Mediaboss Marketing

Competitor analysis is a key element in any effective digital marketing approach, providing insight into how your competitors have addressed similar marketing challenges to your own, and what's worked (and what hasnt) within their process.

Analyzing your competitors can help you better position your products and services within a specific niche, or compete head-to-head with messaging that plays to your strengths. And if you want to maximize your marketing, performing a competitor analysis is essential whenever you launch a new product or enter into a new market space, industry, or vertical.

In this post, I'll go over six key elements of competitor analysis that will help your marketing efforts win out.

But first off, in order to effectively analyze your competitors'digital marketing performance, you need the right tools.

Within this, you need apps which will:

Some great, powerful tools that cover these elements are:

Here's how to use these tools within your competitor analysis process.

1. Insights from Traffic Analysis

The first element you want to look at is web traffic, and how people are discovering your competitor sites - SEMRush can help with this.

You should analyze the traffic to competitor websites to discover how many visitors they have, unique visitors, pages per visit, visit duration, and bounce rate, which tells you how much traffic your competitors are getting, if visitors are finding the site content useful enough to stay on the site, and which content is most popular.

You can also see how visitors are finding their way to your competitors'websites.

TIP: Identify source domains to inform decisions about investing in search engine and social media advertising, as well as influencer outreach based on whats working for your competitors.

One of the most important things you can learn here is which of your competitor's website pages are most popular.

Seeing which landing pages are working best for your competitor can tell you which products and services have a successful online presence, and which dont. That can inform your approach to marketing products and services, and to how to run your campaigns.

TIP: For a campaign designed to go head-to-head with a competing product or service that is popular, dissect the messaging on that page and find ways to differentiate your products and services. Consider promoting those messages using aggressive demand generation, such as search and social advertising.

Backlinks help to build your domain authority and improve your rank for topics that other sites link to. Your brands SEO efforts should include a link-building component, and tools like SEMRush and AHRefs enable you to perform a backlink gap analysis to domains linking to your competitors, but not to you.

This will inform and improve your link-building efforts.

Analyzing your competitors social media activity can tell you which channels they use for promotion, how theyre positioning their products and services, and what content and messages have received the best reception from their audience.

It can also help you find gaps in their promotion strategy which can provide an opportunity for your brand.

Tools like Fan Page Karma can provide competitive intelligence on competitors social media activity.

You can see the channels theyre using for promotion, how active they are, the growth in their presence on the channel, and how actively theyre engaging with their audience.

TIP: If youre targeting the same audience as your competitor, consider focusing your activities on channels that have worked well for them.

You can also see the content theyre publishing, the topics theyre talking about, and which of those topics is of most interest to their audience.

TIP: This information can help you identify the topics that are of greatest interest to the audience, questions they have, and issues you can discuss to position the value of your products and services. Use this information to refine your content strategy, messages, and value proposition.

One of the most important things you can learn from your competitors is what keywords theyre using, and which theyre ranking for.

Your website and campaign content should be focused around a core set of keywords that will help your target audience find your site and content when looking for the solutions youre selling.

Your competitors will also be using, and trying to rank for relevant keywords.

TIP: Examine the keywords used by your competitors to find industry-specific keywords that you might be able to rank higher for in your site and campaign content, and to formulate long-tail keyword variants that you can rank for, and that differentiate your products and services from your competitors.

Another great feature offered by SEMRush is the ability to report frequently asked questions related to keywords and domains.

TIP: Develop lists of top questions about problems you solve, and the products and services you sell and create content that answers those questions. You can also take a more interactive approach and actively participate in Q&A sites and forums like Quora and Reddit and answer questions relevant to the products and services you sell, and post links back to your website content for additional information.

Analyzing your competitors'advertising information can save you a lot of time researching and formulating critical campaign elements like keywords and ad copy, and help you position your products and services more effectively.

SEMRush can show you traffic estimates, keywords, and cost estimates for paid search traffic, display advertising, and product listing ads.

TIP: The keywords used by your competitors are a great starting point for the keywords you can use for your brand and campaign. You may be able to compete successfully for core keywords, but you can certainly use this information to choose long-tail keyword variants that work well with the value proposition of your brand, products, and services.

You can see position changes for keywords used by your competitors.

You can even see competitors ad copy.

TIP: Seeing how your competitors are promoting their products and services shows you how theyre positioning their offerings, enabling you to construct website and ad copy to position yourself differently, by going after a slightly different niche.

