strategy and gain insight into how they attract and retain customers.

Start by looking at their websites. Are they well-designed and easy to navigate?

What kind of content do they have? Are they blogging or creating other types of content such as videos or infographics?

Next, take a look at their social media channels. Are they active on all the major platforms? How often are they posting? What kind of content are they sharing?

You should also look at your competitors’ email marketing. Are they sending out regular newsletters?

Gathering this data from different platforms will tell you where you should focus your marketing efforts.

Tips: Instead of wasting precious man-hours, learn to use tools for your marketing stack and save time.

Learn about their tools & software

Technology stacks (online tools and software) are the backbone of successful business operations. So, it’s important for any business entrepreneur to to understand your competitors’ technology stack to understand how they manage their business.

For example, if two or more competitors use a certain type of software, it means that system is efficient. It would be wise to adopt this tried-and-tested system instead of trying new ones.

But how do you find that out?

One of the most reliable ways to check what technology your competitors’ website is built with is to use online tools.

Or, you can try seeing your competitors’ employee profiles on LinkedIn. Developers and engineers usually share their expertise and experience on LinkedIn profiles, so that might be the best place to look into.

Alternatively, you can check competitors’ job listings to see the type of developers they are hiring.

See Where You Can Improve Things

Once you have all the information, it’s time to sit down with your team and see where you can improve.

Are there any areas where your competitors are doing better? Are there any areas where you can outperform them?

Be honest with yourself here. If your competitors are doing better than you, it’s time to step up your game. You might need to revise pricing, revamp website design, refine content strategy, or simply improve your customer support.

Gilad Krein gives 5 reasons entrepreneurs focus on competitor research for online business

Do you still have second thoughts about investing time and resources in competitor research or not? Well, here are 5 reasons you should start with it right away:

It will give you an idea of the competition you are up against.
Knowing your competitor’s strategies will help you develop your own unique selling points.
It will help you benchmark your progress and performance against competitors.
Competitor research can help you identify gaps in the market that you can capitalize on.
It will help you keep up with industry trends and be aware of new entrants into the market.

So, remember that competitor research is an integral part of any business’s marketing strategy. By understanding your competitors, you can ensure that you’re always one step ahead of others.