You can learn a lot from watching your competition and seeing how they treat their audience. Here are a few reasons why you want to keep an eye on what others in your niche are doing.

Here are 8 reasons why watching your competition helps you:

Reason #1: You develop a deeper understanding of what your customers expect

When you study your competition and see how they interact with and serve an audience that’s similar to yours, you’re going to learn more about what the customers expect. Remember that you want to observe the customer to find out how they feel about the competition based on the way your competitors do business. 

Reason #2: You can learn more about your own business shortcomings and flaws

When you get a handle on what the competition is offering and how they are offering it, you’ll be able to figure out where you are falling short. These are all areas of improvement by bringing in the right resources, either human or technical, to help you better serve your customers.

Reason #3: You’ll be able to see how your offers are better for your customers

As you watch what your competitors do and the offers that they make, buy them. This is going to help you learn what makes a fair offer and also ways you can make the offer even better. Note where your offers stand out in comparison so that you can capitalize on that difference.

Reason #4: You’ll be able to identify and improve your own unique selling proposition

Your USP is your “unique selling proposition” and it is what makes your offers stand out from the competition. It’s all about what’s unique about you, your products, and your services in the eyes of your audience. You may be the low-cost option, the high-quality option, or maybe you differentiate yourself by offering top-notch customer care that is different from any other offerings.

Reason #5: You will be able to identify the gaps in customer service

When you study your competition, you can get an idea about how they serve their customers, which can teach you what to do and what not to do. Join their lists and read the messages. Try their freebies, buy their products, and ask for customer service to find out how it works for them. You can identify the gaps they have, fill them for your business, and stand out in that way.

Reason #6: You will be able to capitalize on your competitors mistakes

Everyone, including you, makes mistakes. When you’re studying the competition, learn from their mistakes, and you can even capitalize on them if you’re paying attention. For example, if you note that they send 30 emails a day that feel like spam, you’ll know that’s not something you want to do.

Reason #7: You can also learn from your competitors’ success

Just as you can learn from their mistakes, you can also learn from what your competitors are doing right. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel when it comes to marketing. Yes, you want to be unique, but the truth is every business needs to use all sorts of content marketing to get the word out, including email marketing and list building. There is no reason to try to run your business without doing this.

Reason #8: You can really get to know your audience through your competitions’ communities

An excellent use of your competition is to join their communities. By doing so, you can learn about your audience. Since they’re your competitors, that means their customers are in the same demographics as your customers. You can capitalize on that by participating in their communities so you can get to know what they want.

Final Thoughts

Watching your competition and how they treat their customers can go a long way toward helping you develop your own unique perspective on what your customers want and how you can deliver it. Just as your business grows and changes, your audience grows and changes as well. Keep these tips in mind and always be aware of what your competition is doing, and you’ll have an inside window on how you can ensure you’re giving your audience what they want.