When analyzing your competitors'best content, you can see if similar topics are a good fit for your brand, and assess the types of content that their audience likes to consume.

You can also discover gaps in content coverage, and frequently asked questions which your brand can then address in its content campaigns.

Look at their poor performing content, too, and try and determine why it didnt resonate.

TIP: Analyze competitors content with the goal of finding the best way to differentiate your content and messages to favorably stand apart from the pack. Do deep analysis to find trends and see if the audience prefers, longer or shorter content, fundamental or deeper analysis, conceptual vs. how-to content, graphics, videos, images, etc..

Regular analysis of your competition is important, because its like looking at the other teams playbook before you go out onto the field. It enables you to develop a campaign strategy and messaging that differentiates your products and services, accentuates your strengths, and positions you to win against the competition.

If you haven't undertaken a competitor analysis, it's worth taking a look, and these tools and tips will help.

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6 Key Elements of Competitor Analysis That Will Help Your Business Win Out - Social Media Today

Eating produce with the seasons can help consumers access fresher, more nutritious while directly supporting their local farmers and economies.

Eating seasonally often coincides with eating locally, Jerusha Klemperer, FoodPrint director, tells Food Tank. Local shopping and eating is more likely to be seasonal shopping and eating.

This also comes with a number of benefits. According to FoodPrint, seasonal foods can be fresher, tastier, and more nutritious than out of season produce because it is likely picked at its nutrient-dense peak, rather than harvested early and transported elsewhere.

Buying locally also helps lower consumers carbon footprint, because there are fewer carbon emissions associated with transporting that food shorter distances.

Money spent on local food also supports local farmers and farmland and contributes to the local economy. Through farmers markets and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), consumers can help local farmers.

To help everyone eat with the seasons and access local distributors, Food Tank is highlighting educational guides for consumers.

1. The Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) Crop Calendar

First published by the Mexican Agri-food and Fishery Information Service in collaboration with AMIS, this online resource provides an in-depth report of wheat, rice, maize, and soybeans around the world. For each crop, the report provides a table for the seasonality of planting and harvesting across two years. The report includes information on each crop as well and has a secondary resource formatted in a table.

2. Cuerpomente Seasonal Calendar (Spain)

Cuerpomente is a Spain-based health and wellness community with a website and magazine. The seasonal calendar shows what fruits and vegetables are in season by each month, and even differentiates produce that is generally in season and produce that is at its peak The calendar comes with illustrated digital graphics and a user-friendly table. Users can also visit web pages for each month that provide more information about the in-season produce and its health benefits.

3. Das Bundeszentrum fr Ernhrung (BZfE) Germanys Seasonal Calendar (Central and Northern Europe)

BZfE, the Federal Center for Nutrition in Germany, provides a Seasonal Calendar of produce that can also be downloaded as a mobile application. The information of the foods provided also applies to most of central and northern Europe. While the website is available in German, English speakers can also find an illustrated version with translations in a drawing series here.

4. Eat Seasonably UK (United Kingdom)

The Eat Seasonably campaign, based in the United Kingdom (U.K.), is a nationwide campaign to promote the consumption of seasonal food. They offer an interactive, online calendar and free, downloadable calendar poster that contains all the seasonal information of produce in the U.K. The Eat Seasonable campaign also has online profiles of the current in-season produce and tips to help growers determine what plant that month.

5. FAO Ethiopia Crop Calendar for (Ethiopia)

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) country profile on Ethiopias agriculture system also features a crop calendar. It includes the major types of cereals and Meher crops those grown during the main crop season. The full agricultural profile on Ethiopia also includes data on vegetation and precipitation indicators and threats to crops. Users can search the websites country profiles for any countrys agricultural data.

6. FAOs Searchable Crop Calendar Database (International)

The FAOs information tool for seed security acts as a searchable database for different crops and countries around the world. Users can search the database by crop, category of crop, or country. The results even differentiate between agro-ecological zones. The database incorporates information on 44 countries and more than 130 different types of crops. It also provides information on the sowing rates of seed and planting material and the main agricultural practices.

7. The FoodPrint Seasonal Food Guide (U.S.)

FoodPrints Seasonal Food Guide draws from a database of more than 140 types of fruits, veggies, legumes, nuts, and herbs. The Guide allows users to search for produce by location in the United States time of year or food item. It also includes information about each produce item including its nutritional value, environmental impact, appearance when most ripe, and length of peak freshness. Access the Seasonal Food Guide online or via a phone app.

