# Competitive Intelligence Alliance > Our mission is simple: to provide those responsible for competitive intelligence with the insights, resources, and foresight needed to thrive in their role. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### About us URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/about-us/ Last updated: 2024-09-04T11:55:10.000Z Competitive Intelligence Alliance was founded in June 2022 with a mission to unite competitive intelligence leaders and strategic analysts across the globe - all while offering the best resources available for your career and business development. Whether competitive intelligence is your bread and butter or a small but crucial part of the larger role you play, we’re the resource you’ve been looking for to scale up, broaden your horizons and fulfill your ambitions 🤩. ### What we do Very much a growing community, Competitive Intelligence Alliance has achieved a lot in a short space of time and we have more exciting and bigger plans to come. - Our [Slack Community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) is growing each day, offering competitive intel pros a platform to ask and have answered all their burning questions. - Our membership packages offer CI specialists all the L&D they need to develop their careers and boost the bottom lines of their businesses. - Our weekly resources, podcasts, and newsletters are curated with the latest insights direct from thought leaders to keep you one step ahead of competitors. - Our summits and events, run worldwide, bring countless competitive intelligence professionals like you face-to-face to share and grow. - Our courses empower your professional development so you can study for that next promotion from wherever you are. - Our reports offer deep dives into the latest industry data to cut through the noise and forecast trends before they happen, keeping you at the cutting edge. ## The Alliance Competitive Intelligence Alliance is a proud member of [The Alliance](https://allianceled.io/) umbrella, the world’s most forward-thinking professional development platform, offering you all the resources you need to keep ahead of the curve, develop your career, and innovate early. Through market-leading accredited courses, unrivaled membership plans, industry-shaping reports, thriving communities, and first-class events, The Alliance redefines the way companies access education and scale. Other members of The Alliance include Product Marketing Alliance, Product-Led Alliance, Future of SaaS, AI Accelerator Institute, Customer Success Collective, CMO Alliance, and more. ### Contact us URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/contact-us/ Last updated: 2024-09-04T11:56:31.000Z We’re a friendly bunch here at Competitive Intelligence Alliance. Need putting in touch with an industry insider? Need advice on which of our courses and resources is best suited to rocket your career into the stratosphere 🚀? Just wanna chat? We’re here for you: Sponsor or partnership opportunities: [partnership@competitiveintelligencealliance.io](mailto:partnership@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) Contribute Content: [contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) Event inquiries: [events@competitiveintelligencealliance.io](mailto:events@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) Community: [christina@competitiveintelligencealliance.io](mailto:christina@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) Anything else: [hello@competitiveintelligence.io](mailto:hello@competitiveintelligence.io) ### Create & contribute URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/guest-post/ Last updated: 2025-08-18T09:34:01.000Z Competitive Intelligence Alliance is home to a growing network of **1,000s** of CI practitioners from over 170 countries. Each year, our website receives tens of thousands of visits from competitive intelligence analysts, product marketers, and strategy professionals from some of the world's leading companies. All looking to learn more about the latest innovations from the worlds of competitive intelligence, competitive positioning, market research, and strategic planning. To feed our ever-expanding community of CI pros, we're on the lookout for people like you to share your expertise and help us shape the next generation of CI. If you're interested in sharing your insights and experiences with one of the world's largest and fastest-growing CI communities, then read on to find out how you can contribute to Competitive Intelligence Alliance. ## Get involved #### Write for us ✍️ Each and every month, 1000s of CI professionals make their way onto our site. That’s a lot of eyes and exposure for your article. So, whether you want to write about competitive gap analysis, strategic frameworks, sustainable competitive advantages, or CI best practices, we want to hear more. If you’ve got the insights, we’ve got the platform. ****Step 1: Submit your subject** Don’t let those fingers of fury hit the keyboard just yet. First, [drop us a line](mailto:content@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at content@competitiveintelligencealliance.com and tell us what you want to write about. Some popular topics include: - Win/loss analysis - Strategic positioning - Competitive intelligence frameworks - The best competitive intelligence tools Remember, if your pitch isn’t right for us, there’s a high chance it will be for one of our other communities, so throw your ideas our way! ****Step 2: Follow the rules** We’re stoked to help get your name out there, but there’s some housekeeping that comes with that. Some ground rules: - Articles must be longer than 1000 words; - Any pictures you include should be royalty-free; - We’ll need a picture to sit with your contributor profile; - We’ll also need a short author bio for you (200 characters or less). Also, individual contributions shouldn’t promote your company’s products or services. For that, we have sponsorship opportunities. ****Step 3: Submit your work** Send Amelia Wilson a message on Slack, or [reach us by email](mailto:content@competitiveintelligencealliance.com). Include the link/attachment to your article (if already published, otherwise send over the copy) along with your profile pic and bio. If you’re not already set up as a contributor, that is. We accept articles previously published elsewhere; when we post these we’ll include a canonical link back to the original post. 💤 Time for the boring bits… ****Image policy** We include images with every post. Stock photography will be chosen by our team and will be posted with your entry unless you have a particular image you wish to use. By including any photos, screenshots, or images, you consent to allow CIA to post this image with proper credit to you and/or the creator. ****Link policy** Links in your post should be relevant to the story you’re telling and provide context to your audience. When referring to another article or piece of research, please use proper citations or links to the source material. If you are submitting a post in which any link(s) MUST be included and/or you want to promote your business, this would constitute sponsored content – which we do, but for a fee. Links we accept ✅ - Relevant articles and posts - Research or data - Resources that will benefit the community and make sense in the context of the article Links we don’t accept 🚫 - Affiliate links - Links to your company website (homepage, About Us, Contact, Prices, Products, etc.) - Product/service/pricing pages - Category/tag pages - Company social media profiles ****Syndication policy** We reserve the right to use any and all contributed content, with credit to the authors, in its entirety or in portions for promotional purposes, including in social media, other [Alliance](https://www.thealliance.io/) blogs, or newsletters. CIA may decide to cross-post to Medium, LinkedIn, or other blogging services. ****Editing policy** Our editors reserve the right to rewrite and cut copy, change the title of your article, or modify the piece as necessary. #### Speak at an event 📅 Our Competitive Intelligence virtual and in-person summits assemble compete leaders from the world's most innovative organizations. We meet in locations around the world with one goal in mind: to discuss how competitive intelligence programs can be deployed, improved, and scaled to create extraordinary business value. If you have insights to share, we want to hear them. Apply below to be considered to speak at one of our summits, where you'll have the chance to address fellow technology leaders and make an impact.[ Apply here.](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/to/zy44WNKX?typeform-source=www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io) #### Guest or host a podcast🎙 Written word not your style? Through [our podcast](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-podcast/), we provide thought leaders with a platform to share their experiences, unique insights, and perspectives on CI’s big trends and developments. Want to feature on a podcast, or perhaps even host your own? [Get in touch](mailto:content@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) with us to let us know. #### Sponsorship opportunities 🎗️ More and more organizations are rapidly adopting CI and applying it in all corners of the business, and you could be there to support them on that journey. If you want to market your CI products and services, and gain exposure to 1,000s of companies looking for solutions to help them scale their competitive program and enable sales, our sponsorship solutions are for you. You can sponsor our: - Events - Articles - Reports - Podcasts - Webinars - Virtual summits See how you can collaborate with us[ here](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/partner-with-us/). #### Contribute to a report 📚 Our regular landscape reports put the spotlight on the latest developments at the cutting edge of the competitive intelligence, strategy, and market research spaces. To continue our industry-leading research, we're always keen to hear from practitioners and experts who have something to share. Have a look at the surveys we're currently running to find out how you can help shape competitive intelligence. ****What we’d need from you:** 1. A headshot 2. A short 200-word bio 3. A quote ****Get in touch with us below:** [content@competitiveintelligencealliance.io](mailto:content@competitiveintelligencealliance.com) ****Reports we're working on:** - CI-by-Industry Playbook - Competitive Intelligence Trends, 2023 - Competitive Intelligence Salary Survey, 2023 #### AMA contributor 🙋‍♀️ Ask Me Anything, or AMAs, are great ways of building your brand awareness, trust, and authority. We're looking for experts in competitive intelligence, from all industries, to provide their knowledge and expertise for AMAs. If you're interested in participating, get in touch with our [team](mailto:harshil@salesenablementcollective.com). #### Meetup organizer 🏘 We've got a few regional meet-ups coming up and we can't wait to see you there! Our competitive intelligence networking events in 2024 will be located in Tel Aviv, San Francisco and more! The best part? They're free. And better yet, you can run your own meet-ups in your city and chat with your local peers. If you're interested in being a meet-up organizer, get in touch with our [team](mailto:harshil@salesenablementcollective.com). #### Be a course beta tester 🎓 Our expert-led courses aren't created in isolation, which is why we need your help. We seek support from competitive analysts, market researchers, product marketers, and strategy professionals to ensure our training programs deliver everything our participants need to progress their careers. In return for being a beta tester, you’ll get free, early access to accredited courses – for life. What we need from you first, though? Candid, thorough, and timely feedback. To inquire about becoming a beta tester for CIA, please email: [sophie@pmmalliance.com](mailto:sophie@pmmalliance.com). #### Affiliate partners 🤝 With a global network of thousands of CI practitioners, our platform offers a unique opportunity for businesses seeking to get their name in front of an engaged network of AI professionals. If you would like to explore partnership opportunities with CIA, please email: [calum@pmmalliance.com](mailto:calum@pmmalliance.com). --- ## Why you should get involved Not only will we feature you on our site for thousands of hyper-relevant viewers to see, oh no. Here’s what else we’ll do for YOU, just to say thank you. - Share your article to **100s** of members in our #freshcontent Slack channel; - Promote your article to **1,000+** members on LinkedIn; - Get in front of **10,000s** of website visitors each year. - Put your name in front of competitive intelligence leaders from some of the biggest names in business, including **Adobe**, **HubSpot**, **Slack**, **Gong**, **Airtable**, and **Google**. --- ## Join the CIA community Chat with like-minded CI practitioners and enthusiasts from around the world. Beginners, experts, and all skill levels in between, this community is for everyone. Find the latest content, jobs, events, and more. Join the community today ### Partner with us URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/partner-with-us/ Last updated: 2024-09-04T11:58:08.000Z Here at Competitive Intelligence Alliance, our daily grind is all about promoting and contributing to the growth of competitive intelligence. Growing daily, our platform offers businesses and individuals a one-stop watering hole to quench their thirst for knowledge. So if you’re looking to get your brand in front of an audience that's hyper-relevant and looking for a solution like yours, jump on board with one of our sponsorship or partnership opportunities. ## Why partner with us? 🌎 Get your brand in front of the world’s fastest-growing global competitive intelligence community. 👀 Get 1,000s of fresh eyes on your content - we’ll place it front and center on the CI Alliance website. 👋 Network and connect with like-minded CI pros in our Slack community. 🗣 Get the word out via promotion on our mailing lists and social media platforms. 🏆 Leverage our global virtual and physical events to effortlessly generate qualified leads. The fun doesn’t stop there folks. Our Community is home to some of the biggest names in business, including: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/image.png) ## What’s on offer? Whether you’re a titan of industry or a sprightly startup, we’ve got a sponsorship package that ticks your boxes. ### In person conference series Bringing hundreds of competitive intel leaders together in a business, conference style environment, this is the ultimate opportunity to meet your prospects face to face, and have in depth discussions over a cup of coffee or lunch. ### Virtual events Looking to network but can’t attend an event in person? Our virtual events see 1,000s of competitive intelligence professionals tune in from all over the globe to hear hundreds of speakers offer their insights. Partner with us or sponsor a virtual event to leverage these massive opportunities to promote your brand, win new leads, and target your messaging. ### Content spotlight Got the product and some killer content that slams home how and why yours is the best solution available? That’s where our content spotlight comes in. You provide the article and we’ll put it in front of the thousands of relevant readers that visit us each month. ### Webinars, podcasts, white papers… We’ve got the in-house talent to offer whatever you need, whatever the platform. With webinars, podcasts, and whitepapers available, we can create and/or promote the perfect messaging medium for your audience. ## How to get involved Just reach out to [partner@competitiveintelligencealliance.io](mailto:partner@competitiveintelligencealliance.io), or [put in some time to chat](https://calendly.com/harry-279/30min). We can’t wait to hear from you! ### Subscribe to CIA Signal URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/ Last updated: 2022-07-07T06:25:01.000Z Kick back. We’ve got this. Just like passive income, you can have a stream of CI goodies dropped *right* into your inbox once a month when you sign up for our CIA Signal newsletter. Getting ahead of the game just got easier 🙌. ## What’s inside? **Articles & interviews:** A curated list of the biggest hits on the blog(ck). **Resources:** Links to our newest and most relevant reports and eBooks. **Podcasts:** Tune in and let the knowledge *flow* through you. Insight from industry leaders. **Events:** Upcoming events coming to a city near you for you to network, grow, and learn. **Get involved:** Make your voice heard through our surveys and polls, or post your questions to experts in our AMAs. ## Don’t delay, act now! In the words of Smash Mouth and of Youtube influencers everywhere, smash that subscribe button 👇. [Subscribe Me!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/#/portal/signup/free) ### Meet the team URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/meet-the-team/ Last updated: 2024-11-08T11:47:08.000Z Meet Developer Marketing Alliance’s team. Lovely to meet you! Each one of us has a pivotal role in making sure you feel like the valued community member that you are. Interested in getting to know us more? Feel free to add us on LinkedIn with the links below. Richard King | Founder & CEO | [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardking001/?ref=productmarketingalliance.com) Bryony Pearce | CMO | [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryonypearce/?ref=productmarketingalliance.com) Rose Johnstone | Community & Event Director | [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosejohnstone/?ref=productmarketingalliance.com) Rebecca Boucher | Director of Community & Events Marketing | [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccaboucher500/?ref=cmoalliance.com) Nicole Duarte| Community Coordinator | [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-duarte-052216199/) Calum Harris | Global Event Producer | [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/calumharris23/?ref=productmarketingalliance.com) Teresa Garanhel | Content Lead | [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/teresa-garanhel-7317a9128/) Harry Dear | Sponsorship Sales Manager | [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/harry-dear-0176a2a9/?ref=productmarketingalliance.com) Sarah Perry | Events Marketing Executive | [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-perry-801496284/?ref=productmarketingalliance.com) Any questions? Contact any of us at any time. See you around! ### Account URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/account/ Last updated: 2022-07-19T17:08:21.000Z _No content available._ ### Welcome to your CIA membership plan! URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/welcomemember/ Last updated: 2022-07-19T16:07:42.000Z We're glad to have you! Soon enough, we'll be releasing access to our freemium plans. 🔥 (Don't worry, we'll let you know as soon as they land.) 'Til then, like that beloved guest who's a teensy bit early to the party, we'll have to direct you towards the hors d'oeuvres. 🍱 Sample our articles, swing by the [Slack community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) or invest in your personal brand with [an original contribution](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/guest-post/). The main courses are coming up! We can't wait. ### account-free URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/account-free/ Last updated: 2025-03-10T11:46:45.000Z _No content available._ ### Membership | Learn more URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/membership/ Last updated: 2023-06-07T16:40:06.000Z The Competitive Intelligence Alliance membership plans are coming soon, delivering industry-leading insights from global experts. All in one place. Want to be the first to know when our membership plans are live? Register your interest below.👇 ### Pro membership plan URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/signup/ Last updated: 2024-07-17T16:17:13.000Z You’ve read the articles, [signed up for CIA Signal](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/), and perused our reports … so **how do you take things to the next level**? Answer: Become a valued member of the Competitive Intelligence Alliance. [Join now](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/#/portal/signup/free) Here’s a rundown of *absolutely everything* you get when you sign up. ## What’s inside… 🤩 **Exclusive content.** A treasure trove of exclusive, actionable content, written by CI thought leaders and not available to non-members, is just a few clicks away. Added to every other week. 🛠 **Templates & frameworks.** Inside, you’ll find actionable templates and frameworks you can apply *today*. Strapped for time? Apply a template*.* Unsure where to start? Apply a framework. Updated every month. 🎬 **On-demand event coverage.** Watch recorded content from our events and summits on-demand. It’s like Netflix for your personal development. Upskill any time. Anywhere. 🔥 **Amplified expertise.** Take your knowledge to the next level with a members' discount on courses and events. Plus, get early access to reports, projects, and updates from our community. **👩‍💻Upgraded experience.** And that’s not all. As a member, you’ll enjoy a browsing experience completely free from advertising, get special discounts on our summits and events, and get access to an exclusive members-only network of the most dedicated CI professionals. ## Join the CIA members club Inside, you’ll find actionable advice, templates, and frameworks you can apply to blast through plateaus. And when the hard work’s done? Peruse some of our advanced, members-only content for exclusive insights. Watch recorded content from our events and summits on-demand. Enjoy an ad-free browsing experience and exclusive discounts on our summits and events. [Choose a plan](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/#/portal/signup/free) ## FAQ **How long will I have access to the content?** It’s yours forever! As long as your subscription is active, all the content, videos, templates, frameworks, and slides are yours to access whenever you want, for as long as you want. **I work in B2C. Do you have stuff for me?** Of course! All of our materials are transferable and can be applied to both B2B and B2C markets. **Can I make a content request?** Yes! If you can’t find something you think would be useful, please let us know. While we can’t promise to say ‘yes’ to every single request, we’re always open to exploring ideas. **I’m in, but how do I sell this to my manager?** At just $20 a month, you’ll make back the cost of your membership winning even a single customer each month. How’s that for a risk-free investment? And if you’re looking to finance your membership yourself, we’ve made our prices as affordable as possible to give you the launchpad you need to turn your learning to earnings ASAP. ## Get in touch Big team? Looking for something a bit more bespoke? Reach us at [support@competitiveintelligencealliance.io](mailto:support@competitiveintelligencealliance.io), or contact Alex at [alex@competitiveintelligencealliance.io](mailto:alex@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) and we’ll find a way to help. ### Privacy Policy URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/privacy-policy/ Last updated: 2022-07-22T10:34:37.000Z [Privacy Policy](https://www.iubenda.com/privacy-policy/24731467 "Privacy Policy") ### State of Competitive Enablement Report 2022 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-competitive-enablement-2022/ Last updated: 2025-09-12T08:58:14.000Z As a competitive intelligence professional, you run the gamut. You’re talking to three, four, even five departments daily. You’re fielding requests, prioritizing, informing product positioning, and benefiting your organization in all sorts of ways. 👏 But when your annual review rolls around, you know there’s one question you’re certain to be asked: “How much did you contribute to the bottom line this year?” When it comes to making a business impact and advancing your career, sales enablement is where it’s at. Sales is the team that sits closest to revenue. Their feedback loop is the shortest by far. Enable your sales team with competitive assets, and you’ll maximize the effectiveness of your competitive intelligence, boost the bottom line, and reap the rewards. So grab yourself a copy of our [State of Competitive Enablement report](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/to/NzNr4Kh9), bring yourself up to speed, and start putting the knowledge you need to work today. 🔥 ## What we cover: In this report we bring you valuable insights on the following topics: - Competitor growth - Tips for remote workers - Buyer education - Enablement challenges - Proving ROI ## Here’s a taster of what you’ll find inside: - **100%** of respondents agree that their market has either increased or sustained its level of competition. - **88.8%** of that 100% believe their market has become more competitive. - **74.2%** report their sales teams as the primary consumer of competitive intelligence in the organization. - **47.2%** of participants say sales reps ask for support on 20% or fewer of their deals. Want more? Grab your copy now. 👇 [Get your copy](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/14Pzs%5Fe76ReiuAKZ2lnVyfA2b1vun) ### Head-to-Head: The Competitive Intelligence Playbook URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/head-to-head-playbook/ Last updated: 2025-09-12T08:49:59.000Z Do you wonder if there’s some part of the competitive intelligence process you’re missing? 🧠 Do you dream of wowing your bosses with unbelievable results? 💭 We put together **Head-to-Head: The Competitive Intelligence Playbook** for people like you. To bring you the knowledge you need to define, then refine your competitive edge. ## Here’s what you’ll get: - The six steps you need to conduct a **successful** CI program. - Actionable advice from the top minds in the industry from juggernauts including **Airtable**, **ClickUp**, and **Atlassian**. - **Free** templates that do the hard work for you and bulletproof your approach. - Tips for handling CI’s greatest challenges with **ease**. [Get the playbook](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1Y9olY1xCTFWsnOOmGEE0cw2b1vun) ## Take a sneak peek: In this playbook, we go into depth on the six core pillars of competitive intelligence. Follow these steps for success and download your copy today for the juicy details. 🍋 1. Identify your competition. 2. Gather intelligence. 3. Conduct competitive analysis. 4. Develop your competitive strategy. 5. Enable your teams. 6. Implement, review and refine your approach. ## Get your copy So, ready to level up your competitive intelligence results? Download your copy today and whip your CI program into shape. 👇 [Grab a copy](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1Y9olY1xCTFWsnOOmGEE0cw2b1vun) ### Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2021 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/trends-report-2021/ Last updated: 2025-09-12T09:04:33.000Z Endless information, ever-increasing competition. We know how easy it is for you competitive intelligence professionals to get lost in the details. 🤯 And who could blame you? With so many competitors to keep track of, and with CI in such high demand across organizations, it’s hard enough to step back and take a 10,000-foot view of your own competitive landscape. Let alone keep track of the state of competitive intelligence in general. If you’re no longer seeing the forest for the trees, we’re here to help. Our 2021 Competitive Intelligence Trends report brings you the latest developments in competitive intelligence. Are you behind the curve? Or ahead in the race? [Download your copy now](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1M3VUSIwiSuCrtwTMFGzN7Q2b1vun) to find out. ## Inside, you’ll learn: We partnered up with Klue to survey hundreds of competitive intelligence and product marketing professionals from every corner of the globe. Here are just some of your questions we’ve got answers for: - Who organizations consider responsible for CI. - How competitive intelligence is executed. - How often competitors are monitored. - The types of competitors businesses focus on. - How much budget is spent on CI. - CI’s biggest challenges. And much more. And since we’re feeling generous, here are a few statistical snippets to really get you going: - Almost **70%** (69.4%) of respondents monitor competitors at least once a month. - Sales and customer success strategy was surprisingly the area **least cited** by businesses as their key objective for competitive intelligence. - The most popular frequency (23.6%) for conducting light spot-checks on competitors was ‘a couple of times per week’. Find these stats insightful? Well, you’ll find more where those came from in our Competitive Intelligence Trends report. What are you waiting for? [Get your copy](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1M3VUSIwiSuCrtwTMFGzN7Q2b1vun) ### Sales Enablement Landscape Vol. 2 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-landscape-vol-2/ Last updated: 2022-08-08T08:26:35.000Z Sales enablement forms a big part of most product marketers’ day-to-day, and we know this because of the 2,000+ PMMs who participated in this year’s State of Product Marketing report, almost three quarters (73.8%) said creating sales collateral made up part of their key responsibilities. With that in mind, we decided to dig a little deeper into the world of sales enablement, surveying 400+ product marketers in all stages of their career, all over the world to bring you this...The Sales Enablement Landscape Vol. 2. In it, you’ll find the answers to questions like… ❓ Who owns sales enablement? 🔥 Which sales enablement assets are most effective? 📎 How do different companies organize their sales enablement efforts? 🙌 Which are the best sales enablement tools on the market? 📐 Do PMMs measure the effectiveness of their sales enablement work? 💪 How much influence do product marketers feel they have in the sales enablement process? Plus pages and pages of juicy sales enablement stats like… - 47.9% of product marketers do not have a dedicated sales enablement team - 56.3% of product marketers reported that in their organization sales enablement is solely owned by marketing. - According to 78% of product marketers, customer case studies are the most effective sales enablement asset. - How about some hot sales enablement tips courtesy of PMMs from organizations like Showpad, HERE Technologies, Seismic, and Formlabs? Yep, they’re in there too. What are you waiting for? Download all 50 pages for more 👇 [Download the report](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/to/pk5YqPsP) ### The Competitive Positioning Playbook URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/ Last updated: 2024-07-19T10:50:42.000Z No product is created in a vacuum. It’s how you position yourself relative to the competition that truly matters. If you’re to carve out your own competitive niche and defend it, you’ll need to scout the environment, pick an advantageous position, and make sure the market knows that spot belongs to *you*. In the Competitive Positioning Playbook, **we show you how**. ## How this playbook can help you Grab your playbook today to learn: 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a **rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you **must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom **tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s **revenue** ceiling. [Download the playbook](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/11aGRKTw0QKOCs-THjYyRVA2b1vun) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/05/Newsletter_Upsell_Footer_CIA-3.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/your-cia-media-guide/) ## What’s inside your playbook? Want a peek behind the curtain? Here’s a look at what’s covered inside. 👀 - Why you should position competitively. - What ‘minimum viable positioning’ is and why you should work towards it. - The competitive positioning process, from foundations to deliverables. - How to reposition when things *aren’t* working. - How to get buy-in across your organization. Plus, you’ll hear from some of the best in competitive intelligence and product marketing, as they share their insights on the competitive positioning process. Our **guest experts** include: 🎓 - Alex McDonnell - Competitive Intel & Product Marketing at **Airtable**. - Keith Brooks - CMO and VP of Product Marketing at **B2B Whisperer**. - Kevin Chan - Manager, Products & Solutions Marketing at **Hootsuite**. - Matthew Tyrer - Head of Competitive Intelligence at **Commvault**. - Mitchell Comstock - Sr. Product Marketing Manager at **LeadIQ**. And many more… [Get your free copy](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/11aGRKTw0QKOCs-THjYyRVA2b1vun) ### Competitive Intelligence Summit | New York December 2022 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-summit-new-york-december-2022/ Last updated: 2025-10-28T10:49:12.000Z Catch up on every session from Competitive Intelligence Summit New York 2022 and hear from the likes of Culture Amp, Imperva, Qualtrics, Airtable & more. _This page is for subscribers only._ ### State of SWOT Report URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-swot-report-2023/ Last updated: 2024-07-19T10:59:50.000Z **Frameworks**. In times of uncertainty, they offer us stability. In times of trouble, they offer us safety. But *analytical* frameworks? These are the ones you turn to when a new competitor enters the fray. The ones you look to when markets shift and call for a change. When the landscape tilts, uncertainty reigns, and the bold look for opportunities as the wise defend competitive advantages. 🤺 Of these analytical frameworks, one has reigned supreme. **SWOT.** Loved and loathed in equal measure, SWOT analysis divides opinion, but has sat atop its semaphoric tower, guiding strategic marketers to better business decisions, for decades. But we’ve got *burning* questions. Questions like: 🔥 Is it time to turn the crown over to a **new framework**? ☄️ Where is SWOT best applied for **maximum ROI**? ❤️‍🔥 Do professional marketers even **still use* *SWOT analysis**? We’re surveyed you, the community, to find out. [Download the report](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1ulWChzqtQHeN9fGEYLCJMA2b1vun) **Download the report** to reveal how practitioners are using SWOT analysis in 2023\. This report covers everything from: - The five top **challenges** you face performing SWOT, and how to solve them. - The best ways to measure **success or failure** post-SWOT. - Whether SWOT is **falling out of favor** in modern businesses. - The best **alternative frameworks** and how they compare with SWOT. - The **future of SWOT** analysis. Ready to learn more? [Go ahead. Get your free copy.](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1ulWChzqtQHeN9fGEYLCJMA2b1vun) ### Tools of Choice Report 2023 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-report-2023/ Last updated: 2024-07-19T10:16:59.000Z **Competitive intelligence** sits at the intersection of marketing and revenue enablement. With high stakes, disparate data sources, and a mandate to leave no stone unturned, CI pros face an organizational nightmare. 🤯 So what's the answer? **Tools**. We surveyed the community and the time has come for us to **uncover these tools** and deliver them, in a beautiful, **downloadable directory**, to the screens and minds of CI practitioners of all shapes, sizes, and experience levels. 🪛 ## What you get: 📖 A downloadable, **comprehensive directory** of the most kickass CI tech stack money can buy. 🪛 The **powerful tools** CI pros use every day to create massive value in their organizations. 💡 The **must-have categories** you need to build your ultimate CI tech stack. 👀 The eye-opening ‘alternative’ tools your teams can use to **become unbeatable**. Established stalwarts. Unsung heroes. **Who came out on top?** 👇 [Download the report](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1tD2H8UGaQrisXwjjNnOxpQ2b1vun) ## Download this report and learn: 🏆 The one tool a **staggering 78%** of category adopters use. ✅ The three categories we think are **essential for your tech-stack.** 🕵️‍♀️ The **under-utilized tools** that could give your business a competitive edge. 🥲 The software type with an **eye-watering 85% adoption rate** amongst respondents. Don't wait. Grab your copy now to discover the go-to tools for the brightest minds in CI. The ones they reach for first. The ones they’d never go into battle without. This time tomorrow, they could be fuelled up and ready to go in your quick-launch bar. 🚀 [Get your free copy](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1tD2H8UGaQrisXwjjNnOxpQ2b1vun) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/07/CIA_Tools_of_Choice_2023_CTA_Banner_-1.png)](https://product-marketing.docsend.com/view/yeefywzh5r7b4k5t?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) ## Posts ### What is competitive intelligence? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2026-09-02T15:48:13.000Z ## What is competitive intelligence? Competitive intelligence refers to the practice of collecting and analyzing data on your competitors and delivering insights gleaned from that data to stakeholders around the business. Good competitive intelligence work combines information learned about competitors with [customer research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/) to make sure insights align with what a business’ target market really wants. Combined, they inform a [competitive strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-strategy-for-business-lifecycle/) aimed at winning greater market share and winning more deals. 💡 **Competitive intelligence can also refer to any and all data about your competitors.* ## Competitive intelligence vs. competitor analysis vs. market intelligence vs. business intelligence These four terms get used interchangeably more often than they should. They're related, but they're not the same discipline, and mixing them up tends to show up later as the wrong team owning the wrong piece of work. ### Competitive intelligence Competitive intelligence is the broadest of the four. It covers the entire external business environment: competitors, yes, but also customers, distributors, technology shifts, and macroeconomic data. The goal is making the whole organization more competitive, not just building a file on your rivals. ### Competitor analysis [Competitor analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-analysis-starting-a-business/) is a piece of competitive intelligence, not a stand-in for it. It's the act of studying specific, named competitors: their [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/), their [positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/), their [strengths and weaknesses](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-explained/). Where CI takes in the whole environment, competitor analysis zooms in on the players you're up against directly. ### Market intelligence [Market intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-vs-market-intelligence/) is a subtype of CI focused on the marketing mix: pricing, place, promotion, and product. It moves faster than most CI work, often measured in days or weeks rather than quarters, and it's used mainly by marketing and sales teams responding to what's happening in the market right now. ### Business intelligence [Business intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/product-management-competitor-business-intelligence/) looks inward. Where CI is outward-facing, BI analyzes your own company's operations, sales figures, and systems to improve efficiency. The two disciplines feed each other, since BI often absorbs the findings CI brings back, but they answer different questions and usually sit with different teams. ## Why is competitive intelligence important? ### You learn what your customers want 💭 When you lose out to competitors, speaking to your lost prospects only gives you half the story. At the heart of any [competitive intelligence program](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/build-a-better-ci-program-that-actually-increases-sales/), you’ll find a motivation to understand the customer. You have to understand what the market wants before you can provide it. But speaking to prospective customers only gets you so far. Especially if you’re a step behind and losing customers to competitors. Competitive analysis is about learning why customers go elsewhere and finding out why you lose. [Market research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/) that helps you better understand your competitors, what they offer, and what customers like about what they offer, puts you in a better position to win competitive deals. Some of what you find might surprise you, too. It’s not uncommon to hear your customers claim you don’t offer a feature that has actually been a part of your offering for some time. Not communicating to your customers that your product meets their [needs](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/) is the same as not meeting those needs at all. ### It teaches you your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses 💭 Know where your competitors are weak. Position yourself as the answer to their shortcomings. No one can be good at everything. Even if you’re up against established giants with huge budgets, there are ways to play your position as the small upstart to your advantage. After all, who doesn’t love an underdog? Without intel on your competitors, though, you’ll never uncover their strengths and weaknesses. Knowing where your competitors are weak gives you a chance to position yourself as the answer to their shortcomings. Knowing where they’re strong shows you ahead of time which fights you can’t win, where it’s sensible to conserve your energy, and where it’s worth making a stand. Pretty useful, right? Put another way, market intelligence gives you a clear view of the competitive landscape. And a clear view of the competitive landscape makes it obvious where your products should sit within it. That means better positioning, a more persuasive offering for customers, and an increase in revenue. > “... understanding what competitors are helping other customers do can help you figure out whether or not you’re going to play against them in the market.” > **Clint Buechler, Associate Manager of Growth Marketing at Rhino.** ### You’ll gain a deeper understanding of buyer motivations 💭 The more sources of data you have, the less power outliers have to skew the entire dataset. Numbers don’t lie. And neither do customers… At least, that’s what we’d like to believe. But some prospects don’t have a deep enough understanding of their own motivations to give you truthful answers. And if the data you get from [customer interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) doesn’t reflect reality, it won’t get you results. That’s where competitive intelligence comes in. Including information on your competitors gives you a more complete picture of your prospects’ motivations. And the more sources of data you have, the less power a few outliers have to skew the entire dataset. This’ll give you peace of mind next time you’re worrying about the accuracy of the answers from your customer surveys. CI also offers objectivity. It helps you offset biases in your organization about your products. Seeing yourself from the market’s perspective lets you objectively identify what needs to change about your brand for you to win more business. Be it your product positioning, your messaging, or your content marketing strategy. ### Uncover new market trends and opportunities 💭 Gather CI day in and day out, and it's impossible not to keep up with the latest goings-on in the marketplace. The modern marketplace is dynamic, disruptive, and fast-moving. It’s impossible to compete if you’re a step behind. When you’re gathering competitive intelligence day in and day out, though, it’s impossible not to keep up to speed with the latest goings-on. When you’ve got an active, [successful competitive intelligence program](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/), you’re in a great position to spot new industry trends and opportunities as they emerge. You might notice your target audience migrating to products with a common feature. If your product doesn’t have this feature yet, you can act swiftly to make developing that feature a priority. ### CI helps you anticipate your competitors’ next moves Just as CI helps uncover emerging market trends and opportunities, it also alerts you to emerging threats. Having your finger on the pulse of the market makes it possible to anticipate your competitors’ next moves. When you’re one step ahead, and you capitalize on your competitor’s weaknesses, you’ll neutralize competitor strategies as fast as they can devise them. Of course, you can’t predict everything. But this will help you get and stay ahead of the competition when new products and services catch your customers’ eyes. ### You can build a sustained competitive advantage 💭 Making your advantage sustainable means defending it against attack. Establish a baseline of competitor behavior to start. When you have a [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/), you’re well-positioned to win more customers than your competitors. But your edge in any highly competitive endeavor is small. And your competitors will be working around the clock to replicate your advantage and diminish your lead. So how do you make your advantage sustainable? It starts with data collection. Collecting information on your competitors helps you establish a baseline of behavior. If they move away from this baseline, you’ll know they’re up to something. These behavioral shifts can act as early warning signals, alerting you before competitors make a move on your advantage. But since CI uncovers opportunities too, it can show you where your competitors’ advantages lie. This can inform strategic decisions around new advantages and possibilities that your competitors haven’t yet exploited, or have left undefended. Make these advantages your own and you’ll acquire more market share and increase your brand’s longevity. ****Suggested reading 📘**• [****How to gain a sustained competitive advantage (10 superhero strategies)**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/) ### CI helps you prioritize, with a huge impact on revenue 💭 Competitive deals are massively leveraged opportunities to impact your organization's bottom line. There’s an infinite amount of work in all organizations. You’ll never be able to do it all. Such time constraints make prioritization crucial. CI helps here too. It helps you prioritize and make more informed business decisions. It teaches you what your customers value most, and helps you filter out the competitive battles you stand no chance of winning. You’re left with (i) the areas you’re already knocking it out of the park, and (ii) the areas where a strategic tweak or two can have landslide consequences for your bottom line. For better or worse. These areas are like swing states. A few votes in either direction could decide the entire election. That is, the vote the customer casts with their dollars and cents. In competitive deals, just a few persuasive points in your favor could mean thousands more prospects choosing you over a competitor. Even if it’s a close-run thing, they can only pick one. So, depending on your average deal size, these are massively leveraged opportunities to impact your organization’s bottom line. ### Competitive intel helps you strengthen strategies across the business A great CI strategy will go on to inform a ton of other strategies across the business. From your product positioning strategy to your content marketing strategy, even your pricing and brand messaging. You can improve them all when your competitive intelligence program gets underway. The end result of all this? A stronger product, a better customer experience, more won deals, and increased revenue. All thanks to competitive intelligence. ## How it works: the competitive intelligence cycle explained Competitive intelligence is not a one-and-done task. It’s not even really a series of steps. No, competitive intelligence is best explained as a *cycle*. New intel on your competitors pops up all the time. It’s your job to capture it, analyze it, and figure out what it means for your business. From there, you’ll deliver those insights in the format best suited for the internal customers (stakeholders) you’re serving. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2026/09/CIA-Framework-Wheel_.png) The stages of the cycle are, perhaps, best outlined like this: **1\. Orientation:** sync with the needs of the business: leadership goals, stakeholder needs, and what “done” looks like for this round of intelligence. You don't have to repeat this every cycle, but revisiting it periodically keeps your output relevant. **2\. Data gathering:** collect the raw intelligence: competitor moves, customer feedback, market signals, and internal insights, using the sources and methods that fit your objective. **3\. Data analysis and processing:** interpret what you've gathered in light of what you already know, and start shaping it into a point of view rather than a pile of facts. **4\. Data reporting:** distill your analysis into the format your stakeholders actually need: a battlecard, a brief, a slide, a dashboard. **5\. Actioning:** track whether stakeholders use what you've given them. A great brief nobody opens hasn't moved the needle, so tie adoption back to outcomes, like win rates, wherever you can. Looking for more information on the CI cycle? Here’s the [competitive intelligence cycle explained in 5 steps ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-intelligence-cycle/). ## How to set up a CI process Starting a CI function from nothing is a different problem from running the cycle once you already have one. Here's a practical starting sequence: **1\. Define your objectives.** Get specific about what decisions this intelligence needs to support: pricing, product roadmap, sales enablement, or something else. Vague objectives produce vague intelligence. **2\. Identify your stakeholders.** Work out who actually needs this intelligence and what they'll do with it: sales, product, leadership, marketing. Their needs shape what you gather and how you report it. **3\. Map your competitors and sources.** Decide which competitors matter most right now, and which sources (websites, CRM, win/loss interviews, social media) will actually get you there. **4\. Allocate resources.** Decide who owns this work, how much time it gets, and whether you need tooling to make it sustainable. CI that depends on one person's spare hours rarely survives a busy quarter. **5\. Build your reporting cadence.** Agree on how often intelligence gets delivered, and in what format, before you start gathering. A weekly digest and a quarterly executive briefing serve very different purposes. **6\. Review and refine.** Revisit your sources, stakeholders, and objectives on a regular cycle. A CI process that doesn't evolve with the market it's tracking will quietly go stale. ## Types of CI There are both multiple types of competitive intelligence *work*, and multiple types of competitive intelligence *data*. First, we’ll discuss the various types of competitive intelligence *work* you can do. ### Types of competitive intelligence work: strategic vs. tactical There are two main types of competitive intelligence work: tactical and strategic. **Tactical** Tactical CI work is more short-term, and more reactive, than strategic CI. It’s about what’s happening right now, what has happened recently, and what you should do about it as a business. Usually, tactical competitive intelligence work’s aims can be described as “quick wins”. How can we enable sales to win more deals – today? Can we tweak our pricing to persuade more prospective buyers – today? A competitor just released a new feature, what must we do to remain competitive – today? **Strategic** Strategic competitive intelligence work, by contrast, concerns itself with longer-term business objectives. It’s focused on broader market and industry trends, and it looks to advise overarching business strategy. Such advice steers a business toward capitalizing on market opportunities, sidestepping threats in the competitive landscape, and thriving into the future with a [sustained competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). Market intelligence, changing consumer behavior, and longer-term signs from competitors about the shifting landscape, become much more important in this kind of CI work, and those performing it are likely to report directly to leadership. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/CIA_CI-by-industry-playbook_Blog_.png) #### CI-by-Industry eBook ****Download your copy** to learn... - 😰 Why field intelligence can be dangerous, and how to use it the right way. ([Page 24](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🙅‍♂️ Why you should think twice before having reps from [****this team**](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) on a win/loss call. ([Page 24](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🤖 The truth about automation, and how much time tools can really save you. ([Page 22](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🤯 The [****surprising key skill**](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) every one of our industry experts said was crucial for CI success. ([Page 66](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ### Types of competitive intelligence data: internal vs. external The [types of competitive intel ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/)you can collect and work with can be broadly separated into two categories: internal and external. #### Internal data Internal data is just external data someone else in your business has already collected. Since the work has already been done, it’s most practical to find this information *within* the business. For this reason, it’s referred to as *internal* data. What’s more, it benefits you to actively encourage people to collect as much data as they can on your behalf. Competitive intelligence teams are usually small (when there’s more than one person dedicated to the role at all). Resources are, therefore, limited. The experts we’ve spoken to consider it a best practice to “crowdsource” your competitive intelligence efforts, building a “culture of compete” where everyone considers it a shared responsibility to keep an eye on competitors, and report intel back. Here’s a list of the places inside the business where you can find intel: - Your CRM. - Your [sales and customer success reps.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/) - Your [leadership team.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/) #### External data External data can be further categorized. These subcategories are best considered through the means of acquiring them. There is necessarily some overlap between types of external data. In the next section, we’ll examine these methods in detail. They include: - Customer research data. - Win/loss data. - Competitor announcements. - Wider market and industry intelligence. - Information about a competitor’s various strategies (content, PPC, marketing, positioning, etc). ## The history of competitive intelligence Competitive intelligence has a defined starting point, and it's earlier than most people assume. **1980:** Harvard's Michael Porter published [Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors](https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=195). It's widely regarded as the foundation of modern competitive intelligence, laying out the analytical tools for evaluating competitors that the field still leans on today. **1985:** [Leonard Fuld published a bestselling book](https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/new-competitor-intelligence-complete/author/fuld-leonard/) dedicated specifically to competitor intelligence, turning it into its own branch of business strategy rather than a subset of general strategic planning. **1986:** [The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP)](https://www.scip.org/) was founded, giving the field its first dedicated professional association and, eventually, a formal code of ethics. **1988:** [Ben and Tamar Gilad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive%5Fintelligence) published the first organizational model for a formal corporate CI function. US companies adopted it widely, and it's generally seen as the point CI became an institutionalized activity inside corporations, rather than something a few research-minded employees did on the side. Nearly 40 years on, the fundamentals haven't moved much. What's changed is the volume of publicly available data, and the tools available to make sense of it. ## Competitive intelligence ethics: legal vs. illegal Competitive intelligence and industrial espionage can look similar from a distance. They aren't the same thing, and the line between them has cost real companies real money. ### What makes CI legal and ethical Legitimate CI relies on publicly available information, or information gathered through honest inquiry: a competitor's website, their pricing pages, regulatory filings, job postings, trade shows, and interviews where you disclose who you are and why you're asking. SCIP, the profession's main association, maintains a code of ethics that CI professionals are expected to follow. Its core points: - Continually strive to increase the recognition and respect of the profession. - Comply with all applicable laws, domestic and international. - Accurately disclose your identity and organization before all interviews. - Avoid conflicts of interest in fulfilling your duties. - Provide honest and realistic recommendations and conclusions. - Promote this code of ethics within your company and with third-party contractors. - Faithfully adhere to your own company's policies, objectives, and guidelines. ### Where it tips into illegal Industrial espionage starts where deception, theft, or unauthorized access replace those methods: misrepresenting who you work for, hacking a competitor's systems, or obtaining private records under false pretenses. A few real cases show how expensive that line is to cross. **Oracle (2000):** Oracle hired a detective agency to investigate two research groups defending Microsoft during its antitrust trial. The agency found the groups were misrepresenting themselves as independent when they were actually funded by Microsoft. Oracle's chairman later stood by the outcome, even while acknowledging the methods used to get there were questionable. **WestJet vs. Air Canada (2004–2006):** WestJet accessed Air Canada's internal, password-protected employee website more than 243,000 times over 10 months, and used what it found to adjust its own routes and schedules. Air Canada sued. WestJet issued a public apology, called its own actions unethical, and paid out $15.5 million in Air Canada's legal fees plus $10 million to charity. A company co-founder resigned over it. **HP (2006):** HP's board hired private investigators to trace a boardroom leak to the press. Those investigators used pretexting, misrepresenting themselves to phone companies, to access the private call records of HP directors and journalists. California's Attorney General settled the resulting case for $14.5 million. None of these three started out as illegal operations. Each one crossed the line the moment it swapped a legitimate method for a deceptive one. ## Best competitive intel gathering methods and sources Here’s a list of data gathering methods you’ll want to become familiar with: 1. [Win/loss interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-analysis-how-to-improve-your-job-search-strategy/) 2. [Customer research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/) 3. [Competitor websites](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/) 4. Competitor help and support documentation 5. [Competitive SEO](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/)[ analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) 6. [Social media](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) 7. Community forums 8. Press releases and news articles 9. Internal data (SMEs, CRM, etc) ### 1) Win/loss interviews Win/loss data is *powerful*. What makes it so special, you ask? With the best will in the world, foresight can only get you so far. If you want the full story about why you’re winning and losing deals, you need to speak with the people who’ve actually been through your funnels, and experienced your buyer journey first hand. The feedback they can give you about what worked well, what didn’t, and what ultimately influenced their purchasing decision can bear fruit in surprising (and profitable) ways. It’s not always easy, or quick, to perform these interviews. You have to source willing participants, devise questions, figure out who’s actually going to conduct the interviews for the best (read: most honest) responses… but get it right, and it’s worth it. What’s more, you can learn what your prospects thought about competitor products, and what their experience of having those competitors court them was like. --- [The 4 pillars of win/loss analysisWin/loss analysis is the process of gathering data around both won and lost sales deals to uncover trends impacting your win rate. Learn more.![](https://www.revenueoperationsalliance.com/content/images/size/w256h256/2023/02/Revenue-Operations-Alliance-favicon.png)Revenue Operations AllianceGreg Larsen![](https://www.revenueoperationsalliance.com/content/images/2024/02/Meta-image--46-.png)](https://www.revenueoperationsalliance.com/the-4-pillars-of-win-loss-analysis/) --- ### 2) Customer research Building on the theme begun with win/loss analysis, your customers can tell you a lot. But they don’t have to have experienced your buyer’s journey for them to teach you a thing or two. As much as you might feel you know already, markets and customer requirements are dynamic. The only way to keep your finger on the pulse of what your customers want is to check in with them regularly. Interviews and surveys are two great ways to do this. You need to understand the emotional pain points your customers are experiencing, so you can craft the best solutions for those problems on the market. But wait… what does this have to do with competitors? Well, customers in the market for a solution like yours have probably already checked out your competitors. In your [customer research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/), you can ask customers which competitors they’ve got an eye on, which they think are good value, and which they believe to have a strong brand or effective marketing strategies. ### 3) Competitor websites This is perhaps the most obvious source of competitive intelligence: the competitor’s website. Almost all modern businesses have an online presence, and that includes a website. A website where they’ll post product updates, pricing information, articles aimed at their target audience, and all sorts of other information that tells you what’s important to them (and, therefore, what they’re prioritizing for strategic reasons). However, not all businesses use their online presence in the same way. If you’re in SaaS, you’re probably in luck. It’d be surprising if all your competitors didn’t have detailed, thoroughly built-out websites. But it’s not a given. Some SaaS company websites are a single landing page. That’s it. They’ve got one funnel, a simple product offering, and the website barely extends (if at all) past the homepage. When your competitor is shy about posting lots of publicly available information on their website, you’ll have to look elsewhere. --- [How To Perform a Competitor Website Analysis in 10 StepsWe show you how to examine competitors’ websites and their materials, giving you valuable insights that help your org beat the competition.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/05/CIA_Framework_Tiles_web_research.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/) --- ### 4) Competitor help and support documentation Okay, so you’ll find this on your competitors’ websites too. But it’s such a great source of powerful intel, we’re going to give it its own section. What makes it so powerful? Product documentation isn’t written for prospects. You’ll find no *marketing speak* here. Instead, you’ll get a plain language breakdown of how the product works, aimed at making things as clear as possible for existing customers. This gives you a freshly polished window through which to get a good look at the inner workings of your competitors’ products. Even better, if you can find them, product changelogs will give you a play-by-play of what has changed (and potentially even what is planned for future releases) on a version-by-version basis. ### 5) Competitive SEO analysis Also related to your competitor’s website, but specifically to do with their content strategy, don’t make the mistake of thinking [competitive SEO analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) is only for content and marketing teams. Luckily for you, though, these teams *might* already be doing this work. Where they are, you can take their findings and incorporate them into your own analysis. Where they’re not, it pays to do it yourself. Tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs are a huge help for this. But if your budget isn’t exactly generous, you can still gain some insights manually. Check out the types of articles your competitors are writing. What kinds of queries are they targeting? Are they looking to answer informational queries (with pages like the one you’re reading right now?) Where they are, look to learn more about the kinds of questions they’re looking to answer. Remember: quality content is time-consuming to produce. If your competitors are investing in it, there’s a reason. The types of queries they’re targeting, even the types of call-to-action you see on those pages, can tell you a lot about where their priorities lie. ### 6) Press releases and news articles While your competitors’ websites are perhaps the means of acquiring competitive intel that’s closest to the source, press releases and industry news articles might just be the next best thing. Official statements and press releases relating to new hires and product releases are a great place to start. Google Alerts should pick these up with ease, so even if you don’t have the budget for paid competitive intelligence tools, this is one source of intel that’s available to everyone. This might be low-hanging fruit, but it’s not a source you want to overlook. All your competitors will have their eyes on these releases, and you don’t want to fall behind because you missed something that was easy to catch. ### 7) Social media While social listening tools exist to make [monitoring social media](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) for mentions of your competitors easier, manual monitoring is still worth your time. X, LinkedIn, Facebook, even Instagram… all social media platforms can serve as sources of competitive intel. But it gets better. Social media offers more than one type of competitive intelligence. **First**, if your competitors have a presence on that platform, you can follow them and monitor their account for announcements and clues about their strategy. **Second**, even if a competitor isn’t active on a particular platform, conversations can start that offer insights into what the market thinks about them and their products. Some of these users might be customers of a given competitor, too. These users might let slip updates about what the competitor has planned, what’s in the product/feature pipeline, and other competitive goodies. As anyone who has spent any time on social media knows, conversations tend to be candid, polarizing, and no-holds-barred. If you want a window into what users think about your competitors (and even you, and your own products), social media is a great place to go. ### 8) Community forums It’s not just the big social media players, though, that can offer a candid look at what your target audience thinks about competitors. Community forums on platforms like Reddit, Quora, even Slack, can feature question-and-answer format conversations with detailed breakdowns of feature sets, pricing information, and overall customer experience. Since these platforms lend themselves better to long-form conversation than the social media outlets discussed in the previous section, these forums can be a great place to go if you need a detailed look at community sentiment. ### 9) Internal data (CRM, internal SME interviews) Remember: Your “internal data” sources are perhaps your most efficient means of acquiring intelligence. Interview internal subject-matter experts, as well as your customer-facing reps (read: sales and customer success), for a sense of what they’re hearing on the front lines. Your CRM is also a goldmine of competitive information. When you can’t go to the source and speak to prospects directly with primary customer research and win/loss interviews, these sources are an excellent backup, and are much less costly. ### Synthesis frameworks for C-suite decision making Translating raw competitive intelligence into executive-ready insights is both an art and a science. For C-suite audiences, the challenge isn’t just about sharing what you know – it’s about distilling complexity into clarity and action. So, how do you bridge that gap? Start with synthesis frameworks tailored for executive needs. Executive summaries are non-negotiable: they should spotlight the three to five most critical findings, each tied directly to a strategic business question or decision. Dashboards (visual, dynamic, and updated in real time) let leaders scan for threats and opportunities at a glance. Scenario mapping is another powerful tool: outline plausible competitor moves, your likely responses, and the potential impact on key metrics. When you’re preparing these deliverables, always ask yourself: what does the C-suite need to decide, and what’s the minimum viable context to support that decision? > As **Lucy Casamitjana, Head of Product Marketing & Enablement at Skello**, recommends, “adopt storytelling tactics if you want to make sure that your audience engage with your content.” That means framing intelligence in the context of business outcomes—think revenue risk, market share shifts, or regulatory exposure. And don’t just report what happened; connect the dots to company priorities. Tie each insight to a current or upcoming decision cycle, whether it’s annual planning, quarterly reviews, or a major product launch. Set a regular cadence for these executive briefings – monthly, quarterly, or aligned to board meetings. Consistency builds trust and ensures CI becomes a strategic input, not an afterthought. Ultimately, your job is to make the complex actionable. When you do, you’ll see the difference: faster decisions, fewer surprises, and a leadership team that’s truly informed, not just updated. ## Building cross-functional competitive intelligence networks If you want your competitive intelligence (CI) program to truly move the needle, you can’t keep it siloed. The real magic happens when CI becomes a living, breathing network – one that spans sales, product, marketing, engineering, and beyond. Why? Because competitive threats and opportunities rarely respect org charts. They cut across teams, impacting everything from your product roadmap to your next campaign. > **Bryan Nairn, former Head of Product Marketing at Kong**, puts it plainly: “We get to talk to everybody. We sit at the intersection of product and inch, of sales, of the marketing organization.” That intersection is your launchpad. Start by mapping out your key stakeholders, think sales reps hungry for battlecards, marketers crafting campaigns, product managers eyeing the next big feature, and engineers closing technical gaps. Identify internal champions in each function. These folks become your CI ambassadors, ensuring insights flow both ways. Next, create shared spaces for collaboration. Maybe it’s a dedicated Slack channel, a regular cross-team sync, or a self-serve portal for competitive content. Nairn’s team found that “going out and manually responding to all of these Slack requests or emails... we just couldn't scale.” Their solution? Empower teams to self-serve, so everyone can access the latest intel when they need it. Set a cadence for check-ins (monthly roundtables or quarterly reviews) where teams share what they’re seeing on the front lines. Use these sessions to refine goals, surface new needs, and celebrate quick wins. The payoff? Enterprise-wide alignment, faster pivots when threats emerge, and a culture where CI is everyone’s business. Once you break down those silos, you’ll see better decisions, fewer surprises, and a whole lot more confidence across the board. ## Designing early warning systems with competitive intelligence signals Let’s talk about getting ahead of the curve. Really ahead. Early warning systems (EWS) in competitive intelligence are your radar for spotting threats and opportunities before they hit your bottom line. They're your organization’s smoke detectors: always on, always scanning for signals that something’s about to change. In practice, an EWS means systematically monitoring the right signals – product launches, pricing shifts, new hires, customer sentiment, even regulatory chatter. **Bryan Nairn, former Head of Product Marketing at Kong**, highlights the need to “stay abreast of all the latest developments,” asking, “How do we know about it? And how does that affect our competitive differentiation?” That’s the heart of it: you’re not just collecting data, you’re watching for deviations from the norm – those subtle tremors that precede a quake. Operationalizing this isn’t as daunting as it sounds. Start with a framework: 1. Define your critical signals (e.g., competitor press releases, patent filings, key customer wins/losses). 2. Assign owners – who’s watching which signals? 3. Set up automated alerts where possible, using tools or even simple news trackers. 4. Establish a triage process: when a signal pops, who assesses its impact and who gets notified? 5. Review and refine regularly – what did you catch, what slipped through, and how can you tighten the net? We’ve seen teams transform from reactive to proactive almost overnight with even a lightweight EWS. The result is fewer surprises, faster responses, and a reputation as the team that always seems to know what’s coming next. And in CI, that’s a superpower you can’t afford to ignore. ## Competitive intelligence tools Remember: The value you can offer as a competitive intelligence professional largely comes down to how you can use what you learn to inform overall business strategy, including: - How your sales team approaches deals where your products are up against those of a close competitor; - How your leadership team approaches strategic decision-making; - How your product marketers and larger marketing team builds out its competitive positioning and messaging; - How your product team builds out its product roadmap and prioritizes its feature ideas and requests. That means taking the data you’ve gathered and teasing out its ramifications for your business. Then, once you’ve found these, working closely with stakeholders to deliver them exactly what they need to make them (and the business at large) more effective. All this to say, the data gathering part itself isn’t where the value comes from. It’s everything that happens afterwards that’s important. If you can automate the data gathering without missing anything (or even while capturing more data, more efficiently than you’d have been able to do manually), there’s a massive value-add to you and your role as the CI pro. Competitive intelligence tools that automate all or part of the intelligence gathering process (and, in some cases, even convert your insights into particular formats, like battle cards), are a great investment for businesses with the budget to spare. Here’s a quick breakdown of [essential software tools for your competitive intelligence tech stack ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-intelligence-tools-tech-stack/). ## Competitive intelligence career roles If you're weighing competitive intelligence as a career move, or just trying to work out what to call the role you already do, three job titles come up most often. Median total pay figures below are from Glassdoor, as of February 2026, and include base salary plus bonuses, commissions, or profit-sharing. | Role | Median total pay | What the role does | | -------------------------------- | ---------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Strategic Planning Analyst | $114,000 | Works with stakeholders to define company goals, runs CI research, and builds the strategic plans to hit them. Usually needs a bachelor's degree in business, finance, or marketing. | | Competitive Intelligence Analyst | $120,000 | Gathers and analyzes competitor and market data, spots trends and opportunities, and makes recommendations to leadership. A bachelor's degree is common, and many go on to a master's. | | Business Research Manager | $148,000 | Designs and oversees research projects end to end: proposals, methodology, data collection, and reporting findings to leadership. Often requires a master's degree. | Business research manager pays the most of the three, largely because it's a management role overseeing a research function rather than an individual contributor role. If you're earlier in your career, competitive intelligence analyst and strategic planning analyst are typically the more accessible starting points. [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) ### Competitive advantage: Definition, types and real-world examples URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/ Last updated: 2026-08-19T16:25:41.000Z Competing can be brutal, can't it? Your rivals aren't just hoping you trip; they're actively working to swipe your market share and maybe even replicate your brilliant ideas right under your nose. To not just survive but *win*, you need an edge over the competition. So, how do you build a [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) that allows you to consistently outperform your foes? Let’s dive into some real-world examples of companies that have done just that and see what they have to teach us. ## What is competitive advantage? Competitive advantage is what allows a company to consistently outperform its rivals, whether that shows up as higher profit margins, greater market share, or both. The concept was formalized by Michael Porter, who argued that every competitive advantage ultimately comes down to one of two things: doing something at a lower cost than your rivals, or doing something different enough that customers will pay a premium for it. Porter called these two paths cost leadership and differentiation, and most of the advantage types covered in this guide are variations on one or the other. Competitive advantage isn't the same thing as a value proposition. Your value proposition is the promise you make to customers about the value they'll get. Your competitive advantage is why competitors can't easily make, and keep, that same promise. A company can have a great value proposition and still lose market share if a rival can copy it within a year. | Type | Key characteristic | Real-world example | | ---------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------ | | Cost leadership | Producing or delivering at a lower cost than rivals, without sacrificing quality | Beauty Pie | | Differentiation | Standing out through quality, features, or brand values customers will pay a premium for | Patagonia | | Focus | Serving a specific niche or segment better than broader competitors can | Basecamp | | Innovation | Creating a genuinely new product, service, or technology that disrupts the market | Nvidia | | Reputation | Building trust over time so customers default to your brand | Marks & Spencer | | Strategic assets | Owning IP, proprietary tech, or an ecosystem that's hard to replicate or leave | Apple | | Strategic partnerships | Combining strengths with another company to offer more than either could alone | Salesforce and AWS | ## Core competencies as a source of competitive advantage Not every competitive advantage comes from a strategy you can point to on a slide. Some come from what a company has built up internally over years, sometimes without fully realizing it. This is the resource-based view of competitive advantage: the idea that a company's own resources and capabilities, not just its market positioning, can be the real source of its edge. Core competencies are the clearest example. The term comes from a [1990 Harvard Business Review article by C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel](https://hbr.org/1990/05/the-core-competence-of-the-corporation), who argued that a company's most durable advantages often live in specific combinations of skills and knowledge that are genuinely difficult to copy. They proposed 3 tests for whether something counts as a true core competence: 1. It provides access to a range of different markets, not just one product line. 2. It contributes significantly to the value customers actually perceive in the end product. 3. It's difficult for competitors to imitate, because it's built from combined knowledge and coordination rather than a single asset. These competencies are usually intangible: institutional knowledge, coordination between teams, or a particular way of solving a recurring problem faster than anyone else. That's exactly what makes them powerful. A patent or a factory can be bought or copied. A decade of accumulated, well-coordinated expertise can't be replicated just by writing a check for it. ## Competitive advantage #1: Cost leadership To consistently outperform competitors, one effective strategy is to become *the* low-cost producer in your industry, a concept popularized by Michael E. Porter as “[**cost leadership**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/cost-competitive-advantage/).” This approach allows you to produce and deliver goods more cheaply than your rivals – ideally without sacrificing quality. It gives you two key options: 1. Lower prices to capture more market share. 2. Keep prices steady while enjoying higher profit margins to reinvest. Achieving cost leadership isn’t about slashing prices at random. It requires a careful analysis of every part of your business, from raw materials to final pricing. By streamlining operations, automating processes, optimizing distribution, or securing better deals on materials, companies can lower their costs. While tough for young businesses and difficult to sustain long-term, a successfully executed cost focus can be a powerful [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage/?%5Fgl=1%2A1uyxrnu%2A%5Fup%2AMQ..%2A%5Fga%2AMTc2Mzc2NjI0NC4xNzQ3MTUxMjU2%2A%5Fga%5FPFVK9L5J31%2AczE3NDcxNTEyNTUkbzEkZzAkdDE3NDcxNTEyNTUkajAkbDAkaDA.). ### Example: Beauty Pie For a shining example of cost leadership, you need look no further than UK cosmetics company **Beauty Pie**. Beauty Pie has built its brand on providing premium-quality beauty products without the markups you see in traditional retailers. They work directly with top labs and remove costs like celebrity marketing, branded packaging, and retailer fees. As a result, they can offer their members prices 70% lower than the industry standard. This smart strategy is paying off. In 2024, Beauty Pie hit [**£73 million**](http://theindustry.beauty/the%5Fdirectory/beauty-pie/) in revenue (around $96 million) – triple [what they made in 2023](https://getlatka.com/companies/beautypie.com). ## Competitive advantage #2: Differentiation [**Differentiation**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/), another of Porter’s Generic Strategies, is about standing out in a crowded market by offering something unique – whether through quality, features, customer service, or brand values. This strategy allows companies to charge a premium because customers perceive their product as special or better suited to their needs. To successfully execute a differentiation strategy, you have to consistently deliver on what makes your offering unique. It’s about understanding your target audience and offering something that sets you apart from competitors. ### Example: Patagonia **Patagonia** excels at differentiation by integrating environmental sustainability into its brand. Beyond high-quality, durable outdoor gear, the company focuses on responsible consumption, using recycled materials and donating 1% of sales to environmental causes. Its “[Don’t Buy This Jacket](https://eu.patagonia.com/gb/en/stories/dont-buy-this-jacket-black-friday-and-the-new-york-times/story-18615.html?srsltid=AfmBOorFJzHYD10Jwo0nbmMjMIwK5pyQViCu81u%5Fme5AyMDND-E1PMEK)” campaign even encouraged customers to think twice before buying new products. By aligning product offerings with their environmental mission, Patagonia has built a loyal customer base that’s willing to pay a premium for products that reflect their values. This differentiation strategy has helped Patagonia thrive while making a positive impact on the planet. ## Competitive advantage #3: Focus The [**focus strategy**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-competitive-advantage/) (another of Porter’s Generic Strategies) is all about zeroing in on a specific niche or market segment and tailoring your product or service to meet their unique needs. Instead of trying to appeal to everyone, companies that use this strategy specialize in serving a smaller, well-defined group. This allows them to become experts in that area and offer something that larger competitors can’t quite match. By focusing on a particular segment, businesses can pour their resources into delivering exactly what that group values most – whether that’s speed, simplicity, or a solution to a specific pain point. ### Example: Basecamp **Basecamp** nails the focus strategy by offering project management software designed specifically for small to medium-sized teams. Unlike the heavy-hitters such as Microsoft Project or Asana, which often cater to large enterprises with more complex needs, Basecamp keeps it simple and user-friendly. Their product is perfect for smaller teams that need a straightforward way to stay organized, collaborate, and track projects – without all the bells and whistles that come with enterprise tools. [As they put it themselves](https://basecamp.com/small): > *"*We’re for the Fortune 5,000,000\.** > *“Most big software companies fight over the Fortune 500\. The whales, the thousand-seat contracts, the enterprise deals.* > *“They can have them.* > *“Our favorite customers are the Fortune 5,000,000\. The small and medium-sized businesses of the world, the individual freelancers, the creative shops that do the best work, not the most work."* By staying laser-focused on small businesses and creators, Basecamp has built a loyal customer base that appreciates its simplicity and no-nonsense approach. It’s not trying to be everything to everyone; it’s focused on being the best solution for smaller teams that need to get things done without complexity. ## Competitive advantage #4: Innovation **Innovation** is about creating something truly groundbreaking – whether it’s a product, service, or technology that disrupts the market. It’s a strategy that can offer companies a huge competitive advantage, but let’s be honest: true innovation is rare. Many businesses try to innovate, but few do it consistently and successfully. Achieving game-changing innovation takes significant resources, a culture that encourages risk-taking, and a knack for moving fast when the opportunity strikes. ### Example: Nvidia [**Nvidia**](https://www.aiacceleratorinstitute.com/how-nvidia-could-propel-europes-generative-ai-future/) is a prime example of a company that’s nailed the innovation game. While it’s best known for its graphics processing units (GPUs), the company has extended its reach into industries like healthcare, autonomous driving, and cloud computing by pushing the boundaries of AI and machine learning. Nvidia’s focus on innovative technologies and its willingness to make bold bets on the future have helped it stay ahead of the competition and become a leader in multiple sectors. It’s proof that when innovation hits the mark, the rewards can be huge. ## Competitive advantage #5: Strength of reputation A strong **reputation** is one of the most valuable competitive advantages a business can build. It’s about becoming a brand that customers trust and turn to consistently, knowing they’ll get quality products, great service, and a reliable experience. Companies with a solid reputation can often charge premium prices, attract more loyal customers, and weather market challenges more easily than their competitors. However, reputation isn’t something that happens overnight; it’s earned over time through consistent actions, and the brands that have the strongest reputations are those that have spent years, sometimes decades, building them. ### Example: Marks & Spencer British retailer **Marks & Spencer** (M&S) is a perfect example of a company that has built its competitive advantage on a strong reputation. According to [YouGov’s 2024 UK Best Brand Rankings](https://business.yougov.com/content/48594-uk-best-brand-rankings-2024), M&S holds the title of the UK’s strongest brand, a position it has earned through over 140 years of service to UK consumers. M&S has become a household name by providing excellent customer service and offering high-quality products, from its fresh food range to its reliable wardrobe staples. This reputation didn’t happen overnight; it’s been cultivated over generations. Our great-grandmothers loved M&S, and we still turn to the brand today because we trust it to deliver. ## Competitive advantage #6: Strategic assets **Strategic assets** are valuable resources or capabilities that give a company a competitive edge. These can be intellectual property (IP), proprietary technologies, strong brand equity, or exclusive partnerships. When leveraged well, strategic assets help companies maintain their position in the market and keep innovating, creating an advantage that’s tough to overcome. Unlike other advantages that might be copied or improved upon, strategic assets are often protected by patents, trademarks, or long-term agreements, making them more durable in the long run. ### Example: Apple **Apple** is a prime example of a company that’s used its strategic assets – especially its intellectual property – to stay on top of the tech game. Over the years, Apple has built an extensive portfolio of patents, trademarks, and proprietary technologies that give it a big edge over its competitors. With thousands of patents covering everything from hardware design to software features, Apple ensures its products – like the iPhone, iPad, and Mac – are unique in ways others can’t easily replicate. This huge IP portfolio not only strengthens Apple’s brand but also creates a barrier for anyone trying to compete with its product lineup. But Apple’s strategic assets go beyond just IP. The company’s ecosystem – its hardware, software, and services like iCloud and the App Store – creates a smooth, integrated experience that keeps customers coming back. This lock-in effect makes it harder for competitors to pull users away from the Apple universe. By continually innovating and leveraging its IP, Apple has built a brand that remains the benchmark for the tech industry. ## Competitive advantage #7: Strategic partnerships Strategic partnerships are all about companies working together to create something greater than what they could achieve on their own. These collaborations allow businesses to tap into new resources, technologies, or markets, ultimately driving more value for both sides. When done right, strategic partnerships can lead to new opportunities, enhance products or services, and strengthen both brands – without either company having to give up control. ### Example: Salesforce and AWS **Salesforce** **and Amazon Web Services** (AWS) have teamed up to combine their strengths and offer even more value to businesses. Through this partnership, Salesforce uses AWS’s cloud infrastructure to make its CRM platform more scalable, flexible, and secure, which helps businesses run more efficiently. On the flip side, AWS customers can easily access Salesforce’s powerful tools, including marketing and sales automation, making it easier to engage with customers and streamline operations. This partnership has allowed both Salesforce and AWS to enhance their offerings and reach more customers by bringing together their best technologies, creating a win-win for all involved. --- As we’ve seen, there are many ways to gain a competitive edge, from mastering cost control to leveraging partnerships. The most successful companies consistently play to their strengths, adapt to changes, and keep their customers at the heart of their strategy. Choose your path wisely, and watch your business thrive. ### Limitations of SWOT Analysis: 10 Critical Weaknesses Explained URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/ Last updated: 2026-08-04T14:02:41.000Z ## What is SWOT analysis? SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The SWOT analysis framework is a lens through which you can view an entire business, a particular strategy, one of your products or services, or even yourself. The framework brings together internal and external factors to give you a pretty comprehensive overview of the thing you’re analyzing. The framework has its benefits, but it’s also got its fair share of detractors and limitations. 🚨 Want more detail on what a SWOT analysis is? Check out our rundown of [the four major elements of SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/). --- ## Limitations of SWOT analysis SWOT analysis is popular for a reason, but it's not without real weaknesses. Here are the 10 limitations practitioners run into most: 1. [It's time-intensive.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#1-swot-analysis-is-time-intensive) 2. [Most businesses lack an existing process for running it well.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#2-lack-of-existing-processes) 3. [It's difficult to get buy-in from other departments.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#3-difficult-to-get-buy-in-from-other-departments) 4. [It's vulnerable to internal bias and blind spots in general.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#4-vulnerable-to-internal-bias-and-blind-spots) 5. [It's specifically vulnerable to overconfidence bias.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#5overconfidence-bias) 6. [It's specifically vulnerable to optimism bias.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#6optimism-bias) 7. [It's specifically vulnerable to groupthink.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#7groupthink) 8. [It has no built-in way to quantify or prioritize findings.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#8risk-of-oversimplifying-complex-situations) 9. [It produces a static snapshot that dates quickly in fast-moving markets.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#swot-analysis-limitations-and-when-not-to-use-it) 10. [It risks oversimplifying genuinely complex situations into 4 boxes.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#swot-analysis-limitations-and-when-not-to-use-it) We'll break down each of these below, including what to do about them. ### 1\. SWOT analysis is time-intensive According to the respondents of our State of SWOT survey, the principal challenge facing those performing SWOT analysis is a lack of time. **48.3%** of survey participants selected this as a challenge. So while you won’t need to go out and buy any fancy tools or software to conduct a SWOT analysis, that’s not to say it’s cheap to run. Doing a SWOT analysis properly involves pulling a lot of people together from different departments. That means drawing on their time and energy, which constitutes an opportunity cost. While they’re helping you with your SWOT analysis, they’re not doing something else that could be benefiting the business in other ways. And, if some of our State of SWOT survey respondents are to be believed, any given SWOT analysis’ return on investment is far from guaranteed. **Possible solutions:** - **Prioritize.** Don’t try to boil the ocean. - **Automate** wherever possible using software, AI, and other tools. - **Collaborate and delegate** effectively to make the overall project more manageable. ### 2\. Lack of existing processes Despite being a seemingly simple framework, most businesses lack an internal process for performing effective SWOT analysis with any regularity. More than one third of respondents to our State of SWOT survey reported this being an issue. Given the time-intensive nature of SWOT analysis, and how busy most practitioners are, the lack of an existing plug-and-play process for SWOT analysis is an understandable limitation. **Possible solutions:** - **Train others** by spearheading L&D initiatives focusing on SWOT. - **Prepare** by working SWOT into existing processes so it’s performed regularly as a matter of course, rather than another unnecessary extra. ### 3\. Difficult to get buy-in from other departments As a cross-collaborative exercise, the success of any SWOT analysis depends on getting others, from various teams, bought into the project. A SWOT analysis meeting, though, isn’t likely to be the most exciting event in a person’s calendar on any given day. If members from other departments don’t show up for the meeting, or show up and stay quiet, you’ll have a hard time getting enough input for a valuable SWOT analysis. Without enough input, you’re likely to miss something crucial, resulting in a less than effective outcome for the entire project. Add to this the difficulty of keeping folks engaged with, and willing to invest time and financial resources in, effecting change as a result of what you find in the initial meeting, and you’ve got another potential challenge. **Possible solutions:** - **Demonstrate** SWOT’s worth at the end of each successful project to make things easier next time. - **Iterate** the SWOT process to incrementally decrease the pull on others’ time even as you increase its effectiveness. - **Scout** champions from other teams, especially teams with influence. When someone gets a result, celebrate it to show others why it’s in their best interests to commit to the process. ### 4\. Vulnerable to internal bias and blind spots SWOT analysis is also vulnerable to blind spots. When performing a SWOT analysis, most will quite rightly collect input from around their organization. It’s rarer, though, for practitioners to consider pulling in their own customer and field research into the process. Any organization is at risk of becoming an echo chamber, where input and feedback become homogenous. Even if you ask many different members of your organization for their input, you risk missing weaknesses or biases that have become ingrained in the culture of the business. **Possible solutions:** - **Pump new life** into your analysis by involving new hires. New hires are an excellent, but often overlooked, source of fresh perspectives. - **Involve your customers** without wasting resources by inserting your most up-to-date customer research into the analysis. ### 5.Overconfidence bias Overconfidence bias shows up when a team rates its own strengths higher, and its weaknesses lower, than an outside observer would. It's the gap between how good you think your competitive position is and how good it actually is. In a SWOT analysis, this usually looks like a Strengths quadrant that's twice as long as the Weaknesses one, not because the business genuinely has that few weaknesses, but because the people in the room are the ones who built the thing being evaluated. **Possible solutions:** - **Bring in an outside voice.** A customer, a new hire, or someone from a completely unrelated department will rate your weaknesses more honestly than the people who own them. - **Ask for evidence, not opinions.** For every strength listed, ask what data or customer feedback backs it up. If nobody can point to anything, it likely belongs in "hoped for" rather than "true." ### 6.Optimism bias Optimism bias is the tendency to rate future opportunities as more likely, and future threats as less likely, than the data actually supports. It's closely related to overconfidence bias, but it's forward-looking rather than about self-assessment. This is what produces a SWOT analysis where the Opportunities quadrant reads like a best-case scenario and the Threats quadrant reads like an afterthought. **Possible solutions:** - **Assign someone the "threats" job.** Give one person in the room the explicit role of arguing the pessimistic case for every opportunity listed. It sounds forced, but it works. - **Pressure-test with a base rate.** Before finalizing an opportunity, ask how often similar bets have actually paid off for the business or the industry historically, rather than how good this particular one feels. ### 7.Groupthink Groupthink happens when a group prioritizes agreement and cohesion over accurate analysis. In a SWOT session, it looks like everyone nodding along to whoever spoke first, or to whoever's most senior in the room, rather than genuinely weighing in with a different view. The danger with SWOT specifically is that its format (call out an item, add it to a quadrant, move on) rewards quick consensus and doesn't naturally create space for dissent. **Possible solutions:** - **Collect input silently first.** Have everyone write down their own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats individually before any group discussion starts, then compare. - **Rotate who speaks first.** If the same senior voice always opens the discussion, everyone else's contributions start anchoring to theirs. Change who kicks things off each time. ### 8.Risk of oversimplifying complex situations A 2x2 grid is easy to read, which is exactly why it's easy to misuse. Reducing a genuinely complicated competitive situation into 4 short bullet points per quadrant can flatten nuance that actually matters, like a strength that's also a weakness depending on the customer segment, or a threat that's only real in certain geographies. **Possible solutions:** - **Tag entries with context, not just a label.** Instead of "strong brand recognition," write "strong brand recognition among enterprise buyers, weaker among SMB." The extra 5 words prevent the oversimplification. - **Treat SWOT as a starting point, not the final analysis.** Use it to surface the list, then follow up on the items that need more nuance with a deeper, dedicated piece of research rather than trying to capture everything in the grid itself. ## When SWOT analysis fails: a case study Priya ran [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) at a Series B project management startup. Ahead of a major roadmap decision, she pulled together a SWOT analysis with her product and sales leads. The Strengths quadrant filled up fast: strong NPS scores, a beloved onboarding flow, a sales team that consistently beat quota. The Threats quadrant got one line: "a couple of newer entrants, but nothing serious yet." Six months later, one of those "nothing serious yet" competitors had launched a native integration with the exact tool Priya's own customers used most, and had converted 3 of her company's largest accounts. Looking back, Priya's team had fallen into 2 of the biases above at once. Overconfidence bias inflated the Strengths quadrant based on how the team saw itself, not how customers were starting to see the newer entrant. And optimism bias shrank the Threats quadrant, because nobody in the room wanted to be the person who took a small, unproven competitor seriously. The fix wasn't complicated once the team identified what had gone wrong. Priya now runs a standing rule: every SWOT session includes at least one person whose explicit job is to argue that each listed threat is more dangerous than the room believes. It's an uncomfortable role to play, and an easy one to skip when things are going well. But it's also the single change that would have caught the gap 6 months earlier. ## How to overcome the limitations of SWOT analysis Each limitation above has its own fix, but they roll up into a smaller set of habits. Run through this checklist before, during, and after your next SWOT session. ### Before the session - Set a time box. Decide upfront how many hours this SWOT analysis gets, total, and stick to it. Time-intensiveness is a limitation only when it's unbounded. - Pull in outside input. Line up at least 1 person from outside the immediate team, a new hire, a customer-facing colleague, or recent customer research, before the meeting starts. - Send a pre-read. Ask attendees to jot down their own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats individually before the group discussion, to reduce groupthink from the outset. ### During the session - Assign a devil's advocate. Give someone the explicit job of arguing that every threat is more serious, and every strength is less certain, than the room initially believes. - Ask for evidence per item. For every entry, ask what data, customer feedback, or specific context backs it up, rather than accepting a one-line label. - Rotate who speaks first. Don't let the same senior voice anchor the discussion every time. ### After the session - Quantify or rank what you can. Even a simple high/medium/low impact score against each item gives you something SWOT doesn't provide natively: a way to prioritize. - Set a revisit date. Treat the output as a snapshot with an expiry date, not a permanent record, and put a specific date on the calendar to redo it. - Track what actually happened. Six months later, check which threats and opportunities played out as expected and which didn't. That's how you catch overconfidence and optimism bias creeping back in next time. ## SWOT analysis limitations and when not to use it So, you’ve seen where SWOT shines and where it stumbles. But here’s the real question: When should you actually skip SWOT altogether? It’s not just about limitations in theory; it’s about recognizing those moments in practice when another tool is a better fit. Let’s break down a few scenarios where SWOT may not serve you well, and what to reach for instead. First, if your organization is struggling with siloed research or duplicated efforts – think product, marketing, and sales teams all running their own disconnected analyses – SWOT can actually reinforce those silos. In these cases, a more integrated framework like Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) or cross-functional customer journey mapping can force alignment and surface shared insights, rather than just listing strengths and weaknesses in isolation. Second, when you need rigorous, quantitative prioritization, say, for resource allocation or investment decisions, SWOT’s qualitative nature can leave you guessing. If your team is asking, “Is it knowing which things to measure? Is it knowing what the value means?” (as one practitioner reflected), you’ll want to pivot to something like a weighted scoring model or a cost-benefit analysis. These frameworks demand clear metrics and ownership, helping you move from broad themes to actionable priorities. Third, in highly dynamic or complex markets, SWOT’s static snapshot can quickly become outdated. If you’re tracking fast-moving competitors or disruptive trends, consider using scenario planning or real-time competitive monitoring tools. These approaches let you model multiple futures and adapt as new data comes in, something a one-off SWOT just can’t do. Bottom line: SWOT is a great starting point, but it’s not a universal solution. When you need integration, quantification, or agility, don’t be afraid to reach for a more specialized framework. Sometimes, the smartest move is knowing when to switch gears. ## What are the benefits of SWOT analysis? **46.5%** of competitive intelligence professionals turn to SWOT analysis at least once a quarter. **22.3%** use the SWOT framework, at minimum, once a month. But why do almost half of all competitive intelligence practitioners use this simple framework so regularly? What’s the point? What do they get out of it? Well, we asked them. Here are the **main reasons** practitioners turn to SWOT analysis: 1. [To get to grips with new and emerging competitors.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#1-getting-to-grips-with-new-and-emerging-competitors) 2. [To kick off the industry research process.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#2-it%E2%80%99s-a-great-way-of-kicking-off-the-industry-research-process) 3. [To inform marketing, competitive, and go-to-market strategies.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#3-it-helps-marketing-competitive-and-go-to-market-strategies) 4. [To communicate findings at board meetings in a familiar format.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#4-it%E2%80%99s-a-recognizable-framework-for-communicating-findings-at-board-meetings) 5. [To inform positioning when launching a new product.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#5-swot-informs-positioning-when-launching-a-new-product) Here are those five SWOT analysis benefits in some more detail: ### 1\. Getting to grips with new and emerging competitors A SWOT analysis is a super simple, practical way of getting started with [competitive analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-analysis-starting-a-business/). Most of the time, when you’re performing competitive analysis, it’s with the express purpose of delivering actionable intelligence to somebody else in the business. > “In the analysis phase, I use SWOT primarily for competitor mapping. You define which area \[your competitors\] are in and their size, etc. It’s a lot about comparison, and where we stand compared to others in our area.” **\~ Fouad Benyoub, Director of Competitive Strategy, Databricks** And, if yours is like most businesses, you're most often delivering to your sales team. That means battlecards or, at the very least, competitor profiles. SWOT shows you where a competitor is weak, what they do well, how they might constitute a threat to your own success, and where the opportunities lie for you to win some of their market share in light of all that. 