Knowing what your competitors are doing—how they’re thinking about the market, which tactics they’re using, how they’re crafting messages and design—can make all the difference in the real estate industry.
Yet, the thought of doing a competitive analysis makes many realtors worried. It sounds tedious, overwhelming, and just straight-up boring.
Luckily, if you’ve never done one before (or if you need to update your current competitive analysis), you’ve come to the right place. We’ve created this simple guide to complete a competitive analysis, as well as a free downloadable template to do it quickly and easily.
Before we dive in though, let’s look at what competitive analysis is and why it’s important.
WHAT IS A COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS?
A competitive analysis (also called competitive audit) is simply the process of identifying your competitors and evaluating their strategies to determine their strengths and weaknesses relative to your own business and services.
The goal of the competitive analysis is to gather the intelligence necessary to find a line of attack and develop your go-to strategy to lead your competitors.
WHY IS COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS IMPORTANT?
There are many benefits to doing a competitive analysis. Below are a few of those benefits. A competitive analysis can help you:
- Articulate the similarities and differences between you and your competitors so you can identify unique ways to outshine them.
- Position your brand to open up new marketing opportunities and develop a unique selling point (USP).
- See what strategies and channels are working well for competitors and industry leaders that might work for you too.
- Identify needs in the market that you can fill.
- Identify gaps in your marketing strategy.
- Stand out, get noticed, and win more business.
Now that you know the benefits of a competitive analysis in marketing, let’s look at how you can easily conduct one.
To make your competitive analysis more effective, start by downloading our free competitive analysis template, it’ll help you keep track of important data and insights.
HOW TO CONDUCT A COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
The breadth and depth of any competitive audit can vary widely depending on many factors like the nature and size of the company, the scope and budget of the project.
However, following the steps below will help you conduct a competitive audit that meets the basic requirements of the real estate business.
Make sure to use the analysis template as you conduct your research so you can keep things organized in an easily accessible database.
Step 1: Identify your competitors
You can only perform a competitive analysis if you know who your competitors are. You may already know some of your competitors but don’t rely exclusively on assumptions and existing knowledge. Research to make sure you aren’t missing any competitors. Start by researching your niche (for example, commercial real estate) to identify top players and leading brands.
Do any or all of the following to find out who your top competitors are:
- Run a Google search
- Check the list of presenters and companies available at your niche conferences
- Ask your customers who else they considered.
Step 2: Categorize your competitors.
As you find competitors, you’ll want to categorize them into various levels, from direct competitors to those you still need to keep on your radar — like indirect and tertiary competitors.
Here is an easy way to categorize your competitors:
Direct competitors: These are companies offering the same services as you in the same geographical area – targeting the same audience and serving the same needs.
Indirect competitors: These are companies who offer the same, or similar, services to you in the same area, but who are serving a different need or purpose or targeting a different audience.
As an example, if you specialize in the sale and/or rental of residential real estate, a brokerage or firm doing the same in your area is your direct competitor.
An indirect competitor however will be a brokerage or firm that specializes in commercial real estate in your area. This would not be a direct competitor, but they could still be taking some of your business.
Tertiary competitors: There is also a third type of competitor, a tertiary competitor. This is someone who offers services that might be vaguely linked to yours but doesn’t compete. Identifying these types of competitors is still important as they could become direct or indirect ones if they decide to pivot. You don’t need to do as much research on them, but keeping an eye on any big changes or developments on their end could be beneficial.
Step 3: Identify your competitors’ positioning
Positioning simply means where the services of a company stand in relation to the competition in the marketplace, as well as the mind of the customer.
Positioning also informs important brand executions such as brand messaging.
By identifying your competitors’ positioning strategy (especially direct competitors), you’ll start to get a feel for your market’s demands and expectations.
Take a look at their website and marketing messaging and ask the following:
- Why are their clients getting properties from them? Are they going for the price? Experience?
- How are they differentiating their services from their competition?
- What benefits do they highlight the most in their marketing copy?
- In their opinion, what makes their properties or services unique?
These questions will help you understand to whom your competitors are speaking and how they position themselves within the market, which will pay dividends as you work on how you’ll position yourself against them.
