Uncategorized Archives - Competitors App

Competitor finder & new timeline filters

September 3, 2019| Roxana Irimia

When it comes to developing new features, at Competitors App, we rely on our users’ feedback, and we’re always trying to facilitate their process of monitoring competitors’ marketing activities. Here are our latest platform features:

Ignore new web page alerts from timeline

Ignore any new web page URL that contains a pattern chosen by you. The page and details related to it will be omitted from the timeline page and email report. In this way, you’ll filter the available data according to your preferences and needs.

For example, if you’re not interested in receiving notifications regarding the Pricing page or Features page, copy-paste the website link to “New Webpages URL Ignored Pattern,” and you’ll stop receiving notifications about the Price/Features. Anytime you want, you can start re-monitoring the ignored URL by moving the links on the left side to “Website Change Monitoring.”

New competitor finder selection keywords

Find new competitors starting from a keyword. All you have to do is to make sure that you check the particular keyword/s, and soon, you’ll be able to monitor new competitors who use the same keyword/s as you.

We choose to develop this feature as an essential need for entrepreneurs and companies. Nowadays, businesses should always be aware of their possible and future competitors on the market to make further decisions and to polish their strategies after gathering competitors’ insights.

We understand that finding online competitors for a particular business is not an easy task, especially when it’s done manually. This feature comes as an easy and quick method that helps users with their competitive research.

Filter your timeline according to your interest

Choose what you want to see on your timeline based on your needs and interest. Now you can select a particular feature or focus just on a competitor.

The filter helps you to organize your timeline and your competitors’ data. All you have to do is to select a particular feature if you’re interested in seeing on your timeline only updates regarding that specific feature. Leave unchecked that/those feature/s that you want to hide from your timeline.

For example, if you’re interested in monitoring Social Media updates of Samsung, all you have to do is to select the particular competitor, Samsung, and the Social Media feature. Moving forward, you can even choose a specific Social Media channel for a more detailed overview.

The main goal of those new features is to facilitate the process of tracking all your competitors’ moves on Competitors App and helping you to organize your competitors’ data better.

Next steps

YouTube monitoring, a new Social Media feature that will keep you updated with your competitors’ activity on YouTube. You’ll be able to see on your timeline, in real-time, all videos posted by competitors and details regarding engagement.

Reviews, the feature will show on your timeline what people say online, on different review sites, about your competitors’ products and services.

Launching Slack integration, allowing you to receive notifications on your competitors’ moves directly in a Slack channel. This feature helps teams and users who usually share competitors’updates within the team. So every time a competitor makes a move, you’ll be notified of your email, timeline, and Slack.

How to win more customers with competitor comparisons landing page

August 26, 2019| Ugljesa Djuric

I bet you’ve already spent many hours crafting an ingenious landing page to make it convert like there is no tomorrow. And chances are this hard-won page still doesn’t show results you seek to. We’ve all been here, am I right?

However, it’s not over yet. No matter how crowded your market is and how powerful your competition is. The more rivals, the better. You can benefit from your competitors’ name and traffic to increase your own conversions. Just go head to head with them on a landing page specifically designed to put front and center how you are better than the competition.

The truth is prospects adore doing comparisons to competing products or services. Check Q&A sites, Google Keyword Planner or even Google search: the internet is full of discussions on how Product X is different from Product Y. Fortunately, this provides us a brilliant opportunity to take advantage of this comparison process and create a high-conversion landing page. The numbers say that this tactic increases a buyer’s intent to purchase a service or product by 22 percent.

In this article, you’ll find a step-by-step guide on how to go head-to-head with your rivals using a comparison landing page. Let’s dive right in!

Start from researching your competition organic traffic

If your business rivals are big and mature enough, they already win industry-related keywords and own the organic search results. The key here is to optimize your landing page for the specific phrases like ‘Your Product vs Their Product’ and ‘Their Product alternative’. You can discover the exact terms your prospects are searching for with the tool like Google Keyword Planner. Then, be strategic crafting your copy to help them find your business.

It’s not about ‘stealing’ traffic. It’s about introducing yourself to people already looking for an alternative. Ultimately, a comparison of landing pages helps prospects find the company that better suits their needs. And if you are not on top of your game, be sure — the competitors will politely introduce themselves to your dissatisfied customers.

Avoid the risk of being sued

Crafting your comparative landing page, don’t forget to pay attention to trademark laws. We have put together a shortlist of common rules that are worth to follow.

First, don’t distort your competitor’s trademark or logo in any way. There is no need to mention that creating a parody of your competitor’s trademark is a poor idea as well. At the end of the day, healthy competition and respect are everything. Also, use the ® symbol in the case it is a registered trademark and put a standard disclaimer as ‘All trademarks belong to their owners, etc.’