🤝 Learn [how to use SWOT analysis to build your battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-swot-analysis-to-build-your-battlecards/) from an expert: Imperva's Director of Competitive Intelligence, Pat Wall. ### 2\. It’s a great way of kicking off the industry research process SWOT isn’t just a great way of getting to grips with a single competitor for the first time. It’s a great way of getting a quick and dirty tactical overview of almost anything. Which makes it great for kicking off **industry research**. SWOT’s great at this because it gives you a way of packaging and filtering a wealth of information quickly. When you need a broad overview, you need to work through a ton of information to be sure you capture everything that’s relevant. At the same time, you want to be able to quickly discard what’s not. The SWOT analysis framework gives you a way to do that. When you’re analyzing new industries and business environments, it pays to get to know their main players. SWOT analysis gives you a template for gathering information on each company’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities presented by those industries you might have the resources and capabilities to exploit. ### 3\. It helps marketing, competitive, and go-to-market strategies As one expert respondent told us in our State of SWOT survey in 2023: > “SWOT analysis is highly valuable when identifying your market position relative to your competition, helping you determine what steps you need to take to address challenges or seize opportunities for growth or correction, \[and for\]identifying your message and influencing brand perception.” In other words, SWOT analysis, when applied to your business, can help you come up with all sorts of strategies for improving your situation. First, it helps you understand what exactly your situation is. Its specifics, its dangers, and its opportunities. It helps you understand how you’re likely to fare going up against certain competitors. How your products beat theirs, or vice versa. All such knowledge is indispensable when it comes to strategic planning, and putting together a long-term strategy for your business, or a medium-term marketing or competitive strategy. 🤝 Amazed at SWOT's benefits? Check out our comprehensive guide to applying [SWOT analysis in project management](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-in-project-management/). 👆 ### 4\. It’s a recognizable framework for communicating findings at board meetings If for no other reason, SWOT analysis is worth using because it’s something everyone recognizes and understands. SWOT analysis has had its place in business school textbooks for decades. Managers great and small would recognize a 2×2 SWOT matrix on a slide from a mile away. So, just as SWOT is a great way of making sense of a lot of information when you need an overview of something, it’s also a great way of communicating a lot of information to others without overwhelming them. 💡 Unlock expert templates, frameworks, and insider content from industry giants like Google and Amazon, right at your fingertips. [Become an Insider member today. ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/) ### 5\. SWOT informs positioning when launching a new product When you launch a new product, you need to be clear on that product’s value proposition. To put together a value proposition that’s effective, you need a very solid understanding of that product. That’s true whether you’re in charge of marketing a new product, or of advising how to market that product in relation to a competitive landscape you understand better than anyone else in the business. [Performing SWOT analysis on a product](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/) is a great way of bringing yourself up to speed fast. With what the product does well, what it doesn’t do so well, and what gaps exist in the market for you to potentially exploit when you get the positioning right. **Other SWOT analysis benefits include:** - Improving sales win rates. - Helping executives with strategic decision making. - Making sell cycle issues more visible. --- ## What other analysis frameworks or methods might you want to use instead? So SWOT can be useful in a lot of ways. But it has its limitations. Just in case you find yourself up against one of these limitations, we thought we’d collate a shortlist of alternative analysis frameworks you might consider using. Here’s a list of those most highly regarded by the expert respondents of our State of SWOT survey: - 1\. Porter’s Five Forces - 2\. PESTLE analysis - 3\. Win/loss analysis - 4\. VRIO analysis - 5\. Seven P’s analysis Let’s take a look at some of these in a bit more detail: ### Porter’s Five Forces These are Michael E. Porter’s five forces: 1. Threat of industry competition. 2. Threat of new entrants. 3. Power of suppliers. 4. Power of customers. 5. Threat of substitute products. Each of the five forces looks at external factors to the business to determine what might negatively impact your product’s success. If you wanted, you could combine a [Porter’s Five Forces analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-run-a-porters-five-forces-analysis-session/) with SWOT to build out a more comprehensive Threats analysis. ### PESTLE analysis When it comes to external factors that could affect your product, brand, or business, you might want to dig a bit deeper than the two-part examination of opportunities and threats that SWOT analysis calls for. PESTLE analysis focuses exclusively on such external factors, breaking them down into six different categories for you to explore: PESTLE stands for: - Political - Economic - Social - Technological - Legal - … and Environmental factors. Even bearing the PESTLE acronym in mind while you’re thinking about the opportunities and threats in your SWOT analysis can go a long way towards making your analysis more comprehensive. ### VRIO analysis While the two alternative frameworks described above pertain to external factors, the VRIO analysis looks instead at how internal factors drive your competitive advantage. The VRIO analysis asks four key questions. Is your product or service… - Valuable? - Rare? - Inimitable? - Organized? The first two points are self-explanatory. Your product is inimitable if it isn’t easily copied or replicated by your competitors. Whether it's “organized” has more to do with the ability of your organization to manage available resources to make the most of the competitive advantage your product or service has. ### SWOT vs PESTLE vs Porter's Five Forces comparison Let’s face it: no single framework answers every strategic question. So how do you decide between SWOT, PESTLE, and Porter’s Five Forces? Here’s a quick side-by-side to help you choose the right tool for the job. SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) is your go-to for a holistic, internal-external snapshot. It’s best when you need a broad, accessible overview – think new product launches, competitor profiling, or board-level updates. Its strength? Simplicity and flexibility. Its limitation? It can be subjective and lacks depth in external analysis. PESTLE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental) zooms out to the macro environment. Use it when you’re scanning for big-picture trends or regulatory shifts, such as entering a new market or anticipating industry-wide disruption. PESTLE excels at mapping external forces but doesn’t address internal capabilities or direct competition. Porter’s Five Forces focuses on industry structure and competitive intensity. It’s ideal for evaluating market attractiveness, pricing power, or the threat of new entrants. If you’re asking, “How tough is this market, really?”, this is your framework. Its strength is in-depth external analysis, but it doesn’t account for your company’s unique strengths or weaknesses. So, when should you use each? If you need a quick, collaborative assessment, start with SWOT. For deep dives into macro trends, reach for PESTLE. When you’re sizing up industry rivalry or negotiating power, Porter’s Five Forces is your best bet. Sometimes, blending frameworks gives you the richest insight. We've seen teams layer PESTLE and SWOT to connect macro trends to actionable strategies. The key is matching the framework to your decision point, not the other way around. ### What are the 4 key elements of a strategic plan? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-are-the-4-key-elements-of-a-strategic-plan/ Last updated: 2026-07-31T15:24:12.000Z [Strategic planning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-facilitate-a-strategic-planning-session/) can feel a bit daunting, right? But if you want to get your business moving in the right direction, a solid plan is a must-have. So, in this article, we’re going to break down the four key elements that make up a [successful strategic plan](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-roll-out-a-strategic-plan/). By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of: - How to define your business’s vision and set a long-term direction - Why a mission statement is more than just a bunch of words on your “About you” page - How to get to grips with the market you’re operating in - How to set goals that get you where you want to go Whether you’re looking to scale your business, boost your competitive edge, or just get everyone on the same page, these elements will set you up for success. So, grab your notebook (or just your coffee), and let’s dive in! ## What is a strategic plan? A strategic plan is your business’s roadmap to the future. It outlines your long-term goals and the steps you’ll take to achieve them. Unlike a business plan, which focuses on the “how” of your day-to-day operations and short-term goals, a strategic plan zeroes in on the “why” and the “what” for the next three to five years, or even longer. Why does every business need a [strategic plan](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/)? Well, without one, it’s easy to lose sight of your big-picture goals, get caught up in the daily grind, and miss out on new opportunities. With a clear strategy in place, you can make more informed decisions, focus your resources on what truly matters, and ensure everyone on your team is working toward the same goals. In short, a strategic plan gives your business direction, purpose, and a plan of action that goes beyond just surviving – it maps out how you can start thriving. [Competitive Strategies for Each Stage of the Company LifecycleIf you’re looking for the right competitive strategy for where your business is at, you’re probably in either the startup, growth, or maturity phase. This article takes a look at which types of competitive strategies you should adopt at each stage of the cycle.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-1.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/wolfgang-hasselmann-WoOMLfUa43A-unsplash-1.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-strategy-for-business-lifecycle/) ## Strategic plan vs. business plan vs. project plan These three get used interchangeably, but they answer different questions and usually sit with different owners. | | Strategic plan | Business plan | Project plan | | --------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | Purpose | Sets long-term direction and priorities for the whole organization | Describes how the business operates, and is often built to secure funding or investment | Defines how one specific initiative gets delivered | | Timeframe | 3 to 5 years, sometimes longer | 1 to 3 years, or the life of a specific venture | Weeks to months, tied to a deadline | | Scope | The entire organization | A specific business or business unit | One initiative, campaign, or deliverable | | Ownership | Executive leadership and the board | Founders or the CEO, especially when it's investor-facing | A project manager or team lead | A strategic plan sits above both of the others. Your business plan should reflect the direction your strategic plan sets, and your project plans are usually how you execute a single piece of that strategy. ## The 4 key elements of a strategic plan Now we’ve defined what a strategic plan is, let’s dive into the four essential elements that make it: 1. Your vision 2. Your mission 3. An understanding of the landscape and your place within it 4. Goals and objectives ## Defining your vision If you don’t know where you’re headed, how are you supposed to get there? That’s where a [vision](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/data-informed-product-vision-and-positioning-part-one/) statement comes in. A strong vision statement sets the long-term direction for your business, giving you and your team something to aim for, whether that’s world domination or just dominating your niche. ### What is a vision statement? At its core, a vision statement describes where you want your business to be in the future. Think of it as a snapshot of success that you’re working toward. The trick is to balance ambition with realism. You want your vision to inspire your team and attract customers, but it’s got to be something you can actually achieve. When crafting your vision statement, ask yourself: “*Where do we see ourselves in three, five, or even ten years?”* and be specific. What kind of customers should you be serving, how much cash should you be pulling in? What size and structure of teams will you need to make that happen? Having this vision clearly laid out is going to help you set concrete goals, milestones, and tasks as you dive deeper into the strategic planning process. [9 Tips to Master SWOT Analysis for Strategic PlanningSWOT analysis in strategic planning is the practice of applying the SWOT framework of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, to a business or product to critically evaluate where it sits in the competitive landscape.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-2.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/dave-photoz-BDIFIT1ILDs-unsplash-1.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/) ## The strategic planning process: step by step Knowing the 4 key elements is one thing. Here's the order most organizations actually work through them in, plus the 3 steps that come after goal-setting that this article covers in more depth below. 1. Define your vision and mission. Set the long-term destination and the reason your business exists in the first place. 2. Analyze your current position. Use frameworks like PESTLE and SWOT to understand the external landscape and where you stand within it. 3. Set strategic goals and objectives. Turn your vision into specific, measurable targets using a framework like SMART. 4. Choose your strategic frameworks and tools. Decide how you'll structure, track, and communicate the plan, whether that's OKRs, a Balanced Scorecard, or a Strategy Map. 5. Allocate resources and assign ownership. Decide who owns what, using a tool like a RACI matrix, and make sure budget and headcount match your priorities. 6. Implement the plan. Roll it out across the organization, translating strategic goals into team and individual objectives. 7. Monitor, measure, and adapt. Track progress against KPIs on a regular cadence, and adjust the plan as the market or your business changes. Steps 1 through 5 are covered in detail throughout this article. For a deeper walkthrough of steps 6 and 7, including how to translate strategy into team-level execution, see our guide on[ how to roll out a strategic plan](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-roll-out-a-strategic-plan/). ## Clarifying your mission If your vision is where you want to go, then your mission is why your business exists in the first place. It’s the driving force behind everything you do, from the products you create to the way you interact with customers. A strong mission gives your business purpose, keeping your team aligned and showing your customers exactly what you stand for. ### What is a mission statement? A mission statement is a concise declaration of your business’s purpose and the values that guide it. While your vision lays out the long-term goals, your mission grounds you in the present, answering the key questions like: - *What problem are we solving?* - *Who are we helping?* - *What values drive our decisions?* ### The importance of a well-defined mission A mission statement isn’t just something you write once and forget about – it’s a practical tool for making everyday decisions and shaping long-term strategies. It provides a sense of direction, helps prioritize resources, and aligns your entire team around a shared purpose. For an example of a stellar mission statement, look no further than Slack: > “Make work life simpler, more pleasant and more productive.” When your mission is well-defined, it becomes a powerful tool for shaping your strategy and engaging both your team and your customers. It tells everyone, from your employees to your clients, why your business matters. ## Understanding your place in the market The next crucial step in putting together your strategic plan is getting to grips with the broader market and seeing where you stand in relation to your competitors. [Positioning Statements: All You Need to Know (With Examples)Your brand positioning statement is a single sentence that sums up your competitive position - it’s your elevator pitch. If you were to describe to a new hire (or anyone else in the business) how you want people to see your product, your positioning statement would fill that role.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-3.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/pexels-alfred-gf-198265263-11521138-1.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/) As Sam Rinaldo, Senior Competitive Intelligence Analyst at Lucid Software, said in his talk at last year’s Competitive Intelligence Summit: > “Competitive and corporate strategy really should be the same thing \[...\] and there shouldn't be any corporate strategy that is being created without the input of competitive intelligence.” So let’s look at two tried and true competitive intelligence frameworks that’ll help you understand what’s going on out there: [PESTLE analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/) and [SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-explained/). ### PESTLE analysis: Evaluating external factors Before you lock in your plan, it’s crucial to understand the environment you’re operating in. This is where PESTLE analysis comes into play. This framework helps you evaluate the external factors that could impact your business, making sure your strategic plan is grounded in reality. It looks at these six factors: - **Political:** How regulations or political instability could affect your business. - **Economic:** Market trends, inflation, or interest rates that might influence demand. - **Social:** Demographics and customer preferences. - **Technological:** New technologies that could disrupt your industry. - **Legal:** Compliance requirements or changes in the law. - **Environmental:** Sustainability trends or environmental challenges. Understanding these factors helps you build a strategic plan that is not only ambitious but also achievable in the current market landscape. 💡 Unlock expert templates, frameworks, and insider content from industry giants like Google and Amazon, right at your fingertips. [Become an Insider member today. ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/) ### SWOT analysis: Understanding your business environment Conducting a [SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/) highlights your internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats. This helps you figure out where you currently stand and what you need to work on to achieve your vision. Here are the four areas you’ll look at: - **Strengths:** What does your business do well? What advantages do you have? - **Weaknesses:** Where are your gaps? What could you improve? - **Opportunities:** What market opportunities or trends can you capitalize on? - **Threats:** What external factors could threaten your success? By combining SWOT and PESTLE, you can create a plan that’s both realistic and strategically aligned with the bigger picture. [How To Do a SWOT Analysis of a ProductWe discuss how to do a SWOT analysis of a product, with examples, sample templates, and frameworks to save you time.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-4.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Framework_Tiles_swot-1.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/) ## Strategic planning tools and frameworks PESTLE and SWOT help you understand your position. The frameworks below help you act on it, structure the plan itself, and communicate it once it's built. ### Porter's Five Forces Where SWOT looks inward and PESTLE looks at the macro environment, Porter's Five Forces zooms in on your specific industry: the threat of new entrants, the bargaining power of suppliers and buyers, the threat of substitute products, and the intensity of competitive rivalry. It's most useful when you're trying to understand how much pricing power and long-term profitability your industry actually allows. ### Balanced Scorecard A framework for translating strategy into a set of measurable objectives across 4 perspectives: financial, customer, internal process, and learning and growth. Instead of measuring success on revenue alone, it forces you to track leading indicators like customer satisfaction and employee capability alongside the lagging financial numbers. ### Strategy maps A visual, one-page representation of how your objectives across those same 4 Balanced Scorecard perspectives connect to and drive one another. It's particularly useful for getting buy-in from a leadership team, since it shows cause and effect rather than just a list of disconnected goals. ### OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) A goal-setting framework where each objective (the qualitative "what") is paired with 2 to 5 key results (the quantitative "how you'll know"). OKRs work well as the bridge between a strategic plan's high-level goals and what individual teams commit to each quarter. Most organizations don't use all 4\. Pick based on what you're solving for: Porter's Five Forces for competitive positioning, Balanced Scorecard or Strategy Maps for communicating and tracking the plan broadly, and OKRs for cascading it down to team-level execution. ## Setting goals and objectives Once you’ve defined your vision and mission and you understand where your company fits in the market landscape, it’s time to get to the nitty-gritty – setting clear, actionable goals and objectives. These are the stepping stones that’ll take you from where you are now to where you want to be. Your goals give your strategic plan structure and direction, while your objectives break those goals down into measurable, achievable steps. ### How to set effective goals Setting goals might sound simple, but they need to be more than vague aspirations like “grow the business” or “improve customer satisfaction.” You’ve got to be specific – otherwise, how will you know when you’ve actually succeeded? This is where the SMART goal framework comes in handy. Your goals should be: - **Specific:** Clearly define what you want to achieve. - **Measurable:** Set metrics so you can track progress. - **Achievable:** Ensure the goal is realistic given your resources. - **Relevant:** Align the goal with your overall strategy. - **Time-bound:** Set a deadline to create a sense of urgency. For example, rather than “increase sales,” a SMART goal could be: “increase sales by 15% over the next 12 months by expanding our online marketing efforts.” ### The role of measurable objectives in success Once your goals are set, break them down into specific, actionable objectives. These objectives serve as a to-do list, making it easier for everyone to stay on track. For example, if your goal is to increase sales by 15%, an objective might be to “launch three targeted email marketing campaigns in the next quarter.” Tracking your progress through key performance indicators (KPIs) ensures you know how far along you are in reaching your goals. These metrics give you real-time feedback on what’s working and what needs adjustment, so you can stay agile, hit your targets, and achieve the vision you laid out at the start of the strategic planning process. [The 5 Metrics to Track to Measure Sales Enablement ROIWith the rise of sales enablement platforms and Big Data, it has actually never been easier to prove the ROI of your enablement charter. You just have to know which metrics to track and how to track them.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-5.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/luke-chesser-JKUTrJ4vK00-unsplash-1.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measure-sales-enablement-roi/) ### Allocating resources and setting timelines Even the most well-thought-out strategic plan will fail if you don’t allocate the right resources – time, money, and people – to each step. So, you’ll need to look closely at your available resources and decide where they’ll have the most impact. As well as setting realistic deadlines to keep things on track, it’s vital to make sure every action goal and objective has someone responsible for overseeing it. A RACI matrix might just be your best friend here. By outlining who’s responsible for completing each task, who’s accountable for ensuring it’s done, who needs to be consulted, and who needs to be kept informed, you’ll ensure that everyone involved in executing the strategic plan is on the same page. Resource allocation also means making tough decisions. Sometimes, you’ll need to shift resources away from lower-priority projects to focus on what’s going to have the greatest long-term payoff. The key is to stay flexible, adjusting your plan as needed to ensure you’re always working toward your most important goals. ## How to monitor, measure, and adapt a strategic plan A strategic plan isn't done once it's written. It needs a regular rhythm of checking progress and adjusting course, or it quietly turns into a document nobody looks at again until next year's planning cycle. ### Setting KPIs that actually work - Tie each KPI back to one of the goals you set earlier, not to a metric that's just easy to track. - Set a small number of KPIs per goal. 2 or 3 is usually enough to tell you if you're on track, without turning your review meetings into a data dump. - Use a mix of leading indicators (that predict future results, like pipeline generated) and lagging indicators (that confirm past results, like revenue closed). - Assign an owner to each KPI, the same way you'd assign an owner to a goal or objective. ### Setting a review cadence - Monthly: a short check-in on operational KPIs, mostly to catch problems early rather than to make big strategic calls. - Quarterly: a proper review of progress against goals, where you decide whether to reallocate budget, adjust a target, or drop something that isn't working. - Annually: a full revisit of the strategic plan itself, including your vision, mission, and market analysis, since the assumptions you made 12 months ago may no longer hold. ### When to adapt vs. when to hold steady Not every missed target means the plan is wrong. Before you change course, check whether the shortfall is coming from execution (the plan is right, but it isn't being run well) or from the plan itself (the market moved, and the goal no longer makes sense). Adjusting a strategic plan too often erodes trust in it; not adjusting it at all when the market has clearly shifted does the same thing for different reasons. For a full framework on operationalizing these reviews, including how to cascade adjustments down through team-level goals, see our guide on[ how to rapidly operationalize a strategic plan](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-operationalize-strategic-plan/). ## Onwards, to execution! That concludes our run-down of the four essential elements that go into creating a strategic plan. Armed with a clear vision, a mission that everyone can rally around, a solid understanding of market realities, and actionable objectives in place, you’re ready to start driving your business towards a brighter future. However, this is only half the battle – the next challenge is making sure your strategic plan is properly implemented. Want to know how to roll it out successfully? You’re in luck! Check out the article linked below to learn about everything from operationalizing your strategic plan to seeing it through to completion. [How to Roll Out a Strategic Plan (To Guarantee Success)Building a strategic plan takes a lot of work. So when it comes time to put it into action, you want to get it right. But the truth is, an effective rollout starts during the planning process. Want to learn why? Stay tuned.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-6.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/andy-hermawan-O1jUvZX9DOA-unsplash-1.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-roll-out-a-strategic-plan/) Happy planning! --- *Speaking of positioning yourself relative to your competitors, have you downloaded your free copy of the* [*Competitive Positioning Playbook*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/)*?* *Use it to carve out your own niche and leave your mark.* [The Competitive Positioning Playbook | CIAIt’s how you position yourself relative to the competition that truly matters. In the Competitive Positioning Playbook, we show you how.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-7.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/blog_meta-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) ### What Is differential pricing? Types, examples & tools URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/ Last updated: 2026-07-10T15:44:15.000Z ## **What is a differential pricing strategy?** Differential pricing strategies, A.K.A., price discrimination, is when you charge different prices for the same product to different customers. > *“A pricing strategy in which a company sets different prices for the same product on the basis of differing customer type, time of purchase, etc; also called Discriminatory Pricing, Flexible Pricing, Multiple Pricing, Variable Pricing.” — *Monash Business School** You can make this decision by basing yourself on a variety of factors, such as purchasing behavior, timing, demand, and competition. But is this strategy better than any others, like [prestige pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/prestige-pricing/) or [loss leader pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/loss-leader-definition/)? ### Also known as Differential pricing goes by several names, depending on the source and the industry: - Price discrimination - Price differentiation - Discriminatory pricing - Dual pricing - Flexible pricing - Variable pricing - Multiple pricing They all describe the same core idea: charging different prices for the same product based on customer, timing, or market conditions. ## **Why do companies use differential pricing?** This strategy may seem odd at a first glance (charging different prices for the same product?) but there are many benefits to it: ### **Maximize your revenue** You can get more revenue from customers willing to pay (w.t.p.) more while still attracting people who prefer to pay less, leading to you maximizing your revenue. ### **Serve multiple markets** You can do this by tailoring your offerings to better meet the needs of each segment. ### **Undercut competitors** Differential pricing can be used to undercut competitors, helping you to increase market share without sacrificing profit. ### **Secure revenue** Offering lower prices for early purchases can help you to secure revenue in advance and manage demand better. Examples include early bird discounts. ### **Product versioning** Differential pricing helps with product versioning. If you create different versions of a product or service with varying features and prices, you can appeal to different customers, allowing you to offer a basic version at a lower price while charging more for more features/services. ### **Geographic location** Orgs may also have different prices based on geographic location to account for different marketing conditions, costs, etc. ### **Perceived value** Price discrimination helps to manage customers’ perceived value of your products. You can make them appear more accessible and attractive to people without devaluing it for other segments. 🎤 **Speaking of value, Paul Maguranis, Senior Pricing Manager at Covetrus, discusses pricing in* [***this podcast episode**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/paul-maguranis-how-to-use-value-to-properly-price-your-products/)**, including how the pricing process for SMEs and large enterprises works. Give it a listen.* ## Advantages and disadvantages of differential pricing ### Advantages - **Expands your market.** Different price points let you reach customers who wouldn't buy at a single fixed price, from budget-conscious buyers to those with higher willingness to pay. - **Increases revenue.** Capturing more of each segment's willingness to pay means more revenue than a one-size-fits-all price would generate. - **Improves sales ratio.** Tailored pricing converts more of your total addressable market instead of losing price-sensitive customers to competitors. - **Optimizes production.** Serving multiple segments at different price points helps you plan production and inventory around actual demand across each group. ### Disadvantages - **Price sensitivity backlash.** Customers who discover they paid more than someone else for the same product can react badly, even if the price was fair for their segment. - **Perception of bias.** Segmented pricing can look like favoritism, particularly when the criteria (location, device, purchase history) aren't obvious to the customer. - **Legal implications.** Some forms of price discrimination are restricted or banned outright, depending on jurisdiction and industry. Legal review matters before you implement. - **Price wars.** Aggressive differential pricing, especially in competitive markets, can trigger retaliatory pricing from competitors that erodes margin for everyone. ## **How is price discrimination different from other strategies?** Here’s a comparison table to help you decide which strategies are best suited for you and your company. | | Price discrimination | Dynamic pricing | Prestige pricing | Loss leader pricing | | ------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Definition | Charging different prices to different customers based on their willingness to pay. | Adjusting prices based on real-time supply and demand conditions. | Setting high prices to signal high quality or luxury status. | Pricing items below their market cost to attract customers and boost sales of other items. | | Objective | Maximize profits by capturing consumer surplus. | Maximize revenue or profit based on fluctuating market conditions. | Create a high-value perception and target wealthier consumers. | Drive traffic or increase sales volume; often used in promotional or competitive contexts. | | Price sensitivity | Based on differences in customers' price sensitivities. | Reflects changes in market conditions like demand spikes or inventory shortages. | Assumes low price sensitivity; customers are willing to pay more due to perceived value. | Targets price-sensitive customers. | | Market segmentation | Essential for identifying and charging different segments. | Less about segmentation, more about timing and market conditions. | Generally targets a narrow, affluent segment. | Broadly targets the market to increase foot traffic or cross-sell higher-margin items. | | Price variability | Prices vary between customer segments but are generally stable within each segment. | Prices are highly variable, often changing from day to day or hour to hour. | Prices are stable at a high level to maintain a luxury image. | Prices are temporarily reduced; usually stable outside promotional periods. | | Data dependency | Moderate; requires data on customer demographics and buying habits. | High; relies on algorithms and real-time data analytics to adjust prices. | Low; based on brand positioning and market perception rather than real-time data. | Low to moderate; depends on inventory management systems. | | Legal and ethical issues | Must be managed carefully to avoid discrimination accusations or breaching regulations. | Needs careful handling to avoid customer backlash over perceived fairness. | Few concerns unless pricing is misleadingly high compared to product cost or quality. | Must ensure it does not lead to unfair competition as per local laws. | | Customer perception | Risk of negative perception if customers feel unfairly treated. | Risk of alienation if customers see prices as unfair or manipulative. | Enhances brand prestige and exclusivity; positive if aligned with customer expectations of luxury. | Generally positive if customers feel they are getting a good deal; can be negative if seen as bait. | ### Is differential pricing the same as dynamic pricing? No. Dynamic pricing is one type of differential pricing, not a synonym for it. Differential pricing is the umbrella strategy: charging different prices for the same product based on customer, segment, timing, or location. Dynamic pricing is a specific method within that strategy, where prices adjust automatically and continuously based on real-time supply and demand. Uber's surge pricing is dynamic pricing. A student discount is differential pricing, but it's static, not dynamic. Every dynamic pricing strategy is a form of differential pricing, but not every differential pricing strategy is dynamic. ## **What conditions do you need to meet to implement differential pricing?** Price discrimination can be a beneficial strategy for companies seeking to maximize profits, but you must meet certain conditions in order to implement it effectively. You must have some **control over the prices you charge**, since you need the ability to adjust pricing based on buyer segments. - Your **customers must differ in their sensitivity to price changes**, which allows you to charge higher prices to those less sensitive. - The **ability to segment markets** is crucial, since you need to know who’s willing to pay what, buyer consumption habits, etc. - Mechanisms must be in place to **prevent or limit the resale of products** from lower-priced to higher-priced markets. If consumers could resell, price discrimination doesn’t work because products would be sold at the lowest possible prices. - You must **comply with local and international laws** and remain ethical. As **Robert Phillips**, in his book ***Pricing and Revenue Optimization (2005)***,says: > “If price differentiation is such a powerful way for sellers to increase contribution, why don’t all of them do it? The reason is that there are powerful real-world limits to price differentiation. > “1\. *Imperfect segmentation*. The brain-scan technology required to determine the precise willingness to pay of each customer has not yet been developed. The best that can be done is to create market segments such that the *average* willingness to pay is different for each segment. > “2\. *Cannibalization*. Under differential pricing, there is a powerful motivation for customers in high-price segments to find a way to pay the lower price. In the widget example, there is a strong motivation for high-willingness-to-pay customers who are being charged $8.75 per widget to ‘masquerade’ as low-willingness-to-pay customers and pay only $6.00 per widget. > “3\. *Arbitrage*. Price differentials create a strong incentive for third-party *arbitrageurs* to find a way to buy the product at the low price and resell to high-w.t.p. customers below the market price, keeping the difference for themselves.” ## **Types of price discrimination** ### **First-degree** This type of price discrimination means that sellers charge customers the maximum price they’re willing to pay. For example, imagine an auction – the highest bidder will always win by paying the maximum bid. This strategy is often found in industries with high fixed costs. However, a downside of first-degree price discrimination is that it takes a long time to implement and perfect, since you need detailed information about your customers, which can be challenging info to gather. ### **Second-degree** The second-degree price discrimination is all about charging different prices based on quantity consumed or version of the product. This includes bulk discounts, coupons, and product versioning (e.g., software with basic and premium versions). This type of price discrimination can lead to a boost in sales by encouraging bulk buying, and it’s also easy to implement and manage, since you don’t need an in-depth knowledge of how much your customers are willing to pay. Of course, a con of this strategy is that selling more for less reduces the profit margin on individual units. Buyers may also not purchase from you for a while if they do buy in bulk, leading to uneven sales patterns. ### **Third-degree** As for this type of differential pricing, as a seller, you’d charge different prices to different customer groups based on identifiable characteristics. As an example, think about student and senior citizen discounts, as well as geographic pricing. Some of the benefits of this strategy include the ability to tap into different market segments and maximize sales across diverse groups, as well as making products more accessible to people on lower incomes. However, some customers may feel alienated (i.e., feel like they also deserve a discount and be upset if they don’t get it). ### Brand image-based Pricing set according to [brand positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-the-worlds-most-valuable-real-estate/) rather than production cost or customer segment alone. A luxury brand prices high to reinforce exclusivity, even when a cheaper alternative would sell more units. The price itself becomes part of the product's perceived value. ### Competition-based Prices set relative to what competitors charge for a comparable product, rather than purely on internal cost or customer willingness to pay. A company might price just below a market leader to win share, or match a competitor's price to avoid losing ground on value perception. ### Volume-based Prices that change according to purchase quantity. Bulk discounts are the clearest example: unit price drops as order size increases, encouraging larger purchases while still letting the seller charge more per unit to smaller buyers. ## **How to use differential pricing effectively** ### **Understand your market and segment your customers** It’s important that you first identify different customer groups based on their willingness to pay, location, buying behavior, purchasing history, buying power, and other elements. Also, you should conduct in-depth research to understand what each segment values in your product or service. ### **Determine your pricing strategy** This means choosing between strategies like: - Cost-based pricing: The price covers things like production and delivery, including profit margins. - Value-based pricing: Set prices based on the perceived value of your product to different customer segments. - Competitive pricing: Consider your competitors’ pricing strategies and where your product is positioned in the market. ### **Prevent arbitrage** What does this mean? That you should use strategies like time-based offers to stop customers from buying products in a low-price market and reselling them in a high-price market. ### **Communicate value** Your customers should be aware of why you have different prices, including benefits, premium features, or loyalty rewards, which helps to ensure that the value of your brand isn’t diluted—and that you’re not alienating customer segments. ### **Monitor the market** It goes without saying that you should keep an eye on your pricing strategy—particularly, how effective it is. This way, you can adjust it based on feedback and market changes. For example, you may have to lower prices temporarily to be able to enter the market or raise them if your competitors aren’t valuing products right. Make sure to use analytics to measure the impact of this strategy on your sales, acquisition, and retention. ## Technology requirements for differential pricing Running differential pricing well at any scale needs the right infrastructure behind it. **CPQ software.** Configure, price, quote tools apply the right pricing rules automatically based on product configuration, customer segment, or deal terms, which matters once you have more than a couple of price tiers to manage. **Pricing engines.** Dedicated pricing software calculates and applies segment-specific prices in real time, particularly important for businesses running first-degree or dynamic strategies across large product catalogs. **CRM segmentation.** Your CRM needs to reliably tag customers by the segment criteria your pricing depends on: company size, purchase history, location, or plan tier. Bad segmentation data means bad pricing decisions downstream. **Data analytics platforms.** You need visibility into how each segment responds to price changes over time. Analytics platforms track conversion, revenue, and churn by segment so you can tell whether a pricing strategy is actually working. **Dynamic pricing algorithms.** For businesses layering real-time demand signals into their differential pricing (like Amazon or Uber), algorithmic pricing tools adjust prices continuously based on demand, inventory, and competitor pricing. None of this needs to be in place on day one. But as the number of segments and price points grows, manual pricing management stops scaling. ## **5 real-life examples of differential pricing** ### **1\. Amazon** Amazon relies on several differential pricing tactics to maximize their revenue, which includes **dynamic pricing**. This means the algorithm adjusts prices in real-time based on factors like time of day and customer browsing patterns. Another factor is **Prime membership** – Prime members have benefits that others don’t, including free shipping, next-day delivery, access to Prime Video, and other services. Depending on where you live, Amazon will show different prices as well (A.K.A., **geographical pricing**). For instance, the same book might be priced differently in the USA and UK, reflecting local markets, competition, and purchasing power. It’s also worth mentioning events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Prime Day, which sees prices reduced for a limited time to drive sales. This is a **time-based pricing** strategy. ### **2\. Uber** This company uses **dynamic pricing** by adjusting fare rates in real-time based on the demand and supply in a specific area. What’s more, Uber also experiments with **personalized pricing** based on the user’s ride history and their willingness to pay. For example, frequent riders on specific routes may sometimes see tailored offers or promotions. Prices may increase around large public events when the demand for rides increases as well, which is called **event-based pricing**. ### **3\. Starbucks** Starbucks employs **geographic pricing**, with variations in the pricing of their coffee and other products based on the location of the outlet. Prices in urban and high-cost living areas are typically higher than in suburban locations. The company also offers different sizes and customizations (**product versioning**) which allow for a range of pricing options that cater to different customers and their willingness to pay. Another thing to consider is **seasonal pricing**. Limited-time offers and seasonal products often come at a premium price, such as special holiday drinks or summer specials. [How to Do a Competitive Pricing Analysis (With Examples)A competitive pricing analysis sees you gather the prices of your competitors’ products over time. You’ll use this data to draw comparisons and conclusions about which direction your own pricing strategy should head in.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/artem-beliaikin-kTd2PvtqE_o-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/) ### **4\. Apple** Apple uses **product versioning** and **customer segment pricing** for its products, as it offers different prices for products like iPhones and MacBooks in different countries. Often, the company also tiers their pricing structures depending on storage capacities on their products. This means they can capture people who are a bit more conscious of their budgets, as well as people who seek high-end features and are willing to pay more. In addition to this, Apple strategically prices older models lower once a new model is released (**product lifecycle pricing**) and sells refurbished models at lower prices – these strategies cater to price-sensitive consumers without undercutting more high-end sales. ### **5\. Adobe** Adobe offers its products at different prices based on user segments, since students and teachers, for example, receive a significant **discount** compared to other users. Prices also vary depending on the business buying the company’s products. **Enterprise pricing** often includes volume discounts and bundled products. Switching to a **subscription-based model** allows Adobe to offer a lower entry price point, targeting a broader market and ensuring a steady revenue stream. ## **TL;DR** Pricing can be tough. Price your product too low, and you leave money on the table. Price it too high, and you might not sell as much. This is why the right pricing strategy is so important. Differential pricing is one of many strategies you can use to align the price of your products with customers’ value perception, market demand, and competitive dynamics. It allows you to cater to a diverse customer base, adapting prices based on things like location, time, buyer behaviors, etc. --- Products aren’t made in a vacuum. Pricing is one of the many elements of product positioning, so it’s crucial you keep it top of mind. For more about positioning your product just right, download your free copy of our [**Competitive Positioning Playbook**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/), where you’ll learn: 👷 How to blend competitive intelligence and customer research for a rock-solid positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you must take when crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom tear down of the positioning process, and how competitive intelligence fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s revenue ceiling. [The Competitive Positioning Playbook | CIAIt’s how you position yourself relative to the competition that truly matters. In the Competitive Positioning Playbook, we show you how.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2022/10/blog_meta.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) ### The case for automating your competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-case-for-automating-your-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2026-07-09T09:25:24.000Z Do you wake up every morning excited to manually update your [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/)? Do you rush to your computer, just *praying* that there are 50 identical questions from sales reps waiting in your Slack inbox? I’m guessing not. Yet, for many [competitive intelligence (CI) professionals](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-does-a-competitive-intelligence-career-look-like/), that’s the reality. Traditional CI has always been brutally manual. You read a lot, you write a lot, and then you spend an enormous amount of energy trying to get people to actually read what you've written. You fight a constant uphill battle to keep [content](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/optimize-sales-content/) current. And after all of that effort, adoption remains stubbornly low. It's not that the people running [competitive intelligence programs](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/build-a-better-ci-program-that-actually-increases-sales/) aren't talented or hardworking. It's that the model itself is fundamentally broken. The good news is that there's a better way. And in 2026, that better way is [**automated CI**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-ai-and-automation-are-transforming-competitive-intelligence/). ## What automated competitive intelligence actually means Let's quickly address a common misconception: automated CI doesn't mean you hand everything over to the robots and walk away. What it means is that [AI](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-competitive-intelligence-tasks/) handles the heavy lifting: the monitoring, the drafting, the updating, the routing of information to the right people at the right time. You shift from being someone who manually produces everything to someone who sets up the system, feeds it the right inputs, and makes sure the outputs are sharp. [![Two-column graphic contrasting the misconception and reality of automated CI. Left column, "Misconception – hand it all to the robots," lists no monitoring, no drafting, no oversight, and no accountability, resulting in content nobody trusts. Right column, "Reality – AI handles the heavy lifting," lists monitoring, drafting, updating, and routing to the right people, resulting in sharp, current content reps actually use.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2026/07/data-src-image-b06bc940-9abc-49fd-94c7-718af0620354.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-case-for-automating-your-competitive-intelligence) **14 times**. That's the [adoption](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-adoption-playbook/) boost we're seeing across companies running CI this way, compared to traditional programs. Whatever your current adoption looks like, whatever your current impact is, that number should make you stop and think. What would it take to get there? That's what I want to walk through. ## Start with the data you're feeding your AI The single most important question for a competitive intelligence leader running an automated program is this: **what data are you feeding your AI?** It sounds almost too simple, but it's everything. You can have the best [AI tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-at-work/) in the world, the best downstream delivery mechanisms, the most sophisticated chatbot your sales team has ever seen. None of it matters if the information going into the system is weak. Most competitive programs default to external data. The competitor's website, their product announcements, their pricing pages, their press releases, their job postings. You absolutely need that stuff. Tracking M&A activity, product launches, messaging shifts, help documentation changes – all of it matters. Don't stop doing it. But here's where a lot of programs get stuck: they over-index on external data as if it were the primary [source of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/). The problem is that your competitor’s digital footprint, while useful for context, isn't where the sharpest competitive insights actually live. [!["Your competitor’s digital footprint, while useful for context, isn't where the sharpest competitive insights actually live." – Jonah Lopin, Founder & CEO at Crayon](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2026/07/data-src-image-293d34c5-a89d-4a87-bb0e-e9436a79cba2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-case-for-automating-your-competitive-intelligence) Think about what [your sales team](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/) really needs. They need the most effective talk tracks against specific competitors. They need to understand the objections that are coming up in live competitive deals. They need to know what buyers are saying, in their own words, about why they're considering switching or staying. That kind of intelligence doesn't live on a competitor's website. It lives inside your own organization. ## The internal data sources most programs overlook This is where automated competitive programs really start to pull ahead of traditional ones. The best programs aren't just scraping the web. They're tapping into enterprise data – the conversations, calls, and internal knowledge that most competitive teams ignore. The most obvious source is **sales call recordings**. These are [gold mines](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-untapped-gold-mine-of-competitive-intelligence/) of real competitive intelligence. They’re packed with actual buyer language, objections, and competitor claims that are landing in the market right now. Our latest [State of Competitive Intelligence report](https://www.crayon.co/state-of-competitive-intelligence) found that teams using call recording tools for CI increase sales effectiveness by **82%**. And yet, only **25%** of companies are feeding call recordings and transcripts into their competitive AI. [![Bar chart showing survey results for the question "Does your company use a conversational intelligence tool for Compete (e.g., Gong, Clari, Chorus)?" 25% use their call recording tool for their compete program, 31% have a call recording tool but don't use it for compete, 10% plan to purchase one this year, and 34% don't have a tool in place. Source: Crayon, State of Competitive Intelligence 2025.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2026/07/data-src-image-ce597fd9-a4d7-4495-9a20-cacfeb0e0437.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-case-for-automating-your-competitive-intelligence) The second key source is one I think is even more undervalued: [**internal experts**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/gather-competitive-intelligence-internal-teams/). Ask yourself: who at your company knows the most about your top competitor? Who wins competitive deals almost every time? Who can articulate your differentiation so clearly that it changes how reps think about positioning? Who has been living and breathing this competitive battle for years? Those people exist at almost every company, and most competitive programs never formally capture what's in their heads. Go sit down with them. Record the conversation. Run it through a transcription tool. Extract their talk tracks, their mental models, their instincts about where competitors are vulnerable. Feed that into your AI. The quality of everything your program produces will jump noticeably. Only about **18%** of companies are doing this. Which means if you start, you're immediately ahead of the vast majority of your peers. That's a meaningful advantage, and it doesn't require any sophisticated tooling to get started. ## Teaching your AI isn't a one-time event Once you've sorted out your data sources, you need to think about how you set up your AI to use that information well. This requires some investment upfront. You can't just throw a prompt at an AI and expect it to produce competitive content that's useful for your sales team. You have to educate it. You have to give it a real grounding in your value proposition, sales process, market dynamics, and your [positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/). Think of it like onboarding a new team member who's extremely capable but knows nothing about your business yet. Just like a new team member, that education doesn't stop after orientation. You have to keep patiently teaching it. When your AI produces outputs that aren't quite right, you correct them. The correction isn't just about fixing that one piece of content. It's about making sure that feedback loops back into the AI's understanding so the next output is better. This is a meaningful shift in how most of us think about our roles in competitive intelligence. You're not just editing and shaping content anymore. You're editing and shaping the system that creates the content. That's a different skill set, and it's worth developing deliberately. ## Finding the right balance between automation and human judgment There's a spectrum here, and where you land on it matters. On one end, you have full manual control. You write everything by hand. You review everything before it goes out. You're the quality filter for every piece of content. On the other end, the AI is largely running the show. It's publishing updates, routing intelligence, and generating content with minimal human review. [![Horizontal spectrum diagram running from "more control, more manual" on the left to "more leverage, more automated" on the right, with four points along the line: you write all the content, AI drafts and you approve, AI publishes and you refine, and AI runs the show.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2026/07/data-src-image-a4715ee4-248e-4f8c-b5f5-312d1f06f429.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-case-for-automating-your-competitive-intelligence) Neither extreme is right for every program or every piece of content. The most practical approach is to think about this at a more granular level. For your tier-three competitors, you might decide to automate almost everything. The volume of content doesn't justify significant manual effort, and the stakes of an imperfect output are relatively low. For your tier-one competitors, you probably want more hands-on involvement. Even within your tier-one competitors, it's worth thinking through which specific content warrants careful human attention. Your core positioning against your most important competitor – the talk track that reps use in the most critical deals – probably deserves to be handcrafted. Every word matters there. But the company profile for that same competitor? That can almost certainly be automated. Objection handling libraries, competitive quotes, market context – much of that can be generated and maintained by AI with periodic human review. The key is being intentional about these choices rather than defaulting to one approach across the board. ## Where your competitive content needs to show up in 2026 Now that you have an idea of how you should be producing your competitive content, the question is where to share it? Almost every seller today starts almost every workflow in an AI tool. They're using Copilot, Claude, Gemini, or some internal agent built on top of one of these platforms. They're doing deal prep in AI. They're drafting emails in AI. They're researching prospects in AI. If your competitive content isn't surfacing inside those AI experiences, it might as well not exist. There's almost certainly an AI enablement initiative happening at your company right now. Someone is building an agent, rolling out Copilot, or deploying some kind of AI-assisted deal prep workflow. Your job as a competitive intelligence leader is to make sure your content hooks into those experiences, whether that’s via an API, an MCP, or however the technical connection needs to happen. [!["Your sellers should never be more than a couple of clicks from a chatbot that gives them useful competitive guidance." – Jonah Lopin, Founder & CEO at Crayon](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2026/07/data-src-image-7237b830-bd0b-406c-8529-23b2ddfccec4.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-case-for-automating-your-competitive-intelligence) Your sellers should never be more than a couple of clicks from a chatbot that gives them useful competitive guidance. That's the standard to aim for. If your AI enablement team is building a solution for Salesforce but not for Slack, fine – plug your competitive content into the Salesforce solution and drop your own chatbot into Slack. The specific implementation matters less than the outcome: competitive intelligence that's accessible, in context, when reps actually need it. The battlecard that lives in a folder somewhere, the wiki that requires three clicks and a search query to find – those aren't getting used. A chatbot that surfaces the right information at the right moment, inside the tools sellers are already using, is a completely different story. ### A note on prompt quality One thing that often gets overlooked when you're rolling out competitive chatbots is that not everyone prompts the way you do. You've probably developed some [prompt engineering skills](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-power-of-prompt-engineering-hands-on-ai-skills-for-pmms/). Your sales reps haven't necessarily done the same. What this looks like in practice is single-word queries, misspellings, and vague requests that don't give the AI enough context to return something useful. This is normal. It's just how people interact with these tools when they haven't been coached. There are two things you can do about it: 1. **Train your sales team:** Give them concrete examples of good prompts. Show them the difference between typing "Microsoft" and asking "what are our strongest talking points against Microsoft in a deal where security compliance is the buyer's main concern?" That kind of coaching pays dividends quickly. 2. **Build context into your chatbot:** Wrap the user's query with additional context via a system prompt. If the AI knows who's asking, what deals they're working on, and what stage those deals are in, it can compensate for a vague prompt and still return something genuinely useful. ## Push intelligence to reps before they know they need it Chatbots are a pull mechanism. Someone has to think to ask a question. And in the middle of a busy quarter, with a pipeline full of deals, reps don't always think to ask. That's why you have to push CI, too. Proactive delivery of competitive intelligence – alerts, updates, relevant news – keeps your program visible and keeps reps informed without requiring them to seek it out. The critical thing with push, though, is context. If a rep is deep in a deal against one competitor and you push them a news alert about a completely different competitor, that's not helpful. Over time, these kinds of unhelpful updates train people to ignore what you send. Whatever agents you're using to push intelligence out, they need to understand the context of the person they're pushing to: what deal that person is working on, which competitor is in play, and what stage things are at. The more targeted the push, the more useful it is. And the more useful it is, the more your program gets used. ## Now is the moment to automate your CI The clock is running out on doing competitive intelligence manually. A year from now, the competitive enablement programs that are winning are going to be automated, and that gap between automated and manual programs is only going to widen. You want to be among the first in your industry to make that shift, not one of the last still updating battlecards by hand. The results are impressive when you make the transition: ⭐ More competitive wins ⭐ More sales rep engagement ⭐ More influence inside your organization Plus, it's more fun. When you're not spending your days on manual updates that nobody reads, you get to focus on the parts of the job that need real judgment: the strategic insights, the expert interviews, and the positioning calls that shape how your company competes. --- *This article is based on* [*Jonah Lopin’*](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonahlopin/)*s insightful talk at the 2026* [*Competitive Intelligence Summit*](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/competitive-intelligence-summit-2026/)*, hosted by Product Marketing Alliance.* ### AI in CI 2026 eBook URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-ci-2026-ebook/ Last updated: 2026-07-08T13:28:59.000Z ## Make AI do the CI busywork, so you can do the strategy 👇 Competitive intelligence teams are small, budgets are tight, and there's more competitor data to track than any team can process alone. This playbook shows you how to use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity for the work you actually do: competitor monitoring, sentiment analysis, gap analysis, and battlecard production. **No technical background required, no big budget required.** Inside, you'll find the prompt structures used by CI professionals at Adobe and CompeteIQ, a breakdown of which AI model to use for which task, and a plan for building an AI agent that tracks competitors and updates your team on Slack. You'll also see where AI still gets things wrong: hallucinations, data privacy risks, and training data gaps that can leave you working from outdated information. [Download your free copy](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1aWXLWKMWTGGQTqbI5adAKQ2b1vun) ## Who is this for? This playbook is for product marketers who own competitive intelligence alongside 5 other responsibilities, and for dedicated CI professionals running a team of 1 or 2\. If you've tried ChatGPT for CI work and gotten mixed results, this covers what changed: which models handle long documents without losing accuracy, what a working prompt structure looks like, and how to move from one-off summaries to an ongoing intelligence process. No coding required. ## What you'll discover Here's what the playbook covers, part by part. - Why a quarterly CI report is already out of date, and what to include in a weekly update that keeps stakeholders current. - The bootstrapped competitor blind spot: how companies with no funding rounds and no press coverage take market share while your team watches the big, funded rivals. - Why a gap-analysis-led report gets CI a seat in product roadmap conversations. - Which AI model to use for a 500-page analyst report, and which one is more reliable on financial data. - The prompt structure that works across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, with sample prompts for competitor monitoring, sentiment analysis, and pricing analysis. - How to build an AI agent that monitors competitors, updates your battlecards, and notifies sales in Slack, plus the governance rules to keep confidential company data safe. [Get your copy today](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1aWXLWKMWTGGQTqbI5adAKQ2b1vun) ### Competitor price analysis: the complete guide (with examples!) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/ Last updated: 2026-06-11T08:50:27.000Z ## What is competitive pricing analysis? A competitive pricing analysis sees you gather the prices of your competitors’ products over time. You’ll use this data to draw comparisons and conclusions about which direction your own [pricing strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/mastering-full-stack-pricing/) should head in. Competitive pricing analysis can alert you to shifts in market trends as far as product pricing goes, and can help you [position your products](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) more effectively. --- ## Why bother with competitive pricing analysis? ### You stop bleeding profits you don't know you're losing If a competitor starts undercutting you and you haven't noticed, you can't respond. You won't revisit [your messaging](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-messaging/) to justify your price. You won't look at whether there are supply chain efficiencies they've found that you haven't. Running a regular competitor pricing analysis means you catch those shifts early enough to do something about them. ### You make smarter calls on market share Whether you're competing on price or positioning at a [premium](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/prestige-pricing/), you need real data to back the decision. Knowing what competitors charge, and roughly why, gives you a cleaner basis for your own pricing rather than guesswork. ### You learn something about how buyers actually think Cheaper isn't always better. In high-stakes categories, a lower price can signal risk rather than [value](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/why-pricing-based-on-value-is-better-than-pricing-on-cost/). When you look at pricing data alongside what you already know about your customers' buying behavior, you often get a clearer picture of what they're actually weighing up when they choose. ### You can get ahead of where prices are going, not just where they are Trend-spotting needs historical data. A single data point isn't much, but it's the start. Pull [competitor pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/decoding-competitor-pricing-intelligence/) consistently, and within a few months, you'll have enough to see patterns, anticipate moves, and price proactively rather than reactively. ## Who uses competitor price analysis, and why Competitor pricing analysis isn't owned by one team. Different functions use it for different reasons, and the same data can answer very different questions depending on who's asking. ### **Sales teams** use it in live deals When a prospect says "Competitor X is cheaper," reps need to know whether that's true, how to respond, and what the total cost difference actually looks like once you account for add-ons and contract terms. A good [pricing battlecard](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/) built from regular analysis makes that conversation easier. ### **Product teams** use it to make packaging and feature decisions If competitors are charging extra for something you include by default, that's a positioning advantage worth communicating. If they're gating a feature you're giving away for free, it might be worth reconsidering the tier it sits in. ### **Marketing teams** use it to sharpen messaging Knowing where you're cheaper, where you're pricier, and why gives you the raw material for honest, specific positioning. Vague claims about "value" don't land. Specific comparisons do. ### **Strategy and leadership** use it to spot market trends and anticipate competitive moves If two of your main competitors have both raised prices in the last 6 months, that's a signal worth paying attention to. In most businesses, the [competitive intelligence function](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) owns the data collection and analysis, and then distributes it to these teams in formats they can actually use: battlecards for sales, positioning notes for marketing, packaging input for product. ## How to do competitive pricing analysis Much like any other aspect of competitive analysis, a pricing analysis involves three or four distinct stages: 1. As a preliminary stage, [**identify**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/c75b21da-1f4a-4310-9ad6-c353d2451f49/#1-%E2%80%93-identify-the-competitors-you-want-to-pull-data-on) the competitors you’ll be looking into. 2. [**Gather**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/c75b21da-1f4a-4310-9ad6-c353d2451f49/#2-%E2%80%93-pull-pricing-data) the necessary data. 3. [**Analyze**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/c75b21da-1f4a-4310-9ad6-c353d2451f49/#3-%E2%80%93-compare-and-analyze-your-pricing-data) the necessary data and draw conclusions. 4. [**Share**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/c75b21da-1f4a-4310-9ad6-c353d2451f49/#4-%E2%80%93-come-up-with-an-action-plan) your conclusions and work with others to convert them into an action plan. Let’s examine those stages in detail. ### 1 – Identify the competitors you want to pull data on First, figure out the shortlist of competitors you want to study. As we’ll discuss a little later on, it’s simply not practical to pull data from dozens of competitors all at once. Instead, prioritize your competitors into a shortlist of those most relevant to your business success. While it’s not wise to ignore [indirect competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/) entirely, you have limited resources. What criteria should you use for this? Maybe beating these select competitors means vastly more market share for you than winning versus any others. These would make good candidates. Or, their products might just be the most similar to your own, so you’ve decided it’s important to know how they’re pricing those products. That makes identifying the competitors you want to pull data on a crucial first step in competitive pricing analysis. ### 2 – Pull pricing data Now it’s time to actually pull pricing data from these competitors. Depending on the industry and sector you work in, this isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Many businesses don’t make their prices publicly available. Some don’t list pricing information on their websites at all, making it difficult to pull accurate pricing information on their products without contacting the business. And if you’re not actually interested in using their product, you’re unlikely to get very far asking for a quote. Other challenges include the accuracy of the pricing information and how frequently you need to update it. If yours is a dynamic industry, competitors can change their prices extremely often with fluctuations in the state of their supply chains, the exchange rate, and the prices set by their manufacturers. If you need very accurate pricing data, you’ll need to sample prices more frequently in accordance in these cases. Here are a few different ways of getting your hands on pricing data: 1. Ask your **customers and prospects**. 2. Ask **reps** from other departments. 3. Look for **resellers** and/or **distributors**. 4. Look on **competitors’ websites**. 5. Search on **public forums**. 6. Speak to **industry contacts** and experts. Here’s a bit more detail: #### (I) Ask your customers and prospects Even if price information isn’t listed on a competitor’s website, or in any physical location, there’s nothing to stop you asking your customers and prospects about their own findings. Few will do more in-depth [market research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/) than prospects motivated to find a good deal. So during your [win/loss interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-advanced-interview-techniques-to-unlock-true-win-loss-insights/), or any other stage of your [competitive intelligence research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/pmm-power-prompts-market-research-competitive-intelligence/) that touches base with customers, make sure to do some digging on pricing information. You’ll soon get a sense for how much your main competitors are charging. You can even ask whether competitors have put prices up or down recently. If the prospect or customer has recently [adopted](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-adoption-playbook/), or moved away from, one of your competitors, they might just have the answer. #### (II) Ask reps from other departments Even if your business doesn’t do a ton of [customer research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/) yet, your sales and customer success teams will still regularly hold conversations with won and lost prospects. If you can get these groups to systematically ask and log information about pricing as a part of these conversations, you’ll have access to pricing info you might not find elsewhere. #### (III) Look for resellers and/or distributors With a bit of detective work, you can usually identify a reseller. They’ll typically use similar language and messaging as your competitor, but with subtle differences in branding, like different packaging or colors. Some of these businesses won’t have the same qualms about listing pricing information publicly as your competitor has. If you can sample a few at a time, you’ll get a decent spread of prices that have a direct correlation to the price of your competitor’s products. #### (IV) Look on competitor websites This one’s obvious, but you shouldn’t overlook it. Not all businesses are against making their prices publicly visible. In some industries, it’s even the norm, making it very easy to access up-to-date, accurate price data. #### (V) Search on public forums Noticing a theme, here? Pricing information is collected through many of the same channels as your other competitive intelligence data. Online forums like Reddit or even LinkedIn are home to groups of people with no qualms about candidly discussing their experiences with your competitors. That includes what they paid. #### (VI) Speak to industry contacts and experts Any business leader wondering how to price their products probably has a network of contacts in their industry. There’s nothing stopping you from consulting with these people (whether as a favor between friends or as a professional contract with industry consultants) and getting hold of pricing data that way. #### (VII) Cross-source verification and mystery shopping A single data point is a starting point, not a conclusion. If you've pulled a price from a reseller listing or picked it up in a win/loss interview, cross-check it before you act on it. Resellers sometimes mark up, apply regional pricing, or list outdated figures. Prospects sometimes misremember or misquote what they were told. Cross-source verification means getting the same data point from at least 2 independent sources before treating it as reliable. Here's how that works in practice: **Mystery shopping.** Have someone go through a competitor's sales process as a genuine prospect. They'll get quoted, see the actual proposal, and learn how pricing is structured, what's negotiable, and what terms typically look like. This is more effort than a web search, but it gets you data you can't find anywhere else. If doing this yourself creates a conflict of interest, hire a third-party firm to run it. **Triangulating from multiple channels.** Cross-reference what your win/loss interviews tell you against what you find in public forums, against what resellers list, and against what your sales team logs in the CRM. If 3 sources put a competitor's mid-market price at roughly $X, you can work with that. If the sources contradict each other, dig further before drawing conclusions. **Prospect feedback from lost deals.** Prospects who chose a competitor over you had a direct pricing conversation with them. Their recollection is imperfect, but it's direct. Over enough lost deals, the pattern sharpens. The more sources you're using, the more confident you can be in what you're working with. And the more confident you are, the more defensible your analysis is when you present it to leadership. ### 3 – Compare and analyze your pricing data With pricing data in-hand, it’s time to put it to work. The more data points you have, the easier it’ll be to identify trends, as we mentioned earlier. But a single set of up-to-date prices for each of the competitors on your shortlist is more than enough to get started with. Combine this information with what else you know of their positioning strategies. Are they the budget option? Are they the luxury, premium option? What else about their messaging and branding gives you that impression? And where are the open gaps in the market you can position yourself to fill? A competitive pricing analysis tends to go hand-in-hand with a [competitive gap analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/) or a [market opportunity analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-opportunity-analysis/) for this reason. A comprehensive analysis of the competitive landscape and your place within it compared to your competitors can give you a clear view of where to plant yourself to capture the largest possible market share. [Positioning Statements: All You Need to Know (With Examples)Your brand positioning statement is a single sentence that sums up your competitive position - it’s your elevator pitch. If you were to describe to a new hire (or anyone else in the business) how you want people to see your product, your positioning statement would fill that role.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/pexels-alfred-gf-198265263-11521138.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/) ### 4 – Come up with an action plan So, knowing what you know of your competitors’ prices, what will you do? Does your competitive pricing strategy need to change? Will you change your own pricing? Or can it stay the same? Can you identify any new trends in pricing behavior by combining your newest data with historical data? It’s worth noting at this stage that it’s usually not the job of the competitive intelligence professional to devise and implement an action plan. That usually falls to leadership, or some other group of stakeholders. What you *should* be prepared to do, however, is to communicate your findings while presenting a clear and defensible point of view. From there, you can work with these groups, if necessary, to chart a clear course of action in light of what you’ve found. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/CIA_CI_Masters_Social_Sharing_Assets_3.png) #### Is your competitive program effective enough? Imagine if you could: - Set up your listening stack to gather competitive intel with ****ruthless efficiency**, giving you more time to analyze, enable, inform, and become your business’s champion. 💪 - Set up win/loss interviews to unveil the ****powerful reasons** why customers aren’t choosing you, even if you’ve got no time or resources. 🔎 - Deliver a competitive news briefing that ****gets people talking**, no matter which set of stakeholders you serve. 📣 We’ve got a brand new course that covers every aspect of competitive intelligence, and what it takes to be successful. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters) --- ## Understanding competitor pricing models and structures Before you can compare prices, you need to understand what you're actually comparing. A $50/month number means nothing if one competitor charges per seat and another charges a flat fee for unlimited users. Pricing models vary a lot in [B2B SaaS](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-saas/), and that variation shapes how deals get done. Here are the main structures you'll run into: **Per-seat pricing** charges per user. Common in tools like CRMs and project management software. The headline price looks low, but scales up fast for larger teams. **Volume or usage-based pricing** ties cost to consumption, whether that's API calls, records processed, or features accessed. It can look cheap at small scale and expensive at enterprise scale, or vice versa. **Tiered pricing** bundles features into plan levels (Starter, Pro, Enterprise). The listed prices are usually just the floor. What's actually in each tier, and what gets gated, is where the real competitive intel lives. **Flat-rate or sitewide licensing** gives unlimited access for a fixed fee. Less common, but can be a strong selling point when competitors charge per seat. Beyond the base model, look for: - **Discount schedules**: annual vs. monthly billing discounts, volume discounts, promotional pricing - **Add-ons and service fees**: onboarding fees, support tiers, integrations that cost extra - **Contract length incentives**: multi-year deals often come with pricing that's never made public When you're logging competitor pricing, note the model alongside the price. Two competitors both charging "$200/month" can represent very different total costs of ownership depending on how they structure it. ### Competitor pricing comparison table Once you've pulled pricing data across your shortlist of competitors, a comparison table is the fastest way to see where you stand. Here's a simple template you can adapt: | Competitor | Pricing model | Entry-level price | Volume discounts | Enterprise pricing | Annual discount | Pricing public? | | ------------ | -------------- | ---------------------- | ---------------- | ------------------ | ----------------- | --------------- | | Competitor A | Per seat | $25/user/mo | Yes (10+ seats) | Custom/hidden | 20% | Yes | | Competitor B | Tiered | $99/mo (up to 5 users) | No | Custom/hidden | 15% | Yes | | Competitor C | Usage-based | $0.05 per record | Yes | Custom | Unknown | Partial | | Competitor D | Flat rate | $500/mo | N/A | $500/mo | 10% | Yes | | Your product | \[Your model\] | \[Your price\] | \[Your terms\] | \[Your terms\] | \[Your discount\] | \[Yes/No\] | The goal here isn't a perfect dataset. It's a working view of the market. Even partial data tells you something: if 3 out of 5 competitors hide enterprise pricing, that tells you what buying decisions at that tier look like. Update this table every quarter at minimum, or any time you hear of a pricing change through your win/loss interviews or sales conversations. ## How to analyze competitors who don't publish pricing Most B2B SaaS companies don't publish enterprise pricing. Many don't publish any pricing at all. That doesn't mean you can't find it. It means you have to be more creative about where you look. Here are the most reliable approaches: ### Win/loss interviews Prospects who evaluated your competitors went through their sales process. They got quoted. Ask what they were told. You won't always get a number, but you'll often get a range, a structure, or at least a sense of where pricing conversations went. ### Lost deals When you lose a deal to a competitor on price, that's data. Your sales team should be logging this. Over time, patterns emerge: "we keep losing on price to Competitor X at deals over $50k ARR" tells you something specific about where their pricing kicks in. ### Your own sales team Reps talk to prospects who are also talking to your competitors. A lot of pricing intel lives in CRM notes and never gets surfaced. Create a lightweight process for logging it. ### Online communities Reddit, G2, Capterra, and niche Slack communities regularly surface real pricing conversations. Search for your competitor's name alongside words like "price", "cost", "contract", "quote", or "how much". ### Channel partners and resellers Resellers often have pricing visibility that isn't public. If your competitor sells through a partner network, those partners may list pricing, or be willing to discuss it. > **The short version: when pricing isn't public, it's usually still findable. It just requires more sources and more cross-checking. Don't treat "no pricing page" as a dead end.** ## Why can't you just automate this? You can, partially. But there are some real constraints worth knowing before you go down that road. ### Most competitor pricing is public Retailers have online stores, SaaS companies have pricing pages, and none of that is behind a login. Technically, you could scrape it. Practically, it gets complicated fast. ### Web scraping violates the terms of service of most websites Many actively block it. In some jurisdictions it's a legal grey area, and in a few cases outright illegal. Beyond the legal side, building a scraper that works across multiple competitor sites is genuinely hard, because each site has a different structure and codebase. A script that works on one breaks on another. ### That said, in 2026 the options have improved [AI-powered tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-powered-competitive-intelligence-chatgpt-bing-and-more/) like Browse AI, Apify, and Bardeen let you set up no-code or low-code monitoring workflows without writing a scraper from scratch. Some can watch a specific page and alert you when the price changes. They don't solve the terms of service problem, but they lower the technical barrier considerably for the cases where scraping is permitted. ### Where APIs exist, they're still the cleanest route Amazon's Product Advertising API is the most well-known example. Some pricing intelligence platforms, like Kompyte or Crayon, also pull this data for you as part of a broader competitive monitoring workflow. ### For everyone else, a focused manual process is still the most reliable approach Pick a shortlist of competitors worth tracking closely, check whether their terms of service permit data collection, and build a simple recurring process around that list. Trying to track everyone creates noise. A tight list you actually review is more useful than a sprawling dataset you don't. ## Competitive pricing analysis examples To really hammer these points home, we thought we’d walk you through a couple of competitive pricing analysis case studies. ### Case study one: B2B workout equipment manufacturer and supplier **Who we are:** We’re “Carbon Strength & Fitness,” a manufacturer and supplier of top-of-the-line workout and gym equipment. **What we do:** We work with distributors to get our equipment out to high-end gyms for professional athletes and dedicated amateurs. **Our competitors:** We consider our primary competitors to be Prime Fitness USA and Atlantis Strength. Both are based in the USA, whereas we are based in Europe, giving us a slight competitive advantage geographically when it comes to serving these regions. **Our product:** We’re launching a new plate-loaded upper back- and lat-pulldown machine, and need to know how to price it. Atlantis Strength doesn’t list a price point on its website but, luckily, Prime Fitness does. Their machine is the current market leader, rapidly growing in demand thanks to its articulating handles and multiple possible loading patterns. These empower gym-goers to alter the movement’s resistance profile and arm path. ![Screenshot of the Prime fitness plate loaded lat pulldown product listing on their official website, retailing at $3,072.00](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/Screenshot-2023-05-12-at-12.30.02.png) The Prime plate loaded lat pulldown, retailing at $3,072.00 These are design features we’ve incorporated into our own product, while using more cost-effective materials in favor of a higher maintenance frequency. Our great relationship with suppliers and patented interlocking parts make our manufacturing costs lower than Prime’s and Atlantis’s. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/Screenshot-2023-05-12-at-12.30.55.png) The Atlantis Strength plate loaded lat pulldown machine. No price is listed here. **The pricing analysis:** We predict the lower initial outlay will make us a popular option for newly launching gyms with lower budgets that still want the best for their members. For that reason, we decide to charge a premium price, while undercutting [Prime Fitness’s plate loaded pull down](https://www.primefitnessusa.com/collections/plate-loaded-equipment/products/plate-loaded-lat-pulldown), which is priced at $3,072.00 per unit. We’d like to price ours somewhere between this and Atlantis’s pull down machine, which a search on Reddit revealed has been [sold in good but used-condition for around $950](https://www.reddit.com/r/homegym/comments/8cq1gd/lat%5Fpulldown%5Facquired/). From speaking with our network of contacts in the industry, we know used equipment tends to hold its value pretty well, never selling for much less than 70% of its original value so long as it’s well-maintained. Judging by the condition of the piece, plus the fact it was purchased five years ago, we’ve adjusted for inflation and estimate the original value of the piece to be around $1500. Since our machine is mechanically superior to the Atlantis, but we want to pass savings onto our customers and make additional profits in volume of sales, we decide to price our product at a little over $2000USD. ### Case study two: B2C acoustic musical instrument manufacturer Next, a B2C manufacturer of musical instruments. **Who we are:** We’re “X Drums”, and we make acoustic drum kits. **What we do:** We’re looking to launch a new range of affordable mid-range drum kits for students and casual players looking to get a great sound for less. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/mapex-courtesy-thomann.jpg) Mapex drum kit. Image courtesy of Thomann.de **Our competitors:** Mapex and Pearl drums are our two biggest competitors in this price range. Although other classic brands, like Gretsch, sell kits in this range, they tend to be smaller four-piece kits right in the lowest price ranges they sell at. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/pearl-courtesey-drumshack.jpg) Pearl drum kit. Image courtesy of drumshack.co.uk **The pricing analysis:** Although Mapex and Pearl don’t list prices on their websites, it’s not difficult to find prices for their drum kits on distributor websites. We know that drum kits in these price ranges cost around $1000. With our manufacturing costs, we know we won’t be able to turn much of a profit selling at $1000\. Since we don’t see a way to position our new brand name above our established competitors, we’ll price similarly, but offer deals that up-sell our other products. These will include items like kick drum pedals and our own-brand cymbals, allowing us to turn a profit on the bonuses in these package deals. ## TL;DR By now it should be clear, from the sample case studies and everything we’ve discussed in this article, how you can get started with competitive pricing analysis. Here’s a **quick summary** of what we’ve learned: - Competitive pricing analysis has you gather your competitor’s prices over time and use this data to make data driven, strategic decisions about your own products. - Competitive pricing analysis helps you position your products more effectively while getting and staying ahead of evolving trends. - It can be tricky to find accurate pricing data, but if you’re resourceful, and tread the path less traveled in your search, you’ll find information you can work with. - Programmatic pricing analyses are often unethical and often less practical than you might think (though aren’t impossible). --- ## Looking for the secrets to CI success? Did you know most competitive intelligence professionals struggle? The main reasons why they struggle are: - They don’t know where to focus their time and attention. - They lack the necessary frameworks to get the work done efficiently. - They don’t know how to share their findings in a way that gets people talking productively. We’ve got a new course out with all the answers. Click below to check it out. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/CIA_CI_Masters_Promotional_Assets_3.png)](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters) --- ### How to become a competitive intelligence analyst: job description, skills & salary URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-analyst/ Last updated: 2026-06-05T11:11:16.000Z Interested in a competitive intelligence role? Wondering what it involves, how much you can expect to earn, and what qualifications you’ll need? We’ve got you. ## What is a competitive intelligence analyst? A competitive intelligence analyst gathers, analyzes, and makes actionable, data on key business competitors. Analysts gather this data from sources both internal and external to the business. Internally, this includes sales, customer success, and product teams. Externally, this includes social media, competitor websites, and press releases. ### What makes a great CI Analyst? Competencies and career paths If you’re a CI professional – or managing one – you know the role demands a rare blend of skills. What does a top-tier CI analyst look like? First, **research acumen** is foundational. You need to know where to look, how to dig, and when to trust your sources. **Synthesis** is the next level: it’s not just about collecting data, but connecting dots and surfacing actionable insights. **Communication** is non-negotiable – can you translate complexity into clarity for stakeholders at every level? And then there’s ethical judgment. The best analysts don’t just find the edge; they know where the line is, and they never cross it. Career progression in CI isn’t a straight line, but there are clear milestones. Many start as research associates or junior analysts, honing their craft on tactical projects. With experience, you might specialize—becoming the go-to expert for market intelligence, product analysis, or competitor profiling. As **Lucy Casamitjana at Skello** describes, some teams designate a dedicated CI expert who “feeds the rest of the team with insights when they work on their core product.” From there, roles like CI Manager, Head of Competitive Intelligence, or even Director of Strategy open up, often with broader influence across the business. Want to accelerate your growth? Look for certifications or pursue advanced training in data analysis, storytelling, or stakeholder management. The field is evolving fast, and those who invest in their own development – through mentorship, cross-functional projects, or community engagement – will find no shortage of opportunities. I’ve seen it firsthand: the analysts who keep learning, keep rising. ## Competitive intelligence analyst salary How much does a competitive intelligence analyst make? The honest answer: it depends on your experience level, industry, and location. Here's a breakdown based on the latest data. ### Average CI analyst salary (US, 2026) | Source | Average Annual Salary | | ------------ | --------------------- | | Glassdoor | $120,074 | | Salary.com | $115,835 | | ZipRecruiter | $90,785 | | Payscale | $67,026 | The spread across sources is wide — methodology differences, role definitions, and sample sizes all play a part. The realistic mid-market figure for most CI analysts sits somewhere between $90K–$120K. ### Salary by percentile (US, 2026) | Percentile | Annual Salary | | ------------- | ------------------- | | 25th | \~$72,000–$92,000 | | 50th (median) | \~$100,000–$120,000 | | 75th | \~$113,000–$159,000 | | 90th | \~$131,000–$203,000 | *Sources: ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor (Feb 2026)* ### Salary by experience level (US, 2026) | Experience Level | Typical Salary Range | | ----------------------- | -------------------- | | Entry-level (0–2 years) | $65,000 – $80,000 | | Mid-level (3–5 years) | $90,000 – $120,000 | | Senior (6+ years) | $130,000 – $200,000+ | *Senior CI analyst data via Glassdoor, which puts the average senior CI analyst salary at $153,952, with top earners at the 90th percentile reaching $246,152.* ### Salary by location (US, 2026) High cost-of-living states and major tech hubs pay considerably more — DC averages $128,253, California $127,766, and Massachusetts $126,063\. In New York specifically, [the average](https://www.salary.com/research/salary/listing/competitive-intelligence-analyst-salary) sits at $109,467, with top earners hitting nearly $150,000\. ### UK salaries In the UK, [Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/senior-competitive-intelligence-analyst-salary-SRCH%5FKO0,39.htm?countryRedirect=true) puts the average CI analyst salary at £39,057 per year, with the typical range falling between £29,490 (25th percentile) and £51,727 (75th percentile). In London, that average rises to £43,851, with top earners at the 90th percentile reaching £75,265\. Employee perks like healthcare, paid time off, and pension contributions are employer-dependent but commonly listed in CI job postings. ## Qualifications and requirements Most employers are looking for the following: - A few years of experience in competitive intelligence, pricing, or product marketing. - A bachelor’s degree or master’s degree. - The ability to collaborate across teams and communicate effectively with stakeholders. - Strong analytical and research skills working with both qualitative and quantitative data. - The ability to prioritize, problem-solve, and manage time effectively. ### Responsibilities: What the role entails Competitive intelligence is all about understanding your competitive landscape and using those insights to impact your organization’s bottom line. That means you’ll be focused on delivering actionable advice, not just collecting and reporting on data. You’ll own the process right the way through from conducting primary and secondary research, to analyzing the intel you’ve gathered, and working cross-functionally to make an impact. Whilst data is involved, you won’t be stuck in spreadsheets 24/7\. The best competitive intelligence analysts are in constant contact with almost every area of the business. