Just like with any other field, achieving success in your freelancing career on Fiverr requires a good understanding of what your competitors are doing. For this reason, we recommend taking some time to perform a thorough competitor analysis.
What is a competitor analysis?
A competitor analysis is a common business practice that involves assessing the strengths, weaknesses, and core differentiators of current and potential competitors. Once you have researched your competitors, the next step is to compare their business and strategy against your own.
When should I perform a competitor analysis?
As a best practice, it is good to perform a competitor analysis either when starting a new gig or when you notice a decline in orders. We recommend at least once a year, but it can be useful to do this at the end of each quarter as well, especially when first getting started.
How to identify a competitor?
When conducting your analysis, the first step is to identify which sellers are actually your competition. You may want to identify two distinct types of competitors:
- Direct competitors- These are the sellers who offer similar services, are in the same category and level, and have a similar amount of reviews, orders, etc.
- Legacy competitors- Think of these competitors as the ones who are currently where you aspire to be in terms of ratings, number of reviews, number of orders, price point, etc.
To find your competitors, you can simply copy and paste your gig into the search bar and see who comes up. You can also search your subcategory and see which sellers/gigs are there.
How to perform a competitor analysis?
Once you have identified your competition, analyze the following:
- Gig visuals- Take note of which gigs visually captivate you and stand out from everyone else. You’ll also want to analyze what methods they use to display their work. For example, do they have a video or a photo? What kinds of elements do they use on their image? Do they include a headshot or is it just text? For the community’s tips on gig images, check out the discussion here.
- Pricing- Note their starting prices and how they structure their basic, standard, and premium packages. Pay attention to how they incrementally raise the prices between the three different packages and what add-ons they provide, etc. For some insights on pricing, check out our discussion on pricing here.
- Description- The gig description is a key opportunity to capture clients. Take note of how your competitors are crafting their gig descriptions, paying close attention to the formatting, calls to action, explanation, tone, etc.
Part of making sure you stand out from the competition is understanding what the competition is doing. By performing a competitor analysis where you evaluate your direct and legacy competitors, you can gain valuable insights, helping you make informed decisions to maximize your success.
