Excellent Google’s Bard Prompts for Competitive Analysis

Whether you own a webshop, blog or an ‘old fashioned’ brick and mortar company, analyzing your competition should be part of your overall marketing strategy. The relatively new AI Tool Bard, launched by none other than Google, is an excellent resource to help you with this.

By typing in the right kind of prompts (commands) you can get Bard to offer to you who your competition is, what their strongpoints are and how you can differentiate yourself from them. But how can you use Bard to analyze your competition? In this article I will explain how.

In my earlier article I explained how you can use the other big AI Tool on the block, ChatGPT, to conduct competitive analysis for your company. And while I think ChatGPT is great to help you with your research process, the main drawback is that the information isn’t always up to date.

Bard, in theory, has the most current information of the internet at its fingertips, so let’s see how it holds up!

Why you should conduct Competitor Analysis 

One of the starting points of your marketing strategy should be an analysis of your competitors. You want to know first hand who your competitors actually are, where your company/website stands, what their strongpoints are, their audience etc.

This is all useful information that you can use to your benefit. 

When you have a clear overview of your competition you can:

• Improve your product where needed
• Create better content
• Know how to reach your target audience better
• And know how to differentiate yourself from your competitors

What is Google’s Bard?

Bard is an AI Tool  created by Google. Like similar tool such as ChatGPT, it works like a conversational chatbox. The user will type in commands (also called prompts) and queries, on which Bard will use the internet to offer the information needed.

This AI tool was launched by Google on February the 6th of 2023 and is still in the experimental phase. It is powered by the (LLM) PaLM 2 language model, which was developed by Google itself.

A big strongpoint of Bard is that it pulls its information from the most current data available online. However, a drawback is that, still being in the experimental phase, this information won’t always be correct.

So keep that in mind when using Bard.

For a more detailed analysis and comparison to ChatGPT, read this article.

So, with that information out of the way, let’s get started with the actual research!

Step 1: giving Bard a detailed and concise overview of your company

The first step is giving Bard as much information about your own company, website or blog as possible. Remember, we’re in a conversation with Bard and the more information we offer it, the better it can help us.

You want that information both to be detailed and concise, but also short and to the point. If your prompts (command queries) to Bard are too longwinded it will become confused.

So you want to offer information on for instance:

• Who your company is
• What your website is
• Your products or service
• In which country or region you operate
• And your target audience

So to get started I’m using the same example as in my Competitive Analysis with ChatGPT article, namely as the fictional owner of a new Fitness Blog in the UK.

For that I type in the following Prompt into Bard:

I just started a fitness blog in the UK. I myself am a 45 male who started doing fitness 10 years ago. I went from absolute beginner to almost professional level. I want to write about general fitness tips, tips for beginners, diet tips and fitness tips for people in their 40’s. I want to accompany my blog with video’s, both embedded on the website and on Youtube.

And as you can see Bard will generate this response. It already gives me some ideas for content. And also some tips, for instance focusing on a niche. Which in my experience and opinion is one the best advice to achieve success as a small business owner.

Second Example: A Saas Company in the Netherlands

Ok, maybe you don’t want to start a blog or niche website, but you own a small consulting company. Or started working as marketer for a midsized software company. Let’s give you another example you can use to start your conversation with Bard to get the most out of it.

For this second example let’s say you work for a Saas Company in the Netherlands.

Then you type in the following:

I work for a midsized Saas Company in the Netherlands. We offer Cloud solutions and everything to do with Cloud Technology, safety and optimilization. Our customers are midsized and large companies in the private sector in the Netherlands. The DMU’s (decision makers) are mostly IT Managers, IT Directors and Heads of IT.

And get the following result:

With this first query Bard will now have a general idea what this conversation is about. So, time to take the next step, finding the competition

Step 2: Geting a general overview of the competition

Now we’ve told Bard what our own company (or website) is about, it’s time to get to know the competition. Let’s get a general overview first.

Again I’m using the Fitness Blog in the UK example.

I type in the following prompt:

Can you generate an analysis of the competitive landscape for my Fitness blog specifically to UK Fitness Blogs to develop our positioning and content strategy?

And here is where Bard really shines compared to ChatGPT. As you can see it generates a couple of examples of Fitness Blogs in the UK, with image and website url.

Now we know some of the competition, it’s time to get some more detailed information

Step 3: Getting a more detailed Competitors Overview

Allright, we want more detailed information about our competitors. For instance, how much organic traffic to they get, how much do they spend on online ads?

For that I type in the following prompt:

Could you make a list of competitors for my fitness blog? List the name of the company, the location, size of company, target audience, estimated monthly organic traffic, direct or indirect competitors and estimated monthly paid search ad spend. Please compile results in a table format.

The result, while more up to date than with ChatGPT, looks a little bit clunky. Not exactly the the table format I was hoping for.

Still, I can easily copy paste this information to use in an Excel sheet or Google Sheet.

Step 4: Analysing the differences between my competitors

Next I want to know more about the differences between my competitors.

And for that I type the prompt:

What are the main differences between these fitness blogs? Could you give the results in a table format?

Now we’re getting somewhere! Bard is clearly learning from our conversation and put all the information in a neat, concise Table.

Step 5: Analysing the Visitors/Audience experience

For now, the last step is to analyse how the visitors or target audience actually are experiencing our competition. This is a great way to get started with ideas for your own content strategy later on.

So we type: 

Can you give a description of what kind of audience I should expect to my blog? And add how visitors to my competition are experiencing these websites.

And Bard generates this response. Again, some general advice, but a differentiation between the blogs as well, concerning what the audience expects and is looking for.

The Saas Company Example

In order to give you more inspiration on how to use Bard for a Competitive Analysis I will also go ahead with the same route, but specifically for the Saas Company in the Netherlands example.

So let’s start with a general overview. I slightly tweaked the prompt to get a better response:

Can you generate an analysis of the competitive landscape for my Saas Company specifically to the Netherlands to develop our positioning and content strategy? My competitors would be small to midsize

 And get this answer:

Next I want a more detailed overview, so I type in:

Could you make a list of competitors for my Saas Company in the Netherlands? List the name of the company, the location, size of company, target audience, estimated monthly organic traffic, direct or indirect competitors and estimated monthly paid search ad spend. Please compile results in a table format.

The we come to Step 4: getting to know the differences. So I type in:

What are the main differences between these Saas Companies? Could you give the results in a table format?

And get this:

And last but not least, step 5, getting to know the audience expectations. Since in this example we’re mainly dealing with customer and not so much with visitors, I again slightly tweaked the prompt:

Can you give a description of what kind of customers I should expect for my company? What are their needs and expectations?  And add how customers to my competition are experiencing their companies.

And you get this:

Conclusion

With these prompts, you already have a great starting point for your Competitive Analysis. Among other things, you can use this information to:

• Sharpen your own product/service
• Make your branding more unique
• Examine where there are gaps in your content and marketing strategy and adjust them
• Find out who your audience is and how to reach them.

Google’s Bard has proven to me, at least, that it is an excellent tool to have such marketing research done. The information may still not be entirely accurate here and there, but it’s excellent start as part of your marketing.

Should you want to know more about more specific parts of marketing? Check out this article on Keyword Research, this one on the importance of Personal Branding or this one on finding your ideal niche.