Competitive Analysis Case Study Your Content Strategy Is Foundational

A comprehensive competitive analysis is step one in developing an effective digital strategy. Competitive analysis will feed your content strategy delivering better marketing results.

The client is a small B2B business (less than 50 employees) that provides professional services to businesses in North America. Find and Convert was engaged to build a content and digital marketing strategy that would unify their messaging between their website content and a new brand strategy. A key component to their digital strategy is competitive analysis due to the valuable insights learned which contributed greatly to our client’s plan. The re-branding initiative required a website re-design. As such a persona development exercise was valuable as a prerequisite to website development. For more detailed information on this client’s competitive analysis case study, please contact us.

Client Objective – Define A Content Marketing and Digital Strategy

The client’s objective in a new website is to engage their audience more effectively with industry-relevant content. Prior to engaging a website designer our focus was to develop a content marketing plan under an overall digital strategy that more accurately reflects the issues which are important to their target customers. The client recognized that such a strategic approach would be important to meeting their long term growth plans.

Competitive Analysis Challenges

Initial research revealed that the client had two distinct types of competitors. One set of competitors were niche companies like themselves offering services on a national or regional basis. A second set of competitors were much larger national firms offering a wider array of services which included their specialty as one of many offerings.

A second challenge was that industry regulations had recently changed the terminology associated with their services. However, the widespread awareness by their target audience was in early stages. Our research revealed that most people are still searching on terms that are no longer relevant to the new updates defined by the governing body of standards in this market segment.

Competitive Analysis Strategy

Competitive analysis revealed that the larger companies had more website authority but little keyword focus on their niche services. Many of their niche competitors had already updated their websites to reflect newer keyword terms.

Trending research determined that while their industry was quickly moving to the new terminology, their target audiences were moving at a much slower pace. Their content strategy would need to address both an early adopter audience as well as more traditional searchers.

Persona analysis disclosed the client had several decision-makers with distinctly different motivators for their services. Their content strategy would need to flow with a cohesive message, yet speak to very different needs. Comprehensive keyword research identified relevant keyword themes around which these distinctive audiences were conducting research.

Competitive research also revealed a crowded pay-per-click landscape with little strategy between Google Adwords campaigns and organic keywords.

Competitive Analysis Case Study Results

The competitive analysis provides the foundation for a content marketing strategy that allows their new website to have more cohesive messaging between content and visual experience. A comprehensive keyword strategy, supports their  pay-per-click advertising campaign strategy and their organic search strategy. The competitive analysis and overall  digital strategy provides a content and SEO strategy that will deliver a better user experience for visitors to their new website. The plan of action document includes recommendations for a URL strategy for better search discoverability and compelling calls-to-action that can generate more leads for the sales staff.

We can not disclose the name of our client in this competitive analysis case study to protect their identity from competitors. Please contact us if you would like more information about how we developed this marketing  strategy if it is relevant to your situation.