Second, your every claim placed on the comparative landing page must be true. We don’t want to mislead our prospects, do we? It’s a great idea here to refer to some kind of third-party credible studies that confirm your words.

And last but not least, mention the date you have made the comparison. Why? The reason is quite obvious: if something changes, you don’t turn into an unwitting lier. The good idea here is to monitor your competitors’ business moves with the tool like competitors.app.

You come, you differentiate, you conquer

So, down to business. You have already know your what competitor you will be compared to on your future comparison landing page. Now the question is how to set your products apart.

Here comes the need for upgrading your competitive intelligence skills, or simply put, an ability to collect actionable information on your business’ environment. The more thorough your competitor research is, the more prepared you are for crafting a high-conversion landing page. Due to that, you’ll get insights on how to differentiate your product: by robust features, good-value price or brilliant benefits.

Whichever way you go, there are a few crucial questions you should answer on your page. Why should a potential customer choose your service vs the market leader? What pain points does your product solve vs your competitor’s product? I think you have got the idea.

Prepare a great copy

There is an ocean of comparison page elements that skyrocket conversions, but nothing can beat an inarguably great text. Meticulously researched copy that accurately points out the differences between competitors, sells your product better than sophisticated web design.

So, become addicted to details and facts. For instance, if you market a SaaS, download your competitor’s app and examine it’s every nook and cranny. Yes, it takes a lot of time and efforts. And yes, you will be paid off with the killing content that is cut out for generating leads.

And remember that some of your potential clients may not be familiar with any of the products. Therefore, a blog post is a good place to spell out the difference between you and your business rivals as lemtalk – Intercom alternative live chat and helpdesk software for Slack did:

or as Chanty, a simple AI-powered app chat, did:

Inject a dose of trust marks

Trust marks are crucial when it comes to conversion rate. They are especially important when a potential client has never come across your company before. You should make them believe that your product is able to solve their issue better in comparison with a well-known competitor.

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Display customer testimonials or their company logos, awards, mentions incredible media, case studies–anything that builds social trust and encourages prospective clients to convert.

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Want some brilliant tips? You can even show opt-ins, sales or other recent conversions as well as your current visitor number with the help of social proof tools. These tools help you stay clean when it comes to claiming that others have opted for your product.

Don’t hesitate to address many competitors at once

General competitor comparison pages describe your benefits over an entire competitive niche in one fell swoop. In a too crowded market, sometimes there are too many competitors to address individually. SharpSpring has walked down a different path. Having many similar features, this company brings up five competitors at once to rise above the fray with the message like ‘If we are almost the same, why pay more?’

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Don’t promote your business rivals

Creating competitive comparison pages is, in a way, some kind of advertising for the brands you want to beat. So, it’s a good idea to exclude their branding from your comparison landing pages. Below, you can see that Campaign Monitor has removed the MailChimp logo from their comparison page and simply listed the company name:

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Spice it up with compelling visuals

People always want to see and feel how exactly you differ from the competition and what they pay for. Researches show that 65 percent of all people are visual learners. What’s more, visual memory places in the same part of the brain where emotions are processed. In other words, visual memory and feelings are tied together physiologically.

Therefore, comparison of landing pages should not be boring. Persuasive and compelling images are crucial for creating an emotional connection and fostering the buying process. With the help of a simple graphic, Microsoft convinces the material benefit of their services. And that resonates better than words:

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Become a storyteller

Everyone and their moms know that a good website copy should provide your prospective clients with the key insights about your product and their ability to solve their challenges. A good marketing story should evoke empathy and build a deeper emotional connection that leads to prospects’ proactive steps, for instance, purchases.

BigCommerce, in addition to having compelling landing page design, shows people that Shopify, their main competitor, is the outdated and unfavorable option for unprofitable businesses. In fact, BigCommerce sets up a conflict that resonates with every prospect who strives for success and growth. That gives BigCommerce a better chance of holding prospects’ attention and influencing their decision to make a purchase:

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Make the product switch as quick and easy as possible

Seamless and no-brainer product switch pulls prospective clients to your company.

That needs to be top of mind when executing comparative marketing as a whole and crafting a comparative page particularly. For instance, Zendesk defeats the power of inertia offering a handy guide on quick migration:

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Be as transparent and honest as you can

Establishing trust and building customer confidence in your content take a lot of time. And oddly enough, even when revealing where your product is weaker, you contribute to the future loyalty to your brand. Don’t go from one extreme to another: it’s not necessary to highlight areas where your business rivals beat you. Just share a balanced view.

Build a bold call-to-action

Define the desired next step page visitors should take? Register for a free trial? Schedule a demo or consultation? Attend a webinar? Make a direct purchase? When you figure it out, make sure that your call-to-action appears multiple times throughout the landing page: on the top, bottom and in every important section.

