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Suzy Wakefield

As Different as Apples & Oranges?



If we are talking about your brand compared with others in the field, probably not as much as you would like.


Want to know one of our insider secrets to make your brand a cut above the rest?


You might be surprised to know it doesn’t actually have anything to do with your brand directly or your design skills. Though it does have a great deal to do with #designthinking and #brandstrategy.


Understand Your Competition

This definitely doesn’t mean copying them. There is a big difference between analyzing what your future customer is seeing (a good thing) and trying to do what they do (a not-so-good thing). If they have market share, it behooves you to know why and how.




5 Keys to Identifying Market Opportunities


Here’s an exercise to help you identify what you need to know.


Take 5-10 competitors in the category you are diving into or are already in and study these 5 key aspects of their brand;


1. Review how they talk about themselves. What tone they use, and what they emphasize. Is it category-driven or personality of the brand-driven? Is it funny or serious? Is it working for them? To understand this just google them to see their social engagement. Not likes-actually what people are talking to them and each other about in regards to the brand.


2. List out their strengths. This can be anything from the breadth of offering, the great fabrics they use, the size range, or the strength of the community who is attracted to them. And a plethora in between. It’s about what is helping them to win.


3. Identify what are their opportunities to be better. Do they only offer 3 SKUs? Do their garments get bad reviews? Is their photography or site limiting in some way? Do they talk to their customer or just at them? Are they conscious about real-world environmental impact?


4. Triangulate how their quality and aesthetic relationship to the retail price. Understand if they offer a variation in tiers of prices, and what those are. Chances are that even if they offer one price tier such as luxury, there is still some variation within that offering. Also, understand if they are inflating their prices to give themselves a cache that they might not otherwise have. Or if they are a value price point, is it real value or just cheap?


2. Now the fun begins-Identify what you can capitalize on. This is where the strategic and #designthinking comes in. And a solid understanding of your own niche and offering to see where you can fine-tune your own unique offering to capture more market share



Realizing what your customer is seeing, putting yourself in their shoes, and giving them more will be what drives you to succeed in your field. Here is a tool to show you an easy way to track these findings. Once you have the information in hand, compare and contrast these with your creative vision to future-proof your brand.


Need more help, or want to learn about how we support brands to find their niche and create their unique collections, reach out here to chat, or here where we provide tools, tips, and tricks to protect the Fashion, Fit, and Future of your brand.


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