The definition
of Competitive Analysis according to Entrepreneur: Identifying your competitors and
evaluating their strategies to determine their strengths and weaknesses
relative to those of your own product or service.
Competitive
analysis is a critical step when launching a successful business as there is a lot of
competition across the app stores. It is important that businesses consider
their marketing strategy during the planning phase before an app is even built. The app market today is flooded. Current market leaders, Apple and Android,
have about 800,000 apps in their stores. With so much competition, it’s
crucial for businesses to conduct target audience analysis and competitor
analysis early in order to stay ahead of the competition. When
a business understands who their target audience and competitors are, they will make better marketing decisions for the launch of
their product.
The first
step in this process is identifying who your competitors are. You can simply google keywords that are related to your
application and add the keyword ‘app’ at the end of your search criteria. Log
their name, website address, description.
Business
comparison is the second step. It’s important to understand what your
competitors offer and analyse their strengths and weaknesses so that you can build
something different, something stronger. Here are some characteristics to
compare:
- Presence
- Monetization model
Market position & branding- Unique value offering
- Their strengths that can be hard to compete with
- Their weakness that can become your strengths
- What opportunities exist that have not yet been taken advantage of
- Threats
App store
analysis is another important step. Understand your competition by tracking
downloads, revenues, rankings, reviews, and ratings.
Customers
value innovation, especially when products solve their problems
and meet their demands. Market analysis helps uncover the needs of a market in
order to develop a completely new product or service.
