Chapter 6: Competitive Research
Why Perform Competitive Research
Understand Your Industry and Competition
A great influencer marketing strategy is dependent on a holistic approach. This means not only understanding your brand strategy but the strategy of our competitors and the expectations of your industry. By performing competitor research you can learn about important influencers, demographics, and values that are important to your industry. And, you can evaluate successful campaigns of your competitors that can provide inspiration for your own strategy.
Identify Areas of Opportunity
Another great advantage of competitive research is identifying untapped areas that provide an opportunity that offers an opportunity for your brand. For example, if a majority of competitors are heavily targeting a specific age demographic, you can focus on a different demographic where there is less competition.
How To Perform a Competitive Assessment
Review Competitor Collaborations
An important stage in a competitor assessment is reviewing the influencers the brand has collaborated with. Past collaborations can tell you many things about your competitor. Review an influencer’s performance metrics to see what criteria your competitor sets for collaboration. Or, perhaps review the audience demographics of your competitor’s influencers, and understand who they are targeting through their campaign.
Review Your Influencer's Past Collaborations
Look at the brands your influencer has collaborated with to identify other brands that have found success with the same partnership. Take a further look into these brands' strategies and learn if they are leveraging partnerships in a way you’re not.
Klear makes it easy to review an influencer's past collaborations with a comprehensive influencer content portfolio. Our brand portfolio feature aggregates all branded content that an influencer has posted. The content can then be filtered by time range, by a specific brand, or by sponsorship.
Identify Competitor Values
During your competitor assessment, identify a campaign run by your competitor. When reviewing your competitor’s campaign and partners, identify important values that are conveyed through their marketing initiative. Determine if these are common values that are expressed through your industry, and understand how you fit into the discourse.