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Wrapping up

To sum up, a competitor comparisons landing page is not Vanity Fair. Instead, it is the right way to challenge your business rivals. In addition to fostering healthy competition, this type of content provides your prospective clients with the needed information on the road to solving their issues.

And more importantly, competitor comparisons pages, if executed properly, help you convert more visitors and boost your sales. Test out the above-mentioned tips to turn your comparison page into a lead generation machine.

But before you even start creating your competitor comparisons landing pages, you will need to know too much about your competitors, right? Luckily you can create your account for free at Competitors App – online competition monitoring software.

Note: This article is the Guest Blog post by:

Carsten Schäfer is the founder and CEO of crowdy.ai, the first Clients-Convert-Clients Marketing platform. Inspired by principles and mechanisms of social proof, Carsten is currently on his way to help businesses become trustworthy and thrive in the digital landscape.

Should you follow competitors on Instagram?

August 7, 2019| Roxana Irimia

With more than 1bn monthly active users, Instagram has quickly grown to become one of the most popular platforms out there and probably is one of the most promising for businesses and marketers.

As important as your website homepage, your Instagram account is the best approach to let others know who you are and what you do. But the simple fact of “just existing on Instagram” won’t make you successful – the important key is how you create your Instagram Marketing Strategy and what you do to stand out from the crowd. Keep in mind that there are more than 8 million business profiles on Instagram, so the need for differentiation should be one of your main goals.

When crafting your Instagram Marketing Strategy, start by … analyzing your competitors’ Instagram accounts! Gathering information about your competitors’ content and moves on Instagram will setup a valuable foundation for your strategies – you’ll notice what they are doing well/or not and what you think you could improve, having in mind your competitors’ examples.

Start analyzing your competition Instagram accounts

Identify your main competitors and start monitoring their moves and how they choose to present their businesses on Instagram

1. What type of content do they post?

Nowadays, it is more important than ever to deliver high-quality content on Instagram. The Instagram algorithm makes the game even harder for brands to stands out – that’s why you need to have a strategy for your posts.

Analyzing your biggest competitors’ Instagram account can give you a better idea about what you should post, what type of content will work better, and what your audience wants to see. Remember that your competitors’ audience is also your target audience so that you can take notes from your competitors’ posts examples.

Video vs. Pictures

Taking insight analyses on @samsung and @huawai Instagram posts, we noticed that the two brands are focusing on delivering content in different ways. When it comes to what the audience likes to engage in, in this case, there are more advantages in posting a picture, especially a photo taken by a fan of the brand – it creates a sense of belonging to the community and makes you double-tap to show you appreciation.

When it comes to content, KEEP IT SIMPLE, build a strong Instagram aesthetic for your brand, avoid posting similar things, and try not to bore your audience with long videos.

2. How often they post?

Wondering how often you should post on Instagram? Watch your biggest competitors’ profiles and see their post frequency.

Remember that the more frequently you post on Instagram, the more likes you’ll get. Plus, being more active on Instagram increases engagement and also help you to earn followers faster.

Important hint: Look at the time between their posts

3. Do they use hashtags?

Hashtags are trendy on Instagram and can help you to gain visibility and to attract new followers. Find the most used # in your domain and keep on eye on your competitors’ hashtags strategy. Noticed that don’t use hashtags? That’s also part of a strategy.

4. How competitors interact with the audience?

Are your competitors engaging in conversations with the audience? Do they respond to comments?

How your competitors interact with the audience could give you an example of how you can improve your interaction with your audience.

5. What is their engagement rate?

Seeing the way your competitors’ audience engage with their posts can give you an overview of what you should do to improve your engagement. Start monitoring the number of likes and comments your competitors receive for each post and keep on eye on their number of followers.

Monitoring your competitors’ Instagram accounts can help you to elaborate on a better strategy that will push you one step ahead of the competition. Gathering insights on their Instagram activity, as well as on their weaknesses and strengths on this social media channel, can have a significant impact on your image, brand awareness, engagement, and the revenue of your business.

Sign in for free on Competitors App to start tracking all your competitors’ moves on Instagram.

How we’ve got 1000+ upvotes on ProductHunt

August 3, 2019| Roxana Irimia

After more than a year of work and 1500+ users that helped us improve, last week (Thursday 25th) we officially launched Competitors App on Product Hunt (PH) As Răzvan (Founder & CEO Competitors App) posted on his Facebook account, being featured on PH is a significant moment in an entrepreneur’s life, so we had to do our best to take advantage of this day.

In the tech world, Product Hunt is the best destination for product discovery. It’s like the Eiffel Tower for tourists – once you’re in Paris, you can’t skip it, it’s a must. So, once you’re part of this tech-focused community, launching your product on PH is a “to do” on your list.

For any startup, launching a product on PH means gaining media attention and users, and not only on their launch day. Our primary goals in launching Competitors App on PH was to receive feedback from the tech community, to see what’s our position in the market, and to get new users.

