Podcast Summary: The Marketing Millennials – "Reverse Engineering Your Competition | Bathroom Break #57 🚽"

Release Date: May 26, 2025

Introduction

In episode #57 of The Marketing Millennials, host Daniel Murray collaborates with Jay Schwedelson from the Do This, Not That podcast to dive into the art of reverse engineering your competition. Titled "Bathroom Break," this special series aims to deliver quick yet impactful marketing insights, perfect for those short breaks in a busy day.

Key Discussion Points

1. Understanding Reverse Engineering in Marketing

Daniel and Jay kick off the conversation by defining what it means to reverse engineer your competition. They emphasize the importance of not merely copying competitors but understanding their strategies to carve out a unique space for your own brand.

• Identifying Competitors:
  • Direct Competitors: Brands offering identical or very similar products.
  • Category Competitors: Companies within the same broader market category but not direct product competitors. For example, a marketing software company might consider various tools vying for the same marketing budget as category competitors.
  • Attention Stealers: Beyond direct and category competitors, these are brands from different industries that vie for the same audience’s attention, such as hat companies or clothing brands competing for the millennial demographic’s focus.

Daniel highlights the need to widen the scope of competition analysis beyond immediate rivals to include all entities competing for your audience's attention.

2. Essential Tools for Reverse Engineering

The duo discusses a suite of free tools that can aid marketers in dissecting and understanding their competitors' strategies:

• SparkToro (00:01:53): Helps identify hidden influences by revealing which podcasts, news sources, and other media your audience engages with.

• Exploding Topics (00:01:53): Offers insights into trending topics that resonate with your target audience.

• SimilarWeb (00:01:53): Analyzes referral traffic and overall website performance compared to competitors.

• Email Platform Identification: Forwarding any email to espendview.io allows you to discover the email platform a competitor uses, facilitating deeper insights into their email marketing strategies.

• ChatGPT for Marketing Analysis (00:04:43): By prompting ChatGPT to analyze marketing strategies of selected websites, marketers can receive summaries of key tactics, including content marketing, social proof, SEO strategies, and CTAs.

• BuiltWith (00:04:43): A browser plugin that reveals the tech stack of any website, enabling marketers to understand the tools and technologies their competitors employ.

• Meta Ad Library (00:04:43): Provides visibility into the ads competitors are running on Facebook and Instagram, helping identify which ads have sustained performance over time.

• SpyFu (00:05:46): Allows users to input their domain and uncover competitors based on keywords and organic traffic, along with detailed insights into their advertising strategies.

3. Practical Techniques for Reverse Engineering

Beyond tools, Daniel and Jay delve into actionable techniques to effectively reverse engineer competitors:

• Triangulating Strategies (00:05:46): By observing consistent strategies across multiple leading companies in a category, marketers can discern best practices and understand the reasons behind their success.

• Funnel Analysis (00:06:28): Daniel shares his experience in manually dissecting a competitor’s sales funnel by interacting with their ads and content. This involves:

  • Clicking on ads or content pieces.
  • Observing form submissions and follow-up emails.
  • Noting the speed and nature of outreach efforts.
  • Tracking retargeting efforts across different platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

  This hands-on approach provides a comprehensive view of how competitors nurture and convert leads, allowing marketers to identify strengths and weaknesses in their own strategies.

4. Ethical Considerations and Strategic Application

A key theme is the ethical use of reverse engineering. Daniel stresses that the goal is not to copy competitors but to understand their tactics to innovate and differentiate your own approach. By knowing the "plays" of other teams, marketers can develop unique strategies that stand out in the marketplace.

Daniel Murray [07:39]: "It's not for you to copy their strategy, because if you copy, you're just going to fit in. It's for you to know so you can play on the same playing field of these people and actually know, like, their play."

Anecdotes and Personal Insights

Jay’s Keynote Experience (00:33)

Jay shares a humorous anecdote about being unexpectedly thrust into delivering a keynote speech at his son's high school graduation. Despite multiple reports of it being one of his best keynotes, Jay humbly downplays the performance, highlighting the challenges of balancing personal and professional life.

Daniel’s Move to Miami (07:39)

Daniel offers a personal update on his recent move to Miami, discussing the initial impressions and adaptations required to adjust to the city's climate and lifestyle. Jay provides seasoned advice on handling Miami’s hurricanes and the misconceptions about Florida’s heat, reassuring Daniel about the manageability of the climate with proper preparations.

Jay Schwedelson [08:32]: "It's not the heat. We live in air conditioning. What are we talking about? It's a nonsense."

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Jay Schwedelson [00:53]: "Stupid. You really have no brain. That's the problem." (Laughs) "I did not give a keynote."

• Daniel Murray [01:53]: "People think that competitors are like the exact product you're competing with, but there are other versions of competitors that you need to analyze too."

• Jay Schwedelson [05:46]: "It's there for a reason and that's really what you want to think about."

• Daniel Murray [07:39]: "It's for you to know so you can play on the same playing field of these people and actually know, like, their play."

Conclusion and Takeaways

In this episode of The Marketing Millennials, Daniel Murray and Jay Schwedelson provide a comprehensive guide to reverse engineering competition. By identifying a broad range of competitors, leveraging a variety of free tools, and employing both technological and manual analysis techniques, marketers can gain valuable insights into their competitors' strategies. The emphasis remains on ethical application and strategic innovation, ensuring that understanding the competition translates into unique and effective marketing practices.

Actionable Insights:

1. Expand Your Competitor Analysis: Look beyond direct competitors to include category competitors and attention stealers to get a holistic view of the competitive landscape.

2. Utilize Free Tools: Leverage tools like SparkToro, BuiltWith, Meta Ad Library, and SpyFu to gather detailed data on competitors’ strategies and technologies.

3. Conduct Manual Funnel Analysis: Experience competitors’ sales funnels firsthand to understand their lead nurturing and conversion tactics.

4. Triangulate Strategies: Identify consistent successful tactics across multiple leaders in your category to discern effective practices.

5. Stay Ethical: Use the insights gained to innovate and differentiate your own marketing strategies rather than merely copying competitors.

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