Welcome to the latest edition of our new weekly blog series, The Underrated Series. Each week, we will highlight an important, often underrated component of marketing success.

Last week’s underrated topic was pricing.

What are we underrating this week? Competitors.

As marketers, the time we spend paying attention to our competitors varies. For some, working in more competitive industries, we’re constantly watching what they do. For others, where direct competition is not as fierce, we might ignore them completely.

But competitive analysis doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves in the marketing community.

Why? Because good competitive analysis is hard. And we tend to focus on things that come easier.

But, good competitive analysis also has benefits that many marketers are not aware of.

Think about the competitive landscape from the viewpoint of your potential customers. They have a want or a need that you can solve. But in addition to you, there might be 2, 5, or 10 other companies that can also solve their problem. So they have a choice to make. What company to purchase from?

Only by knowing, truly knowing, what your competitors are offering and how they’re offering it, can you determine what it is that makes you different, and why consumers should choose you over them. That is the very basis of your marketing efforts. Everything you do should be based on what unique value that your company offers.

And you can’t just do it once and forget about it. Because your competitors change. They change their pricing and offers. They change their products. They change their messaging. And even your competitors themselves change, some companies go out of business or change strategies, and new companies come into the marketplace.

So regular competitive analysis is a crucial component of marketing success.

Have something you think deserves more attention? Send us your suggestions for the Underrated Series using the comments below or submit them here.