Why You Should Care About Your Startup Competitors
Many companies struggle to stay afloat due to a lack of capital or inadequate organisational skills. Others, especially those who are fresh to an oversaturated industry, are suffocated by competition. In 2019, the failure rate of startups was around 90%. Research concludes 21.5% of startups fail in the first year, 30% in the second year, 50% in the fifth year, and 70% in their 10th year (via Investopedia).
Many businesses may attempt to reduce the effect of their competitors to obtain a competitive edge in market share, and this is easier now than ever before thanks to new tools and technology. According to a recent study from Crayon, a Boston-based research organisation, 41% of corporate executives “strongly believe” that competitive intelligence is essential to their company’s success.
5 Ways to Beat Your Startup Competitors
You must discover strategies to be one step ahead of your competitors in order to build a successful scaleup. It may often be easier said than done, and unfortunately there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for beating your competitors. In any market there is going to be competition, and to gain market share effectively, smart firms will reduce the impact of competition to scale up fast.
Greatest Challenge when founding a Startup. (via First Site Guide)
Find the Solution
Determine your clients’ problem areas and then address them. One of the most likely ways to outperform your competitors is to better answer the demands of your common target audience. To find out exactly what your potential customers desire when utilising your products or services, ask open-ended inquiries. Employees should be taught how to handle difficulties, focus on customer queries, and get customer feedback.
After you’ve identified a client’s pain areas, you may try to resolve them by addressing their problems in terms the consumer understands. Once you have a clear picture of the problem, determine who within their organisation is capable of resolving those issues and who is allowed to acquire your goods and services. Strengthening and maintaining customer relationships helps you acquire potential customers as well as scale up faster.
Hire the Right People
Above all, you want your clients to feel appreciated and satisfied with the service they receive. Employ people who are knowledgeable about your goods, services, and brands. This is a no-cost option that might be the most effective method to outperform the competition. When interacting with clients, pleasant smiles, appreciation, and genuine delight go a long way.
Make an effort to raise employee morale by making them feel like a part of the company and rewarding them for their hard work. This keeps them motivated and working at their best. Expect them to always be professional and respectful while responding swiftly and graciously to client inquiries.
Your customer service representatives should always be kind and respectful. Customers must always be able to reach them. They should take a problem-solving attitude and solicit client input regularly. Client-centric businesses rely on trustworthy employees to increase customer happiness.
In 2007, Apple transformed mobile phones and quadrupled its market share. Apple is still a market leader in the mobile phone business 13 years later as a result of the methods they continue to develop their product and cultivate loyal consumers (via Zephyr Group)
Make a List of Your Startup Competitors
Make a list of your top 10 competitors. If you offer a product or service online, you’re probably up against dozens, if not hundreds, of other businesses vying for the same pool of qualified leads.
Whether you’re a local, national, or worldwide business, there’s almost always someone in your organisation, usually in the sales or marketing departments, who can reel off your competitors — and what sets them apart from you.
If you need some assistance, Google is a good place to start. Simply Googling for the sort of service or product you provide will almost certainly bring up a few of your top rivals.
Keep an Eye on Content
The quality and quantity of your content matters. This is regardless of whether you’re using SEO, pay-per-click, or any other digital marketing technique. A new type of content appeals to both search engines and their automatic indexing systems, as well as the individuals who visit your site.
High-value content may also encourage viral sharing. This, therefore, will boost the number of external backlinks to your site and help your SEO.
If you’re worried about your high search rankings being taken away by rivals, you can’t go wrong by spending time writing blog posts, articles, downloadable goods, and other content for your website.
Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing in terms of on-site SEO. You may be looking at one of two possibilities if competitors drastically modify their SEO activities. The first possibility is that they have discovered a new site optimisation technique. The other possibility is that they may be upgrading their pages in reaction to a search engine penalty.
Examine and Compare Startup Competitors
Examine and compare the content of your startup competitors. Once you’ve identified your rivals, you can begin your competitive analysis and dive a bit further to learn more about the kind of material they’re putting out.
In any case, keep an eye on your rivals’ title tag structures, usage of keyword-optimised headers, and other SEO activities. All of this information, as well as a lot more, may be found using free, downloadable tools.
Netflix is no stranger to forming long-term relationships with its consumers. To better serve its consumers, the site is continuously introducing new original shows and improving its algorithm. Netflix reportedly had a 90% market share in the streaming service industry in 2014, thanks to its ongoing refinement of the platform (via Zephyr Group).
Conclusion
After evaluating your startup competitors, you’ll discover critical areas for improvement in terms of content production, Search Engine Optimisation, and social media involvement. Furthermore, you’ll also be able to establish yourself among potential consumers, blog readers subscribers, and social media users.
Examining your market share and seeking methods to enhance it is crucial. You’ll discover higher client retention and a more secure position to scale up in your business. Remember – smarter businesses decrease the effect of competition to win market share.
Amit Khanna, 7startup Founder
Amit has 18 years of experience in the industry and an MBA. He supports entrepreneurs with every aspect of their business including concept and product development, investor presentations, and fundraising. Amit & 7startup assist startups in the pre due-diligence process and help connect them to our vast network of investors. Reach out to us today and see if we’re a fit!