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/mehdi-messrro--1v0JL_wINc-unsplash.jpg) As a CI pro you'll be zipping around to help and inform many areas of the business. You’ll help the product team determine a positioning strategy and create product roadmaps by leveraging your understanding of the competitive landscape, for example. You’ll help development teams prioritize new features, help content and marketing teams get in sync on messaging, and help sales teams close deals. Supporting sales, in particular, is a primary responsibility for any competitive intelligence analyst. Since sales have such a fast feedback loop and sit so close to revenue, your impact on the business is tied to how well you support them in closing deals. You’ll support by conducting win/loss interviews with customers, and by creating [competitive battle cards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) to give sales reps a framework for boosting their win rate. ## The skills every competitive intelligence analyst needs Interested in competitive intelligence analyst jobs? There are more than a few key skills you’ll need to make the cut. Thankfully, with a few years’ proactive experience in a solid marketing role, you’ll have more than enough up your sleeve to sail into late-round interviews. Here’s what you’ll need. ### Communication skills Given that cross-functional collaboration is so much a part of a competitive intelligence analyst’s role, communication skills are crucial. That means you’ll want to show evidence of good written and verbal communication skills, as well as presentation skills. You’ll have to be comfortable talking with people from many different business functions and even taking the lead in win/loss interviews with customers. You might even have to lead training sessions with various reps. One thing you’ll certainly have to do early in the role is win the respect of your peers. Without buy-in from those you’re working with, you’ll find the flow of intelligence from those all-important internal sources of competitor intelligence staunched. Pushing through initial resistance to get a few early wins and build some momentum will prove instrumental in shaping your future success in the role. ### Market research skills With so many [different sources of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/), your research skills will play a massive part in your success. It’s not just your ability to export a CSV from your sales platform or CRM. It’s your ability to effectively (manually or programmatically) trawl or scrape social media profiles, competitor websites, business review platforms, and more for all the information you can get your hands on. Once you have the information, you need to effectively compress it into the core set of insights with the highest business value. From there, you will push through to a deliverable that directly impacts business revenue. To do this successfully, you need good analysis, which requires good data. Acquiring good data consistently is only possible if your market research skills are up to snuff. ### Strategic thinking skills Strategic thinking means choosing a single route, or set of routes, when multiple paths present themselves to you, based on each route’s probability of maximizing business success. Today, most organizations still employ only [one competitive intelligence professional](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/). You’ll have support, and interactions, across the business, and you might belong to a product team, but it’s only now becoming more common to see multi-person CI teams. Coupled with the high demand for competitive analysis from across your organization, prioritization and time management skills are key. Managing your time effectively comes down to thinking strategically and prioritizing ruthlessly. When you’ve multiple things you *could* do, choosing the one, or few, things with the highest business value and seeing them through to the end constitutes strategic thinking. This skill or set of skills (along with time management and decision-making) is essential for any good business intelligence analyst. ### Project management skills Competitive intelligence is a discipline with many moving parts. You won’t have the bandwidth to do everything on your own (that’s where those presentation and communication skills come in). And getting from the intelligence-gathering phase to the handing over of a deliverable is a process you must manage well. We’ve all heard, “what gets measured gets managed”. And without great project management skills, you’ll struggle to measure and enforce the progress of the tasks your CI program relies on to get to completion. ## How to become a Competitive Intelligence Analyst Breaking into competitive intelligence is more accessible than you might think — especially if you're already working in marketing, sales, or strategy. Here's a step-by-step path. ### Step 1: Get a relevant degree Most CI roles ask for a bachelor's degree at minimum, typically in business, marketing, economics, or a related field. A master's isn't always required, but it can give you an edge for senior or strategy-focused positions. ### Step 2: Build foundational experience Many CI analysts come from adjacent roles — product marketing, market research, sales strategy, or business analysis. Two to three years in one of these areas will give you the research, communication, and stakeholder management skills that CI hiring managers look for. ### Step 3: Get comfortable with data and research tools You don't need to be a data scientist, but you do need to be fluent in research. That means knowing how to gather, synthesize, and present intel from a wide range of sources — from CRM data and customer interviews to social listening and competitor websites. (More on the specific tools below.) ### Step 4: Earn a CI certification Credentials signal commitment and give you a structured grounding in CI methodology. The Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) organization offers widely recognized certifications. A certification won't land you the job on its own, but it strengthens your application — especially at the entry level. ### Step 5: Get involved in the CI community The CI world is smaller and more connected than you'd expect. Plugging into communities like the [Competitive Intelligence Alliance](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/) gives you access to practitioners, mentors, and job opportunities that you won't find on a standard job board. It's one of the fastest ways to accelerate your career. ## Progression options and career path The most exciting thing about competitive intelligence? Demand for CI pros is surging across both industries and departments. As a successful competitive intelligence analyst, you’ll find yourself in a high-visibility role with a direct line to leadership teams and ample opportunities to display impact. You’re well-positioned to grow a wide variety of valuable skills and walk away with demonstrable evidence of your ability. (Being so well-networked within the organization has its perks.) This makes CI-based roles excellent for progression within or between organizations as you prove your ability to hold your own with senior management and even leadership teams. Roles such as ‘head of competitive intelligence’, or ‘competitive intelligence lead’ will be within your grasp. And if you’re a process-oriented person, you could get really good at building CI programs from scratch. With enough experience, you’ll find demand for your services almost anywhere you go. If you’ve had enough of the competitive intelligence angle, though, there are a bunch of related jobs that you’ll find you’re able to walk right into. With your newfound familiarity with product positioning, messaging, sales enablement, data gathering and analysis, strategy, and more, you’re well qualified to step into almost any sales and marketing role. ## Competitive intelligence analyst job description Whether you're hiring for the role or building a case to create one, here's what a typical competitive intelligence analyst job description covers. **Job title:** Competitive Intelligence Analyst **About the role:** We're looking for a Competitive Intelligence Analyst to help us understand our competitive landscape and turn market insights into strategic action. You'll work cross-functionally with product, sales, and marketing teams to deliver intelligence that directly influences our go-to-market decisions. **Key responsibilities:** - Monitor competitor activity across websites, social channels, review platforms, and industry publications - Conduct primary research including win/loss interviews with customers and prospects - Produce and maintain competitive battlecards and positioning frameworks for the sales team - Deliver regular competitive landscape reports and briefings to leadership - Work with the product team to inform roadmap priorities based on competitive gaps - Develop and maintain a CI repository to ensure insights are accessible across the business **Required skills and qualifications:** - 2–4 years of experience in competitive intelligence, market research, product marketing, or a related field - Strong analytical skills with the ability to synthesize qualitative and quantitative data - Excellent written and verbal communication skills — you'll be presenting to senior stakeholders - Proficiency in CI and research tools (e.g., Crayon, Klue, Visualping, Similarweb, SEMrush) - Ability to manage multiple projects and prioritize effectively in a fast-moving environment - Bachelor's degree in business, marketing, economics, or a related discipline **Nice to have:** - Experience with CRM platforms (e.g., Salesforce, HubSpot) - CI certification (e.g., SCIP) - Background in a specific industry vertical (e.g., SaaS, fintech, healthcare) ## Looking for a headstart? Looking for a headstart on your new CI career? Join the Competitive Intelligence Alliance community. Our [Slack workspace](https://bit.ly/3yK2MzV) is a bustling community of CI pros just itching to point you in the right direction. ### Nine monitors, one Monday morning: How to build a competitor web monitoring program URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/build-a-competitor-web-monitoring-program/ Last updated: 2026-05-29T12:00:42.000Z Most [CI programs](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/) have a blind spot unrelated to analysis or distribution. It's detection. The frameworks are solid. The [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/) are thorough. The newsletters go out on schedule. But the underlying assumption is that someone will notice when a competitor changes its website. Usually, nobody does. A pricing page restructures quietly. A feature gets deprecated without a blog post. A homepage headline shifts to a new value prop. By the time it surfaces, it's because a prospect mentioned it or a sales rep flagged it mid-deal. This isn't just anecdotal. [Crayon's 2025 State of Competitive Intelligence report ](https://www.crayon.co/state-of-competitive-intelligence)found that **44%** of companies lack competitor visibility in their CRM, and that 58% of CI professionals struggle to keep battlecards and competitive content up to date. The collection layer is where many programs lose signal. Competitor web monitoring closes that gap. It's the [CI layer that sits beneath analysis and distribution](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-competitive-intelligence/), catching changes as they happen so the rest of your program works with the latest information. ## What their pages are telling you (that nobody's reading) Competitor websites are among the richest public intelligence sources available. Most teams check a competitor's homepage from time to time. Few treat web pages as structured intelligence inputs. **Pricing pages** are the most obvious signal, but the intelligence runs deeper than dollar amounts. Tier restructuring, the removal of a free plan, and a shift from per-seat to usage-based billing are strategic pivots that often appear on the [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/) page weeks before any press release or blog announcement. **Product and feature pages** reveal capability investments in real time. What they've added, what they've quietly deprecated, and how they've reorganized their feature hierarchy. This feeds directly into battlecard feature comparisons, and it moves faster than quarterly reviews can keep up with. **Careers pages** are strategic forecasting in plain sight. A burst of AI engineering hires signals a shift in product direction. A new office location hints at market expansion. A VP of Partnerships posting tells you an ecosystem play is coming. These are directional signals with months of lead time. **Homepage messaging** is often the earliest public signal of a strategic shift. When a competitor changes their hero headline or repositions their value proposition, they're telling you what positioning they're testing in the market. [!["Infographic titled 'What Their Pages Are Telling You' with the subtitle 'Four page types. Four intelligence signals. One monitoring program.' Four cards are arranged in a 2x2 grid, each with a blue icon. Pricing Page: tier restructuring, plan changes, and billing model shifts appear before any press release. Product/Feature Page: new capabilities, quiet deprecations, and feature hierarchy changes in real time. Careers Page: hiring surges reveal product direction, market expansion, and strategic bets months early. Homepage: headline and positioning changes are the earliest public signal of a strategic shift."](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/42/e8425f10-c6bc-4266-b03f-495034377a60/content/images/2026/03/data-src-image-fd10ae24-fc80-4a7a-a322-e2041564f929.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/build-a-competitor-web-monitoring-program) To make this concrete: imagine a competitor quietly folds their mid-tier plan into their enterprise tier and raises the entry price by 40%. No blog post. No press release. If you're monitoring that pricing page, the change lands in your Slack the same day. By the next day, your sales team will have an updated [battlecard](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-swot-analysis-to-build-your-battlecards/) and a new talk track for every open deal in which that competitor is shortlisted. That's a one-day response to a change that might otherwise have surfaced a week later through a prospect mention, or AI-style competitor trackers. Based on data from more than 3,500 organizations using [Visualping](https://visualping.io/competitive-monitoring), most teams start with monitoring one page: the homepage. The most effective competitor monitoring operations, however, track four or five page types per competitor, building a composite picture rather than relying on any single signal. ## How it fits your workflow (without adding noise) The first objection I hear from product marketers is always the same: "I don't need more notifications." It's the right instinct. Real-time alerts are the wrong model for most CI. Pricing changes from your top three competitors? Yes, those should hit Slack immediately. But for everything else, the smarter approach is a periodic competitive digest. Here's what that looks like in practice. You set monitoring on the pages that matter across the companies you track. Instead of processing individual alerts throughout the week, you receive a single consolidated summary on a schedule that matches your CI rhythm. Daily works for high-value pages (pricing, homepage), but weekly is fine for monitoring the majority of low or medium-tier webpage types. Monthly works for broader market signals. Monday morning: one digest lands covering everything that changed across your top rivals in the past week. Each change is summarized in a few sentences, not a raw diff of code. You scan it in five minutes. You flag anything that requires action. You feed the relevant changes into your next battlecard update, your next competitive newsletter, or your next sales enablement session. If you’re adventurous, build a workflow that automatically feeds the changes captured in the brief into an LLM and automates actions such as generating an in-depth report or conducting detailed research. This aligns with the CI workflow most teams already use. Product Marketing Alliance's [competitive intelligence toolkit](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/competitive-intelligence-toolkit/) describes periodic competitive newsletters and briefing documents as standard deliverables. The difference is what feeds them. Instead of a quarterly manual review that takes hours and goes stale within weeks, your digest is fed by continuous automated detection. The analysis and distribution layers of your CI program stay exactly the same. The detection layer continues to improve, becoming faster and more accurate. At Visualping, we run our own monitoring on this model. Our weekly digest covers pricing, product, and careers pages across the companies we track, on top of the high-value alerts pushed immediately into Slack. It takes less than five minutes to review and feeds directly into our battlecard update cycle and into the Sales and Leadership channels. The time spent on our CI goes mainly toward analysis: determining what a change means and how to respond. That's where our intelligence adds the most value. **Match the cadence to the signal.** Real-time alerts for home/pricing changes on direct rivals. Weekly digests for product pages, careers, and messaging. Monthly for broader market signals like regulatory changes, analyst content, or adjacent players. Not every page deserves the same urgency. [!["Flowchart titled 'Match the Cadence to the Signal.' At the top, a box labelled 'Competitor Page Changes' flows into 'Signal Value Assessment,' which branches into three columns. High Urgency (green): Real-Time Alerts via Slack, covering Pricing Page and Homepage. Medium Urgency (blue): Weekly Digest every Monday Morning, covering Product/Feature Page and Careers Page, delivered as a Weekly Digest Email. Low Urgency (red): Monthly Review, covering Regulatory Changes, Analyst Content, and Adjacent Players, delivered as a Monthly Review Report."](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/42/e8425f10-c6bc-4266-b03f-495034377a60/content/images/2026/03/data-src-image-274e9cea-11eb-4468-a90a-ba10c9df6a9e.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/build-a-competitor-web-monitoring-program) ## Start with nine monitors and one Monday morning You don't need a full CI technology stack to begin; in fact, competitor monitoring is a great way for teams to get started in their CI journey. Start here: - **Pick your top three rivals** from win/loss data. Not the market leader. The three you actually lose deals to. As Bill Emmett argued in [his PMA Summit talk on differentiating with CI](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/differentiating-your-message-with-world-class-competitive-intelligence/): start with your CRM data. - **Set up monitoring on three page types per rival.** Pricing page, main product page, careers page. That's nine monitors. - **Set your cadence.** Route pricing changes to Slack in real time. Set everything else to a weekly digest. Review it on Monday morning. Share the first meaningful finding with your sales team within the first two weeks. The principle holds regardless of how you implement it: systematic detection frees your CI time for analysis and action. That's the strategic thinking that wins deals and the work only a product marketer can do. ### The CI playbook for smarter product decisions URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ci-playbook-for-smarter-product-decisions/ Last updated: 2026-04-30T11:11:34.000Z If you work in [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/), you've probably felt it – that nagging sense that your work is more appreciated in theory than in practice. The insights get gathered, the reports get shared, and then... not much happens. Product ships what it was always going to ship. Sales asks for the same [battlecard](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/) they had six months ago. And you wonder whether any of it is actually moving the needle. It doesn't have to be that way. The most effective CI teams aren't just feeding information upstream and hoping for the best – they're co-creating roadmaps, shaping priorities, and influencing the decisions that determine whether a product wins or loses in the market. Here's what it takes to get there. ## CI as a strategic partner, not a reporting function The traditional model – where CI feeds competitor data upstream to product and waits for decisions to come back down – is no longer good enough. As Fractional CMO [Gina Dragulin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gina-dragulin/) put it at last year's Competitive Intelligence Summit, CI "should be a very strategic partner in product development and go-to-market strategy." [!["Competitive intelligence should be a very strategic partner in product development and go-to-market strategy." – Gina Dragulin, Fractional CMO](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2026/04/Gina-Dragulin-on-CI.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ci-playbook-for-smarter-product-decisions) That means moving beyond the reflex of saying "our competitor has launched X feature, so should we" and toward a more nuanced framing: here's why *now* is – or isn't – the right time to build this, based on what the market is saying and what adoption patterns look like. In this sense, CI functions less as a discovery engine and more as what [Udit Misra](https://www.linkedin.com/in/uditmisra/), VP of Product Marketing at LearnWorlds, calls "the strategic filter that helps product make smarter prioritization decisions." ## Stop reporting, start influencing There's an important distinction between reactive and proactive CI. Reactive CI – monitoring the market, producing reports, and hoping someone acts on them – has limited value. True impact comes from synthesizing signals across customer interviews, win/loss data, and [market analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/b2b-market-analysis-uncover-your-market-structure-like-a-pro/) to understand what they mean – and then translating that into strategic bets your organization can make for the short, medium, and longer term. That's the kind of CI that earns a seat in conversations with product leadership before roadmaps are set. [!["A really important part of this is speaking the language that product teams speak, framing these insights around what they care about – which is user adoption, feature utilization, and downstream business impact." – Udit Misra, Product Marketing Leader](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2026/04/Udit-Misra-on-communicating-with-product-teams.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ci-playbook-for-smarter-product-decisions) When you deliver these insights, it’s vital to speak in terms that grab [product teams](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-support-product-teams-with-competitive-intelligence/)’ attention. They care about user adoption, feature utilization, and downstream business impact. If you're showing up to roadmap conversations with just a competitive gap analysis, you're not speaking their language: > "A really important part of this is speaking the language that product teams speak, framing these insights around what they care about – which is user adoption, feature utilization, and downstream business impact. Not necessarily competitive gaps, per se." > **– Udit Misra** ## When CI changes the game: Real-world examples It's one thing to talk about CI strategy in the abstract. It looks very different in practice. Let’s dive into a couple of examples. ### Repositioning in cybersecurity In the panel discussion, Gina Ragulin (then VP of Product Marketing at SoSafe) described how a combination of market and customer intelligence informed a significant repositioning – from a security awareness platform to a human risk management platform. The insight that sparked this change wasn't just about what competitors were doing; it was about understanding the different needs of smaller versus enterprise customers. Smaller organizations cared more about user experience and accessibility; larger ones needed scalability and a broad integration suite. Prioritizing accordingly – and building the right proposition for each segment – ultimately led to recognition as a top-three player in the category by Forrester. ### Resisting the AI goldrush When ChatGPT arrived in late 2022, every competitor in the legal tech space raced to add AI to their platform – typically in the form of a chatbot wrapper. Udit Misra, who led SpotCraft’s PMM function at the time, describes the conventional CI logic: > "Traditional CI would have told us to do the same thing. Just like everyone else is doing it, we're gonna miss out if we don't implement AI in the exact same way because, apparently, that's what the market wanted." Rather than follow the crowd, the team ran a large study to find out whether users were actually getting value from competitors' AI features. The answer was no. So, instead of racing to market with a chatbot, they took more time and built something more contextual – embedding AI into MS Word, the tool lawyers had always lived in, rather than asking them to adopt an unfamiliar interface. [!["Competitive intelligence tells you where you should go in the future. It helps you look around corners. It shows you the map to where you need to go." – Udit Misra, Product Marketing Leader](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2026/04/Udit-Misra-on-CI.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ci-playbook-for-smarter-product-decisions) The result was a product that competitors eventually started copying. As Udit puts it, the key is treating CI not as a rearview mirror but as a GPS: > "It tells you where you should go in the future. It helps you look around corners. It shows you the map to where you need to go." ## Where CI matters most across the product lifecycle Ask most people when CI is most useful in the [product development lifecycle](https://www.productledalliance.com/what-is-the-product-development-life-cycle/), and they'll say ideation – helping generate ideas for what to build. In reality, that's probably where it matters least. [!["Product teams are always drowning in good ideas. They don't need someone else to give them an idea for what to build. The bottleneck is in prioritization and in positioning." – Udit Misra, Product Marketing Leader](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2026/04/Udit-Misra-on-product-ideas.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ci-playbook-for-smarter-product-decisions) Product teams don't need more ideas. They're drowning in them. As Udit Misra puts it: > "Product teams are always drowning in good ideas. They don't need someone else to give them an idea for what to build. Everyone has an idea for what product should build. It's one of the pitfalls of being in product. The bottleneck is in prioritization and in positioning." When CI drives product direction rather than filtering it, things can go wrong quickly: > "We don't need to design our product based on competitive paranoia. That leads to feature bloat." > – **Udit Misra** Where CI really earns its keep is in helping product teams sequence their decisions – determining which of ten validated ideas to pursue first, based on market readiness, competitive gaps, and GTM fit. It then matters again in the run-up to launch, where CI insights should be arming your go-to-market organization with the arguments they need to win: > "Successful competitive intelligence will actually be evident at the phase prior to launch and in that launch moment. That comes with equipping the go-to-market organization with the right intelligence to be able to have those educated conversations. They will transform a discussion into a win." > – **Gina Dragulin** That also means being honest about where you're still catching up. Transparency about current limitations – paired with a clear plan for what comes next – builds more trust with GTM teams than overpromising ever will. ## Measuring the impact of CI Proving the value of CI work is notoriously difficult. The most meaningful metrics, though, are the ones closest to revenue – win rates, churn impact, and influence on deals. Everything else risks becoming a vanity metric. [!["The true final validation is going to be your impact or influence on revenue. How are you helping the business actually drive revenue, drive market share, and really win in the market?" – Gina Dragulin, Fractional CMO](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2026/04/Gina-Dragulin-on-CI-impact.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ci-playbook-for-smarter-product-decisions) As Gina Dragulin points out, one insight that generates a million dollars in revenue is worth far more than a hundred that don't move the needle: > "The true final validation is going to be your impact or influence on revenue. How are you helping the business actually drive revenue, drive market share, and really win in the market?" Beyond the numbers, Udit Misra tracks a "product confidence score" – how confident engineering and PM teams are in CI recommendations – as well as the rate at which those recommendations actually get implemented. Both are useful proxies for whether CI is genuinely influencing decisions or just informing them. There's also a more qualitative – but equally telling – signal to watch for. When the rest of the organization starts generating CI of its own, you know you've built something real. When sales reps bring you market observations from customer calls, when PMs connect product feedback to [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/), the intelligence function has become genuinely embedded in the culture: > "I love when I see sales guys coming to us saying, 'I heard this, I heard that – I think this is something we may want to experiment with.' It's a true indication that you're building a culture where customers are being centred, and folks are thinking in the sense of differentiation." > – **Gina Dragulin** ## The bottom line CI's value in product development comes from being embedded early, speaking product's language, and helping teams answer the question that matters most: why should we prioritize *this* – and why should we prioritize it *now*? Get that right, and CI stops being a function that informs decisions and becomes one that shapes them. That’s where the real impact lies. --- *Quotes in this article have been lightly edited for clarity and are drawn from a panel discussion at the 2025 Competitive Intelligence Summit.* ### Win/loss ratio: What it is and how to calculate it URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-ratio-what-it-is-and-how-to-calculate-it/ Last updated: 2026-03-13T13:20:56.000Z ## What is the win/loss ratio? The win/loss ratio evaluates the success of your company’s performance in competitive situations, like when making a sale. You calculate it by dividing the number of wins (e.g. successful sales) by the number of losses. ****Win/loss ratio = Number of wins / Number of losses** If you wanted to evaluate performance regarding the total number of opportunities (both won and lost), then you’d use the win rate instead, which divides the number of wins by the opportunities. ****Win rate = Number of wins / Total opportunities** Simply put, **the win/loss ratio quantifies the relationship between the number of wins and losses**, and it helps you understand your [competitive position](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/stop-obsessing-over-features-and-competitors-focus-on-getting-your-competitive-positioning-right/) in the market better – as well as assess just how effective your strategies are when compared to your competitors’. A higher ratio indicates more wins than losses. ## Win/loss ratio vs. win rate vs. win percentage Win/loss ratio, win rate, and win percentage are three related metrics that measure sales performance differently: The ratio compares wins directly to losses, while win rate and win percentage both express wins as a proportion of total opportunities, with win percentage simply being the win rate multiplied by 100. These distinctions matter more than you might expect. Using the wrong metric in the wrong context can lead to misinterpretation, and that's a problem when you're presenting to leadership or benchmarking against industry standards. Here's how the formulas compare: | Metric | Formula | Output | | -------------- | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------- | | Win/Loss Ratio | Wins ÷ Losses | Decimal or ratio (e.g., 1.4 or 1.4:1) | | Win Rate | Wins ÷ Total Opportunities | Decimal (e.g., 0.58) | | Win Percentage | (Wins ÷ Total Opportunities) × 100 | Percentage (e.g., 58%) | Let's work through a quick example. Say your team closed 35 deals and lost 25, giving you 60 total opportunities. Your win/loss ratio is 35 ÷ 25 = 1.4, meaning you win 1.4 deals for every deal lost. Your win rate is 35 ÷ 60 = 0.583, and your win percentage is 58.3%. **So when should you use each?** Win/loss ratio tends to be most useful for competitive intelligence work, particularly when you're analyzing head-to-head performance against specific competitors. It gives you a direct sense of how often you're beating them. Win rate and win percentage, on the other hand, are generally better suited for sales reporting and forecasting because they account for the full pipeline, including deals that stalled or went dark without a clear competitive loss. The key takeaway is this: win/loss ratio and win percentage are not interchangeable, and treating them as such can distort your analysis. A 1.4 ratio sounds strong, but it still means you're losing 42% of competitive deals. Context matters, and choosing the right metric for your audience ensures your insights land with clarity. ## Importance of knowing your win/loss ratio What are the benefits of calculating your win/loss ratio? - It helps you understand **how your performance stacks up against that of your competitors**, and reveals whether you’re leading or lagging in the market. - It helps you **identify your competitive advantage**, from product features to better customer service. - A low win/loss ratio can also help you **find weaknesses**, including where you can improve, be it your product or your [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/). - By understanding where you perform best and where you can improve, the win/loss helps you know where to **allocate resources**. - The win/loss ratio sheds light on how your company is **positioned in the market**. - If a low ratio is due to your product being less attractive than someone else’s, this knowledge can guide **product improvements**, allowing you to improve usability or address pricing concerns, for instance. - By analyzing why you win or lose against your competitors, you can gain insights into what customers are looking for, which helps you refine your value proposition and create **products that meet your customers’ needs**. [The Power of Transparent Pricing: From a 3x Founding PMMWhen used strategically, pricing is a powerful growth lever. But it’s about far more than picking a number. In this article, I’ll share how to balance value and strategy in your pricing model.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceJason Oakley![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/08/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--5-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/power-of-transparent-pricing/) ## Win/loss ratio calculation If you’re managing a [sales team](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-analysis-for-sales-enablement/) at a software company, you might want to assess their performance over the past quarter. But how to calculate win/loss ratio? During this period, the team pursued 60 potential deals. Out of these, 35 were successfully closed while 25 were lost to competitors. The win/loss ratio of your sales team would be: 35 / 25 = **1.4** This means that, for every deal lost, your team successfully closed 1.4 deals. A win/loss ratio **above 1** indicates the team is winning more deals than they’re losing, so take this as a positive sign of how effective they are. A **ratio of 1** means an equal number of wins and losses and a ratio **below 1** shows there are more losses than wins. While a ratio of 1.4 is already good, there’s always room for improvement. You might analyze the lost deals to understand why they weren’t successful and use that information to refine your sales strategy. You can also use the win/loss ratio as a benchmark for future assessments. If the ratio increases in the next quarter, your team is improving. If it decreases, it could indicate your team could do with more training or your strategies may need tweaking. But how exactly can you apply the win/loss ratio in [competitive analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/?%5Fgl=1%2A1fwsh7p%2A%5Fup%2AMQ..%2A%5Fga%2AMTcyNTg3MTg4MS4xNzI1NDQ3NDk4%2A%5Fga%5FPFVK9L5J31%2AMTcyNTQ0NzQ5OC4xLjAuMTcyNTQ0NzQ5OC4wLjAuMA..)? [Your 7-step guide to SEO competitive analysisSEO competitive analysis reveals the gaps in your SEO strategy so you can adjust and overtake the leaders in your space – and in this article, we’re going to show you how to do it.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-65.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/SEO-competitor-analysis.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) ## How many wins do you need to reach a target win rate? Knowing your current win rate is useful, but planning for improvement requires a different calculation. If you've set a quarterly goal of reaching a 40% win rate, how many additional wins do you actually need? This inverse formula helps you work backward from a target to a concrete number. The approach depends on one key assumption: whether your total opportunities will stay fixed or continue to grow. For simplicity, let's assume you're working with a fixed opportunity pool – meaning no new deals enter the pipeline during the period you're measuring. ### Step 1: Define your variables - Current wins (W) - Current total opportunities (T) - Target win rate as a decimal (R) ### Step 2: Apply the formula Additional Wins Needed = (R × T) − W Round up to the nearest whole number, since you can't close a fraction of a deal. ### Step 3: Worked example Say your team has closed 18 deals out of 60 total opportunities, giving you a current win rate of 30%. Your target is 40%. Additional Wins Needed = (0.40 × 60) − 18 = 24 − 18 = **6 additional wins** To hit 40%, you need to close 6 more deals from your existing pipeline. **A note on assumptions:** If your pipeline is still growing, the math gets more complex because each new opportunity changes the denominator. In that case, you'll need to estimate your expected total opportunities at period end and recalculate accordingly. Why does this matter? Target-setting is essential for quarterly planning and rep coaching. Research suggests that [teams conducting structured win-loss interviews see a 14% increase in win rates over time](https://www.csoinsights.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/08/2017-World-Class-Sales-Practices-Report.pdf), which means setting realistic targets and tracking progress against them can compound into meaningful gains. If your target is already lower than your current rate, congratulations – you've already hit the mark, and the focus shifts to maintaining momentum rather than chasing additional wins. ## Win/loss analysis vs. win/loss ratio While a win/loss ratio is useful for tracking performance over time, a win/loss analysis focuses on understanding and improving the factors that influence those results. After all, this analysis allows you to understand how people buy and why they did or didn’t choose your product. In essence, you’ll want to find out your win/loss ratio, since it’s a great starting point for identifying performance issues, and then explore that further through win/loss analysis. ## How to act on win/loss data Applying the ratio practically allows you to gain actionable insights and make better informed decisions. But how do you handle the data and what should you be doing with it? ### Segment the data You can [break it down](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/four-types-of-market-segmentation/) by customer size (e.g., large enterprise or SME), industry, geographic location, etc., which helps you to identify patterns that may be unique to your segments. In addition, you’ll want to look at the competitors you win and lose against most often, since this helps you spot [strengths and weaknesses](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/is-swot-analysis-outdated/). ### Calculate sales win rate by lead source Segmenting your win/loss data by customer size or industry is valuable, but there's another dimension that often gets overlooked: lead source. Understanding how win rates vary across channels like organic search, paid campaigns, referrals, and outbound prospecting can reveal where your pipeline is genuinely healthy and where it's quietly leaking revenue. **The formula is straightforward:** Win Rate by Lead Source = Wins from Source ÷ Total Opportunities from Source Here's a sample breakdown for a quarter: | Lead Source | Opportunities | Wins | Win Rate | | -------------- | ------------- | ---- | -------- | | Organic Search | 120 | 42 | 35% | | Paid Search | 80 | 18 | 22.5% | | Referrals | 25 | 15 | 60% | | Outbound | 95 | 22 | 23% | What does this tell you? Referrals convert at nearly three times the rate of paid search, even though they represent a much smaller slice of the pipeline. Organic search delivers solid volume with respectable conversion. Paid search and outbound, meanwhile, bring in plenty of opportunities but close at lower rates. This kind of segmentation prevents you from being misled by a single blended win rate. A 30% overall win rate might look acceptable, but if referrals are carrying the number while paid search underperforms, you're missing an opportunity to reallocate budget or refine targeting. One real-world example of how segmentation transforms outcomes: a targeted competitive intelligence campaign at Affinity helped boost win rates from 16% to 45% by focusing on specific cohorts rather than treating all opportunities equally. Once you've identified these patterns, the next steps become clearer. High-volume, low-win sources like outbound might need better qualification criteria or adjusted messaging. Low-volume, high-win sources like referrals might warrant a dedicated referral program to increase flow. And for sources that underperform consistently, it's worth asking whether the spend is justified at all. ### Analyze the reasons for win/loss Group win/loss reasons into categories like [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/), product features, and relationship with your customer – doing so allows you to prioritize areas for improvement. You should also try to spot patterns in why deals are won or lost. For example, if pricing is a reason for loss, you might need to review your current strategy. ### Benchmark against competitors Compare your strengths and weaknesses with those of your competitors based on data. If you win because your product integrates better but loses on price, you know your advantage is in the quality of the product – all you may need is to [revisit your price](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/). ### Get customer insights You can use your win/loss data to understand what leads someone to make a purchase, which can help you tailor sales pitches and align yourself better with what customers are looking for. Make sure you collect [feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/) from prospects and customers about why you won or lost the deal, as these insights often reveal issues that may not be evident otherwise. ### Train your sales team Win/loss data is also helpful to offer targeted training. If your sales reps lose because they can’t articulate the value of your product, for example, they may need additional training on how to communicate its benefits more effectively. The data also allows you to create strategies that address the reasons for loss. ### Track progress over time Make sure you’re monitoring win/loss rates and tweaking strategies as needed, as well as reanalyzing data every now and then to see whether the changes you implemented are working. ### Collaborate with others Win/loss data is useful for cross-functional collaboration. You can share it across different teams (e.g., sales, marketing, and customer success), since they can greatly benefit from those insights as well. For instance, marketing can use it to understand why competitors’ messaging is resonating more with customers. [How can social media listening increase customer advocacy? (with examples)Social media listening allows you to engage with satisfied customers and turn them into ambassadors.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-66.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--26--1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-can-social-media-listening-increase-customer-advocacy/) ## Example: Applying win/loss ratio in competitive analysis Imagine a SaaS company that has **three main competitors** in the market. Their **goal** is to improve competitive positioning and increase market share. The company **tracked every sales opportunity** over six months, noting wins and losses against Competitors A, B, and C. They also **calculated win/loss ratios**: - Competitor A = 1.8 - Competitor B = 0.9 - Competitor C = 1.2 The company’s **analysis** found that losses to Competitor B were due to lower pricing and a specific feature missing in their product. Wins against Competitor A were because of their superior customer service and a strong product fit in the market. So, which **strategic action** did they take? - They adjusted the pricing to be more competitive. - Developed the missing feature. - Increased their marketing efforts in the field they outperform Competitor A. After applying the changes, the **outcome** was that the win/loss ratio against Competitor B improved to 1.1 within the following quarter, and overall sales increased by 15%. ## In short Understanding the win/loss ratio is important to refine your strategies and drive growth, since it offers insights into customer behavior, market trends, and areas you need to improve. And, by analyzing both wins and losses, you can learn from mistakes, celebrate strengths, and make data-driven decisions. ### How to do a PESTLE analysis (a guide in 7 steps) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/ Last updated: 2026-03-05T15:08:28.000Z ## What is PESTLE analysis? A PESTLE analysis (or PESTEL analysis, sometimes simplified to PEST analysis) is a strategic planning framework that has you examine six types of external factors that can impact an organization: Political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors. PESTLE analysis gives you context for your strategic decision-making, which you can use to improve your strategic plans. ## The primary objective of a PESTLE analysis The primary objective of a PESTLE analysis is to reduce strategic uncertainty by systematically identifying external opportunities and risks that could materially affect your organization's direction, investments, and [competitive position](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/). It surfaces the macro-environmental forces you cannot control but absolutely must understand before committing resources to a new initiative. That definition matters because it clarifies what PESTLE actually delivers. You're not conducting this analysis to understand your internal capabilities or to benchmark against competitors directly. Those are valuable exercises, but they belong to other frameworks. PESTLE sits upstream of those conversations. It answers a more fundamental question: what's happening in the world around us that could change the rules of the game? When done well, a PESTLE analysis produces several concrete outputs that feed directly into strategic planning. First, it generates a set of assumptions you'll need to validate before moving forward with major decisions. Second, it identifies risks worth monitoring on an ongoing basis, complete with early warning indicators. Third, it highlights opportunities that might otherwise remain invisible because they exist outside your immediate competitive field of vision. And fourth, it provides the raw material for scenario planning, helping you stress-test strategies against plausible futures rather than a single optimistic forecast. In practical terms, PESTLE informs decisions like whether to enter a new geographic market, how to price products in an inflationary environment, which regulatory shifts might affect your [product roadmap](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/is-it-time-to-switch-from-feature-to-outcome-driven-product-roadmaps/), and where to locate supply chain operations. It's the contextual layer that makes those decisions more robust. Without it, you're essentially planning in a vacuum, assuming the external environment will remain static. It rarely does. ## PESTLE in practice: the end-to-end workflow (data → insights → decisions) Understanding the six PESTLE factors is one thing. Actually running the analysis from start to finish is another. Here's a practical workflow that takes you from initial scoping through to strategic action, with clear outputs at each stage. ### Step 1: Define your scope and strategic question. Before gathering any data, clarify what decision this analysis will inform. Are you evaluating a market entry? Assessing risk for an existing product line? The scope determines which factors deserve the most attention. **Output:** a one-paragraph scope statement and 2-3 specific questions you need answered. **Owner:** Strategy lead. **Time:** 1-2 hours. ### Step 2: Identify your sources by factor. For each PESTLE category, map out where you'll find reliable information. Political and legal factors often require government publications, regulatory filings, and policy analysis from think tanks. Economic data comes from central banks, industry associations, and financial news. [Social trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-social-media-to-create-a-competitive-advantage/) emerge from demographic reports, [consumer research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/), and [media analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/). Technological shifts surface in patent filings, industry publications, and analyst reports. Environmental factors draw from sustainability reports, scientific publications, and regulatory guidance. **Output:** a source matrix with 3-5 sources per factor. **Owner:** Research analyst. **Time:** 2-4 hours. ### Step 3: Gather primary and secondary data. Secondary research forms your foundation, but don't neglect internal subject matter experts. Your sales team knows what customers are saying about regulatory concerns. Your operations team understands supply chain vulnerabilities. Conduct brief [interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-advanced-interview-techniques-to-unlock-true-win-loss-insights/) to supplement desk research. **Output:** raw data organized by factor. **Owner:** Research analyst with SME input. **Time:** 1-2 weeks depending on scope. ### Step 4: Analyze and rate each factor. For every trend or force you've identified, assess two dimensions: likelihood of occurrence and potential impact on your business. A simple high-medium-low rating works, though some teams prefer numerical scales. The goal is [prioritization](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-30-in-30-interviews-to-identify-and-prioritize-ci-requirements-at-freshworks/), not precision. **Output:** a rated factor list with brief rationale for each rating. **Owner:** Cross-functional team. **Time:** half-day workshop. ### Step 5: Identify leading indicators. For your highest-priority factors, determine what signals would tell you the situation is changing. If regulatory risk is high, what specific legislative actions would you monitor? If economic conditions matter, which metrics serve as early warnings? **Output:** a monitoring dashboard with 2-3 indicators per priority factor. **Owner:** CI or strategy team. **Time:** 2-3 hours. ### Step 6: Convert findings into strategic implications. This is where analysis becomes actionable. Translate your prioritized factors into three categories: initiatives to pursue, assumptions to validate, and risks to mitigate. Each should connect directly to your original strategic question. **Output:** a one-page implications summary. **Owner:** Strategy lead. **Time:** 2-4 hours. ### Step 7: Integrate into planning and establish refresh cadence. PESTLE isn't a one-time exercise. Determine how often you'll revisit the analysis, typically quarterly for fast-moving industries or annually for more stable environments. Assign ownership for ongoing monitoring. **Output:** integration into strategic planning calendar. **Owner:** Strategy lead. **Time:** 1 hour. ****You're done when you can answer three questions:** What external forces most affect our strategic options? What would tell us those forces are shifting? And what are we going to do about it? ## The six components of PESTLE analysis ### PESTLE at a glance: letters and the key question to ask Before diving into the details of each factor, it helps to have a quick reference that captures what each letter represents and the core strategic question it addresses. Think of this as your mental checklist when scanning the external environment. | Letter | Factor | Key question | | ------ | ------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | P | Political | What government actions or political shifts could change the rules of the game for our industry? | | E | Economic | How might macroeconomic conditions affect our costs, pricing power, and customer demand? | | S | Social | What demographic trends or cultural shifts could alter who buys from us and why? | | T | Technological | Which emerging technologies could disrupt our operations, products, or competitive position? | | L | Legal | What current or pending legislation could constrain or enable how we do business? | | E | Environmental | How do physical environment factors and sustainability pressures affect our operations and market? | Each question serves as a starting point for deeper investigation. The political question, for instance, prompts you to consider not just current government policies but also the stability of those policies and the likelihood of change. The economic question pushes beyond headline GDP figures to examine the specific economic forces that touch your business model. Notice that these questions all share a common structure: they focus on external forces and their potential impact on your organization. They don't ask about your internal strengths or weaknesses. They don't compare you to competitors. They examine the broader environment in which all players operate. Now let's unpack each factor in detail, exploring the specific considerations and examples that bring these questions to life in practice. ### The six components PESTLE analysis has you break down the external factors that impact your organization into six categories. When performing the analysis, you’ll consider how the current state of each of these buckets might impact your business, its profitability, and its prospects in the short and long term. **Let’s examine each one in detail:** 1. [Political factors.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/#political-factors) 2. [Economic factors.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/#economic-factors) 3. [Social factors.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/#social-factors) 4. [Technological factors.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/#technological-factors) 5. [Legal factors.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/#legal-factors) 6. [Environmental factors.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/#environmental-factors) ### Political factors Political factors encompass everything from government policies to political unrest. If one country’s government doesn’t see eye-to-eye with the government of another, this might affect your decisions on whether to do business internationally with suppliers located in that country. As another example, the breakdown of relations between governments can lead to changes in international trade policy. These changes might make it harder for you to sell your products overseas. The relative political stability of a country also matters. An organization looking to go multinational is unlikely to choose to set up a sister office in a country dogged by political unrest. **Consider:** - Presence and strength of international trade agreements. - Governmental policy incentivizing or limiting business activity. - Political unrest vs. political stability. #### EU vs USA: political and legal context considerations When conducting a PESTLE analysis for organizations operating across the Atlantic, the political and legal factors require distinct treatment for each jurisdiction. The governance structures, regulatory philosophies, and enforcement approaches differ substantially, and these differences shape the questions you need to ask. **Political context comparison:** | Dimension | European Union | United States | Strategic implication | | ---------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Governance structure | Multi-level: EU institutions set directives, member states implement with variation | Federal system with significant state-level autonomy | In the EU, monitor both Brussels and key member states; in the US, track federal and relevant state governments | | Policy stability | Generally slower to change due to consensus requirements across 27 members | Can shift more rapidly with administration changes | EU policies tend to be more predictable once enacted; US policies may reverse with elections | | Trade policy | Unified external trade policy through EU Commission | Federal trade policy with some state-level trade offices | Single point of contact for EU trade matters; more fragmented US landscape | | Political risk profile | Lower risk of dramatic policy shifts; higher risk of regulatory complexity | Higher risk of policy reversals; simpler regulatory structure in some areas | Plan for regulatory compliance costs in EU; plan for policy scenario flexibility in US | **Legal and regulatory comparison:** | Dimension | European Union | United States | Strategic implication | | --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Regulatory approach | Precautionary principle: prove safety before market entry | Generally permissive: regulate after problems emerge | EU market entry often requires more upfront compliance investment | | Data protection | GDPR applies uniformly with substantial penalties | Patchwork of federal and state laws; CCPA in California, others emerging | EU requires comprehensive data compliance; US requires jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction assessment | | Labor law | Strong worker protections, works councils, termination restrictions | At-will employment in most states, fewer federal protections | EU operations require different HR practices and cost structures | | Antitrust enforcement | Aggressive enforcement, particularly on tech and market dominance | Historically less aggressive, though increasing scrutiny | EU more likely to challenge mergers and market practices | | Product liability | Harmonized through EU directives | State-level variation, class action exposure | US litigation risk often higher; EU compliance requirements often stricter | **Questions to ask your counsel and compliance team:** For EU operations, clarify which member states have additional requirements beyond EU directives, how enforcement varies across jurisdictions, and what the timeline looks like for upcoming regulatory changes. For US operations, determine which state laws apply to your activities, how federal agency priorities might shift with political changes, and what litigation exposure exists in your sector. The key insight here is that neither jurisdiction is simply more or less favorable. They present different risk profiles and require different compliance strategies. Your PESTLE analysis should capture these distinctions rather than treating political and legal factors as uniform across geographies. ### Economic factors PESTLE’s Economic category concerns everything to do with the economy of your own country, countries you do business with, and countries where a large percentage of your [target market ](https://www.revenuemarketingalliance.com/what-is-targeting-in-marketing/)resides. For example, fluctuating exchange rates should be of particular interest. If your organization is in the U.S., and you do frequent business with the United Kingdom, the strength or weakness of the GBP/USD exchange rate will impact your business decisions (and your bottom line.) The economic policy of any country of interest, decided by their Central Bank, might also factor into your strategic plans. Interest rate hikes attract money from overseas, but also affect consumer attitudes toward spending. Also, if labor is cheap in another country, or you can source crucial materials more affordably there, it might serve as a cost-effective base of operations for you. Planning to open up shop there could be a great strategic decision. **Here’s a short list of economic factors to consider:** - Strength/weakness of relevant currencies. - Inflation and interest rates. - Labor costs. - Unemployment rates. - Economic growth vs. recession. --- [What is targeting in marketing?Unlock marketing success with precision targeting! Dive into demographics, geography, behavior, and more. Tailor your strategy and connect with your audience like never before.![](https://www.revenuemarketingalliance.com/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/07/Revenue-Marketing-Alliance-favicon.png)Revenue Marketing AllianceCharley Gale![](https://www.revenuemarketingalliance.com/content/images/size/w1200/2024/01/what-is-targeting-in-marketing.jpg)](https://www.revenuemarketingalliance.com/what-is-targeting-in-marketing/) --- ### Social factors The court of public opinion matters. It decides what’s in or out of favor at that moment. If you’re caught up in controversy and the public’s judgment doesn’t fall in your favor, wider consumer attitudes towards your brand, your products, and, ultimately, your bottom line are bound to be affected. You can take a more granular approach to the social factors of a PESTLE analysis by incorporating what you already know about your [established market segments ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/four-types-of-market-segmentation/). For example, factors like level of education, age, and disposable income can influence who you decide to market to most heavily. Or whether there are specific times of the month or year when certain [market segments](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-market-segmentation/) are most open to receiving your messaging and spending with you. **Other social factors to consider include:** - Accepted norms vs. taboos. - Immigration and emigration, and what that means for your targetable demographics. - Levels of unemployment. - Social mobility and associated beliefs. --- [The Only Four Types of Market Segmentation You Need to KnowOf all the possible ways you can segment your market, there are four that have stood the test of time. When intelligently combined, these segmentation methods make for effective, insightful segments with high ROI and strong predictive power.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/jason-leung-D4YrzSwyIEc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/four-types-of-market-segmentation/) --- ### Technological factors We all know it: Technology has the power to disrupt. It can change entire industries, render entire job roles obsolete, and make the once-impossible possible. New technologies can help you, or they can hurt you. They can [automate processes ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ways-to-increase-revenue-marketing-automation/), making your entire operation more efficient. Or they can offer high-tech alternatives that leave your products and services obsolete in the eyes of the consumer. So they should certainly factor into your strategic planning sessions. But, since new technology is inherently unpredictable, it’s difficult to make accurate predictions. So here’s how to approach this: Of all the infinite things that *could* happen, what finite selection of these things is *most likely* to happen? In addition, what one or two other things, though unlikely, would be so catastrophic (or miraculous, when they constitute opportunities rather than threats) should they occur, that you’d be mad not to give them a place in your plan? Deal with *these things*. **Here are some technological factors to consider in your PESTLE analysis:** - Emergence of new technologies and how they might affect the ways you do business. - Technology that enables vs. technology that inhibits or challenges. - Software vs. hardware advancements. - Consumer technology devices and usage. ### Legal factors The legal factors in a PESTLE analysis are those that influence how you run your business and, as a result, your associated costs and profitability. Legislative bodies can pass laws that, for example, make it harder for you to break into a new industry. Your products might suddenly need to pass stringent tests before they can go to market, for instance. Creating models capable of passing those more stringent tests can be expensive. Or, a new law could make it hard or impossible for you to market to a certain group of people who’ve so far made up the majority of your target demographic. **Here are some legal factors to consider during your analysis:** - Laws that limit or enable competition and competitive diversity. - Health & safety legislation that might affect your responsibilities to your employees or customers. - Laws on compensation requirements (like the minimum wage). - Antitrust laws. - Data protection laws. - Advertising standards. 💡 Unlock expert templates, frameworks, and insider content from industry giants like Google and Amazon, right at your fingertips. [Become an Insider member today. ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/) ### Environmental factors Finally, we come to the environmental factors. Here’s an example: Solar panel manufacturers are much more likely to have success in sunny states like Nevada or California than in Washington. In fact, this manufacturer might deprioritize entire countries, like the infamously overcast U.K., in favor of sunnier locales. The potential for natural disasters might also factor in. Areas that experience a lot of earthquakes might make up the entire target market for an organization that specializes in building earthquake-safe structures. But this org might not have a presence at all in countries that never experience earthquakes. Other considerations, like waste management and emissions, as well as related taxation or incentives, should factor into your strategic plans. **Here’s a short list of other possible environmental factors to think about:** - The potential for natural disasters in or near a place of business. - Prevalence and emergence of disease (possible and actual). - Sustainability responsibilities, such as recycling and waste management, or emissions targets and related taxation or incentives. - Concern for endangered species and all wildlife. ## Common PESTLE mistakes (and how to avoid them) Even experienced analysts stumble when conducting PESTLE analyses. The framework seems straightforward, but several common pitfalls can undermine its value. Here's what to watch for and how to course-correct. ### Mistake 1: Listing without prioritizing. Teams often generate exhaustive lists of factors without distinguishing between what matters and what's merely interesting. **Why it hurts:** decision-makers get overwhelmed and the analysis fails to guide action. **What to do instead:** rate every factor on impact and likelihood, then focus your strategic response on the top five to seven items. ### Mistake 2: Confusing trends with opinions. It's easy to include factors that reflect personal beliefs rather than documented evidence. **Why it hurts:** the analysis becomes unreliable and loses credibility with stakeholders. **What to do instead:** require a source citation for every factor included, and distinguish clearly between established [trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-trend-analysis/) and emerging signals. ### Mistake 3: Mixing internal issues into external analysis. PESTLE examines the macro environment, not your organization's capabilities or competitive position. **Why it hurts:** it muddles the framework's purpose and creates confusion when integrating with other tools like [SWOT](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-explained/). **What to do instead:** if something relates to your internal operations, move it to a separate analysis. ### Mistake 4: Treating PESTLE as a one-time exercise. The external environment shifts constantly. An analysis conducted eighteen months ago may no longer reflect current reality. **Why it hurts:** strategic plans based on outdated assumptions lead to poor decisions. **What to do instead:** establish a refresh cadence, quarterly for volatile industries or annually for stable ones, and assign clear ownership for monitoring. ### Mistake 5: Failing to connect insights to decisions. A beautifully formatted PESTLE document that sits in a shared drive unused is a waste of effort. **Why it hurts:** the analysis consumes resources without delivering value. **What to do instead:** end every PESTLE with explicit implications, stating what initiatives to pursue, what assumptions to validate, and what risks to mitigate. ### Mistake 6: Ignoring factor interdependencies. Political decisions affect economic conditions. Technological shifts create legal questions. Environmental pressures drive social attitudes. **Why it hurts:** analyzing factors in isolation misses the compound effects that often matter most. **What to do instead:** after completing individual factor analysis, spend time mapping connections between your highest-priority items. ### Mistake 7: Assigning the wrong owner. PESTLE requires cross-functional input, but someone needs to drive the process and maintain the document. **Why it hurts:** without clear ownership, the analysis becomes fragmented or abandoned. **What to do instead:** designate a single owner, typically in strategy or competitive intelligence, with explicit responsibility for coordination and updates. ### Mistake 8: Scope creep. Trying to analyze every possible market, region, or scenario in a single PESTLE creates an unwieldy document that serves no one well. **Why it hurts:** the analysis becomes too broad to be actionable. **What to do instead:** define a clear scope upfront and create separate analyses for distinct strategic questions. **Quality bar checklist:** Before finalizing your PESTLE, confirm that every factor has a source, ratings reflect team consensus rather than individual opinion, the top priorities connect to specific strategic actions, and an owner is assigned for ongoing monitoring. ### How long should a PESTLE take? For a focused scope, expect two to three weeks from kickoff to final document, including data gathering, team workshops, and write-up. Rushing the process typically produces superficial analysis, while extending it indefinitely suggests scope creep or unclear objectives. ## PESTLE analysis: advantages and disadvantages We’ve covered a lot so far already. Before we get stuck into how to actually perform one, it’s worth briefly going over some of PESTLE analysis’ core strengths and weaknesses. This will help you decide when it’s appropriate to use it, ### What are the advantages of PESTLE analysis? - Goes in-depth on external macro factors that can play into longer-term industry trends. - Provides context on your strategic business decisions. - Helps you identify both threats *and* opportunities in your competitive landscape. - Fits neatly into other frameworks, like [SWOT analysis ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/), for examination of external factors. ### What are the disadvantages of PESTLE analysis? - Only deals with external factors. - Combine with other frameworks, like SWOT analysis, for best results. - Difficult to perform. How do you foresee all the possible factors? What if you miss something? - Won’t help you identify existing blind spots, which can render your analysis less effective. --- [5 SWOT Analysis Benefits (and 4 Limitations)The SWOT analysis framework has its benefits, but it also has its fair share of detractors and limitations. Here they are according to our experts.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/08/carlos-alberto-gomez-iniguez-jqiAU_JQGyk-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/) --- ## How to do a PESTLE analysis Okay, so we’re familiar with each of PESTLE’s buckets, and what might factor into each one. What does the process for performing a PESTLE analysis actually look like? The good news is, the process for performing PESTLE analysis is much the same as for performing any kind of [competitive analysis ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/)or for [facilitating strategic planning ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-facilitate-a-strategic-planning-session/). **Here’s the seven-step process:** 1. [Establish goals and objectives.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/#1-establish-goals-and-objectives) 2. [Prepare.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/#2-prepare) 3. [Collect data.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/#3-collect-data) 4. [Analyze collected data.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/#4-analyze-your-data) 5. [Create a response plan.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/#5-create-a-response-plan) 6. [Operationalize and action your strategic plan.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/#6-operationalize-and-action-your-strategic-plan) 7. [Monitor and adjust.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/#7-monitor-and-adjust) ### 1) Establish goals and objectives As with any analysis, your first step is to get crystal clear on what it is you want to accomplish. Are you trying to establish a competitive advantage? If so, you’ll be interested in the opportunities and threats your competitive environment has to offer. PESTLE analysis can clarify where these lie, and how to exploit them. Are you trying to get a handle on where the market might be headed? Brainstorming through the six components of PESTLE analysis can help you get ahead of [industry trends ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-trend-analysis/)and anticipate key market events. Getting clear on your primary objectives as your first step will inform the rest of your analysis, so don’t skip this part. ### 2) Prepare Next up, it’s time to prepare. Any analysis like this is time-consuming. While you *can* perform PESTLE analysis in microcosm – brainstorming on your own – you’ll get the best results if you involve people or teams from across the business, even if only in a small way. And if you’re involving a lot of other people, you’ll need to be respectful of their time, which means figuring out an efficient way to canvass them all and get their input. [Interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-advanced-interview-techniques-to-unlock-true-win-loss-insights/), [surveys](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-prioritize-your-competitors/), and even a general call out on Slack or Teams for input can work. **At this point, you’ll want to take care of tasks like:** - Gauging interest and availability for interviews or meetings. - Booking out meeting rooms. - Sending out calendar invites. - Deciding on questions and creating survey forms. - Sending necessary messages. - Creating and assigning other miscellaneous tasks. 💡 It pays to have brainstormed through the PESTLE analysis on your own first. This way, you’ll have more to offer, and will feel more at ease leading any sessions. ### 3) Collect data Now it’s time to collect the data. If you’ve got time, collecting case studies is a hugely useful exercise. Records of specific events in the recent past, and how they affected your org (or another organization you or someone else used to work at) make for great learning opportunities and will help you forecast future events. By this point, everything should be set up, so all that’s left for you to do is ask your questions, hold your meetings, and collect the necessary data. ### 4) Analyze your data With your data collected, it’s time for the actual analysis to begin. The goal here is first to process all of your information, and then to tease out meaningful conclusions. You’re looking to answer this question: **What do your findings mean for your business?** Chances are, much of the data you collect will be text-based… but – wait! You don’t have to do all the data processing yourself. Remember, just as technology can disrupt, it can also enable. [Generative AI ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-chatgpt-for-competitive-intelligence-assistant/)is the perfect tool here for helping you whip through text data, structured data, and even numeric data at super speeds. **Here’s an example workflow:** 1. Have an automated transcription tool note down everything said in all your meetings. 2. Offload it to your chat-based AI of choice for aggregation, deduplication, and summarization. 3. Your AI tool already knows what PESTLE analysis is, so ask it to run one on the information you’ve given it. Your AI’s conclusions can serve as the basis of your own analysis, or as a handy second opinion, depending on how much you trust AI tools. ⛔ WARNING: Read your AI tool’s small print. If you’ve got any proprietary data related to your business, be careful before you feed it in. The Ts and Cs for many of these tools say any information you provide gets fed straight into the large language model (LLM) as training data. That means the AI, accessible by billions of people, knows and can share proprietary information about your business. ***Note:** *The solution is to run your own AI agent. You can use AutoGPT, or some other GPT-4-based offshoot of ChatGPT for this. Other mainstream chat-based AI tools do promise to keep the data you feed them private. Trust them if you wish.* Whether you use AI, a human assistant, or your own brainpower to digest all that intel, you end this step when you’ve pored over everything, and drawn meaningful conclusions about what it all means for your org. ### 5) Create a response plan Now that you know what your findings mean for your business, you can figure out what to do about them. While the data gathering and [data analysis ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/most-valuable-data-for-your-business/)parts of the process are time intensive, it’s perhaps *this* step that’s most important. Your response plan should be based on your conclusions about what the data you’ve uncovered means for your business. And, of course, this should be informed by, and aligned with, the key objective for the analysis you outlined right at the start. For any decisive conclusions you’ve reached (like opportunities, or looming threats you need to address), figure out what needs to be done and break this down into a series of actionable steps. These action points form the basis of the next stage… ### 6) Operationalize and action your strategic plan So you know what needs doing. All that’s left is to translate your steps into your project management software. This way, everything gets tracked. Every task has its details and an assigned owner. Build project boards where necessary with dependencies between tasks, so there’s visibility into any issues or blockers. For more on this, check out: [How to operationalize a strategic plan](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-operationalize-strategic-plan/). ### 7) Monitor and adjust No plan can be perfect. So build flexibility into the plan as a core feature from the start. Don’t make your plan, its due dates, its action steps so rigid the whole thing falls apart if a prediction doesn’t come to pass, or a primary deadline gets missed. Monitor the progress and effectiveness of your strategic plan as time passes. Accept it, with all its imperfections, and make the necessary adjustments to maximize your competitive advantage and exploit every possible market opportunity. ## PESTLE vs. Porter's Five Forces: Which should you use (and when)? Here's the thing that trips up a lot of analysts: PESTLE and [Porter's Five Forces ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/porters-five-forces-explained-template/)both examine external factors, but they're answering fundamentally different questions. PESTLE scans the macro environment – the broad political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental forces that shape entire markets. Porter's Five Forces, on the other hand, zooms in on industry structure and competitive dynamics – supplier power, buyer power, competitive rivalry, threat of substitutes, and barriers to entry. One tells you about the weather; the other tells you who else is in the race. [How to Run a Porter’s Five Forces Analysis SessionRunning a business analysis using Porter’s Five Forces (P5F) is an exciting opportunity to dig deeper into your customers’ motivations and behaviors. It’s a great way to gain new insights into your business, and it’s often used in strategic planning.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-109.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceLJ Barnum![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Framework_Tiles_porters_5_forces.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-run-a-porters-five-forces-analysis-session/) So when do you reach for each tool? Use PESTLE when you're evaluating market entry timing, geographic expansion, or regulatory shifts that could reshape demand before you even compete. It's your early-warning system for macro disruption. Use Porter's Five Forces when you need to understand competitive intensity, pricing power, and margin structure within a specific industry. It helps you answer questions like: Can we actually make money here? How defensible is our position? Here's a quick decision guide: | Question you're answering | Use PESTLE | Use Five Forces | | ---------------------------------------------- | ---------- | --------------- | | Will new regulations affect market viability? | ✓ | | | How intense is rivalry among existing players? | | ✓ | | Are demographic shifts creating new demand? | ✓ | | | Do suppliers have leverage over pricing? | | ✓ | | Could economic downturns shrink the market? | ✓ | | | Are there high barriers protecting incumbents? | | ✓ | In practice, the most robust analysis uses both sequentially. Start with PESTLE to understand whether the macro environment is favorable, then apply Five Forces to assess whether you can compete profitably within that environment. From there, feed your findings into SWOT to translate external insights into strategic options. The sequence (PESTLE → Five Forces → SWOT) gives you a complete picture: macro context, industry dynamics, and your organization's position relative to both. --- ## TL;DR Phew. 😮‍💨 We’ve covered a lot… let’s sum up! 🌍 PESTLE analysis sees you examine six external macro factors (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental) that affect your organization. The framework helps provide context for your strategic planning and business decision-making. 💰 For economic factors, keep an eye on exchange rates, inflation, interest rates, labor costs, and economic policies. They can directly influence your bottom line. 🧲 Remember that new technology can help, or it can hurt. Ask yourself whether any emerging technologies could automate your processes, or otherwise save you costs. 💼 When performing a PESTLE analysis, begin with the end in mind. Figure out where you want to get to before you start, and consider employing an AI tool to help you digest all that data. [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### How AI and automation are transforming competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-ai-and-automation-are-transforming-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2026-02-24T12:00:17.000Z As a competitive intelligence professional, your job is to [deliver valuable insights that guide strategic decisions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-present-competitive-intelligence-insights-to-leadership-without-losing-them/), but those insights are often buried in financial reports, patent filings, press releases, social media posts, and job postings. With markets shifting so quickly, trying to monitor everything manually isn’t just inefficient – it’s impossible. While traditional strategic analysis platforms can help you get a read on your competitors, they’re usually slow and inflexible. This disconnect between collecting data and acting on it leaves room for errors. You need a tool that can streamline your work without cutting corners. That tool is [**artificial intelligence**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-at-work/). To see how AI can cut through the noise, you must learn first about its core processes and practical uses. This guide will cover that, plus actionable tips to help you get started and succeed. ## Overcoming strategic analysis challenges with AI Today’s markets move faster than ever, and it’s tough to keep pace. Collecting, verifying, synthesizing, and [reporting on new developments](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-present-competitive-intelligence-for-maximum-impact/?%5Fgl=1%2A1ouuxi4%2A%5Fup%2AMQ..%2A%5Fga%2AMTgwMzgwNzU5Ni4xNzcxMzM0ODAw%2A%5Fga%5FPFVK9L5J31%2AczE3NzEzMzQ4MDAkbzEkZzAkdDE3NzEzMzQ4MDAkajYwJGwwJGgw) takes time. By the time you’re done, your window of opportunity may have already closed, or a threat could have become a reality. AI makes it easier to handle data overload, even if you’re short on staff. By automating workflows, this technology speeds up research and boosts efficiency. In fact, research shows it can decrease [evidence synthesis time](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/388569240%5FHow%5Fmuch%5Fcan%5Fwe%5Fsave%5Fby%5Fapplying%5Fartificial%5Fintelligence%5Fin%5Fevidence%5Fsynthesis%5FResults%5Ffrom%5Fa%5Fpragmatic%5Freview%5Fto%5Fquantify%5Fworkload%5Fefficiencies%5Fand%5Fcost%5Fsavings) by **over 50%**, which could lead to a labor reduction of **over 75%** compared to doing things by hand. You can also monitor many data sources at once, helping you spot trends much faster. With a large enough historical dataset, you can shift from reactive reporting to predictive forecasting. It’s the closest you can get to seeing the future. In a field this fast-paced, that speed and scale are critical. While up-front costs can be high, they often don’t compare to the expense of conventional monitoring tools. Plus, AI can deliver a significant return on investment. With the potential to [increase revenue](https://www.janek.com/blog/4-sales-trends-to-watch-in-2024/) by **up to 15%**, your company could see a return of 10% to 20%. That means your company would profit 20 cents for every dollar it invests. AI and automation can help you identify critical threats and opportunities before they’re even on your radar. Strategically implement these technologies to ensure they become powerful assets in [your competitive toolkit](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-intelligence-tools-tech-stack/), giving you a major advantage over time. ## How AI and automation transform competitive intelligence So, how exactly are AI and automation transforming competitive intelligence? The answer lies in their underlying processes – [natural language processing](https://www.aiacceleratorinstitute.com/from-data-driven-to-ai-powered-organization-unleash-the-power-of-data-analytics-with-ai/#%3Cstrong%3Enatural-language-processing%3C/strong%3E), pattern recognition, and predictive analytics. ### Automation speeds up insight generation By automating with AI, you can track data from multiple sources in real time. Machine learning models are the perfect employee – they don’t get tired, take breaks, or need time off. They can run at full speed 24/7, making sure leaders never miss critical insights. Their capabilities go far beyond what humans can reasonably monitor. ### Plain language simplifies verification With natural language processing, AI can tell the difference between a routine press release and a high-impact report. For example, it can analyze reviews to tell if a competitor’s product has a serious flaw or a feature everyone loves. Once the AI identifies key trends, it can deliver reports in simple, plain language, so you don’t have to sift through jumbled data sources. ### Pattern recognition uncovers trends Pattern recognition is another game-changing AI feature. Models can automatically connect the dots between seemingly unrelated events that human analysts might miss. For instance, say a competitor files a new patent and ramps up recruiting efforts right after quietly acquiring a small startup. An algorithm could flag these events as being connected.Instead of just gathering information, it synthesizes different details to create a fuller picture. ### Predictive analytics forecasts change AI can even give businesses a glimpse into the future. Using predictive analytics, it can forecast a competitor’s next moves by processing huge volumes of historical and near-real-time data. This allows you to keep up with rapidly changing markets. For example, AI can analyze pricing data to find the best time to [raise prices](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-five-step-playbook-for-successfully-raising-prices/) or launch a sale. The real-world impacts are far-reaching. Studies show that AI-powered predictive analytics [help companies make better decisions](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/388652778%5FPredictive%5FAnalytics%5Fin%5FBusiness%5FLeveraging%5FAI%5Ffor%5FCompetitive%5FAdvantage-%5FIPE%5FJournal%5Fof%5FManagement%5F-UGC%5FCare%5FListed), respond faster to market shifts, and reduce operational risks. It offers agility and precision that conventional tools just can’t match. ## Which type of AI will best meet your needs? You can use narrow, task-specific AI for well-defined jobs, like behavior analysis, image recognition, data entry, or even strategy recommendations. Common examples include chatbots, virtual assistants, recommendation engines, and algorithmic recognition systems. For more complex multitasking, advanced AI models like [large language models (LLMs)](https://www.aiacceleratorinstitute.com/unlocking-your-retail-insights-with-llms/) and neural networks are a better fit. While their capabilities are technically on par with human intelligence, they operate at a much higher level – processing information faster and producing more accurate insights. These advanced models can apply their knowledge to a wide range of tasks, making them flexible enough to adapt as markets change. However, they aren’t perfect. Most LLMs [achieve 85% to 90% accuracy](https://medium.com/@AlignX%5FAI/enterprise-ai-agents-with-100-percent-accuracy-aaced03902b7) on complex tasks, but a 10% to 15% error rate is still significant. Typically, only hybrid or highly specialized, domain-specific models can get close to 100%. If you want to start using AI for competitive intelligence right away, consider an off-the-shelf LLM from a provider like [OpenAI](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/chatgpt-how-to-lose-your-job-and-gain-a-colleague/), Anthropic, or Google. These models usually come with a recurring subscription and APIs. The alternative is to build a custom solution from scratch. It will cost more up front and require you to handle maintenance, but the final product will be entirely yours. ## Practical tips on integrating AI into competitive intelligence To figure out where AI fits into your workflow, you’ll first need to decide on your goals. Will you use it for data collection, processing, verification, analysis, or summarization? Will it work behind the scenes or in a user-facing role? There’s a lot to think about, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. While automation is great, you can have too much of a good thing. Don’t remove humans from your workflows entirely. Human creativity and critical thinking are still invaluable, as people can understand nuance far better than any LLM. Think of [automation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ways-to-increase-revenue-marketing-automation/) as a way to free up your team to focus on what matters most. How employees adapt to new workflows will depend on the AI model they use and their level of training. Whether you choose an LLM, a graphical user interface agent, or a neural network, make sure to train users on best practices. This will boost efficiency and reduce errors from the start. How you plan to use the technology also matters. Some types of AI are better for in-depth research than others. One way to measure this is with the “needle-in-a-haystack” test, which checks how well a model can find specific information within a lot of text. [AI in product marketing & competitive intelligence: What you need to knowCI, PM, and AI are converging, reshaping how businesses approach strategy and sales.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-108.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceEdward Allison![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--10--2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-product-marketing-competitive-intelligence/) While research shows [LLMs achieve success rates](https://lego17440.medium.com/context-rot-the-hidden-vulnerability-in-ais-long-memory-afde1522c0c8) of **95% or more** in “needle-in-a-haystack” scenarios, their performance drops as low as **60%** on more realistic tasks. For example, they struggle to match related but differently worded concepts or to stay focused when inputs contain irrelevant information. Finally, you’ll need a good visualization and reporting framework. It’s not enough to just have the data – it needs to be easy to access and understand. Automation can help you map correlations, plot data, and pull information from multiple databases without adding to your team’s workload. You can even set up custom alerts for your top competitors. ## What tools will you need for implementation? Before you start, evaluate your current tech stack and workflows. Based on your budget and timeline, decide whether to retrofit your existing processes or build something new. ### Data collection and synthesis You can use tools such as **Brand24**, **Sprout Social**, **Feedly**, or **Google Alerts** to train your model on brand mentions, keywords, industry trends, and consumer sentiment. By finding and synthesizing up-to-date industry intelligence from across the web, these tools save you time and resources. Online resources like **Visualping** let you receive alerts when specific websites publish new articles, update action buttons or change featured content. This platform has an API for third-party integrations, allowing you to quickly connect AI agents and other apps, such as Notion, Zendesk, Slack, Microsoft Teams, or AWS. ### Data processing and analysis Before feeding any data to your AI, you need to clean and structure it. **Alteryx** is a cloud-native no-code data preparation platform that does this. **OpenRefine** is a free, open-source alternative with heuristic clustering, text faceting, and database reconciliation. These tools quickly clean, structure, and categorize datasets to prepare them for analysis. You can even integrate them into sentiment analysis or data summarization workflows to get insights. The specific process will depend on your model type and data collection method. ### Visualization and reporting After analysis, you need to present the output as clear, actionable insights. While [almost all data analysis tools](https://builtin.com/articles/ai-powered-data-visualization) include built-in AI capabilities, not all machine learning models have visualization and reporting functions. To access them, you may need additional software. You could use **Tableau**, a live data visualization tool for business intelligence. Using built-in connectors, you can enable the software to access additional databases and applications, such as Google Analytics, Jira, Oracle NetSuite, or Splunk. **Microsoft Power BI** is an alternative that may work better for you if your organization uses Microsoft 365\. ## Legal and ethical considerations Adopting AI isn’t without risks. Address legal and [ethical](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/three-frameworks-for-ethical-competitive-intelligence/) concerns early to reduce friction and minimize problems down the road. Since automation will change how your employees work, they should be your top priority. Many workers are nervous that AI could threaten their jobs. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests this technology [could significantly impact employment](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2025/article/incorporating-ai-impacts-in-bls-employment-projections.htm) in roles such as computer occupations, database administration, and software development. To ease employees’ concerns, talk openly with them. If they’re hesitant to share their thoughts, offer an anonymous feedback option. Using AI can also expose you to risk, so it’s important to have safeguards in place. Start by looking at where your AI gets its information. Training data must be accurate, relevant, unbiased, and legally acquired. Be careful that your AI doesn’t access stolen data or use deceptive tactics to get information from competitors. If you use a generative model, you also risk it being trained on copyrighted material, which could lead to legal trouble. Don’t let your model scrape the internet without any oversight. When does competitive intelligence cross the line into [corporate espionage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/#11-corporate-espionage-%F0%9F%99%85%E2%80%8D%E2%99%80%EF%B8%8F)? The best way to stay on the right side of that line is to keep humans in the loop. Having people trace and verify the AI’s output helps protect your company from legal liability. ## Navigating the next frontier for strategic analytics Competitive intelligence is entering a new era. With AI and automation, professionals can supercharge their analysis of market trends, customers, and competitors. However, implementation isn’t without its risks. While many organizations see big returns, success isn’t guaranteed. As you prepare your team for an automation-first future, think carefully about the potential drawbacks and opportunities. Becoming an early adopter can give you a competitive edge, but it’s important not to rush into it. ### Making ethical competitive intelligence work in practice URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/making-ethical-competitive-intelligence-work-in-practice/ Last updated: 2026-02-10T12:00:44.000Z What happens when [ethical competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/three-frameworks-for-ethical-competitive-intelligence) (CI) meets real-world pressure? The deal is on the line. Sales needs an answer now. A request comes in that lives in an ethical gray area – and everyone’s looking to you to figure it out. This is where your ethical CI practices are either reinforced or quietly undermined. Because guardrails only matter if they hold up when the stakes are high. To work in practice, ethical CI has to be built into everyday operations – supported by [the right tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-intelligence-tools-tech-stack/), clear expectations, and shared accountability. In this article, I’m going to show you how to make that happen. ## Making ethical CI a team sport If you want your competitive intelligence program to stick – and stay ethical – gathering intel the right way isn’t enough. You also need to [train your stakeholders](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-train-your-whole-company-on-competitive-intelligence-techniques-2/) to engage with it responsibly. Here are four tips to get you started. ### 1\. Set expectations with sales [Sales](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/build-a-better-ci-program-that-actually-increases-sales/) is the primary consumer of CI, and they’re often under pressure to win at all costs, which can lead to questionable asks. That’s why you need to be explicit about what’s allowed and what’s out of bounds. Train reps to bring clear business questions instead of open-ended requests for “anything you can find.” The goal is for sales to see you as a strategic enablement partner, not a shortcut to competitor gossip. ### 2\. Share your CI charter with leadership Executive buy-in matters. Don’t create a CI charter and let it live in a shared drive. Share it with leadership, include it in onboarding, and make it part of your operating model. If [executives](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-present-competitive-intelligence-insights-to-leadership-without-losing-them/) don’t know the boundaries, they can unintentionally push past them – and that puts you in a difficult position. The more visible your charter is, the more support you’ll have when it’s time to enforce it. ### 3\. Use real-life examples to teach ethical boundaries Principles are helpful, but stories stick. When you’re doing [competitive enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-enablement-best-practices/), share real, anonymized examples of requests that crossed the line and how you handled them. For example: > “A rep asked for a login to a competitor’s portal. We reframed the ask and gathered the intel the rep needed from public review sites.” These stories normalize ethical decision-making and reinforce that protecting the company matters as much as winning deals. ### 4\. Make ethical CI a shared responsibility CI shouldn’t feel like a black box. Build a culture where [sales, customer success](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/), and support teams know how they can contribute responsibly. Create a Slack or Teams channel and celebrate smart, ethical insights from the field. [CI works best when it’s collaborative](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-untapped-gold-mine-of-competitive-intelligence/) and disciplined. When it’s treated as a shared asset, the entire program gains credibility. ## The CI request intake form Here's a simple but powerful tactic for keeping your stakeholders on the straight and narrow: set up a competitive intelligence request intake form. Instead of fielding Slack messages, Teams messages, or hallway requests, route every CI ask through a structured system. This can live in a Google Form, Monday.com, Airtable, Asana, or whatever project management tool you already use. It doesn’t need to be fancy, but it does need to be intentional. At a minimum, your intake form should ask: - Who is making the request? - Which competitor are they focused on? - What type of intel are they looking for? - How will the intel be used? - Are there existing sources they can point to? This structure does more than help you [prioritize](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-30-in-30-interviews-to-identify-and-prioritize-ci-requirements-at-freshworks/) high-value requests. It creates a pause. When someone has to put an ask in writing, they’re more likely to reconsider if it crosses a line. That alone helps deter unethical requests and can highlight where additional enablement is needed. With a lightweight intake process in place, you protect your team’s time while building a scalable, ethical CI engine the business can rely on. ## Your ethical CI tech stack The right tools can help you [gather and share competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/collect-and-share-results/) in ways that are transparent, traceable, and compliant. Platforms like **Crayon**, **Klue**, and **Kompyte** let you centralize intel, track sources, and version battlecards – avoiding the chaos of scattered Google Docs and gut-driven guesses. Tools like **Gong** and **Chorus** are also powerful for capturing voice-of-customer insights ethically and at scale. Listening to your own sales calls can often surface as much competitive insight as chasing external intel. **CRM integrations**, such as **Salesforce plugins**, allow you to collect structured win/loss feedback at the deal level. That kind of consistent intake doesn’t just support competitive intelligence – it strengthens your broader go-to-market strategy. ## The ethical CI decision tree The biggest risks in competitive intelligence don’t come from malice – they come from speed. You’re moving fast, someone needs something urgent, and suddenly you’re operating in an ethical gray zone. Use this decision tree as your quick check for what’s safe, ethical, and legal: **1\. Was the source published publicly?** ✅ If it’s on a website, in a press release, or in a public webinar, you’re good to go. Use it, document it, and move forward. **2\. Do you need a login or to pretend to be a customer?** ❌ Hard stop. If access requires impersonation or crossing an ethical boundary, don’t do it. This is where legal lines get crossed, and reputations get damaged. I've seen people lose their jobs because they made the wrong choice here. **3\. Was it shared in a win/loss or customer interview?** **🤔** If it was shared voluntarily and the customer isn’t under an NDA with a competitor, you’re generally okay – but check. If you’re not sure, escalate to your leader or your legal team. **4\. Does it break any known NDAs or laws?** ❌ Don’t touch it. Protected content isn’t just unethical – it’s a liability, even if someone else hands it to you. **5\. Still unsure?** 🪜Escalate it. The goal isn’t to stop CI. It’s to do it responsibly. When in doubt, loop in your leader or legal. This framework is designed to protect your team, your company, and your personal integrity. When something feels off, run the decision tree, trust your gut, and escalate before it escalates on you. ## The bottom line Ethical competitive intelligence doesn’t succeed on intention alone. It succeeds when it’s built into how your organization works – how requests come in, how insights are shared, and how people behave when the pressure is on. Operationalizing ethical CI is about making the right choices repeatable. Clear expectations with sales. Visible leadership alignment. Practical tools that create pause, clarity, and consistency. Systems that protect your team while still enabling speed. When ethical CI is embedded into your processes, you don’t just respond faster – you respond with confidence. --- *This article is based on* [*Lanie Schenkelberg*](https://www.linkedin.com/in/laineschenkelberg/)*’s brilliant talk at the Competitive Intelligence Summit, 2025.* ### How to rapidly operationalize any strategic plan in 5 simple steps URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-operationalize-strategic-plan/ Last updated: 2026-01-30T17:00:38.000Z ## What does it mean to operationalize a strategic plan? Operationalizing a strategic plan means translating high-level strategic intent into **day-to-day execution**. It bridges the gap between *what an organization wants to achieve* and *what teams actually do every week*. A fully operationalized strategy ensures that: - Strategic objectives are clearly prioritized - Ownership is defined at team and individual level - Progress is tracked through measurable outcomes - Execution can adapt as market conditions change In modern organizations, strategy execution is no longer a one-time rollout. It is an **ongoing, adaptive process** that combines strategic planning, operational planning, performance measurement, and continuous feedback. > A strategic plan that isn’t operationalised becomes a static document — not a decision-making tool. ## Why traditional strategic plans fail in practice Many strategic plans fail not because the strategy is wrong, but because execution is disconnected from daily operations. Common failure points include: - Annual planning cycles that become outdated within months - Lack of clear accountability beyond senior leadership - Objectives that are too abstract to guide daily decisions - No regular cadence for reviewing progress or adjusting priorities In today’s environment — characterised by economic uncertainty, rapid technological change, and increased stakeholder scrutiny — organizations need **adaptive strategy execution**, not static plans. This is why modern strategic execution frameworks focus on: - Shorter planning and review cycles - Clear outcome-based metrics - Continuous alignment between strategy and operations ## What are the five stages of strategic planning? The five steps of strategic planning (which perhaps you followed to get to this point), look something like this: 1. Set out OKRs and mission objectives. 2. Gather and analyze intel. 3. Formulate a strategy. 4. Implement that strategy. 5. Monitor and adjust. **First,** you determine where you want to end up. On a large scale, ask yourself “*where is the organization headed?”.* **Second,** you take stock of where you’re at right now. You might perform a [competitive landscape analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/) to determine the state of your competitive environment. You might [conduct a SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/), or a hybrid of SWOT, PEST, and all the other four-letter acronyms you can think of. **Third,** you’ll formulate your strategy. That means putting together the building blocks of how you’re going to get from where you are now to where you want to be (as defined in step one with your OKRs and mission objectives). You’ll do that in light of what you learned in step two. **Fourth,** you’ll implement the strategy, carrying out the plan you formulated in the last step. **Finally,** you’ll monitor and evaluate progress as you go. (Note: when there's a lot on the line, it's also useful to pressure test your strategy against various unfavorable scenarios. [Business war games](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/) have you bring folks together from across the business to do just this.) ## How to operationalize your strategic plan in five steps Time to take action. Here are those steps again: 1. Determine the destination by mapping out OKRs and goals for the organization as a whole. 2. Set the course by developing an actionable plan to reach the goals you’ve set out. 3. Begin your journey by executing your plan. 4. Monitor your progress and adjust as necessary. 5. Wrap up the project with a recap and debrief. ### 1 - Determine the destination: map out OKRs and goals How big should your plan be? Keep it simple. Ambitious, but simple. Remember, too: the further into the future the plan gets, the less rigid it must be. Focus on the few things you can control in the near-time, and have faith that you and your team will be smart enough to handle inevitable bumps in the road. **First up:** develop a project charter, defining at a high level the work to be done. That means getting clear on the final destination, or the end goal for the project. Split this “final destination” into several OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) at this stage. With those in mind, map out the following: 1. **Create metrics to measure success.** You need KPIs to act as yardsticks of success on your way to meeting your OKRs. These should be realistic and achievable, and constitute measurable progress towards your laid out progress towards goals. 2. **Create key milestones.** Outline critical milestones in the project. This will help you gauge progress and help break down the plan into manageable seasons. With OKRs, metrics of success, and key milestones mapped out, you’ve already taken the first few concrete steps toward operationalizing your project. [Niche Competitive Advantage: Everything You Need to KnowNot every business has the resources to throw behind a global marketing campaign. Whether your business is large or small, resource-rich or on a budget, sometimes a niche competitive advantage is the best fit.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/jason-leung-3rq6DqLKakc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-competitive-advantage/) ### 2 - Set the course: develop an actionable plan Creating a great strategy is only one part of the problem. The real challenge is in the execution. Taking the plan from a mental exercise on the drawing board to a set of steps that people *can start getting done* is the essence of “operationalizing”. **You’re translating concepts for success into concrete steps.** 🕺 Though this part of the process doesn’t *fully* encapsulate what it is to develop an actionable plan, this is the section where the most work needs to take place to set up the rest of the project for success. For that reason, we’ve crammed this section with more advice than any other. #### Making your plan actionable So what should this plan look like? Remaining on the high-level for a second, you’re going to want to develop a budget for the overarching plan. A risk management plan too. However, the bulk of ‘*operationalizing’* is people-focused. Taking your plan from high-level strategy to low-level action points means focusing on the people involved. Start breaking things down into chunks to make the lofty goals more manageable. That means subprojects with their own timelines. Break these subprojects into tasks and subtasks, each with its assignees and collaborators, and clear guidance as to what success on the task looks like. Happily, you might notice this sounds familiar. That’s because you (probably) use project management software every day. If you do, figuring out how to get your strategy off the whiteboard and into your project management software—in a format that team members are already used to—is the goal. --- [How to Roll Out a Strategic Plan (To Guarantee Success)Building a strategic plan takes a lot of work. So when it comes time to put it into action, you want to get it right. But the truth is, an effective rollout starts during the planning process. Want to learn why? Stay tuned.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/andy-hermawan-O1jUvZX9DOA-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-roll-out-a-strategic-plan/) --- #### Avoiding the pitfalls But there are pitfalls. Think about the last time you were snapped out of flow-state by a notification for an administrative task with a due date of… today?! And you were making such good progress on that project. 