Industry Leaders: How to Find and Learn From the Best

Industry leaders are companies at the top of their game. They often make more money, have more customers, and command the greatest market share – while continuously defending against disruptors and rivals nipping at the heel.

They’re the fiercest of competitors in their market. 

Whether you’re an established player, new to a market, or looking for tips on becoming an industry leader, this article will show you how to find, track, and benchmark your business against current market leaders.

What is an industry leader?

An industry leader is a company that commands a high market share, but it can also refer to a single person in an industry who is impactful and highly regarded.

When you look online at how an industry leader is determined, you’ll find an industry leader is defined in many ways. Some people measure industry leaders on market share alone, some use revenue – and for those operating in the fast-paced world of mobile apps, it’s usually a split between monthly active users, revenue, and lifetime value (LTV) that determines who is on top.

So, while all these definitions count, it’s essential to look at your industry leaders in a way that’s relevant to your sector. For instance, if you are an ecommerce firm, you’ll likely consider revenue an overriding factor. However, for a publisher or news firm, the number of visitors to the publication will likely be a better indicator of success.

How to identify leaders of top industries

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, an industry leader is defined as a company that’s most effective in its market. Either because it makes the highest profits, sells the most products, or commands a greater brand awarenessthan its rivals.

But how do you measure all three factors; without things getting too complicated?

Website traffic and engagement give a clear indication of success for all three.

Here’s a quick example of how we find industry leaders using Similarweb Research Intelligence. I can quickly choose any industry I like using the Web Industry Analysis feature. Here, I choose the US Streaming industry as an example.

I see the market size, distribution, and top websites at a glance. This shows me the industry is more consolidated than average, with 87% of traffic coming from the top 1% of sites. The dominant player is YouTube (no surprises there). A deeper look into market leaders shows me the top players and rising stars – AKA emerging players showing substantial growth in this space. The market quadrant analysis visualizes each of the industry leaders retrospectively.

Of course, various forms of secondary market research can show you things like the number of customers, financials, and more. However, the quickest way to measure industry leaders is by their online presence and their relative impact in a market.

Helpful:Industry Vs. Market: The Differences Explained

What can we learn from industry leaders?

As I mentioned initially, industry leaders are the fiercest of all competitors. In some industries, an industry leader could have been in business for longer, they may have achieved their market share through a technological differentiator, better marketing, a more appealing pricing model, or through acquisitions, as just a few examples.

You can learn a lot from market leaders, including: 

1. Pricing

Not all industry-leading companies offer the same pricing model. Examine what they offer, and look at add-ons, complimentary services, and promotions. Take a systematic approach when tracking the data you find. Revisit core pricing pages periodically.

Pro Tip: To benchmark our performance against industry leaders, use a competitive analysis framework template to track essential metrics logically. You can download a free template for this below.

2. Positioning

Do the industry leaders in your market focus on a specific audience, such as enterprises or SMBs? And, do they position themselves differently for each? Take note of how they position their business to various audiences, such as tailored content for different industries they target.

Look at the following aspects of your industry leader’s positioning:

• What verticals do they list on their website?
• List the functions and features they promote to the different audiences
• Do they provide specialist pricing or product tiers for their products?
• Are they focused on SMB, enterprise, or both?
• Evaluate their success stories and testimonials. Which sectors and companies are they from?

From this research, you might find new use cases for your product to be sold into different sectors. You might have a unique selling proposition that differentiates you from industry leaders, making you a better company for their audience to deal with. This could be a certificate of compliance, feature-based, or another. There’s usually always something of interest to uncover.

3. Marketing

Examine what marketing channels the industry leaders use and the specific creatives and content they produce. Look at which channels drive the most traffic to their site. Also, consider things like referrals, affiliates, partnerships, and promotions.

A feature in Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence, Popular Pages, allows you to analyze an entire site in an instant. It shows you the content, products, campaigns, and pages that attract the most hits. When combined with data about marketing channel performance, you can unpack what channels are working, the creatives and content used in them, and the target audience demographics for those being targeted by any company.

A quick overview of the website performance of industry-leading firm Sprout Social shows me key metrics and insights about their online success. Instantly, I see how they compare to their closest rivals. A summary covering marketing channels, traffic and engagement, audience geography, paid and organic search overview, referrals, social traffic, and ad monetization. I can expand any section to boost my knowledge of what they’re doing – and view specific results, ad creatives, and more – all in real-time.

4. Audience

Analyze the target audience and demographics of all industry leaders in your market. Do you see any patterns or gaps that exist? Do you consider your target audience to be the same or different, and do you need to make adjustments to ensure you appeal to the right audience?

5. Product

Industry leaders often spend years developing and refining their products, perhaps even decades, so they are analyzed thoroughly. You won’t always be able to go head-to-head with an equally as robust or feature-rich product, but remember, there could be opportunities for a lighter version of a product, either at a lower price point or with fewer fancy features.

