Identifying your competitors is a crucial first step in formulating a winning business strategy. Through market research, you can create a comprehensive list of direct and indirect competitors and gain valuable insights into the landscape you’re operating in—who else is targeting your audience, what differentiates their offerings, and where potential opportunities or threats may lie. This process informs your positioning and pricing and helps you anticipate trends, benchmark performance, and stay one step ahead in a competitive market.

So, where does Manus fit in this scenario? Manus AI is a groundbreaking technology that has left many established AI chatbots in the dust. We decided to use Manus to create a list of competitors through market research because of its unique ability to conduct research with minimal user intervention. Instead of waiting for follow-up prompts, Manus asks all the important questions before starting its AI engines to research and compose a credible answer. It works in the background, taking its time (some tasks take up to 30 minutes) and writing a comprehensive answer. 

Let’s not bore you with details. This tutorial will teach you how to prepare Manus AI before asking it to list all competitors for your upcoming startup. We will show you how to determine your market segment, perform digital footprint analysis, conduct layered competitor identification, and validate and prioritize the competitor list. These steps are crucial in identifying your competitors and formulating a strategy to grab a piece of the market share. 

By the end of this fantastic tutorial, you’ll be able to:

• Determine your market segment
• Perform digital footprint analysis
• Conduct layered competitor identification 
• Validate and prioritize the competitor list

Let’s dive in right away!

Step 1 - Determine your market segment

Go to Manus. Sign in to an account or create a new one. Click ‘New Task’ in the sidebar on the left. 

Start by clearly defining your specific market niche, target audience, and value proposition. This focused definition helps Manus AI search for companies operating in the same space rather than returning overly broad results.

Use the following prompt as a starting point. Of course, you can modify it according to your needs. 

Prompt:

I am planning to start {description of the business}. Identify the specific market niche for an online AI academy and a particular target audience that includes age group, interests, and other relevant information. Include a value proposition and a unique selling point to help me grab the market share. 

‍

Manus will ask questions to ensure it delivers the exact information.

Manus will take some time before giving you the final answer. 

Save the document by clicking the download button at the top of the generated document. 

The most important part of the document is the competitive differentiation. It said that you can create specific courses for AI implementation, such as using AI to do business accounting or sales management.

You can ask Manus to clarify and/or add to the provided information. However, it created documents for different segments. It has in-depth information on the market niche and target audience, value propositions and USP, market size, and competitor landscape. 

Step 2 - Perform digital footprint analysis

Have Manus search for businesses with similar digital signatures by analyzing keyword rankings, social media presence, and advertising patterns. Ask Manus to identify companies that appear frequently for your core business terms across multiple digital channels.

Use the following prompt to find out how your competitors are marketing themselves. The prompt asks about specific keyword rankings, social media presence, and advertising patterns. 

Prompt:

Find out the keyword rankings, social media presence, and advertising patterns of the companies you listed in the ‘Identifying Target Audience and Niche for AI Academy.’ Instead of searching for all of them, focus on global platforms with a strong Asian presence. I need specific keyword rankings for each, social media presence, a list of digital channels where they advertise, and advertising patterns. 

Manus created four very impressive documents filled with razor-focused information on the keywords, social media presence, and the advertising strategy of the competitors. It’s awe-inspiring. Take a look at the keyword/ranking analysis document. 

The digital advertising analysis shows the channels, strategies, and approaches in one comprehensive document. 

Step 3 - Conduct layered competitor identification

The next step is even more critical. You must identify competitors to understand their focus and the outreach they use to acquire customers. 

Use Manus to categorize competitors into direct competitors (those offering the same products/services), indirect competitors (those offering alternative solutions), and emerging competitors (those entering the market). This layered approach ensures that you don't miss potential threats or opportunities.

Prompt:

Using the information you gathered, categorize competitors into direct competitors (those offering the same products/services), indirect competitors (those offering alternative solutions), and emerging competitors (those entering the market).

Manus laid out the information by categorizing direct, indirect, and emerging competitors and showing the rationale and key differentiators from your AI academy. 

It also provided suggestions on formulating your response strategically for all categories of competitors. That’s very impressive.

Step 4 - Validate and prioritize the competitor list.

After Manus generates the initial list, review it together to validate each competitor's relevance. Prioritize them based on market overlap, threat level, and learning potential to focus your deeper competitive analysis on the most important players.

Download all the documents that Manus created and prioritize them according to your strategy. You can also ask Manus to do it for you. 

Prompt

Validate and prioritize all the documents you created based on market overlap, threat level, and learning potential so I can do a deeper competitive analysis of the most important players in the AI learning market segment. 

‍

Manus not only prioritized competitive analysis for your academy but also conducted a deep-dive analysis of the competition, outlining marketing positioning, expansion strategy, competitive advantage, and vulnerabilities. 

That’s more than you could ever ask for. Imagine getting all the required information without spending hundreds of dollars on consultant fees.

You can also ask Manus to create a PDF of the report it generated. The PDF is easy to view on multiple devices. 

That’s all for this fantastic tutorial. We hope you have learned a lot. Use Manus to ditch consultants and get all the information available online. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much Manus can do and how deep it can go to give you the exact information required to start building your business.