If you want to be successful in marketing, you should spend 50% of your time studying your competition and 50% of your time figuring out how to beat them.

And so I’m going to outline a simple 3-step process to do just that…

What I’m about to outline for you is very simple, but most people are too lazy to do it. But if you’ll just follow these 3 simple steps, you can gain the advantage in your market.

Step 1. Identify Your Competitors

The first step is to simply identify your competition.

Can you quickly name 5 to 10 companies that you’re directly competing with in your market?

If you can’t name at least 5 competitors without stumbling, then you have some homework to do. And the homework is simple, just “Google” your keywords and see who is advertising.

It’s a good idea to study competitors who are advertising. Why? Because if they’re paying money to display their messages, that’s an indication that their sales pitch is working (otherwise they’d stop spending all that money on ads).

Step 2. Spy on Your Competitors

OK, so you’ve identified some competitors who are advertising in Google.

The next step is to spy on your competitors, so you can see what’s working for them.

And here are the 3 things you’ll want to pay attention to: keywords, placements, pitches.

A. Keywords

Using KeywordSpy, you can “spy” on your competitors’ Google AdWords campaigns and find out what keywords they’re advertising on in Google.com. This is a great tool and we’ve used it for years. We rely on it every time we launch a new ad campaign.

As your studying your competitors ads and landing pages, be on the lookout for commonalities among 2 or more competitors — that’s a great indicator that those keywords would probably convert well for you, too.

Click here to try KeywordSpy for free

B. Placements

Next, you’ll want to study what OTHER websites your competitors are advertising on, besides Google.

You can’t do this with KeywordSpy… but you can do this MixRank.

MixRank works just like KeywordSpy. You enter your competitors’ websites into the tool, and MixRank tells you what other websites your competitors are advertising on.

Normally MixRank is $97/month, but because we’re partners with MixRank, you can get a 30-day trial for just $0.67.

Click here to try MixRank for $0.67

C. Pitches

Next, you’ll want to study your competitors’ ads and landing pages, paying attention close attention to:

Headlines
Positioning
Benefits
Offers
Pricing
Call to Action

I recommend you use KeywordSpy to study your competitors’ ads in Google.com, and MixRank to study your competitors’ ads in the Google Display Network.

And again, be on the lookout for commonalities across your competitors’ marketing messages. You’ll likely find some competitors are promoting the same selling points, and that’s a hint that those pitches are resonating with your potential customers.

Step 3. Make Your Move

When you study your competition like this, you’re essentially taking a comprehensive “snapshot” of your market… and you’re seeing what it’s like to be a potential customer shopping in your market.

And what you want to do next is communicate some kind of unique advantage to your potential customers. You want to copy many of the selling points that your competitors have in common, because they’re probably effective. But you also want to say something unique.

For example, as you’re studying your competition, you might find that nobody is offering a money-back guarantee. And so you could stand out from the crowd by offering a guarantee.

Of course, every market is different… so I can’t give you blanket advice about how to gain the advantage. You’ll have to do the research and find out for yourself what your competitors are up to…

And once you get started, you’ll find it’s actually fun… One reason competitive analysis is fun is because you usually find some pretty crappy marketing, and that’ll boost your self esteem :)

Plus, like I said earlier, you can rest assured that most of your competitors are NOT doing this kind of analysis — so, if you’ll just follow these 3 simple steps, you can gain the advantage.