😡 It’s frustrating, but it’s not just you that gets turned off by inconsiderate due dates and workloads. To get buy-in on this project for the long-term, you’ll need to work *with* other departments in a way that’s compassionate. If your managerial fur bristled at that, then remember *this* is the best way of getting what *you* want. So, what to do? Do some reconnaissance on your project’s future stakeholders. By now, you should have some sense of how much work will be required of each of them. Do they have the capacity to take on that much new work? If not, you’ll have to ask them to drop or delay some other project to get yours done. For that, you’ll need to speak with whomever they report to and agree on a reshuffling of their workload. #### Communicating the plan This brings us to communication. Communication, on the whole, is one of the most important parts of this process. Communicating with people ahead of time makes them feel more valued and prepares them for the work to come. It also gives them a chance to voice any concerns or grievances before they have a chance to fester. Meeting and communicating ahead of time gives *everyone* a chance to work together to set expectations around deadlines, workloads, and existing commitments. Not to mention a chance to chime in on what metrics and KPIs should be used to measure project success. When you can give people a clear ‘*reason why’* before they can ask, “What’s the point?”, they’ll be far more likely to push through mundane tasks in service of the overall effort. People tend to get lost in the weeds as large scale projects (like strategic plans) wear on. Consider what you’ll do to motivate the troops at key stages, reward big wins, mitigate failures, and learn all you can from the mishaps you can’t avoid. ### 3 - Begin your journey: execute your plan With everyone aware of what’s about to happen, and the plan in place, there’s nothing really left to do except… let it happen. As tasks roll into inboxes, teams will complete them, and your plan will already have begun its long march to victory. [Competitive Positioning: What It Is and Why It’s ImportantCompetitive positioning is the most effective type of positioning strategy in marketing. That’s because it takes the competitive environment, and the spaces your product is best placed to compete for within it, into full account.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/kevin-mueller-Q-fL04RhuMg-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) ### 4 - Weigh anchor: monitor your progress Of course, you can’t let the entire, multi-month process unfold on its own without *any* oversight at all. That’d be madness. 😉 Instead, you’ll want to perform ‘health checks’ at various milestones along the way (preferably a good few weeks before each critical juncture). This way, nothing takes you by surprise. Even with the wind in your sails, it pays to keep a hand on the rudder—to steer your ship as you sail it toward success. The scope of your project will guide how regularly you monitor, but it’s common sense to check-in with key individuals at regular intervals. Sparse cliff notes as updates in daily or weekly reports, a standup meeting perhaps bi-weekly, and then a more in-depth look once per month. Then, each quarter, take a deep dive with a rigorous, all-hands meeting. Finally, be sure to make any necessary adjustments in line with what you find from these health checks. --- #### How to measure strategic plan execution Operationalizing a strategic plan requires more than activity tracking. Success must be measured through **outcomes**, not effort. Effective strategic execution metrics typically include: - Outcome-based KPIs aligned to strategic objectives - Leading indicators that signal early success or risk - Lagging indicators that confirm long-term impact A clear measurement cadence is essential: - Weekly or bi-weekly operational check-ins - Monthly performance reviews - Quarterly strategic reviews Without a defined review rhythm, even well-designed strategies lose momentum. ### 5 - Bring the ship in: debrief and recap That’s it. You start with an overarching strategy and, once you’ve outlined the broad strokes of what you want to achieve and how you’re going to get there, you make the strategy actionable. A plan is made practical by making it about the *people*. Operationalizing is all about getting the various facets of your business pulling in the same direction towards a common goal. While, yes, that means integrating with your org’s favorite processes, tools, and software, it primarily involves communicating and working with the people who will be making your plan happen. That means outlining the necessary steps, tasks, timelines & deadlines, deliverables, and people responsible. Once the plan is made practical, you’ll launch the project and check in with key stakeholders more frequently, holding more in-depth meetings with the whole team less frequently, but before critical milestones. You’ll use what you learn from the mistakes you and the team make to improve the process, correct course, and continue making way to your destination. That process will guide you all the way to the finish line. 🏁 ## Final thoughts Operationalizing a strategic plan is not a one-off exercise. It is a continuous discipline that requires alignment, measurement, engagement, and adaptability. Organizations that treat strategy execution as an ongoing capability — rather than a yearly event — are better positioned to respond to change, deliver results, and sustain competitive advantage. --- ## FAQs ### **What does it mean to operationalize a strategic plan?** Operationalizing a strategic plan means converting strategic objectives into executable actions with clear ownership, timelines, and measurable outcomes. It ensures that strategy directly informs daily decisions and operational priorities. ### **Why do strategic plans often fail during execution?** Most strategic plans fail due to poor alignment between strategy and operations, unclear accountability, lack of measurable outcomes, and infrequent progress reviews. Execution fails when strategy is treated as a static document rather than an ongoing management process. ### **Who is responsible for operationalizing a strategic plan?** While senior leadership sets strategic direction, operationalizing the plan is a shared responsibility. Leadership provides priorities and resources, middle management translates strategy into operations, and teams execute while providing feedback. ### **What is the difference between strategy execution and operational planning?** Strategy execution focuses on delivering strategic outcomes over time, while operational planning defines the specific tasks, resources, and schedules required to support execution. Operational planning is a component of effective strategy execution. ### **How often should a strategic plan be reviewed or updated?** Most organizations review strategic plans quarterly, with more frequent operational check-ins. Regular reviews allow organisations to validate assumptions, track performance, and adjust execution based on changing conditions. ### **Can a strategic plan change after it has been launched?** Yes. Modern strategic planning assumes change. Effective organizations regularly adapt strategic priorities in response to market shifts, performance data, and emerging risks — without losing overall strategic direction. ### **What is continuous strategic planning?** Continuous strategic planning replaces rigid annual cycles with ongoing review and adjustment. It combines long-term strategic intent with short-term execution feedback to improve responsiveness and resilience. ### **How does operationalizing strategy differ in large vs small organisations?** Larger organizations require more formal governance and coordination, while smaller organizations benefit from faster decision-making. In both cases, clarity and accountability are critical. ### **How can AI support strategy execution?** AI can support strategy execution by summarising performance data, identifying patterns and risks, supporting forecasting, and improving decision-making speed — while human judgment remains essential. ### **Do digital dashboards improve strategic execution?** Yes. Dashboards improve transparency and alignment by making strategic priorities and performance visible across the organization, supporting faster and more informed decisions. ### Three frameworks for ethical competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/three-frameworks-for-ethical-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2026-01-20T12:00:13.000Z Have you ever received a request for [competitive intelligence (CI)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) that didn’t feel quite right? Maybe it was, “Just go get their [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/),” or, “See if you can find out what they’re launching next week.” These requests don’t usually come with malicious intentions. Sometimes they’re even framed as “just part of the job.” But if you’ve ever felt that uncomfortable pause while you do a quick gut check, you know exactly what I mean. I’m Lanie Schenkelberg, VP of Product Marketing at Inovalon, and I’ve spent about 16 years working in competitive intelligence. I started as a market research analyst, where CI was my bread and butter, so this topic is near and dear to my heart. Here’s what I’ve learned over the years: [ethical competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-ethics/) doesn’t get enough airtime. We spend plenty of time talking about intel gathering, battlecards, and win‑loss analysis, but far less time talking about what happens when a request crosses an invisible line. This article is about navigating those moments. What to do when they happen. How to protect yourself. How to operate within clear guardrails. And most importantly, how to lead with integrity in a role that’s often caught between pressure and principle. Because when you build ethical competitive intelligence systems, you create trust – and in today’s market, that trust is your true [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/). ## Why ethical CI matters now more than ever Let me paint you a picture of where we stand today. Product marketers overwhelmingly own competitive intelligence – nearly **80%** of us [are responsible for it](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-competitive-intelligence/#:~:text=In%20the%20our,at%20their%20company.), whether it’s formalized or not. But [sales is the number one consumer of that work](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-enablement-best-practices/#:~:text=Logic%20dictates%20that%20your%20sales%20reps%20want%20to%20use%20your%20enablement%20assets.%20In%20our%202022%20State%20of%20Competitive%20Enablement%20report%2C%2074.2%25%20of%20responding%20organizations%20said%20that%20sales%20was%20their%20primary%20user%20of%20CI.). So we’re doing the heavy lifting, while the value often gets realized downstream without clear attribution to our strategic efforts. This wouldn't be such a big deal if we were well-resourced. But many PMMs are under-resourced and under-supported, sometimes functioning as a team of one. That means competitive intelligence becomes one more responsibility piled on, not a dedicated strategic focus. [![State of competitive intelligence in product marketing infographic showing key challenges: PMMs own CI (78.6%), sales are primary consumers (74.2%), teams face resource constraints, data collection difficulties, increasing market competitiveness (88.8%), and declining internal sharing.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2026/01/data-src-image-652debe1-67f8-482a-938a-f9ccc8efe8df.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/three-frameworks-for-ethical-competitive-intelligence) All of this is happening in an increasingly competitive market. Almost **90%** of [PMMs say their industry is getting more competitive](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/state-of-competitive-enablement-2022/) – shorter deal cycles, crowded categories, and leaders pushing for sharper positioning. Even when we do gather strong insights, sharing them effectively remains a major hurdle. Silos are growing. Teams are protective of data. Without intentional enablement, insights sit in documents – or get repeated in multiple, misaligned versions. On top of that, data collection itself is getting harder, especially in SaaS, where today’s competitor could be tomorrow’s partner or acquirer. It’s not just about collecting facts. It’s about interpreting signals in a dynamic, often ambiguous landscape. This is the reality: product marketers own CI, [sales needs it yesterday](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/), resources are limited, and pressure is rising – which is exactly why ethical, strategic, and well-structured competitive intelligence matters more than ever. ## Your superpower isn't just gathering intel – it's doing it right The pressure on product marketers to deliver competitive intelligence is intense. Sales wants real-time intel to win deals. [Leadership wants strategic clarity](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/) to guide decisions. Everyone wants it fast. But here's the thing: that pressure isn't a burden. It's a signal. It's telling you just how critical your role is. The organization needs the intel you provide. The challenge is making sure that intel is credible, ethical, and scalable. That's where your superpower comes in. You don't just gather scraps from the internet. You create a system – one rooted in ethics, integrity, and insight. You use tools like a **competitive intelligence charter** to define the boundaries. You filter requests through the **traffic light system** and the **FAIR framework**. And instead of chasing gossip, you deliver reliable, insightful, boardroom-ready intelligence. When you do that, you become more than just the PMM responsible for competitive intelligence on top of a slew of other things. You become the trusted voice in the room – the person who enables deals, shapes strategy, and builds confidence across the organization. So, let’s dive into three frameworks that’ll help you gather intelligence the right way. ## Framework #1: The competitive intelligence charter One of the most important moves you can make is to create a competitive intelligence charter and get legal to sign off on it. Think of this as your CI program's terms and conditions. It's a clear, approved framework that defines what you will and won't do, and how your company conducts competitive intelligence ethically. This document protects you, and it gives you a professional, credible way to say no when somebody asks for something that crosses the line. Instead of debating, you simply say, “That's outside of our charter.” And if someone pushes, you can pull in legal and have that conversation together. Ideally, you create the charter before you need it – before the urgent sales request for confidential roadmap intel, before someone suggests you pretend to be a prospect and get a demo. If you don’t have a charter yet, build one now. It’s never too late. ### The five core components of your CI charter Your competitive intelligence charter should include five core components: 1. **Objectives:** Why are you doing competitive intelligence? What's it enabling? Who does it support? How does it [tie to revenue and strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-we-drove-1-2m-in-revenue-in-90-days/)? 2. **Scope:** What types of data will you gather and from where? Define acceptable sources (public sites, analyst reports, [win/loss interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-advanced-interview-techniques-to-unlock-true-win-loss-insights/)) and how you will *not* gather CI (e.g., by impersonating a prospect). 3. **Methods:** What's acceptable versus unacceptable? Use the traffic light framework outlined below. 4. **Roles:** Who can request intel? How should they do it? What's the intake process? 5. **Escalation:** If a request is questionable or pushes boundaries, where does it go next? Together, these elements give you clarity, consistency, and protection when navigating ethical gray zones. ## Framework #2: The traffic light framework The traffic light framework is one of the most practical tools for ethical competitive intelligence. It gives you a simple way to make fast, informed decisions – and the language to push back when something doesn’t feel right. ### 🟢 Green light practices These are fair game. These are publicly available [sources](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/), so you can use them without any legal review or hesitation. Examples include: - [Pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/decoding-competitor-pricing-intelligence/) pages on competitor websites - Publicly available analyst reports - G2 and TrustRadius [reviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-transform-customer-reviews-and-social-posts-into-actionable-competitive-intelligence/) - Job postings - Press releases - [Win/loss interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) from your own customers - Public webinars and demos These are the core of a strong, compliant CI program. They're useful, scalable, and risk-free. ### 🟡 Yellow light practices These activities require pause, context, and sometimes a review from your partners in legal before you can go ahead. For example: - **Feedback from former employees:** Yes, this feedback might be insightful, but you need to make sure it's anonymized and not subject to an NDA. - **Private LinkedIn, Slack, or Reddit communities:** Again, maybe valuable, but proceed carefully, especially if group access is restricted. - **Customer intel about competitors:** Was the customer under an NDA? If you're not sure, check. ### 🔴 Red light practices This is where we draw a hard line. Red light practices are not only unethical – they're often illegal and can result in real consequences for you and your company. These include: - Pretending to be a prospect to gain access to gated material - Using leaked or confidential documents - Encouraging customers to share NDA-protected info - Paying someone for insider info Even if it feels like everybody does it, don't. The reputational and legal risks are not worth it. When in doubt, use this framework alongside your charter. It’s a fast way to gut‑check requests and set clear boundaries. ## Framework #3: The FAIR model If you take nothing else away from this article, let it be this: *how* you gather intel is just as important as what you gather. The FAIR model is a simple, memorable framework to help keep your CI practices sharp, strategic, and most importantly, ethical. Let’s take a look. ### F is for focused Your CI should be laser-focused on the questions that drive your business: - How do you win deals? - Why do you lose? - Where are you vulnerable? - What are your true differentiators? This isn't about collecting trivia or hoarding data. It's about answering the questions that matter. ### A is for accurate You *must* verify claims before repeating them. One competitor slide, one Reddit post, or one offhand customer comment? Not enough. CI only earns trust when it's credible. ### I is for insightful Always move from the “what” to the “so what.” This is the difference between reporting and enabling. Don't just say, “Our competitor added a new feature.” Say “This feature closes the gap that helped us win twelve deals last summer – here's how to reposition against it.” ### R is for responsible This is where ethics come in. No shortcuts. No sketchy sourcing. No gray area tactics. You're not just representing your company; you're setting the tone for how your brand behaves in the market. When in doubt, do a quick gut check. Would you feel confident sharing this intel source in a board meeting? Would you be happy to see this in a press article? Are you treating competitors with the same integrity you’d expect from them? If the answer is no, then it's not FAIR. ## The bottom line Product marketers often serve as the moral compass of go-to-market. We sit across sales, product, brand, and the customer – and how we handle competitive intelligence sets the tone. The pressure won’t disappear, and the requests will keep coming. But with the right tools, frameworks, and conviction, you can respond with integrity. Ethical competitive intelligence isn’t just about avoiding risk. It’s about building trust, earning credibility, and creating a competitive advantage that can’t be copied. That’s your superpower – use it wisely. --- *This article is based on* [*Lanie Schenkelberg*](https://www.linkedin.com/in/laineschenkelberg/)*’s brilliant talk at the Competitive Intelligence Summit, 2025.* ### How to present competitive intelligence insights to leadership (without losing them) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-present-competitive-intelligence-insights-to-leadership-without-losing-them/ Last updated: 2026-01-06T16:49:27.000Z If you work in competitive intelligence, you know this truth all too well: **gathering intel is the easy part; communicating it to leadership is the hard part.** There’s a flood of data out there — [product launches](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-for-product-launches/), [pricing changes](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/), [job postings](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-analysis-how-to-improve-your-job-search-strategy/), [customer reviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/unlocking-the-power-of-customer-reviews-for-a-magnetic-brand/), press releases. Anyone can collect it. The challenge is now **making sense of it, distilling it to what matters, and helping decision-makers act.** And if you can do that consistently, you don’t just inform decisions — you gain [trust](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/boosting-win-rates-building-trust/), credibility, and often resources for your CI program. Here’s how to present competitive intelligence insights to executives in a way that actually gets action, without drowning them in details. ## Start with the executive lens Executives don’t have time to wade through long reports. Their focus is on **impact and action**. That means every insight you share should answer two questions before it even reaches them: 1. **Why does this matter now?** 2. **What decision could this influence?** If you can’t answer those clearly, it’s not ready for executive eyes. Keeping this lens in mind forces you to filter out noise and deliver only the most relevant insights. Timing matters too. Insights are most valuable when they’re timely. A competitor price change from last month may be less urgent than a sudden new feature your product team hasn’t addressed. Deliver intel while it’s still actionable, and your [leadership](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-product-marketing/) will see you as a partner, not just a reporter. ## The competitive briefing: A framework that works One of the most effective ways to present CI to executives is through a **competitive briefing** — a concise, structured document or presentation that answers the key questions quickly. A typical framework includes five steps: headline, rationale, comparisons, implications, and recommendations. ### 1\. Headline: Lead with your point of view The headline isn’t a topic; it’s a conclusion. Instead of “Competitor X Overview,” say: > “We see Competitor X as a direct threat to mid-market customers.” This immediately tells leadership what to focus on and sets the stage for the rest of your briefing. ### 2\. Rationale: Back it up with evidence Executives don’t need every data point. They need the strongest signals to trust your conclusion. Highlight [metrics](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measure-sales-enablement-roi/), user engagement, [product features](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/), pricing changes, or customer sentiment that support your headline. For example: > “Competitor X’s onboarding flow drives a 25% higher activation rate than ours, which could explain a recent uptick in customer churn on our side.” ### 3\. Comparisons: Show where you stand Leadership wants context. Show relative [positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/) without overloading them: > “Our core functionality aligns with Competitor Y, but we lead in data security and support, while they excel at ease of setup.” This allows executives to quickly grasp strengths, gaps, and areas requiring attention. ### 4\. Implications: Spell out the business impact What does this mean for revenue, market share, or strategy? Don’t leave it abstract. For instance: > “Competitor Z’s price reduction could push sales teams into discounting, affecting margins and customer retention over the next two quarters.” ### 5\. Recommendations: Give them a next step A briefing isn’t complete without actionable advice. You might suggest targeted messaging, bundling products to enhance perceived value, or monitoring specific competitor moves. The goal isn’t to make decisions for them, it’s to make acting on the insight easier. ## Tailoring CI to different stakeholders Executives are just one audience. Strong CI teams **adapt insights for each stakeholder**, understanding their priorities, pressures, and decision-making styles. ### Sales and customer success They need **quick-reference tools** like [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/), [competitor positioning sheets](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/), and [objection-handling scripts](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-arr-of-objection-handling-address-reframe-redirect/). The key here is accessibility — they may have only minutes to digest CI before a customer call. Reinforce learning with training sessions, because CI is a skill, not a one-time read. ### Product teams Product is often looking for gaps, market signals, and areas to invest. But here’s a nuance: closing every gap isn’t always the best path. Sometimes doubling down on your strengths or building new initiatives that amplify your existing advantages creates more impact than chasing parity on every feature. Your role is to guide product teams to see where closing a gap is strategic versus incremental. ### Marketing Marketers need clarity on differentiation, messaging, and positioning. Creating a **living competitive positioning document** ensures that campaigns reflect real-time market intelligence and that teams remain aligned on your unique value proposition. ### Leadership Executives care about conclusions, implications, and confidence in their decision-making. Empathy is critical — understanding what decisions they face, the pressures they’re under, and what “success” looks like for them allows you to frame CI in a way they can act on immediately. ## Sense-making, filtering, and prioritizing intel With so much information available, **filtering becomes the most valuable part of your work.** Every insight should pass through two questions: 1. **Why does this matter?** 2. **What should we do about it?** A simple way to make this practical is to score or rank insights: potential business impact, urgency, confidence in data, and ease of action. This doesn’t need to be formal; even a mental ranking can help you prioritize what reaches each stakeholder and in what format. ## Delivering CI without friction Even the best insights fail if delivered poorly. Meet stakeholders where they are. Some prefer **email summaries**, others a **live dashboard**, Slack updates, or a brief in a recurring meeting. The goal is **ease of consumption**, not reinventing the wheel. A one-page summary often beats a 20-slide deck. A short Slack digest may be more effective than a monthly PDF. ## Overcoming resistance to CI Resistance is normal. Fear of change, skepticism, and workload concerns are all common. Here’s how to address them in practice: - **Communicate transparently**: Explain why CI matters and how it helps teams succeed. For example, hold a short kick-off meeting showing how CI insights can directly improve [win rates](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-ratio-what-it-is-and-how-to-calculate-it/) or retention. - **Invite feedback**: Set up channels where stakeholders can ask questions or flag concerns. A simple shared doc or Slack thread works wonders. - **Educate and train**: Give teams hands-on practice with CI tools or battlecards, so it becomes intuitive. - **Deliver quick wins**: Identify small, visible wins early. A single insight that helps a sales team close a deal is more convincing than months of reports. - **Empower champions**: Find early adopters who believe in CI and can advocate for it within their teams. - **Secure leadership support**: Executive endorsement signals to the rest of the organization that CI is strategic, not optional. ## The bottom line Competitive intelligence doesn’t create value simply by existing. Its value comes when it’s **understood, trusted, and acted upon**. Your real work isn’t gathering facts — it’s sense-making, distilling, and communicating insights in a way that drives decisions. When you consistently deliver **timely, evidence-backed, and tailored insights**, CI stops being “nice to have” and becomes **indispensable**. And that’s when your work starts truly shaping strategy, influencing outcomes, and building a culture of intelligence within the organization. ### How I used 30-in-30 interviews to identify and prioritize CI requirements at Freshworks URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-30-in-30-interviews-to-identify-and-prioritize-ci-requirements-at-freshworks/ Last updated: 2025-12-10T10:15:14.000Z A few years ago, I built a [competitive intelligence (CI)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) program at Freshworks that fundamentally changed how the company understood and acted on market insights. It was part of a larger 90-day CI launch plan, but one component quickly proved to be the real catalyst: the **30-in-30 interviews**. Spending time with dozens of stakeholders back-to-back gave me an unfiltered view of what was working, what wasn’t, and what people needed most. Those insights became our blueprint, [shaping a CI function](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/from-data-to-actionable-insights/) that was not only aligned with the business but genuinely useful. In this article, I’m going to show you how we did it. ## What are 30-in-30 interviews (and why should you care)? You might be wondering what 30-in-30 means. Simply put, it means conducting 30-minute interviews with 30 key stakeholders. These interviews became my secret weapon for understanding what our company actually needed from a [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/11-competitive-intelligence-trends/) perspective. Why do them? Several reasons, actually. [![A slide titled “Why Do 30-in-30 Interviews?” showing four icons with labels: a bullseye labeled “Establish a CI Baseline,” an unlocked padlock labeled “Identify CI Requirements,” a megaphone labeled “Articulate Priorities,” and a strategy board labeled “Devise a Game Plan.”](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/12/data-src-image-ac56d76e-4f58-4354-bd81-384c0e879ef6.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-30-in-30-interviews-to-identify-and-prioritize-ci-requirements-at-freshworks) First off, if you're new to a company (like I was) or if you're [establishing a brand-new function](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-we-built-ci-from-scratch-at-a-small-scrappy-team/), these interviews help you **establish a competitive baseline**. They allow you to get your finger on the pulse of what's really happening in your organization. You can't fix what you don't understand, right? Second, they help you **identify concrete requirements** for your CI program – specific, actionable needs that people across your organization are desperate to have addressed. Third, and this is crucial, they help you **prioritize** – because let's face it, you can't do everything at once. You need to know what matters most. Finally, these interviews allow you to **build a solid game plan**. No more shooting in the dark, just hoping you're addressing the right issues. ### When should you run 30-in-30 interviews? The beauty of this approach is its flexibility. Sure, it's perfect when you're launching a new CI function, but that's not the only time it works. Maybe you need to [refresh an existing function](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-step-guide-to-fixing-competitive-intelligence/) that's gotten stale. Maybe you're benchmarking some kind of corporate activity. This framework adapts to your needs. [![A slide titled “When to Do 30-in-30 Interviews?” featuring three icons with captions: an open box labeled “When Launching a New Function,” a rocket labeled “When Refreshing an Existing Function,” and a briefcase with a gear labeled “When You Need to Benchmark Any Corporate Function.”](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/12/data-src-image-d2f4bd1e-9345-4474-9216-cea08379f65b.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-30-in-30-interviews-to-identify-and-prioritize-ci-requirements-at-freshworks) ### Who should you interview? Who you interview matters just as much as what you ask. If you're just starting out, talk to your boss first. Ask them straight up, "Who should I be talking to?" As you get more familiar with the company and start understanding who your stakeholders are, it becomes easier to identify your interview targets. 💡 ****Pro tip:** As you're conducting interviews, you'll hear about other people who might be subject matter experts or have interesting competitive insights. Add them to your list of people to interview. Save [the C-suite](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/) for last. By the time you talk to them, you'll have started to spot trends and formulate ideas about what's needed. When you finally sit down with executives, you can share your preliminary findings while gathering their input. It's a much more productive conversation that way. ## Six key questions to ask Whatever questions you choose, use them consistently across all interviews. This consistency is critical because you're going to build out trends based on the answers. You need apples-to-apples comparisons, not a fruit salad of random responses. Here are the questions I asked in my 30-in-30 interviews at Freshworks: 1. How do you use CI in the context of your role? 2. What's working? 3. What's missing? 4. What's broken? 5. What's on your wish list? 6. How do you like to consume competitive intelligence? Let me break down why each of these questions matters and what I discovered. [![A slide titled “30-in-30 Interviews” showing six question cards with icons. The questions are: “How do you use CI in the context of your role?”, “What is working?”, “What is broken?”, “What is missing?”, “What is on your wish list?”, and “Consumption preferences and frequency of deliverables.”](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/12/data-src-image-e167fd78-4a81-4657-aec0-ead87988b321.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-30-in-30-interviews-to-identify-and-prioritize-ci-requirements-at-freshworks) ### 1\. How do you use CI in the context of your role? Starting with "How do you use CI in the context of your role?" helps you develop rapport, and more importantly, it provides context for all the responses that follow. You need to understand where someone's coming from before you can properly interpret [their feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-a-collaborative-competitive-intelligence-program/). ### 2\. What's working? At Freshworks, when I asked what was working, the biggest answer surprised me: shared learnings within business units. People were already [sharing competitive insights organically within their teams](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-untapped-gold-mine-of-competitive-intelligence/). That's incredibly valuable – it showed we had people who cared about competitive intelligence, even without formal processes. The next most common answer was CI from new employees. Fresh perspectives on our competitive strengths and weaknesses? Fantastic! [Battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/) and feature function comparisons rounded out the list of what people thought was good about our competitive efforts. ### 3\. What's missing? This is where things got interesting. The number one answer for what was missing: true [product differentiation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/). This touched on a sensitive issue at our company. Our competitive intelligence up to that point was being done by [product marketers](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/product-marketing-leader-influence/) who were asked to take on CI as an additional responsibility. Now, product marketers are fantastic at what they do, but they tend to look at everything through rose-colored glasses because, well, that's their job. They're supposed to make our products shine. As a consequence, when they handled CI, it was all about how great we were and how we always win. It didn't address the warts. What people really wanted was honesty – how are we bad as well as how are we good? Value-driven insights came up repeatedly, too. People were tired of getting facts without context. They wanted the "So what? Now what?" Not just "Competitor X launched feature Y" but "Here's why this matters to you and what you should do about it." We also discovered gaps beyond the obvious, like the absence of a real two-way CI flow. And perhaps the toughest truth to hear: CI simply wasn’t embedded in our [sales](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/) DNA. Most reps didn’t yet know how to use it effectively. ### 4\. What's broken? Now for the really painful stuff. What was absolutely broken in our competitive intelligence efforts? The number one answer by far: everything was siloed. Our organization had been around for a while, and in the absence of a formal CI function, everybody was doing their own thing. We had competitive intelligence, sure, but nobody was sharing it across business units. The redundancy was staggering. Multiple teams were researching the same competitors, creating their own battlecards, and duplicating efforts that could have been coordinated. Our internal portal was another disaster. People just threw competitive information in there and forgot about it. Content from employees who'd left the company years ago was still sitting there. Nobody knew if anything was current or relevant. And good luck finding what you needed! Everything was dumped in with no organization, no tagging system, and no way to separate the wheat from the chaff. Perhaps most critically, CI wasn't driving our [product roadmap](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-support-product-teams-with-competitive-intelligence/). To me, there are two fundamental purposes of competitive intelligence: enabling sales to drive revenue growth and informing product strategy. We were failing at both. ### 5\. What's on your wish list? After all that negativity, I gave people a chance to dream. "If you could wave a magic wand, what would the perfect CI program have?" The responses were illuminating. The big theme that emerged was understanding competitors' go-to-market strategies. People were tired of feature-function battles. They wanted to go deeper – understanding our competitors' sales motions and strategies, and get inside their heads. They wanted differentiation beyond those tired old comparison charts with green, yellow, and red boxes. Tailored [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-swot-analysis-to-build-your-battlecards/) came up a lot. One-size-fits-all wasn't cutting it. People also wanted intelligence on the ankle biters – those emerging competitors, not just the big established players everyone already knew about. Centralized CI was a common request, along with predictive intelligence. People wanted churn analysis tied to competitive losses. And since we use Slack extensively, they wanted dedicated competitive intelligence channels there. ### 6\. How do you like to consume competitive intelligence? Finally, I asked how people preferred to consume competitive intelligence and how often they wanted updates. Three major themes emerged: 1. **Digestible content**: No more novel-length battlecards. People wanted bite-sized, actionable insights they could actually use. 2. **Centralized access**: They wanted one place to go for all competitive intelligence, not a scavenger hunt across multiple systems. 3. **Consultative approach**: This one really resonated with me. People didn't just want documents – they wanted a person they could consult with for deal reviews or to strategize about specific competitive situations. Other preferences included Slack integration (again), curated content rather than information dumps, proper sales enablement, and various other tactical requests. But those top three themes shaped everything we did next. ## Using interview findings to build CI program requirements Now comes the fun part: turning all that qualitative feedback into real program requirements. The process is simpler than it looks – it just takes consistency and a bit of discipline. [![A slide titled “How to Identify CI Requirements” displaying three steps with icons: “Review interview notes and highlight key findings,” “Quantify common themes in key findings,” and “Use high-value themes to develop CI requirements.”](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/12/data-src-image-e7cc3e16-0d55-45df-bd30-70f252ba0531.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-30-in-30-interviews-to-identify-and-prioritize-ci-requirements-at-freshworks) I start by reviewing my interview notes. Yes, some tools can analyze qualitative data for you, but there’s real value in going back through the notes yourself. After 30 interviews, details blur together, and rereading everything helps refresh your memory and sharpen the patterns. Once I’ve gone through the notes, I highlight the key findings and begin quantifying them. How many people mentioned the same issue? Which frustrations or wish-list items surfaced again and again? Seeing this information side-by-side clarifies what matters most. ## From interview insights to actionable CI requirements After reviewing all 30 interviews, the picture came into focus pretty quickly. Teams were asking for real product differentiation, fewer organizational silos, and better insight into competitors’ GTM strategies. They also wanted CI that was easy to digest, centralized, and delivered in a consultative way, not just pushed out as static content. From there, I broke the requirements into two buckets: what the CI function needed to deliver, and what we needed from a communication and engagement standpoint. ### CI delivery requirements - **Single source of truth** to break down silos and ensure consistent CI - **Value-driven insights** with clear “So what? Now what?” context - **Holistic view** of competitors beyond feature/function - **Centralized CI data** that’s easy to find and supports two-way sharing - **360-degree CI** leveraging customer, partner, and internal touchpoints ### CI communication requirements - Set up a **central command** to manage CI processes - **Guide stakeholders** with a consultative approach - Maintain a reliable **cadence** backed by SLAs - Foster **collaboration** to keep CI flowing - Grow a strong **CI culture** across the organization ## From requirements to reality These prioritized requirements drove everything we did next. They helped us: - **Engage stakeholders properly**: We knew exactly who needed what and could tailor our approach accordingly. - **Build the right content:** No more guessing what formats or depth people needed. - **Assess our tools:** We evaluated what we had versus what we needed to satisfy requirements. - **Plan our budget:** I could clearly articulate what resources we needed and what we could deliver with different investment levels. Sometimes you can't say yes to everything, but you can say "not now" and explain why. - **Determine critical involvement:** The interviews helped identify when competitive intelligence absolutely needed a seat at the table. - **Establish timelines:** I built out a detailed spreadsheet showing what we'd deliver by week and quarter, managing expectations from day one. ## How we delivered our CI requirements Now, let me break down what we did at Freshworks to address all these CI needs. [![A slide titled “Requirements in Action” showing grouped requirements with icons. Groups include: “Single Source of Truth” and “Centralize CI Data” (Klue CE Tool); “Central Command,” “Holistic View,” “Value-Driven Insights,” and “Cadence” (“Klue Krew”); “Collaboration” via Slack and meetings; “Direct & Guide” marked as future; and “360-Degree CI” and “CI Culture,” also noted as future.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/12/data-src-image-42c1d678-6d60-4b86-8fec-4320171ea5a8.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-30-in-30-interviews-to-identify-and-prioritize-ci-requirements-at-freshworks) ### Competitive intelligence platform We implemented Klue as our competitive intelligence tool, satisfying our need for a single source of truth and centralized data. The company decided to drive people through our sales enablement tool, Highspot, and the Klue-Highspot integration works beautifully. I'd say 90% of users don't even realize they're accessing a different platform – it's that seamless. ### The Klue Krew We also formed the “Klue Krew,” a decentralized group of product marketers who support CI part-time. While I’m accountable for CI, I don’t manage most of these contributors, but they’ve become invaluable partners, helping expand our competitive efforts well beyond battlecards. ### Slack collaboration Our Slack channel has grown to almost 1,000 members and has become self-supporting. SMEs and veterans now help newcomers with competitive questions. It's not just the CI team anymore – it's a true community. ### Direct and guide approach Advising stakeholders was never a one-and-done task – it was a gradual process of showing up consistently and proving the value of a consultative CI approach. Over time, that steady partnership paid off. As trust grew, more teams began turning to CI proactively, seeing us as a reliable guide rather than a last-minute resource. ### 360-degree view and culture We also invested in building a true 360-degree [CI culture ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/culture-of-competitive-intelligence/)– one where insights could flow naturally across teams. It didn’t happen overnight, but little by little, the mindset started to shift. As people shared more, collaborated more, and recognized the impact of collective intelligence, that culture began to take root and sustain itself. ## The bottom line The 30-in-30 interview process gave us something invaluable: a clear, data-driven understanding of what our organization actually needed from competitive intelligence. Not what I thought they needed, not what leadership assumed they needed, but what people on the ground desperately wanted to do their jobs better. If you're building or refreshing a CI function, I can't recommend this approach highly enough. Yes, it's intense – 30 interviews is no joke – but the insights you gain and the relationships you build make it absolutely worth the effort. Remember, competitive intelligence isn't about having all the answers. It's about understanding the questions that matter most to your organization and building systems to address them. The 30-in-30 framework gives you exactly that understanding. So, whether you're launching a new CI function, refreshing an existing one, or just trying to get to grips with what your organization really needs, give it a try! --- *This article is based on* [*Tracy Berry*](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tberryfine/)*’s presentation at the Competitive Intelligence Summit, New York. At the time of giving this presentation, she was the Director of Competitive Intelligence and Communication at Freshworks. She’s since taken on a new role as the Principal at Berry Insights.* ### How to transform customer reviews and social posts into actionable competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-transform-customer-reviews-and-social-posts-into-actionable-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2025-12-03T12:00:29.000Z What can the hundreds or thousands of [reviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/unlocking-the-power-of-customer-reviews-for-a-magnetic-brand/) and social posts surrounding your competitors really tell you? The amount of customer-generated content from reviews, [social media](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) posts, and forum discussions is growing. This material can be a goldmine for competitive intelligence (CI), allowing you to see where competitors excel, where they falter, and how they interact with users. ## Types of customer-generated data You can gather customer insights from all kinds of places: app store and e-commerce reviews, [social media](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-social-media-to-create-a-competitive-advantage/) posts and comments, online forums and communities, and even user-created blogs or videos. This information might be structured or unstructured, detailed or high-level – but as long as it’s publicly available, it’s fair game. Social media is full of quick updates, though sometimes the meaning gets lost in slang, typos, or lack of context. Forums and long-form blogs tend to have a lot more detail, even if they take more work to analyze. One helpful approach for CI is simply noticing **what stands out from the norm** and digging into why. It takes a little effort, but it’s worth it. These public posts and reviews act like a digital version of word-of-mouth referrals. And since nearly **90%** of people [trust recommendations from family and friends](https://boltboxes.com/blog/packaging-insert-ideas/#:~:text=Nearly%C2%A090%25%20of%20consumers%20trust%20referrals%C2%A0from%20family%20and%20friends%20over%20other%20forms%20of%20advertising.) more than traditional advertising, the insights hiding in this content can be incredibly powerful. By analyzing it, you can [compare yourself to competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/), understand how customers see different brands, spot common frustrations, and uncover gaps in products or messaging. Looking across multiple data types helps you build a fuller, more accurate picture of where each competitor sits in the market. ## Tools and best practices to collect data and see the big picture To make your CI efforts effective, you'll need [the right tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-intelligence-tools-tech-stack/) and a plan for using them. ### Scraping techniques To gather review and social data at scale, you’ll need scraping methods that rely on approved data feeds. Many platforms offer APIs or [social listening](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-listening/) tools, which make pulling this information much easier. Tools like **Bright Data** can help automate the collection of structured review datasets across e-commerce and software sites. **Apify** also offers pre-built scrapers for popular review platforms like Trustpilot, Amazon, and Google Play, letting you pull large volumes of data without ever touching a line of code. ### Monitoring mentions Some teams also use clipping services to track how often a competitor’s brand, products, or features get mentioned. As you monitor these conversations, it’s important to respect user privacy and follow each website or platform’s terms of service. Plenty of tools can help surface what matters most. For example, **Brandwatch** can alert you to spikes in conversations about competitors, while **Meltwater** highlights trending topics, changes in sentiment, and product issues across social channels. As always, it’s essential to [gather CI responsibly](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-ethics/). Steer clear of anything that feels like surveillance or crosses into corporate espionage. The most trustworthy insights come from open, public sources – not from invasive or unethical tactics. ### Tagging data In practice, you’ll collect data across different geographies, segments, and platforms, then clean it, tag it with the right classifications, and store it in a central hub so everyone can access it and generate reports. Once your data is consistent, you can start spotting patterns and using those insights to guide product development and marketing decisions. Tools like **MonkeyLearn** can help by automatically tagging and clustering text into categories like usability, pricing, or durability – saving you a ton of manual effort. **Notion AI** can also turn raw data into clear, structured categories, making it easier for teams to spot trends and share what they’re seeing. ### Analyzing information Now that you have the data, it’s time to assess its significance. Natural language processing (NLP) and sentiment analysis allow you to detect positive, neutral, and negative comments about competitor brands and identify patterns in how customers discuss them. You can also learn how sentiment evolves for your competitors' features. Platforms like **Lexalytics** offer sentiment scoring and theme detection, pulling out insights that might otherwise get lost in thousands of reviews. **Quid** is another great option. It visualizes clusters of user conversations, making it easier to see how topics relate to one another and how they shift. From there, you can use topic modeling techniques, such as clustering, to uncover the main themes. For instance, “durability” might emerge as a top topic. You could then tag competitors accordingly – maybe Competitor A earns praise for “rapid setup,” while “heavy latency” consistently shows up as a weakness. Trend detection can also flag sudden spikes in negative reviews around a feature launch, signaling potential threats to your market share. You can even build a heat map showing where each competitor sits in the customer perception space by mapping sentiment and topics side by side. Tools like **Hotjar**, **Crazy Egg**, and **Mouseflow** offer additional insight into user behavior by highlighting patterns. As you interpret all this information, remember that reputation isn’t just about how often a brand is mentioned; it’s about the context. A few negative comments carry a different weight than a wave of them. Ultimately, you’re looking for the insights that reveal where a competitor shines, where they’re falling short, and where you may have an emerging advantage or risk. ## How to conduct a CI analysis Data only becomes powerful when you put it to work. To turn your insights on competitor strengths and weaknesses into something actionable, it helps to follow a consistent, repeatable process. Below are the key steps to guide a strong CI analysis that supports smart decision-making. [![A pastel gradient graphic titled “How to analyze social posts and reviews” shows a seven-step process connected by rounded boxes and arrows. Step 1: Identify competitors and the best platforms; Step 2: Collect public data; Step 3: Organize and tag information; Step 4: Find patterns; Step 5: Compare the results for various competitors; Step 6: Choose your actions; Step 7: Monitor and repeat.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/11/How-to-analyze-social-posts-and-reviews.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-transform-customer-reviews-and-social-posts-into-actionable-competitive-intelligence/) ### 1\. Identify competitors and the best platforms Start by listing the top five to ten companies you consider direct competitors, along with the main channels where customers talk about them – platforms like G2, Trustpilot, Reddit, X, or Facebook groups. It’s also worth looking at [indirect competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/) who may not be in your exact space but are shaking things up. The wider your search, the more context you’ll have around overall market sentiment. ### 2\. Collect public data Pull in reviews, star ratings, and comment threads – just make sure you’re following each platform’s usage rules as you go. Aim for a sample size that’s large enough to give you a balanced view and avoid skewed results. Your best bet is to try to gather a few thousand comments. You may also filter by geography, product line, or release date to see how feedback changes across different segments or over time. ### 3\. Organize and tag information This part can be a bit tedious, but it makes a huge difference in the quality of your insights. Start by removing duplicates, spam, and any off-topic content. Then extract key details like the competitor mentioned, the product feature being discussed, the sentiment, and the review source. Log everything in a simple spreadsheet or CI dashboard. When you standardize your tags, it becomes much easier to spot trends later on. ### 4\. Find patterns Next, look for repeated themes. If you notice multiple reviews mentioning the same issue – like “slow setup,” “great customer support,” or “poor durability” – that’s a signal worth noting. Patterns can also show you what customers value most and where their limits are. For example, reviewers might be okay with a slower response time if the product is more affordable. These trade-offs can tell you a lot about what matters most to your audience. ### 5\. Compare the results for various competitors Now it’s time to stack everything side by side. List out each competitor’s strengths and weaknesses across specific product features, along with the sentiment customers attach to them. For example, Competitor A might shine in usability but consistently struggle with integrations. Visual tools like heat maps and bar charts make these comparisons easier to digest and help highlight opportunities you can pursue. ### 6\. Choose your actions Turn your insights into clear next steps. If customers love Competitor B’s transparency, consider how you can bring more authenticity into your own communications. If a competitor is weak on mobile performance, that’s a signal to double down on your app experience. As you move forward, resist the urge to copy what others are doing. Instead, understand why they excel in certain areas and use that knowledge to strengthen your own approach. [Competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/) comes from anticipating changes in the landscape, not just reacting to them. ### 7\. Monitor and repeat CI isn’t something you do once and forget about. Revisit your analysis every quarter or after major product releases to catch shifts in customer perception or spot new players entering the market. Over time, these repeated check-ins become a living intelligence system that helps you anticipate competitor moves before they happen. ### How to apply this analysis Put your competitor insights to work by identifying new feature opportunities for your product team to explore. Give your sales team the CI they need to handle objections and strengthen their pitches. Use what you’ve learned to fuel scenario planning in [leadership meetings](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/) so your team stays two steps ahead. Just as importantly, make sure your organization builds a shared understanding of how to interpret competitor feedback. Strong CI programs guide decisions; they don’t just present numbers. By weaving CI into your regular planning rhythm, your team can move from simply listening to actively shaping change. ## Take listening and turn it into leading Customers are sharing their thoughts every day. The real question is whether you’re listening closely enough. By bringing reviews and social conversations into your planning, spotting the trends within them, and channeling those insights into your strategy, you unlock meaningful competitive intelligence. With well-organized data and a unified view of customer feedback, you can turn those insights into action. When your strategy starts with the customer’s voice, you put yourself in a stronger position – one that helps you stay ahead of competitors. ### Niche competitive advantage: everything you need to know URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-competitive-advantage/ Last updated: 2025-11-27T10:14:16.000Z ## What is a niche market advantage? A niche market advantage is a type of [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/) \- one that stems from targeting and winning a small portion of a larger market. At its core, this is the direct opposite of a mass market, or “undifferentiated”, marketing strategy. Rather than commoditizing your product, you’ll make it super high value for a small number of people, rather than low value for many. In his (now classic) book, Competitive Advantage, **Michael Porter** lays out several what he calls “**Generic Strategies**” for obtaining a competitive advantage. These are: - Cost leadership strategy. - Differentiation strategy. - Focus strategy. This last one, the Focus strategy, *is* **niche market strategy**. With a Focus strategy, a business wins its competitive advantage by meeting the unique needs of a **specific, small** **market segment**. It aims to solve these needs better than any competitor (if any true competitors even exist in this unique space). So, if your business wins a niche competitive advantage (via a [niche differentiation strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-differentiation-strategy/), for example) but you’ve no competitors, who can you be said to have an advantage *over?* Even the most unique products serve a similar *function* to something that’s gone before. When you dig deep enough, new and disruptive businesses offer the same core, emotional creature comforts as their predecessors. For all its innovation in delivery, Netflix offers entertainment. Quite different in form, but quite the same in function (at the emotional level) to a 19th-century storyteller in a Victorian public house. ## What is a competitive niche? A niche is a smaller [market segment](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-get-started-with-market-segmentation/) within a larger audience. This segment has specific needs, buying behavior, and lifestyle characteristics. By investing in customer research and learning all about these specific needs, behaviors, and characteristics, you can tailor your products to meet the particular wants and needs of your niche. A ‘competitive’ niche is highly contested, so it has less profit potential than one with fewer competitors. Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim’s “Blue Ocean Strategy” suggests targeting an uncontested portion of the market. It urges you to create your own sub-space in the market that competitors haven’t yet been innovative enough to discover or create for themselves. 💡 **Note - the other side to this coin is the proverbial “Red Ocean”, where lots of competitors fight with each other like sharks. It’s cutthroat, but the comparative calm that “Blue Ocean” evokes gives you a sense of what this is all about.* ## How to evaluate whether a niche is “worth it” before you commit Before committing resources to a niche, it’s critical to assess whether the niche offers enough opportunity to justify investment — and whether it’s a good match for your business. ### Key criteria to evaluate a niche - **Market size and growth potential:** A niche should be small enough to avoid massive competition, but large enough (or growing) to allow sustainable revenue. If the niche is static or shrinking, you risk running out of customers or demand. - **Purchasing power and customer willingness to pay premium:** Often, niches succeed because customers value specialization and are willing to pay more (e.g. “specificity pays”). - **Level of unmet needs or pain points:** The niche should have genuine problems or desires that are under-served by existing offerings. The stronger and more specific those needs, the more defensible your niche positioning. - **Competitive intensity / number and strength of rivals:** Part of a niche’s appeal is reduced competition. If the niche is already crowded with strong players, the advantage is lower. A “competitive niche” (i.e. many rivals) reduces profit potential. - **Fit with company resources, expertise, brand identity:** Niche strategies often make sense when you have relevant expertise, or when you deeply understand the audience (e.g. as a founder belonging to that niche). ### Decision framework: Quick “Go / No-Go” checklist | Question | If “Yes” — good sign | If “No” — warning sign | | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | | Is the niche underserved / under-served currently? | High chance to differentiate | Likely commoditised / saturated | | Can you reliably reach and engage this audience? | Easier to target & build trust | High acquisition cost, weak ROI | | Are customers willing to pay for specialization? | Better margins, sustainability | Compete mainly on price → thin margins | | Do you have the expertise / resources to deliver specialized value? | More credible, defensible offering | Risky delivery, poor differentiation | | Is the niche large or growing enough to sustain business? | Growth potential, scalability | Risk of stagnation or too small a market | Putting a disciplined evaluation process before committing helps avoid common pitfalls — especially over-concentration on a too-narrow niche that can’t sustain long-term growth. ## Advantages of having a niche competitive advantage So, of all the strategies for creating a more profitable business, why might you choose a niche competitive advantage? ### Viable for small businesses **For starters**, targeting a small niche is well within the capabilities of most businesses, no matter their size. This is especially true when the founder is a member of the niche they’re targeting. Rather than having to invest in detailed customer research, the founder, as a member of the niche themselves, intimately understands all their target audience’s pain points and problems. This makes them uniquely qualified to create and sell a solution. **Second**, setting its sights on a small niche allows a small business to focus its limited resources on winning in one area. It’s often difficult for a small business to focus on larger sections of the market. That’s because marketing to larger audiences requires more capital and a more complex and costly marketing strategy. Two things that are beyond the financial reach of many small businesses. Focusing on a small subset of the market, on the other hand, increases the chances of making a lasting impact on a significant enough number of people to turn a profit quickly. ### Eliminates competition Targeting a very specific niche eliminates much of the competition. Done right, there’ll be few, if any, competitors pouring resources into creating products to solve the same specific problems as you. This is the heart of Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim’s “Blue Ocean Strategy” we mentioned earlier. By [positioning your brand](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/) to fill a space where there are no “sharks in the water”, you give yourself room to grow unimpeded. What’s more, when prospects discover your brand, you’ll seem fresh and unique. There’ll be little on the market to compare your brand with because there aren’t any other businesses delivering a service quite like yours. [Comparative vs Competitive Advantage: What’s the Difference?Comparative and competitive advantages are economic terms that, when applied to a business, refer to a business’ ability to produce goods and services and to win against competitors over time.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/anastasiya-romanova-vGY31qO4518-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) ### Ensures relevance More focused marketing strategies ensure you’re relevant to your target audience. It’s crucial your **brand messaging and storytelling** makes it clear who your product is for and why it solves their problems better than any other product out there. When you’re dialed in on one or two key problems, distractions are impossible. You’ll end up doing more of the few things that work, enabling you to **iterate quickly** and get to the *right* solution for your customers in record time. Your marketing campaigns can’t help but appear **fresh and striking** to prospects, either, as they’re written by a team that understands prospects’ needs inside out. This leaves prospects feeling confident your product is right for them. Even the simplicity of a small product line, too, can help break down buyer resistance, easing the sales process. ### Specificity pays Businesses can set higher prices for specificity. Think “business strategy consultant for solopreneurs in San Francisco”. How much do you think this person could get away with charging their clients? Compare that figure with what you think they could charge for a generic “business strategy” call. Due to greater specificity, customers trust that the vendor understands their specific needs and problems. They’re more willing to pay higher prices for this **extra confidence**. There’s a lot of value to be found in **reducing risk and uncertainty** for prospects, and this specificity is one of the ways businesses can do just that. [Temporary Competitive Advantage Explained (with Examples)A temporary competitive advantage is one that doesn’t last. It might survive a few years, but it’s not going to pay dividends decades down the line. But that doesn’t mean they’re not valuable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/10/denny-muller-4NcVKXV3OAI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/) ## Disadvantages of niche market strategies ### Small margin for error Going after a niche market is a double-edged sword. It’s the business equivalent of putting all your eggs in one basket and the opposite of “diversifying your portfolio”. As a result of doubling down on a few specifics, you’re **exposed to a lot of risk** with very little room for error. Niche markets are “high risk, high reward” opportunities. Do things well, and the rewards are magnified. Put a foot wrong (especially if you don’t have the financial resources to absorb the costs of mistakes), and it’s the consequences that are magnified. This is another reason it’s so beneficial when your founder is a member of the very audience you’re targeting. They’ll know which problems to solve first, how to prioritize, and where to advertise to get the word out to relevant audience members. ### Churn has more impact With such a small audience, your profit margins ride on a small number of high-value sales, rather than a high number of lower-value sales. From there, it’s all about retaining those customers and driving brand loyalty. Since customer acquisition costs are high, small fluctuations in **churn rate** can make a massive impact on your bottom line. Each sale is hard-won, so when you lose a customer, you’re going to feel it. You’ll also more keenly feel the disruption when (not if) **competitors and imitators** start to muscle in on your small market space. 📖 ****Suggested reading** How to turn a temporary competitive advantage into a sustained one [with the VRIO framework](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/). ### Hard to apply economies of scale Niche market strategies don’t lend themselves well to economies of scale because there aren’t many willing buyers (the relevant target market is small). Take cars, for example. The first (and perhaps greatest) example of using economies of scale to turn a profit. In the early 1900s, cars were still assembled by hand. This made them a luxury product, out of reach for the many. Henry Ford took something that, per unit, was horrendously expensive to make and for consumers to buy. He invested in manufacturing processes, multiplying efficiency, slashing costs, and ramping up production. The result? [The cost of his motorcars fell almost 70%](https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter1/the-setting-of-global-transportation-systems/ford-cost-production-1908-1924/). Production increased accordingly. With greater supply, and affordable products, cars became available for the masses to purchase. ![A graph of cost and production of Ford cars over time through the early 1900s](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/1-3.png) **Source: Case File of Henry Ford, Committee on Science and the Arts, 1928 Cresson Medal.* Ford commoditized what was a luxury, but only for *his* cars. Competitors produced cars that were little better for many times the cost. With this strategy, Ford used economies of scale to create a Cost Leadership Advantage (aka, a [cost competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/cost-competitive-advantage/)), as Michael Porter would put it. This makes clear just how at odds it is to target a small section of the market and try to apply economies of scale. Economies of scale work wonders when you’re producing a commodity for the many. Especially when you’re taking a once-luxury product and making it affordable. The crux here is that everyone benefits from transport. It’s a universal need. The specific problems you purposely set out to solve don’t have this scope, so selling on the scale necessary to make economies of scale viable becomes near impossible. ## How to research and analyse a niche market: Tools and metrics for competitive intelligence To successfully implement a niche competitive strategy, you need data: real insights about customers, demand, competitors, and market dynamics. For competitive intelligence professionals, this means building a robust “niche analysis” process. ### What to analyse: Key variables - **Customer demographics, psychographics, behaviour:** Who are they? What are their values, pain points, motivations, habits? [Segment](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-market-segmentation/) beyond basic demographics to understand lifestyle/needs. - **Demand size and growth trends:** Historical and projected growth; adjacent markets; potential for expansion. - **Competitor landscape – direct and indirect:** Who else serves this niche? Are there close substitutes? What’s their offering, [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/why-pricing-based-on-value-is-better-than-pricing-on-cost/), strengths/weaknesses? - **Pricing sensitivity and willingness to pay:** Are customers seeking high-value, premium offerings? Are they driven by price, convenience, specialization? - **Barriers to entry and differentiation factors:** What makes the niche defensible (specialized knowledge, brand trust, unique features, regulatory or technical barriers)? ### Suggested methods and tools - [**Customer interviews**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) **& surveys**: Primary research — ask target-niche users directly about their unmet needs, frustrations, priorities. - **Secondary data sources**: Market reports, industry studies, public data, social-media listening. Identify demand trends, potential niche growth, and competitor activity. - **Competitive benchmarking**: Map out existing players — their [positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/), pricing, strengths and weaknesses. Use frameworks like the 3Cs model (Company, Customers, Competitors) to structure analysis. - **Value-proposition mapping**: Evaluate whether your offering delivers a unique value (quality, specialization, convenience) over alternatives. Use the lens of [Customer Value Proposition](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/your-ultimate-guide-to-creating-a-value-proposition/) to assess pricing vs. benefits. - **Scenario modelling**: Run best-case, base-case, worst-case forecasts for customer acquisition, churn, lifetime value — especially crucial given niche size limits (small audience → high churn impact). By systematically analysing these variables — rather than relying on intuition — competitive-intelligence professionals can give decision-makers a solid foundation for whether a niche is viable, defensible, and strategically sound. ## Niche advantage case studies It’s not hard to spot a business with a niche competitive advantage. They’ll be attentive to the specific needs of their *specific* target audience, and there’ll be tell-tale clues sprinkled through the brand messaging and storytelling. They’ll use language that aims to convince prospects their specific needs are about to be solved. All they need to do is buy. ### Quorn British food company Quorn’s line of vegetarian and vegan meat substitutes aims to look and taste like the real thing. This immediately tells you they’re a brand looking to solve specific problems for specific people. Vegetarians and vegans are already two subsets of the market, but not all vegetarians or vegans want a ‘substitute’. Many dislike the taste of meat, or the texture. It does, however, position Quorn’s products as a happy compromise. This made Quorn products a hit with families where the resident cook had to please a family of mixed opinions when it came to whether meat was in or out. Their existing brand messaging is devoted to sustainability and the health of the planet. This, too, is an attempt to target a niche audience, this time segmented by its environmentally-conscious values. ![Image of the Quorn website's homepage, featuring a buffalo quorn fillet burger and text](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/2-2.png) ### Remote A service for businesses that are serious about making remote work *work*. Rather than position itself as a platform for payroll, HR, and employee benefits for *every* business, Remote positions itself as the best solution for businesses with a *distributed* workforce. Remote understands that, when your staff is spread across the globe, there are particular concerns around trust, security, and the ease of taking care of bulk tasks like payroll in myriad currencies. As such, their brand messaging reflects ease and safety, with words like “safeguard” and “streamline” featured prominently on the homepage. The tagline “Grow your team the right way with Remote”, meanwhile, makes it clear this is a service for scale ups looking to hire the best talent - wherever it’s found. ### Google Stadia Here’s an example of a niche product from a well-known company - only this time, the product didn’t pan out. Google recently announced its plans to discontinue its Stadia gaming service and refund all purchases, but its stint in cloud gaming is an excellent example of an attempt to capture a niche portion of the market. ![Screenshot of the Google Stadia website homepage, with the message that "stadia will wind down January, 2023"](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/3-2.png) Brand messaging focuses on ease, with the tagline “skip signup and just play” still visible on the website. Even non-gamers have heard of Playstation, XBox, and Nintendo. This trio of industry giants has been battling it out for market share for decades. But what about those who can’t afford expensive consoles? Or those who can’t access them? What about those dreaming of a simpler gaming solution? Google aimed to bring gaming to these individuals and solve a specific problem: how do you provide a high-quality gaming experience with little or no hardware? With Google Stadia, all users needed was a decent enough WiFi connection, a compatible controller, and a Chromecast Ultra. This brought the price of entry for a 4K gaming experience down to around $100. Sadly, the service didn’t take off as Google had hoped. Stability issues, a lackluster library of games, and a lack of consumer trust all forecast the service’s downfall. But by targeting a subsection of the gaming market, Google created a viable new cloud gaming service that it plans to license to third parties. ## How to make niche competitive advantage sustainable – Avoiding short-term “fads” A niche strategy can be powerful, but only if treated as more than a one-off experiment. Many businesses fail to sustain their early advantage, especially if the niche is poorly defended or cannot scale. Here’s how to make niche advantage durable. ### Common risks / pitfalls - **Over-reliance on small audience → volatility**: With narrow customer base, small changes in demand or churn can disproportionately hurt revenue. - **Inability to reap economies of scale**: Niche markets rarely allow mass production efficiencies or cost-leadership strategies. - **Competitive encroachment or imitation**: Once a niche proves profitable, larger players may enter, eroding margin. - **Niche saturation or stagnation**: If [customer needs](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/) evolve or the niche becomes mainstream, your specialization may lose value. ### Strategies for longevity and adaptability - **Build brand loyalty and community around niche**: Deep relationships, customer trust, and credible positioning make churn less likely. As niche customers value specialization and trust, delivering consistent quality builds defensibility. - **Create expansion paths — adjacent niches or “niche layering”**: Once you have momentum, identify related niche segments or sub-niches to expand into — broadening your scope without abandoning the specialization mindset. - **Continuous innovation & product/service differentiation**: Keep enhancing your offering to stay ahead of imitators or shifting needs. Use [feedback loops](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/3-ways-a-product-feedback-loop-can-transform-your-product/), customer insights, and incremental improvements. - **Defensible assets & processes**: Intellectual property, proprietary processes, strong brand identity, customer data or community — these can serve as “moats” against competitors. Many frameworks for competitive advantage emphasise the importance of such assets. - **Scenario planning & readiness to pivot**: Build flexibility so that if the niche shrinks or becomes commoditised, you can pivot strategy to adjacent segments, broaden value proposition, or even reposition entirely. When done right, a niche competitive advantage can evolve into a long-term, defensible position — not just a momentary boost. ## How to position brand messaging and value proposition for a niche audience Having a niche product or service isn’t enough. For competitive-intelligence or strategy teams aiding marketing/positioning, the way you communicate to that niche often determines success. ### Understanding the niche's pain points and language Niche audiences often have specific problems, values, expectations — sometimes even subtle language or “cultural cues.” Effective niche messaging goes beyond generic marketing: - Use the language and vocabulary your niche uses - Show deep understanding of their problems (not just surface features) - Emphasise why your offering is designed *for them*, not “for everyone but also you” This specificity builds trust and resonance. As mentioned previousely, your brand messaging must be dialed in on one or two key problems to create relevance. ### Crafting a strong niche value proposition A strong niche value proposition should combine: 1. **Specialization** — Be tailored to the niche’s unique needs. 2. **Quality or depth** — Offer more depth, better support, or unique features than generalist alternatives. 3. **Trust and credibility** — Show that you understand the niche (e.g. by being a member or demonstrating domain expertise) and can deliver reliably. 4. **Clarity and simplicity** — Because niches tend to be small, communication must be clear, focused, and speak directly to the niche’s problems. Over-complex or “mass-market” messaging often dilutes value. ### Positioning Strategies & Channels for Niche Communication - **Direct outreach and community engagement**: Niche audiences often congregate in specialized communities — online forums, Slack/Discord groups, newsletters, niche-oriented social media channels. Engaging there builds authenticity. - **Storytelling & thought leadership**: Sharing deep knowledge — guides, case studies, success stories — helps build authority. For niche buyers, expertise matters more than broad appeal. - **Tailored content marketing & SEO**: Use long-tail keywords and niche-specific language in content to increase findability by niche users. The more precisely you address niche pain points, the more likely your content will rank for niche-specific queries. - **Premium positioning (price + value)**: Because niche offerings often command higher prices, brand messaging should reflect premium, specialized value — not bargain-basement mass-market positioning. Well-crafted messaging and value proposition turn a technical niche edge into a compelling business advantage — and help attract the right customers. --- ## **Get the playbook on positioning your brand** Competitive insights can inform business strategy across all four corners of business. But when it comes to positioning your brand in a competitive market, there are pitfalls to sidestep, and best practices and processes to implement. Inside the **Competitive Positioning Playbook**, we give you best practices and processes, covering: ⏰ How not to waste your internal resources and data sources to **save yourself hours** of time. 🧘 What “minimum viable positioning” is, and why it’s a **key milestone** early in the process. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you **must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. These aren't just our opinions - we consulted with some of the best in the industry to put together these insights. (Oh, and it won't cost you anything). Intrigued? Grab your copy today. 👇 [Download your playbook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) [![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Gg4zMKtcuMeOq4bQkXjUjH-UFPjKTvFlBO9KLTFss6MhpKnLDnou74cxSOV4BYnk-hDNJ1Y1SmogNhwRJVQU0aZZ3qpL3NDH95SWwWW4y4JgcabV-v9nnGm_cJ--JJxLpKASdCTsrUFtjFNW2bbSk6bVNSH-9gBFtVnOe_gJLlfedi7SbfJPjqufKarkOw)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ### How I learned to support (not influence) product teams with competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-support-product-teams-with-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2025-11-19T12:00:47.000Z Let me share something that took me years to figure out: [your product team](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-product-teams/) doesn't need another person telling them what to build. They need someone who understands the [competitive landscape](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/) well enough to help them see opportunities they might miss. I'm Alex, Director of Product Marketing at Airtable, and I've spent countless hours working with product teams on [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/). While most CI folks focus on [sales enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) (and rightfully so – those customer-facing teams need answers for their calls this afternoon), I've always been drawn to more strategic collaboration with product orgs. To help you execute that strategic collaboration, here’s a taste of what I’ll cover in this article: - The mindset you need to work effectively with product teams - How to create a market map for clearer competitive positioning - The four key types of differentiation - How to carry out a competitive deep dive to support tactical product initiatives ## The mindset shift that changed everything Here's the thing: working with product isn't about [crafting the perfect battlecard](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/) or knowing exactly what to say when a competitor comes up. It's about stepping back, looking at the bigger picture, and asking questions. Where are we strong? Where are we weak? What opportunities exist to [differentiate](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/)? Which competitive gaps should we close – and perhaps more importantly, which ones should we ignore? I sometimes hear CI professionals say things like "I want to use competitive intel to influence the product roadmap." Reading between the lines, what they're really saying is: "My product team isn't building the right things, and I have the data to prove it, but they just don't get it." I've been there. I've felt that frustration. But here's what changed my perspective entirely… ### Empathy beats influence every time Product management might be one of the hardest jobs in tech. Think about it. They're synthesizing hundreds, sometimes thousands of inputs. [Customer feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/), executive interests, sales pressure, support tickets, engineering constraints, market trends... The list goes on. Your competitive insights? They're just one input among many. This realization was humbling but also liberating. Once I stopped trying to influence the product roadmap and started thinking about how to *support* product teams, everything changed. The question shifted from "How completely did I influence them?" to "How well did I support them?" And that's when the real work began. ## Two ways to support product teams with competitive intelligence At Airtable, we've found two main ways to support product teams with [competitive insights](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-insight/): ### 1\. Big-picture competitive landscape analysis This happens during periodic planning processes. We provide a comprehensive view of the competitive landscape – who's making moves, in what direction, and where we see [strengths and weaknesses](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/). But we don't just dump information. We provide a clear point of view. What strengths should we continue to push on? What [competitive gaps](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/) should we close? And crucially, what gaps should we *not* close? That last question is what true strategy is about. Choosing not to do something. Maybe competitors have over-invested in an area that isn't actually that important to customers. Or it's important to a different type of customer you're not targeting. These strategic choices matter. ### 2\. Competitive deep dives for specific initiatives Once product teams emerge from planning with their roadmap and initiatives, we plug in with targeted analysis. As they start defining what problems they're solving and their general approach, we can analyze how everyone else handles those problems today. Again, we're looking for two things: opportunities to differentiate and critical gaps to close. ## The market map: Your visual guide to competitive positioning One tool that's been incredibly valuable for big picture discussions is what we call the market map. It's simple but surprisingly powerful. Here's how it works. First, you create a visual canvas (slides, digital whiteboard – even pen and paper works). Draw a box for each major capability in your category. These should be higher-level than individual features but specific enough to mean something to actual customers. Then, you plot where you and your competitors play today – and where you're going in the future. [![A simple, conceptual market map showing three solid boxes representing current capabilities and two dashed boxes representing future or emerging capabilities. Red and blue dots (representing companies/competitors) are plotted within the boxes, with arrows indicating expansion directions into the dashed boxes.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/11/data-src-image-ecb5652d-ad95-4d44-b035-04a2938b6c82-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-support-product-teams-with-competitive-intelligence) Suddenly, you have something that feels like an actual map. You can see where you started, where you're expanding, and where competitors are moving. You can add arrows for expansion directions, note strengths and weaknesses in each area, and track how the landscape evolves over time. The format varies widely depending on your market. In the design tool space, for example, one survey showed market share across different parts of the digital design workflow – Miro dominating digital whiteboarding, Figma owning UI design and prototyping, and so on. [![A competitive market map for design tools showing three categories: Digital Whiteboarding (Miro, FigJam, Figma), UI Design (Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD), and Prototyping (Figma, Adobe XD, InVision). The title is "The 2021 Designer's Toolkit."](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/11/data-src-image-56bd92ec-fbf5-437c-9909-05781a668fbe.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-support-product-teams-with-competitive-intelligence) GitLab takes a different approach, showing ten steps in the CI/CD workflow across the top, plotting themselves across the entire thing. GitLab is clearly making an “aggregator” argument here: the idea that customers shouldn’t need a patchwork of point solutions to complete their workflow (more on this type of differentiation in a sec!). Their competitors appear in only some of the boxes, often going deep in a small portion of the workflow but not covering the rest. [![A detailed competitive market map for the CI/CD workflow. The top row shows ten steps: Manage, Plan, Create, Verify, Package, Secure, Release, Configure, Monitor, and Govern. GitLab's logo (an orange fox head) is shown under all ten categories, while competitors' logos (including GitHub, a blue stylized 'L' logo, and a green frog logo) appear only under certain steps.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/11/data-src-image-8ec7955e-ce35-48f2-af5c-f4b1e786d93c.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-support-product-teams-with-competitive-intelligence) Another example from the learning technology market shows each capability as a distinct box with vendors plotted within. Some vendors live in just one box, while others blur the lines between categories. This visual immediately shows where consolidation opportunities might lie. [![layered competitive market map for learning technology. The chart is divided into large colored rectangles representing different platform categories: Learning Experience Platforms, Program Experience (Delivery) Platforms, Micro Learning Platforms, Assessment, Development, Delivery Tools, Content Libraries, LMS Platforms, and Learning Record Store. Vendor names are listed within each colored section. The source is cited as "Bersin by Deloitte"](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/11/data-src-image-8e9f85a4-61c7-417a-9adb-ff6ae3f070c5.jpeg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-support-product-teams-with-competitive-intelligence) Image source: [Yahoo Finance](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/disruption-digital-learning-ten-things-024234241.html) ## Four types of differentiation (and why more features isn't always the answer) The market map helps surface potential strategic openings, but the next step is figuring out your differentiators so you can [position yourself effectively](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) within those openings. Differentiation comes in many shapes and sizes. It's not just about having more features. Sometimes it's about having fewer. Sometimes it's about packaging existing features differently. Let me share four differentiation archetypes I've seen work successfully. [![visual chart illustrating the four differentiation archetypes. The four columns are: The Specialist (Going deep on one capability), The Aggregator (Bundling many things together), The Innovator (Doing one thing very differently), and The Simplifier (The same (or fewer!) capabilities, but easier to use). Each archetype is represented by a graphic showing input circles transforming into a different output box/shape.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/11/data-src-image-8c15fcd7-a207-44f7-a656-d836304a2779-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-support-product-teams-with-competitive-intelligence) ### 1\. The specialist Imagine your market has four core capabilities that customers need. Maybe existing products do all four, but none particularly well. The specialist picks one capability and goes deep. They refine that experience until it's worth paying for that best-in-class tool on top of (or instead of) the all-in-one solution. ### 2\. The aggregator This is the counterpoint to the specialist. The aggregator looks at an overly fragmented market and notices customers piecing together workflows with too many tools. They consolidate everything into one platform. Sure, they might not go as deep as point solutions, but the value of having everything in one place overpowers that limitation. Fewer tabs. Better productivity. No integration headaches. No data syncing between tools. ### 3\. The innovator The innovator takes one existing capability and completely reimagines it. They still match competitors on everything else, but this one thing becomes their signature differentiator. They're still in the same market category, still in the same box, but with one star capability that changes the game. ### 4\. The simplifier This might be the most underrated approach. The simplifier has the confidence to acknowledge: "We actually have the same or even fewer capabilities than other tools, but we've created such a simplified user experience that we're dramatically easier to use." The simplifier asks tough questions. What's the actual adoption of all those features in your legacy tool? Are they creating value or just complexity and feature bloat? Are you overpaying for capabilities that create confusion? They take legacy features, completely rethink them, and often end up with fewer capabilities on a comparison chart – but they own it. They make "easier to use" their differentiator. ## The competitive deep dive: Getting tactical While the market map and differentiation archetypes frame the big picture strategy, the work becomes tactical once product teams define their roadmap and specific initiatives. The process starts simply – we just need to know what problem they're solving and why it matters. Do customers really care about this problem? What technical approaches are competitors taking? Then we dig in. We scan existing research and assets. We pull insights from competitive deals we've lost around this customer problem. We gather competitive news and moves from the last year or two. Sometimes we go beyond the web – talking to partners who work with both us and competitors, interviewing sales reps or CSMs who were in competitive evaluations centered on this product issue. Nothing overly formal at this stage, just enough to have an informed discussion. ### The deep dive format that actually works We've refined our format over the years. While I use Airtable (naturally), you could do this in slides or any tool that provides structure and visual treatment. We break down each product area into sub-capabilities. Some come from our product team, others we discover by examining competitor products closely. Each record in our database captures how a particular company executes on a particular capability or feature. We include our assessment – strong, weak, differentiated, whatever criteria we’re using – and link back to every source: screenshots, documents, videos, anything we pulled to support the conclusion. We need that paper trail, but more importantly, we need UI and UX images to ground our discussions in reality. ### Bringing it all together After going through all the details, we come back to our competitive point of view: based on what we found, here’s where we can differentiate. Here are the gaps we think matter. And here are the gaps we don’t think are worth closing. Sometimes the discussion shifts our thinking. Maybe the opportunity to differentiate looks a little different after reviewing everything. Maybe a gap turns out to be less important, or a new one emerges. By the end, we have an initial point of view that helps the product team create clarity and move faster. Could a great product team do this analysis themselves? Absolutely, given enough time. But product teams don't have infinite time. They're under pressure to create product plans and execute quickly. We become their central source of competitive knowledge, helping them move faster and build confidence more quickly. ## Why partnering with product matters I love partnering with product because it’s such a change of pace from sales enablement. That being said, the two complement each other beautifully. When you're plugged into product, you bring a strategic perspective to your sales work. When you're connected to sales, you bring ground-level reality to product teams who might be one step removed. Working with product teams on competitive intelligence isn't about being right. It's about being helpful. It's about providing one valuable input among many that helps create clarity and speed. The frameworks I've shared – the market map, the four differentiation archetypes, the deep dive format – are just tools. What matters is the approach: bringing empathy, providing clear analysis, and always, always focusing on opportunities to differentiate and gaps worth closing. Your product team has one of the hardest jobs in the company. They don't need another critic. They need a partner who understands the competitive landscape and can help them see possibilities they might miss on their own. That's the real value of competitive intelligence for product teams – not influence, but support. --- *This article is based on* [*Alex McDonnell*](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexqmcdonnell/)*’s brilliant talk at the Competitive Intelligence Summit, 2023.* [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/11/CIA_Certified_LinkedIn_Banner--1-.jpg)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core) *Want more of Alex’s competitive expertise in your life? Check out* [*Competitive Intelligence Certified: Core*](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core)*.* ### Creating "wow": How to present competitive intelligence for maximum impact URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-present-competitive-intelligence-for-maximum-impact/ Last updated: 2025-11-11T15:55:01.000Z If you’ve ever poured weeks into a [competitive analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-carry-competitive-analysis-in-digital-marketing/) only to see it skimmed – or worse, ignored – you know the frustration. [Senior stakeholders](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/) are bombarded with information, and unless your insights are clear, concise, and memorable, they risk getting lost in the noise. That’s why creating “wow” matters. It’s not about flashy slides or clever phrasing; it’s about delivering your findings in a way that grabs attention, sparks engagement, and [drives decisions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/aligning-ci-with-company-objectives/). I’ve spent years in JLL’s corporate strategy team learning what it takes to make competitive intelligence (CI) presentations land with executives who have limited time but high expectations. In this piece, I’ll walk you through the essentials: why presentation skills are a critical part of every CI professional’s toolkit, and five practical ways to make your insights stand out and have maximum impact. ## Why you need to improve your presentation skills as a CI pro Presenting research effectively in competitive intelligence brings multiple benefits for you, [your stakeholders](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-train-your-whole-company-on-competitive-intelligence-techniques-2/), and your organization. ### 1\. It helps you build new skills Instead of simply churning through research, you start thinking about how to convey information in the best possible way. You get to find creative ways to visualize data and complex concepts, which is far more enjoyable than just processing data behind the scenes. ### 2\. It drives greater retention and engagement from your audience Your CEO or stakeholder will remember a well-structured presentation with clear, simple insights. They’ll be more engaged, retain more information, and your message will have a stronger, longer-lasting impact. ### 3\. It enables faster decision-making When your audience receives concise, well-structured insights, they can quickly absorb the information and make informed decisions that move the business forward. ### 4\. It enhances the value and perception of the CI function Communicating clearly and professionally shows that you understand what matters to the business. It helps position you – and CI as a discipline – as a [strategic, high-value contributor](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/maximizing-your-competitive-advantage-through-strategic-planning/). And in today’s uncertain business climate, demonstrating that value is more important than ever. ## Tips and tricks for a great competitive intelligence presentation So, what are some of the practical ways to create “wow” in your CI presentations? Let’s start with five key principles: 1. Begin with the end in mind 2. Keep it simple 3. Consider your audience 4. Get creative with your visuals 5. Focus on continuous improvement ### Tip #1: Begin with the end in mind The first principle – *begin with the end in mind* – is rooted in the [Minto Pyramid Principle](https://www.mckinsey.com/alumni/news-and-events/global-news/alumni-news/barbara-minto-mece-i-invented-it-so-i-get-to-say-how-to-pronounce-it). If you’ve worked in consulting, this probably sounds familiar. It’s all about leading with the answer. You start with a **governing thought** – the main insight or takeaway – right at the top of your presentation, executive summary, or deck. Then, everything else that follows supports that thought. Beneath it, you layer your **supporting insights**, and finally, your **data and evidence** that validate those insights. [![Diagram of the Minto Pyramid Principle showing how to structure arguments. The top box reads “Main point you want your audience to take away,” supported by three “Insight” boxes below it, each with three “Support” boxes beneath. It illustrates how to lead with your answer, support it with high-level insights, and back it up with data and evidence.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/11/data-src-image-ad756c3d-b95e-4213-b854-cd9007a235b8.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-present-competitive-intelligence-for-maximum-impact) Image credit: Liz Kenney, [My Consulting Offer](https://www.myconsultingoffer.org/case-study-interview-prep/pyramid-principle/) This structure keeps your story clear, logical, and persuasive. If you open with pages of raw data, you’ll lose your audience – especially busy executives. They want to know the findings first, not dig for them. This approach also helps you **frame your work strategically** from the start. For example, if you’re asked to research a competitor’s technology strategy, you’ll likely have [an initial hypothesis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-test-internal-assumptions/), based on what you already know. Even before all the data is in, that working hypothesis gives you a foundation to build on. As your research progresses, you can test and refine that hypothesis. I do this almost daily – it’s far more efficient than getting lost in endless data. It’s about continuously shaping your story as you learn more, ensuring that your final presentation is structured and focused around the most relevant insight. #### Tell your story like you almost got eaten by a bear There’s a great analogy I’ve seen floating around on LinkedIn that captures this idea perfectly. Imagine you’re telling a story about how you almost got eaten by a bear. (Stick with me!) If you start with, “So today I went hiking with my friends. We grabbed lunch, wandered around, chatted for a while… oh, and then I almost got eaten by a bear,” your audience has probably tuned out by the time the drama starts. But if you start with, “I almost got eaten by a bear today,” you’ve instantly grabbed their attention. They’re hooked. They want to know more. That’s exactly how you should think about structuring your CI story. **Lead with the insight** – the “bear” moment – and then build out the details and evidence that support it. Cut the backstory, get straight to the point, and your audience will stay engaged from start to finish. ### Tip #2: Keep it simple The second principle is all about simplicity – one message, one slide. It sounds obvious, right? But in practice, it’s surprisingly hard. As CI professionals, we live and breathe information. We uncover data, insights, trends, and competitive moves – and naturally, we want to share it all. But the truth is, less is almost always more. The simpler and clearer your message, the greater the impact. Each slide should focus on a single key idea. For example, if you’re showing that a competitor’s revenue has grown by a certain percentage compared to yours, stick to that point. Don’t clutter the slide with extra charts or supporting data. A focused, well-constructed slide lets your core insight stand out – ideally, the takeaway should be obvious even at a glance. #### Keep your design clean and consistent Use simple, consistent colors, shapes, and images throughout your presentation. While flashy graphics or animations can look fun, they can also distract from your message. A clean design directs attention to what matters – your insights. There’s a time and place for creativity, but in most professional contexts, simplicity wins. #### Keep to time Be respectful of your audience’s time and attention. 👍 A helpful rule of thumb: ****Take the total time you have to present and cut it in half – that’s roughly the number of slides you should use**. For instance, if you have 20 minutes to present, aim for about 10 slides. The goal is not to rush through dozens of slides but to leave space for discussion and reflection. Fifty slides in fifteen minutes will only overwhelm your audience and bury your key points. #### Managing too much content If you’ve got more material than fits comfortably, don’t worry – there are workarounds. Put the key messages in your main deck and move the detailed data to the appendix. You can circulate the full version afterward so your audience can dive deeper if they’d like. Another approach is to create two versions of your deck: - **A presentation deck:** Short, visual, and designed for live delivery. - **A “lap deck”:** A more detailed version that your audience can read through later. This ensures your live presentation stays focused while still giving stakeholders access to the supporting evidence they may want later. #### Don’t read from your slides Finally, remember that your slides are there to *support* you, not replace you. If you simply read the text word-for-word, you might as well just send the deck. Instead, use your slides to highlight and reinforce your main points visually while you bring the story to life. ### Tip #3: Consider your audience When planning your presentation – whether it’s a live session, a slide deck, or even a written memo – one of the most important things you can do is consider your audience. Understanding who you’re talking to and how they process information helps you ensure your message lands. #### Know your primary stakeholders Start by thinking about your primary stakeholders. How do they prefer to receive and process information? Are they detail-oriented and analytical, or do they prefer big-picture insights and strategic takeaways? Tailoring your presentation style to match their preferences helps ensure that your message resonates. If they like details, make sure your data is accessible and clear. If they’re more strategic, focus on the implications and recommendations. #### Anticipate what’s top of mind Next, think about what’s happening in your industry or within your company that might be on your audience’s mind. Are there [**recent competitor moves**, **major investments**, or **emerging trends**](http://competitiveintelligencealliance.io/get-to-grips-with-unexpected-market-news/?