How did we prepare for the launch?

1. Networking

Planning to launch your product soon? Then start growing your network!

Be active on PH (starting with months before your launch), upvote your favorites, start discussions, and interact. Networking will bring some benefits to you and your business, not just for the launch but also for your entire carrier. When Răzvan and I had a chat the next day after the launch, we underlined many times that “networking” is an essential key in those kinds of “racing games.”

In our case, more than 80% of the votes come from our networks, so be prepared to ask for support and even to beg for it – I know, sounds dramatic, but you’re not every day featured on PH.

2. Take notes

Read and learn how to launch your product and how to make the most of it. Some weeks before the launch, we started to document ourselves about other PH launches’ experiences, read step-by-step guides on how to launch on PH, and we began to prepare our version of launch.
Make sure that you keep an eye on PH blog posts regarding the launch of a product, the “KIT,” tips & trips, do’s, and don’ts.

3. Make a plan

Make sure you have a clear plan before the launch.
It will help you to optimize your work and to structure it before the big day.

When planning to launch on PH, make a short analysis of your product. Our advice is to don’t launch on PH too soon. As mentioned above, we waited 1.5 years and 1500+ users until the launch. Maybe it was too late; perhaps it was too early – this is questionable. But launching too early may not get you enough attention from the PH community. Also, when you plan your launch, make sure that you have a clear definition of your ideal customer so you can adapt communication and your Unique Selling Proposition to your targeted audience.

4. Prepare everything in advance!

Product Hunt Kit, Social Media posts, etc.
Also, have a list of groups from your industry (FB, LinkedIn, etc.) in which you can share the news and receive support.

Here are some groups where we posted our launch:
Product Hunt upvote exchange (FB); SaaS Products & Marketing (FB); Product Hunt Romania Fb), The Content Marketing Forum (LinkedIn), Reddit Upvote Exchange (Reddit).

During the launch – BIG DAY IS HERE

Good mood and good Wi-Fi connections are a must, so make sure you have them both. And some good sleep the night before because the “race” takes 24h and you may want to be on guard. At 10 AM, on Thursday, we were live on PH, hunted by Răzvan. Initially, we planned to launch on Wednesday, being haunted by a PH hunter, but in the end, we decided to launch ourselves, one day later.
We were already in the mood for it, so we didn’t want to wait anymore.

1. Pass the news on Social Media – ASAP!

We covered FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, and our blog.
During the day, we’ve also sent a newsletter and consistently posted “live” updates on Social Media regarding our position on PH.

2. Start networking!

While I was covering our Social Media channels and scheduling the next posts for the day, Răzvan started already to message his network about the launch. We first sent messages to Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, technology influencers, and share the news in groups.

After almost 1h30 from the launch, we were #5 Product of the day, but still not on the homepage, mentioned as Popular Products. We assumed that, even if we had votes, we did not have the same chances of exposure as products haunted by a famous hunter from the PH community.

Our advice is to talk everywhere, to everyone! On Facebook & LinkedIn groups, on Reedit channels, and your social networks. Pass the news, share the link to your PH product, and ask for support and feedback, respond to comments, interact with the audience, especially on your PH page.

At midday, 2h, after the launch, we were #3 Product of the Day.

During the rest of the day, we spread the news, find and join new tech/marketing groups and, we explore new sources from where you can gain support and feedback. After 24h, the race has ended, and the #2 Product of the Day was ours.

After the launch

1. Feedback

Customers’ feedback is essential to us. Gathering and analyzing user feedback gives us a much clearer picture of what our platform should deliver to satisfy our customers’ needs.

We received feedback on each post related to our launch on PH. In total, over 300+ comments, new ideas to implement, and a lot of support. We thank you for that!

2. New users

Starting from the launch, approximately 700+ users signed up on Competitors App. Since that day, the number of unique users coming from the PH community is still increasing.

Regarding the number of users converting to Premium, we had no expectations, taking into account that users from the PH community sign up for new tools every day, for a testing purpose or to see what’s new on the market. To our surprise, the audience liked us and some users representing big, but also small companies became Premium users right away.

By the end of the week, we got #4 Product of the Week, with a total of almost 1,100 votes.
So during those days, we were constantly up-voted. Thanks for this, too!

Competitors App is on Product Hunt

July 25, 2019| Roxana Irimia

We’re live on Product Hunt, and we could not be more excited!

This is our first launch, and we’ve worked hard to get here, but we’re assuring you that every step was done with strong involvement to create an all in one platform which allows marketers and CEOs to monitor all competitors marketing moves to improve your strategies.

In the last few months, we’ve developed new unique features that allow you to have a detailed view of each competitors’ activity. Our mission is to help marketers to monitor their competitors’ marketing moves in one place, with very little time investment, and for doing this, we need your feedback and support.

You can check out our launch story and support us here:

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/competitors-app