8. Harvest Select the Best Produce (U.S.)

Harvest is an iPhone application that allows users to see what produce is currently in-season by inputting a location and month. It then provides a guide for selecting the freshest, ripest, healthiest, and best-tasting produce using visual, touch- or feel-based cues. Harvest also provides tips on how to best store the produce and how long it will stay fresh. Finally, the application provides estimated pesticide levels in popular fruits and vegetables.

9. El Libro Sabio de Las Frutas y Las Verduras (Spain)

The Spanish Government s Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca, y Alimentacin, created El Libro Sabio de Las Frutas y Las Verduras, which translates to The Wise Book of Fruits and Vegetables. This resource provides a look into 24 fruits and 29 vegetables in an easy-to-read, family-friendly format. The book provides information about the produce, its production in Spain, its nutrition, and its seasonality.

10. LocalHarvests Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), Farms, and Farmers Markets National Directory (U.S.)

LocalHarvest provides online tools to connect people looking for local food with the farmers who produce it. Their National Directory provides a search tool that allows users to search for CSAs, local farms, farmers markets, farm stands, U-Picks, grocery co-ops, and more, by inputting their zip code. The directory contains over 40,000 entries and is used by over 7 million people each year.

11. Por Precio y Sabor, Prefiera Frutas y Verduras de Estacin Campaign by the Chilean Government (Chile)

This health campaign, translated to For Price and Flavor, Choose Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables, was promoted by the Ministerio de Agricultura for World Food Day. The campaign includes four graphs of of seasonal produce by geographical area of Chile: Norte Grande (Arica-Parinacota, Tarapac and Antofagasta), Norte Chico (Atacama and Coquimbo), Central (from Valparaso to Maule) and South (from Biobo to Magallanes).

12. SeasonEats (U.S. and U.K.)

SeasonEats is a mobile application providing seasonal data for more than 130 items of produce in all 50 U.S. states and the United Kingdom. Its design allows users to search by location and month, sort by location or produce, or view by the whole year. It is iOS supported and also has an Apple Watch App for searching on the go.

13. South Africa Seasonal Calendar (South Africa)

EatOut provides a visual infographic calendar of the seasonality of produce in South Africa. The printable calendar is beautifully illustrated and provides a month-by-month look at what produce is in season, in addition to a section dedicated to a list of produce that is in-season year-round. The guide contains 54 different types of produce grown in South Africa.

14. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) Seasonal Produce Guide (U.S.)

SNAP-Ed is a national grant program aimed at increasing nutrition education, social marketing, and policy, systems, and environmental change, and it can help people stretch their SNAP dollars further. The SNAP-Ed Seasonal Produce Guide provides an overview of the more commonly eaten produce sorted by season. The website allows the viewer to explore the different major fruits and vegetables through nutrition fact labels and external links to recipes, and other educational resources.

15. Union Freshs Seasonal Charts (Thailand)

Based in the Chiang Mai Province of Thailand, Union Fresh sources and distributes traditional Thai vegetables and tropical fruits. They provide a seasonal chart for both Thai Vegetables and Tropical Fruit for viewers all over the world. The color-coded chart features produce like carambola, mangosteen, rambutan, and durian.

16. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Farmers Market Directory (U.S.)

Maintained by the Agricultural Marketing Service, the USDA National Farmers Market Directory is designed to provide customers with updated listings of farmers markets across the U.S. The directory can be searched within an adjustable radius around the users zip code. The directory provides farmers market information like market locations, directions, operating times, product offerings, and accepted forms of payment. Each listing has an external link to the website.

Photo courtesy of Jakub Kapusnak on Unsplash

Continued here:
16 Resources for Eating Seasonally Around the World Food Tank - Food Tank

Our mission is to democratize access to marketing talent and create economic opportunityon both Operator and Publicist, say Lara Vandenberg Operator founder and CEO.

Not a day goes by when Kieran Hannon isnt asked for marketing advice or mentorship on LinkedIn. The 58-year-old CMO of Belkin, OpenPath and WellAir rarely responds, not because hes opposed to helping strangers, but because doing so has added little value to his life. If anything, time spent discerning legitimate queries from scams has taken away from the time he needs to manage teams in the thousands. But he will lend his expert advice on Operator, a platform that enables people to hire marketing executives for an hour.