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=insider%5Fnewsletter) that could come up during the discussion? Even if these topics aren’t directly part of your presentation, being prepared to address them will make you appear informed and credible. Anticipating questions – even tangential ones – shows that you’re not just presenting information but actively thinking about the broader context. It also gives your message more impact because it proves that you truly understand the space you’re speaking about. #### Understand presentation preferences Different stakeholders prefer different presentation formats. Some like to receive **pre-reads** in advance, using meeting time for discussion rather than a formal presentation. Others may prefer a **live presentation**, where they can absorb the information as you talk through it. If you’re not sure what to expect, it’s best to prepare for both. Have a detailed version of your deck ready for pre-reading, and a simpler, more visual version for live delivery. This flexibility ensures you’re ready for any scenario – whether it’s a structured presentation or an open conversation. #### Be mindful of cultural and language contexts Finally, always consider cultural and language differences, especially if you’re presenting to an international audience. If you’re speaking in English to a group whose first language isn’t English, adjust your pace, simplify your language, and use visuals to support key points. Cultural norms can also influence how audiences expect information to be delivered – for example, how direct or data-heavy your presentation should be. By being mindful of these nuances, you’ll not only communicate more effectively but also show respect for your audience’s preferences and perspectives. And that, in turn, will make your message far more impactful. ### Tip #4: Get creative with your visuals Now we get to the fun part – getting creative with visuals. There aren’t any strict rules here, but one thing is universal: people love visuals. A picture really is worth a thousand words. A well-designed visual can make your insights pop without relying on lots of text. When your audience can instantly *see* what you’re saying, your message becomes more memorable and impactful. #### Choose visuals that tell the story Let’s look at an example. In the slide on the left, you can see a table full of useful data – detailed, accurate, and well-researched. But it’s dense. The insights are buried in text, and you’d have to talk your audience through every row to make the point clear. [![Side-by-side comparison of two presentation slides. The left slide is a dense table showing competitor details and JLL implications, while the right slide uses a clear bubble chart to visualize competitors’ market share by business line, demonstrating how visuals can make data more engaging and easier to interpret.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/11/data-src-image-89f1d896-dbe0-463e-aa96-8ca6c6521fdd.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-present-competitive-intelligence-for-maximum-impact) Now compare that to the slide on the right, which shows competitors’ market share across different business lines. With one glance, you can immediately grasp the story – who’s leading, who’s lagging, and where the gaps are. It’s visually engaging and easy to interpret. (I’ll admit it – I actually created that slide on the left. The moment I saw how little reaction it got compared to the visual on the right, I learned my lesson.) #### Look for inspiration everywhere There are so many great examples of creative and effective data visualizations out there. You can find inspiration in places like [**Visual Capitalist**](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/), which publishes beautifully designed charts and infographics, or **McKinsey Quarterly**, which often features a “[Week in Charts](https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/week-in-charts).” Publications like the [**Financial Times**](https://www.ft.com/) also do a fantastic job of turning complex data into clear, engaging visuals through data journalism. Of course, that doesn’t mean every slide needs to be flashy or complex. Sometimes a simple bar chart is exactly what you need. The goal isn’t to decorate your presentation – it’s to clarify and enhance your message. #### Think beyond numbers Visual storytelling isn’t limited to quantitative data. You can also use visuals to represent **qualitative** or **abstract concepts** – things like [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/), strategic direction, or customer sentiment. People process visuals faster than text, and they remember them longer. So, whenever you can, find ways to show rather than tell. A well-chosen image or chart can capture attention, make your insight pop off the page, and make your story stick. ### Tip #5: Focus on continuous improvement Finally, let’s talk about one of the most important parts of presenting – continuous improvement. I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t always get everything right. There are definitely times when I could do better. Sometimes it’s just a matter of avoiding the last-minute rush. We’ve all been there. The key is to keep learning, keep experimenting, and keep finding ways to improve. #### Ask for feedback After each presentation, ask for feedback – from your boss, your peers, or any stakeholders who were in the room. If they don’t offer it voluntarily, reach out and ask directly: *How could I have done better? Was there anything unclear? Did the message land the way I intended?* Feedback helps you see your presentation from another perspective. Even small suggestions – like reordering slides, simplifying a chart, or spending more time on key insights – can make a big difference next time. #### Reflect and adapt Do some self-reflection after each presentation. You probably already have a sense of what worked and what didn’t. Which parts of your talk landed with the audience? Which sections felt flat or rushed? If you present regularly to the same group, you’ll start to notice patterns in what resonates. Use that awareness to adapt your approach and tailor your communication style. That flexibility builds trust and makes you a more effective and credible partner. #### Learn from others Inspiration is everywhere. Watch how others present – whether it’s colleagues, industry peers, or even professional speakers. Conferences, webinars, and TED Talks can be great sources of ideas. Some of those techniques might not fit a corporate setting perfectly, but they can still spark creative ways to visualize or explain your message. And don’t be afraid to borrow good ideas. If someone uses a slide format or visual style that works well, adapt it for your own use. Everyone does it. What matters is that it helps you communicate more clearly and effectively. ## Always aim to grow At the end of the day, great presentations – whether in competitive intelligence, consulting, or research – are about creating *impact*. They’re about delivering persuasive, actionable insights that help your stakeholders make better decisions. Keep refining your craft, stay curious, and never stop learning. The more you practice and evolve, the more your work will resonate – and the more value you’ll bring to your organization. --- *This article is based on* [*Susan Sutherland*](https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-sutherland-wilmshurst-b321613/)*’s brilliant talk at the virtual Competitive Intelligence Summit, 2023.* ### Maximizing your competitive advantage through strategic planning URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/maximizing-your-competitive-advantage-through-strategic-planning/ Last updated: 2025-10-30T12:00:29.000Z Ever feel like your intel work is never *really* done? There’s always another dataset to chase, [another stakeholder to brief](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-marketing/), another insight that could make your recommendations just a little stronger. The challenge is knowing where to focus so your efforts deliver the greatest long-term impact – not just quick tactical wins. That’s where [**strategic planning**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-are-the-4-key-elements-of-a-strategic-plan/) comes in. By connecting your intelligence work to broader business strategy, you move beyond short-term firefighting and help shape the decisions that truly define your company’s competitive edge. In this article, we’ll explore: - **Why** competition and strategy are so closely linked - **How** to get CI involved throughout the strategic planning process - **Practical steps** for carving out time and capacity to work more strategically ## Why competitive and corporate strategy must align Competitive and corporate strategy should really be one and the same. Competitive strategy should be driven by the same person leading corporate strategy – and corporate strategy shouldn’t be created without input from competitive intelligence. When everyone’s aligned around a single strategic direction, the benefits go far beyond efficiency. You start removing the confusion, duplicated efforts, and competing priorities that often creep in when teams aren’t on the same page. Here are three of the biggest advantages that come from getting that alignment right: [![Advantages of strategic alignment. 1. Avoid messaging whiplash: Value props aligned to strategic vision are sustainable and scalable. 2. Reduce internal friction: Don't ask sales and marketing to make the best of a bad situation. 3. Measure twice, cut once: Strategic solutions explore the root cause of your competitive position.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/10/data-src-image-b0070a31-7be1-48ae-9987-816852e000cb.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/maximizing-your-competitive-advantage-through-strategic-planning) ### 1\. Avoid messaging whiplash The first benefit is avoiding what I like to call *messaging whiplash*. This happens when, as an analyst, you seize on an apparent [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/) and quickly build it into your approach – without considering its long-term sustainability or its role in your company’s broader strategy. For example, if the business shifts away from that advantage – say, by charging premiums for features that used to be included in bundled packages – you might find yourself jumping from one value proposition to the next with no clear connection or overarching vision. The result? Extra work, more confusion for your stakeholders, and a market that doesn’t really know what your story is. ### 2\. Reduce internal friction Internal friction can crop up in other ways, too. When the corporate strategy overlooks or downplays opportunities surfaced by CI, it creates ripple effects throughout the organization. [Sales](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/) and marketing teams end up compensating for those gaps, basically applying duct tape instead of addressing the root causes. You can’t build sustainable, long-term value that way. ### 3\. Measure twice, cut once Perhaps the biggest impact of alignment is on productivity. When everyone’s aligned strategically, you avoid wasting time revisiting decisions or reworking assumptions just to keep things moving. It’s the old “measure twice, cut once” principle – if you address potential missteps early, at the strategic level, you won’t have to fix them later. And that’s really the common thread here: when your intelligence work focuses on solving problems at a strategic level, you can eliminate a whole range of downstream issues with a single, well-informed action. ## How to create space for strategic CI work It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind of tactical work – constantly responding to requests, updating materials, and keeping teams informed. But to have a real strategic impact, you need to carve out time and space for **strategic planning**. The key is to **economize your tactical efforts**: find ways to sustain the same quality of outcomes while reducing the time and effort it takes to produce them. Let’s explore three ways to do just that. ### Automate monitoring Automation is top of mind for many teams right now, but it doesn’t have to mean expensive [software](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-intelligence-tools-tech-stack/) or complex systems. In fact, starting small is often far more effective – especially if your team is still proving its value or working with limited resources. Begin with a simple checklist of sources to monitor for each update, and record what you find – even when there’s nothing new to report. Tracking “no significant changes” helps reveal long-term patterns and gives you valuable historical context. [![Image on the left shows a robot hand shaking a human hand. Text on the right reads "Automate Monitoring. Most Basic - checklists and records. Most Advanced - dedicated technology. Note: Many low tech solutions are also available, like consultants, agencies, or interns that might be more practical in your organization or industry."](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/10/data-src-image-56337667-d3e4-463c-ad5f-ea31e60a5401.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/maximizing-your-competitive-advantage-through-strategic-planning) And remember, automation isn’t just about tools. People can play a big role too – consultants, agencies, or interns can all help share the load and keep your monitoring consistent without stretching your bandwidth. ### Crowdsource intelligence Speaking of people, let’s talk about [crowdsourcing competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-untapped-gold-mine-of-competitive-intelligence/). We all do it to some extent, but very few of us do it intentionally or effectively. The goal is to move from being treated like a human search engine to being seen as a connector and facilitator of insight. Once someone DMs you with a question that they could’ve Googled, it’s already too late. Be a good teammate and help, of course, but try to make those conversations public so others can benefit. Keep discussions in shared channels where people can search and reference them later. Don’t hesitate to tag others in and invite their input – your role isn’t to know everything, but to know *who* knows what. As you do this, analyze the perspectives emerging in those discussions. You’ll start to notice where consensus exists and where opinions diverge. [![Image on the left shows three seated people in business-casual dress holding up cardboard speech bubbles. Text on the right reads "Crowdsource. Don't let chat become a human search engine, foster good practices. Analyze prevailing and dissenting perspectives so understand how your assessments will land with stakeholders."](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/10/data-src-image-80af527f-ff7a-4014-9422-4db74c567127.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/maximizing-your-competitive-advantage-through-strategic-planning) If your [executive stakeholders](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/) occasionally chime in, that’s gold. Their comments give you insight into how they think about certain topics. You don’t need to absorb their biases, but understanding their perspective helps you position your findings appropriately during your strategic engagements. ### Nurture partners Partnerships are key to scaling your impact – especially with teams that control how insights reach stakeholders. Sales enablement is the classic example, but don’t forget content marketing, product, or regional sales leaders. To make space for strategic planning, you can’t spend all your time creating tactical materials like [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/) and comparison sheets, but you also can’t hand them off entirely. The sweet spot lies in co-creating content with your partners. Set up templates for key workstreams and walk your partners through when and how they can contribute. Make collaboration easy – that’s what keeps relationships alive. [![Image on the left shows two people in business attire having what appears to be a heated debate. Text on the left reads "Nurture Partners. Co-create content when possible, be conscious of reciprocal efforts. Make time for guest appearances and check-ins; track your engagements and set goals."](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/10/data-src-image-5480a05f-119c-4873-a866-6395004160ef.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/maximizing-your-competitive-advantage-through-strategic-planning) Even if co-creation takes some upfront investment, it pays off in efficiency and trust. Being a good partner *is* an efficiency gain in itself. Set goals for who you want to meet with, how often, and what you want to achieve together. Whether it’s a specific project outcome or a behavior change within their team, track those engagements and manage them like relationships in analyst relations. At the end of the day, shaving time off tactical work is often about reclaiming small chunks of time across many small processes. That’s much easier than trying to compress one massive, cross-functional project. By creating efficiencies here, you’re buying yourself the space to focus on [strategic planning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-facilitate-a-strategic-planning-session/) – the kind of work that truly moves the needle. ## Guiding principles for integrating CI into strategic planning Once you’ve done the hard work of streamlining your workflows and freeing up time to think strategically, the next step is actually getting involved in your organization’s strategic planning process. Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all guide for this. Every company has its own culture, cadence, and approach to planning. You can’t take an outsider’s perspective here – you need to build your approach from the inside out, in a way that fits how your organization operates. The key is to avoid confusing “integration and alignment” with simply showing up and following someone else’s plan. You’ll need your *own* plan – one that defines your objectives and the steps to achieve them. Whether it’s just for you or shared across your team, that plan becomes your anchor point as you navigate strategic planning. For me, three guiding principles have an outsized impact on how CI successfully integrates at the strategic level – and how it sustains that impact in daily operations. Those are **sponsorship, alignment, and tempo**. ### Sponsorship: Get your foot in the door Sponsorship is absolutely critical for getting things done in a large organization. Most of us have experienced what it’s like to push for progress without a sponsor – it’s tough. But sponsorship isn’t just about having senior support; it’s about *shared responsibility* and advocacy. With that in mind, here are three things to look for in a potential sponsor: 1. **Distinguished from other stakeholders:** Unlike typical stakeholders who just consume your insights, a true sponsor shares ownership of your work’s outcomes. They don’t just take credit when things go well – they’re willing to take responsibility and act on your behalf when needed. 2. **Peers with senior stakeholders:** The seniority of your sponsor also matters. If you’re briefing the CEO regularly, one of your sponsors should be a member of the C-suite. That’s not an absolute rule, but your sponsor should at least have the authority, capacity, and willingness to clear obstacles for you. Without that, it’s hard to make real progress. 3. **Provides guidance and feedback:** Sponsors give you an invaluable window into how strategic decisions are made. It helps to have someone “in the room” who can flag when your work needs to shift or when a message won’t quite land. They provide context and feedback that you can’t get from documents or dashboards alone. ### Alignment: Work smarter, not harder Your sponsor might get you a seat at the table, but staying there depends on the value you deliver – and that comes from strong alignment. Alignment isn’t a one-time milestone; it’s an ongoing process of deepening your contribution and meeting evolving needs. Here’s how to make that happen: 1. **Layer insights into existing processes:** Start small by weaving CI into existing company rhythms. Add a few slides to QBRs, drop a paragraph into a campaign plan, or share a short perspective in planning meetings. These subtle additions build credibility and get people thinking about how to collaborate with you. 2. **Identify demand for deeper insights:** Track the requests that come your way and look for recurring themes. You don’t have to take on every ask – just notice when multiple teams start seeking the same information. That’s your cue that a bigger, shared need is emerging. 3. **Develop workstreams in response:** Turn those recurring needs into structured workstreams. This transforms one-off requests into repeatable processes and signals that your CI function is maturing into a strategic partner. #### Pitfalls and cautions Of course, alignment has its risks. The biggest one is **siloing**. It’s easy for CI to slip into acting like an outside consultant – proposing ideas from across the table instead of collaborating side by side. Aim to be seen as a partner, not a vendor. Another risk is **swimming upstream** – trying to overturn established strategies without the resources or insight depth to back it up. If a business unit spent two years building a strategy, two weeks of analysis won’t be enough to change minds. Focus instead on areas where you can make an immediate, meaningful difference. Lastly, be mindful of **scope**. The potential reach of CI is enormous, and that can be a trap. Define clear boundaries so your efforts stay focused and feasible. ### Tempo: Prioritize stability When it comes to delivering intelligence, stability beats speed every time. A consistent rhythm – in tone, format, and timing – helps stakeholders know what to expect and keeps everyone focused. Frequent context switching makes it harder for analysts to think deeply and for decision-makers to trust what they’re seeing. That’s why “real-time” intelligence, while tempting, often does more harm than good. Constant updates can trigger knee-jerk reactions instead of thoughtful reflection, trapping organizations in a cycle of activity rather than [strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-roll-out-a-strategic-plan/). The same problem appears in how we process information. When we skim huge volumes of data without pausing to evaluate it, we reinforce our own biases and mistake familiarity for understanding. Real insight comes from slowing down, going deeper, and taking time to connect the dots. In the end, a deliberate, steady tempo isn’t just easier to manage – it’s what allows intelligence work to actually *shape* strategy instead of chasing it. ## Tools and exercises for embedding CI into strategy There’s no single template for integrating into strategic planning. However, there are a few techniques and exercises you can experiment with to strengthen your influence and make that integration smoother. Think of these as starting points you can adapt for your own context. [![A presentation slide titled “Flexible techniques to explore and adapt.” It features four sections, each with an icon and short description. Top left: “3rd Person SWOT – Would you be able to fill out a SWOT analysis from the perspective of your strategic stakeholders?” Top right: “Sponsorship Checklist – What should you look for in a sponsor? How do you know if a new role has a strong sponsor? How will you maintain this relationship?” Bottom left: “Decision Tree – What kind of strategic intelligence do you need to meet a specific need in a given timeframe? Who do you need to partner with?” Bottom right: “Analyst Time Budget – Allocating resources to strategic planning is even more challenging if you don’t have a clear view of what’s available.”](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/10/data-src-image-a57dd77d-61c0-44b6-9205-15620cf493e2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/maximizing-your-competitive-advantage-through-strategic-planning) ### 1\. Third-person SWOT Try running a third-person [SWOT](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/) exercise – a classic framework with a twist. Instead of completing it from your own perspective, fill it out as if you were someone else in the business, like the head of sales or a regional leader. This forces you to step into their mindset and better understand how they see the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s a simple but powerful way to build empathy, uncover blind spots, and anticipate how different leaders might react to your insights. ### 2\. Sponsorship checklist Create a short checklist for sponsors – either to clarify what you expect from them or to define what they can expect from you. This can be especially valuable if you’re new to a role or building a CI function from scratch. Outline your goals, what support you’ll need to succeed, and how you plan to keep the relationship mutually beneficial. Don’t be afraid to articulate your non-negotiables – clarity here prevents misalignment later. ### 3\. Decision tree Decision trees are great tools for collaboration, but they’re even more effective when you use them to **connect workstreams to strategic requirements**. By mapping out which CI deliverables or workflows address which needs, you can avoid reinventing the wheel every time someone requests “just one more custom report.” It helps standardize your response process and ensures consistency across projects. ### 4\. Analyst time budget Time is your most finite resource – so treat it like a budget. An analyst time budget helps you visualize how much time your team spends on different activities. It’s a simple way to show leadership where your bandwidth goes, highlight inefficiencies, and make the case for shifting effort toward higher-value work. Whether you use it to justify headcount, rebalance priorities, or simply stay accountable to yourself, this tool can be an eye-opener for how effectively your team’s time is being used. ## Key takeaways Competitive intelligence has the most impact when it moves from reactive to strategic – when you’re not just gathering information but shaping how your organization thinks and plans. Making that shift doesn’t require a complete overhaul; it’s about small, intentional steps that free up time, build alignment, and keep your insights connected to the bigger picture. Here’s what to remember: 💡 **Think strategically, act deliberately:** Focus your time and energy on the insights that influence long-term decisions. ⚙️ **Streamline before you scale:** Simplify tactical work and prove value before investing in new tools or processes. 🤝 **Build strong partnerships:** Collaborate across teams and co-create whenever you can – it amplifies your reach and impact. 🧭 **Find your sponsor:** Work with leaders who can advocate for your team and help you plug into strategic planning. 🕰️ **Protect your tempo:** Stay consistent and go deep – thoughtful, well-timed insights always beat a flood of quick updates. --- *This article is based on* [*Sam Rinaldo*](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-rinaldo-564117179/)*’s brilliant talk at the Competitive Intelligence Summit, 2023.* ### How to use advanced interview techniques to unlock true win-loss insights URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-advanced-interview-techniques-to-unlock-true-win-loss-insights/ Last updated: 2025-10-25T13:24:03.000Z Are you tired of losing deals and not really knowing why? The goal of a [**win-loss program**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/8-tips-for-effective-win-loss-analysis/) is simple: to improve your [win rate](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/boosting-win-rates-building-trust/). But getting there means looking well beyond how your sales team is selling. You need to understand how your product or service is [positioned](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/), how it's priced, and, most importantly, how it's perceived by your buyers. Ultimately, your prospects make clear decisions based on the value they see (or don't see) in your offering. In this article, you'll discover why direct buyer feedback is the real source of truth for win-loss analysis and how to structure your interviews for maximum impact. You'll learn simple ways to probe deeper using techniques like the **‘Five Whys’** and **‘Laddering’** to move beyond surface-level answers and uncover the true decision drivers that will lead to actionable insights for your entire organization. ## **Why the buyer is the real source of truth** We often say the CRM is the source of truth in our business, but when it comes to win-loss, the real source of truth is the customer. CRMs often hold brief, biased notes entered by our teams, filtered through their own lens. Let’s be honest: most sales reps aren't rushing to document the real reason a deal was lost, especially if it reflects poorly on their performance. That's why talking directly to your buyers is so critical. Their words, their sentiments, and their decision-making logic are the keys to unlocking meaningful change. And the best part? They'll tell you if you ask the right questions and know how to listen. [Using Customer Feedback and Win-Loss Interviews to Improve Your ProductCustomer feedback and win-loss interviews are among the most effective ways to gain a firm understanding of how your product has been received, and how you can make changes, where needed.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-106.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceLawrence Chapman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Framework_Tiles_win_loss_analysis.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) ### **The measurable impact of win-loss analysis** Win-loss analysis is a critical component for driving business and revenue growth through data-driven insights into your buyer’s decisions.Companies that consistently review wins and losses see **double-digit improvements in win rates**, and [McKinsey estimates that **a 10–20% win-rate lift can translate to 4–12% topline growth**.](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/growth-amid-uncertainty-jump-starting-b2b-sales-performance?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) Surprisingly, more than **60%** of the time, sales representatives have been wrong about why they win or why they lose, [as reported by Clozd](https://www.clozd.com/blog/win-loss-analysis-whats-the-best-source-of-win-loss-data). By implementing proper win-loss analysis, organizations can achieve better sales effectiveness, stronger product-market fit, more targeted marketing, and strategic executive alignment. [A step-by-step guide on building a world-class win/loss programCI is now recognized as critical to growth. The industry’s maturing, new people are entering all the time, and the work we do has more impact than ever.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-107.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceMonique Eddleton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--40--1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/increase-your-competitive-advantage-by-building-a-world-class-win-loss-program/) ### **What's in it for your teams?** Structured win-loss analysis provides measurable benefits across the board because it’s an organization-wide effort that drives growth. For our **sales teams**, we can boost sales effectiveness, increase win rates, and ramp new hires faster by understanding the true drivers behind prospect and customer decisions. For **marketing and product marketing**, we can create messaging and content that genuinely resonates with prospects while improving lead quality through better targeting. For our **product teams**, we can refine the product roadmap and achieve ideal product-market fit based on actual customer feedback rather than our own assumptions. And for our **executive leaders** in the business, we can foster strategic alignment on why we really win or lose deals, enabling better resource allocation and strategic planning. ## **The three core goals of our win-loss program** Our win-loss program is designed to drive measurable impact, and you might see some strong parallels to your own programs here. ### **1\. Improve our win rate** We want to convert more of our opportunities into revenue by understanding and addressing the factors that influence buyer decisions. ### **2\. Maintain a reasonable level of churn** We want to ensure that our customers see the long-term value in our solutions by identifying and addressing potential pain points before they lead to cancellations. ### **3\. Reduce cancellations** We want to fix the issues that cause buyers to hesitate or leave by proactively addressing the concerns identified through our win-loss analysis. Win-loss isn't just about learning from the past; it's about making future deals more predictable and successful by applying insights systematically across the organization. ## **Developing a consistent methodology for insight** Over the years of running win-loss programs, I’ve experimented with a number of approaches to gather direct feedback from buyers, both those who chose us and those who didn't. I've landed on a structure that works really well for the companies I've supported. Every company is different, whether it's a stage of maturity, available budget or resources, or even just how much leadership prioritizes win-loss. Regardless of where you're starting from, your curiosity or willingness to learn from your buyers doesn't have to cost a fortune. ### **Start simple, then mature** If you're at the early stages, maybe as a start-up or working with limited budgets and resources, you can start simple. A well-crafted **survey** or a short **phone interview** can be incredibly powerful. As programs mature, like ours has, we've expanded our approach by adding more touchpoints to validate what we're hearing. Tools like Gong or SalesLoft allow you to review sales calls and hear directly how prospects responded to questions, what objections they raised, and how they interpreted your value. That raw input becomes part of a much richer picture when you bring it all together in your analysis. ### **Consistent tagging for recurring themes** What's most important is applying a consistent methodology that will ensure you have reliable and comparable data to review over time. You'll want to **develop a consistent tagging methodology** to aggregate recurring themes right across your interviews and surveys. This helps you discover the main buyer decision factors, those factors driving buyers toward or away from your product or solution. Doing this enables you to report and make adjustments in the direction of activities by sales and marketing teams, and also provide a clearer picture for your product team. ### **Contextualizing your data** It's also really important in larger organizations working across many regions, products, and industries that you **view the data you uncover contextually**. Make sure that you segment your insights by region, product, competitor, and if you are working in a number of different verticals, break down your insights by those, too. This will help you identify actionable trends, spot recurring objections or winning differentiators, helping you to refine your competitive strategy based on where you win or where you lose to your rivals. ### **Adoption and growth: turning insights into action** Collecting insights is just the start. What really matters is what you do with the insights you find. We share them across our teams and with leadership, and we push those insights into tools like our CRM to keep them actionable. For big wins and losses, we run **post-interview debriefs** with the teams involved to align and learn quickly. From there, we feed our insights into our sales training, marketing content, and product roadmaps. We continually refine our approach and expand our coverage across the pipeline and track evolving buyer themes, because these do change over time. We also measure **ROI** linking insights back to the improvements in win rates, deal quality, and revenue growth. ## **Structuring your interviews for maximum insight** The best win-loss interviews are more like a **conversation** and not an **interrogation**. Your structure should encourage natural flow and focus to get the outcomes you're looking for. ### **1\. Build context and rapport** Start by asking questions around: "Can you walk me through how you first started looking at our solution? What specific challenges were you trying to solve?" This helps customers relax and share their journey naturally with us. ### **2\. Map their decision-making process** Once they’re relaxed, move into their decision-making process. You might ask questions like: "What other vendors did you evaluate? What stood out about each one of those vendors? And how did you ultimately decide?" This helps us understand the customer's full evaluation process. ### **3\. Probe deeper for the real reasons** This is where we probe a little bit deeper using techniques like the **Five Whys** and **Laddering**. We ask questions like: "What was the biggest driver behind your decision? What alternatives did you consider? And what could have been done to change your mind?" ### **4\. Capture their experience** Look for areas of improvement by asking: "How would you describe your experience with our team? What did you like the most and what could be done better?" This helps identify our strengths and weaknesses around their experience dealing with our teams. ### **5\. Look for future insights** Finally, when wrapping up, ask a couple of questions to gauge the potential of future business: "If we improved X, would that make a difference in your decision? Or would you consider us in the future? Why or why not?" The key tip I have for you is to **keep it conversational and don't rush the silences**. Buyers often reveal their true thoughts after a pause. ## **The Five Whys technique** Now that you have the end-to-end view of a win-loss interview, let's circle back to the **Five Whys technique** that will help you move beyond surface-level answers to uncover true decision drivers. How it works is by repeatedly asking "why," which helps us uncover the root cause of a decision. Let’s take an example from a *win interview* with a new property management client. When asked why they chose our platform over a competitor, the buyer said, *“Because it had better integrations.”* Now, here’s what the **Five Whys** look like in practice when we try to understand the chain of reasoning that led to the decision.. Instead of stopping at the first why, keep digging. Why was that feature important? Why did it matter to their team? Why did it affect their results? Why did those results matter to the business? Each “why” peels back another layer, from feature, to function, to impact, to emotion. Now, we discovered, after just a few rounds of questioning, “better integrations” turned out to be code for something much bigger: **agent productivity and faster deal closures.** That’s the real decision driver, and the value story your product and sales messaging should highlight. This method also exposes when an objection (like price) is actually about perceived value. Which is worth knowing before you cut prices on a hunch. With these insights uncovered, they can be applied to sales messaging and product positioning in the future. This approach will also help you determine whether something like pricing is a true blocker for a prospect or a **value perception issue**, which requires a positioning fix, not a price reduction. That’s helpful to know before you change your pricing strategy on a knee-jerk reaction! ## **The Laddering technique** **Laddering** is another probing technique, and it’s incredibly effective. The magic lies in asking the right follow-up questions to guide the conversation from features to benefits and the emotional drivers behind a decision. Instead of just asking "why," it explores the connection between features, benefits, and the personal or business impact based on emotion. Let's use an example of a **loss interview** to demonstrate the three levels of inquiry. ### **1\. Feature level questions** We start here to uncover what the customer liked, disliked, or prioritized in their decision. - **Example question:** Were there any tools or functionalities that our solution lacked or didn't meet your needs? - **Prospect answer:** Yes, we chose an alternative vendor because they had a lower price. ### **2\. Benefit level questions** Once the feature is mentioned, you can dig into why that feature mattered so much to their business. - **Example question:** How did that lower price influence your business decision? - **Prospect answer:** We had budget constraints and needed to minimize our upfront costs. ### **3\. Emotional level questions** This is where you ladder up to the personal or emotional motivators behind the benefit, which are often tied to things like confidence, risk, trust, or even team morale. - **Example question:** If price wasn't a concern, what would have been your choice? - **Prospect answer:** Probably your solution because of the integrations that you had, but the cost was the main barrier. In this example, **price sensitivity** is a key objection, but integrations were still a strength. A potential action could be offering different pricing tiers or a different model to address cost barriers without losing deals, or finding better ways to showcase your value and the ROI of your product or solution that can beat a price objection. ### **Laddering to confidence and risk** Let's look at another example focused on a feature gap: - **Feature level:** We chose an alternative vendor because they had better automation tools. - **Benefit level:** What impact did better automation tools have on your daily activities? **Prospect answer:** It streamlined our processes and saved us time. - **Emotional level:** And how did that make you feel about the decision that you made? **Prospect answer:** It made our leadership feel more confident in the investment we made. In this case, our product offering might have been comparable or even better in our eyes, but we might have missed a trick in effectively listening and actively communicating in a way that reduced the buyer’s risk and fostered their trust in our ability to deliver. **B2B buyers make emotional decisions as much as rational ones.** Laddering helps us expose those drivers, not just what people bought and why they bought and didn't buy, but why it mattered to them *personally*. Buyers don't often volunteer emotional drivers unless prompted gently. When asking these questions, you need to do so with empathy and with a pause after each, which will offer the person you're interviewing a bit of time to reflect before answering. ## **Uncovering hidden objections and competitive differentiators** Hidden objections aren't always explicitly stated. To uncover them, you need to listen for hesitation or vague answers. ### **Probe past vague answers** If a customer says, "It just didn't feel like the right fit," you need to probe deeper. Ask things like, "Can you share a specific example of what felt misaligned? Was it related to features, onboarding, pricing, or something else?" ### **Connect interview data to CRM data** Your CRM data may show recurring objections that customers don't explicitly mention in their interviews. For example, if many deals are lost to pricing, but your data reveals discounting rarely changes the outcome, the real issue may not be pricing itself, but **perceived value**. ### **Understand competitive differentiators** You need to understand the competitive differentiators from the customer's point of view. Ask things like: "What was the biggest difference between us and the vendor you chose?" Then, follow up with: "If you could combine the best aspects of both solutions, what would that look like?" That reveals where we win and where competitors are stronger, which can help guide both our marketing and product strategy. All of these techniques help uncover the true reasons behind customer decisions, providing actionable insights for marketing messaging and product development priorities. ## **Turning insights into action for organizational impact** Collecting data is only the first step. The true value comes from turning those insights into action. ### **1\. Organize your actionable insights into themes** Group your responses into common categories. This could be grouping by pricing concerns, product gaps, sales experience, or any competitive differentiators. ### **2\. Confirm themes with other data sources** What's being held in the CRM, what information has been captured through tools like SalesLoft or Gong, and your survey data? Identify recurring patterns. Listen for repeated sales objections, check if the themes align with sales call data, and see how they correlate with win-loss data trends you've been seeing over time. ### **3\. Deliver specific recommendations** Deliver specific recommendations for the sales, marketing, product, and executive leadership teams. For example, if the data shows a lot of loss due to complex onboarding, your teams can collaborate to see whether they can smooth out the adoption of the product through a simpler onboarding process. With that, you might look at new customer success playbooks to help you. For sales, they’ll get new battle cards reflecting how to handle objections. For your marketing team, you’ll create content that addresses the concerns and sends better messages to the market. Your product team can help prioritize those feature gaps, and your executive team can align on the competitive strategy. ### **4\. Track your improvements** Finally, you need to track your improvements in win rates, customer satisfaction, and revenue growth. To wrap up, remember these things to help improve your win-loss interviews and your win rates: - **Start with structured interviews** to keep conversations both natural and focused. - **Use techniques like Five Whys and Laddering** to help dig beneath the surface level of answers and uncover true decision drivers. - **Always probe deeper** to uncover hidden objections and understand how buyers truly see you versus your competition. Most importantly, **turn those insights into action** because that's where the impacts will really happen for sales, marketing, and the product teams. ### How to roll out a strategic plan (to guarantee success) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-roll-out-a-strategic-plan/ Last updated: 2025-10-10T08:59:08.000Z Building a strategic plan takes a lot of work. So when it comes time to put it into action, you want to get it right. 😤 But the truth is, an effective rollout starts *during* the planning process. Want to learn why that is, and what you need to do to make sure your strategic plan is seen through to its triumphant conclusion? 🏆 Stay tuned, as we cover: - Why stakeholder buy-in is so important, and **how to foster it** before you roll out your plan. - How to operationalize your plan, and **why this is the best first step** you can take in rolling out. - How communication, accountability, and incentives can be **your best friends when progress is slow.** ## Creating a plan Before you can roll out your strategic plan, you have to create it. And the actions you take or don’t take while creating your plan have a big impact on how successful it ends up being. Why is that, you ask? It’s because rolling out your strategic plan involves others. Others’ hard work is integral to successfully rolling out and implementing your plan. With a big enough vision, your strategic plan involves multiple teams from across your organization. You need to speak with these teams’ leaders, and get their buy-in. You also need the buy-in of those working *under* these leaders. The boots on the ground who will actually carry out the day-to-day tasks that push your plan forward. Forget the importance of others, and you can forget about your plan being seen to completion. So, if rolling out your plan successfully begins with how you create it, what should that **planning process** look like? Here’s each step in detail: 1. [Decide on where you want to get to.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/da7a58f0-e284-45d7-8f4f-4aabd1be36f5/#1decide-on-where-you-want-to-get-to) 2. [Figure out where you are right now.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/da7a58f0-e284-45d7-8f4f-4aabd1be36f5/#2figure-out-where-you-are-right-now) 3. [Create a strategic taskforce.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/da7a58f0-e284-45d7-8f4f-4aabd1be36f5/#3create-a-strategic-taskforce) 4. [Hold your first taskforce meeting.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/da7a58f0-e284-45d7-8f4f-4aabd1be36f5/#4your-first-taskforce-meeting) 5. [Take stock and consolidate.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/da7a58f0-e284-45d7-8f4f-4aabd1be36f5/#5take-stock-and-consolidate) 6. [Get your stakeholders' sign off.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/da7a58f0-e284-45d7-8f4f-4aabd1be36f5/#6get-your-stakeholders%E2%80%99-sign-off) ### 1 - Decide on where you want to get to First, figure out **where you want to get to**, why you want to get there, and how getting there will benefit the business. Your leadership team might have already made these decisions for you. But making sure you’re clear on these points, including the why and the how, helps you in three ways: 1. It makes it easier to get stakeholder buy-in by communicating how and why your plan is in everyone’s best interests. 2. It makes top-down communication clearer, which removes potential for misunderstandings and wasted efforts. 3. It aligns everyone, across teams, on intended direction and priorities. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/A-to-B-2.jpg) Your first task is to figure out what your point "A" is, and what you have to do to get to point "B". ### 2 - Figure out where you are right now Once you’ve figured out where you want to go, get clear on where you are right now. Establishing the state of the business relative to what sits on the other side of your strategic plan is crucial. It tells you what you need to change. Depending on how much work others have done for you, this step and step one could take days, or only minutes-to-hours, while you remind yourself of the facts. Allow ideas on how you’ll get from A to B to start flowing. Before you come up with anything concrete, though, you’ve got further steps to take. ### 3 - Create a strategic taskforce It’s crucial you involve others as early as you can. This makes sure you’re all on the same page, and maximizes your plan’s chances of success. To do this, set up a taskforce or advisory board. This should consist of people who’ll be involved with the plan. But you can’t involve everyone. Now’s the time to figure out who to involve. If you’re struggling to decide, try asking yourself the following questions: - Based on what you know of what it’ll take to move from A to B, which teams will be involved? - Who will have the most impact on the success of the project from those teams? - Who will have the most impact on the success of the project from outside those teams? You might also want to consider whose input you’d appreciate, even if they won’t be directly involved. To be fair, involve at least one person from every team you think will play a part in bringing your plan to fruition. Allow them to be the champion for their respective department, and gather others’ ideas to bring to the table. Team leaders and managers are obvious choices. [Greatest Team Ever Thor GIF](https://tenor.com/view/greatest-team-ever-thor-chris-hemsworth-thor-love-and-thunder-best-team-ever-gif-26087206)from [Greatest Team Ever GIFs](https://tenor.com/search/greatest+team+ever-gifs) ### 4 - Your first taskforce meeting Here’s where the prep work really starts to blend into the rollout. Your taskforce will serve as an advisory board, so seek their advice! You can [facilitate a strategic planning session](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-facilitate-a-strategic-planning-session/) yourself, or select a facilitator from among the various third parties who offer this as a service. Here’s a **sample agenda:** 1. **Get feedback** on your initial brainstorms. 2. **Gather solutions** from others (before sharing your own). 3. Establish a **regular cadence** for meetings. 4. Finalize your **taskforce lineup**. **1) Get feedback on your initial brainstorms** In the first meeting or two, sound everyone out for their feedback on (i) your ideas on where the business is right now; (ii) your vision for where you’d like to get to. ☝️ Remember: a great metric for an effective meeting is equal talk time. Make sure everyone (even the quiet ones) gets their chance to speak up and share. **2) Gather solutions from others (before sharing your own)** Before floating your ideas on how to get from point A to point B, ask your taskforce for its thoughts on how they’d get there. If solutions or ideas are slow to come, hold back on offering your own ideas just yet. Save this for the second or third meeting. This has a number of key benefits: 1. It gives people time to figure out solutions over days to weeks, giving you better and **more mature ideas** for your strategic plan. 2. It ensures everyone knows you’ve taken the time to digest their thoughts and opinions, making them **more open** to hearing your own thoughts on how you should move forward. 3. It involves others from the start of the process, getting them **invested in the results** of the project and all but guaranteeing their buy-in down the line when the going gets tough. #### **3) Establish a regular cadence for taskforce meetings** It’s also important to keep these meetings regular, even if they’re only once a month or so. So set aside some time during this first meeting to establish a cadence for further meetings for the duration of the plan This keeps people accountable, but it’s also a show of respect that (i) you’re serious about this and value others’ time, and (ii) you’ll be keeping everyone updated as the project goes on. **4) Finalize your taskforce lineup** Also, some of the people you’ve selected might have other ideas on who should be involved. Or they might have opinions on whether they and their teams should be involved, and to what degree. This is a good time to resolve these points and finalize your taskforce’s lineup. ### 5 - Take stock and consolidate After the first couple of taskforce meetings, take the time to (i) go through everyone else’s ideas, (ii) re-examine your own initial ideas of how you should solve the problem, and (iii) synthesize both of these together into a concrete plan. Since you’ve taken time to: - Let your own thoughts gestate - Sound people out - Meet with your taskforce - Have them seek input from their teams… …you should now have a strong idea of what your plan should look like in practice. For that reason, you’ll often be pleasantly surprised to find the plan comes together very quickly. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/CIA_CI_Masters_Social_Sharing_Assets_3.png) #### Is your competitive program effective enough? Imagine if you could: - Set up your listening stack to gather competitive intel with ****ruthless efficiency**, giving you more time to analyze, enable, inform, and become your business’s champion. 💪 - Set up win/loss interviews to unveil the ****powerful reasons** why customers aren’t choosing you, even if you’ve got no time or resources. 🔎 - Deliver a competitive news briefing that ****gets people talking**, no matter which set of stakeholders you serve. 📣 We’ve got a brand new course that covers every aspect of competitive intelligence, and what it takes to be successful. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters) --- #### **Aside: why you must not skip these steps** Don’t skip the above steps. If you try to force a plan together last-minute, without consulting others, you’ll find the opposite is true. **First**, your plan will be incomplete. Whether you know it or not, you have blind spots and biases. Others will be able to shine a light on these, saving you time down the line from avoidable mistakes. **Secondly**, and most importantly, you won’t have laid the all-important groundwork necessary to get others on board. That all-important stakeholder buy-in won’t materialize when you need it most. Since your plan doesn’t reflect stakeholders’ thoughts and opinions, they won’t feel invested in it. Since you haven’t given them an opportunity to disagree with you, or to voice concerns, they won’t feel valued. In fact, their teams might just not have the bandwidth to do what you need them to do. And, since you haven’t shared your plans with them or involved them, their priorities might not align with yours. Expecting them to change tack simply at your say-so is unfair, and is likely to foster ill will. ### 6 - Get your stakeholders’ sign off With a concrete plan in place, have one more meeting with your stakeholder group where you present your finished plan and get their sign-off. This is going to impact them and their teams too. That’s why they’re involved. Take this opportunity to outline exactly what the plan will require of them and their teams. That means reasonable detail in terms of tasks and time. This way, if anyone thinks those requirements are too much, they can push back. This avoids your plan slamming to a halt because the boots on the ground lack capacity. When you all agree on your priorities, and everyone accepts the suggested workloads, you’ve got a great springboard to achieve something great. Finally, and before you roll out your plan, it makes sense to pressure test it. [Business wargaming](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/) is one way you can roleplay less favorable scenarios, and test how your plan will cope. ## Rolling out the plan Now it’s time to roll out the plan. [Its Time Ufc GIF](https://tenor.com/view/its-time-ufc-bruce-buffer-announcer-time-gif-20339085)from [Its Time GIFs](https://tenor.com/search/its+time-gifs) If you’ve taken the time to lay the necessary groundwork, follow the above steps, and involve the necessary stakeholders, you’ll find things fall into place without many hiccups. Of course, in practice, nothing ever goes perfectly. But when it comes time to pivot, or to put out a fire, you’ll find you have a team of reliable, invested firefighters to help you. Without them, you may still succeed, but everything will take more effort, and your chances of success are much lower. While it might seem like a lot of preliminary work, the time you save yourself in the long-run makes it well worth it. Now let’s roll out that plan: 1. [Operationalize the plan.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/da7a58f0-e284-45d7-8f4f-4aabd1be36f5/#1-operationalize-the-plan) 2. [Educate and enable task doers.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/da7a58f0-e284-45d7-8f4f-4aabd1be36f5/#2-educate-and-enable-task-doers) 3. [Check for accountability and incentives.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/da7a58f0-e284-45d7-8f4f-4aabd1be36f5/#3-check-for-accountability-and-incentives) 4. [Questions to ask to maximize buy-in.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/da7a58f0-e284-45d7-8f4f-4aabd1be36f5/#4-questions-to-ask-to-maximize-buy-in) 5. [Communicate the plan and its updates.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/da7a58f0-e284-45d7-8f4f-4aabd1be36f5/#5-communicate-the-plan-and-its-updates) 6. [See the plan through to completion.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/da7a58f0-e284-45d7-8f4f-4aabd1be36f5/#6-see-the-plan-through-to-completion) ### 1) Operationalize the plan First off, you have to break things down into constituent tasks. This is known as [operationalizing your strategic plan](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-operationalize-strategic-plan/). This isn’t a quick process but, from a managerial standpoint, it’s very effective. You need a concrete consensus on: - What *will* get done. - *Who will be doing it.* - *When they will have it done.* - *Who they will be delivering it to.* Without these, no one sees a task as their responsibility. Or, they’re not sure what they should be doing, or how big of a priority it is. With the landslide of business-as-usual activities, and Parkinson’s Law, the “hopefully we can get this done at some point in the next couple of weeks” tasks get lost. Your strategic plan deserves better than that. When you operationalize your plan, you break everything down into manageable, practical pieces. Every “piece” (task) gets assigned to somebody. Every task gets a deadline, and a description. In practice, this just boils down to getting your plan broken down and into your project management software of choice. 0:00 /0:12 1× Project management software like Asana makes it easy to operationalize your plan by breaking it down into tasks. Video courtesy of asana.com This has a number of benefits: 1. It’s easier to **track progress**. 2. It’s easy to see tasks getting blocked by **unfinished work**. 3. People can incorporate your project’s tasks alongside their **other responsibilities**. ### 2) Educate and enable task doers Before you get underway, and perhaps at intervals during the course of the plan, make sure everyone has the materials they need to get the job done. As the project owner, you should mostly know what each task requires. What its purpose is, and what its outcome needs to be. If you have learning material that could help members of a team be successful, it only makes sense to provide them. ☝️ Remember: Different people work differently. Some are literal thinkers, and need a lot of direction and detail in the task. If you don’t include it, they won’t do it, and will wonder why you’ve chosen not to include essential details. Others think more conceptually, and will fill in the blanks for you. Hopefully, the right people are in the right roles and think in ways that complement their role. ### 3) Check for accountability and incentives You can’t involve *everyone* who’ll end up actually carrying out the plan in your stakeholder meetings. But it’s important your task doers are kept informed and inspired, even as they’re held accountable. Incentives are always helpful. If accountability is the motivational stick, incentives are your motivational carrots. 💡 Tip: don’t make things concrete too far into the future. Life and business are unpredictable. An inflexible plan is at risk of pulling the business in the wrong direction if you do not adapt. For more information, see “[How to operationalize a strategic plan](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-operationalize-strategic-plan/).” ### 4) Questions to ask to maximize buy-in That said, the same things that maximize buy-in from your taskforce members will do the same for your task doers. If someone is consistently letting deadlines slip, ask: - Do they really know *why* they’re doing this? And how it contributes to the success of the plan? 🙋 - Do they understand how the plan will help the business but, more importantly, how the success of the plan can positively impact *them* and their own career? 🤔 - Are they adequately incentivized towards success? 🧐 - Are they getting the support they need with their work in general? 🤝 If you can answer “Yes” to all of the above, then it’s time to look at whether they’re being held accountable for not meeting their deadlines. > Some of these points, like support, aren’t necessarily your responsibility. But it’s in your best interest to make sure they’re in place if you want your plan completed. For that reason, it pays to take care of any issues if you’ve asked the responsible party to take care of it, but things aren’t improving. ### 5) Communicate the plan and its updates Communicate the plan company-wide, or as wide as necessary to make sure all involved parties can get on board. As we’ve alluded to above, it’s important that your task doers have some sort of direct line to you and your vision. It’d be naïve to 100% rely on your taskforce members to communicate your vision for you. Here are a number of suggestions for making sure people understand your plan and your vision: - A regular, company-wide newsletter works wonders. Delegate this if you have to, but format it so the key details are up top, and the detail is below for those motivated to read it. - Incorporate your plan into the onboarding process for new employees as well, so no one gets missed. - Create a one-page summary document, and make it available in key locations for all to read and see. - Be vigilant about updating people when the plan changes. ![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-B9vbNBerdfgqbRb3hz76vQzYfFOWP9e6Vr1ilI57gs5GEzCOVtvJo5DnXXfce5Dos9nMUk_BTxJp-AGXmmVfCSt5Wwf8Vmt7eXGRmOTAWCORyCkDDB3vcDxa9O9ttpuDuNO7d4cxwZvc-lFwXJy-_e8rB9nMp6aqcy2v_1jQbSkGiE0ENn0jbpR_A) Take inspiration from your competitive intelligence team's competitive briefings to keep your org informed about updates to your strategic action plan. Image courtesy productmarketingalliance.com ### 6) See the plan through to completion When everyone knows what they should be doing, and by when; when everyone understands *why* they’re doing the tasks; when they have all the information and materials they need to get them done; when they’re adequately incentivized and informed, your plan will come together nicely. That doesn’t mean it’ll be smooth sailing all the way through. Life and business are unpredictable. You *will* need to adapt and make changes along the way. When you work closely with your stakeholders, continue to celebrate people’s wins and incentivize great work, there are no barriers you can’t overcome. Dig deep, work methodically, and achieve your vision. 💡 Tip: Don’t get lost in the weeds here. Aim for a “minimum viable project” first, and fill in the gaps from there as you go. The 20% of the tasks that will contribute to 80% of your plan’s success are the ones where your focus should be. Anything beyond this is bonus material. ## How to monitor KPIs and metrics during a strategic plan rollout ### Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for strategic rollout success When rolling out your strategic plan, define a small set of **leading and lagging KPIs** to signal progress or emerging issues early. Examples include: - **Adoption rate**: Percentage of teams who have accepted or adopted the plan (e.g. task lists created) - **Task completion rate**: Percentage of tasks achieved on time or within tolerance - **Blocked task ratio**: Number of tasks blocked / delayed per sprint or per month - **Stakeholder sentiment index**: Survey measure (e.g. Net Promoter Score style) of stakeholder confidence or buy-in - **Impact metrics tied to strategic goals**: For example, revenue growth, cost savings, market share gains — measured quarterly > Tip: Use dashboards or scorecards (e.g. Power BI, Tableau) to visualize progress and trends. Automate alerts when key thresholds slip. ### Embedding CI metrics into rollout tracking For competitive intelligence professionals, consider also tracking: - **Competitive response time**: How quickly competitor responses to your strategic moves occur - **Market signals alignment**: Whether market/competitive shifts suggest the strategy is still viable - **Intelligence gaps flagged**: Number of unknowns that emerge needing CI input By embedding CI-centric metrics, you not only monitor execution, but also feed forward signals into your CI program. ## Common pitfalls in strategic plan execution (and how CI helps avoid them) ### Pitfall 1: Lack of continuous communication Even a well-crafted plan can stumble if communication dries up. Teams lose sight of the “why,” priorities shift, or misalignment creeps in. > **CI insight**: Use competitive intelligence briefings or competitor updates to refresh context and maintain urgency in communications. ### Pitfall 2: Rigid execution without flexibility A plan that refuses to adapt is brittle. Unexpected market shifts, new competitor moves, or internal changes require nimbleness. > **CI insight**: Your CI function should continuously scan for deviations or red flags in competitor behavior or market trends, triggering course corrections. ### Pitfall 3: Overwhelming task burden Too many tasks, too tight deadlines – organizations burn out and deprioritize. Execution lags. > **Solution**: Prioritize the critical 20% of tasks that deliver 80% of value. Use phased or “minimum viable project” approaches. (This is already lightly touched in the original but can be expanded with examples.) ### Pitfall 4: Weak accountability or misaligned incentives Without clear responsibility and reward structures, tasks may drift or be ignored. > **Solution**: Assign owners, tie execution metrics to performance reviews or bonuses, and conduct regular “standing reviews” to keep attention high. By surfacing pitfalls and linking them to CI strategies, you enrich the article’s practical value and SEO scope (terms like “pitfalls,” “execution risks,” “strategy mistakes” are often searched). ## How to adjust or pivot a strategic Plan during execution ### Recognize the signals that it’s time to pivot You don’t need full failure before adjusting. Look for: - Repeated KPI misses across multiple tasks - Strong feedback from stakeholders that assumptions have changed - Unexpected competitor moves or external shocks (regulation, macroeconomic) - New intelligence that invalidates prior assumptions ### Steps to pivot responsibly 1. **Pause and reassess**: Convene your taskforce and key stakeholders to review data and feedback. 2. **Identify which parts of the plan are failing vs which remain valid**: Some tactics may still work, others need replacement. 3. **Re-align on vision and goal**: Confirm that your directional “north star” is still valid. 4. **Re-issue a revision or “Plan 2.0”**: Clearly document what changes, why they change, who will change what, and new metrics. 5. **Communicate transparently**: Explain pivot logic to all teams; highlight learnings and new direction. 6. **Track pivot ROI**: Monitor KPI delta pre vs post pivot to validate the change. By providing a structured approach to pivoting, the article becomes more resilient and applicable to real-world messiness. ## How competitive intelligence informs strategic plan execution ### Embedding CI in the rollout phases - **During planning / taskforce setup** - Use competitive benchmarking and external scans to inform priorities - Vet strategic choices against scenario planning and competitor moves - **During operationalization** - Schedule checkpoints where CI delivers updates influencing task scope or sequencing - Create feedback loops so frontline intelligence (e.g. field reports) can modify tactics - **During monitoring and pivot** - Build triggers based on CI signals (e.g. competitor price cuts, new entrants) - Adjust tasks or entire strategic themes when intelligence signals shift ### Example use cases - Suppose your firm is rolling out a new product differentiation initiative. Your CI team spots a competitor quietly releasing a similar feature earlier than expected. That insight may push you to accelerate rollout timeline, add defensive features, or rebrand the value proposition. - If competitor pricing is aggressive in a new region, the taskforce may pivot to reallocate resources to defend or delay launch there. Connecting CI and strategic execution makes the article more tailored for your niche, reinforcing your authority and SEO on “competitive intelligence + strategy execution.” ## Things to be careful of: bias and blinkers Before we wrap up, there are some things it pays to be mindful of before rolling out any strategic plan: Bias and blinkers. ### Bias Don’t disregard the thoughts and opinions of others. The members of your strategic taskforce aren’t there to pay lip service to your amazing plan. They’re there because they’ve got a track record of success and will be, in part, responsible for the plan’s success. ### Blinkers If you get feedback that something’s not working, don’t ignore it. Creating and rolling out a strategic plan is a lot of work. It’s easy to resist feedback when it comes out of fear of having to redo a ton of that work. You must not resist it. Feedback is crucial to redirecting. If you respond to feedback early, you’ll find it easy to correct course. If you ignore feedback until it’s almost too late, it will be *far* more work to undo what you’ve done, figure out what needs to change, implement those changes, and get everyone back on board. It’s not easy to keep stakeholders on board. If you lose their trust, it’s hard to get it back. --- ## **TL;DR** - Rolling out a strategic plan is a lot of work, but it’s a lot *more* work if you don’t do the necessary prep to get stakeholders and teams on board. - Communication is key. Keep people updated when things change. - Be adaptable. Listen to feedback in all forms, and don’t plan too far into the future. - Break your plan down into tasks people can manage. This makes it clear who’s responsible for what and keeps people accountable. Everyone knows it’s not the beginning or the end of a project that’s difficult. When the end is in sight, the pressure of deadlines, social ramifications, and the excitement of a job well done push people over the finish line. In the beginning, the excitement of fresh ideas, the winds of change, and a motivational vision get people motivated to join in the fight. It’s the drudgery of the eternal middle where things tend to fall apart. That’s why (i) this buy-in from others is so important and (ii) why it’s so important to operationalize your strategic plan, breaking it down into constituent steps, stages, and action points. Break it down into a set of action plans, with bite-sized tasks, and watch your vision materialize in front of your eyes. --- ## Need help with competitive intelligence? Does your competitive intelligence program leave something to be desired? Imagine if you could: - Set up your listening stack to gather competitive intel with **ruthless efficiency**, giving you more time to analyze, enable, inform, and become your business’s champion. 💪 - Set up win/loss interviews to unveil the **powerful reasons** why customers aren’t choosing you, even if you’ve got no time or resources. 🔎 - Deliver a competitive news briefing that **gets people talking**, no matter which set of stakeholders you serve. 📣 We’ve got a brand new course that covers every aspect of competitive intelligence, and what it takes to be successful. Interested? Click below right now to check it out. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/CIA_CI_Masters_Promotional_Assets_3-1.png)](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters) --- ### What is market segmentation? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-market-segmentation/ Last updated: 2025-09-30T10:10:26.000Z [Market segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/b2b-market-segmentation-guide/) is the first step in determining who your target market is. By segmenting potential customers into groups that share similar characteristics, you can identify groups to target further down the line. Traditional market segments are identified using the following characteristics: - Demographics - Psychographics - Geographics - Behavioral ## 5 benefits of market segmentation By getting to know your customers better, you can create and execute better marketing strategies from the ground up. Market segmentation can help you identify gaps in the market and determine how you fill them. ### 1) Create stronger marketing messages When you know who you’re talking to you can personalize your marketing messages. Instead of vague, generic messaging, you can develop stronger, direct messaging that speaks to the unique needs and characteristics of your target audience. > *“I think one of the key things you need to nail right away is messaging and positioning, they’re core to any Product Marketing role. If you're not good at messaging, you really can’t do a Product Marketing role. So, be good about figuring out how to message to the right people at the right time. -* **Sarah Din, Director of Product Marketing at SurveyMonkey** ### 2) Find out what works With dozens of marketing tactics available, it can be difficult to know what will attract your ideal audience. Using different types of market segmentation guides you toward the marketing strategies that will work best. When you know the audience you are targeting, you can determine the best solutions and methods for reaching them. ### 3) Create hyper-targeted ads You can use all the information gathered to target audiences by age, location, purchasing habits, interests, and more to create more effective digital ad campaigns. ### 4) Stand out from the crowd Being more specific with messaging and [value propositions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/your-ultimate-guide-to-creating-a-value-proposition/) will set you apart from the competition. By focusing on specific customer needs and characteristics you can deliver products that uniquely serve them, which inevitably leads to stronger customer bonds and lasting brand affinity. ### 5) Identify niche market opportunities When you segment your target market, you can identify parts of the industry that can be served and utilized in new ways. Once you’ve pinpointed these underserved markets you can develop new products and services to serve them. ## Types of market segmentation Let’s delve a little deeper into the different types of segmentation listed above and throw in a few examples of segmentation in practice to give you a clearer picture. ### Demographic segmentation Demographic market segmentation gives you basic background information about your customers, aiming to answer the question, “Who are my customers?”. Demographic segmentation deals with attributes including: - Age. - Gender. - Ethnicity. - Income. - Marital status. - Education. In a **B2B context**, you might segment the company’s decision makers by: - Time in position. - Role within the company. - Level of seniority. Or perhaps the businesses themselves: - Industry. - State of growth. - Number of staff. This kind of information can tell you a bit about who’s buying your product, but it **won’t tell you much about their motivations**. Herein lies the principal downside of demographic segmentation: it’s basic. For this reason, it’s best to combine it with other types to make your segments more useful. The upside? Demographic data is easy to get hold of compared with other data types. It’s available for purchase from third parties, for free as census data, or available from your customers themselves if you’re willing to do primary research. --- > A good example of this is T-Mobile’s 2019 campaign targeting baby boomers - the company’s strategists pinpointed what older adults were looking for when buying a phone; which they found was the ability to connect with family and friends. > In response to these findings, the company unveiled a new data plan targeted towards customers 55+ which eradicated all of the unnecessary added extras you might find in a millennials plan, who, for instance, streams an ordinate amount of content via [TikTok](https://www.tiktok.com/@ci%5Falliance) or Spotify. ### Psychographic segmentation Psychographic segmentation aims to answer the question, “Why do my customers buy?” Specifically, psychographic data is concerned with the deep, underlying **emotional motivators for buying decisions**. Those tied to things like your customers’ values, hobbies, goals, and political affiliations. As with behavioral data, psychographic data is difficult to collect. It often requires close tracking across the internet. For example, what kind of content do your customers engage with in their free time? What do they upvote on social media? What pages do they follow, and can those pages be categorized? If many high-value potential customers are environmentally conscious and this is one of only a few boxes you don’t currently tick for them, investing in environmentally friendly packaging and becoming carbon-neutral could constitute a massive win for your business. --- > For example, a company like Mercedes Benz focuses on customers who value luxury and status, while Volkswagen, which literally translates to ‘the people’s car’ in German targets an audience who value affordability and reliability. [Stand Out in a Crowded Market with Product PositioningGuest author Vimal Cherangattu walks you through actionable frameworks and strategies that will elevate your product positioning game to new heights.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-30.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceVimal Cherangattu![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/darwin-vegher-W_ZYCEUapF0-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/stand-out-in-a-crowded-market-product-positioning/) ### Geographic segmentation Geographic segmentation aims to answer the question, “Where are my customers buying from?” This doesn’t just break down to which country the purchase was made from. You might also segment geographically by looking at: - Languages - Cities & counties. - Postcodes. - Regions (e.g. mountainous regions for skiing resorts) Again, on the utility to ease-of-acquisition scale, this geographic data is not too dissimilar to demographic data. It’s easy to acquire, but is less useful than other types. That’s not to say geographic segmentation is without its uses, though. It can answer some pretty important questions for you, such as **what language** it makes most sense **to communicate in**. The answer will change with your audience (English speakers in Silicon Valley? Or a wealthy, multicultural hub in Geneva?). A single message isn’t likely to hit a home run across cultures either. Having solid geographic segments gives you an off-ramp to **optimize your messaging** for audiences across cultures. --- > For example, a company that sells only waterproof outerwear would have an easier time targeting markets in Seattle than say, Arizona. ### Behavioral segmentation Behavioral segmentation aims to answer the question, “Why and how are my customers buying?” When building out segments based on behavioral data, you’ll look at **the ways your customers buy** and, when they do, the types of behaviors that accompany a purchase. Here are some examples: - Time on-site before buying. - The on-site elements buyers engage with before making a purchase. - Where they engage the least. - Have they downloaded a lead magnet previously? - Are they a member of your newsletter, or your members-only forum? If you sell an app, have they downloaded that app? How long have they been using it for? If they allow you to collect usage data, how active are they on it? Questions like these belong to behavioral segmentation, and the answers are valuable. Info like this takes **more time and investment** to collect and analyze, though. --- > Netflix has the perfect model of behavioral segmentation, with each user receiving recommendations completely unique to them and based purely on their viewing behaviors. The data doesn’t lie, around 80% of Netflix views come from the recommendation feature. ## Market segmentation criteria/requirements Once you’ve finished the market segmentation study, your results should be: - Measurable - Accessible - Substantial - Differentiable - Actionable Let’s unpack each in a little more detail... ### Measurable Segments should be easily measurable so that marketing strategists can decide whether, and to what extent, they should focus their efforts and resources. If you can’t measure your rate of growth then how will you know the segment is valuable? ### Accessible There’s no use selecting a market segment you can’t reach, whether that means geographically, or psychologically. After all, you wouldn’t market a software solution specifically for a doctor and try and sell it to a police officer, would you? ### Substantial The market segment must have the ability to buy your product. For example, almost everyone would like to own a private jet but can most of us actually afford it? Not in this lifetime! ### Differentiable Differences between market segments should be clearly defined so that your campaigns, products, and marketing tools can be used as effectively as possible without overlap. ### Actionable The market segment needs to provide supporting data for a [marketing position](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/) or sales approach so that your intended marketing targets actually purchase a product. ## The segmentation process in 6 steps Here are the six steps to segmenting your market: 1. Understand your target market. 2. Define your market segments. 3. Develop buyer personas. 4. Create targeted messaging. 5. Choose the right marketing channels. 6. Measure and optimize your campaigns. ### Step 1: Understand your target market First up, you’ve got to understand your target market. Before you can carve a statue, you need to get your hands on a block of marble. In the same way, you need to be able to visualize the entire pool of customers that could benefit from your product before you can build your segments. That block of marble is your total addressable market, which we mentioned earlier. Hopefully, you haven't built a product without knowing there’s a market for it. But there’s always a stage where you’re trying to align your vision with what the market wants relative to what’s already out there. So, if you’re struggling to understand who your target market is, try sending out free samples or trials of your product. Compensate testers for their time, and ask for feedback on their experience with your product. Collect the details of those who like it and who say they’d use it; they represent your target audience. ### Step 2: Define your market segments Once you know your TAM, it’s time to start grouping. Use the methods we mentioned above to [break your market](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/audience-segmentation-guide/) (that block of marble) up into workable sections. Whether you combine various methods of segmentation to build your segments, or use just one, is up to you. As we discussed earlier, your segments will be defined by their shared characteristics. What makes each segment unique from the rest is what makes it useful, so don’t be tempted to make the differences subtle, or the lines between segments blur. With segments defined, identify the ones that represent the greatest opportunities for your business and prioritize them. ### Step 3: Develop buyer personas With a prioritized list of market segments in-hand, it’s time to develop your [B2B buyer personas](https://www.gotomarketalliance.com/the-go-to-market-buyer-persona-template/). Buyer personas add an air of personalization to your marketing communications from here on out. They allow you to interact with the decision-makers in the businesses that make up the members of your segments in as human a way as possible. --- [The Competitive Positioning Playbook | CIAIt’s how you position yourself relative to the competition that truly matters. In the Competitive Positioning Playbook, we show you how.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2022/10/blog_meta.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ### Step 4: Choose targeted messaging With buyer personas for each of your priority segments, you’re ready to start drawing up what your messaging will look like for each persona. It’s important your messaging is personalized and targeted so it can have the greatest possible impact. If you’re to influence and persuade effectively, you’re going to have to earn the trust of those decision makers. By learning what makes them tick, and what drives their buying decisions, you’ll be well-placed to start framing your products in the best possible light, while earning that trust quickly and effectively. ### Step 5: Choose the right marketing channels As we mentioned earlier, one of the keys to having actionable market segments is to know you can communicate directly with the members of your priority segments. That means choosing the right marketing channels. As part of the process of developing your buyer personas, you’ll have figured out where your decision makers hang out, and on which platforms they’ll be most receptive to marketing communications. Social media, [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@CI%5FAlliance), Google search results, and email are all great digital locations for your marketing communications. But trains, billboards, bus stops, television and movie commercials, magazines and newspapers… all of these are viable locations for your ads. You just have to pick the ones that make sense based on your research. [How to Build a Marketing Plan Using SWOT AnalysisUse SWOT analysis to develop an understanding of your competitive landscape, and you’ll better understand all the factors that go into creating a successful marketing plan.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/kaleidico-26MJGnCM0Wc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-marketing-plan/) ### Step 6: Measure and optimize your campaigns Finally, you’ll have to measure your campaigns. Everyone knows it’s rare to knock it out of the park on your first try. If you learn from every at-bat you have, though, you’ll soon learn where you can make small improvements in your game. Soon enough, home runs every time! The same is true for your marketing campaigns. Solid data is hard to come by, so use the pre-validated data that comes in freely as a result of your marketing efforts to boost the results of future campaigns. ## B2B vs B2C segmentation B2C segmentation focuses on marketing to individual consumers – people like you and me. B2B is focused on marketing to businesses. The differences between B2B and B2C market segmentation are a result of the normal differences between consumers’ and businesses’ buyer behavior. We’ve outlined five of the most impactful: #### Businesses don’t impulse buy Consumers impulse buy. Businesses don’t. If you’re marketing to consumers, you can build this impulse buying phenomenon into your strategy. Not so with B2B. When businesses are your customers, the decision-making process is longer and more complex. Why don’t businesses impulse buy? Usually, there’s more than one decision maker in a business. The person with the keys to the credit card is rarely the one who’ll be benefiting from your service in their daily line of duty. In other words, when marketing to businesses, you have to convince more than one person you’re right for them. [FOMO Marketing and Its Role In Consumer PsychologyFOMO, or fear of missing out, is an acronym for a psychological worry that’s been ingrained in the human psyche for as long as we can remember. In this article, we’ll delve deeper into this topic, and the role FOMO has on consumer psychology.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/psychology-1.jpeg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/fomo-and-consumer-psychology/) #### B2B services can be more complex The services you’re selling in B2B might be more complex. You might have multiple solutions, and might need to educate your prospects on the right one for them. The customer courting process is longer, which means there’s more room for error. #### There’s more money at stake There’s usually more at risk in B2B marketing, too. Winning a new enterprise account could mean landing thousands more users overnight. If your product works and helps the enterprise out, they could make a lot more money. If it doesn’t, they could be locked into an expensive contract for years and lose money on the deal, which makes them a more cautious buyer. #### It’s trickier to strike the right balance Since you’re dealing with multiple decision makers, it’s more difficult (though not impossible) to pinpoint a single “personality” or “[persona](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/persona-building/)” that you can speak to in your messaging. Plus, over-optimizing your messaging for the decision maker might make end-users very unenthusiastic about your product (and vice versa). ### B2B market segmentation methods Moving from your entire relevant market, aka your total addressable market (TAM), to a workable list of high probability prospects is a multistep process. You’ll first identify ideal targets by segmenting your TAM. In B2B marketing, you’ve got a few segmentation methods to choose from: #### Firmographic segmentation Firmographics are, essentially, the business equivalent of “demographics” for consumers. They include aspects like: - Company size. - The industry they’re a part of. - Annual revenue. - Business maturity. - Length of sales cycle. As is the case with B2C, segmentation methods exist on a kind of continuum. At one end is all the data that’s easy and inexpensive to get hold of. Unfortunately, since it’s the most accessible, such data don’t offer much of a [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage/). 💡 Firmographic segmentation, like demographic segmentation in B2C markets, sits at the “easy to access, low competitive advantage” end of the spectrum. #### Technographic segmentation Technographic segmentation has you segment businesses based on the tech they use. Why would you want to do that? Well, if you’re a [SaaS company](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-saas/), or offer a tech product of any kind, breaking your TAM up based on the tech they already use is a great help. You’ll be able to quickly figure out whether there’s room in their tech stack for your product. What’s more, the makeup of a business’ tech stack can tell you a lot about its maturity. Even if you can’t figure out what stage of growth a business is at, you might be able to find out what’s in its [tech stack](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-intelligence-tools-tech-stack/). From there, you stand a chance at figuring out whether that business is ready for your product, or if that ship has sailed. 💡 Technographic data will be harder to get your hands on than firmographic data but, as a result, it offers you more of a competitive edge. #### Needs-based segmentation With technographic segmentation, we mentioned you’d find out what tech a business was using, and use that to determine whether they might need your product now or in the future. [Needs](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/)\-based segmentation follows a similar reasoning approach. Rather than with data on their tech stack alone, you’d look at all the data you can find about a business to determine the kinds of solutions it might need – now or in the future. For example, you might determine that businesses only start looking for products like yours once they cross the mark of 1,000 employees. It’d make sense in this situation to market only to companies with more than 1,000 employees. 💡 Again, it’s more challenging to acquire data like this, and it takes a bit more work to determine future needs based on current conditions, but this nets you a more sustainable competitive advantage. #### Behavioral segmentation Behavioral segmentation in B2B marketing is almost exactly the same as in B2C. This time, rather than looking at the buying behavior of the consumer, you’re looking at the buying behavior of the businesses you’re targeting. This is powerful, it helps you understand the conditions necessary for members of your target market to buy, for one. For two, it’ll help you find triggers for buying behavior. For example, businesses in your sector might do a lot of buying right at the beginning of the financial year. This might tie into other data you’ve got, for example, if your sales team’s win rate is far higher in the three months immediately following the start of the new financial year. Such information can inform your marketing strategy, as you can ramp up your marketing efforts during these higher probability months of the year to win more deals. [How to Get Started with Market SegmentationMarket segmentation is the process of splitting up your target market into a set of smaller groups based on shared needs or characteristics. It helps you make more sense of your audience. And studying each segment uncovers new useful information about its members.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/coline-beulin-MPOwVcXSVAI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-get-started-with-market-segmentation/) #### Buyer journey stage As with B2C marketing, the stage of the buyer journey the businesses you’re targeting are at can make a big difference to the success of your campaigns. When your prospects are at a more advanced stage of awareness, different types of marketing material will be more effective than if they’re barely aware there’s a problem they should be looking to solve. This latter type of business won’t be ready for a pitch, and educational materials would make more sense. But a business that’s already looking for a solution like yours is ready to have their trust in your brand built, and to learn what makes your product stand out. ## 10 common market segmentation mistakes to avoid Breaking your target market down into smaller, more digestible chunks is no small feat. It’s a large, time-consuming task requiring plenty of data, know-how, and patience. As a result, there are a fair few pitfalls littered throughout the segmentation process. We’ve collated a list of the ten most common market segmentation errors you’ll need to avoid if you want to create relevant, useful segments that inform your marketing strategy and drive revenue. ### 1) You don’t have enough data A single data point doesn’t make a trend. But just how much data do you need to come away with statistically significant findings? **The answer:** more than you might think. In fact, the more data you have the better. When you work with greater volumes of data, you mitigate the influence any one outlier can have on your findings. Imagine gathering data on just five customers to determine your customer segments, for example. That’s just not enough to start determining the shared characteristics that’ll help you segment your sample. Even 500 might not be enough to get a truly accurate picture. When you work with tens of thousands of data points, though, you start to get a *very* clear idea of how to demarcate each segment. ### 2) You don’t have clean data Once you’ve set up an efficient and automated data collection process, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data you’re dealing with. That’s why it’s not enough just to capture the data. You need to standardize it, sorting it into a format that’s usable - ideally right as it comes in. If you don’t, it‘ll be impossible to draw accurate conclusions. Data on market participants from source X might columnize the data differently than source Y. It’s up to you to pull your disparate data sets together and standardize them. That means across data formats and column names, but it also means removing duplicate entries. This can be a lot of work, but it’s necessary if you’re going to draw accurate conclusions about your data. Fortunately, if you’re working with tabular data, tools exist that can help you merge, de-duplicate, and perform many other seemingly time-consuming tasks quickly. [Pandas is a python library](https://pandas.pydata.org/) that makes working with tabular data a breeze. Though the learning curve is steeper than your typical spreadsheet software, you don’t have to be a coding genius to learn it. In fact, many people find it easier than working with spreadsheets once they get over the initial learning curve. ### 3) Your segments don’t align with your business objectives Remember in school when you were given back a poorly graded assignment and told you’d answered the question you *wanted* to answer, rather than the one you were *actually* asked? With large, effortful tasks like [customer segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-marketing-questions-answered-by-the-experts/), it’s easy to fall into the same trap. It’s easy to lose sight of *why* you’re performing the task in the first place. By the time you near the end, you might be so motivated by the thought of handing over your final deliverable that you rush the process. While you might identify some clear, accurate, and informative market segments from your research, it’s still up to you to make sure these align with your business goals and objectives. For example, if your business is looking to break into the enterprise space, but you’ve a long history of serving SMBs, you’ll have an abundance of data from SMB-related segments, but comparatively little from enterprises. It’s up to you to put in the effort to acquire that hard-won data since it now aligns most closely with your business objectives. In other words, don’t let **survivorship bias** creep into your market segmentation strategy, where you more heavily weight readily available data versus what’s most pertinent to your business’ goals. ### 4) Your segments don’t have longevity Every segment has a shelf life, especially in today’s markets, but that doesn’t mean you can’t craft your market segments with longevity in mind. Right now, yours might be a small outfit serving local businesses. But your executives might have aspirations to distribute internationally. That’s why it’s important to ensure you’re working the aims of your executive team into your market segmentation efforts. This way, your segments stand a chance at staying relevant to your business as it scales. ### 5) Your market segments aren’t specific enough Without some breadth, your market segments won’t stand the test of time. If your business scales quickly, you’ll find yourself needing to update each segment more and more frequently. The temptation here is to make your segments broader and less specific so your segments don’t become obsolete too quickly. But your segments now suffer from a different problem: they’re not specific *enough*. And if your segments are too broad from the beginning, your attempt to give them more life will fall flat. They’ll never be relevant enough to perform their function in the first place. Instead, keep segments focused on the relevant factors that drive your customer base’s purchases (whether demographic, psychographic, or behavioral). Then, just make sure these segments align with your org’s vision for the future, rather than sacrifice specificity for breadth. ### 6) You don’t update your customer segments Some, rather than update segments frequently, choose to never update them at all. No matter how aligned with your company vision your segments are, they’ll still need a refresh every now and then. If your segments are even a few years old, they’re at high risk of becoming out of date. One of the most common market segmentation mistakes lies in thinking segmentation is a ‘one and done’ type of task. Check back in with your segments annually. The better the job you do at creating segments that are specific and align with your business’ goals, the less work it’ll be to bring them up to date at each audit. ### 7) You rely on past behaviors to predict future events Many businesses rely too heavily on behavioral segmentation. Don’t get us twisted - behavioral segmentation is powerful. Geographic and demographic segmentation have their place, but they can’t really compare to behavioral segmentation when it comes to predicting buyer behavior in a way that’s *specific*. For example, while it might be necessary to segment your audience according to which continent they live on, and it might broadly affect their buying decisions, it’s much more powerful to split your audience into categories like: - Those that have signed up for your newsletter. - Those that have joined your Slack workspace. - Those that have brought a product in the past. All of these are behavioral factors, and all this data is available if you know how to track it. But that’s the problem. Since it’s readily available, businesses come to rely on it heavily and, in some cases, exclusively. Past behavior is no *guarantee* of similar future behavior. And without paying adequate attention to market and industry trends, you might miss a coming shift in buyer behavior that renders your behavioral segments useless. That’s why it’s important to incorporate other types of segmentation that can survive such fundamental shifts in the market. ### 8) You don’t use psychographic segmentation While many businesses put behavioral factors at the top of the hierarchy, past behaviors aren’t always reliable predictors of future behavior. Instead, understanding the fundamental emotional motivators that drive your customers’ buying decisions gives you a better understanding of how they might act no matter what’s going on in the world around them. Enter psychographic segmentation. Psychographic segmentation focuses on your target audience’s values, beliefs, and lifestyles to better understand what drives them to take action and make a purchase. The drawback? This kind of data is perhaps most difficult to come by of all. But it’d be handy to have, right? ☝️ You’ve probably heard how you’re being ****tracked online** and corporations are selling your data. All those ****privacy policies** you don’t have time to read? All those ****cookies** you accept just to get the popup off the screen? Many of these cookies track **minute* details of your behavior online, aggregate it, and analyze it for insights into **who you are*. This data (called your ****online fingerprint**) is sold to corporations looking to understand the market (and its participants - people like you) better. This is a multi-billion dollar industry, and it’s easy to see why. Of course, you don’t have to buy aggregated data from shady tracking companies to get your hands on some psychographic data. You can perform your own primary research, consisting of qualitative customer interviews, surveys, and focus groups if you wish. However you choose to acquire psychographic data, you differentiate yourself from the rest. This constitutes its own small competitive advantage, helping you reap the rewards of more accurate market segments. ### 9) You focus only on bottom-of-funnel leads In a similar vein to how psychographic segmentation can get you closer to the *deeper* influences driving buyer decisions, you should also make sure you’re not only focusing on those who are close to the end of the buyer’s journey. The very language we use to describe leads (“buyer’s journey”, “buyer decisions”, “buyer behavior”) has us focused on the *end* of that journey. But there are other factors influencing buyers before they’re even aware they’re in our funnel. The solution? Include a target segment for those in lower stages of awareness. Those who might not know they need a problem solved yet. They make up a large portion of your potential future customers. If you can market to them effectively, you can tap into a commonly overlooked resource for massive revenue potential. 