How do you use tools for competitive analysis and benchmarking?

Competitive analysis and benchmarking are essential steps for any content marketer who wants to create and optimize content that stands out from the crowd. By using tools that help you compare your performance, strategy, and tactics with your competitors, you can gain valuable insights, identify gaps and opportunities, and improve your content marketing ROI. In this article, we will show you how to use tools for competitive analysis and benchmarking in six steps.

1 Define your goals and metrics

Before you start using any tools, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and how you will measure it. Depending on your content marketing goals, you may want to focus on different metrics, such as traffic, engagement, conversions, ranking, or authority. You also need to decide how often you will conduct your analysis and benchmarking, and how you will report and act on the results.

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Victor MARQUET

Digital Marketing Specialist
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In my experience, we should not put too much effort into collecting all the metrics we can. We need to be aware of the metrics we could potentially measure. But then, have a look at our goals, our timelines, at the resources we would have to put in to collect those metrics and focus on specific metrics that we are actually going to use to measure and justify our success.

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Joyce Tsang 👩💼 Content Marketing Expert

I give entrepreneurs a content strategy to drive growth 🧲⚡ 7x Reach | 2x Interactions | 60 MQLS
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Metrics are great! But data alone does not provide actionable insights. It’s the most important to be able to go back and find the actions that lead to such success and monitor growth instead of abandoning potentials. Great things take time to simmer, so I always like taking a step back and look at the bigger picture. What are the rates of things over the course of time? How have costs reduced in the past quarter? What percentage of growth have we experienced since we changed our strategy? And last but not least, were there any qualitative achievements, big or tiny, to celebrate for? Whether it’s a positive feedback from a l client or a shortened conversion time - they are all indicators of success (or success to be!)

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2 Identify your competitors and segments

The next step is to identify who your competitors are and how they are relevant to your content marketing efforts. You can use tools like Google, social media, or industry directories to find out who is targeting the same audience, keywords, or topics as you. You can also segment your competitors into different categories, such as direct, indirect, aspirational, or niche, based on their size, scope, and influence.

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Joyce Tsang 👩💼 Content Marketing Expert

I give entrepreneurs a content strategy to drive growth 🧲⚡ 7x Reach | 2x Interactions | 60 MQLS
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And don’t forget to look at their content! What has worked? What hasn’t? Are there any insights or indicators we can take to improve/ refine/ abandon any of our content? Easiest way to do this is by going through your competitors content in the past month and pick out your top 3’s (based on impression or engagement, or any front end metrics you can see). Analysis how they work, content spot similarities and differences. Question yourself as to how they can help you create better content!

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3 Analyze your competitors' content

Once you have a list of competitors, you can use tools to analyze their content and see how they are performing on various metrics. For example, you can use tools like SEMrush, Moz, or Ahrefs to check their domain authority, keyword ranking, backlinks, and traffic. You can also use tools like BuzzSumo, Social Animal, or Sprout Social to see their social media engagement, content types, formats, and topics. You can also use tools like SimilarWeb, Alexa, or Google Analytics to see their audience demographics, behavior, and sources.

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4 Benchmark your content against your competitors

After you have gathered enough data on your competitors' content, you can use tools to benchmark your content against theirs and see how you stack up. You can use tools like ContentScore, HubSpot, or CoSchedule to evaluate your content quality, readability, SEO, and relevance. You can also use tools like Google Search Console, Google Analytics, or Google Data Studio to compare your content performance, such as clicks, impressions, bounce rate, conversions, and revenue.

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5 Identify gaps and opportunities

The next step is to use the tools to identify gaps and opportunities in your content marketing strategy and tactics. You can use tools like AnswerThePublic, SEMrush, or Moz to find out what questions, keywords, or topics your audience is searching for and how you can address them with your content. You can also use tools like BuzzSumo, Social Animal, or Sprout Social to see what content formats, headlines, or emotions are resonating with your audience and how you can replicate or improve them.

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Joyce Tsang 👩💼 Content Marketing Expert

I give entrepreneurs a content strategy to drive growth 🧲⚡ 7x Reach | 2x Interactions | 60 MQLS
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Tools are great! But never forget about your target audience personas and brand key messaging platform. Sometimes, you want to stand out by doing something completely different. And such creative ideas doesn’t stem from keywords or trending topics - they come from the understanding of your audiences and the unique position of your brand!

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6 Implement and monitor your actions

The final step is to use the tools to implement and monitor your actions based on your analysis and benchmarking. You can use tools like WordPress, Yoast, or Grammarly to create and optimize your content for SEO, readability, and quality. You can also use tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, or Mailchimp to distribute and promote your content on various channels and platforms. You can also use tools like Google Analytics, Google Data Studio, or DashThis to track and measure your content performance, impact, and ROI.

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7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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How do you use tools for competitive analysis and benchmarking?

1

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1 Define your goals and metrics

2 Identify your competitors and segments

3 Analyze your competitors' content

4 Benchmark your content against your competitors

5 Identify gaps and opportunities

6 Implement and monitor your actions

7 Here’s what else to consider

Content Marketing

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How do you use tools for competitive analysis and benchmarking?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1 Define your goals and metrics

2 Identify your competitors and segments

3 Analyze your competitors' content

4 Benchmark your content against your competitors

5 Identify gaps and opportunities

6 Implement and monitor your actions

7 Here’s what else to consider

Content Marketing

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