A SWOT analysis is one of the most beneficial tools for marketers. It can help drive and optimize a digital marketing strategy by helping marketers identify:

• Strengths,
• Weaknesses,
• Opportunities, and
• Threats.

While a SWOT can be used at an organizational level it can also be used to see how a campaign or activity is performing.

The primary goal of using a SWOT analysis is to analyze the external and internal environments to examine the factors involved to help make a business decision or establish a business strategy.

So, let’s look at the elements of a SWOT analysis and explore how you can use it effectively to drive your marketing activities?

A SWOT analysis is less an actual analysis and more of a strategic dashboard used to arrange and view the outputs and insights generated by using various models and frameworks.

To make the most of it, you must conduct an internal analysis to uncover the strengths and weaknesses of your organization which will go under the S and Wcategories.

You will then need to perform a detailed external analysis to identify the opportunities and threats surrounding your market, which will form the O and Telements.

By analyzing internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external influences (opportunities and threats), marketers can make informed decisions, optimize strategies, and stay ahead of competitors.

The SWOT framework gives a clear snapshot of a brand’s position in the market to allow a business to leverage their advantages, address challenges, and capitalize on trends.

These four dimensions of SWOT can be grouped into two categories, internal and external.

The internal factors in a SWOT analysis are also known as the controllables due to their being under the control of the company and easier to change.

The S for strengths and W for weaknesses in SWOT are internal factors that reflect the company’s internal environment.

Strengths capture what the company can do well and has been doing well, while weaknesses reflect where the company is vulnerable and has exhibited shortcomings.

Opportunity and threats are external factors that may affect the company’s performance for the better or worse. They tend to happen on the macro and micro economic levels surrounding the company.

Opportunities are something a company can leverage to its advantage, while threats are factors that can potentially threaten the company’s performance and business goals.

These are elements beyond the power of a company but they can have a huge impact on a it. For example, an external factor could be a change in legislation or a new tariff that’s imposed.

These can’t be as easily controlled, but it’s of high strategic value to leverage the opportunities and safeguard against the threats.

So how do you find out your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? Let’s look at the steps you need to take to conduct a SWOT analysis.

First and foremost you need to determine the purpose of the SWOT analysis: this could be a product launch, a competitive analysis, or a full strategy. Once you understand the objective, you can explore the analysis with that specific area or project in mind.

To conduct a SWOT analysis, you need to conduct research on internal and external factors that could affect your business or project. To do this, gather data from customer feedback, marketing channel performance, market research, or a competitor analysis.

To identify the internal factors that can affect your analysis, examine your company’s strengths and weaknesses. Some of the elements and tools you can use are:

• Value chain: Use this to analyze how your company creates value at each step of operations, from inbound logistics to after sales service. This helps you identify strengths in efficiency or innovation, and weaknesses in cost or execution.
• Product line: This helps you evaluate the range, performance, and market fit of your products or services. Is your product line strong and diversified so it is a strength, or is it outdated and underperforming, indicating a weakness?
• Core competencies: This analysis helps you identify what your company does uniquely well such as proprietary technology, specialized expertise, strong brand equity, etc. The goal is to look for the competencies that provide strategic value and support competitive positioning, essentially counting as a strength, and the needed but lacking competencies that could count as a weakness.
• Competitive advantage: Used to assess the attributes that allow your company to outperform rivals, such as cost leadership, differentiation, or customer loyalty. The lack of a clear advantage can be a critical internal weakness.
• Resource: Examine tangible and intangible assets, including financial capital, human talent, intellectual property, and organizational culture. Strengths arise from well-developed resources, while gaps or misalignments highlight vulnerabilities counting as weaknesses.
• 7-S framework: Use this strategic analysis to review the alignment between strategy, structure, systems, shared values, skills, style, and staff. Misalignment among these elements can expose internal weaknesses, while coherence supports organizational strength and agility.

For example, your internal analysis can yield results such as:

Strengths:

• High average order value
• High level of brand awareness
• High number of repurchases

Weaknesses:

• High operating costs
• Slow customer response times
• Hard to convert prospects to customers

When it comes to the external environment, you’ll need to look at what’s happening at a country or regional level, industry level, and market level.

A PESTLE analysis is the go-to framework for this type of analysis as it gives deep insight into the general business environment. This graphic below shows what to consider in each of the categories.

Here are a few examples of opportunities and threats to give you an idea of what to include.

Opportunities:

• Competitors are not focusing on specific market segments (which you can try to target)
• New banking security initiatives indicate growing consumer confidence in online shopping and e-commerce
• An expected decrease in consumer spending and disposable income due to the economic downturn
• Major competitors are adopting a new marketing technology that will see them enhance their messaging and cut promotional costs

You can also use a model like Porter’s Five Forces to look at specific factors that affect your industry. And you can finish off your external analysis by looking directly at what your competitors are doing.