💡 Think about those on the periphery of your buyers, users, and decision-makers. Who has an ****influence** on their behavior? Who might be able to initiate a conversation with them that starts them on their journey to becoming a buyer? And how can you target and influence **these* people to start those conversations and exercise their influence? ### 10) You don’t make your findings digestible You’ll learn a lot during the segmentation process. But you need to be able to distill your findings into a format you can share rapidly with the rest of the business. That’s why it’s crucial to take things further. Don’t just create your market segments and stop there. Derive customer personas from your segments. The process makes each segment personal, distilling a group down into a single memorable avatar. This makes the key decision drivers for this segment easier to understand, communicate, and remember. ## Customer segmentation examples ### Gender ![](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2020/06/anf_email_10_1250.jpg) In this example, Abercrombie & Fitch segment by gender using the same campaign for men and women. Although the offers are the same, the campaigns are slightly different. A&F know that having the exact same campaign for both genders just won’t work. Instead, they've divided their [customer profiles](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/) to see which trends appeal to female customers (e.g., vintage) and what appeals to their male customers (e.g., fitted jeans) when it comes to selling denim. ### Age ![](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2020/06/image0-2.jpeg) Segmenting by age, Urban Outfitters has ads that target school, college, or university students. This particular one is aimed at their University student target base. This offers a discount to students who more than likely only have their student loan to play with, new clothes to buy, and a dorm room to decorate. Which is why the website also has a section dedicated to dorm room interior design and school supplies. ### New customers/old customers ![](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-01-22-at-09.36.11.png) This is an email Typeform sends out when you sign up for their product. The email essentially asks the customer to self-segment themselves into either a new user or an old pro. These two customer segments will then receive a specific type of content targeted at their sophistication level, super relevant to where they are in their customer journey. ## Tools, models and techniques #### Cluster analysis and machine learning One of the most common analytical approaches for market segmentation is **cluster analysis**. This involves grouping customers into clusters based on similarities in their data (e.g., demographics, behaviors, purchasing patterns). - **K-means clustering**: Fast and efficient for large datasets, works best when you already have an idea of how many segments you want. - **Hierarchical clustering**: Builds nested clusters without pre-specifying segment count, useful for exploratory analysis. - **Machine learning extensions**: Today, marketers can use algorithms such as Gaussian Mixture Models or DBSCAN to detect more complex, non-linear patterns in customer data. These methods are particularly powerful when paired with CRM data, web analytics, or product usage data. #### RFM analysis **Recency, Frequency, Monetary (RFM) analysis** segments customers based on their purchasing history: - *Recency*: How recently they made a purchase. - *Frequency*: How often they purchase. - *Monetary value*: How much they spend. This method is simple yet effective for eCommerce and SaaS companies looking to identify loyal customers, re-engage lapsed users, or optimize promotions. #### Surveys, qualitative research and market data vendors Not all segmentation is data-driven from internal systems. **Surveys and interviews** reveal psychographic and attitudinal insights that raw data cannot. - *Surveys*: Useful for collecting values, preferences, and self-reported behaviors. - *Focus groups / interviews*: Provide depth and nuance. - *Data vendors*: Offer firmographic, technographic, or third-party behavioral data to enrich your segmentation. A hybrid approach – combining qualitative and quantitative inputs – creates more robust segments. #### Hybrid segmentation approaches Many organizations achieve the best results by **combining segmentation bases**. For instance: - Behavioral (purchase frequency) + Psychographic (values, attitudes) - Firmographic (company size, industry) + Technographic (tools used) in B2B This approach reduces over-reliance on a single dimension and often reveals “high-value micro-segments” that wouldn’t appear in siloed analysis. ## What’s the relationship between market segmentation, targeting, and positioning? Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning (STP) is one of the most popular marketing models out there. In fact, Smart Insights conducted a survey where STP was revealed as the second most popular marketing model, behind the classic SWOT / TOWs matrix. The STP model is useful for creating marketing communications strategies because it helps marketers prioritize propositions and develop and deliver personalized, relevant messages to different audiences. ![](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2020/06/STP-model.png) Courtesy of Smart Insights STP is essentially the journey you take to position your brand in the minds of consumers, it’s the difference between yours and your competitor’s products. ### Applying segments to marketing strategy (STP) Segmentation is only step one. Once you identify your segments, you must decide: 1. **Targeting**: Which segments are most attractive and aligned with your strategy? Consider segment size, growth potential, accessibility, and profitability. 2. **Positioning**: How do you tailor your brand promise, messaging, and offerings to resonate with that segment? Positioning should make clear why your product uniquely meets their needs. #### Tailoring messaging per segment Different segments respond to different value propositions. For example: - Price-sensitive buyers → emphasize affordability and efficiency. - Premium buyers → highlight exclusivity, quality, and advanced features. - B2B enterprise customers → stress scalability, compliance, and ROI. Messaging can be adapted across channels — email, ads, sales collateral — ensuring consistency but also personalization. #### Running campaigns and monitoring performance Segment-specific campaigns should be designed and tested against KPIs such as: - Engagement (CTR, open rates) - Conversion (trial sign-ups, purchases) - Retention and lifetime value - Cost per acquisition per segment Ongoing tracking ensures segments remain actionable rather than theoretical. ## Maintaining and evolving segments ### Revisiting and revising segments Customer behavior changes over time due to market shifts, competition, or cultural changes. Review your segmentation at least annually, or more frequently in fast-moving industries. ### Monitoring drift and segment exhaustion Segments can lose relevance if: - Customers evolve and no longer fit their original classification. - Market saturation reduces growth potential. - Segment profitability declines. **Segment drift analysis** (tracking how customers “move” between segments) helps catch this early. ### Feedback loops and metrics Establish **feedback loops** to refine segments continuously: - Monitor segment KPIs (growth, revenue contribution, churn). - Collect qualitative feedback (customer interviews, NPS surveys). - Use predictive analytics to anticipate when segments may change. ## Newer segmentation trends #### Micro-segmentation Advances in analytics and data availability allow companies to create **hyper-specific micro-segments**, sometimes at the level of “segments of one.” While resource-intensive, micro-segmentation supports extreme personalization. [What is micro-segmentation in marketing?Tired of seeing your marketing campaigns miss the mark? You’re putting in the work, crafting your message, but somehow it’s just not connecting with your audience. Sound familiar?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-104.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--9--2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-micro-segmentation-in-marketing/) #### Predictive / AI-Based Segmentation AI can forecast which customers are most likely to convert, churn, or upgrade. Algorithms analyze historical and real-time behavior to create **dynamic segments** that update automatically. #### Implicit / inferred segmentation Not all segmentation relies on declared data. Increasingly, segments are inferred from behavioral cues – such as browsing patterns, engagement levels, or even psycholinguistic signals in support chats. [Your guide to implicit segmentation marketingImplicit segmentation is the practice of using implied data to make assumptions about customers and categorize them. From there, you can predict future behavior, produce more targeted messaging, or provide a better customer experience.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-105.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--17--1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/implicit-segmentation-marketing/) #### Personalization at scale Segmentation is evolving into **personalization**, powered by customer data platforms (CDPs) and real-time analytics. Brands can now deliver individualized experiences across touchpoints – without abandoning the structure of traditional segments. --- ## Summary and next steps ### Segmentation checklist - Define objectives for segmentation - Gather data (internal + external) - Choose segmentation bases (demographic, behavioral, firmographic, etc.) - Apply analytical methods (cluster analysis, RFM, surveys) - Validate and test segment relevance - Select target segments and craft positioning - Design and run segment-specific campaigns - Monitor and refine segments continuously ### Further reading / resources - Philip Kotler’s [*Marketing Management*](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Marketing-Management-Philip-T-Kotler/dp/0132102927) (STP framework) - Harvard Business Review: “[Rediscovering Market Segmentation](https://hbr.org/2006/02/rediscovering-market-segmentation)” - Industry reports from Gartner / Forrester on B2B segmentation - Tutorials on machine learning clustering (e.g., [K-means for marketers](https://youtu.be/C7n6hNulfmw?si=glRIp0fyXPCA-Wx0)) --- #### FAQs ****What’s the difference between market segmentation and targeting?** Segmentation is dividing the market into groups; targeting is selecting which groups to pursue with tailored marketing. ****What are examples of market segmentation?** A gym might segment by demographics (students vs professionals), behaviors (regular vs occasional exercisers), or psychographics (health-driven vs social members). ****How many market segments should a company have?** There’s no fixed number — it depends on resources. Many companies focus on 2–5 high-value segments. Too many segments can dilute strategy. ****What tools can help with segmentation?** Customer data platforms (e.g., Segment, BlueConic), analytics tools (Google Analytics, Mixpanel), and statistical software (R, Python, SPSS) are common. ****Is geographic segmentation still relevant?** Yes – especially for retail, logistics, and region-specific offerings. However, digital products often benefit more from behavioral or psychographic segmentation. ****How do I know if my segmentation is effective?** If your segments lead to clear messaging, measurable performance differences, and improved ROI, they’re working. ### What is competitive differentiation? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/ Last updated: 2025-09-26T14:05:59.000Z ## What is competitive differentiation? **Competitive differentiation is the process of making your product offerings unique from those of your competitors.** In practice, this often means creating or discovering what you do better than them, and emphasizing these aspects of your products or services. Part of the challenge of competitive differentiation is making your customers understand that differentiation – via clear, direct messaging. This is the job of marketing, but is informed by [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/). Competitive intelligence helps you understand your competitive differentiators by offering crucial *context*. You’ll understand your competitors’ differentiation, and can use this to inform your own. ### What is an example of competitive differentiation? To explain the concept clearly, here’s a real-world example of competitive differentiation in action. Amazon first positioned itself as ‘The Everything Store’. An online retailer, born in the early days of the Internet, that sold more or less everything you could think of. It still lives up to that promise, but Amazon has continued to competitively differentiate. In particular, through its distribution differentiation (also known as channel differentiation). In other words, how they deliver goods to customers. With Amazon Prime, customers receive next-day or even same-day delivery on products they order before a certain time of day. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-13-at-11.51.09.png) Amazon's one-day delivery option is a form of differentiation in itself. Even if a rival could compete with Amazon’s huge product range and its prices, it would have a hard time matching its distribution differentiation, and the convenience it offers to customers. ## Why is competitive differentiation important? Unless you’re lucky enough to exist in a category all your own, you have competitors vying for a piece of your market share right now. Even for those who truly have no competitors, it’s only a matter of time until others sniff out the opportunity and set up shop right next door. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/03/hyenas.webp) Even if you're in a category all of your own, sooner or later competitors will smell the opportunity and start circling.**Credit: LionKingWiki* Having to compete is one of the realities of doing business. And the longer you’re around, and the more demand there is for a service like yours, the more crowded your marketplace will become. If you’re to survive in a crowded marketplace, you’ll need to establish a [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/). This means having some commercial advantage over your business rivals. This could be anything from: - Exclusive relationships with suppliers. - Strong brand equity. - Economies of scale. ## How differentiation differs (vs cost, vs parity) ### Differentiation vs cost leadership Differentiation emphasizes uniqueness – offering something distinct customers will pay more for. Cost leadership emphasizes efficiency – being the lowest-cost provider so you can compete on price. Both can be winning strategies, but they appeal to different customer priorities. ### Differentiation vs parity Parity means being “just as good” as competitors on basic features or quality. Differentiation goes beyond parity by adding unique value customers can’t get elsewhere. Competing at parity alone usually leads to price wars, while differentiation builds defensible advantages. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/blog_meta.png) #### No product is created in a vacuum The Competitive Positioning Playbook teaches you... 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a ****rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you ****must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom ****tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s ****revenue** ceiling. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ## 6 examples of competitive differentiators Here are six examples of ways to competitively differentiate: 1. Product differentiation. 2. Brand differentiation. 3. Price differentiation. 4. Service differentiation. 5. Channel differentiation. 6. Niche differentiation. ### 1) Product differentiation Your products themselves can be the focus of your differentiation. If your products offer [**unique benefits**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/) to customers that competing solutions do not, customers will want to experience those benefits, and will prefer your products. Such benefits might be a consequence of certain [**features**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/) your product offers. These features might not be unique, but if they serve customer needs better than the features of competitor products, they’ll attract prospects all the same. The overall **user experience** of your product is another possible avenue of product differentiation. Your packaging, even, can elevate the consumer experience enough to be a differentiator in itself. Ideally, all aspects of the user experience, from the unboxing of your physical products, to the benefits your features provide, should elicit the same positive emotional response from customers. Apple is a great example, in many ways pioneering the premium feeling of the unboxing experience, while their products exude exclusivity. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/03/i-1-90916642-apple-unboxing.jpg) Apple offers a premium experience right down to its packaging design. This is effective product differentiation at its finest.**Credit: FastCompany* ### 2) Brand differentiation A trusted name goes a long way, and the strength of your brand is another avenue for competitive differentiation. Not always reserved for businesses that have been around for decades, younger brands can build strong brand equity, too. Smart advertising strategies are the way to do this, while fiercely protecting your reputation as you build a track record of delivering on your promises. Competitors love to capitalize when rivals overpromise and underdeliver. Especially when these moments are widely publicized. Such scenarios are opportunities to win over disgruntled customers. When you do the opposite, and focus on delivering on simple, achievable, *useful* promises, you become more trusted, and build brand loyalty. You can then capitalize on your good reputation by associating it with strong branding. Smart advertising campaigns create a web of associations between your reputation and your branding, including your logo, and your brand colors. In the future, prospects and existing customers need only see some aspect of your branding to be reminded of your strong reputation and the trust they feel for you. ### 3) Price differentiation Your [competitive pricing strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) is another route for differentiation. Pricing your products in a different range to competitors makes you stand out. For lower prices, the consequence is clear. Customers who want to save money are attracted to cheaper products. But the same holds true for high prices. [Prestige pricing strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/prestige-pricing/) are another way of competitively attracting particular [market segments](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-market-segmentation/). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/03/topGear.jpeg) Some buyers want to be associated with luxury, and are willing to pay high premiums for the privilege.**Credit: TopGear* When prospects have large disposable incomes, or want to offset large amounts of risk, price is not so much of an issue. Premium products are usually sold at a premium price. When a customer wants quality, they’ll opt for more expensive products and services to be sure they’re getting the best. ### 4) Service differentiation You’ve heard of [‘human-to-human’ (H2H) marketing](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/going-from-b2b-to-b2h-how-to-build-stronger-relationships-with-your-customer/). Rather than [business-to-business (B2B)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis/) or business-to-consumer (B2C), H2H marketing strategies aim to communicate with customers and prospects on a human, emotional level first. When it’s authentic, it works. At the end of the day, you make more money when you’re more useful to more people. There’s no getting around it: there will always be at least two people in the business equation. If you can make people feel good about doing business with you, there’s a good chance they’ll come back for more. This is what service differentiation is all about. Businesses can base their entire competitive differentiation strategy on their superior customer service. They’ll invest in their ability to deliver a better experience for customers at every touchpoint and interaction. This works especially well in industries known for offering less-than-stellar customer service, and doesn’t just mean an upbeat voice on the other end of the phone. Service differentiation really comes into its own when a traditionally difficult, or painful, experience, becomes effortless and pleasant. Given the choice between the two, which would you choose? ### 5) Channel differentiation Finally, there’s channel differentiation. Also known as distribution differentiation, this method has to do with how you deliver a service, or how you get your product to your customers. This might apply to where your products are sold. If you manage to get your products on shelves in places your customers already go, you don’t need to invest in getting them to change their behavior to find what you’re selling. Convenience in general is a huge factor in channel differentiation – earlier, we mentioned Amazon Prime’s same-day and next-day delivery options. Such options set Amazon apart from its competitors by offering customers a level of convenience it’s difficult to find elsewhere. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/03/amazonPrime1-1.jpeg) Amazon's same-day and one-day delivery options are a kind of distribution differentiation, bringing unparalleled convenience to the customer.**Credit: AboutAmazon.com* ### 6) Niche differentiation A niche business strategy is one that sees you targeting a particularly small subset of consumers. Rather than trying to be everything to everyone, you aim to provide the best solution for a small group of people. Make sense? So, rather than targeting all guitar players, for example, a business with a niche strategy for selling its guitar strings might target: 1. Jazz guitar players, 2. Between the ages of 30 and 49, 3. With a preference for hollow body guitars. Notice how, here, there are three elements to the market segment the guitar string business chooses to target. This makes the **segment specific**. Contrast it with the other guitar string business, aiming to produce an all-purpose set of strings suitable for all players and all types of guitars. **Specialism and disqualification:** Our example guitar string maker, with the niche market strategy, positions itself as a **specialist**, and an expert provider of guitar strings for its target audience. But it also takes advantage of a trope used in copywriting all the time: **disqualification**. The more specific you can be, the more polarizing you’ll be to your audience. Inherently, you’re making it so your message (or your product) is very much *not* relevant to a majority of people. These people lose interest very quickly. But the remaining minority? These people *are* your target audience. They feel your message, or your product, was crafted *specifically* for them. They get *excited* when they learn about it, and how it ticks all of their boxes. This is what a good niche strategy (a good niche *differentiation* strategy, specifically) does for you. ## How to establish competitive differentiation Here's a five-step process for establishing competitive differentiation: 1. [Identify what your customers want.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/#1-identify-what-your-customers-want) 2. [Perform customer research.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/#2-perform-customer-research) 3. [Figure out where your strengths lie.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/#3-figure-out-where-your-strengths-lie) 4. [Gather competitive intelligence.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/#4-gather-competitive-intelligence) 5. [Establish a strategic plan.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/#5-establish-a-plan) ### 1) Identify what your customers want. There are emotional problems your target audience is dealing with that they want solved. Solving these problems is the crux of running a successful business. Your first step in establishing competitive differentiation is to orient yourself towards these problems, so you can be sure you’re moving in a direction that will maximize your utility to your target market. ### 2) Perform customer research. To learn not only what your customers want, but also what they like best about you and your products, you need to perform [customer research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/). Interview existing customers. Do [win/loss interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-analysis-how-to-improve-your-job-search-strategy/) to establish reasons why customers chose you over your competitors (or not). Talk to prospects about the challenges they face, and the concerns that keep them awake at night. Then establish how good of a job both you and your competitors are doing of ridding them of these headaches with your products. ### 3) Figure out where your strengths lie. If you can lean into your existing strengths, you’ll save money and put the wind at your back. That’s why it pays to go further than your customer research. Identify existing sources of competitive advantage so you can be sure you’re putting them to good use. [The VRIO framework ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/)is crafted for exactly this purpose: to help you identify untapped sources of competitive advantage already present in your business. ### 4) Gather competitive intelligence. So, you begin with your customers. Then you learn as much as possible about the current state of your business. The next step is to learn as much as you can about your competitors. This process *begins* with your customer research, but shouldn’t stop there. [Gather competitive intelligence ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/)to learn where your competitors are strong. Once you know this, make a measured decision whether you want to go head-to-head with them in these areas. Most often, it makes more sense to differentiate by positioning yourself to meet an as-yet unmet (or underserved) customer need. This way, you confine your activities to exploiting competitor weaknesses, making more efficient use of your finite resources. --- [Positioning Statements: All You Need to Know (With Examples)Your brand positioning statement is a single sentence that sums up your competitive position - it’s your elevator pitch. If you were to describe to a new hire (or anyone else in the business) how you want people to see your product, your positioning statement would fill that role.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/pexels-alfred-gf-198265263-11521138.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/) --- ### 5) Establish a plan. Based on your analysis so far, determine your unique value proposition (UVP), and your unique selling points (USPs), compared to your competitors. Your unique qualities set you apart. What do you do well that your competitors don’t that, crucially, customers really care about? Answering these questions will help you figure out how to communicate your differentiation effectively to customers – a crucial aspect of competitive differentiation you shouldn’t overlook. There’s always room for improvement, too. So consider the examples of competitive differentiators discussed in the previous section to [roll out a strategic plan ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-roll-out-a-strategic-plan/)that walks you towards an even more differentiated position in the competitive landscape. --- [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) ## When differentiation isn’t always best (and when low cost wins) Competitive differentiation does come with some common pitfalls to be aware of: - **Misaligned focus:** Differentiating in ways customers don’t care about. - **Weak differentiators:** Claims that are too vague or easily copied. - **Over-differentiation:** Making offerings so unique they lose broad appeal. - **Cost creep:** Overspending on differentiation that customers won’t pay for. But differentiation isn’t the only path to success. Sometimes, a **low-cost provider strategy** is more effective. ### What is a low-cost strategy? A [low-cost strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-chatgpt-for-competitive-intelligence-assistant/) focuses on being the most affordable option in the market, usually by leveraging economies of scale, operational efficiency, or lean business models. ### What is the difference between low cost and differentiation strategies? Low cost and differentiation are both competitive strategies for growth. They’re attempts at establishing competitive advantages. A low cost provider strategy has you aim to beat the competition on costs (and often, but not necessarily, on price) by driving your own costs to manufacture down. A differentiation strategy has you aim to boost profits by offering more value for the same price, and thus winning greater market share, or offering enough value to justify a higher price, meaning more profit per unit. ### When low cost beats differentiation - **Commoditized markets:** When products are virtually identical and buyers care most about price. - **Price-sensitive customers:** Some segments value affordability over uniqueness. - **High-volume industries:** Cost leadership works well when scale provides efficiency advantages. ### Broad and focused competitive strategies There are two more subdivisions of low cost and differentiation strategies: broad and focused. These are exactly what you’d think: broad strategies target a broad section of the market, while focused strategies (also known as [niche market strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-differentiation-strategy/)) target a market niche. A **broad low cost strategy** aims to appeal to a broad cross section of the market while lowering costs as much as possible. A **focused low cost strategy** focuses on a niche market segment while, again, lowering costs as much as possible. A **broad differentiation strategy** aims to appeal to a broad cross section of the market while charging higher prices, which the market accepts as a result of product differentiation. A **focused differentiation strategy** targets a specific niche while charging higher prices which, again, the market accepts as a result of product differentiation. ### Can companies successfully pursue low costs and differentiation at the same time? Businesses that successfully create excess profits from a low cost or differentiation strategy can use those profits to creatively drive down costs or innovate and differentiate. In this way, they’ll effectively be pursuing both low cost and differentiation strategies at the same time. ## Final thoughts and next steps Competitive differentiation is about finding and communicating what makes you meaningfully different. Whether through product, brand, price, service, channel, or niche focus, your strategy should always be aligned with what customers truly value. Remember: not every market rewards differentiation. Sometimes low cost wins. The key is knowing your audience, your competitive landscape, and your strengths. **Next step:** Identify your top three potential differentiators, validate them with customer feedback, and integrate them into your positioning and messaging. ### Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### How we built CI from scratch at a small, scrappy team (without blowing the budget) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-we-built-ci-from-scratch-at-a-small-scrappy-team/ Last updated: 2025-09-18T08:00:30.000Z ***Note: This article is based on a talk from the Product Marketing Summit by*** [***Bryan Nairn (Founder of Phase 2 Ventures)***](http://linkedin.com/in/bryannairn) ***when he was still Head of Product Marketing at Kong.*** When I joined Kong, I knew I was walking into a turnaround. There had been attrition on the team, [leadership](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/master-your-ci-function/) changes, and morale had slipped. What I didn’t fully grasp until I got started was just how dated and fragmented our competitive intelligence was. We didn’t have a functioning CI program, core product content was stale, and every competitive request from the field arrived as a Slack ping, duplicated across multiple channels, scattered, and always urgent. It was clear we needed a reset. [How to carry competitive analysis in digital marketingMaster competitive analysis in digital marketing. Discover proven strategies to analyze competitors, uncover their tactics, and gain the edge you need to win.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-97.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/How-to-carry-competitive-analysis-in-digital-marketing-2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-carry-competitive-analysis-in-digital-marketing/) ## **A problem of data, resources, and standards** The challenges boiled down to three things: data, resources, and standardization. **First**, we lacked reliable, current competitive data. Without fresh battlecards or clear differentiators, our field sellers were left scrambling in deals. **Second**, resources were thin. Like many pre-IPO software companies, we had ambitious goals but limited headcount and budget – and the broader market had just shifted away from “growth at all costs” toward “operational efficiency”. That meant less room for new hires or program spend. **Finally**, whatever processes had existed in the past had broken down. Requests flew across Slack without coordination, and there was no single source of truth for [competitive insights](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/). The intensity of competitive focus also surprised me. Coming from a place like Amazon, where the mantra is “customer obsession” and the company is the market leader, [competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition/) rarely enter the conversation. At Kong, the dynamic was different. The API management space is crowded and often commoditized. Competitors like Amazon API Gateway or Google Cloud Apigee are constantly releasing new features. Our sales teams needed answers, and they needed them yesterday. ## **Listening first: Who needs what** The first step was to map the landscape of stakeholders. One advantage of [product marketing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/my-leap-from-content-to-product-marketing-lessons-learned-along-the-way/) is that we’re already [positioned](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/) at the intersection of sales, product, and marketing, so I had a natural license to talk to everyone. What emerged was clear: sales teams needed quick access to differentiators to win deals; marketing wanted competitive angles for campaigns; and product and engineering wanted intelligence to inform the roadmap and help close gaps. Just as important was understanding how people wanted to consume the information. It wasn’t enough to produce a battlecard and stash it in a folder. We needed to embed [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-intelligence-cycle/) into the places where people already worked, whether that was Salesforce, Slack, or an internal portal. ## **Setting goals under constraint** Given our size and the budget environment, our goals had to be realistic. We weren’t going to stand up a sprawling [CI function](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-framework/) overnight. Instead, I focused on empowerment and scale. The sales team needed to feel confident walking into deals with clear differentiators. Product and engineering needed to see where the market was moving so they could adjust priorities. And the entire company needed a system where [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) could be accessed on demand, not delivered manually in response to every Slack ping. That meant self-service had to be a core design principle. At the same time, I wanted to change the culture from reactive to proactive. Instead of fielding random requests, we would build a steady rhythm of insights that people could rely on. [11 Competitive Intelligence Examples to Stay Ahead of RivalsYour competitors are trying to eke out a competitive advantage. So how do you create your own? That starts with competitive intelligence. Here are 11 types to get you started.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-98.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/11-types-of-competitive-intelligence-3-4.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/) ## **The building blocks: Collection, analysis, distribution** I approached the program in three parts: collection, analysis, and distribution. Collection meant figuring out what [types of data](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/) were most useful and how to capture them quickly. Public analyst reports and press releases only got us so far. The real gold was already inside our own walls: the sales team. They were hearing about competitor pricing, performance issues, and deal dynamics every day. The trick was operationalizing that flow so insights didn’t get lost in Slack threads. Analysis was about making raw intel usable. A PDF report, a partner presentation, and a customer anecdote each contain pieces of truth, but none are helpful on their own. We needed to clean and synthesize these fragments into clear [narratives](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/reflections-on-ci/) that different stakeholders could digest. And finally, distribution had to be predictable and effortless. I’ve always liked the metaphor from *Atomic Habits*: if you want to eat more fruit, don’t hide it in the fridge drawer, put it in a bowl on the counter where you’ll see it. We wanted competitive intelligence to be that visible. Regular digests, easy-to-find assets, and a central platform would make it part of people’s daily work rather than an occasional hunt. ## **Choosing a platform as a force multiplier** Given our constraints, we realized a dedicated CI platform was the only way to scale. Manually curating, formatting, and distributing competitive insights wasn’t sustainable. The platform became our force multiplier. What sold us were integrations. We needed Salesforce integration so reps could access battlecards in the flow of work. We needed Slack integration so competitive insights could be surfaced in-channel – and, just as importantly, so new nuggets from the field could be submitted with one click. We even tied it into Okta so every employee could access it easily, which also gave us visibility into who was actually using the resources. [Pricing model](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/) was another key factor. One vendor charged per user seat, which would have doubled costs if our sales org doubled in size. Another priced per competitor tracked, which better matched our reality. We ranked our competitors into tiers, licensed the most critical, and still had flexibility to track the long tail. [How we drove $1.2m in revenue in 90 daysWhen you focus, align, and enable your teams with purpose, you don’t just hold your ground – you win it back.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-99.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCarolyn Klinger![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--14--1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-we-drove-1-2m-in-revenue-in-90-days/) ## **What success looks like** The impact was immediate. Those duplicative Slack requests that used to flood every channel all but disappeared. Instead, people went directly to the platform to find what they needed or to contribute new insights. Enablement also became more sustainable. We rolled out a steady drumbeat: weekly competitive tips in Slack, monthly newsletters, and short “conquest” segments on our Monday sales calls, where we’d highlight a [recent win](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-ratio-what-it-is-and-how-to-calculate-it/) against a competitor and explain how we did it. That rhythm built awareness and confidence over time. Measurement gave us another advantage. We could see which assets were being used most, which competitors were getting the most attention, and even which regions were seeing different patterns. That helped us prioritize where to invest next. Freshness of content improved too. If a field leader asked about IBM API Connect after a release, I could check the platform, confirm whether the battlecard had been updated, and push it live immediately. One sales leader told me that Kong’s [competitive intelligence program](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/build-a-better-ci-program-that-actually-increases-sales/) was among the best they’d seen. That kind of feedback is a boost, but it’s also a reminder: in sales, a thousand “attaboys” can be wiped away by a single “aw shucks.” The work has to continue every day. ## **Lessons and surprises** Along the way, I discovered two challenges I hadn’t anticipated. The first was what I call “shadow CI.” Despite our efforts, some salespeople began creating their own competitive assets. My first instinct was frustration – after all, we’d just invested in a program to centralize this work. But I realized it was a valuable signal. If people were building their own, either they didn’t know what existed, or what we had didn’t meet their needs. Both were solvable problems. The second was the “sharing problem.” In many deals, a customer will ask for a competitive comparison. The quickest way forward for a rep is to hand them something – anything – that ticks the box. But the risk is obvious: once a detailed internal battlecard leaves our hands, we can assume it will make its way to competitors. To address this, we built external-facing versions: concise, polished, and useful, but without the sensitive detail that would give too much away. [11 competitive intelligence trends in 2025CI is no longer just about knowing what your competitors are up to, it’s also about building a smarter, more agile business.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-100.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--36--1-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/11-competitive-intelligence-trends/) ## **Making competitive intelligence a habit** The real win wasn’t just standing up a CI program, it was making it part of the company’s rhythm. By keeping distribution routine, being transparent about what’s coming, and giving teams the ability to self-serve, competitive intelligence stopped being an occasional scramble and started being a habit. In a small company where product marketing also owns [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/prestige-pricing/), analyst relations, and solutions marketing, that kind of leverage is everything. A well-run CI program doesn’t just make life easier for sales; it strengthens the entire organization’s ability to learn, adapt, and win. Life after Slack chaos is better. And the best part? Now, when someone asks for competitive intel, the answer isn’t a frantic thread, it’s already waiting in the fruit bowl on the counter. ### The ultimate guide to B2B market evolution analysis URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis/ Last updated: 2025-09-17T14:29:12.000Z What do you know about your market? Is it big? Small? Still in the concept stage? Is it growing, shrinking, stagnant? How competitive is it? Is there room for you? Room for others? These aren’t just passing questions; they’re essential. And knowing the answers is the first step to making informed, strategic decisions. If you’re unsure about any of them, don’t worry. *This* series is designed to help you build a solid market analysis toolkit. In the first post, we dived into market structure analysis, breaking down the main players: customers, competitors, and those key partners who help vendors fine-tune, integrate, or distribute their solutions. We also covered the role of regulators, industry analysts, and investors who fuel growth and innovation. Missed it? Here’s a quick link: [B2B market analysis: Uncover your market structure like a proDiscover key steps and tools to analyze your B2B market structure. This guide helps tech vendors make data-driven decisions to stay competitive.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-103.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceKateryna Yevtushenko![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/B2B-market-analysis-uncover-your-market-structure-like-a-pro.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/b2b-market-analysis-uncover-your-market-structure-like-a-pro/) Now, let’s zoom out and look at the bigger picture: **how your market evolves over time**. Markets don’t stay static. We all know that. They emerge, grow, mature, and eventually some decline. But it’s not just the market itself. Each product within it, including yours and those of your competitors, undergoes similar stages of evolution. In this post, we’ll explore: - The lifecycle stages that B2B tech markets and products typically go through. - Ways to identify the current stage of your market and products within it. - Strategies for navigating different market/product stage combinations. Ready to get strategic? Let’s dive in. ## Market evolution curve Every market starts small: a handful of potential customers, maybe one or two vendors, and lots of questions about whether this thing will even catch on. Then, as more customers start adopting solutions, the market grows, more vendors pile in, and eventually, we reach a point where everyone seems to be offering something similar. To gain a clearer understanding of how markets typically grow and change, let's take a look at the **market evolution curve** below. You may also see it referred to as the [S-curve](https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/s-curve). [![Market evolution curve that visually represents the typical lifecycle of a market, from early emergence to eventual decline.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/image.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) The Market Evolution Curve is a nice *theoretical model* that visually represents the typical lifecycle of a market, from early emergence to eventual decline. Let's go through the main stages and steps. ### Emerging market The emerging market phase is where things are just getting started. There are only a handful of vendors (if any), and customer awareness is minimal. **Few players** ➜ Competition is just beginning to take shape. Innovators and pioneers usually occupy the main positions. **Low customer awareness** ➜ Potential customers are often unfamiliar with the products/services or haven’t yet recognized the value. Companies often need to educate the market on why their solutions are necessary. **Significant investments in infrastructure** ➜ Early markets require substantial investment in research, development, and foundational infrastructure to support future growth. **High rate of technological innovation** ➜ At this stage, there is usually a lot of experimentation, with different technologies and approaches being tested. New solutions can frequently emerge, setting the groundwork for the market’s evolution. For example,[quantum computing](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/steady-progress-in-approaching-the-quantum-advantage) is in the emerging phase of its market lifecycle. This stage is characterized by rapid technological advancements, significant investments, and the development of foundational infrastructure. Another example is the metaverse*.* For early adopters, it might feel like it's everywhere, but analysts project it will likely remain in the emerging phase of development [for at least another 5 to 10 years](https://www.bain.com/insights/taking-the-hyperbole-out-of-the-metaverse-tech-report-2023/). ### The chasm This critical point represents a significant barrier to mass adoption, where many innovations stumble and fail to progress beyond niche audiences. At this stage, early adopters, typically tech enthusiasts or innovators, are no longer enough to drive growth, and the challenge lies in capturing the interest of the more conservative early majority. Bridging the Chasm often requires a shift in strategy, e.g., simplifying products to meet the expectations of a broader audience or developing targeted use cases that clearly demonstrate value. For a deeper understanding of this concept and actionable strategies to overcome this hurdle, I highly recommend [*Crossing the Chasm*](https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-3rd-Disruptive-Mainstream/dp/0062292986) by Geoffrey Moore. ### Growth market Customer awareness increases, competition intensifies, and demand accelerates. Success in this stage isn’t just about riding the wave of adoption; it’s about staying ahead of competitors while efficiently scaling operations. **Rising demand** ➜ The market is expanding, and customers are actively seeking solutions. Businesses begin seeing exponential increases in sales, and customer awareness shifts from curiosity to necessity. **Increased competition** ➜ Success stories in the emerging phase attract new entrants, intensifying competition. Many vendors enter the space, and differentiation becomes critical. Established players often consolidate their positions, while smaller competitors carve out niches or introduce innovations to disrupt the status quo. **Expansion opportunities** ➜ Vendors look to expand into new customer segments, industries, or regions to capture untapped demand. Partnerships, aggressive marketing, and competitive pricing strategies are hallmarks of this phase. **Focus on scaling operations** ➜ Rapid growth pressures businesses to scale their infrastructure and operations quickly. This means automating workflows, and improving customer support to meet demand without losing quality. **Customer expectations evolve** ➜ As markets grow, customers expect more polished and reliable products. Companies that deliver exceptional customer experiences and evolve their offerings (e.g. new features or better integrations) are better positioned to win the loyalty of this rapidly growing audience. SaaS in the early 2000s, when companies like Salesforce started scaling rapidly as customer interest surged, was a perfect example of a growing market. During the pandemic, we witnessed the dramatic growth of the market for *cloud-based collaboration* tools. Companies like Zoom, Slack, and Microsoft thrived as remote work became the norm, driving a surge in demand. This growth phase was defined by rapid adoption, a flood of new competitors entering the space, and intense efforts to innovate and differentiate in an increasingly crowded market. Now, in 2025, [artificial intelligence](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai), particularly generative AI,is a prime example of a technology market in the growth stage. Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the sector has seen rapid expansion. In Q3 2024, [venture capitalists poured](https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/20/investments-in-generative-ai-startups-topped-3-9b-in-q3-2024/) $3.9 billion into 206 generative AI startup deals (excluding OpenAI's monumental $6.6 billion [funding round](https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/openai-closes-66-billion-funding-haul-valuation-157-billion-with-investment-2024-10-02/)). If anything signals a booming market, it’s numbers like these. ### Mature market The mature market phase represents a period of stability and saturation. Demand has peaked, competition is fierce, and differentiation becomes the primary focus for companies aiming to maintain or grow their market share. **Market saturation** ➜ At this stage, most potential customers have already adopted solutions, leaving little room for new growth. Companies fight to retain existing customers and capture market share from competitors. **Intense competition** ➜ The market is crowded with competitors offering similar products or services. The focus shifts from rapid adoption to strategic differentiation and customer loyalty. **Focus on differentiation** ➜ Companies in mature markets emphasize premium features, superior customer service, or specialized offerings to stand out. Branding and long-term customer relationships become critical. **Price sensitivity** ➜ As options increase, customers become more price-conscious, often switching providers for cost savings or better value. **Consolidation** ➜ Smaller or weaker players may exit the market or merge with larger ones. The market becomes dominated by a few key players who command the majority of revenue. --- The *CRM market* is a good example of a mature market. As of November 2024, [*over 2000 CRM products*](https://www.capterra.com/customer-relationship-management-software/) (yes, two thousand!) are listed on Capterra. Industry leaders like [Salesforce and HubSpot dominate](https://hginsights.com/market-reports/crm-market-share-report), while countless smaller players niche out or differentiate themselves through specialized features, pricing strategies, or targeted market segments. While groundbreaking innovations are rare at this stage (nobody seems to be developing "the next Salesforce"), vendors are enhancing CRM systems with advanced analytics and generative AI tools (e.g., [Salesforce Einstein GPT](https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2023/03/07/einstein-generative-ai/)). This demonstrates how technology from younger, fast-growing markets (like generative AI) can drive incremental innovation within mature markets, keeping them competitive and evolving despite saturation. ### Declining market The declining market phase is characterized by shrinking demand, increased consolidation, and companies either pivoting to new opportunities or exiting the space altogether. Products and services in this stage often face obsolescence due to technological advancements or changing customer needs. **Shrinking demand** ➜ As alternative solutions emerge or customer preferences shift, demand for products in declining markets diminishes. The market contracts, leaving only a handful of players still active. **Increased competition for shrinking market share** ➜ With fewer customers remaining, competition becomes fierce. Vendors may resort to aggressive pricing strategies or bundling products to retain existing customers. **Consolidation and exits** ➜ To survive, companies might merge with competitors or be acquired by larger players. Alternatively, some businesses may simply pivot to new markets or shut down operations altogether. **Reliance on cost optimization** ➜ Vendors focus heavily on reducing costs and squeezing as much value as possible from their offerings. The emphasis shifts to operational efficiency rather than innovation. The traditional on-premise enterprise software market is a clear example of a declining market. With the rise of cloud-based solutions, companies have increasingly shifted away from costly, inflexible on-premise systems. Giants like [SAP](https://www.wsj.com/articles/sap-share-surge-shows-companies-cloud-strategies-are-alive-and-well-in-ai-boom-7ffff935) and Oracle have pivoted heavily toward cloud offerings to remain competitive, while many smaller providers in this space have either been acquired or exited the market. ### Technology disruption and market shifts Markets don’t have to be declining to experience major shifts. Sometimes, even a thriving market can be reshaped entirely by a revolutionary product or technology. Take the CRM market as an example. In 1999, it was primarily defined by on-premise solutions and was not in decline. However, Salesforce disrupted the landscape by introducing cloud-based CRM. This innovation transformed a growing but niche segment into a mainstream necessity, reshaping the market and paving the way for a multi-billion-dollar industry. Salesforce's success not only redefined CRM but also inspired the emergence of related SaaS solutions in areas like marketing automation, customer success platforms, and project management tools. This cemented the cloud as a cornerstone of modern business technology as we know it today. Fast-forward to 2024, and we see a similar transformation happening with AI. From my perspective, OpenAI is mirroring the disruptive impact Salesforce had in the early 2000s. By leading the way in generative AI, OpenAI is also reshaping adjacent markets, just as Salesforce did two decades ago. This illustrates that market evolution can be better understood as a **continuous layering of innovations**, like waves building upon one another. [![Market evolution curve showing how a newer technology replaces an older one](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/image-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) When analyzing your market’s evolution, always keep an eye on the bigger picture. Adjacent markets and emerging technologies can create ripple effects that radically reshape your market. 🤔 ****Ask yourself:** ➜ What **trends or innovations from neighboring markets* could impact ours? ➜ Is there a **disruptive technology* on the horizon that could redefine customer expectations? ➜ How can we adapt or leverage these changes to stay ahead? It's worth noting that factors like regulations and economic changes can also play a pivotal role. Being aware of these forces can help you anticipate shifts and adapt accordingly. ## Indicators to spot where **your** market stands So far, we've explored the typical stages of market evolution and indicators that help identify where a market stands in its lifecycle. While there are many indicators you could use to analyze a market, two of the simplest and most accessible ones are customer adoption and the number of products available. These indicators don’t require complex tools or specialized expertise, and they can quickly provide valuable insights into your market's trajectory and current state. **The lower these numbers, the earlier the market is in its lifecycle** *.* Conversely, higher numbers often indicate a more mature or even saturated market. To give you a better idea, here’s a summary table. Please note that these numbers are illustrative and meant to serve as general examples rather than absolute benchmarks. | Market Stage | Adoption Rate | Number of Products\* | | ----------------- | ------------- | -------------------- | | Emerging market | <15% | <10 | | Growth market | 15-50% | 10-100 | | Mature market | 50-80% | 100-500 | | Market saturation | 80-90%+ | \>500 | \* *Market entry barriers, such as regulatory requirements or high development costs, can limit the number of players.* Low barriers mean anyone can jump in, creating a crowded market quickly. High barriers often indicate a market that will take longer to mature but may have more stability. ****Note:** **Actual figures can vary significantly depending on the industry, region, or market conditions*. But rather than just talking theory, let’s look at a concrete example. To illustrate how these indicators can be used to analyze a market's evolution, *let’s take the CRM market* (as I've already mentioned it several times in this post)*.* ### Customer adoption While primary research is the most reliable option, don't worry: two simple yet powerful tools, Google and ChatGPT, can help you analyze customer adoption effectively. Sounds straightforward, but let’s break it down. #### Just Google it [![Screenshot of Google search results and AI overview for the query "global CRM adoption"](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/image-2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) A quick Google search for *"global CRM adoption"* led to an [article from SalesTech Star,](https://salestechstar.com/staff-writers/crm-adoption-patterns-and-workflow-trends-takeaways/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com#:~:text=Based%20on%20the%20latest%20data,CRM%20adoption%20rate%20of%2075.9%25.) published in July 2024\. Here’s what it reported: > 91% of companies with over 11 employees have adopted CRM software. > America: CRM adoption rate stands at 83.6%. > Europe: The adoption rate for CRM is slightly higher at 85.7%. > Asia Pacific: This region has a CRM adoption rate of 75.9%. Given that 100% is the maximum adoption rate, these numbers suggest that the CRM market is mature and nearing saturation. However, before taking these numbers at face value, it’s essential to evaluate the reliability of the source. For instance, if SalesTech Star is new to you (as it is for me), it’s worth checking its credibility. A quick check on SimilarWeb shows that as of October 2024, SalesTechStar's site received over 15K monthly visits (up 7.3% from September). The site’s primary audience is from the US, UK, India, Canada, and Germany. With this additional context, does the data feel more credible to you? If not, it may be worth further exploring other sources to cross-check these figures. #### ChatGPT search. Let’s move to the second tool, ChatGPT, to see how it can complement Google in analyzing market adoption. *Please note, that I'm using the* [*ChatGPT search*](https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-search/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) *available in paid plans.* [![ChatGPT search screenshot.](https://your-competitive-edge.com/content/images/2024/11/image-10.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) ChatGPT screenshot taken by the author. Here's the prompt I used: *"Search for global CRM adoption in 2024\. Provide only customer adoption % and cited resources. Format your answer as a table. Double-check that the data is for 2024."* And here are some stats I got: | Metric | Percentage | Source | | --------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Businesses using CRM software in 2024 | 73% | [Freshworks](https://www.freshworks.com/theworks/insights/crm-statistics/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) | | Small businesses (≤500 employees) using CRM systems in 2024 | 71% | [Freshworks](https://www.freshworks.com/theworks/insights/crm-statistics/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) | | Tech companies using CRM software in 2024 | 94% | [Freshworks](https://www.freshworks.com/theworks/insights/crm-statistics/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) | | Companies with more than 11 employees using CRM systems in 2024 | 91% | [Demand Sage](https://www.demandsage.com/crm-statistics/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) | | Companies with 10 or fewer employees using CRM systems in 2024 | 50% | [Demand Sage](https://www.demandsage.com/crm-statistics/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) | | Businesses using cloud-based CRM platforms in 2024 | 87% | [Demand Sage](https://www.demandsage.com/crm-statistics/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) | The first step is to verify that these aren’t AI hallucinations. By following the links, we can confirm these stats are accurate. Good, but what about source reliability? Freshworks is a leader in the CRM space and frequently conducts research in this area, making it a strong source for this data. Demand Sage, with [nearly 300K monthly visitors](https://pro.similarweb.com/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com#/digitalsuite/websiteanalysis/overview/website-performance/%2A/999/1m?webSource=Total&key=demandsage.com) and a focus on business insights, also seems promising for data quality. Thus, here's what we've found: > 73% companies use CRM software. > 94% tech companies use CRM software. > 91% of companies with over 11 employees use CRM software. Given these high adoption rates, we can conclude that the CRM market is nearing saturation, with the tech sub-segment especially close to full adoption. But what if you’re analyzing a newer market, one without extensive data or articles like the CRM space? In such cases, tracking how the number of available products changes over time can provide valuable insights. ### Number of products If you read [the first post in this series](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/b2b-market-analysis-uncover-your-market-structure-like-a-pro/), you might recall review platforms like G2 and Capterra as valuable sources for assessing vendor presence in a specific market. In practice, Capterra often has the most extensive listings. Since its [acquisition by Gartner in 2015](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2015-09-25-gartner-acquires-capterra), Capterra’s reach and credibility in the B2B software marketplace may have grown, encouraging more vendors to list their products there. So, as I've already mentioned, as of November 2024, over 2000 CRM products were listed on Capterra. This number alone can give a sense of the market's breadth, but how can you see how this figure has evolved over time? #### Tracking historical changes: Wayback Machine. Now, let me share a tool that's perhaps the most invaluable (and somewhat controversial) in a market analyst’s toolkit: the [Wayback Machine](https://web.archive.org/). I remember back in 2014, just two months into my role as a Product Marketing Analyst, my manager assigned me a project to analyze a competitor’s website structure and positioning changes over time. When I asked, “How do I look into the past?” the answer was Wayback Machine. This tool allows you to view archived versions of almost any publicly available webpage. However, like any web crawling tool, **use the Wayback Machine with caution**. It’s excellent for internal analysis, but be mindful when using it for public-facing insights. And, of course, never use it to harm or undermine anyone. In any case, consult with your legal team if you’re uncertain about [ethical boundaries](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-ethics/). Back to our CRM research. To track product numbers over time, let's take the URL for CRM listings on Capterra and enter it into the Wayback Machine's search bar. [![Wayback Machine results for a Capterra URL](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/image-3.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) You can then access snapshots of this page going back as far as 2006, allowing you to see how the number of CRM listings has changed. Based on this data, you could create a chart similar to the one below to visualize growth over time, which may help indicate whether the market is expanding or stabilizing. [![Chart depicting the number of CRM listings on Capterra. The number rises steadily from around 150 in January 2008 to 2000 in January 2024, with a slight dip around 2015.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/image-4.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) **Chart depicting the number of CRM listings on Capterra, built by the author based on publicly available data.* This chart illustrates the growth in the number of CRM products listed on Capterra from 2007 to 2024. We see a gradual increase in listings until around 2018, after which growth accelerates significantly. The upward trend continues steadily, with a particularly steep rise from 2020 onward, indicating rapid market expansion.In 2024, the number of listed products has surpassed 2000, signaling a **highly saturated market** with a wide range of choices for potential buyers. Thus, we can conclude that the CRM market is still growing (at least in terms of the number of products offered). However, based on the customer adoption data we examined earlier, the influx of new products may slow as the market gets closer to saturation. --- Now, it's your turn. ✍️ Assess adoption rates in your market. Use tools like Google and ChatGPT to find adoption rates. Cross-check the credibility of your sources and identify whether the market is in its early stages, growing rapidly, or nearing saturation. High adoption rates indicate a mature market, while low rates suggest early-stage opportunities. ✍️ Track the number of vendors or products. Use review platforms like G2 or Capterra to gauge competition. For historical trends, leverage tools like the Wayback Machine to understand how numbers have changed over time. A rapidly increasing number of vendors indicates market growth, while stabilization could mean the market is maturing. ✍️ Finally, ask yourself: ➜ Based on the findings, **what can we conclude about our market*? Is it emerging, growing, maturing, or declining? ➜ What does this mean for our product’s positioning or market potential? ## Product lifecycle curve Now, here’s the thing: it’s not just the market that evolves, your product and your competitors' products go through their own lifecycles. And just as there’s a curve for markets, there’s also a curve that maps the typical evolution of a product. [![A diagram illustrating the five stages of a product lifecycle: Idea, MVP, Growth, Mature, and Decline. The chart plots Product Growth (adoption, revenue, market traction) over time, showing a classic S-curve. Key milestones are marked: "Initial Traction," "The Chasm" (a barrier to mass adoption), "Mass Adoption," and "Peak Adoption." Each stage has a brief description: Idea (validate market need, secure seed funding), MVP (achieve product-market fit), Growth (scale effectively, secure funding), Mature (differentiate, strategic investments), and Decline (optimize costs, pivot/exit).](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/image-5.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) ### **Idea stage** The focus is on ****validating market needs and exploring potential demand**. This stage often aligns with emerging or growing markets. This is where everything begins, whether it’s in someone’s garage, a dorm room, or a high-profile corporate meeting room. At this point, the focus isn’t on fancy marketing or operations (because it's a pre-market stage basically). It’s about validating your brilliant (or not-so-brilliant) idea. Is there a market? Does anyone care? And can you sell the vision well enough to secure funding for your proof of concept? ### **MVP stage** At this stage, companies aim to ****achieve product-market fit by capturing early adopters**. It aligns well with emerging or growing markets. The *"let’s see if anyone actually wants this thing"* phase. The goal here is to launch your minimum viable product, a good enough version of your product with just enough features to solve your audience’s pain point. The focus here is all about achieving product-market fit. That means listening carefully to early adopters, gathering feedback, and fine-tuning until your product resonates. This is also the time to charm some investors (whether internal or external) to secure the funds you’ll need to scale. ### **The chasm** Yes, again :) Just like we saw in the market evolution section, the chasm represents a significant barrier in any product's lifecycle. It's a make-or-break moment where many new products fail. Early adopters, those tech-savvy enthusiasts and innovators who embraced your product with excitement, are no longer enough to sustain momentum. To move forward, your product must resonate with the larger, more conservative segment of the market. This group won’t take a leap of faith. They need reviews, testimonials, case studies, and industry validation to feel confident in their decision. Thus, the focus should be on practicality, reliability, and shift from "*look how innovative this is"* to *"here’s how this will make your life easier."* Remember Google Glass? Since its launch in 2013, it has struggled to move beyond early adopters. Despite multiple relaunches and pivots over the years, [Google Glass never quite made the leap to mainstream success](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/052115/how-why-google-glass-failed.asp), illustrating how difficult it can be to cross the chasm and gain widespread acceptance (even with all the resources that Google has). ✍️ ****If you’re navigating this stage, ask yourself**: ➜ Have we identified the **core problems our broader target audience faces*? ➜ Are our **features intuitive enough for non-tech-savvy users*? ➜ Have we **tested messaging and positioning* to ensure it resonates with a more conservative audience? Crossing the chasm isn’t easy, but for those who succeed, it’s the gateway to the growth stage and all the opportunities that come with it. ### **Growth stage** ****Scaling and expanding** reach become the priority, especially in a growth market where demand is accelerating. You’ve validated your product-market fit, and now it’s all about scaling up. That means expanding your reach by targeting new customer segments, industries, or even breaking into new regions. Demand is rising, competition is intensifying, and your efforts should center on refining operations, delighting customers with the best experience, and securing additional funding to keep up with growth. This is the time for strategic partnerships, bold marketing moves, and rolling out constant product updates to stay one step ahead of your rivals. [![ A short animation shows a potted plant with two small leaves growing as they're watered by watering cans labelled "$600 stimulus" and "$2000 stimulus". The pot is teal, sitting on a wooden surface, against a solid pink background.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/stimulus-stimulus2.gif)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) Tenor GIF ### **Mature stage** ****Differentiation** is essential here to retain customers in a mature market. Strategies include feature expansion, enhanced support, and loyalty programs. This is the stage where your product has reached stability, and you’re now in a crowded market where everyone offers something similar. Growth has plateaued, and the game has shifted from rapid expansion to retaining customers and maximizing value. This is where you double down on differentiation: premium features, killer customer service, and exclusive perks to keep your audience loyal. Consolidation is also common, with weaker players exiting or merging, leaving a few dominant players shaping the market. And you want to be among them. ### **Decline stage** ****Cost optimization, potential pivots, or exits** are typical in a declining product stage. Aligns with a mature or declining market. This stage signals a downturn in the product's lifecycle. Demand is fading, and newer, shinier solutions are taking over. So what now? Smart companies use this phase to pivot, optimize costs, or milk the product for everything it’s worth. Maybe you bundle it with other offerings, target niche customers, or even sell the business outright. --- Pause and pinpoint where your product truly stands. ✍️ ****Ask yourself**: ➜ **What stage are we in?* Are we still validating the idea, testing product-market fit, scaling rapidly, or navigating a saturated market? ➜ **Are we focused on the right priorities?* Are our efforts aligned with where our product is in its lifecycle? ➜ **What’s holding us back?* Is it funding, customer awareness, competition, or internal inefficiencies? ## Ways to analyze product lifecycle stages You likely have a good understanding of your product's lifecycle. At least, I hope so :) But what about the products of your competitors? How do you determine where they stand? Here are some key indicators to analyze where any product stands in its lifecycle. ### Product age and update history The timing of a product’s initial release and subsequent updates can be a reliable indicator of its lifecycle stage. For example, if a product was launched a decade ago, it’s highly unlikely to still be in the MVP stage. Here’s a way to interpret product timelines: **MVP stage** ➜ Products in this stage are newly launched, with frequent updates as teams iterate based on user feedback. **Growth stage** ➜ Typically, products in this stage have been on the market for some time. They may see regular feature rollouts to meet growing market demands and outpace competitors. **Mature stage** ➜ Updates may slow down, focusing on incremental improvements, premium add-ons, or optimization of existing features rather than introducing groundbreaking innovations. **Decline stage** ➜ If updates have become rare with the focus shifting to maintenance, or have stopped altogether, it may be a sign of decline. --- How to track this? The quickest way would be to search on Google or use ChatGPT for an initial idea. But double-check those findings by going through the official sources: 1. Look for press releases to determine when a product was first introduced. 2. Check release notes or version logs on official websites, app stores, or forums to identify how frequently updates occur and their focus (new features vs. bug fixes). --- And to keep things practical, let’s once again turn to the CRM market. The chart below shows the launch dates of various CRM products and how many years they’ve been on the market. Of course, this is just a small sample (as we know, there are over 2000 CRM products out there), but it’s enough to draw some insights. [![A horizontal bar chart tracking the longevity of various CRM software products from 1999 to 2024. The chart shows the launch year and total years of operation for each product. Salesforce Sales Cloud, launched in 1999, has the longest lifespan at 25 years. Other products include SugarCRM (2004, 20 years), Zoho CRM (2005, 19 years), Insightly and Less Annoying CRM (2009, 15 years), Pipedrive (2010, 14 years), Bitrix24 and Agile CRM (2012, 12 years), Close (2013, 11 years), HubSpot CRM (2014, 10 years), Dynamics 365 and Freshsales (2016, 8 years), and monday CRM (2022, 2 years).](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/image-20.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) **Chart depicting select CRM products' launch dates, built by the author based on publicly available data.* What can this chart tell us? Salesforce Sales Cloud has been around for an impressive 25 years. This clearly signals that it’s a mature product. Naturally, we can expect it to offer a broader range of features compared to newer products like monday CRM, which launched just two years ago, for example. But 25 years is a long time. How can we be sure Salesforce Sales Cloud hasn’t entered the decline stage yet? This is where product updates come into play. Release notes for product updates are a great way to see whether a product is evolving or simply being maintained. For instance, Salesforce has been actively enhancing its AI capabilities in recent years. The launches of [Einstein GPT](https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2023/03/07/einstein-generative-ai/) in 2023 and [Einstein Copilot](https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2024/02/27/einstein-copilot-news/) in 2024 are clear signs of ongoing innovation and adaptability. This shows that, despite its age, Salesforce continues to adapt to market needs and remains a strong, competitive player in the CRM space. So, even with limited indicators like product age and recent updates, we can deduce that Salesforce Sales Cloud is a mature product that remains highly relevant. That’s exactly what you’d expect from a market leader, right? Similarly, analyzing the age and update history of other products can help you understand where they stand in their lifecycle and how they compare in terms of innovation and competitiveness. --- Take a moment to reflect on where your competitors' products stand. ✍️ ➜ **How old are the products in our market?* Have our competitors’ products been around for a long time, or are they fresh players? ➜ **How frequently are updates or innovations happening?* Do these updates indicate growth and relevance, or mere maintenance? ### Customer reviews and their evolution The number of customer reviews can give you a quick idea of where a product is in its lifecycle. While it’s not perfect, it’s a fast way to gauge market traction. Here’s how to interpret review counts: **MVP stage** ➜ Few reviews, mostly from early adopters. **Growth stage** ➜ Reviews start growing quickly as more users adopt the product. Feedback may include feature requests and comparisons to competitors. **Mature stage** ➜ Lots of reviews, but growth in review numbers slows. Feedback may focus on fine-tuning, customer support, and pricing. **Decline stage** ➜ Fewer new reviews appear, and existing ones *may highlight outdated features or dissatisfaction compared to other products*. How to track this? 1. Look at platforms like G2 or Capterra to see how many reviews a product has. 2. Check how the number of reviews has grown over time using tools like the Wayback Machine. 3. Analyze reviews to see what users are focusing on. Is it early enthusiasm, feature requests, or complaints? --- I know you’re probably thinking, "Not CRMs again!" But hang in there, this time we’re diving into customer reviews, and they can reveal a lot! Let's see if the change in Salesforce Sales Cloud’s customer reviews can provide insight into its lifecycle. [![A line graph showing the cumulative number of customer reviews for Salesforce Sales Cloud on Capterra from early 2018 to early 2024. The y-axis represents the Number of Customer Reviews, while the x-axis represents the time. The light blue shaded area under the curve shows the growth over time. The curve shows a sharp increase in reviews from 2018 to late 2019, followed by a slower, more gradual increase from 2020 to 2024. The total number of reviews approaches 20,000 by 2024.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/image-22.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) **Chart depicting the growth of the number of customer reviews for Salesforce Sales Cloud on Capterra, built by the author based on publicly available data.* Looking at the chart, we can see trends that correlate with lifecycle stages. From steady growth pre-2020 to a more stable plateau in recent years. This suggests that Salesforce Sales Cloud entered the mature stage, with its large, loyal customer base driving consistent review numbers. --- Take a moment to evaluate what customer reviews reveal about your competitors’ products. ✍️ ➜ *How has the number of reviews changed over time?* Gaining traction with more reviews, or has the growth slowed down? ➜ *What do the reviews say about customer satisfaction?* Are there recurring complaints or praises that highlight key strengths or weaknesses? ### Customers and revenue (and how they changed). The size and growth of a product’s customer base, alongside its revenue trajectory, are strong indicators of its lifecycle stage. While exact numbers can be hard (sometimes impossible) to find, patterns can help you estimate where a product stands in its lifecycle. Here’s how to interpret customer and revenue growth: **MVP stage ➜** Products in this stage typically attract a small but passionate group of early adopters, and revenue is often minimal or inconsistent as the focus is on testing and refining the product. **Growth stage ➜** A rapid increase in customer numbers and revenue signals successful scaling and strong market demand. Revenue growth is often exponential during this stage as new segments and geographies are tapped. **Mature stage ➜** The customer base stabilizes as most potential users have already adopted the product. Revenue growth slows, plateauing as the product reaches its saturation point in the market. **Decline stage ➜** A noticeable drop in customers and declining revenue often suggests the product is becoming obsolete, facing competition, or losing relevance. --- How to track this? Again, the easiest way would be to search on Google or use ChatGPT for some initial insights. But double-check those findings by going through the official sources: 1. Check competitors’ websites for user counts or revenue milestones on customers' pages, press release (or newsroom) pages, or blog posts. 2. Look for financial statements or press releases highlighting customer milestones, quarterly earnings, or revenue achievements. Public companies often share this information transparently. 3. Use industry reports or third-party research to estimate user numbers and revenue trends. Reports from analysts or consultancies can provide aggregated insights if direct data isn’t available. 4. Pay attention to funding rounds for startups or private companies. Valuation increases may reflect rising customer and revenue growth. --- Missed CRM examples? I got you covered (just kidding). But seriously, let's look at Salesforce Sales Cloud again. Take a look at the chart below. It tracks Salesforce Sales Cloud's revenue growth over the years, and it’s pretty revealing. [![A line graph titled "Salesforce Sales Cloud Revenue" shows the company's revenue growth from 2000 to late 2023. The y-axis, labeled in increments of billions, goes from $0 to $8 billion. The x-axis shows the years from 2000 to 2023. The graph displays a steady, accelerating growth trend. Revenue was near zero in 2000, exceeded $1 billion around 2009, reached over $4 billion by 2020, and climbed to approximately $7.5 billion by late 2023. The area under the curve is shaded in light blue.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/image-23.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) **Chart depicting the growth of revenue for Salesforce Sales Cloud, built by the author based on publicly available data.* From the early 2000s, you can see a slow start; this is what you'd expect in the MVP stage. Then, as Salesforce gained traction, its revenue took off, hitting its stride during the growth stage. Fast-forward to 2024, and with revenue now surpassing $7 billion, Salesforce Sales Cloud is a good example of a mature (yet growing) product. Now, you’re probably wondering: how do you gather data like this? It’s easier than it sounds (for public companies, at least). Here are some tips: 1. Check annual reports for publicly traded companies; they’re a goldmine of financial (and strategic) data. 2. Review press releases or investor updates for milestones and financial achievements. 3. For private companies or startups, dig into industry analyses or news articles for revenue estimates. For the Salesforce example, I used two simple sources: [The History of Salesforce](https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/the-history-of-salesforce/) article and annual reports available on the [Financial page](https://investor.salesforce.com/financials/default.aspx). --- Now (you guessed it), it’s your turn. Take a closer look at the customer base or revenue growth of your key competitors. Ask yourself: ✍️ Are they scaling rapidly, or have they hit a plateau? What lifecycle stage does this suggest they’re in? Is their growth outpacing yours? If so, what might they be doing differently? ### Market share shifts Whether a product is gaining, holding steady, or losing ground tells you a lot about its position in the market. Here’s a possible way to interpret market shares: **MVP stage** **➜** The product has little to no market share as it’s just entering the market. **Growth stage** **➜** Possible growth in market share as the product gains momentum and attracts more customers, often outpacing competitors. **Mature stage** **➜** Market share stabilizes as the product becomes a key player in the market. Shifts in share occur mainly through intense competition or consolidation. **Decline stage** **➜** A shrinking market share indicates that the product is losing relevance, either due to competition or a declining market. --- Market share data can be tricky to find, especially for smaller markets or products. However, here are some approaches: 1. Look for industry reports (e.g., Gartner, Forrester, or IDC) that rank vendors by market share. 2. Watch for competitor press releases boasting about market dominance or reaching key milestones. 3. Use tools like Statista to gather comparative data. 4. Check news articles discussing industry trends to piece together the current landscape. --- Let’s turn to Salesforce Sales Cloud for another case study. While finding precise market share data for every year can be challenging, we know Salesforce has consistently been a CRM market leader. Reports from Gartner's Magic Quadrant and IDC have confirmed its dominance [for over a decade](https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/idc-crm-market-share-ranking-2024/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com). [In 2023](https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/idc-crm-market-share-ranking-2024/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com), Salesforce held a *21.7% share of the CRM market,* outpacing every other vendor in revenue, according to IDC. What does this tell us? We already suspected this, but here’s further evidence: Salesforce Sales Cloud is firmly in the mature stage of its lifecycle. Its strong market share, steady revenue growth, and ongoing leadership in the CRM space leave little doubt. --- Now, your turn. Take a moment to reflect on how market shares are divided among the players in your market: ✍️ ➜ **Who are the dominant players?* Are there clear leaders who hold significant market share, or is it a fragmented market with many smaller players? ➜ **Are market shares shifting?* Who’s gaining ground, and who’s losing? What does this tell you about emerging trends or competitive dynamics? ## Aligning product and market dynamics Now, let's bring it all together. If you've followed all the practical exercises so far, you can probably visualize how your market has changed over time. It may look similar to the chart below. [![A diagram titled "Market Evolution Curve + Products Dynamics Example" illustrates how a market matures over time. The graph's Y-axis represents market growth and shows four key stages. The Emerging Market features few innovative products. The Growth Market shows rapid growth with many new products. The Mature Market shows saturation, where only a few key products remain dominant. The final Declining Market shows the overall market trending downward.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/image-24.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) In this particular example, it illustrates: - how a few innovative products drove early growth *(Products 1 and 2)*, - a wave of similar offerings fueled expansion *(Products 3-11 and other products with smaller market shares)*, - and, ultimately, only a few dominant products *(Products 1 and 2)* maintain relevance as the market consolidates. --- Every product has its story, and every market has its rhythm. Sometimes they align, moving through the same stages. Other times, they’re completely out of sync: products in decline within a growing market, or emerging ideas trying to disrupt a saturated space. But here’s the thing: regardless of the stage your product or market is in, success isn’t about doing everything, it’s about doing the right things at the right time. But what are the right things? More importantly, what’s right for *your* product? It’s a question that deserves hours of research and brainstorming. However, you can take the first step by mapping your product, and those of your competitors, onto the table below. [![A matrix chart titled "MARKET MATURITY VS PRODUCT STAGE" shows a grid with Market Maturity stages as rows (Emerging, Growth, Mature, Declining) and Product Lifecycle stages as columns (Idea, MVP, Growth, Mature, Decline). The chart contains text explaining that it's unlikely for a product to be in its mature or declining phase within an emerging or growth market. It also notes that it's uncommon to launch new ventures in a declining market.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/image-17.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) Such mapping can reveal valuable insights into your positioning and strategy. Below are some common scenarios. [![A chart titled "MARKET MATURITY VS PRODUCT STAGE: VENDOR MAPPING." It's a grid with Market Maturity on the Y-axis and Product Stage on the X-axis. The grid shows three distinct scenarios. Scenario 1 depicts a new venture ("You") entering an Emerging Market in its MVP stage alongside competitors. Scenario 2 shows "You" in a Growth Market in the Growth Stage, with competitors behind in the MVP and Idea stages. Scenario 3 shows "You" in a Mature Market, in the Decline Stage, with competitors in the Growth, Mature, and Decline stages.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/image-18.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) **Scenario #1: Innovating in an emerging market** In this scenario, you’re in the MVP stage, alongside other players (A and B), within an emerging market. This phase is marked by high uncertainty and low adoption. Your focus should be on achieving product-market fit quickly while differentiating yourself from competitors before the market evolves. **Scenario #2: Competing in a growth market** In this scenario, you are in the idea stage while operating within a rapidly expanding market. Competitors like B, C, and D are in the MVP stage, working on achieving product-market fit. Meanwhile, an established player like A has already advanced to the growth stage, dominating the market. This case requires careful analysis of competitors, identifying gaps they’ve left unaddressed, and designing a unique value proposition. It’s a challenging position, but entering a growth market with a well-researched idea can set the stage for future success. **Scenario #3: Standing out in a mature market** Here, the market is saturated, and competition is fierce. You’ve managed to establish a strong presence, but so have others like A and B. Success now hinges on defending your position through differentiation, innovation, and operational excellence. These mock scenarios illustrate how understanding the interplay between product and market dynamics can guide your strategy at every stage. ✍️ Take a moment to reflect: **where does your product fit, and how can you optimize your approach?* --- To refine your strategy further, take a look at the table below. It can serve as a practical guide to aligning your strategy with your product and market evolution. Whether you’re launching an MVP in an emerging market or navigating the challenges of a mature one, it gives a general idea of where your focus could be. [![A detailed matrix chart titled "MARKET MATURITY VS PRODUCT STAGE: FOCUS AREAS." The chart uses a grid format. The rows represent four market maturity stages: Emerging, Growth, Mature, and Declining. The columns represent five product stages: Idea, MVP, Growth, Mature, and Decline. Each cell within the grid contains a bulleted list of strategic focus areas for a product at a specific stage within a specific market. For example, in a Mature Market, the focus for a Growth Stage product is on differentiation and finding a stable position.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/image-16.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-ultimate-guide-to-b2b-market-evolution-analysis) So, there you have it! Understanding B2B market evolution is about seeing the big picture and aligning it with your product’s lifecycle. From emerging markets to mature or even declining ones, knowing your position empowers you to make smarter strategic decisions. Stay flexible, keep a close eye on your competitors, and proactively adapt to maintain your competitive edge. --- **Disclaimer:** I am not affiliated with any of the tools or products mentioned in this post, and the links provided are not referral links. Any analysis or insights shared in this post are intended solely for educational purposes and should not be construed as financial or strategic advice. --- *This article was originally published on* [*Your Competitive Edge*](https://your-competitive-edge.com/b2b-market-and-product-lifecycle-analysis/)*.* ### The top 5 competitive parity pricing strategies you should know URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-top-5-competitive-parity-pricing-strategies-you-should-know/ Last updated: 2025-09-09T11:21:26.000Z ## **What is competitive parity pricing?** Competitive parity [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/mastering-full-stack-pricing/) means setting your prices at pretty much the same level as your competitors. Instead of racing to the bottom with low prices (a.k.a., trying to undercut other companies with penetration pricing) or charge a premium (price skimming), you [position yourself](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/) in line with what everyone else is charging. The goal is to stay [competitive](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/) and look fair in the eyes of your customers while avoiding the risk of being priced out of the market. A good example of this is [retail](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/retail-competitive-intelligence/). In any big supermarket, the prices of staples like bread, milk, or eggs are typically the same no matter where you go. This is on purpose, to match what people expect to pay; if you want to stand out, you can focus on other things, like store experience, how easy it is for people to shop there, and additional value that makes it worth it for customers to choose you. ## **1\. Benchmark against competitors for a strong foundation** Following that logic, the first (and most obvious) competitive parity [pricing strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/) to consider is benchmarking your prices. You have to keep an eye on your competitors and know their prices. But this isn’t about copying numbers, as you need to understand why they price their products the way they do. So, it’s important you [analyse your competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-carry-competitive-analysis-in-digital-marketing/) and interpret the numbers in the right context. For example, in the airline industry, one carrier might sell a ticket for $300, while another might list the same trip for $350\. On the surface, the difference is obvious, but when you look deeper, the $350 ticket might include checked luggage already. Tech companies do this too. Look at Apple, Samsung, and Google, all of which closely monitor one another’s [product pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/power-of-transparent-pricing/). Apple rarely undercuts its competitors but positions itself with features and brand prestige that justify its cost. Benchmarking enables Apple to charge competitively while maintaining its premium appeal. By watching the market, you can also avoid the trap of overpricing, which risks alienating your customers, or underpricing, which can give the idea that your product is of inferior quality. So, the balance helps you align with your [customers’ expectations](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/reflections-on-ci/) while keeping your brand positioning intact. [5 AI-powered SEO tools: Next-gen competitive trackingDiscover how AI-powered SEO tools like Semrush, Similarweb, and MarketMuse are reshaping competitive tracking for CI and content pros.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-101.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/5-AI-powered-SEO-tools-Next-gen-competitive-tracking-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-ai-powered-seo-tools-new-opportunities-for-competitive-tracking/) ## **2\. Tiered pricing structures for different market segments** Instead of charging everyone the same price, try creating different levels for different customers. This allows you to match your competitors at entry-level tiers while offering opportunities for upselling. [SaaS companies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/pricing-a-saas-product-in-2025/), like Slack, are a perfect example. They provide a free or low-cost option that's similar to what others offer, which brings in people looking for a good deal. But they also have more expensive plans for bigger businesses that need more features. This way, [they grab customers at all levels](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/master-your-ci-function/) and allow for significant profit margins. In hospitality, hotels use a similar approach. Budget rooms are priced to match other hotels. At the same time, suites or upgraded rooms are designed for customers willing to pay more for additional luxury. This structure means hotels remain competitive on essentials while maximizing revenue from customers who value premium experiences. So, tiered [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) is flexible. Because it acknowledges that, while some customers want the lowest possible price, others are willing to pay more for features, services, or exclusivity. If you can master this balance, you can secure market share at the bottom while being profitable at the top. ## **3\. Dynamic pricing for real-time market relevance** Markets are always changing, so your prices shouldn’t stay the same forever. Dynamic pricing is a parity strategy that means adjusting prices based on demand, what your competitors are doing, and other factors. This helps you stay competitive while still making the most of revenue opportunities. Airlines are a good example again, as they have long been leaders in dynamic [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/loss-leader-definition/) for years. A single flight might have dozens of price variations depending on when tickets are booked, how many seats are left, and what competitors are charging at that moment. Similarly, apps like Uber and Lyft raise prices when there’s high demand so they remain competitive while maximizing their earnings during peak times. E-commerce platforms also use this strategy. Amazon is known for their algorithmic approach that adjusts prices on thousands of products multiple times a day. Their goal is to [always be competitive](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/) and stop customers from turning to rival platforms. Dynamic pricing isn’t limited to large corporations. Small businesses can also use it with tools that track and monitor competitor prices. For instance, an online boutique could use software to change prices automatically when their competitors are having a sale. This is useful because it can help you level the playing field, even against bigger rivals. ## **4\. Value-added differentiation at the same price point** One of the smartest ways to implement competitive parity pricing strategies is to offer something extra that makes your product or service stand out for the same price. Coffee chains do this a lot. A latte might cost $4.50 at Starbucks and a local café alike. However, Starbucks builds [differentiation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/) through loyalty programs, mobile ordering, and a brand name people recognize. In the electronics sector, retailers often include free installation, extended warranties, or customer support as part of the package. Even if the base price is the same as their competitors, these added [benefits](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/) make customers feel like they’re getting a better deal. This strategy also thrives in subscription services. Streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney+ charge similar monthly fees, but they differentiate by showing exclusive content libraries. You might pay the same amount for both, but it’s likely you’ll see different value in the unique experiences each of them offers. [Value-added differentiation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/paul-maguranis-how-to-use-value-to-properly-price-your-products/) is great to prevent commoditization, where products become indistinguishable from one another. By keeping prices in line but adding value to the overall package, you’re giving your customers compelling reasons to choose you over other companies. [How to tackle different forms of competitionWhat’s your strategy for dealing with different forms of competition? Learn how to monitor direct and indirect competitors and outshine them all.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-102.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/How-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition-1-4.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition/) ## **5\. Psychological pricing tactics to enhance perceived value** Even when prices are the same (or similar enough), the way you show them can change how people feel about them. Psychological pricing tactics touch on [human behavior and perception](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/b2b-market-segmentation-guide/), making parity pricing more effective. Charm pricing is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Listing a product at $9.99 instead of $10 might seem trivial, but countless studies show that customers perceive it as much cheaper. In highly competitive markets, even such small differences can make or break it. Anchoring is another tactic often used by retailers, and consists of showing a more expensive item next to the one you’re trying to sell. This makes the cheaper option look like a bargain. For example, a $70 shirt next to a $120 one feels more affordable than if it were displayed on its own. Bundling is another key tactic. For instance, a fast-food chain can offer “meal deals” at prices aligned with competitors’ single-item rates. Customers feel they’re getting extra value, even though the overall pricing structure is the same. ## **In short** By pricing like your competitors, you can build a solid business that customers trust while leaving room to be different and come up with new ideas. It creates a fair game where you can compete on things like value, service, and trust. ### Competitive intelligence in healthcare: Master it in 5 steps URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-in-healthcare/ Last updated: 2025-09-09T11:21:28.000Z Struggling to gather intel on stealthy healthcare [competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/)? Not sure where to start digging? You’re not alone. As Christopher Link, Senior Competitive Intelligence Analyst at GEICO, puts it: > “Data on competitors is always the absolute trickiest thing.” But don't worry – we’re here to help. This guide will arm you with a [step-by-step process](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/increase-your-competitive-advantage-by-building-a-world-class-win-loss-program/) to uncover everything you need to know, then transform your raw data into insights your team can act on. You'll learn how to: - Uncover vital details from databases, news, financials, and more. - Get candid perspectives from customers and colleagues. - Analyze competitors' web strategies and metrics. - Identify [trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/11-competitive-intelligence-trends/) and craft focused insights. - Package intelligence for easy absorption. Now, let’s dive into the five steps that will make you your team’s most trusted advisor on the [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) in healthcare landscape. [7 competitive advantage examples you should be aware ofLearn how companies like Nvidia and Basecamp use strategies like innovation and reputation to maintain a competitive edge.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-94.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/7-competitive-advantage-examples-you-should-be-aware-of-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/) ## **Step one: Tap into healthcare databases and financials** When gathering intel on competitors in the healthcare tech space, you can’t always rely on their websites and press releases alone. Players in the sector might not have much of a public presence. So, where can you go to dig up info on these tight-lipped companies? - American Hospital Association and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) - SEC filings and tax documents. - Healthcare news aggregators. ### The American Hospital Association and CMS Start with reputable healthcare databases to build your foundation for [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-intelligence-cycle/) in healthcare. The **American Hospital Association and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)** offer a treasure trove of structured data on hospitals, clinics, and payers. This can give you a bird’s-eye view of competitors’ market penetration, service offerings, and more. You’ll get the hard facts on their customers, [revenues](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-we-drove-1-2m-in-revenue-in-90-days/), locations, and other vital signs. When competitors lack a media presence, study their SEO/SEM data to uncover priorities. Low web traffic or minimal spend on hot keywords is often a sign they’re not heavily invested in your niche. ### SEC filings and tax documentation Don’t forget to scour any publicly available financial statements as well. For newer competitors, you can get the scoop on their finances by digging into **SEC filings and tax documents.** These can reveal: - How quickly competitors are growing. - Where they spend money. - How they’re [positioned](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/) for the future. ### General healthcare news While you’re spelunking for structured data, be sure to keep tabs on **healthcare news too.** Industry publications, news sites, and blogs can provide helpful context around competitors' moves and [market landscape](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-vs-market-intelligence/) shifts. They often interview execs and highlight new partnerships, product launches, and more. ****To recap,** here are three tips for tapping into existing data troves: • Leverage healthcare-specific databases for competitor stats and profiles. • Check SEC filings and tax docs for financial insights on public players. • Monitor news outlets and publications for real-time industry updates. With these pieces in hand, you can start assembling the full competitive puzzle. ## Step two: Gather field intelligence In addition to external data sources, make sure to collect insights from internal teams. Your colleagues on the front lines often have invaluable perspectives to share. Start by setting up a simple **win/loss survey** for the sales team. Even if the data is imperfect, learning why deals were won or lost can reveal competitor [strengths and weaknesses](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/). Even a few multiple-choice questions sent after each deal can help you uncover trends over time. Just remember to take this intel with a pinch of salt. As Christopher Link points out… > “I know that 50% of the information on there is probably wrong. I live with that, I put that caveat out there. But at least . . . sales sees they have an input, it goes into what we’ll call my ‘black box’, and there’s an output. They can at least see we’re talking about things, we’re thinking about things, and there’s something going on.” Even a “rudimentary” [win/loss program](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/increase-your-competitive-advantage-by-building-a-world-class-win-loss-program/) adds value by prompting dialogue with sales. And in healthcare, customer conversations must be approached sensitively. Clinicians are often stretched thin, so respect their time and role in patient care. ### Talk to customers directly Customer [conversations](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-chatgpt-for-competitive-intelligence-assistant/) are another prime source of intel. Schedule calls or informal chats with clients to learn about their pain points and how they compare you to competitors. This gives unique insight into how you’re perceived and where competitors may be falling short. Don’t forget to tap into the expertise of your internal network too. Host brainstorming sessions to pick colleagues’ brains on competitors, or pull them aside for quick chats to gather anecdotes and [impressions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-seo/). You’ll be amazed at the nuggets of insight you’ll find. ****In short,** here are three tips for collecting field intelligence: • Implement a streamlined win/loss survey for quick sales feedback. • Have candid conversations with customers to learn their thoughts. • Lean on your network’s collective knowledge through informal chats. Capturing insights from the field ensures your competitive intelligence in healthcare analysis isn’t just theoretical. You’ll have real examples of competitors in action from trusted observers to complement your external data. