Title: Understanding Your Competition

Hello,

Researching your competition is pretty similar to that of
your customers. You’ve already taken a look at the reviews
of your competitors’ products, so you’re already halfway
there in terms of understanding what makes them tick.

Of course, there’s a bit more to it than that. In addition
to knowing a little about what customers do and do not like
about their products, you need to keep a closer eye on things
like your competitors’ pricing, available shipping methods, 
what their website is like, how much social media presence
they have, and many other factors.

It’s a good idea to research as many of your competitors as
you can to uncover exactly what they’re doing right, so you
can emulate it, but also what they are doing wrong, so you 
can improve over their flaws and make your experience better
for your customers.

One great way to research your competition is to actually 
become a customer yourself. Find your three biggest 
competitors, the ones you’re sure could give you a real run
for your money, and buy their products. Use them yourself.
See what you like and don’t like about the products, their
ordering and shipping processes, and their customer service.

Make notes about what you find, because if you find it 
difficult to make headway later, you can analyze this 
information to find out what they are doing differently 
that makes customers gravitate to them.

Don’t forget to analyze their product descriptions, their
packaging, their website, their social media accounts, and
anything else you can find. You really want to pick your
competition apart in order to really learn why they are 
successful. (Or why they aren’t, in some cases. You can 
learn a lot just by studying businesses similar to yours
that aren’t as successful or have failed entirely!)

If you want to learn more about the ads and targeting 
being used by your competitors, check out SpyFu.com. The 
site will let you enter your competitor’s website and it 
will give you a wealth of data about the site’s organic
and paid search ranks, other competitors, and more.

You can get a lot of this information for free, but they 
provide a larger base of information with their paid
model, which starts at $49 per month.

Now that we’ve talked about researching your customers 
and your competition, it’s time to start talking about 
product features. We’ll discuss this tomorrow, so don’t
miss it!

Until then, 

{YOUR NAME HERE}

PS- Think you know exactly what features your product 
needs? What if you’re wrong? Find out how to know for
sure tomorrow!