Once you are done with your internal and external analyses, arrange the findings as opportunities and threats in the SWOT table (download available on this page).

Including your findings in the SWOT table will not only help to collate the information in one place but provide a visual representation you can refer to and share with stakeholders.

Your SWOT matrix helps you develop strategies by analyzing your Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Follow this approach to complete the four strategy areas:

1. Developing Offensive Strategies (S-O)

• Start by identifying how your internal strengths can be leveraged to take advantage of external opportunities.
• Ask: Which opportunities can be best exploited using our strengths to achieve our business or marketing objectives?
• These are your offensive strategies: ways to maximize success using your competitive advantages.

2. Creating Defensive Strategies (S-T)

• Next, consider how your strengths can help counteract external threats.
• Ask: How can we use our strengths to reduce risks or neutralize external threats?
• These defensive strategies help protect your business from challenges in the external environment.

3. Building Adaptation Strategies (W-O)

• Now, focus on how external opportunities can help overcome your company’s weaknesses.
• Ask: Are there market trends, partnerships, or technological advancements that could help us improve weaker areas?
• These adaptation strategies are designed to turn weaknesses into strengths over time.

4. Developing Survival Strategies (W-T)

• Lastly, analyze the vulnerabilities where your weaknesses align with external threats.
• Ask: Where are we most at risk, and how can we minimize potential damage?
• These survival strategies help mitigate risks, ensuring that weaknesses don’t leave the company exposed to significant external threats.

By structuring your SWOT analysis in this way, you can develop a clear, strategic action plan tailored to your company’s position in the market.

Once you have finished putting the findings of your internal and external analyses, it’s time to use the insights found in the table.

The first place to start is to match the company’s internal strengths to the opportunities found in the environment. Ask yourself, which of these opportunities can be easily exploited by my strengths to help achieve marketing and business objectives? This is what is known as your offensive strategy or S-O strategy.

The second area to focus on is the company’s weaknesses. While it is normal for every company to have weak areas, it is important to minimize and be conscious of them. Ask yourself, is it possible to turn any of these weaknesses into strengths?

Following on from weaknesses, you want to make sure that they do not make you overly vulnerable to the external environment which is why the third focus area should be matching threats to weaknesses.

If there are weak areas in your company that are directly vulnerable to threats from the environment, then you need to defend against these as much as possible. The strategies that you develop during this exercise are your survival strategies or W-T strategies.

The fourth focus area is matching opportunities to relevant weaknesses. It requires you to ask how opportunities can be leveraged to amend and correct weaknesses. The answers are going to be your adaptation strategies or W-O strategies.

Matching the company’s strengths to relevant threats from the environment is the fifth focus area. Positioning your strengths against threats posed by external forces can help mitigate these threats. That is why S-T strategies are also known as defensive strategies.

Here’s an example of the SWOT table filled in with an example, of a producer of high-performance athletic sportswear.

Strengths:

S1- High-quality products with very attractive designs.

S2- Lower than average cost due to investment in automation.

Weaknesses

W1-Low brand profile when compared to the large players in the market.

W2- Most product lines and promotions are focused on men.

Opportunities:

O1- Rapidly growing social trend of athleisure – where athletic clothing is worn as everyday wear.

O2- Many local athletes and sports teams are gaining worldwide fame.

Threats:

T1- Many new entrants in the market from low-cost countries.

T2- War and energy crises are expected to lower consumer spending.

S-O matching

• Strength: High-quality products with very attractive designs.
• Opportunity: Rapidly growing social trend of athleisure – where athletic clothing is worn as everyday wear.
• Offensive strategy: Considering how the company’s products are attractive in design, it can develop a strategy targeting non-athletes with everyday athletic wear.

W-O matching

• Weakness: Most product lines and promotions are focused on men.
• Opportunity: Rapidly growing social trend of athleisure – where athletic clothing is worn as everyday wear.
• Adaptation strategy: Develop more female-focused products, targeting conventional athletic use and athleisure trends.                                                                

W-T matching    

• Weakness: Low brand profile when compared to the large players in the market.
• Threat: Many new entrants in the market from low-cost countries.
• Survival strategy: Deter new entrants by enhancing the company’s brand profile, by investing more in branding activities. This can also be done by noting O2 and partnering with local athletes and sports teams to enhance brand visibility.

S-T matching

• Strength: Lower than average cost due to investment in automation.
• Threat: War and energy crises are expected to lower consumer spending.
• Defensive strategy: Prepare for the economic downturn by lowering prices or offering a lower-price product line, which can be maintained by lower costs.

The below template can be used to conduct the SWOT exercise and help you gain a strategic overview.

Conducting a SWOT analysis is a powerful way to gain a clear understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Evaluating these factors will help a company make informed decisions, develop strategic plans, and drive growth.

Bear in mind that a SWOT analysis is not a static process. Monitor and update it regularly as internal and external factors can change and you’ll need to adapt to changes and adjust strategies based on new data and evolving market conditions.