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/CIA_CI-by-industry-playbook_Blog_.png) #### CI-by-Industry eBook ****Download your copy** to learn... - 😰 Why field intelligence can be dangerous, and how to use it the right way. ([Page 24](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🙅‍♂️ Why you should think twice before having reps from [****this team**](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) on a win/loss call. ([Page 24](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🤖 The truth about automation, and how much time tools can really save you. ([Page 22](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🤯 The [****surprising key skill**](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) every one of our industry experts said was crucial for CI success. ([Page 66](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) ## Step three: Analyze your competitors’ digital presence Thanks to the internal and external data sources you’ve dug into already, you’ll now have a much clearer picture of who your biggest competitors are. While they’re unlikely to lay out the nitty-gritty of their market strategies online, your competitors’ digital presence offers clues as to their positioning, priorities, and performance, so take the time to thoroughly analyze their websites, paid advertising, and web traffic metrics. ### SEO and SEM metrics can prove invaluable For competitive intelligence in healthcare, [SEO and SEM](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) metrics can prove invaluable. If you study how your competitors optimize their sites for searchability through a [competitor SEO analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/), you’ll be able to infer what content they’re targeting. A tool like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Moz will enable you to do this *and* check out their backlink profiles to gauge third-party associations and partnerships. Next, audit their SEM and paid advertising strategies. See what keywords they’ve bid on and how much they’re spending. This reveals the areas they’re aggressively trying to rank for. Use tools like: - Spyfu - Semrush - The Facebook Ad Library Keep an eye on your healthcare competitors’ overall web traffic and engagement metrics too. It’s a great idea to track growth trends over time using services like SimilarWeb. Sudden surges or drops in traffic could signal new product launches, marketing pushes, or other events. ****To recap,** here are three tips for extracting intel from competitors' digital presence: • Audit SEO strategies to infer goals and desired associations. • Monitor SEM approaches to see where time and money are focused. • Track web traffic metrics to identify inflection points. Evaluating how competitors show up digitally gives a holistic view of their market activity beyond product releases and news. The time you invest in this strategy will pay great dividends in the long run. So, in healthcare CI, where competitors may be deliberately quiet, SEO/SEM analysis is essential for spotting hidden investment areas. [11 Competitive Intelligence Examples to Stay Ahead of RivalsYour competitors are trying to eke out a competitive advantage. So how do you create your own? That starts with competitive intelligence. Here are 11 types to get you started.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-95.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/11-types-of-competitive-intelligence-3-3.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/) ## Step four: Turn data into insights Now you’ve gathered a wealth of data from third-party sources, your internal teams, and the digital realm, it’s time to synthesize everything into meaningful insights. As always, when sharing [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/), it’s vital to avoid overloading your stakeholders with data, so ensure you translate the details into concise, relevant, and actionable insights. ### Use visual formats to share insights A good first step is getting structured data (for example, financials and hospital utilization rates) into aggregated dashboards and visualizations. Platforms like Tableau and Power BI are perfect for this. Spotting trends in the visuals can reveal rising competitors, changing hospital budgets, and more. But don’t forget to layer in qualitative data too. Those tidbits from news articles, surveys, and conversations add crucial context. Weave these together with statistics to form a narrative about competitors’ moves and marketplace shifts. ### Tailor insights to their recipients Most importantly, make sure the insights you glean are tailored specifically to [individual stakeholders](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/). Leadership wants clear strategic implications. Sales needs actionable talking points. Get crystal clear on what each audience needs from you and tailor your intel accordingly. ****In summary,** here are three tips for turning data into insights: • Aggregate structured data into dashboards to identify trends. • Synthesize with qualitative info to build a holistic narrative. • Tailor key takeaways to the specific needs of each stakeholder. The real goal is to distill all the data into its most useful essence for key audiences. Avoid throwing out facts without conclusions. Doing the legwork to connect dots saves them time and deepens the value your CI function delivers to the border organization. [Social media competitive intelligence: Tools and tipsSocial media competitive intelligence made easy. Get tips and tools for tracking competitors’ social feeds and gathering actionable insights.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-96.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/Social-media-competitive-intelligence-tools-and-tips-1-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) ## Step five: Package and deliver intelligence Your competitive insights will only be effective if stakeholders actually engage with and act upon them, so you’ll need to put in the work to make sure your intel is easy to digest. **For sales**, create simple yet thorough [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) that reps can reference in competitive situations. These should essentially be summaries of your competitive differentiation vis-à-vis each competitor. Be sure to provide links to data backing up your findings to secure some bonus credibility. **For leadership**, craft succinct presentations focused on conclusions, recommendations, and next steps. Visuals like graphs and charts will help you convey key points fast. Charts and graphs might not sound very exciting, but as Christopher Link points out: > “My job isn’t to give \[leadership\] things that are fun. It’s to give them things they can work with.” **For the rest of the organization**, it’s a great idea to share competitive reports quarterly or monthly to keep everyone updated on shifts in the [competitive landscape](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/). Be sure to lead with high-level recaps and make more detailed intel available upon request. No matter the format, soliciting feedback is key. This ensures you’re providing information that’s truly useful to each audience – all the while building that trusted advisor status. And consider creating lightweight “data packs” for cross-team exercises like war games. They don’t need to be perfect; even imperfect intel sparks dialogue and builds trust. ****To recap,** here are three tips for effectively packaging intel: • Tailor the way you deliver intelligence to the team that will be using it. • Keep it concise and actionable. • Get feedback on your CI deliverables to strengthen stakeholder buy-in. Packaging intelligence properly for each audience takes work, but it’s worth it. When stakeholders start coming to you for advice, you’ll know your efforts are paying off. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/09/CIA-Framework-Wheel_-1--1-.png) ## Conclusion Follow this five-step blueprint, and you'll be equipped with all the processes and sources you need to really get inside your competitors' heads. By tapping into third-party data troves, chatting with your sales team, studying your competitors' digital footprints, and more, you’ll surface strategic insights that will help your organization get ahead. Package those insights right, and boom! Your stakeholders will be clamoring for competitive insights that will ultimately inform decisions across the company. Remember to keep gathering feedback to make your intel better and better, and before you know it, you'll be your team's trusted advisor on all things CI. Sure, it takes effort. But with this methodology, no stone is left unturned. You'll have the intel you need to stay agile, pounce on trends, and compete with confidence. ### B2B market analysis: Uncover your market structure like a pro URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/b2b-market-analysis-uncover-your-market-structure-like-a-pro/ Last updated: 2025-09-03T12:00:00.000Z In B2B, detailed market analysis often takes a backseat to immediate sales goals and quick fixes, which is understandable, especially in tech with its growth hacking mentality. But if you feel that relying on fragmented data isn't a sustainable strategy for your business, let me share a structured market analysis framework with you. --- Before we dive in, let’s agree on a few key definitions. 📕 ****Market** A market is a physical or digital space where buyers, facing a specific problem or a common set of problems, select sellers that provide solutions to those problems. In the context of B2B tech, buyers are generally companies of various sizes (e.g. small businesses, mid-market companies, or large enterprises) with specific challenges or needs. Sellers, on the other hand, are typically tech vendors – companies that provide the necessary products or services to address those challenges. If you're on the vendor side, this post is for you. 📕 ****Market analysis** Market analysis helps you understand your market and make informed decisions. The definition may be short and sweet, but in reality, market analysis is a lengthy process that may span weeks or even months (and, honestly, it never really ends). We can approach market analysis from three fundamental perspectives: 1. **Market structure \[covered in this post\]** ➜ *What does your market look like at a given time?* 2. [**Market evolution over time**](https://your-competitive-edge.com/b2b-market-and-product-lifecycle-analysis/) ➜ *How did your market come to its current state?* 3. **Market interconnectivity** ➜ *How do trends in other markets affect your market?* ## Market structure Now that we've covered the key definitions, let's dive into the first pillar: market structure analysis. In B2B tech, market structure can be broken down into three key areas: 1. **Demand side** ➜ *Your customers and your competitors’ customers.* These are businesses of various sizes, often operating in different industries. 2. **Supply side** ➜ *Vendors: you and your competitors; system integrators (SIs), value-added resellers (VARs), channel partners, and more.* This includes all vendors and ecosystem partners that contribute to the market. 3. **External influencers** ➜ *Regulators, analysts, investors, etc.* These entities define regulations, set trends, and influence market perceptions. ## Customers 🤔 Who are the customers in your market? What do they want? Is the market potential large enough to justify your efforts? If you know the answers to the questions above, you can likely skip this section and move directly to the supply side. If not, let me share some ideas to get you started. ### Identify your target customers The goal is to understand the industries they operate in, the size of these companies, and their geographic distribution. Also, identify the number of businesses that fit your target profile based on industry, size, and location. This will provide a clearer view of your market size and potential. #### ⚙️ Resources #### [HubSpot's Market Size Calculator](https://offers.hubspot.com/market-size-calculator) 💲**Free** This handy spreadsheet helps estimate the revenue potential of your target markets by combining inputs such as population size, average price, and purchase frequency. The calculator automatically works out the average revenue per customer and scales it across your chosen market segments to give you a clear TAM figure. ![HubSpot's Market Size Calculator](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/08/HubSpot-market-size-calculator.png) HubSpot's Market Size Calculator #### [Crunchbase](https://www.crunchbase.com/discover/organization.companies) 💲**Free** / Paid for advanced features (free seven-day trial available) Even in the free version, Crunchbase provides filtering options by size, industry, location, funding, growth signals, and more. For a more nuanced search, you can use their Query Builder. To access third-party data like tech stack or IT budget, you can upgrade to [Data Boost](https://about.crunchbase.com/data-boost/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) (a paid feature that adds 55+ filters; a free seven-day trial is available). ![Crunchbase search results](https://your-competitive-edge.com/content/images/2024/10/image-6.png) Crunchbase search results for Banks in the U.S. and Canada. #### [LinkedIn Sales Navigator](https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/sales-navigator?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) 💲**Paid** / 30-day free trial available This is a powerful tool for researching companies. You can [filter](https://www.linkedin.com/help/sales-navigator/answer/a1452817) based on headcount, industry vertical, location, technology used, department headcount, and more. It's an advanced (and paid) tool, so unless you plan on using it further for sales enablement, it may be overkill. 💡 Here’s a [Sales Navigator 101 guide](https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/sales-navigator/how-to-use-linkedin-sales-navigator?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) by LinkedIn. ### Research customer needs, pain points, and willingness to pay. Whether you have an existing product or plan on developing a new one, you likely have assumptions about your customers' needs and preferences. However, assumptions only go so far. The goal is to **validate** those assumptions by aligning them with real-world customer pain points and unmet needs. Additionally, look at typical budgets to estimate [how much target companies are likely to spend](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/3-research-techniques-to-find-the-right-price-point/) on your type of solution. If you notice that the budgets are consistently minimal, consider it a warning sign. There’s a significant risk that your financial returns could be limited unless your innovation is so groundbreaking that customers will be willing to adjust their budgets and line up begging, "Just take our money!" ### Gather customer preferences via direct customer surveys or interviews. Use SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, or any other survey platform to create and distribute surveys. Ask questions about challenges, unmet needs, desired outcomes, and willingness to pay. Alternatively, conduct one-on-one interviews via Zoom with key decision-makers from target companies. This, however, is easier said than done. In a B2B setting, it’s much harder to find the right audience compared to B2C. The best (and easiest) approach is to leverage your existing customer base. If you don’t have customers yet, LinkedIn is the next best alternative to find employees of your target companies. Start building relationships with them so that they are willing to answer your questions. Another method is to attend conferences or meetups where representatives from your target companies participate. Finally, an option is to engage in online communities where your target audience is active. If you’re an active contributor and your product/idea is perceived as helpful, your audience may be more willing to fill out your surveys and agree to interviews. It’s important to note, though, that building relationships on LinkedIn or online communities is often a long-term strategy. You may not (and probably won’t) get immediate responses to your surveys or interview requests. Offering an incentive, say a discount or free access to a valuable report or guide, can potentially encourage people to take time out of their schedules to participate in your research. But don’t overdo it or get too cheesy. 📝 You can use Product Marketing Alliance's [B2B persona questions template](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/b2b-persona-questions-template-framework/) as a starting point to formulate questions for your interview activities. Please note that you’ll need to create a free account to access the template. ### Gather and analyze data already available on the Internet. Yes, direct [customer interviews](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/product-marketer-customer-interviews/) or surveys (especially when done right) are generally regarded as one of the most reliable ways to gather customer insights. However, if you’re in a situation where that’s not feasible, the Internet offers a wealth of data you can leverage. As you conduct your research, keep an eye out for recurring themes. If you notice multiple people discussing the same challenges, it’s likely an indication of widespread pain points. #### ⚙️ Resources #### Internal data 💲**Free** If you have existing customers, analyze your historical sales data to identify recurring customer needs and spending patterns. You can use these findings to benchmark potential spending in the broader market. Additionally, support tickets can provide ~~painful~~ valuable insights into common challenges and unmet needs. #### Customer surveys 💲**Free/ paid** (depends on the survey tool you use) Conducting customer surveys is a direct way to ask your target audience what challenges they face, how much they’re currently spending or willing to spend on solutions in your category. Here are some survey tools for you to consider: #### [**Google Forms**](https://workspace.google.com/products/forms/) Good, old-fashioned survey tool – free, quick to set up, and easy to use. While it lacks advanced features and customizations, it remains a solid choice for quick initial surveys. #### [**Typeform**](https://www.typeform.com/) Typeform is known for probably the most visually appealing surveys, which can potentially lead to higher completion rates. What is also good about them is their [market research templates](https://www.typeform.com/research/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com). #### [**SurveyMonkey**](https://www.surveymonkey.com/) SurveyMonkey is one of the go-to tools for creating surveys, offering pre-built templates, reporting features, and an overall user-friendly experience – but I bet you already knew that. What you may not know, though, is that SurveyMonkey offers a service called [SurveyMonkey Audience](https://www.surveymonkey.com/product/market-research/audience-panel/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com). It provides access to a large, targeted pool of respondents (*over 335 million people across 130+ countries*), allowing you to gather survey data quickly. This service is great for market validation and exploratory research in tech B2B. However, while using SurveyMonkey Audience sounds promising, it can get quite pricey. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/08/image.png) Example of a cost estimate for a custom audience using [SurveyMonkey Audience calculator ](https://www.surveymonkey.com/collect/audience/calculator?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) #### [Qualtrics](https://www.qualtrics.com/strategy/research/) As enterprise-grade as a survey tool can get – robust, advanced, with online panels, and definitely on the pricier side. Qualtrics offers a full suite of features, along with professional services to guide you from point A to point Z of your customer research journey. If you're on a budget, Qualtrics offers a [free survey maker tool](https://www.qualtrics.com/free-account/) with 50+ pre-built templates. ![Qualtrics free survey maker tool preview.](https://your-competitive-edge.com/content/images/2024/10/image-12.png) Qualtrics free survey maker tool preview. Personally, I’ve learned a ton from the Qualtrics [blog](https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/market-research/) and courses. You might want to consider checking their [Implementing Research Methodology](https://basecamp.qualtrics.com/path/research-methodology) learning path to gain a deeper understanding of how to make your research projects methodologically sound. #### Competitor websites 💲**Free** Competitor websites, as counterintuitive as it might sound, can actually be a goldmine for insights into customer needs, challenges, and even budgeting. Check out their pricing pages to get a rough idea of what similar customers are likely paying for comparable solutions. Also, take a look at case studies (if available), as they often reveal the exact pain points that customers in your market are dealing with. #### Review sites 💲**Free** Review sites host reviews from actual users and are among the best sources of insights into common pain points, desired features, and overall customer satisfaction. | Platform | Monthly visitors | | --------------------- | ---------------- | | G2 | 3.2M \* | | AlternativeTo | 5.5M | | Capterra | 2.7M | | Gartner Peer Insights | 3M \*\* | | GetApp | 1M | | Software Advice | 750K | | TrustRadius | 650K | *\*Based on Similarweb data as of September 2024* *\*\*Traffic for gartner.com* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/08/image-1.png) TrustRadius summary for the Less Annoying CRM. Customer pain points are highlighted for educational purposes. 💡 ****Search for negative or critical reviews** – they’re a goldmine of insights for identifying unmet needs in the market. #### [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/) 💲**Free** Reddit’s niche communities (subreddits) like r/CRM, r/SaaS\_Email\_Marketing, and others offer candid discussions on tools and services. You can engage in these communities to gather direct feedback or observe real user experiences. While searching on Reddit can feel a bit messy, it’s worth a look given its [estimated 1.2 billion monthly unique visitors](https://backlinko.com/reddit-users). Here’s a [short guide](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/19696541895316-Available-search-features) on how to use Reddit’s search effectively. ![Reddit poll screenshot](https://your-competitive-edge.com/content/images/2024/10/image-9.png) Example of a poll on Reddit. 💡 ****Focus on upvoted comments and longer threads.** These tend to surface the most valuable and insightful discussions. You can also filter posts by **Top* or **Most Popular* to find discussions that are most relevant and highly engaged. ### Summarize your findings Now, what can you actually do with this info? After completing the steps of identifying your target customers and researching their needs, pain points, and willingness to pay, you need to transform your insights into concrete actions you can take. Here are some ideas for you to consider: - Group your customers into segments based on what you’ve learned — industry, company size, specific pain points, etc. This will help you get targeted in your approach instead of going with a one-size-fits-all strategy. - From your research, pick out the most common and painful challenges. These are the areas you’ll want to focus on solving, as they’re likely what will resonate most with your audience. - For each customer segment, define a clear value proposition that speaks directly to their top challenges. Show them exactly why your solution is the best fit for their needs and why they shouldn’t look elsewhere. - Based on the budget data you gathered, set your pricing strategy. Think tiered options or value-based pricing. Remember, you want pricing that feels justified to them, so they see it as worth the investment. - If you identified unmet needs or gaps that aren’t being addressed, think about how you can incorporate these into your product roadmap. This could give you a unique edge over competitors. --- ## Competitors 🔎 Who are your competitors and what is their market position? What do they offer, and how does this impact you? How competitive is your market overall? The supply side of your market typically includes: - You (if you're already a part of it), - Your competitors, - Key ecosystem partners such as system integrators (SIs), value-added resellers (VARs), and other entities that integrate, enhance, or resell your products and solutions, as well as those of your competitors. ### Get to know your competitors #### Determine who your competitors are Use analyst reports or review sites to identify active vendors in your market. Evaluate their overall market standing – are they leaders or laggards, mainstream or niche players? #### Analyze what your competitors offer (and how) Compare features, pricing, and the value proposition they communicate to customers. You’ll want to determine how they position their products. Do they focus on innovation, cost-effectiveness, being cutting-edge, the next-best-thing, or something else? #### Compare their offerings with yours Perform a side-by-side comparison of your product and competitive offerings. Focus on positioning, key differentiators, pricing strategies, and customer feedback. #### ⚙️ Resources #### [G2 Market Reports](https://www.g2.com/reports) 💲**Free** (registration is required) G2 market reports are a valuable (and still free) source of competitive information. Start with their high-level Grid Reports to gain a general overview of the vendors in your market. Then, use the Index Reports for deeper insights into specific factors like usability or achieved results. The Momentum Grid Reports will help you identify which products are currently trending. ![](https://your-competitive-edge.com/content/images/2024/10/image-4.png) G2 Reports search bar ![](https://your-competitive-edge.com/content/images/2024/10/image-2-1.png) Example Grid report as shown on Grid reports like these are an excellent tool for assessing market competitiveness. The number of vendors represented, whether it’s five or 50, can give you a quick sense of how crowded and competitive the market is. If you have an extra budget, you may also consider [G2 Market Intelligence](https://sell.g2.com/market-intelligence-launch) for "unmatched, in-depth data when you need it," as G2 claims. But as one of the [reviews says](https://www.g2.com/products/g2-market-intelligence/reviews/g2-market-intelligence-review-9625316), "The biggest downside to this is its pricing... Only established product-based companies can afford such huge pricing and get ROI out of it." #### [Capterra Shortlists](https://insights.capterra.com/shortlist-reports) 💲**Free** Maybe not as detailed as G2 Grids, but still a quite useful tool for identifying and evaluating your competition. And no registration is required, so it’s a nice bonus. Here’s the [link to the Capterra Shortlist Methodology](https://www.capterra.com/resources/research-methodologies/) so that you have a better feeling of how they choose and position vendors. #### [Crunchbase](https://www.crunchbase.com/discover/organization.companies) 💲**Free** / Paid for advanced features (free seven-day trial available) Crunchbase is particularly helpful for identifying newer competitors and monitoring their growth and funding activities. You can filter competitors by size, location, funding, growth signals, and more. For a more nuanced search, you can use their [Query Builder](https://www.crunchbase.com/search/organization.companies/0d7b0bfc3ef771d76f9454ef1992d445?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) or upgrade to a Pro account. #### Industry analyst reports – Gartner, Forrester, IDC, Frost & Sullivan 💲 **Paid** / Free previews may be available Reputable analyst reports offer in-depth analyses of key competitors and the overall market landscape, including how vendors are ranked based on their market presence, product capabilities, or growth potential. *However,* they are ~~hella~~ quite expensive. The workaround is to carefully analyze previews since they can be very informative, or look for these reports (or their parts) reprinted by vendors mentioned in them. Such reprinting is quite common with Gartner Magic Quadrants. 💡 Search for [****Gartner Magic Quadrants**](https://www.gartner.com/en/research/magic-quadrant) or Peer Insights Voice of the Customer reports or reprints, [****Forrester Waves**](https://www.forrester.com/policies/forrester-wave-methodology/), [****IDC MarketScapes**](https://www.idc.com/promo/idcmarketscape), or [****Frost Radars**](https://www.frost.com/transformational-growth-journey/frost-radar/). #### Competitor websites 💲 **Free** Analyzing competitor websites is a straightforward way to assess what they offer and how they position their products. Look at pricing, product pages, case studies, and customer testimonials to understand their core offerings and messaging. Pay special attention to the language they use. If they’re overusing terms like *industry-leading, cutting-edge, top-notch*, *best-in-class, AI-driven,* and *cloud-native,* check whether it's just marketing buzz or if there’s a substantial basis for these claims. The easiest way to do this is by researching their developer portals (if available) or analyzing customer reviews. #### Industry events 💲 **Free / Paid** If you attend industry conferences or trade shows, visit competitor booths and attend their speeches or panels. This can provide direct insight into their messaging. Pay attention to how they highlight their product’s unique value, the pain points they address, and their differentiation. Many events also feature live demos, revealing product features, new developments, and typical use cases. Booth size can also be telling. Companies with larger booths (or prime speaking slots) often have bigger marketing budgets, which may indicate market strength, sometimes more clearly than any analyst report. #### Webinars 💲 **Free / Paid** Webinars typically reflect strategies, common challenges, and trends. By attending them, you can gauge what they emphasize and see how their focus aligns with or differs from your own. Many events release post-session recordings, blog recaps, or slides. Reviewing these materials can also be helpful. #### Public financial statements and investor presentations 💲 **Free** These are often overlooked but golden sources of strategic info on publicly listed competitors. Search for their SEC filings and investor call presentations. Typically, there you’ll find all sorts of data – strategic priorities, revenue across products, key customers, and much more. 💡 For US companies, you can use the [EDGAR](https://www.sec.gov/search-filings?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) system to gather the latest and greatest financial statements. Alternatively, look for investor relations pages on competitors' websites. ### Summarize your findings Now it’s time to make that competitive research work for you. Knowing who your competitors are and what they offer is great, but turning those insights into a competitive advantage is even better. Here’s what you can do: - Map out the competitive landscape to clearly see who you compete with. - Identify unique selling points (USPs). Highlight areas where your product or service stands out. Maybe it’s a specific feature, pricing advantage, customer service quality, whatever it can be. These USPs should become a cornerstone of your messaging and positioning. - Identify where your competitors fall short. Are customers frustrated with certain features, support quality, or hidden costs? These weak spots are your opportunity to differentiate and address unmet needs. - Adjust your value proposition to target areas where competitors under-deliver or where you have a distinct advantage. Be specific about what you offer that others don’t. - Use your competitor research to fine-tune your pricing and features. If your main competitors are priced higher but lack certain features, consider emphasizing that added value. If they’re undercutting you on price, make sure your premium benefits are clearly communicated. --- ## Ecosystem partners 🔎 Who are the key ecosystem partners in your market? How can you leverage relationships with them? ### Analyze key partners and their contribution to market dynamics The supply side isn’t just about competitors. It also includes system integrators (SIs), value-added resellers (VARs), channel partners, and such. These partners can play a huge role in helping customers select and adopt solutions. For instance, SIs often provide specialized technical expertise and integration services, ensuring that complex solutions fit seamlessly into a customer’s existing infrastructure. VARs may add tailored features or services to products, enhancing value for niche markets, while channel partners broaden market reach, providing localized support and access to new customer segments. The first step is to identify the key ecosystem players in your market. Then evaluate how competitors leverage these partnerships and consider the potential benefits of collaborating with these ecosystem players. Use this analysis to identify valuable partners for relationship building. #### ⚙️ Resources #### Competitor websites 💲 **Free** Visit your competitors' websites, looking for *Partners* or *Ecosystem* pages where they often list their key collaborators, including SIs, VARs, and channel partners. Additionally, explore relevant marketplaces and partner directories (like AWS Marketplace or Salesforce AppExchange) to find companies offering complementary services or add-ons. Also, search for recent press releases, announcements, and news articles related to partnerships. #### Industry analysts 💲 **Paid** (Free previews may be available) Analyst reports, such as those from Gartner, Forrester, or IDC, often contain sections on ecosystem players and typical partnerships within your industry. However, as mentioned earlier, these reports are expensive, so I wouldn’t recommend making them a priority unless you’re an established vendor with a substantial budget. #### Industry events and webinars 💲 **Free / Paid** Industry conferences, trade shows, and webinars are places where ecosystem partnerships are often featured. Companies might present alongside SIs or VARs, demonstrating collaborative solutions and joint strategy. ### Summarize your findings After analyzing the ecosystem landscape, summarize the key insights and actionable takeaways to guide your partnership strategy. Focus on the following areas: - List the primary types of partners (SIs, VARs, channel partners, etc.) that play an essential role in your market. Highlight any specific companies or organizations that stand out as influential or active within this ecosystem. - Summarize how competitors are leveraging these ecosystem partners. Note any patterns, such as competitors collaborating with particular types of SIs for technical expertise or VARs to enhance niche product offerings. This will give you an idea of standard practices and innovative approaches within your industry. - Outline the potential advantages of forming partnerships with these ecosystem players. For instance, certain SIs might help strengthen your product’s integration capabilities, while channel partners could expand your market reach and customer support capacity. - Identify the ecosystem partners you see as valuable for your strategy. Based on your findings, list partners that align well with your goals, whether they’re major industry players or niche specialists that could help you differentiate. - If any opportunities seem underutilized by competitors (e.g., partnerships with VARs in certain regions), highlight these gaps. This can help you identify unique opportunities to stand out or fill unmet needs in the market. --- ## External influencers 🔎 Who are the key regulators, analysts, and financial entities, and how do they influence the market? It's important to grasp both the demand and supply sides of your market, but you must also consider external factors that influence market dynamics. Regulators, industry research organizations, and investors can greatly influence how businesses operate and grow. These groups shape the larger environment in which your company competes, so analyzing their impact is crucial for making informed strategic decisions. ### Analyze key regulations and their market impact Regulations are essential in shaping the business environment, particularly in industries like telecom, healthcare, and finance, where compliance requirements can be strict. Thus, it's crucial to understand the key regulations that impact your market to avoid legal issues and establish your company as a trusted, compliant vendor. 📌 It's crucial to obtain proper legal advice to navigate the complexities of regulations and fully understand their implications for your business. *I'm not a legal advisor, so take what is written below with caution and conduct your own research.* The first logical step is to identify the local, national, and global regulations that apply to your industry. Once you've identified the relevant regulations, the next step is to assess how these rules impact your industry. Another important step would be to analyze which of your competitors comply (or do not comply) with those regulations. Here are some common regulations to keep in mind. **Data privacy and protection regulations:** - [**GDPR**](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj) **(General Data Protection Regulation)**: Applies to companies operating in or targeting the EU and governs data collection, storage, and processing of personal information. - [**CCPA**](https://cppa.ca.gov/regulations/pdf/cppa%5Fact.pdf) **(California Consumer Privacy Act)**:Applies to companies that process California residents' data, focusing on data transparency, control, and deletion rights. - **CPRA (California Privacy Rights Act)**:An amendment to CCPA, effective in 2023, adding more stringent requirements around data handling and introducing a [new enforcement agency](https://cppa.ca.gov/). - [**PIPEDA**](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/p-8.6/) **(Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act)**: Canada’s privacy law, governing how organizations collect, use, and disclose personal information. **Industry-specific compliance (if applicable):** - [**HIPAA**](https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/index.html) **(Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)**: Applies if the company handles Protected Health Information (PHI) of U.S. residents, especially relevant for tech companies offering healthcare solutions or services. - [**PCI-DSS**](https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/standards/pci-dss/) **(Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard)**: Required for companies processing, storing, or transmitting credit card information, including B2B companies handling payments. **Cybersecurity standards and regulations:** - [**NIST Cybersecurity Framework**](https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework?ref=your-competitive-edge.com): Guidelines for improving cybersecurity practices, often used by B2B tech companies as a security benchmark. - [**ISO/IEC 27001**](https://www.iso.org/standard/27001?ref=your-competitive-edge.com): An international standard for information security management, widely recognized across industries and relevant in tech B2B. - [**SOC 2**](https://www.aicpa-cima.com/topic/audit-assurance/audit-and-assurance-greater-than-soc-2?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) **(Service Organization Control 2)**:Essential for companies offering [SaaS solutions](https://linfordco.com/blog/aws-soc-2/?ref=your-competitive-edge.com); it outlines security, availability, confidentiality, and privacy controls. ### Understand how industry analysts shape your market Industry analysts, like them or not, have significant influence over how your company is perceived by customers and potential partners. Their evaluations can either amplify or limit your visibility, depending on how you’re ranked (or whether you're mentioned at all). Start by identifying the key analysts covering your market, which likely includes firms like Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and Frost & Sullivan (and yes, that’s why I’ve referenced them multiple times in this post). Their evaluations and reports, like [Gartner’s Magic Quadrant](https://www.gartner.com/imagesrv/research/methodologies/magic%5Fquad%5Ffaq.pdf) or Forrester’s Wave, carry considerable weight in enterprise purchasing decisions. It’s also worth paying attention to any strategic recommendations these analysts make, as they often drive industry-wide trends that can affect your market positioning and future strategy. Evaluate how analyst reports and evaluations influence buyer decisions in your market, and adjust your strategy to align with the factors that analysts prioritize. If possible, [****engage with analysts**](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/analysts-are-personas-too-best-practices-to-develop-your-analyst-relations-strategy/) to improve your chances of being featured in key reports. ### Identify top investors and understand their priorities 📌 I'm not a financial advisor, so take what is written below with caution and conduct your own research. Investors play a pivotal role in shaping the trajectory of many tech companies. Understanding which investors are backing your competitors, and what their priorities are, can provide valuable insights into the market’s future. Start by identifying the major investors actively funding companies in your industry. These could include VC firms, angel investors, or private equity players. The investors behind your competitors can reveal market confidence and signal where future growth is likely to occur. For this research, tools like [Crunchbase's Search](https://www.crunchbase.com/discover/principal.investors) or [Find Investors](https://about.crunchbase.com/find-investors/) can be helpful. If you identify investors who are particularly active in your market, it’s worth digging deeper. Key areas to investigate include: - *What kind of growth trajectory are investors seeking in companies they fund?* - *Are they favoring certain types of technology or business models?* - *Do they have preferred exit strategies, such as acquisitions or IPOs?* --- Understanding your market structure is essential for any B2B company aiming to compete effectively (and that’s probably why you stuck around till the end!). By breaking down the demand side (who your customers are and what they want), the supply side (who your competitors are and what they offer), and the external influencers (such as regulations and industry analysts), you’ll gain a clearer view of where you stand and where untapped opportunities might be waiting. The only thing left is to put this knowledge to work. 😊 In the next part of this series, we’ll dive into market evolution — how your market has developed over time, why it matters, and how understanding these shifts can help you stay ahead of the curve. Stay tuned as we continue building out this framework, one step at a time, so you can confidently navigate the B2B tech landscape and keep your competitive edge. --- *This article was originally published on* [*Your Competitive Edge*](https://your-competitive-edge.com/b2b-market-analysis-a-practical-guide-to-market-structure-analysis/)*.* ### 5 AI-powered SEO tools: New opportunities for competitive tracking URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-ai-powered-seo-tools-new-opportunities-for-competitive-tracking/ Last updated: 2025-08-28T12:00:21.000Z It can’t have escaped your notice that [the search landscape has changed](https://www.cmoalliance.com/how-ai-is-reshaping-search-in-2025/) *dramatically* of late. The introduction of [generative AI](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-key-limitations-of-generative-ai-in-competitive-intelligence/) and Google’s AI mode means that search engine results pages (SERPs) are more dynamic and complex than ever before. Manually tracking keyword rankings, analyzing [backlink profiles](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-backlink-analysis/), and deciphering content strategies across dozens of competitors is a losing battle, consuming precious time and delivering insights that are often outdated the moment they're discovered. Enter **AI-powered SEO tools**. By automating the tedious work of data collection and analysis, AI allows you to move beyond reactive snapshots. It helps you anticipate your competitors' next moves, uncover hidden opportunities, and transform raw data into a strategic [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/). This article will explore this shift in detail, breaking down the four core pillars of AI-driven [competitive SEO](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) and examining how five powerful tools – MarketMuse, Semrush, Similarweb, Spyfu, and ChatGPT – can boost your competitive SEO strategy. [![A chart listing five AI-powered SEO tools: MarketMuse, Semrush, Similarweb, SpyFu, and ChatGPT. Each tool is paired with a short descriptor: 'Content intelligence and authority,' 'The all-in-one SEO toolkit,' 'Market and traffic intelligence,' 'The SEO and PPC war chest,' and 'The generalist AI powerhouse.'](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd4SWtfLO4v8uxZEz3GzVBqnP3qm0AJ3jZB1bE9VOJON4splzXbFRqArgT2iObhgmOs2HzzKUe6QOZtE4xIXM8l14EpQNDW0d6uSb_YvIGpPsyZ_DgbAeM2smCuym_B2HzUdWkSoQ?key=EPDNkaZgdaEBj5jbMASAFA)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-ai-powered-seo-tools-new-opportunities-for-competitive-tracking) ## How AI is reshaping competitive SEO The power of AI is in helping you move from simple data to strategic insight. Think of it this way: a traditional tool might tell you your competitor ranks #3 for a certain search term. Meanwhile, an AI-powered tool could analyze hundreds of articles to find a recurring subtopic your competitor missed, then generate a content brief to help you exploit that gap. This is how AI-powered [SEO tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitor-rank-tracker/) turn static reports into dynamic, intelligent workflows. This fundamental shift is built on four core pillars: ### 1\. Automated monitoring for search signals The days of manually checking competitor [keyword rankings](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/top-5-keyword-research-tools/) or new content publications are over. AI tools can continuously track shifts in SERPs, new content, and backlinks. They automatically alert you to changes, freeing you up to focus on strategy instead of surveillance. ### 2\. Predictive content intelligence AI can analyze vast amounts of data to spot emerging topics and trends before they hit the mainstream, giving you a crucial first-mover advantage. This foresight allows you to create [content](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-pen-is-mightier-how-competitive-intelligence-can-influence-a-content-marketing-strategy/) that targets future demand, not just what's popular today. ### 3\. Content and topic gap analysis This is where AI truly shines for SEO. Instead of a superficial analysis of competitor pages, AI tools can perform a deep, semantic breakdown of a topic. They identify the subtopics and questions that top-ranking pages are missing, revealing content gaps that can be filled to outrank the competition. ### 4\. Strategic insight generation Ultimately, a good AI [SEO](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-perform-seo-swot-analysis/) tool transforms complex data into a clear strategic blueprint. It can generate automated reports, content briefs, and link-building opportunities. You can even use AI to summarize a competitor's entire content strategy in minutes, or to analyze their backlink profile to find new outreach opportunities. The AI handles the heavy lifting, allowing you to focus on executing a winning plan. --- So, now we've covered the "why" behind AI-driven competitive SEO, you're probably wondering "how?" That's what this next section is all about. We'll dive into five key tools, each with its own special AI-powered features, to show you how to put these ideas into practice and build a winning strategy that leaves your rivals playing catch-up. ## MarketMuse: Content intelligence and authority Think of MarketMuse as your content strategy partner. This is a platform for content marketers and SEOs who want to move past keyword stuffing and truly own a topic. MarketMuse uses AI to analyze content at a deep, semantic level, helping you build topical authority and outrank competitors with genuinely comprehensive content. ### AI-powered SEO features MarketMuse's AI is built for one purpose: content intelligence. The **Competitive Content Analysis** tool and its visual **heatmap** are at the heart of this. [![A color-coded heatmap from MarketMuse for the topic "customer experience platform." The chart compares the content score of top-ranking web pages against various subtopics. Red squares indicate a missed subtopic, while green, yellow, and blue squares show different levels of content coverage.](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfRbGgNuKANMm1cY5fPSTGX6GIj_X3Px-SxiZ1FDhaSOGolcEzJjW6CzKRn36KVcnYeocwnEETWgWO_pyntvC8CW48wIYiiEvmhwVgrqZ4sbIqtWB9Whdp8Lydn8-qM01k0ksHY?key=EPDNkaZgdaEBj5jbMASAFA)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-ai-powered-seo-tools-new-opportunities-for-competitive-tracking) **Image source:* [**MarketMuse*](https://blog.marketmuse.com/best-tool-competitive-intelligence/) The platform's AI scans the top-ranking pages for a topic and presents a color-coded grid that shows you how well each competitor covers the most important subtopics. It immediately highlights "red squares" – areas that no one is covering – giving you a clear, data-driven path to create unique, authoritative content. ### SEO use case Imagine you're a content strategist planning an article on enterprise cloud migration. Instead of just looking at keywords, you use MarketMuse to run a competitive analysis. The heatmap reveals that while all your competitors mention the technical aspects of migration, none of them cover the key issues around employee change management or post-migration support. You can then use this insight to create a detailed content brief that includes these missing subtopics, ensuring your article is more comprehensive, more helpful, and more likely to be cited as an authority. ## Semrush: The all-in-one SEO toolkit Semrush has long been a go-to for SEO professionals, offering a powerful suite of tools for competitive SEO analysis. This core functionality is now being enhanced with AI features designed to tackle modern search challenges, making it a comprehensive toolbox that covers everything from foundational keyword research to advanced content strategy. ### AI-powered SEO features Semrush's AI capabilities are designed for a holistic approach to competitive SEO. The **Market Explorer** tool uses AI to classify competitors, placing them into a growth quadrant that helps you quickly understand their market position – whether they’re a "niche player" or a "game changer." This helps you prioritize which competitors to monitor most closely. Semrush's **Enterprise AI Optimization** is another fabulous tool that allows you to track your brand's visibility within non-traditional search channels like Gemini, ChatGPT, and other LLMs, providing a new layer of competitive insight beyond standard SERP rankings. ### SEO use case Imagine your team identifies a rapidly growing "game changer" competitor using the Market Explorer. You can then use Semrush's extensive toolkit to get a full picture of their SEO strategy. By running a content gap analysis, you can see which high-volume keywords they're ranking for that you aren't. Semrush’s AI can then help you generate a detailed content brief for a new article, complete with recommended word count, target keywords, and a content score to measure how well the draft covers the topic. This allows you to develop a targeted strategy to outrank the competition quickly. ## Similarweb: Unlocking market and traffic intelligence When it comes to [competitive SEO](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-seo/), you can't just focus on keywords and backlinks. A fundamental part of the puzzle is understanding where your competitors’ traffic comes from and what their overall digital presence looks like. This is where Similarweb shines. Primarily known for its web traffic analysis, Similarweb has increasingly integrated AI to provide a more strategic view of the competitive landscape. ### AI-powered SEO features Similarweb's AI capabilities provide unique insights into emerging search behaviors. Its **AI Chatbot Traffic** feature tracks which brands and pages receive visits from generative AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. As if that weren’t enough, it goes a step further by revealing the exact user prompts that lead to those clicks, giving you a deeper understanding of search intent. Another brilliant feature is the **AI SEO Strategy Agent**, which analyzes top-ranking pages for a query and recommends content formats and on-page structures to help you compete. ### SEO use case Imagine you're trying to outrank a competitor on a high-value search term. Using Similarweb, you discover that while their organic search traffic is strong, they're not yet getting any traffic from a growing generative AI platform. You can use this intelligence to craft a new content strategy that directly addresses those same prompts and topics, optimizing your own content to be the authority cited in future AI-generated results. This is a crucial opportunity to establish a **new channel advantage** that wouldn't be possible with traditional SEO tools alone. ## Spyfu: The SEO and PPC war chest Spyfu has carved out a niche as the ultimate tool for head-to-head competitive analysis in both organic and paid search. Spyfu's affordability and laser-like focus on competitive insights make it an essential tool for CI professionals in smaller teams and agencies. ### AI-powered SEO features SpyFu’s **Kombat** feature uses AI to visually compare your keyword profile against up to five competitors, identifying shared keywords, missed opportunities, and areas where you have a clear advantage. The platform also leverages AI to analyze your competitors' historical ad tests, revealing which ad copy and keywords have been the most successful over time. This helps you skip the costly trial-and-error phase of PPC (pay-per-click) and content marketing. ### SEO use case Imagine you're launching a new feature to compete directly with a rival. Rather than relying on guesswork, you use Spyfu to do a deep dive into the competitor's paid and organic strategies. You discover that your competitor is spending heavily on a specific keyword, but their organic rankings for that same term are weak. You can then develop a low-cost counter-strategy by creating a high-quality article to capture organic traffic for that term. Plus, you get to avoid a costly bidding war for PPC. ## ChatGPT: The generalist AI powerhouse While specialized SEO tools like Semrush and MarketMuse are built on massive, proprietary datasets, a generalist AI like [ChatGPT](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-chatgpt-for-competitive-intelligence-assistant/) can also be a valuable partner in competitive SEO. Think of it as a powerful assistant that can process information, generate ideas, and automate tedious, time-consuming tasks. ### AI competitive feature ChatGPT's primary "feature" in a competitive SEO context is its ability to interact in natural language. This means you can use it for a wide range of analytical and creative tasks by simply asking it the right questions. With the right prompts, you can summarize competitor content, brainstorm new keyword variations, or even generate schema markup. Its strength is in its flexibility and ability to handle unstructured data, which complements the structured data provided by other platforms. ### SEO use case Imagine you have a list of 50 URLs from a competitor's blog that you've identified as key content. Instead of reading each one to find its main themes, you can feed those URLs into ChatGPT and ask it to summarize the key topics and identify common content gaps. You can then take that output and use it to brainstorm new article titles and meta descriptions that specifically target those gaps, saving you hours of manual research and content planning. ## The future of competitive SEO in an AI-driven world The rise of AI has fundamentally changed the SEO landscape, but not in the way many feared. Instead of replacing the work of CI specialists and SEO professionals, these tools are empowering them to be more strategic than ever before. We've moved from a world of manual data collection to one where platforms like Similarweb, Semrush, Spyfu, and MarketMuse can automate monitoring, uncover hidden content gaps, and turn complex data into a clear strategic blueprint. The new opportunity isn't just in using these tools, but in the partnership between human expertise and AI's processing power. AI handles the heavy lifting of data analysis, freeing you up to focus on what truly matters: interpreting those insights and building a winning strategy. The brands that will thrive in this new era of search are the ones that embrace this partnership. By integrating AI-powered tools into your workflow, you can move from a reactive position to a proactive one, anticipate your competitors' next moves, and secure your brand's authority for the long term. Don't wait for your competition to get there first – the time to act is now. ### The untapped gold mine of competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-untapped-gold-mine-of-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2025-09-04T11:16:53.000Z *This article is based on Tammy’s talk from our Competitive Intelligence Summit.* [Competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) doesn’t just live in press releases, websites, or industry news. Those are resources everyone has access to, as they’re commoditized. What gives us a true competitive edge is the unique, hyper-local knowledge our employees carry with them every day. I want to take you on a journey that challenges the way you think about gathering, sharing, and [using competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/). I’ll share seven strategies that can radically simplify the process, making it scalable, actionable, and transformative for your business. ## **The power hidden inside your workforce** Let’s start with a simple question: **are the sources of competitive intelligence you rely on truly unique and valuable?** Traditional channels like [social media](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) feeds or product announcements give you information, yes, but they don’t give you an edge. What does? The whispers employees hear on the ground. The firsthand stories they pick up in customer conversations. The details they notice long before official news hits the headlines. In the [2023 State of Competitive Intelligence Report](https://www.scip.org/news/633993/State-of-CI-2023-Benchmark-Report.htm), 63% of people said competitive intelligence from employees is *extremely valuable*. Another 29% ranked it as *valuable*. That makes employees the number one most valuable source of competitive intel. Think about that: the people you work alongside every single day hold the key to unlocking your [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/). But here’s the problem: gathering intelligence from employees has always been difficult. They’re busy, they forget, or they don’t see the value in sharing. Meanwhile, competitive intelligence professionals are left piecing fragments together manually with surveys, emails, Slack threads, CRM notes. It’s slow, it’s messy, and it doesn’t scale. The result is that companies without a strategy to tap into employee-driven competitive intelligence fall behind, often without realizing it. They struggle with longer [sales](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/build-a-better-ci-program-that-actually-increases-sales/) cycles, lost deals, and lower [win rates](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-ratio-what-it-is-and-how-to-calculate-it/), all while their competitors pull ahead. The gap between companies that harness employee-driven CI and those that don’t is widening. The good news is that there’s a solution. By embracing radical simplicity, organizations can remove friction and turn employees’ knowledge into a steady stream of usable, actionable intelligence. That’s where my **seven strategies** come in. [How to tackle different forms of competitionWhat’s your strategy for dealing with different forms of competition? Learn how to monitor direct and indirect competitors and outshine them all.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-89.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/How-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition-1-3.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition/) ## **Strategy 1: Define it** Clarity is power. The first strategy is about being **crystal clear and intentional** in what you’re asking employees to share. Too often, companies settle for vague requests: “Tell us about competitors”, or “Share what you know”. But what does that mean? Does it mean [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/) details, marketing campaigns, product features, or customer reactions? Without definition, employees are left guessing. Take [competitive pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/decoding-competitor-pricing-intelligence/) as an example. Instead of vaguely asking for “pricing intel,” define exactly what you mean. You want the competitor’s name, the price, the issue date, the terms, and, most importantly, how that compares to your own pricing and what impact it could have on your business. This principle applies across the board: competitor product intelligence, competitor marketing tactics, competitor sales activities. Define each [type of intel](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/) with specificity. When employees know exactly what they’re aiming for, they deliver higher-quality information. The walls of uncertainty crumble. You’ve provided a precise target, and in doing so, you’ve laid the foundation for consistent, actionable intelligence. Defining it is about embracing the art of specificity. It’s not glamorous work, but it’s what transforms competitive intelligence from scattered fragments into a coherent picture. ## **Strategy 2: Score it** Once you’ve defined [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-intelligence-cycle/), the next step is to score it. Employees often provide qualitative anecdotes: “The competitor’s price seemed better” or “The customer wasn’t happy with our terms”. Valuable, but hard to analyze at scale. That’s where the **four-point scale** comes in. Why four? Because three- or five-point scales lead to clustering in the middle. People default to the safe, neutral choice. A four-point scale removes that middle option. It forces employees to go above or below the dividing line. For pricing intel, an employee might select: - Worse - Equivalent - Better - Significantly better For business impact, they might select: - Not yet lost - Possibly lost - Probably lost - Definitely lost Notice that the words in the boxes can change. What matters is the **structure of four options** that push employees to make a choice. Now imagine what happens when these individual responses are aggregated. You can look at a month’s worth of data and see: this pricing issue arose 123 times, and 83% of the time, business was likely lost or lost. That’s not anecdotal. That’s [quantitative](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/). That’s the kind of insight executives can act on and field reps can use to sharpen their tactics in the moment. Scoring transforms scattered stories into patterns. It equips decision-makers at every level with data they can trust. [11 competitive intelligence trends in 2025CI is no longer just about knowing what your competitors are up to, it’s also about building a smarter, more agile business.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-90.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--36--1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/11-competitive-intelligence-trends/) ## **Strategy 3: Time it** Even with definitions and scoring in place, time remains the enemy. Employees don’t have 20 minutes to craft detailed reports. If sharing intel is a burden, they won’t do it. That’s why timing matters. The process must take **less than a minute**. Here’s how it looks in practice. Instead of typing long narratives, an employee taps to select the competitor’s name, the date, the pricing comparison, and the business impact. Done. Four taps, under 60 seconds, and they’re back to their work. The first two strategies, defining and scoring, set the stage for this kind of [efficiency](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-ci-to-outsmart-competitors-year-round/). Because you’ve been precise about what’s needed, the employee doesn’t waste time figuring it out. And because you’ve structured the responses, they don’t need to explain at length. When you respect employees’ time like this, they respect the process in return. The burden disappears, and participation skyrockets. Information flows freely, because you’ve made it effortless to contribute. ## **Strategy 4: Enact it** Now that we’ve made intel fast to share, we need to make it **accessible wherever employees already work**. Think about it: if an employee has to leave Salesforce to go to a separate tool, or leave Teams to log into another system, you’ve added friction. Every extra step reduces participation. Instead, meet them where they are. If they’re working in Teams, let them type “@Groopit” to share intel without leaving the conversation. If they’re in Slack, a simple “/groopit” command brings up the workflow right there. If they’re updating call notes in Salesforce, the same workflow is embedded into the account record. This matters because [competitive intelligence definitions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-framework/), when connected across [platforms](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-intelligence-tools-tech-stack/), eliminate unnecessary effort. A salesperson can share in the system they use every day, and the information flows into the broader intelligence ecosystem automatically. The impact is profound: more employees share, more frequently, with less friction. And the competitive advantage grows exponentially with every new contribution. [How to carry competitive analysis in digital marketingMaster competitive analysis in digital marketing. Discover proven strategies to analyze competitors, uncover their tactics, and gain the edge you need to win.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-91.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/How-to-carry-competitive-analysis-in-digital-marketing-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-carry-competitive-analysis-in-digital-marketing/) ## **Strategy 5: Share it** One of the biggest mistakes companies make is letting competitive intelligence disappear into a black hole. Employees share, but the insights vanish into spreadsheets, emails, or Slack threads that no one sees when they need them most. This is a recipe for wasted effort. If [insights](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/from-data-to-actionable-insights/) aren’t easy to consume, they’re not going to be used. And if they’re not used, they lose their value. The key is to **make competitive intelligence automatically shareable** in a format that’s lightweight and consumable. Don’t bury it in lengthy reports. Don’t let it sit idle, waiting for someone to analyze it months later. Deliver it in its raw form (as a live data feed) into the systems people already check. Imagine a [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/prestige-pricing/) and licensing channel that automatically receives every piece of CI related to competitor pricing. Or a sales enablement channel that gets all intel on competitor strengths. Suddenly, insights aren’t buried, they’re alive, in front of the people who need them, exactly when they need them. This kind of transparency creates a [culture](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/culture-of-competitive-intelligence/) of continuous learning. Employees absorb intel in real time. They think about it, engage with it, and incorporate it into decisions. Instead of hoarding knowledge, the organization becomes one that acts rationally and confidently with a clear view of the competitive landscape. ## **Strategy 6: Recognize it** Sharing intelligence takes effort, even when it’s simple. If you want employees to do it consistently, you must **recognize their contributions**. Recognition doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. Some companies send out a weekly highlight on Slack or Teams, celebrating who shared what and the outcome that followed. It takes five minutes, but the impact is enormous. Leaders play an important role here. By connecting the dots between intelligence shared and results achieved, they show employees that their contributions matter. When someone sees their name associated with a win, they take pride in it. They feel ownership. And they’re far more likely to keep sharing. This is how you build a culture where competitive intelligence isn’t just another task, it’s something people are motivated and rewarded to do. [A step-by-step guide on building a world-class win/loss programCI is now recognized as critical to growth. The industry’s maturing, new people are entering all the time, and the work we do has more impact than ever.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-92.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceMonique Eddleton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--40-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/increase-your-competitive-advantage-by-building-a-world-class-win-loss-program/) ## **Strategy 7: Model it** Finally, we must **model the behavior** we want to see. That means identifying champions: people who are already engaged and willing to lead by example. Champions share intel, and in doing so, they demonstrate the process for others. Their actions create a ripple effect across the company. When employees see respected peers contributing, they’re inspired to do the same. Over time, the behavior spreads. What starts as a handful of champions becomes an organization-wide habit. And that’s how competitive intelligence sharing goes from being a program to becoming part of the culture. ## **How Groopit makes it simple** This is the philosophy behind Groopit. We’ve created an entirely new category of enterprise software called **crowdsolving**, designed to make competitive intelligence sharing radically simple. Here’s how it works: **Customizable workflows** define exactly what employees share, whether competitor strengths, pricing terms, or marketing tactics. These definitions are based on science, designed to yield high-quality, quantitative [data](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-intelligence-cycle/). **Employees share intel** directly from Teams, Slack, Salesforce, mobile, or web. No switching systems, no extra steps. A sales development rep can add competitor intel right in Teams. An account executive can do it while entering call notes in Salesforce. A solutions engineer can share from their resource hub. Even on the go, mobile apps make sharing easy. **Shared data flows instantly** into the right channels, whether that’s a Slack pricing feed, a Salesforce dashboard, Tableau, or Power BI. Everyone sees patterns, anomalies, and emerging themes at a glance. **Program managers can adapt instantly**. If a new competitor or new product emerges, they can spin up a new workflow from one of 30 templates, or create one from scratch. he moment it’s activated, it propagates across every system. Employees know exactly what to share, and they can do it without leaving their existing workflow. The result is that companies finally have the ability to gather **high-quality, quantitative, consistent CI at scale**, something that’s been nearly impossible with spreadsheets, CRMs, or scattered email threads. CI leaders can search, filter, flag, and [drill into the data](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-micro-segmentation-in-marketing/). They can see when a competitor response is in development, or when a new trend is emerging. They gain both precision and agility. And because intel is shared broadly, employees across the organization can use it immediately to win deals and shape [strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-are-the-4-key-elements-of-a-strategic-plan/). [What does a competitive intelligence career look like?A competitive intelligence career offers a unique blend of research, strategy, and influence.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-93.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--34--2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-does-a-competitive-intelligence-career-look-like/) ## **The competitive edge** When you define, score, time, enact, share, recognize, and model competitive intelligence, you create an environment where employee knowledge flows freely, leaders act on real-time insights, and organizations move faster than competitors. At Groopit, our goal is to simplify this process to just a few taps, so companies can stop drowning in commoditized data and start building real, actionable intelligence. In today’s economy, where the margin between winning and losing is razor thin, this kind of advantage matters. It’s the difference between longer sales cycles and faster closes, between lost deals and higher win rates, between falling behind and pulling ahead. The untapped gold mine is already within your organization. It’s time to unlock it. ### Porter's five forces explained (+ template!) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/porters-five-forces-explained-template/ Last updated: 2025-08-20T12:00:13.000Z When assessing any industry, these are the key questions to ask: - How competitive is it? - Who holds the power? - What are the main threats and pressures? That’s where [Porter’s Five Forces analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-run-a-porters-five-forces-analysis-session/) comes in. Porter’s Five Forces is a strategic framework for assessing the competitive pressures in your industry. It helps you evaluate industry attractiveness and uncover potential risks. It’s a classic framework, and for good reason. If your company has been in the industry for a while (meaning you're an incumbent), this framework can help you [map out the competitive landscape](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/) and adjust your strategy. If you're exploring a new industry, it’s a great way to assess whether it’s even worth entering. High barriers and intense competition might make you think twice. Lower pressure could signal an opportunity (but likely not just for you). While some argue that [Porter’s framework](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/michael-porter-generic-strategies-video/) is rigid or outdated, I believe it remains highly relevant when used thoughtfully. But it does require time, research, and it often lacks a clear structure. To make the process easier and more actionable, I’ve put together a Google Sheets template. Start by capturing your current assumptions, then refine them as you gather insights and validate them with real data and research. This template will guide you, making the analysis both clearer and more impactful as you uncover the competitive dynamics in your industry. 📝 [****Grab your Porter's Five Forces analysis template here**](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y7jnv4OHqrH3M3ktzF1R6Dk7L2zr7mugdzZtD0mChhQ/template/preview?gid=1853536564&ref=your-competitive-edge.com#gid=1853536564). Let’s dive in. ## What are Porter’s Five Forces? [Michael Porter](https://www.isc.hbs.edu/about-michael-porter/Pages/default.aspx), aka the founder of the modern strategy field, identified five key forces that shape industry competition. In 1979. But they are still relevant today. Each of those forces affects the overall profitability and attractiveness of any industry for both current players and potential entrants. Let's go through them one by one. ## Force 1: Threat of new entrants 💡 New entrant = Competitor that enters your market. The easier it is for new players to enter, the harder it can be to maintain margins or grow market share in the long term. Thus, the main question to answer here is, *can new companies easily enter and compete?* ***Yes* → *high threat* → *bad for incumbents, good for new entrants (at first).*** New players can enter with low costs or few barriers, increasing competition and lowering margins. But over time, the market may become overcrowded and less profitable for everyone. ***No* → *low threat → good for incumbents, bad for new entrants.*** High entry barriers protect existing companies from new threats. For example, micro SaaS has little to no barriers to entry. If you're competing in that space, the threat of new entrants is high. On the other hand, industries like automotive or airlines, which are equipment-heavy, have high barriers to entry and thus have a low threat of new entrants. Factors defining barriers to entry, and thus the threat of new entrants (the higher the barrier, the lower the threat), include: **Capital requirements and funding access** High upfront investment makes it difficult for new players to enter without substantial financial backing. Unless such funding is readily available, market entry will be nearly impossible. **Economies of scale** If established players can produce at lower costs, smaller entrants will find it hard (or even impossible) to compete. **Product differentiation and customer loyalty** Strong existing brands with loyal customer bases make it challenging for newcomers to attract customers. **Access to distribution and suppliers** Established players often secure the best channels and suppliers, limiting entry opportunities for new players. **Regulation and legal barriers** Licenses, compliance requirements, and industry-specific restrictions can delay or even prevent entry. **Technology and expertise** Proprietary technology or specialized know-how raises the bar for new entrants lacking domain-specific experience. **Switching costs for customers** Time, money, or effort required to switch discourages customers from choosing newer players. **Retaliation from incumbents** If incumbents have a history of aggressive responses (e.g., price cuts, legal pressure), new entrants are likely to face significant challenges entering the market. ## Force 2: Bargaining power of buyers 💡 Buyers = Customers, individuals or companies. High buyer power means they can demand lower prices, better features, or more service. So, the main question here is, *do customers have the power to dictate prices or demand more value?* ***Yes* → *high power* → *bad for both incumbents and new entrants.*** Powerful buyers can pressure you to cut prices or improve offers, shrinking profit margins. ***No* → *low power → good for both incumbents and new entrants.*** You have more control over pricing, product features, and positioning. For example, a [niche](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-differentiation-strategy/) B2B market could have high bargaining power for buyers, as there are fewer buyers, which means each one can have a significant influence on pricing or terms. In contrast, any luxury goods space typically has lower bargaining power for buyers, as the high status and exclusivity of the products allow companies to control prices and maintain high margins. Factors that define the power of buyers may include: **Buyer concentration** When there are fewer buyers or when buyers control a large portion of the market, they hold more power. They can influence pricing, demand higher value, or pressure sellers into better terms. **Switching costs** Low switching costs give buyers more power, as they can easily move from one supplier to another without much hassle or financial commitment. High switching costs reduce buyer power, as they are less likely to change suppliers. **Price sensitivity** When buyers are highly [price-sensitive](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/willingness-to-pay-interview-questions-framework/), they can demand lower prices, putting pressure on suppliers to reduce margins. If buyers are less sensitive to price and prioritize product quality or innovation, suppliers hold more power. **Backward integration threat** If buyers have the capability or incentive to produce the product themselves (backward integration), suppliers face the risk of buyers bypassing them altogether. **Purchase volume** Large-volume buyers have more leverage, as they represent a significant portion of the supplier’s business. This allows them to negotiate for better prices, discounts, or added services. **Buyer knowledge** Well-informed buyers who are knowledgeable about market prices, products, and suppliers have more power. Their ability to compare offers and make educated decisions forces suppliers to maintain competitive pricing and value. **Availability of alternatives** The greater the availability of alternatives, the higher the buyer’s power. Buyers can easily switch to another supplier offering similar products or services, putting pressure on current suppliers to maintain competitiveness. **Influence of buyer communities and reviews** Buyer communities (like online forums or review platforms) and word-of-mouth can amplify buyer power by influencing purchasing decisions. ## Force 3: Bargaining power of suppliers 💡 Suppliers provide the inputs you need to operate: raw materials, equipment, technology, talent, or other resources. You and your competitors are their buyers. Powerful suppliers can raise costs, reduce your flexibility, or both. The main question: *Do suppliers have significant control over pricing or supply terms?* ***Yes* → *high control* → *bad for both incumbents and new entrants.*** Fewer or dominant suppliers can raise costs, putting pressure on profit margins. ***No* → *low control → good for both incumbents and new entrants.*** More supplier options provide better pricing and negotiation leverage, benefiting both current players and newcomers. For example, semiconductor suppliers hold power over many industries due to significant concentration in both geographic distribution and corporate control, as well as political factors. This inherently amplifies their power. On the other hand, food and beverage suppliers have lower power over supermarket chains. Since multiple suppliers offer similar products, supermarkets can switch suppliers without much difficulty or cost. But take these examples with a grain of salt. I'm writing this in the midst of a tariff war, so supply chains are likely to be disturbed. Factors that may shape the power of suppliers are: **Supplier concentration** When there are few suppliers in the market, their bargaining power increases, as their buyers have fewer alternatives. **Supplier focus** If suppliers focus on a particular industry, they may have less power to dictate terms, as they are highly dependent on that industry. **Switching costs** High switching costs make it harder for industry players to change suppliers, giving suppliers more leverage. **Pricing power** Suppliers with the ability to set prices or influence market [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/) have significant control. **Forward integration threat** If suppliers have the potential or intention to move into their buyers' business (forward integration), they hold more power. ## Force 4: Threat of substitutes 💡 Substitutes = Alternative products or services that meet the same need. The more compelling the substitutes, the more pressure it puts on your pricing and value proposition. Thus, the main question: > Are there alternative products or services that could replace yours? ***Yes* → *high threat* → *bad for both incumbents and new entrants.*** Customers may switch if substitutes offer better price, convenience, or innovation. ***No* → *low threat → good for both incumbents and new entrants.*** Fewer alternatives reduce the risk of customers switching. For example, if you're a traditional cable TV company, Netflix and other streaming platforms significantly increased the threat of substitutes, as many customers switch to on-demand streaming. In contrast, in the semiconductor industry, the threat of substitutes is very low. When a specific chip is required, there generally isn’t an alternative that can match its performance or compatibility. Factors that may shape the threat of substitutes are: **Availability and quality of alternatives** When there are alternative products or services that serve the same need, the threat of substitutes increases. The closer the substitutes match the industry offerings in value or performance, the higher the threat. **Switching behavior and trends** The easier it is for customers to adopt substitutes, the greater the threat. If industry players are seeing increased pressure from substitute adoption, the threat is higher. ## Force 5: Industry rivalry 💡 Rivalry = The intensity of competition among existing players. High rivalry leads to price wars, shrinking margins, and costly differentiation efforts. And it's heavily influenced by the first four forces. The main question here is, *how intense is the competition among existing players?* ***High* → *bad for both incumbents and new entrants.*** Aggressive pricing, marketing wars, and ongoing innovation costs can erode profits. ***L*ow *→ good for both incumbents and new entrants.*** A more stable environment often leads to better margins and growth potential. High rivalry, according to Porter, is tied to the concept of perfect competition. It's common for industries with many sellers offering nearly identical products and minimal barriers to entry or exit. Think agricultural commodities or mass-market retail, where companies compete primarily on price. It’s rare to find industries with low competitive rivalry, though, unless they operate as a monopoly (e.g., government-regulated utilities) or oligopoly (e.g., the semiconductor industry), where a few dominant players limit competition. Some of the factors, in addition to the first four forces, that may shape industry rivalry are: **Industry growth rate** A slower industry growth rate often leads to more intense competition as companies fight for market share, while faster growth can reduce rivalry by providing more opportunities for all players. **Exit barriers** When it’s difficult for companies to exit the market (due to sunk costs, long-term contracts, etc.), rivalry intensifies as players are reluctant to leave, leading to prolonged competition. **Strategic overlap** When companies target the same customers with similar strategies, the competition is more direct, increasing rivalry. **Differentiation** When offerings are highly differentiated, competition tends to be less intense, as companies can carve out unique niches. In contrast, commoditized markets experience greater rivalry, as companies compete primarily on price. **Market transparency** In markets with high transparency, where competitors' prices and strategies are visible, rivalry increases as companies can quickly respond to each other’s moves. ## Five Forces radar chart Porter’s Five Forces can be visualized as a radar chart, providing a visual snapshot of the intensity of each competitive force in your industry. The farther a point is from the center, the stronger the force. ![Porter's Five Forces depicted as radar chart with all forces scoring high.](https://your-competitive-edge.com/content/images/2025/04/data-src-image-c7836133-f7c9-4c50-bdbb-d72ca9c4cc01.png) ### What a full radar chart tells you If the chart shows high scores across all five forces, that’s a high-pressure industry. Here’s what that can typically mean: **New entrants can easily join** → More players, lower prices, tighter margins. **Buyers hold power** → They can demand lower prices or better terms. **Suppliers hold power** → You have limited control over cost and supply quality. **Substitutes are everywhere** → Customers can easily switch to alternatives. **Rivalry is intense** → Expected price wars, heavy marketing, and high spending on R&D. Such high pressure means you'll need strong differentiators, a cost advantage, or *very niche* positioning to succeed. ### What a minimal radar chart tells you If the radar chart looks like this, with all forces scoring low, that’s a low-pressure industry. ![Porter's Five Forces depicted as radar chart with all forces scoring low.](https://your-competitive-edge.com/content/images/2025/04/data-src-image-49cccdb0-ba08-4843-a5bf-691f3741c8c6.png) **Few new entrants** → Barriers like capital, regulation, or strong brand loyalty protect you. **Buyers lack leverage** → You set prices, and switching costs work in your favor. **Suppliers are weak** → You can negotiate better terms. **Few substitutes** → Customers have limited alternatives, keeping demand stable. **Low rivalry** → Competitors are fewer or focus on different niches, reducing price wars. This supports higher margins and stability. And unless you’re a government-backed monopoly, such a setup likely won’t hold for long. This is a favorable environment, so it can (and probably will) attract attention. Thus, it’s important to keep an eye on early signals of change, like new technologies or shifting customer behavior. And use your current position to build moats: brand strength, IP, partnerships, or cost advantages. In reality, your industry’s chart may look anything in between these two extremes. In the [template](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y7jnv4OHqrH3M3ktzF1R6Dk7L2zr7mugdzZtD0mChhQ/template/preview?gid=1853536564&ref=your-competitive-edge.com#gid=1853536564), once you’re done filling it, the radar chart will be built for you automatically. ## Porter’s Five Forces assessment There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to assessing Porter’s Five Forces. But to give you a solid starting point, I’ve created a universal questionnaire, which is included in the template. For each of the five forces, you'll: - Answer key questions and rate the intensity of contributing factors - Assess an overall score for that force (which will be calculated for you automatically) - Summarize strategic insights ### Example: Threat of new entrants This force reflects how easy it is for new players to enter your industry. Easier entry = more competition = thinner margins. Key factors include capital requirements, funding access, economies of scale, access to distribution and suppliers, regulation and legal barriers, etc. Each factor includes one or two guiding questions, for example: - Capital requirements → How much money is needed to enter and compete? - Funding access → How hard is it to get funding (VCs, banks, investors)? - Economies of scale → Do big players have significant cost advantages? **Scoring method** Each question assessment uses a 1–5 scale via dropdowns, for example: *How much money is needed to enter and compete?* ◼️ Very little capital needed, bootstrappable (thus, low barriers to entry) ◼️◼️ Some upfront costs, but still affordable for small teams or solo founders ◼️◼️◼️ Moderate investment required ◼️◼️◼️◼️ Significant investment needed, high burn rate ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️ Massive capital required, extremely capital-intensive The number of squares gives a visual feel for intensity. #### ⚠️ **Note on scoring methodology** The 1–5 scoring system used in this assessment is an **ordinal scale,* meaning the values represent ranked categories (e.g. “low” to “high”), but the spacing between them isn’t guaranteed to be equal. Calculating averages across these scores is a **heuristic:* a practical shortcut to simplify interpretation. It assumes equal intervals between options (e.g., 1→2 equals 4→5), which may not reflect how people actually perceive those jumps. This average is meant to help spot patterns, not to provide a mathematically precise measurement. If you need higher fidelity, consider using distributions, medians, or calibrated interval scales. As you may have noticed, the assessment scale doesn't include a zero score. This is intentional, as I believe that while a force may be mild in any industry, it's highly unlikely for any force to be completely non-existent. As you complete the questions, the [template](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y7jnv4OHqrH3M3ktzF1R6Dk7L2zr7mugdzZtD0mChhQ/template/preview?gid=1853536564&ref=your-competitive-edge.com#gid=1853536564) auto-calculates scores and progress. ![Porter's Five Forces Template](https://your-competitive-edge.com/content/images/2025/04/image-2.png) To track how grounded your analysis is, I’ve included *Proof Check* boxes. Use them to flag whether your answer is based on data or intuition. **The same structure applies across all five forces.** Once you're done assessing each force, use the Summary tab to consolidate your scores and capture key strategic takeaways. Good luck! 💡 ****Tip:** Revisit your Five Forces analysis regularly: at least quarterly in fast-changing industries or annually in more stable ones. Additionally, review it after significant market shifts, the emergence of new competitors, or strategic changes to ensure your approach remains relevant. --- **Disclaimers** This blog is all about sharing insights and ideas. While I do my best to provide accurate information, I’m not offering legal or financial advice. If you need expert guidance, please reach out to a qualified professional. I am not affiliated with any of the tools mentioned in this post, and none of the links are referral links. My recommendations are based solely on their relevance, usefulness, and my personal experience using them. --- *This article was originally published on* [*Your Competitive Edge*](https://your-competitive-edge.com/b2b-market-landscape-analysis-fundamentals-template/)*.* ### Increase your competitive advantage by building a world-class win/loss program URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/increase-your-competitive-advantage-by-building-a-world-class-win-loss-program/ Last updated: 2025-08-18T09:26:58.000Z *This article is based on a talk from our Competitive Intelligence Summit, when* [***Monique Eddleton***](https://www.linkedin.com/in/msteadman/) *was Head of Global Competitive Intelligence at Qualtrics – *she’s now the Director of Sales Strategy and Event at Paylocity*.* --- I want to take you through my perspective on building a world-class [win/loss](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/8-tips-for-effective-win-loss-analysis/) program: what’s worked for me, the lessons I’ve learned the hard way, and how you can set yourself up for success. I’ve been in [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) (CI) for a long time (since 1998) back when most of us didn’t even know that’s what the work was called. I started out at Kearney, moved into Capital One’s new product innovation group, then went on to lead competitive intelligence teams at ADP, Equifax, and now Qualtrics. Along the way, I discovered that my sweet spot is bringing the customer’s voice into [competitive analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-carry-competitive-analysis-in-digital-marketing/). It’s not enough to watch what our competitors are doing; we have to hear from the people they’re selling to (and from the people buying from us) so we can pressure-test our competitive assumptions. [Win/loss analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-analysis-how-to-improve-your-job-search-strategy/) is one of the best tools for that. And when you do it right, it’s more than a research project. It’s also a business metric, a decision-making engine, and sometimes even a cultural shift inside the company. [Build a better CI program that actually increases salesIf you want to scale your CI practice and increase your organization’s impact on sales, start with these fundamentals.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-84.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceJay Nakagawa![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--38-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/build-a-better-ci-program-that-actually-increases-sales/) ## **Why win/loss matters** It’s easy in CI to get caught up in competitor obsession. I’ve seen companies make major strategic decisions based on incomplete competitive snapshots, without validating anything against [customer feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/). That’s how you end up building features no one wants, or chasing a positioning angle that falls flat. Win/loss breaks that cycle. It forces you to balance competitor insight with customer reality. It tells you why you’re winning, why you’re losing, and, equally important, what you’re doing right that you should double down on. And let’s be clear: win/loss doesn’t just help [sales](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/). It touches product, [marketing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/my-leap-from-content-to-product-marketing-lessons-learned-along-the-way/), customer success, and even finance. The more you connect it to actual business metrics, the more weight it carries. ## **My EPIC Framework for program development** Whenever I start a new program, whether it’s something ongoing or a one-off project, I use what I call my **EPIC framework**: **Evaluate, Plan, Insight, Communicate**. ### **1\. Evaluate: Know where you’re starting** Before I think about resources, stories, or deliverables, I step back and ask: - Why are we here? - What’s happening in the business that led us to launch this program? - What problems are we trying to solve? - Where do we want to be in six months, a year, or two years? This stage is about finding the gaps between today’s reality and tomorrow’s [goals](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/goals-of-competitive-intelligence/). If we skip it, we end up with a program that might be “busy” but not valuable. ### **2\. Plan: Set the stage for success** Once I understand the landscape, I figure out who needs to be involved and how we’ll get there; it’s about stakeholder influence, data ownership, and potential roadblocks. One thing I’ve learned: get senior-level buy-in early. At ADP, we launched an end-to-end [win/loss](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-ratio-what-it-is-and-how-to-calculate-it/) program – every deal, every customer segment. Naturally, that meant we needed clean CRM data from sales. Our Global Head of Sales agreed and made it a company mandate. During an all-hands, he said: > “Our CRM data is dirty. That stops now. There are new required fields – competitor, primary contact, email, phone number – and if they’re not filled out, you can’t close an opportunity, you can’t get compensated.” That single move transformed the program. Data quality skyrocketed overnight because the message came from the top. It was about showing that win/loss was worth protecting. Without that kind of support, you can still make progress, but it’s slower and harder. With it, you can launch at full speed. [How to tackle different forms of competitionWhat’s your strategy for dealing with different forms of competition? Learn how to monitor direct and indirect competitors and outshine them all.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-87.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/How-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition-1-2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition/) ### **3\. Insight: Focus on what you really need to know** One of the most common mistakes I see is leaving the “story” for the end. At that point, you’re wading through mountains of data, unsure what’s relevant. The fix? Define your objectives before you start. - Are we trying to improve the win rate? - Are we testing a [product positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/)? - Are we measuring brand awareness? Those answers shape the questions you ask customers, the deals you target, and the people you involve. They also give you a clear line from data collection to decision-making. At Qualtrics, for example, we use Clozd to conduct our [interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/). We’re deliberate about every question in the interview guide too; if it doesn’t map back to a program objective, it doesn’t make the cut. And we don’t just talk to customers. Our Voice of Partner program gathers feedback from consulting, implementation, and managed services partners. Why? Because they’re in the sales process with us, they work with our [competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/), and they have a unique vantage point on why deals go the way they do. ### **4\. Communicate and act: Make the data work** You can collect all the data you want, but if it sits in a file somewhere, it’s useless. The final stage is about making insights visible, understandable, and actionable. At Qualtrics, transparency is part of our culture. Every employee can log into Clozd and read any interview (with sensitive names removed). When a new interview is published, a notification goes out instantly, and our CEO sees it within minutes. That visibility [builds trust](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/boosting-win-rates-building-trust/) in the program and encourages participation. We also maintain a real-time dashboard showing: - [Win rates](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-we-drove-1-2m-in-revenue-in-90-days/) against competitors. - Deals currently in motion (so reps can connect with peers who’ve sold in similar situations). - Aggregated insights from qualitative and quantitative data. Our cross-functional task force meets monthly to review fresh data, [spot trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/11-competitive-intelligence-trends/), and recommend actions. And here’s a critical point: I don’t own those action plans. The task force does. They’re the subject matter experts, so they decide whether the answer is a new feature, a sales motion change, or something else entirely. ## **Building the right team: Be the conductor, not the soloist** Early in my career, I thought I had to be the expert on every market, every competitor, everywhere. That’s like trying to play every instrument in an orchestra, exhausting and impossible. Now I think of myself as the conductor. My job is to bring the right experts together, set the tempo, and make sure we’re all playing from the same sheet of music. In win/loss, that means creating a [cross-functional team](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-competitive-intelligence-helps-short-term-initiatives/) with voices from sales, product marketing, product management, and sometimes customer success or finance. When they’re involved from the start, they become natural advocates for the program, bringing it up in meetings I’m not even in, and making sure it stays connected to the business. [What does a competitive intelligence career look like?A competitive intelligence career offers a unique blend of research, strategy, and influence.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-85.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--34--1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-does-a-competitive-intelligence-career-look-like/) ## **Managing data challenges** Let’s be real: CRM data is rarely perfect. In some cases, sales teams are faced with hundreds of fields to fill in, many of which have little to do with actual business outcomes. One of the first things I did at Qualtrics was a sanity check on our CRM requirements, stripping out anything that wasn’t tied to a business metric. Because here’s the truth: if your win/loss program is a [business metric](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/holistic-approach-to-competitive-intelligence/), you protect it the same way you protect revenue numbers or NPS scores. You make sure it’s fed with the best possible data. ## **Keeping the pipeline healthy** My biggest pet peeve? Opt-outs. If a deal qualifies for the program, I want it in the program – even if we lost badly, even if the customer is mid-implementation, even if someone thinks “it wasn’t a real deal”. Every opt-out shrinks the pipeline, and with declining response rates (we’ve gone from \~50% to 30–35% on wins, and 15–20% on losses), you need every opportunity you can get. ## **Don’t just fix weaknesses, amplify strengths** It’s tempting to treat win/loss as a “problem finder.” And yes, identifying weaknesses is valuable. But some of the best ROI comes from spotting what’s working and scaling it. That’s how we built a library of top-performing sales motions, complete with supporting materials and feedback. If a team in one region has found a killer way to beat a competitor for a specific use case, others can copy the approach and see similar results. On the flip side, beware of blindly copying competitors. We once borrowed a sales motion from a rival who was dominating the market. It bombed for us. Customers were confused, it clashed with our brand, and we alienated strong prospects. Lesson learned: double down on your strengths, don’t chase someone else’s. ## **Applying win/loss to churn** The exact same process works for churn analysis. We interview customers who leave, especially those who switch to a competitor, and sometimes even reach out to customers who’ve left our competitors. We also survey long-term renewals to understand what’s keeping them loyal. The insights from [churn analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/) feed back into sales, marketing, and product just like win/loss does. [Strategies for scaling Competitive IntelligenceDiscover the essential skills—networking, storytelling, and collaboration—that drive success in competitive intelligence.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-88.