Its like MasterClass meets Cameo, says Operator founder and CEO Lara Vandenberg. Its about providing never-before access to marketing talent.

The platform, which launched Tuesday, features marketing leaders including Hanon, as well as Anisha Raghavan, CMO of Walgreens Boots Alliance; Wen Zhou, cofounder and president of Philip Lim; and Eric Toda, global head of social marketing at Facebook and 96 others. The talent sets their own rates, which ranges from $200 to $1,000 per hour.

Vandenberg, 29, came up with the idea while working at her marketing and public relations freelancer marketplace, Publicist. Since founding the company in December 2019, many of its 100-plus clients, including Amazon, FedEx and Grail, have asked Vandenbergs six-person team to provide mentorship on marketing, product development, market outlook and operations. Meanwhile, executives have asked to offer their services on a freelance basis. Until now, the answer to both groups has been no. Operator, Vandenberg says, is meant to meet that demand in a way thats complementary to Publicist.

Everyone weve spoken to has this pain point: they get inundated with requestswhether it's LinkedIn or email, says Vandenberg. There hasnt been a way to consolidate the serious buyers versus people who just want to pick their brain.

Originally from the suburbs of Sydney, Australia, Vandenberg first moved to the U.S. in 2014 for a consulting gig with the Westfield World Trade Center in New York City. From there, she moved into senior marketing roles at Archetypes and Knotch before raising funds to start Publicist in 2019 from Shannon Brayton CMO of Bessemer, Outcast Agency founder Margit Wennmachers and former Forbes CEO Mike Perlis, among others. She has used these funds and cash from profitable Publicist to launch Operator.

Not just anyone can brand themselves as an executive-for-hire on Operator. Experts must be nominated to join the network before being vetted by the Operator team. Once on the platform, they can choose what projects they work on and when. On the other hand, anyone can join Operator as a prospective customer at no cost. They only pay after an expert accepts their project.

I love knowledge sharing. As a marketer, youre a perpetual student, says Hannon. This is a way of giving back.

Vandenberg, who relocated from New York City to Puerto Rico during Covid-19, says Publicist has grown its revenue by 15% every month, as its 4,000-plus users increasingly seek out short-term gig workers. So, why start a second company?

Covid has really accelerated the move to contract work. These leaders have become a lot more available and open-minded to being flexible and accessible, the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 Marketing & Advertising alumna says. And were really trying to keep Publicist and Operator as complementary platforms.

According to Statista, 57 million people work as freelancers in the United States. If the gig economy continues to grow at its current pace, freelance laborers will make up the majority of the American workforce by 2027. Gig platforms like Fiverr and Upwork have grown in lockstep, their revenues increasing by over 100% and by 37% in the first quarter of 2021.

Vandenberg has seen similar growth, noting a handful of gig workers have made $100,000 on Publicist and consider the work they do through the platform as their full-time jobs. Our mission is to democratize access to marketing talent and create economic opportunityon both Operator and Publicist, she says.

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Execs For Hire: The CMOs Of GoFundMe, Mansur Gavriel And Madison Reed Will Give You Advice On This New Platform - Forbes

As it looks to continue to expand its ad business, and maximize its commercial opportunities, Reddit has announced the launch of its own in-house creative strategy agency, which will provide assistance for businesses looking to tap into Reddit for promotions.

The new agency,called KarmaLab,will be made availableto all of Reddits ad partners "via a scaled offering dependent on campaign objective and need".

As explained by Reddit:

"KarmaLab is a team of best-in-class creative and strategic minds -those who know the ins and outs of Reddit and are backed by media, marketing and ad industry experience that make them uniquely positioned to guide and collaborate with brands as they find their home on Reddit and in culture."

The team will be led by Will Cady, Reddits former Head of Creative Strategy, and will provide social listening and trends reports, community management assistance, creative workshops,campaign development and more.

"KarmaLab is a full-service creative strategy agency delivering campaigns that resonate with and add value to Reddit users, while driving meaningful results."

The announcement adds to Reddit's growing ad offering, which now includes a range of video ad options, including Trending Takeover placement, providing engaging, impactful ways to reach the platform's highly engaged communities.

Which is Reddit's real strength in this respect. While Reddit's audience reach is lower than what you can see on other platforms (at 52 million DAU), Reddit hosts thousands of highly active, niche subreddit communities, which enables advertises to reach people based on very specific interests.

