Once you’ve identified your target audience, it’s time to see what your competition is up to. It is important to find out what your product is up against. Competitive analysis has become an essential part of business strategy, especially for a dynamic market like mobile app development. A successful app is one that adds value and helps solve customer pain points.

Ultimately, your app will not be successful unless it has something more to offer than your competitors.

Here are some research techniques you can use to establish a competitive advantage:

Know your value proposition

Competitor research is all about revealing your competitors’ strengths as well as their weaknesses. Building a product with the same features as your competition will not win you many customers. It is your unique value proposition (USP) that will help you attract and retain customers. To start, ask yourself: what has your competitor done well? What are their strengths compared to yours? What are your weaknesses that you can capitalize on? How will your app add value in a way that your competition doesn’t?

Who are your competitors?

Once you fully establish your value proposition, evaluate your potential competitors. Using general keyword searches, understand your strengths and make a list of your strongest keywords. Remember that if you use the exact same keywords as your competitor, you will be fighting for the user’s attention. In general, look up your competitor’s target audience, revenue, product offerings, customer support, and marketing strategy. Also analyze how they target, market and interact with their users. This will give you a fair idea and help you reevaluate your product strategies for your target audience.

Examine your online presence

Social media is the best place to start competitor analysis. Understand your followers, sign up for your newsletters, and learn how they brand themselves digitally. He also understands his influencers. This will also help you strategize your moves.

Analyze your content marketing strategy.

Content strategies have significant value. Carefully analyzing your competitor’s content can reveal a lot about your target set of users. Also check your posting frequency, quality, and relevance – it’s a good start when you’re trying to understand your competition.

Ask potential users

Dig deeper and ask for feedback directly from your existing user base. This is a better approach instead of making assumptions.

Ask the business experts

Talk to industry business experts. Learn from their experiences and understand what works and what doesn’t in the industry. Understand future trends and make smart decisions.

Beware of indirect competition

Indirect competition still poses a threat when it comes to targeting the same group of users. Analyze how customers are targeted and retained. Competitive analysis must go far beyond the product itself. Understand your competitor’s complete brand strategy.

Analyze industry reports.

Many companies publish trend reports. Reading such reports can spark new ideas for products, marketing, and strategies for the future.

The technology industry is constantly evolving and companies need to stay ahead of the competition. Both you and your competition are fighting for the attention of the same target audience, either with a marketing strategy or with the product itself. Show your users the difference!