ANALYZE COMPETITORS AND MARKET FOOTPRINTS
CREATE INSTANT COMPETITOR MAPS
Get a clear overview of your competitors on a map! Instantly visualize competitor locations, eliminate blind spots, and ensure you understand your market environment thoroughly.
Here is some data you may want to include in your competitive analysis:
- Competitor distribution centers
- Competitor addresses
- Competitor sales data
- Planned competitor expansion areas
Pro Tip: Already have competitor data stored in another program? Mapline’s API and Connectors allow you to seamlessly share data between your systems and ours, giving you the data you need on demand.
ANALYZE COMPETITORS BY PROXIMITY
Analyze how close your competitors are to your business locations! This helps you gauge potential competitive threats and opportunities and empowers you to make informed decisions about market expansion and defense strategies.
We’ll achieve this by adding a new Mapline Data column to your competitor dataset. This column will include distance data between your business locations and your competitors.
Simply click the map pin layer containing your business locations and select ADD MAPLINE DATA. Name your new column DISTANCE TO NEAREST COMPETITOR. For the source data, select ANOTHER DATASET FROM MY LIBRARY, then choose the dataset in your library that contains your competitor locations.
Pro Tip: Easily generate territories around your pins for even deeper analysis! Territories give you the power to analyze your competitors within a given mile radius of your stores or customer hotspots. This is a robust method for regional competitor analysis, which is covered below.
ADD CUSTOMER DEMOGRAPHICS
By overlaying customer demographics—such as income levels and household compositions—onto your map, you can identify customer hotspots and ensure your messages resonate effectively with the right demographics. (Plus, this step will come in handy later when we look at market saturation).
Click your map pin layer or territory layer and select MAPLINE DATA from the pop-out menu. Name your new dataset column POPULATION. Then, click the SOURCE DATA drop-down and select U.S. DEMOGRAPHIC DATA.
Select POPULATION as the calculation type, then customize your demographic data configurations. When you’re done, click OK.
Depending on the number of rows you’re processing, it could take a few minutes for the data to populate. In the meantime, you can repeat this step if desired to add any of the following demographic data points to your dataset:
Pro Tip: Mapline Data is a powerhouse for your analytics. Leverage it to run advanced calculations that unveil new insights about your brand; add rich data to your datasets and visualizations; or enhance your map with government and administrative boundaries in a flash.
ASSESS MARKET SATURATION
Now, let’s visualize your competitor density, giving you clarity on market saturation and untapped opportunities. This helps you pinpoint new markets or refine your approach in existing ones, optimizing your overall market penetration strategy.
We’ll leverage Mapline Data again to calculate key metrics that help you understand your competitor’s market saturation and how you compare.
First, let’s determine how many competitor locations there are per 1,000 people in each market area. Click the map territory layer you’d like to analyze and select MAPLINE DATA from the pop-out menu.
Name your new Mapline Data column COMPETITOR DENSITY, select A DATASET FROM MY LIBRARY, and choose your competitor dataset as the source data.
COMPARE MARKET FOOTPRINTS
Now that you’ve determined your market share and assessed market saturation, you’re ready to compare your market footprint with your competitors!
Create heat maps that show areas of high and low market saturation, use coverage areas to visualize overlap areas and regions where a competitor might dominate, or add more demographic layers to see how market footprints align with target customer segments.
For example, if you know your customers are only willing to drive five miles to reach one of your stores, add coverage areas around each of your stores and your competitors’ to see which competitors could be taking foot traffic from your store.
By comparing market footprints with these visual tools, you gain valuable insights into market saturation and customer demographics. This empowers you to make strategic decisions on where to expand or pull back, ensuring you stay ahead of the competition and maximize your market presence.