To gather as much information as possible, be sure to experience their brands by:
- Signing up for their newsletter: Get an understanding of their business and examples of communication.
- Subscribing to and following their blog: See what types of content they are covering and at what pace.
- Following them on social media: Get a feel for how they speak to and serve their customers.
- Employing their service: Check out how they treat their clients and how effective their service delivery is. This is optional, only if your budget allows it.
Step 4: Identify your competitors’ key messages and identity
The key messages and identity of your competitors are some other things you need to critically review. This will help you build a unique identity needed to differentiate yourself from your competitors in the industry.
Ask the following questions to get the most out of this step:
- What is their mission statement?
- What is their tagline?
- What are their themes from advertising and brand collateral?
- What is the symbol they have chosen for their identity and what’s its meaning?
- What’s their general look and feel and how is it connected to their services? As an example, the look and feel of some brands is exquisite to support their premium services.
- What is their voice and tone? How do people feel when they interact with their brand? Is their voice and tone consistent?
These and more questions you should ask when identifying your competitors’ key messages and identity.
Step 5: Examine your competitor’s website.
To start, take a close look at the following items:
- What are featured on their homepage?
- How detailed are their property and service descriptions? What information do they include? What information is missing?
- What technology in the real estate industry do they employ for their properties page? Do they have virtual tours etc?
- What are their calls to action throughout the online experience?
- Are they distinctive or do they get lost due to a poor color scheme?
- Do they have a blog? How frequently do they post? What type of information do they tackle? What topics are they trying to rank for?
- Is their site optimized for mobile?
- What methods for contact do they offer? Do they have limited hours for phone support? How long does it take them to respond to email, live chat, and contact form submissions?
These are just to get you started.
Each website will be different depending on the market they are trying to reach and the services they offer.
Also, use tools like Ahrefs and Moz to gauge the amount of organic traffic your competitors are receiving and their domain authority.
It may show you opportunities to optimize your site for keywords that you’re currently not targeting.
Step 6: Conduct a social media audit
The use of social media for business is on the rise. Many customers are on social channels and expect brands to be there to support them.
Sproutsocial found that 50% of consumers stated they would boycott a brand due to a poor response on social. Additionally, 41% of consumers will share bad experiences with a brand with their network.
Many brands have realized how important social media is to their businesses and are using it for more important facets of their businesses like customer service and sales (called social customer service and social selling respectively).
For you to get any chance at leading your competitors, your social media marketing must be way above par and that is difficult without a competitor social media audit.
One major benefit of looking at your competitors’ social media accounts is that it’ll help you get a good idea of how customers feel about their business, and see what works well and what doesn’t for engaging with your client base.
Take a look at all of the social media channels you can think of — including Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Reddit and Twitter — and ask:
- What is their overall social media presence like?
- Which social media channels do they use the most?
- How do they speak with their client base?
- How often do they interact with their following? How frequently do they post something new?
- Which social media channels are they missing?
- Is there an opportunity for you there?
- What percentage of the posts are about their business? What percentage is solely meant to increase engagement or gain followers?
Some tools that can help you with your competitors’ social media audits are Not Just Analytics etc.
Step 7: Get actionable strategies from your analysis
Competitive analysis is not done for fun. It is done to get fresh ideas and data that you can put to good use in your business.
So, draw valuable conclusions from your analysis, identify your opportunities to lead the competitors, and make actionable strategies.
Avoid copying strategies out of context though. Whichever strategy your competitors are using that seems to be working for them, learn from it, but don’t copy it outright.
Also, make sure the report of your analysis is easily accessible by everyone in your organization.
FINAL THOUGHTS
A strong competitive analysis takes quite some work, but the rewards are huge. It removes blind spots, helps you improve, and is essential for excelling in the real estate industry.
It is a proven way to pinpoint your competitors and lead them. So, go on and conduct your analysis with the 7 easy steps outlined and the free downloadable competitive analysis template.
Please don’t hesitate to leave a comment if there’s anything you’d like to add. We love your input.
Also, check out our complete guide to creating buyer personas and conducting a customer journey analysis to complete your overall brand strategy.
Our crack team of brand strategists is always happy to chat if you need help with any part of your brand strategy.