You might uncover related products you haven’t previously considered or professional services to wrap around existing products that could drive additional revenue opportunities.

6. Customer Success

Another key learning from analyzing industry leaders is their success stories – AKA testimonials. Almost every established firm has a dedicated page on its website showcasing customer stories. This is a great (often overlooked) platform to learn from. It shows you how a similar solution can be sold into various industries and often gives you insights about new markets, use cases, or verticals to target.

Researching industry leaders

Good market research enables you to unpack and track the success of the dominant players in almost any industry. For instance, if your market research uncovers specific channels or campaigns working well for all market leaders, it makes sense to follow a similar path. Alternatively, you might uncover a weakness or gap when you analyze industry leader offerings – which you can solve and use as a point of differentiation.

Pro Tip: Use secondary market research methods to examine customer reviews and feedback. Look for patterns or common areas of complaint that the industry leader isn’t solving. This is often a great source of inspiration and ideas for ways to differentiate yourself.

Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence can help you find out who your market leaders are. Use it to track the online performance of industry leaders and emerging players, and easily benchmark your business against both.

Tips to become an industry leader

To stay at the top of their game, industry leaders must always keep a finger on the pulse. Most of you will know the story of how Blockbuster Video went from hero to zero in their market at pace. This proves that any business, no matter how big, niche, or successful, must ensure they stay dialed into its market and to its customer’s needs.

If your business wants to dominate its market and become an industry leader, there’s almost always space and opportunity to achieve this. Instead of simply looking at stats like revenue, lifetime customer value (LTV), or the number of customers; these tips focus on the extra things you need to do, alongside ensuring your strategy, financials, business model, marketing, and products are the best they can be.

If you’re already growing at-pace or plan to; here are five tips that’ll help you get closer to earning that all-important industry leader status.

#1 Thought leadership

Having experts from within the business contribute to industry publications is key. Whether through a guest post, quotes on a topical piece, presentations, or speaking online and in-person at industry events – it all counts.

Pro Tip: This isn’t just about raising the profiles of the senior management team. It’s about looking across your entire team of employers and bringing your subject matter experts into the spotlight too.

#2 Reputation

This point is a little more touchy-feely than tip #1. Whether customers, business partners, employees, or ex-employees – always treat others as you want to be treated. Sure, I know this sounds a little like a life lesson, but in business these days, everything is everybody’s business, and your reputation is everything.

Customer reviews, high ratings on platforms like G2, good employee reviews on glassdoor, and industry awards – these things only come to those who focus on treating people well habitually.

#3 Value

Do you offer value to people beyond your products and service offering? Being a trusted source of information is crucial if you want to earn that all-important status of an industry leader. A corporate blog is an ideal channel to release useful, valuable information in your area of expertise. Always publish content under a specific author, and make sure each author has their own bio page that speaks of their expertise and relevant credentials. Quality of content, the relevance of data, and consistency in publishing are fundamental pillars of a successful blog.

#4 Awards and industry recognition

It doesn’t matter what line of business you’re in; awards and recognition are always available for those who consistently outperform or achieve success. Industry accolades and awards are a great way to cement your status as a market leader. Achieving recognition for being the best establishes your people and company as a dominant player.

The best way to discover relevant industry awards is through research:

1. Evaluate your competitors or existing industry leader sites to view their awards
2. Search the internet for relevant industry awards for your sector
3. Join professional networking groups and industry associations
4. Read industry publications frequently
5. Use a paid award finder service

Most industry awards require resources to find, prepare, and apply to. But achieving them can give you a platform for onward success and expose you to future customers and partners.

#5 Visibility

Make sure you appear in the search results your target audience cares most about. Investing in SEO can help you achieve higher rankings and ensure your name appears online whenever and wherever your customers and prospects search for relevant information. Aside from this, you’ll also want to ensure that when people search for your business online, they see a positive sentiment. Aside from your own materials, having third-party results verify your credibility and viability as a market leader can help.

Wrapping up….

Whether you’re a start-up or an established player in any market, there are always things to learn from industry leaders. It goes without saying that your products or services need to stack up, along with financials, strategy, growth, and more. However, if you’re on a mission to become an industry leader, there’s no better time than now to start reaching for the stars and start working on the points mentioned in this post.

FAQs

What are the characteristics of an industry leader?

Seven factors of success for leaders of industry include strategic planning, innovation, expanding customer base, high sales, solid operational execution, strong talent and leadership, and a desire to improve consistently.

How do you find market leaders?

You can use secondary market research to find industry leaders. While those with the highest market share or total sales revenue are the most obvious, you can use traffic and engagement metrics to quickly spot those organizations attracting the most attention in a market.

How do you measure a market leader?

Industry leaders are often measured by market capitalization (market cap). This is calculated by multiplying the current market price of a share by the total number of outstanding shares. Most market leaders generate annual revenues that exceed hundreds of billions of dollars.