Of course, Reddit users have not traditionally been overly receptive to ads, but that is changing over time, and through the assistance of KarmaLab, Reddit will look to help businesses create more native-looking ad campaigns that will drive better response, and help to maximize reach.

It's the next step in Reddit's ad expansion, which has seen the company put more focus on cleaning up its platform, and providing a safer place for ad placement.

Indeed, last June, Reddit removed thousands of its most controversial communities as a result of an update to its rules around hate speech. That change came in response to the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the US, and that has also made the platform a more secure, open option for brands who may have hesitated on Reddit promotions in the past.

With the assistance of KarmaLab, it could become an even more powerful promotional tool for many brands, while Reddit also recently established a newenterprise partnership agreement with Omnicom Media Group(OMG) that will see OMG's thousands of ad clients gain access to a range of strategic and commercial benefits in order to enhance their Reddit advertising efforts.

Reddit's ad system is growing, and that could mean new opportunities. Maybe it's time to re-evaluate your Reddit marketing potential.

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Reddit Announces New Creative Strategy Agency to Help Brands Maximize their On-Platform Campaigns - Social Media Today

AR is set to become a much bigger focus in the coming years, with the big tech companies investing big in AR tools, and new devices like AR wearablesset to hit the consumer market in the near future.

That will open up whole new possibilities in regards to marketing, communications, discovery, etc.

And Snapchat is also looking to be a key player in this next shift - as Snap notes:

"Now is the moment for Augmented Reality. Consumers are excited about it, and brands have a unique chance to boost engagement, elevate consumer experiences and increase revenues. Today, there are more than 100 million consumers shopping with AR online and in stores."

To get a better understanding of the potential for AR,Snapchat recently teamed with Deloitte Digital to interview over 15,000 consumers across 15 nations, in order to measure the top consumer AR trends, and what they might mean for the future of gaming, shopping, communication,media and entertainment, and more.

And there are some important insights of note - you can read Snapchat's full 'Consumer AR Global Report 2021'here, but in this post, we'll take a look at some of the key highlights.

First off, Snapchat notes that AR usage, based on current adoption trends, is set to become hugely influential over the next few years.

As per Snapchat:

"AR adoption is tracking with the mobile usage boom we saw in the mid 2000s: By 2025, nearly 75% of the global population and almost all smartphone users will be frequent AR users."

That underlines the significance of AR development. While it still feels like a way off, and it may not seem like the technology that we primarily use, right now, to add digital masks and dog's ears to our faces in video clips will eventually become a major influence over how we interact, in a huge range of ways, the data shows that it is indeed moving in that direction.

AR will eventually play a key role in how we do almost everything, in a connectivity sense. And that will be the next major shift for marketing.

In more specific terms, Snapchat's research shows that AR is already influencing people's shopping process, with more than 100 million people currently shopping through the use of AR-enabled processes.

The expanded potential of these tools, including virtual try-on options and digital product placement (like 3D visualizations for furniture) in the home, will build on this, making AR an even bigger consideration for more businesses over time.

That becomes even more significant when you also consider the rise of eCommerce, which has seen a significant boost as a result of the pandemic. Indeed, Snap's research also shows that more consumers are now finding value in AR as an assurance and demonstration tool.

Which adds another wrinkle to the growing use of AR for digital product promotions and display, again pointing to broadening utility, for many, many brands.

In essence, based on these trends, it's not hard to see AR becoming the essential add-on component for online shopping, which will then help to form habitual behaviors that leads to increased AR adoption in even more applications and processes.

As Snap notes:

"Consumers continuously expect more personalized and engaging experiences that enable them to interact with the world. The companies that embrace change can become dominant industry players those that dont, fall behind competitors and sink."

And if you can't see the potential rising as yet, you soon will. Snapchat has also shared this timeline for the growth in AR adoption - going from 'Tech' to 'Toy' and eventually 'Totality', in regards to its expanded usage.

There is a heap of potential here, and Snapchat's AR report outlines it in an easy-to-follow way, with the added insight of consumer usage and interest rates to underline each point.

Again, it may not seem like AR will become an all encompassing tool, but the trend notes do point to this next stage, and when fully-functional AR glasses become available to consumers, that next shift will happen fast.

Best to get ahead of the game now, and ensure you're prepared.

You can read Snapchat's full, 74-page 'Consumer AR Global Report 2021'here.

Excerpt from:
Snapchat Publishes New Report on Rising AR Adoption Trends, and What They'll Mean for Marketers - Social Media Today