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceBhavik Patel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Sharing_Article_Images_Author-Text-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/reflections-on-ci/) ## **Staying energized in a changing industry** After decades in CI, people ask me how I still have the energy. The truth? I took a break. I spent about six years leading customer experience strategy at Equifax. That distance gave me a fresh perspective. When I came back, the landscape had shifted: new tools, new players, new expectations. The pendulum had swung: at one point, CI had to be purely strategic at the CEO table; now, there’s renewed emphasis on [sales enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/). What keeps me going is seeing how far we’ve come. When I started, “competitive intelligence” often drew blank stares. Now, it’s recognized as critical to growth. The industry’s maturing, new people are entering all the time, and the work we do has more impact than ever. ## **Final thoughts** A world-class win/loss program isn’t about [collecting data](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-intelligence-cycle/) for the sake of it. It’s about: - Defining your objectives upfront so you’re not scrambling at the end. - Building a cross-functional team and acting as the conductor, not the soloist. - Balancing qualitative and quantitative data, with clear ties to business metrics. - Making the program visible, transparent, and actionable. - Scaling what works, not just fixing what’s broken. Done right, win/loss goes beyond a research exercise and into a competitive advantage, a culture shift, and a growth engine. ### 8 tips for effective win-loss analysis URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/8-tips-for-effective-win-loss-analysis/ Last updated: 2025-08-14T13:05:42.000Z Win-loss analysis is the practice of systematically capturing and analyzing the reasons why you win and lose sales [opportunities](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/) which if conducted rigorously can help you confirm and prioritize both the strengths and weaknesses of your product or service offering. This allows you to refine product strategy, increase marketing effectiveness, boost sales productivity, and foster [org-wide strategic alignment](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/aligning-ci-with-company-objectives/), ultimately bolstering organizational success. ## What is win-loss analysis? The way we define it at Clozd is this: [Win-loss analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-analysis-how-to-improve-your-job-search-strategy/) is the practice of systematically capturing and analyzing the reasons why you win and lose sales opportunities. Rigorous win-loss analysis will help you confirm and prioritize both the [strengths and weaknesses](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-swot-analysis-tools-you-should-be-using/) of your product or service offering, enabling you to refine product strategy, increase marketing effectiveness, boost sales productivity, and foster org-wide strategic alignment. Sometimes we sell [win-loss interview](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) programs to heads of product, product managers, a lot of times we sell to sales leadership, sometimes we sell directly to the executive team. But, more and more, we're finding that the buyers and owners of win-loss analysis are [product marketing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/my-leap-from-content-to-product-marketing-lessons-learned-along-the-way/) teams. That's because PMMs sit so nicely at the cross-section of all of these things, product strategy, marketing, messaging, sales productivity and enablement, and trying to align the organization strategically. In this article, I'll cover eight tips for effective win-loss analysis. ## 8 tips for effective win-loss analysis ### 1) Acknowledge what’s at stake The first one is really important. It's laying the foundation - you need to acknowledge what's at stake and why it's important to understand why you're winning and losing and have a system or process in place for tracking that. You don't want to be like Qualtrics was, even though Qualtrics is a very successful company, you don't want to be in a position where you're just guessing or you're relying on internal anecdotes or latching onto one story from one customer to make big decisions. Too many leaders rely on conjecture, assumptions, and anecdotes. Knowing why you win and lose is mission-critical for your business and for the success of your product offering. As I've already alluded to, too many leaders rely on things like conjecture, assumptions, and anecdotes. Todd Berkowitz, who's a research Vice President at Gartner said this: > A formal and rigorous win-loss analysis program enables better segmentation, product strategy choices, and sales enablement. Those that take a more comprehensive approach have seen up to 50% improvement in win rates. We noticed something while we were at Qualtrics, and it's why we got so excited to leave and found Clozd, even though Qualtrics was on the brink of either going public or being acquired by a big company like SAP. We looked at the various feedback programs that Qualtrics helps run for its clients, things like NPS or [customer satisfaction](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/) measurement, or employee experience and engagement measurement, or discrete market research projects like product tests, or brand awareness studies. Those are all incredibly important, but for a company like Qualtrics, we looked around and we said what feedback is most important to us as a business? For us, we really felt strongly that it was understanding why customers were or weren't coming in the front door in the first place. Something like NPS can measure how happy or loyal they are as an existing customer. But win-loss is what helps you understand perception from the evaluation process and why people are deciding to move forward with your solution or not. That's incredibly important, especially for [B2B brands](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/b2b-market-segmentation-guide/) that are selling something of significant size or value. ### 2) Secure executive sponsorship Once you acknowledge how important win-loss analysis is, and the impact it can have on all those areas of your business, the next step is to try and secure executive sponsorship, especially as a product marketer. You've got so many different priorities, and you've got a [limited budget](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/pmm-budget-spend/), if you can have buy-in from the executive team to help implement the program and fund the program initially, but then also to be ready to adopt the findings and feedback, that's going to be crucial for the success of the program. **Engage leaders** The best-in-class win-loss programs that we've seen are ones that are cross-functional initiatives, again, often led by product marketing, but they're very good at working and engaging with leaders from other functions like product, sales, marketing, and the C-suite. **Pool budgets** We've even seen in many cases, companies pool budgets from multiple functions to fund the win-loss program, because it has so much impact for different organizations. Product managers, they want to know what features to build, but they don't necessarily trust the loudest sales reps who are claiming that this one feature is the silver bullet that's going to help them win so many more deals, and then later they build it and they find out "Oh, that was just one customer that asked for that". So they're eager to find this out. Sales [leadership](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/) is eager to find this out so they can improve sales processes and enable sales reps better. If you're an entry-level salesperson at your organization, how valuable would it be to be able to go back and see the reasons why prospects were or weren't choosing your solution? It's incredibly valuable information for many different teams. **Take each function into account** Then as you're building out the program, you can take into account these types of questions and goals and interests of the various functions to make sure you build a program that addresses all of their needs and answers all of those questions so that there's broader adoption. [Win/loss ratio: What it is and how to calculate itThe win/loss ratio evaluates the success of your company’s performance in competitive situations, like when making a sale.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-79.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--10-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-ratio-what-it-is-and-how-to-calculate-it/) ### 3) Get direct feedback from buyers The third suggestion for you is to try as much as possible to go directly to decision-makers for their [feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/). There are some instances where organizations build their win-loss analysis programs around sales rep feedback. Sales reps, they have different motives, there's some self-preservation at stake, I've been in sales, I've been in sales leadership, I know how that goes, I've sat in post mortems where sales teams, sales leaders, and sales reps try to talk about why a deal was won or lost. You just can't fully trust that insight. It's good to, potentially through your CRM or another mechanism, give them an opportunity to provide some feedback, and give their perspective on the deal, that can shine some light on some things. **Conduct buyer interviews** But ultimately, the richest source of win-loss insight is the buyer - going straight to the buyer to get their feedback is the best method. Even though at Qualtrics, we were a survey technology company, we even recognized that the best method for capturing win-loss feedback from a buyer is to go and engage them in a conversation. Especially in a B2B context, these are significant decisions that are being made. There's a lot of different stakeholders involved in making most of these buying decisions, and a lot of different moving factors, moving pieces that influence the buying decision, so getting them on a phone call where they can tell their story is a lot more effective than sending them a rigid survey instrument and hoping that you crafted the right questions. **Consider leveraging a neutral third-party** Leveraging a neutral third party is a big help, if you can afford it, it's going to help free up your bandwidth, of course, for all the other things you're working on. It can be time-consuming to conduct these interviews on a regular basis, to get them scheduled, to have a methodology in place, to tag and track themes, and report those out to the organization. There's a lot to think about. So it can help a lot with bandwidth, but more importantly, it's going to help with the candor on the part of the interviewee, if they know they're talking to a neutral objective third party as opposed to talking with an employee of the company. At Qualtrics, we went out and we tried to find third parties even though we had great researchers in-house that could have conducted effective interviews, we recognized it's better if we go out and have a third party represent us. ### 4) Prioritize getting started As you think about [implementing win-loss](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-a-win-loss-and-competitive-intelligence-functions-from-scratch/), if you haven't implemented it before in your organization, you can get into a state of paralysis really quickly because there's so much to think about. **Consider starting small** Just prioritize getting started, don't be perfect, don't think you have to be perfect right from the beginning, just start having some customer conversations post-sell and collecting some feedback. Starting small is better than never starting at all. You can then improve the program over time. We've also found in situations where product marketers are trying to implement this for the first time at their organization, it might be a new concept to the rest of the org and it might take them a minute for other functional leaders to really buy into the program and why it's a worthwhile investment. It can help to just start small and just start showing some output to get them engaged and excited and willing to invest in the growth and expansion of the program. Consider starting small, focusing maybe on one pocket or [segment](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/four-types-of-market-segmentation/) of your business, or one product line, and then grow from there. **Sanjay Puri is the Global VP of Product Marketing at Icertis**, and he said this, "Just start the damn program. It doesn't matter how big you make it, start with a few interviews, 2/5/10/20 per month, whatever number makes sense for your business and budget". [How we drove $1.2m in revenue in 90 daysWhen you focus, align, and enable your teams with purpose, you don’t just hold your ground – you win it back.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-80.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCarolyn Klinger![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--14-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-we-drove-1-2m-in-revenue-in-90-days/) ### 5) Tag and track key themes As you go out and start conducting these conversations, whether it's you or whether it's a third party on your behalf, make sure you have a methodology in place for tagging and tracking themes across these interviews. **Record and transcribe each interview** Some of the recommendations we would make would be to record and then transcribe each conversation. Don't just scribble notes down on a notepad and then try and aggregate your thoughts later and throw together a PowerPoint, it's gonna be a lot more credible if you can take quotes from the actual customers and incorporate that into your deliverables to the rest of the organization. **Tag positive and negative themes** Try as best you can to record and transcribe each interview and then tag positive and negative themes from each interview that influenced the buyers’ decision. As you step back and think through the conversation that you had: - What were the major factors that were in favor of them moving forward with your solution or product? And, - What were the major factors against them moving forward with your product and solution? It doesn't matter if it's a win or a loss, on wins, you're going to find that there are positive and negative themes on losses, there's still going to be positive themes, even though you lost the deal. That's one mistake we've also seen companies make is that on wins, they try to capture what went well and on losses, they try to capture what went poorly, and then neglect to recognize that there's positive and negatives in both cases. **Tag supporting quotes** Each time you tag a theme, tag a supporting quote that gives context to that theme, that's going to be really powerful over time, as you start to see trends emerge, you start to see themes recurring over and over again across interviews. You'll then have quotes associated with those to go help you drive the conversation internally with the product team about that feature they need to build or with the sales team about that aspect of the sales process that they need to fix or whatever it might be. **Track and aggregate over time** Of course, have a method for then tracking these themes and identifying trends across the interviews. It can be a little bit overwhelming, at Clozd we've been building technology for this. If you've ever had challenges with that, if you have an existing program in place, but you just don't have a great way to accumulate all this information and synthesize it, share it out with stakeholders across the organization. That's one way where Clozd helps out in addition to conducting the interviews, through the technology we've built for summarising findings and sharing them out. [How to tackle different forms of competitionWhat’s your strategy for dealing with different forms of competition? Learn how to monitor direct and indirect competitors and outshine them all.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-81.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/How-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition/) ### 6) Interpret the results in context The next one is to interpret the results in context, apply proper context to these themes that you're finding. Analyze them, break them down by different metadata that you have, things like region, product, [competitor](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/), segment, it's really interesting to dive into the data and see how they vary across those different factors that are important to your business. **Don’t extrapolate** Try not to extrapolate, don't just pivot the product roadmap based on one interview that you did, obviously, you're going to want to wait and conduct a decent number of interviews and find recurring themes before you go and take action on that. **Explore themes by outcome** It's also helpful to explore the themes by outcome. When you first look at your themes, you're just looking at the collective themes across wins and losses. But when you break it down and just look at wins, it's really interesting to see sometimes as you compare that to the themes on losses that sometimes you might see the same issue pop up. On wins, issue A is a [strength and on losses](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/), that same exact issue is a weakness. Then you can start exploring: - Why is that the case? - What's the breakdown internally? - Why do some customers come out of the sales experience believing we're strong at this, and others come out of the sales experience thinking it's a weakness? As I mentioned earlier, drill into themes by different metadata that you have. [How to win at win-loss eBookTired of running win-loss programs no one listens to? Get Corporate Visions’ expert guide to turn your insights into revenue impact. Download the free ebook now.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-512x512-1-6.png)Product Marketing AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/How-to-win-at-win-loss-1-3.png)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-win-at-win-loss-ebook/) ### 7) Democratize the findings This one's really important. Tip number seven is to democratize the findings. Democratize is just a trendy word, we liked to use at Qualtrics for ‘share things widely’, make them transparent. Liberally share the interviews and the themes with stakeholders across the business, this is going to have a huge impact on adoption and the impact of the program and you deriving [ROI](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measure-sales-enablement-roi/) from your investment. Because the more people that have access to the feedback the better, even though there's going to be critical feedback in there, maybe about the sales team, maybe about the product itself. You need to have thick skin and just get the information out to the organization so that different people in different functions all have equivalent access and can go in there and explore it and find takeaways that they can then implement. We see in some cases programs break down because one person is that single point of failure. They want to hoard the information and then use it politically in the moments that are right or that are advantageous to them individually. They don't just push the information out and make it widely available, and that limits the organization's ability to take action. **Drip feed information** Drip published interviews out to key stakeholders and leaders in real-time as they get completed. If you're recording them and transcribing them, and tagging themes and quotes, you could write a little summary, push those out as they get completed to key stakeholders so they can be reviewing them one by one. **Push relevant insights** Push relevant insights out to specific functions and stakeholders, regularly push out key product insights to the product team, push out key insights about the sales process to the sales leadership team and sales operations team. So on and so forth. You may have a dedicated [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) team or you may be as part of your role the competitive intelligence person, put together battle cards based on information that you're discovering in these interviews. It's one of the richest possible sources of competitive insight as well because you're talking with buyers who just evaluated you against your competitors. It's very, very rich to hear their perspective, their perception, based on having just gone through the sales process. Take that information and push it out regularly to the stakeholders that care about it. **Periodic executive summary reports** Develop periodic executive summary reports, make sure that you have a method to transmit this information to the executive team, whether that's a recurring meeting with them, or you review the results or a report that you get put together that pushes out to them. But don't be afraid too to put the executives on the published interviews that are getting dripped out. Executives that see these individual interviews, it's a great way for them to feel more connected to the customer and develop more empathy, and to keep a pulse on what's happening in the sales trenches, and potentially take action. **Post-interview discovery calls** It's surprising how many individual interviews have actionable insight in them where the company could go address something. We just recently had a customer, their contracts are between $1 and $50 million each time and there was one case where it was a win and they were excited to hear the feedback: "why did we win?" In that interview, they talked about how poor the implementation experience was and that they were thinking about leaving. That gave the executive team because they were plugged into the program and reviewing these interviews as they came through, it gave them an opportunity to go and address that and make sure that they kept that customer. If you do have huge deals, then you may want to consider having what we call discovery calls, but just basically action planning calls with the sales team and other people who are involved on that deal, to debrief about it and talk about that one single interview, and how you could perform better in the future based off of that feedback from that one deal. ### 8) Calibrate and expand the program over time The last one here, tip number eight is calibrate and expand the program over time. We haven't worked with a single client that just from day one started with a massive expansive program covering every deal in their pipeline. They all grow into their programs and they all continue typically to expand the program over time, most companies don't address win-loss analysis as a one-time thing that they just analyze it real quick and then move on to other stuff. This is constantly evolving and changing and so our clients, they continue to run these interviews on an ongoing basis regularly doing a certain number of interviews per month or per quarter to have a discipline and rigor around this so that they're always tracking themes about why they're winning and losing deals. They're seeing trends, seeing how things change over time. Even if you start small, that will help you established the practice, get buy-in and support from other organizations, other functions so that you can steadily grow the program over time. **Make continual improvements** Make continual improvements to your interview guide, the questions you're asking, your sampling strategy, where you're focusing, what types of deals you're interviewing. **Steadily expand your investment** Steadily expand your investment to cover more of your pipeline, in an ideal world, you would try and interview every deal that came through your sales pipeline, or that at least met a certain stage in the sales process. But for most organizations, that's just not economically feasible. Our clients all tend to deploy their interviews strategically after a key segment, deals against a certain competitor, the new product line they launched, they really want to iterate quickly and address issues so they might focus the interviews there for a while. We find that companies tend to get a little bit strategic about how they deploy the limited number of interviews that they're able to afford at a given time. But ultimately, the ideal scenario would be to interview every deal. **Monitor metrics** Pay attention to the impact that these interviews are having. One nice thing about win-loss analysis, if you compare it to other types of feedback programs is it's very closely tied to revenue generation. If you implement a win-loss interview program for a particular product line, for example, pay attention to [win rates](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/boosting-win-rates-building-trust/) over time for that product line to see what kind of impact win-loss analysis is having. If you are at a point where you're looking to implement win-loss, or maybe take the next step in your win-loss program, at Clozd we have a blog on our website that has a lot of great thought leadership content on it as well about the practice. --- *Tired of win-loss reports that no one acts on? Our* [*win-loss ebook*](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-win-at-win-loss-ebook/) *shows you how to turn your insights into real revenue impact, not just reports that collect dust.* *Grab this step-by-step guide to making win-loss strategic, influential, and impossible to ignore.* [How to win at win-loss eBookTired of running win-loss programs no one listens to? Get Corporate Visions’ expert guide to turn your insights into revenue impact. Download the free ebook now.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-512x512-1-7.png)Product Marketing AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/How-to-win-at-win-loss-1-4.png)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-win-at-win-loss-ebook/) ### Market landscape analysis fundamentals (+template!) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-landscape-analysis-fundamentals-with-template/ Last updated: 2025-08-06T12:00:57.000Z In tech, time and resources for deep market analysis often feel like a luxury. So, it can easily get overlooked. However, relying purely on gut feelings and fragmented data is not sustainable. You need a clear understanding of your **market landscape** *.* And by clear, I don't mean a 50-page academic report. I mean obtaining a structured, actionable (and good-enough) knowledge of the key actors shaping your market *now.* Think of this article as a quick-start guide. It covers the essential pillars: - Your customers - Your competitors - Your partners - The external forces shaping rules and perceptions. Use it to ensure you're not missing the essentials. Then, translate what you know into an actionable strategy. To make it even more actionable, grab the accompanying template and start filling it out now. You can always update it later when you gather more data. --- **Grab your market landscape analysis template here:** [Grab your market landscape analysis template](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G8jpyRhrNidty1hBAnorybqxPK7nNqObQS2g-PA%5F70A/edit?usp=sharing) --- ## Pillar 1: Customers Get this wrong, and nothing else matters. Understanding who buys and *why* is the foundation of everything. ### Key questions to ask: *These questions are designed for B2B, but the same general approach applies to B2C.* - **Who are our** [**ideal customers (ICPs)**](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-define-you-ideal-customer-profile-with-greg-leach-7shifts/)**?** Be specific – what size, industry, location, and tech stack defines companies that get the most value from you and are the most loyal/profitable? *Don't try to be everything to everyone.* - **Who are the people involved in buying?** Identify the key personas (e.g., economic buyer, technical evaluator, end user champion). What are *their* specific goals, pains, and motivations? - **What jobare they using our product for (**[**jobs-to-be-done**](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/jobs-to-be-done-template-framework/)**, A.K.A. JTBDs)?** Go beyond features. For example, they don’t need a CRM for its own sake. They need it to centralize all customer-related information, enable seamless coordination across teams, and maintain control over the entire customer relationship lifecycle to meet the quota. So, *what do your customers really need your product for?* - **How much leverage do customers have (buyer power)?** Can a few large customers dictate terms? Do they have many credible alternatives, making it easy to push your price down or request better features? - **How painful is it to switch (switching costs)?** Consider the cost, effort, risk, and disruption involved for customers to leave their current solution (even if it's spreadsheets) for yours, OR to leave you for a competitor. High switching costs create loyalty but make acquisition harder. ### Quick methods and tools **Talk to people:** Conduct five to ten short interviews with current customers (happy/unhappy), lost prospects, and ideal prospects. Ask about their JBTD, pains, and alternatives considered. **Surveys:** Use Typeform or SurveyMonkey to *validate* hypotheses from interviews. **Analyze internal data:** Look into your [win/loss](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) reports, common support ticket themes, product usage patterns, etc. **Check review sites:** Scan G2, Capterra, Gartner Peer Insights, etc., for candid feedback, especially competitor comparisons and stated pain points. Negative reviews are often goldmines for uncovering unmet customer needs*.* **Targeting tools:** Use tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator or Crunchbase to quantify your ICP and find personas. ### Actionable implications **Targeting:** Focus sales and marketing resources on your validated ICP and key [personas](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-personas/). **Messaging:** Speak directly to the specific JTBD and pains of each persona, highlighting the outcomes you deliver. **Product roadmap:** Prioritize features that solve critical unmet needs or strengthen your position on the core JBTD. **Pricing:** Align price with the perceived value delivered for the JTBD, considering buyer power and switching costs. ## Pillar 2: Competitors You need to understand who you're up against, how fierce the competition is, and where your unique advantages lie. Don’t just search for their weaknesses; study their strengths to learn what works. ### Key questions to ask: - Who are our [**direct competitors**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/)? (Similar offerings, similar customers). - Who are the [**indirect competitors**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition/)? (Different ways customers solve the core JTBD, including spreadsheets or doing nothing). - How **intense** is the competition? Is the market crowded? Is a price war possible? Slow or fast market growth? Highly differentiated offerings or commodities? - What's their apparent strategy/focus? (Analyze their website, recent news, pricing, and hiring). - What are their likely **strengths and weaknesses** (based on reviews/intel)? - How easy is it for new players to enter this market? (What are the barriers – cost, tech, brand, regulations?). - **What is our** [**sustainable advantage**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage/)**?** What makes us genuinely hard to copy? Think beyond features: is it unique tech, data, process, talent, brand, ecosystem, or anything else? ### Quick methods and tools - **If possible, test their products** (sign up for free trials, watch demos). - **Analyze their websites:** Check product pages, pricing, case studies, About Us, and *job postings* to reveal priorities. - **Scan review sites (again):** Look specifically for competitor comparisons and SWOT insights. Use **G2 Grid Reports** or **Capterra Shortlists** for a quick landscape overview (often free, may need registration). - **Set** **Google Alerts** for competitor names to track updates. - **Check** **Crunchbase** for funding/growth signals. - For public companies, glance at the ***investor relations* pages** for strategy presentations. - **Attend industry events/webinars:** Observe competitors' messaging and demos. ### Actionable implications **Positioning and differentiation:** Choose your positioning based on your sustainable advantage and clearly communicate your unique value. **Pricing:** Understand competitive benchmarks and the price ceiling set by substitutes. Set your price based on that and your differentiated value. **Sales enablement:** Equip sales with simple, evidence-based [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/) that highlight how you win against key rivals. And by equip, I don’t mean just dropping a link in Slack or uploading it to Salesforce; I mean ensuring those battlecards reach your reps *where* and *when* they need them most. **Strategy:** Anticipate competitor moves and plan your counter-strategies. It’s easier said than done, but tracking their product updates, messaging shifts, and hiring patterns can give early signals. ## Pillar 3: Partner ecosystem Partners (SIs, VARs, ISVs, etc.) often influence deals, deliver crucial parts of the solution, and extend your reach. They can be your allies, your competitors' allies, or both. ### Key questions to ask - **Who are the key partners influencing *our* target customers?** (e.g., implementation specialists, trusted resellers, tech integrators). - **How much power do critical partners hold over us (supplier power)?** Are we reliant on one cloud platform? A few key SIs? Do they dictate terms? - **Where do partners fit in delivering the full solution?** Implementation? Integration? Resale? Support? - **How do our competitors use partners?** Who are they aligned with? How deep are the relationships? Are there gaps? ### Quick methods and tools - **Competitor websites:** Look for *partners* or *integrations* pages. - **Analyze sales data:** Who else is involved in deals? Who do customers rely on? ### Actionable implications - **Partnership strategy:** Decide *if* and *how* you should engage with partners. Which types matter most? Start small and focused. - **Value proposition (to partners):** Figure out why they should work with you. What's in it for them? - **Risk management:** Identify dependencies on powerful partners and consider mitigation strategies. - **GTM and product:** Factor partner capabilities/integrations into your go-to-market plans and product roadmap. Use a [Porter's Five Forces](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-run-a-porters-five-forces-analysis-session/) template to enhance your analysis: [Get your Porter's Five Forces template](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y7jnv4OHqrH3M3ktzF1R6Dk7L2zr7mugdzZtD0mChhQ/template/preview) ## Pillar 4: External forces Big shifts in tech, the economy, or regulations can create huge waves you need to ride or avoid. Think tariff wars. Hello, 2025. ### Key questions to ask - **Tech trends:** What's real vs. hype? How will AI, cloud evolution, cybersecurity threats, or automation impact our customers and our own business? - **Economic factors:** How will recession fears, inflation, or the VC funding climate affect customer budgets and competitor viability? - **Regulatory landscape:** What data privacy rules (GDPR, CCPA), industry-specific compliance (HIPAA, PCI, SOC 2), or potential AI regulations do we need to track and prepare for? - **Social shifts:** How do trends like remote work or changes in demand for ESG impact expectations? - **Influencers:** Which industry analysts (e.g., Gartner, Forrester) or media (e.g., TechCrunch) shape perception in our market? ### Quick methods and tools - **Read widely:** Follow top tech/industry news sites and key analyst blogs/summaries relevant to your niche. - **Check regulatory bodies:** Monitor relevant government agency websites for updates. - **Set alerts:** Use Google Alerts for key trends and regulations. ### Actionable implications - **Roadmap:** Does our product align with major tech trends? Do we need to build for new compliance rules? - **Risk management:** What are the biggest external threats? Do we have contingency plans (e.g., for an economic downturn)? - **Strategy:** Do long-term trends suggest we need to pivot our focus or explore new markets/opportunities? - **Messaging:** Should we adjust our value proposition based on economic conditions or emerging tech needs? ## From checklist to continuous action This framework isn't meant to produce a dusty report. It's a tool for structured thinking and ongoing awareness. Here are a few final tips to help you put it into action. - **Ask "so what?" relentlessly:** For every insight, determine its implication for *your* business and what action it suggests. - **Start small:** Don’t aim to cover everything at once. Choose one pillar or even one key question to dig into this quarter. Got five extra minutes? Set up a few Google Alerts. - **Make it routine:** Schedule brief, regular check-ins (e.g., quarterly) with relevant team members to update the landscape analysis and discuss implications. - **Focus on decisions:** The goal is to enable better, faster, and more informed decisions across product, GTM, pricing, and overall strategy. It’s not about building detailed profiles for every one of your 20 indirect competitors. ## Conclusion: Clarity beats guesswork Navigating the tech landscape requires more than just intuition. This practical checklist provides the essential questions and areas to analyze for building strategic clarity. By systematically considering your customers, competitors, partners, and the external environment, you move from reactive firefighting to proactive positioning. It's the foundation for competing smarter and building a more resilient business. --- **Disclaimers** This blog is all about sharing insights and ideas. While I do my best to provide accurate information, I’m not offering legal or financial advice. If you need expert guidance, please reach out to a qualified professional. I am not affiliated with any of the tools mentioned in this post, and none of the links are referral links. My recommendations are based solely on their relevance, usefulness, and my personal experience using them. --- *This article was originally published on* [*Your Competitive Edge*](https://your-competitive-edge.com/b2b-market-landscape-analysis-fundamentals-template/)*.* ### The competitive intelligence cycle in 5 steps URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-intelligence-cycle/ Last updated: 2025-08-04T15:05:41.000Z ## What is the 5 step competitive intelligence cycle? 🌀 1\. ****Orientation** 2\. ****Data gathering** 3\. ****Data analysis and processing** 4\. ****Data reporting** 5\. ****Actioning** (Repeat) Let’s examine each phase in detail: ### 1) Orientation (reviewing and reassessing) You might think, since you’re working with a cycle and not a linear process, that you could start anywhere. This is *technically* true. But you’ll waste time if you start anywhere other than orientation. This is because, before you start pouring time and resources into collecting data and putting it to use, you need to figure out what kind of data you need to collect. **What to assess** Seen through a different lens (one where you’ve been through one cycle already, let’s say), orientation is the same as *reviewing and reassessing* factors like: - What **worked well** last time? - What will you **do differently** this time? - What information do you have now that you **didn’t have before?** - Do you need to repeat aspects of the prior cycle, or **deduplicate your efforts?** **Other considerations** But there are other considerations, too. Especially if this is your first time applying [competitive intelligence practices](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) at this business. Considerations like: - What information **already exists** within the business? - Where do we want to be, as far as the **goals of the business** are concerned? - What does **success** for my competitive intelligence program look like? - What information do we need to **prioritize** **gathering** to help us move from where we are now to where we want to be? - Which [**direct and indirect competitors**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition/) should we prioritize during our competitor research to get the most business value out of the competitive intelligence process? All this preparatory work (or review and reassessment), is necessary for getting the most out of all other stages of the competitive cycle. ### 2) Data gathering The next stage is to gather intelligence. Once you know what information you need, and on which competitors, you can go about collecting it using [the competitive intelligence sources](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/) available to you. **Sources you might use** [Internal sources of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/gather-competitive-intelligence-internal-teams/#most-popular-internal-gathering-methods) are a great place to start. You might use field intelligence from your **sales team** and customer relationship management (**CRM**) software. You might **talk to customers** to find out why they’re choosing particular competitors instead of you. If you work in a Software as a Service (SaaS) business, you’re in luck. Software companies tend to publish detailed **changelogs** and **help documentation** on their websites for anyone to read. This gives you objectively correct information about what your competitors are investing time and money into, as well as how their product is changing over time. Tried and trusted intelligence-gathering methods **you might also use** include: - Social listening tools and tactics. - Perusing your competitors’ websites. - Setting alerts for press releases and announcements on industry news websites. **What to do if your competitors have no online presence** But what do you do if your competitor has no online presence to speak of? Christopher Link is Research and Insights Manager at Interlace Health, and he dealt with this exact problem. "Data on competitors is always the absolute trickiest thing." Interlace Health's primary competitor "\[has\] such little information out there. They don't do press releases... they just have no sophisticated, modern media presence. That is weirdly typical in this space.” **\~Christopher Link, Research and Insights Manager, Interlace Health** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/chris_link.jpg) Here are the sources he relies on to get around this problem: - Tax information. - SEC filings. - Healthcare databases. - SEO and SEM data. - Industry news websites. - Internal win/loss program. - Customer research. **Don’t stop gathering** While the concept of competitive intelligence as a cycle, or flywheel, is better than that of a linear process, it’s not perfect. And for no part of the process is this more true than the Data Gathering phase. In [The New Competitor Intelligence](https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/17073/resource-center/white-papers/png/More%5FWP%5Fimages/Fuld-New-Competitor-Intelligence-Excerpt.pdf), Leonard M. Fuld argued for what he called a “Three-Part Philosophy” of competitive intelligence. The first of these three parts was “Constancy”: > “You must gather information constantly, day-in, day-out, and not just during the traditional strategic planning cycle… your competitors are not so polite as to wait till next year at the same time to once again compete. They compete every day…” 💬 ****What this is really like in practice...**As you move through the competitive intelligence cycle, you’re likely to look down and realize you’ve become an octopus. Even as you’re reviewing and analyzing, you’ll be analyzing fresh information, even as more is coming in, while preparing to report on findings from last week. So don’t stop gathering information, and automate as much of the gathering process as possible to create more overhead for yourself in other parts of the cycle. ### 3) Data analysis and processing Raw data isn’t particularly useful. It’s the usable *intelligence* you extract from that raw information that can contribute towards better strategic decisions being made and a stronger competitive advantage for your business. That said, we were surprised to find many practitioners don’t actually have much of a formal analysis process. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/CIA_CI-by-industry-playbook_Blog_.png) #### CI-by-Industry eBook ****Download your copy** to learn... - 😰 Why field intelligence can be dangerous, and how to use it the right way. ([Page 24](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🙅‍♂️ Why you should think twice before having reps from [****this team**](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) on a win/loss call. ([Page 24](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🤖 The truth about automation, and how much time tools can really save you. ([Page 22](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🤯 The [****surprising key skill**](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) every one of our industry experts said was crucial for CI success. ([Page 66](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) Instead, they tend to analyze on the fly. As they’re reading through their Google Alerts, taking stock of new information coming in, yesterday’s information is in the back of their minds. When you gather and engage with data constantly, you develop an intuitive sense for what’s important, and when things are changing. When something new is on the horizon, an expert competitive intelligence practitioner can sense it. Ok, perhaps not with 100% accuracy, but they’ll get it right enough of the time for it to be of measurable business value. **But let’s say you haven’t developed such a sixth sense for your market yet. Where do you start?** #### Option 1: Use frameworks There are a handful of competitor analysis frameworks you can use and extract value from today. Even if you find in a couple years’ time that you’ve outgrown them, or developed them into something of your own, a starting point might be all you need. **Here’s a short list:** - PESTLE analysis - [Competitor SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/) - VRIO analysis - [Competitive landscape analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/) These frameworks are high-level, and the data you gather in step two is more likely to help you complete one of these analyses than the methods are to help you make sense of your data. If you’re really stuck when it comes to converting raw data into intelligence and business strategy, check out our training materials on [Competitive Intelligence Certified: Masters](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters). #### Option 2: Ask questions If using a formal framework like those listed above seems too… formal, you might prefer asking simple questions to direct your analysis. Questions like: - **What does this tell me** about the [market or industry](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-vs-market-intelligence/) as a whole? - **What larger trends am I seeing** that it would benefit our leaders to know about? - **What opportunities might there be** that we’re missing, or uniquely positioned to take advantage of? - **What problems does this information suggest** we have, with our internal products, our positioning, or even our processes? Which of these, if fixed, would constitute the biggest win for the business? ### 4) Data reporting When you’ve made sense of the data you have, and have answers to questions like those listed above, it’s time to report your valuable findings to key stakeholders. Sometimes, you’ll have quick, actionable wins with the potential to hugely benefit your organization. Other times, you’ll just have business-as-usual status updates, or small competitor developments to report to decision makers. **Not every report needs to be a home-run** We spoke to the experts in our [competitive intelligence community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/), and they assured us that you don’t need to provide a big win at every company meeting. Not every update needs to be a home run. Often, the small stuff is enough. But when you think you’re onto something big, don’t sit on it. Share it with as many people as possible to ensure it gets implemented, actioned, and can contribute to your competitive edge. Otherwise, the outcome will be the same as if you never collected the information at all. ### 5) Actioning Finally, it’s time to action your valuable suggestions. It depends on your company culture but, as the competitive intelligence professional, you might not need to be too involved in these steps. **Oversee the process to ensure success** Some level of oversight *is* important, though. Especially as you become more senior. You’re the one with the intimate knowledge of your primary competitors, and with the overarching trends playing out in your market. It only takes one small miscommunication to push a project off course. If things a team strays too far from the intended path, bringing them back on track can take a monumental effort. Be there to oversee things and catch it early, though, and a gentle word will be enough to course correct. ## Finally: Repeating the process (reviewing and reassessing) And, just like that, we’re back to where we started. Time to review and reassess. In the beginning, you oriented yourself, aligning your vision and priorities with those of the business. Now, you’ll do the same thing. With the key difference that this time you’ll do it with the added experience of all you’ve learned through your first iteration of the competitive intelligence cycle. **Have faith that you and your process will improve** Rinse and repeat this process and, with many repetitions, you’ll effectively sand down the rough edges and remove the friction from your process. Over time, it’ll become more effective, and you’ll notice that *you* become more effective too. You’ll notice subtle clues faster in your data. You’ll more effectively automate or delegate parts of your process. You’ll prove the business need for competitive intelligence and win more resources. So, if you feel stuck, just keep going! **Check out some of these resources for more inspiration and information:** 📘 ****Suggested reading:**• [A practitioner’s complete guide to competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/)• [The CI-by-Industry eBook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-by-industry-ebook/)• [The Periodic Table of Competitive Intelligence Elements](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-periodic-table/) ### Build a better CI program that actually increases sales URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/build-a-better-ci-program-that-actually-increases-sales/ Last updated: 2025-08-07T10:23:37.000Z *This article is based on a talk from our Competitive Intelligence Summit.* As Director of Competitive Intelligence at Dell Technologies, I’ve spent over a decade [building and scaling](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/reflections-on-ci/) a CI practice that empowers our sales teams and partners. When I started, we were a team of three. Today, we’re twenty-three strong – likely one of the largest CI teams across any industry. That journey has been defined by intentionality, iteration, and a commitment to [enabling sales with the right insights](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/) at the right time. Think of competitive intelligence the way chef Marc Murphy talks about seasoning food: do it with intent. Every initiative we launched, every deliverable we built, had to serve a clear purpose. And that’s exactly how our [CI roadmap](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-facilitate-a-strategic-planning-session/) took shape. ## **Back to basics: Building the foundation** When we first started, we knew we needed to get back to basics. For CI, that means creating deliverables that meet sales where they are. In the beginning, that meant fixing [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/). Too often, battlecards are overstuffed with dense text, tiny fonts, and an avalanche of information. They become more confessional than tactical. But salespeople don’t need to know everything you know about a competitor. They need to know what matters to win a deal: - Key weaknesses to exploit - Clear differentiators to emphasize - A few FAQs or references to disarm objections [Competitive pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/prestige-pricing/) is another essential but it must be sourced ethically. For example, if you find a confidential price list online, even if it’s publicly accessible, check with legal before using it. Trust is as important as insight. We also realized that in-depth [product comparisons](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/) were crucial. Most competitive deals don’t close on surface-level features; they require real understanding. So [we built deep dives](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/master-your-ci-function/) that helped sales navigate those battles. Above all, we embraced the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Make insights digestible. Make content usable. And remember that salespeople communicate these insights to customers, so clarity is everything. [11 Competitive Intelligence Examples to Stay Ahead of RivalsYour competitors are trying to eke out a competitive advantage. So how do you create your own? That starts with competitive intelligence. Here are 11 types to get you started.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-82.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/11-types-of-competitive-intelligence-3-2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/) ## **Psychology and sales enablement** The reason simplicity works lies in how our brains function. Daniel Kahneman, in his book *Thinking, Fast and Slow*, explains that we use two systems of thinking: - System 1 is intuitive, fast, and often automatic. - System 2 is deliberate, logical, and effortful. Good enablement [content](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/my-leap-from-content-to-product-marketing-lessons-learned-along-the-way/) activates both. Hook salespeople with intuitive messaging (System 1), then back it with facts and data (System 2). It mirrors how customers make buying decisions too: they want it first, then justify it. I often use a simple trick in presentations to illustrate the power of System 1\. I’ll ask, “How many of each animal did Moses take on the ark?” Most people quickly answer “two”, but that’s wrong. It was Noah, not Moses. This moment always highlights how quickly our intuitive minds jump to conclusions. In [competitive selling](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition/), our goal is to give salespeople the kind of insights that help their customers make confident snap judgments, backed by logic and fact. This isn’t just theory. It’s practical. For example, when we provide sales with visuals or concise talking points that frame a competitor’s weakness, it allows them to quickly shift the narrative in customer conversations. That framing power is what [turns intelligence into revenue](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-we-drove-1-2m-in-revenue-in-90-days/). ## **Meet sales where they work** We quickly realized we needed to stop expecting sales to find CI – we had to bring it to them. We integrated our insights directly into Salesforce. Now, when a rep flags a competitor in CRM, they automatically receive an email with links to battlecards, [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/), and other relevant content. We also added custom CRM fields to track competitors and use cases. That created a closed-loop system for capturing win/loss data and use case trends. Over time, we used that data to: - Train sellers based on gaps - Identify hot competitors - Adjust tactics as go-to-market motions evolved The more we [embedded CI into their workflows](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-framework/), the more adoption and value we saw. We’ve also explored automation. If a rep selects a competitor in CRM, an automated trigger sends out targeted CI content. This makes enablement scalable and proactive. When done right, CI becomes part of the sales process, not a separate resource. Even beyond CRM, we make sure our content is accessible on mobile. Salespeople work on the go, and arming them with a mobile app or mobile-optimized content means CI can be consulted at the point of need, not just during quarterly business reviews or internal meetings. ## **Making the case with visuals** Sales leaders are busy. Data alone doesn’t move them, but visual stories do. We used platforms like Power BI and Tableau to transform usage data, pipeline [trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/11-competitive-intelligence-trends/), and competitive movements into quick-hit visuals. Effective visuals tell a story in 5–7 seconds. One of my favorite examples is Hans Rosling’s video visualizing health and wealth over 200 years. He took 120,000 data points and made them sing. That’s the bar for great CI storytelling. Visualizations remove friction. They bridge the gap between [analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/alternatives-to-swot-analysis/) and action. When you can show a sales leader a heatmap of competitive wins and losses by region, the next step becomes obvious. We even use visuals to create momentum around new initiatives. For example, when we launched a CI training program for new hires, we showed how rep performance increased after just 30 days of platform use. Seeing those stats charted made the program an easy sell to leadership. ## **Choosing a platform: Basics first, tech second** A question I hear often: Which platform should I use for CI? Here’s the truth: if you haven’t nailed the basics, the platform won’t save you. Most CI platforms require investment not just in dollars, but in time, governance, and integration. Before you invest, ask: - Who are you supporting? (Sales reps, partners, etc.) - What features do you really need? - Will you actually use the news aggregation? (Test it!) - Do you need mobile access? - Can you measure usage and ROI? Some small teams do just fine using SharePoint, Slack, or Teams. And even when you choose a platform, be sure to evaluate it in a real-world test. Sales usage is the only metric that matters. We started small with twenty-five users. Within months, we scaled to 1,500 users. Today, we support more than 45,000\. That growth came not just from tech, but from meeting sellers’ needs consistently. Another consideration when evaluating tools is how the platform integrates with your existing workflows. Can it replace static decks with live dashboards? Can reps [download content](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-competitive-intelligence-reports/) and personalize it quickly? Does it update automatically to reflect the latest changes in market dynamics? These questions are key to determining long-term fit. ## **From enablement to intelligence** Early on, we adopted a maturity model for CI inspired by a 2010 GIA study. It laid out five stages: 1. Beginners 2. Informal firefighters 3. Contributors 4. Influencers 5. Strategic directors Not every company can or should aim for stage 5\. Culture, headcount, and resources all play a role. But every CI leader should know where they are and where they want to go. The model helped us move from reactive to proactive. Once we got the basics down, we shifted to value-add services: data mining, [predictive analytics](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/holistic-approach-to-competitive-intelligence/), and deep stakeholder alignment. We frequently run win/loss interviews and combine them with CRM data. This hybrid view helps us understand not just why we win or lose, but how buyer perceptions evolve. When we paired this with [buyer journey](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/four-types-of-market-segmentation/) mapping, we uncovered blind spots in how competitors influenced key decision stages. Additionally, we developed personas, not just for buyers, but for competitors. Understanding how specific competitors sell, how they position their solution, and what language they use gave us a blueprint for counter-positioning more effectively. [What does a competitive intelligence career look like?A competitive intelligence career offers a unique blend of research, strategy, and influence.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-83.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--34-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-does-a-competitive-intelligence-career-look-like/) ## **Predictive CI and continuous learning** Recently, we’ve been investing in predictive analytics. Through a proof of concept, we developed a way to collect data and identify leading indicators for [competitive](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/) shifts up to 24 months in advance. We also track pipeline velocity. If deals against a certain competitor slow down, we investigate: Are they changing [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/)? Messaging? Bundling? That [feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/) loop lets us adapt before it’s too late. One of the most powerful tactics we use is benchmarking top sellers. Every quarter, we identify the 1–2% who consistently [win in competitive deals](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-ratio-what-it-is-and-how-to-calculate-it/) and study what they do differently. Then we package those learnings for the rest of the field. In one case, we found that top performers used visual storytelling more effectively during sales pitches. So we created training sessions and templates to scale that success. Small wins like that can create massive impact. We’ve also experimented with CI bundling. Think of it as the equivalent of a retail end cap: packaging insights, collateral, and tools for a specific use case or persona. This removes friction and gives reps everything they need in one place. ## **Measuring success: ROI or bust** You can’t prove value if you don’t measure it. That’s why our team is obsessed with ROI. We track: - Win rates of CI users vs. non-users (4x higher) - Deal sizes (40% larger) - Sales cycle time (18–21 days faster) These numbers aren’t guesses. We measure them monthly, quarterly, and annually – and they’ve helped us justify more resources and platform investment. If you’re not measuring ROI yet, start small. Define what success looks like, baseline it, and measure progress. It might be usage, [win/loss](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-win-at-win-loss-ebook/), or even seller feedback. Just make sure it’s provable. In our case, having ROI metrics built into our narrative made it easier to advocate for headcount and budget. It’s not just about saying CI matters. It’s about showing it moves the needle. We also build dashboards for internal stakeholders. This transparency not only increases credibility but invites more collaboration. When marketing, product, and sales see the same ROI metrics, [alignment](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/aligning-ci-with-company-objectives/) becomes easier. ## **In short** If you want to scale your CI practice and increase your organization’s impact on sales, start with these fundamentals: - Get the basics right (battlecards, pricing, deep dives) - Make it simple and usable - Embed CI where sales works - Visualize insights effectively - Build a maturity roadmap - Measure ROI obsessively - Always be improving Most importantly: don’t be afraid to try something new. The best ideas often come from small experiments. Let your curiosity lead you. CI is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s a growth engine. And with the right mindset and tactics, you can turn it into a force multiplier for sales. --- *Still stuck in “reporting mode”? Our* [*win/loss ebook*](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-win-at-win-loss-ebook/) *shows you how to turn win-loss insights into real revenue impact.* [How to win at win-loss eBookTired of running win-loss programs no one listens to? Get Corporate Visions’ expert guide to turn your insights into revenue impact. Download the free ebook now.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-512x512-1-8.png)Product Marketing AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/How-to-win-at-win-loss-1-5.png)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-win-at-win-loss-ebook/ ) ### 11 competitive intelligence trends in 2025 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/11-competitive-intelligence-trends/ Last updated: 2025-07-31T14:22:22.000Z The pace of change in competitive intelligence (CI) isn’t slowing down – and, in 2025, it’s more dynamic, data-driven, and business-critical than ever. But what exactly is changing? From [AI-enhanced analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-for-product-launches/) to real-time battlecards, CI is no longer a siloed function. It’s embedded across sales, product, and executive strategy. ## **1\. Expansion of CI teams and budgets** This means recognizing the value of competitive intelligence, which more and more companies are doing – a.k.a., investing more in their CI capabilities. Team sizes have [increased by 24% from previous years](https://www.evalueserve.com/blog/5-emerging-trends-in-competitive-intelligence/), which shows the growing importance of CI, as well as a commitment to deeper market analysis and development of competitive strategies. ## **2\. The AI revolution** In competitive intelligence, [AI is a game-changer](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-product-marketing-competitive-intelligence/). Recent data shows a whopping [76% year-over-year increase in AI adoption](https://www.crayon.co/state-of-competitive-intelligence) within CI teams, with 60% of teams now using AI daily. Also, IBM research says that [46% of executives in 2025](https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/institute-business-value/en-us/report/business-trends-2025) are scaling AI strategically, not just experimenting. Why’s this? AI can analyze massive volumes of unstructured data (reports, [social posts](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/), product listings) in seconds, and it automates routine tasks and surfaces powerful insights faster than humans ever could. In 2025, expect AI to evolve from an assistant to a strategic partner, meaning CIs are changing from analysts into insight-driven advisors. > *“I use AI really frequently for competitive analysis and market insights. So, trying to understand what our competitors in the consumer wearable space are doing and looking at new market entries.* > *“\[If\] we're thinking about launching in Japan – how do people in Japan actually think about and understand health and wellness differently? What is their appetite for something like wearing a smart ring in this industry?* > *“I'll really use that to get a general sense of the market landscape and of competitive trends and then hone in on specific use cases there." – *Bryn Harrington, Product Marketing Lead at Ōura** ## **3\. CI tools are booming** The CI market stood at roughly [$50.9 billion last year](https://datahorizzonresearch.com/competitive-intelligence-market-2586), with projections hovering around $122.8 billion by 2033. Several things are leading to this growth: - Intensifying competition in digital and global markets - Proliferation of generative AI-powered CI platforms - Demand for real-time insights and strategic agility In short, competitive intelligence isn't a luxury, it's a necessity, and its importance will continue to grow as more industries embrace data-driven decisions. More small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) are using CI tools as well, especially with cheaper cloud options and affordable AI platforms. [Research indicates](https://research.com/software/competitive-intelligence-software-for-small-business) that the CI software market for SMBs will climb from $2.56 billion in 2023 to $6.02 billion by 2030 and that the SMB CI spend will jump from $26.6 million in 2025 to $51.5 million by 2032. So, CI insights won’t just be a thing for larger firms, but for everyone. ## **4\. Moving towards holistic market and CI** Traditional CI focuses on direct competitors: [tracking pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/), campaigns, launches, etc. That narrow view won’t cut it in 2025. Modern competitive intelligence trends emphasize [“holistic” market and competitive intelligence (M&CI)](https://www.contify.com/resources/blog/winning-in-2025-will-be-different-strategically-approach-the-new-competitive-landscape/), which includes: - Analysis of adjacent industries - Broader market forces - Regulatory shifts - Partner and supply-chain dynamics This matters because companies now compete across ecosystems. Nike isn’t just competing with Adidas, they’re battling technology firms, influencers, health apps, etc. CI connects the dots. Look for top CI platforms to integrate M&CI, moving beyond mere [competitor tracking](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/) to deliver strategic foresight across functions, from marketing to R&D to supply chains. ## **5\. Conversational interfaces** Another notable competitive intelligence trend is the rise of [conversational interfaces](https://www.contify.com/resources/blog/winning-in-2025-will-be-different-strategically-approach-the-new-competitive-landscape/) powered by generative AI. Instead of static dashboards, platforms will offer chat-based intelligence: ask a question in natural language, get an instant answer. This CI experience mirrors asking an analyst, so it’s quick and intuitive, a great combo for busy CIs. [AI in product marketing & competitive intelligence: What you need to knowCI, PM, and AI are converging, reshaping how businesses approach strategy and sales.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-77.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceEdward Allison![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--10--1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-product-marketing-competitive-intelligence/) ## **6\. Dark data** Companies accumulate dark data (emails, archived documents, voicemails, customer transcripts, etc.), which is typically ignored – in fact, [around 90% of data](https://www.techradar.com/pro/transforming-dark-data-into-ai-driven-business-value) is unstructured and underused. Using AI-driven tools like knowledge graphs, CIs can transform dark data into strategic insights in 2025 and beyond. That might mean uncovering recurring product complaints, detecting emerging competitive threats, and spotting untapped market behaviors. ## **7\. Wargaming** Some CI practitioners are blending CI insights with business wargaming, [structured simulations modeled on military exercises](https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.06957). This approach helps teams stress-test strategies and anticipate competitor moves in dynamic scenarios. By combining CI data with wargaming, you can put strategies in place, such as: “If competitor X lowers price, we’ll do Y” or “If regulatory pressure increases, we’ll pivot Z”. ## **8\. The rise of the CIO** Competitive intelligence is far from siloed anymore, as it’s becoming an executive-level role. Some orgs are [introducing jobs](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-does-a-competitive-intelligence-career-look-like/) like Chief Intelligence Officer and Chief AI Officer to embed CI across functions. This means the CI function is becoming foundational on par with finance, marketing, or HR. This shift isn’t just about a new title, but about weaving intelligence into everything, from sales and product to strategy and operations. Leaders in these new roles are often building teams that combine human research with AI-powered insights, helping the business spot patterns, predict trends, and move with confidence. [What does a competitive intelligence career look like?A competitive intelligence career offers a unique blend of research, strategy, and influence.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-78.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--35-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-does-a-competitive-intelligence-career-look-like/) ## **9\. Data quality and privacy** [According to BARC](https://barc.com/business-intelligence-trends/), the most important intelligence trends are data security, quality management, and governance. This is because CI relies on trust: your decisions are only as good as your data. In 2025 and beyond, you can expect stricter compliance with regulations like GDPR, and CI platforms will have to focus more on ensuring transparency and reliability. ## **10\. Adoption of real-time data processing** The [demand for immediate insights](https://deloitte.wsj.com/cio/in-an-on-demand-world-real-time-data-is-becoming-an-expectation-a8892c3c) has led to the adoption of real-time data processing in CI. Organizations use advanced analytics platforms to monitor operations as they happen, allowing for fast responses to changes in the market. Adopting [real-time data enrichment](https://superagi.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-real-time-data-enrichment-boosting-business-intelligence) enables 25% faster decision-making and drives 30% higher revenue growth, so it’s crucial to maintain agility and react quickly. ## **11\. Use of synthetic data** Companies are increasingly utilizing synthetic data – [defined by Gartner](https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/synthetic-data) as “data generated by applying a sampling technique to real-world data or by creating simulation scenarios where models and processes interact to create completely new data not directly taken from the real world.” This is becoming a popular trend in CI because teams can test things like product positioning and pricing strategies using synthetic customer or market response data, which allows you to experiment before committing to real-world rollouts. ## **In short** CI is no longer just about knowing what your competitors are up to, it’s also about building a smarter, more agile business. The companies that win are the ones that learn faster, react quicker, and make decisions based on sharp, up-to-date insight. --- *Tired of win-loss reports collecting dust?* [*This ebook*](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-win-at-win-loss-ebook/) *shows you how to turn your insights into action and revenue, so get your free copy.* [How to win at win-loss eBookTired of running win-loss programs no one listens to? Get Corporate Visions’ expert guide to turn your insights into revenue impact. Download the free ebook now.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-512x512-1-5.png)Product Marketing AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/How-to-win-at-win-loss-1-2.png)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-win-at-win-loss-ebook/) ### What does a competitive intelligence career look like? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-does-a-competitive-intelligence-career-look-like/ Last updated: 2025-09-01T13:44:31.000Z A [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) career is all about helping companies stay one step ahead in their industry. It’s a forward-looking role with real influence, one that turns public signs into advantage. Plus, [it pays, on average, $115,065 a year](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/key-takeaways-from-the-2024-competitive-intelligence-salary-report/). Here’s what it looks like. ## **Core responsibilities in competitive intelligence jobs** The day-to-day work of a competitive intelligence professional can vary depending on company size and maturity, but the core responsibilities are generally consistent across industries. ### **Competitor tracking** It’s about scanning many sources (websites, press releases, social media, review sites) and interpreting changes, like [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/) shifts or executive hires. In a joint study by Accenture and General Electric, [74% of enterprises](https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2014/10/19/84-of-enterprises-see-big-data-analytics-changing-their-industries-competitive-landscapes-in-the-next-year) report that rivals are already mining big data and machine learning for differentiation. ### **Battlecard creation** Battlecards translate competitor intelligence into tools that help sales teams win deals by understanding how their offering stacks up against competitors, and “teams that enable sales daily saw an [84% increase in competitive sales effectiveness](https://www.crayon.co/blog/state-of-ci-sales-teams-are-losing-millions-because-of-this-one-disconnect).” A good battlecard doesn’t just list features. It provides context, objection-handling strategies, and [positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/stop-obsessing-over-features-and-competitors-focus-on-getting-your-competitive-positioning-right/) guidance tailor-made to specific selling situations. CI professionals keep these updated continuously, based on real-world deal feedback and shifting market dynamics. ### **Market landscape analysis** This means part of your responsibilities is to [position your company](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/) within the broader ecosystem, spotting emerging players, [opportunities, and threats](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/alternatives-to-swot-analysis/). Competitive intel analysis provides the foundation for big strategic decisions, like a new market entry. ### **Win/loss analysis** [Win/loss analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-we-drove-1-2m-in-revenue-in-90-days/) is equally important. When deals are won or lost, competitive intelligence pros dig into the reasons why by talking to customers and analyzing sales data. They also identify patterns, which can inform everything from [messaging](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBlUHedzRkc) to roadmap priorities. This is one of the most valuable yet underutilized aspects of CI. ### **Executive briefings** As a competitive intelligence professional, you’re often responsible for crafting executive briefings as well. These might be weekly memos, monthly updates, or one-off [reports](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-competitive-intelligence-reports/) in response to a competitor’s move. The best CI teams don’t just dump data. They tell compelling, actionable stories backed by research and insight, highlighting opportunities and threats, and recommending actions. ## **A day in the life of a CI professional** A typical day in a competitive intelligence career is a mix of research, strategy, and collaboration. You might start by scanning alerts for any competitor updates (product launches, executive moves, customer complaints) and flagging the relevant ones for your teams. You could then spend part of the day working on a strategic report for a product team preparing to enter a new market or updating sales battlecards based on recent [win/loss interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/). You’re also likely to attend meetings across different departments. Maybe you’re helping sales prepare for a pitch against a key rival or sitting in on a roadmap review with the product team. On other days, you might be preparing a presentation for senior leadership, summarizing what competitors are doing, [what risks or opportunities](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/) you see, and what actions you recommend. CI professionals need to respond quickly to competitive moves, but also think long-term: building scalable processes, updating [frameworks](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-framework/), and developing long-lasting strategic narratives. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf1smdFxNTofcvVZTEIScQhN2usg1wbTMrARQa-3zjgytOILcWz_PFCAN6moDXkEF2HQphoTBA5a1lU3uB5OYt818lw34WfKpqhZK82JcqQUNMUOPgSYGFE_NSczlVCnSDh4h4f?key=Gv0_-vLfNF2Gy7V4Qf8uVQ) You’re juggling multiple stakeholders, tight deadlines, and a constant stream of new information. ## **Skills you need for a successful competitive intelligence career** Thriving in a competitive intelligence career requires a mix of analytical, strategic, and interpersonal skills. ### **Analytical thinking** > *“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.” –* [***W. Edwards Deming***](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7327935-without-data-you-re-just-another-person-with-an-opinion) CI is rooted in analysis. You’ll need to evaluate competitor behavior, [market trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/), product shifts, and go-to-market tactics – and extract what matters. It's not about having more data, but asking better questions of the data you have. This means having good pattern recognition and the ability to separate what’s noise and what’s relevant information. [What is micro-segmentation in marketing?Tired of seeing your marketing campaigns miss the mark? You’re putting in the work, crafting your message, but somehow it’s just not connecting with your audience. Sound familiar?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-73.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--9--1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-micro-segmentation-in-marketing/) ### **Strategic thinking** CI isn’t just for reporting, as it also informs high-impact decisions. For instance, if you’re interested in a competitive intelligence career, you’ll have to translate findings into recommendations for product, sales, or [leadership](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/). That means seeing the big picture and understanding how competitive moves fit into broader market dynamics. So, you need business acumen, the ability to plan scenarios, and the ability to plan long-term. [90% of Fortune 500 companies](https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/17515631111106821/full/html) employ CI analysts to detect market shifts, prepare for threats, and enhance strategic decisions. ### **Communication and storytelling** Without context, competitive intelligence is just another dashboard. You need to communicate insights clearly, compellingly, and with the right level of urgency – whether that’s a one-slide summary for the CEO or a battlecard for sales. So, focus on developing your communication skills and your visual storytelling, and on tailoring insights to different audiences. [Strategies for scaling Competitive IntelligenceDiscover the essential skills—networking, storytelling, and collaboration—that drive success in competitive intelligence.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-74.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceBhavik Patel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Sharing_Article_Images_Author-Text.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/reflections-on-ci/) ### **Collaboration and influence** Competitive intelligence [is often cross-functional](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoDGekZjU6o). You’ll partner with [product marketing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/my-leap-from-content-to-product-marketing-lessons-learned-along-the-way/), sales, strategy, and leadership teams. Your ability to build trust, understand priorities, and influence decision-making is critical, so make sure you’re able to manage and influence stakeholders, as well as develop your empathy and listening skills. ### **Curiosity** Markets move fast. So, if you want to have a competitive intelligence career, you must be able to ask questions other people don’t think to ask – and dig until you find the answers. This sense of curiosity will help you connect the dots, spot patterns, and anticipate market changes before they happen. You’ll need proactive research habits and have a passion for learning and experimenting. ### **Tool proficiency** While competitive intelligence isn’t purely technical, being comfortable with CI platforms (like Crayon, Klue, or Kompyte), plus broader tools like Tableau, Salesforce, or Notion, can make you faster and more effective. [AI is a huge help](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-ci-playbook/) for that. According to an Evalueserve survey, “AI-enabled monitoring [improved knowledge relevancy by 90%](https://www.evalueserve.com/blog/competitive-intelligence-statistics/), better supporting the needs of CI, Marketing, Sales, and Strategy teams,” who are then able to “reduce redundancies, improve the quality of information they’re using, and improve their business functions.” [Top 5 keyword research tools for successful analysisLearn how the top 5 keyword research tools, Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, seoClarity, and Google Keyword Planner, help to boost traffic and rankings.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-75.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/Top-5-keyword-research-tools-for-successful-analysis-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/top-5-keyword-research-tools/%C2%A0) ## **Common job titles in CI** Titles in competitive intelligence can vary depending on company size, maturity, and team structure. In smaller orgs, CI might be one part of a broader role, often sitting within product marketing or strategy. In more mature companies, it may be a standalone function with its own leadership and [resources](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/). ### **At a more entry-level** You’ll often find titles like [**Competitive Intelligence Analyst**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-analyst/) or **Market Research Associate**, which tend to focus on data collection, competitor tracking, and internal documentation. This is where foundational skills are built, such as learning how to monitor competitors, [manage CI tools](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAf91VWlRFs), and produce high-quality [reports](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-competitive-intelligence-reports/). Analysts often work under a CI manager or head of marketing and are deeply involved in data gathering and research. **As you progress**, you may start owning entire CI programs and step into roles like **Competitive Intelligence Manager** or **Strategic Insights Manager**. At this level, you're responsible for more strategic initiatives, collaborating across departments, and delivering higher-impact insights. In addition, you mightmanage a [win/loss](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-ratio-what-it-is-and-how-to-calculate-it/) initiative, launch a competitive portal, or run a monthly [intelligence newsletter](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/). You’ll likely be responsible for training internal teams and being the go-to for competitor-related questions. ### **For those who continue advancing** Titles like **Director of Competitive Intelligence** or **Head of Market Insights** become common. These positions are focused on program leadership, cross-functional strategy, and executive reporting, as your job shifts toward vision and strategy. You’re not just responding to competitive threats, you’re building a proactive CI function that influences product roadmaps, GTM strategies, and executive planning cycles. You may also lead a team, manage budgets, and select the tools that support your CI infrastructure. At the highest level, CI can evolve into broader roles such as **Vice President of Strategy** or **Chief Strategy Officer**, where competitive intelligence is just one of several strategic elements in your portfolio, and your role is more about shaping the company’s future. Competitive intelligence becomes just one pillar of a larger strategy role, often intersecting with corporate development, investor relations, and [long-term planning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/planning-competitive-intelligence/). [How we drove $1.2m in revenue in 90 daysWhen you focus, align, and enable your teams with purpose, you don’t just hold your ground – you win it back.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-76.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCarolyn Klinger![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--13-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-we-drove-1-2m-in-revenue-in-90-days/) ## **Industries hiring for CI roles** You can have a competitive intelligence career in a [wide range of industries](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-by-industry-ebook/), especially where market dynamics, innovation, and strategic decision-making are crucial. Here are a few: - **Tech companies**: They were early adopters because of the rapid pace of innovation and aggressive market competition. In [SaaS](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-saas/), where product updates are frequent, CI plays a critical role in helping companies position themselves effectively and close deals faster (as well as figure out the [right price](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/pricing-a-saas-product-in-2025/)). - **Pharmaceuticals and life sciences**: Companies track competitor drug pipelines, clinical trials, regulatory milestones, and even patent expirations. These insights can shape research and development investment and go-to-market timing. - **Financial services**: They leverage CI to understand market shifts, [competitor pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/), and changes in regulatory environments. In banking, insurance, and fintech, CI often intersects with risk management and customer experience. - **Consumer goods**: Companies use CI to monitor retail [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/decoding-competitor-pricing-intelligence/), customer [sentiment](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-swot-analysis-tools-you-should-be-using/), packaging trends, and seasonal campaigns. These insights feed into everything from advertising to supply chain planning. - **Consulting**: These roles involve working across industries, delivering custom research projects, and supporting executive decisions. ## **Competitive intelligence salary** Compensation in competitive intelligence can be very attractive, particularly in fast-growing industries like tech, biotech, and finance. Typically, the more years you work, the higher the amount you earn on average, as found in our [Competitive Intelligence Salary Report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/). In fact, there’s a clear increase in pay between those who’ve worked in CI for more than five years, and those who’ve been performing the job for less than that. For base salary, it’s 41.8% higher, and for total compensation, it’s 46.4% higher. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeZVqnLmz8uEWDVV62KaS0xNhBTZlirqMI2ceCVmV-lgtfAVd61nqUXHePDo6Ku5B_6ZZQxUyQmWjHwdeaP4t2uU2-ub8g8tb_ZUL7sFgkT-JABTs96g-s4N11HGvSbU1po6Kmv?key=Gv0_-vLfNF2Gy7V4Qf8uVQ) And, as we mentioned at the start of the article, CI professionals are earning, globally, an average base salary of $115,065\. North America offers the highest compensation with an average base salary of $149,034, which is $62,643 more than CIs in Europe. Director-level roles are at the top of the salary scale for a competitive intelligence career, earning an average salary of $171,077 in North America. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXds4OPOYr7FqDU7qROkGN3ozkm8HMJePaV6tcKLyfSomXb69xuaHi3hT5knpjGwIq1EhLm6qv5x36avwK5Bds-40jyOAoECpSm0ingkTu1Rz3zavaU94kj7zPh9dOHVWkzDxhC0sg?key=Gv0_-vLfNF2Gy7V4Qf8uVQ) For a more detailed breakdown of competitive intelligence salaries, [get your free copy of our report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/). ## **In short** A competitive intelligence career offers a unique blend of research, strategy, and influence. Whether you’re just starting out or aiming for a director-level role, CI gives you the opportunity to shape key decisions across sales, product, and executive teams. --- *Get your free copy of our* [*win-loss ebook*](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-win-at-win-loss-ebook/) *to transform your win-loss program from a reporting function into a strategic force that drives revenue.* [How to win at win-loss eBookTired of running win-loss programs no one listens to? Get Corporate Visions’ expert guide to turn your insights into revenue impact. Download the free ebook now.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-512x512-1-4.png)Product Marketing AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/How-to-win-at-win-loss-1-1.png)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-win-at-win-loss-ebook/) ### How we boosted win rates from 16% to 45% and drove $1.2M in revenue in 90 days URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-we-drove-1-2m-in-revenue-in-90-days/ Last updated: 2025-07-10T08:07:38.000Z Over the past year at Affinity, we faced a growing challenge: a rising competitor began aggressively targeting both our new business and renewal opportunities. We were hearing about them more often in the field, seeing them show up in our [win-loss](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-ratio-what-it-is-and-how-to-calculate-it/) data, and noticing their footprint expand into our market. It wasn’t just background noise anymore – they were coming for us. We knew we had to act fast. And we did. This is the story of how we launched a focused, cross-functional [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) campaign that tripled our win rate against that vendor and drove over **$1.2 million in revenue in just 90 days**. ## Seeing the threat clearly As a leader in the CRM space, we're used to ankle-biters – smaller competitors who try to chip away at our market share. But this one was different. Their presence was persistent, strategic, and loud. [Sales and customer success](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/) teams were encountering them more frequently, and our win-loss program confirmed what the field was feeling: they were running a targeted “takeout” campaign against us. That clarity sparked urgency. ## Launching our “swarm campaign” We decided to swarm. Not panic – swarm. We launched an **internal “swarm campaign”**, mobilizing a cross-functional team that met weekly and included stakeholders from Product, Customer Success, Marketing, Enablement, Solutions Engineering, and Support. The mission was simple: arm every customer-facing team member with the intel and tools they needed to beat this competitor head-to-head. Here’s what we rolled out: - Targeted [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) - Side-by-side feature and capability comparisons - [Pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/) and discounting guidance - Competitive [messaging](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/your-ultimate-guide-to-creating-a-value-proposition/) and objection handling - Demo support and talk tracks - Win-loss profiles and customer insights We complemented this with [**SEO-optimized landing pages**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/)**, digital ads,** and a **nurture campaign** specifically targeting buyers comparing Affinity to this competitor. ## Getting on the ground One of the most valuable things we did was get out of the building – literally. We went on a **customer roadshow** to hear firsthand how buyers perceived us versus the competitor. These [insights](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/) were gold. They helped us improve our differentiation and sharpen our storytelling at every level of the funnel. ## Tracking, sharing, and celebrating progress We didn’t just launch and hope. We **built dashboards** to track campaign effectiveness, surfacing weekly updates to our executive team. This visibility ensured [alignment](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/aligning-ci-with-company-objectives/) across the org and allowed us to adjust tactics in real time. The results? - Win rate increased from **16% to 45%** in opportunity count - ARR win rate jumped from **22% to 80%** - In just 90 days, we won **$1.2 million in revenue** against this one competitor alone But maybe the most rewarding part? Hearing our reps tell us they felt **more confident**, **better equipped**, and **ready to go to battle** in [competitive deals](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/). ## The power of coordinated intelligence Competitive intelligence isn’t just about collecting data – it’s about activating it. When insights are transformed into action and shared across the business, they drive real results. This experience reminded me of something I say often: the best competitive programs aren’t reactive – they’re strategic. And when you focus, align, and enable your teams with purpose, you don’t just hold your ground – you win it back. --- **Let’s connect** If you’re working on building or scaling your own competitive or customer experience programs, I’d love to connect and share more. You can find me on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyn-klinger/) – I’m always happy to chat. --- *Download the* [*Win-Loss eBook*](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-win-at-win-loss-ebook/) *to move from passive reporting to actively generating revenue,* [How to win at win-loss eBookTired of running win-loss programs no one listens to? Get Corporate Visions’ expert guide to turn your insights into revenue impact. Download the free ebook now.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-512x512-1-3.png)Product Marketing AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/How-to-win-at-win-loss-1.png)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-win-at-win-loss-ebook/) ### PMM power-prompts: Market research & competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/pmm-power-prompts-market-research-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2025-10-14T14:17:00.000Z Most product marketers we speak to say the same thing: they're drowning in data but starving for insights. PMMs have access to more market research, customer feedback, and competitive intelligence than ever before – but turning that raw information into strategic advantage remains a constant challenge. These four AI prompts solve that problem by changing how you analyze and extract value from your research efforts. Each prompt moves you beyond basic data collection to strategic intelligence that drives business outcomes: - **Competitive analysis** that identifies positioning gaps and strategic vulnerabilities - **Customer interview analysis** that reveals unmet needs and messaging opportunities - **Market trend research** that anticipates disruptions before competitors - **Voice of customer analysis** that translates feedback into retention and growth strategies Instead of spending hours manually synthesizing data or producing surface-level summaries, these prompts apply proven strategic frameworks to deliver actionable insights that directly inform your positioning, messaging, and go-to-market decisions. --- **Before using these prompts, you'll need to customize them with your specific brand information, target audience details, competitive landscape, and business context.** Each prompt includes detailed input requirements that specify exactly what information to include for optimal results. The more specific and comprehensive your inputs, the more strategic and actionable your outputs will be. --- ## Competitive analysis synthesis If you're struggling to move beyond basic competitive feature comparisons, then this is the prompt for you. It works by transforming raw [competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-competitive-intelligence/) data (websites, marketing materials, sales collateral) into a comprehensive strategic analysis framework that deconstructs competitor positioning, messaging, go-to-market strategy, and market approach. To use it, simply gather 3-5 key competitor materials (homepage, product pages, case studies, sales materials) before using the prompt. Be specific about which competitor you're analyzing and include your own positioning context for comparison. Use the output to create [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/), inform positioning decisions, and identify market gaps. Review and update the analysis quarterly or when competitors make significant changes. **Get the prompt 👇** #### The competitive analysis synthesis power-prompt You are an expert competitive intelligence analyst with 15+ years of experience in product marketing across B2B SaaS, enterprise software, and technology companies. Your task is to conduct a comprehensive competitive analysis that will directly inform positioning, messaging, and go-to-market strategy decisions. \## CONTEXT & OBJECTIVES I need you to analyze \[COMPETITOR NAME\] and provide strategic insights that will help me: \- Identify positioning gaps and opportunities in the market \- Understand their messaging strategy and customer value propositions \- Assess their go-to-market approach and execution \- Uncover potential vulnerabilities or strengths in their market position \- Inform our differentiation strategy and competitive response \## COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE FRAMEWORK Analyze the following data sources I'm providing and structure your analysis using this framework: \### 1\. MARKET POSITIONING ANALYSIS \- \*\*Target Market & ICP\*\*: Who are they primarily targeting? What industries, company sizes, roles? \- \*\*Positioning Statement Deconstruction\*\*: What's their implied positioning? How do they want to be perceived? \- \*\*Category Play\*\*: Are they creating/owning a category, or competing in an existing one? \- \*\*Differentiation Claims\*\*: What do they claim makes them different/better? \### 2\. MESSAGING & COMMUNICATION STRATEGY \- \*\*Primary Value Propositions\*\*: What are their top 3-5 value props across different pages/materials? \- \*\*Pain Points Addressed\*\*: What customer problems do they focus on solving? \- \*\*Proof Points & Social Proof\*\*: How do they build credibility? (case studies, logos, metrics, awards) \- \*\*Emotional vs. Rational Appeals\*\*: Do they lead with logic, emotion, or fear-based messaging? \- \*\*Message Hierarchy\*\*: How do they prioritize and sequence their key messages? \### 3\. PRODUCT & FEATURE POSITIONING \- \*\*Feature Prioritization\*\*: Which capabilities do they lead with vs. bury in their messaging? \- \*\*Technical Depth\*\*: How technical vs. business-outcome focused is their communication? \- \*\*Integration & Ecosystem\*\*: How do they position partnerships and integrations? \- \*\*Roadmap Signals\*\*: Any hints about future direction or capabilities? \### 4\. GO-TO-MARKET EXECUTION ASSESSMENT \- \*\*Channel Strategy\*\*: What channels are they using? (direct sales, partners, self-serve, etc.) \- \*\*Content Marketing Approach\*\*: What types of content are they creating? What topics? \- \*\*Sales Process Indicators\*\*: Any signals about their sales cycle, demo approach, or sales methodology? \- \*\*Pricing Strategy Signals\*\*: Any pricing information, packaging, or monetization clues? \### 5\. BRAND & CREATIVE ANALYSIS \- \*\*Visual Identity\*\*: How does their brand presentation support their positioning? \- \*\*Tone of Voice\*\*: Professional, casual, technical, friendly, authoritative? \- \*\*Content Quality & Investment\*\*: How sophisticated/well-resourced does their marketing appear? \## STRATEGIC SYNTHESIS REQUIREMENTS After your detailed analysis, provide: \### COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY Create a 1-page executive summary that includes: \- \*\*Their Core Strategy in 2-3 sentences\*\* \- \*\*Top 3 Competitive Strengths\*\* (what they do well that we should be concerned about) \- \*\*Top 3 Competitive Vulnerabilities\*\* (gaps we could exploit) \- \*\*Market Position Assessment\*\* (leader, challenger, niche player, emerging threat) \### STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR BUSINESS \- \*\*Direct Competitive Threats\*\*: Where do we compete head-to-head? What's at risk? \- \*\*Differentiation Opportunities\*\*: Where can we clearly differentiate and win? \- \*\*Messaging Gaps\*\*: What important customer needs/pain points are they missing? \- \*\*Positioning Recommendations\*\*: How should we position against them specifically? \### TACTICAL RECOMMENDATIONS \- \*\*Battlecard Key Points\*\*: Top 5 competitive talking points for sales teams \- \*\*Content & Campaign Ideas\*\*: Specific content themes that could counter their messaging \- \*\*Feature/Product Gaps\*\*: Any capabilities we should consider building or highlighting \- \*\*Monitoring Recommendations\*\*: What should we track ongoing to stay ahead? \## ANALYSIS REQUIREMENTS \- Be specific and evidence-based - quote exact language, cite specific pages/sections \- Look for patterns across multiple pages/materials, not just homepage messaging \- Consider both explicit messaging and implied positioning \- Identify what they're NOT saying as much as what they are saying \- Think like a potential customer evaluating options - what would be compelling or concerning? \- Consider the sophistication of their marketing execution, not just the message content \## DATA SOURCES TO ANALYZE: \[Insert the specific materials you want analyzed - website pages, case studies, sales materials, etc.\] Please structure your response with clear headers, bullet points for easy scanning, and specific examples/quotes to support your analysis. Focus on actionable insights that will directly inform our competitive strategy and positioning decisions. --- ## Customer interview analysis PMMs often struggle to extract strategic value from customer interviews, getting bogged down in individual responses rather than identifying patterns that inform business strategy. This prompt overcomes those challenges by converting customer interview transcripts into strategic insights. It does this by applying a comprehensive qualitative research framework that identifies patterns, extracts jobs-to-be-done insights, maps customer journeys, and translates voice-of-customer data into positioning, messaging, and product strategy recommendations. How to use it? Conduct 8-12 customer interviews using consistent question frameworks before analysis. Include interview context (participant roles, company sizes, interview objectives) when using the prompt. The output works best when you have transcripts from diverse customer segments. Use the insights provided to update personas, refine messaging, inform product roadmaps, and create sales enablement materials. Repeat analysis quarterly to track evolving customer needs. **Get the prompt👇** #### The customer interview analysis power-prompt You are an expert customer insights analyst and product marketing strategist with deep experience in qualitative research analysis, customer development, and translating voice-of-customer data into actionable product and marketing strategies. Your expertise spans B2B and B2C environments across various industries, with particular strength in identifying patterns, extracting strategic insights, and connecting customer feedback to business outcomes. \## CONTEXT & OBJECTIVES I need you to analyze \[NUMBER\] customer interview transcripts and transform them into strategic insights that will directly inform: \- Product positioning and messaging strategy \- Feature prioritization and product roadmap decisions \- Customer journey optimization and experience improvements \- Sales enablement and objection handling \- Market segmentation and persona refinement \- Content marketing and campaign development \## CUSTOMER INSIGHTS ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK Structure your analysis using this comprehensive framework: \### 1\. PARTICIPANT PROFILE & SEGMENTATION ANALYSIS \- \*\*Demographic Patterns\*\*: Role, seniority, company size, industry distribution \- \*\*Behavioral Segments\*\*: How do different types of users/buyers approach the problem? \- \*\*Journey Stage Analysis\*\*: Where were participants in their buying/usage journey? \- \*\*Influence & Decision-Making\*\*: What's each participant's role in purchase/adoption decisions? \### 2\. PROBLEM LANDSCAPE MAPPING \- \*\*Primary Pain Points\*\*: What are the top 3-5 problems mentioned most frequently? \- \*\*Pain Intensity & Urgency\*\*: Which problems cause the most frustration/business impact? \- \*\*Problem Context\*\*: When/where do these problems manifest? What triggers them? \- \*\*Current Solutions & Workarounds\*\*: How are customers solving these problems today? \- \*\*Consequences of Inaction\*\*: What happens if the problem isn't solved? \- \*\*Problem Evolution\*\*: How have these problems changed over time? \### 3\. JOBS-TO-BE-DONE ANALYSIS \- \*\*Functional Jobs\*\*: What practical tasks are customers trying to accomplish? \- \*\*Emotional Jobs\*\*: What feelings are they trying to achieve or avoid? \- \*\*Social Jobs\*\*: How do they want to be perceived by others? \- \*\*Job Context\*\*: When/where are these jobs most important? \- \*\*Job Outcomes\*\*: How do they measure success in getting the job done? \### 4\. SOLUTION EVALUATION CRITERIA \- \*\*Decision Factors\*\*: What criteria matter most when evaluating solutions? \- \*\*Deal Breakers\*\*: What would immediately disqualify a solution? \- \*\*Nice-to-Haves vs. Must-Haves\*\*: How do customers prioritize features/capabilities? \- \*\*Evaluation Process\*\*: How do they research, compare, and decide? \- \*\*Stakeholder Influences\*\*: Who else influences the decision and how? \### 5\. LANGUAGE & MESSAGING INSIGHTS \- \*\*Customer Terminology\*\*: Exact words/phrases customers use to describe problems/solutions \- \*\*Value Language\*\*: How do they describe benefits, outcomes, and success? \- \*\*Emotional Language\*\*: What words convey frustration, excitement, or satisfaction? \- \*\*Industry Jargon vs. Plain English\*\*: When do they use technical terms vs. simple language? \- \*\*Metaphors & Analogies\*\*: How do they explain complex concepts? \### 6\. CUSTOMER JOURNEY & EXPERIENCE MAPPING \- \*\*Awareness Stage\*\*: How do they first recognize the problem? \- \*\*Research & Education\*\*: Where do they go to learn about solutions? \- \*\*Evaluation Process\*\*: How do they narrow down options and make decisions? \- \*\*Implementation Experience\*\*: What's the onboarding/setup process like? \- \*\*Usage Patterns\*\*: How do they actually use the solution day-to-day? \- \*\*Success Metrics\*\*: How do they measure if the solution is working? \### 7\. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE INSIGHTS \- \*\*Alternative Solutions\*\*: What other approaches/tools are they considering or using? \- \*\*Competitive Mentions\*\*: What do they say about specific competitors? \- \*\*Switching Considerations\*\*: What would make them change solutions? \- \*\*Competitive Advantages\*\*: What do they value about different options? \## STRATEGIC SYNTHESIS REQUIREMENTS \### EXECUTIVE INSIGHTS SUMMARY Provide a 1-page strategic overview including: \- \*\*Top 3 Market Insights\*\*: Most important discoveries about the market/customers \- \*\*Biggest Opportunity\*\*: Largest unmet need or market gap identified \- \*\*Key Threat/Risk\*\*: What should we be most concerned about? \- \*\*Customer Sentiment\*\*: Overall satisfaction, frustration levels, and outlook \### PRODUCT & POSITIONING IMPLICATIONS \- \*\*Feature Priority Insights\*\*: What capabilities matter most to customers? \- \*\*Positioning Gaps\*\*: Where are we missing the mark in our current messaging? \- \*\*Value Proposition Opportunities\*\*: New angles or benefits we should emphasize \- \*\*Differentiation Insights\*\*: What makes customers choose one solution over another? \### PERSONA & SEGMENTATION INSIGHTS \- \*\*Persona Refinements\*\*: How should we update our buyer/user personas? \- \*\*New Segment Opportunities\*\*: Any distinct customer groups we're missing? \- \*\*Behavioral Patterns\*\*: How do different segments approach problems differently? \### MESSAGING & CONTENT STRATEGY \- \*\*Message Hierarchy\*\*: What should we lead with vs. support with? \- \*\*Voice of Customer Quotes\*\*: Powerful verbatims for sales/marketing materials \- \*\*Content Gap Analysis\*\*: What information do customers need that we're not providing? \- \*\*Objection Handling\*\*: Common concerns and how to address them \### SALES & GTM INSIGHTS \- \*\*Sales Process Optimization\*\*: How can we better align with customer buying behavior? \- \*\*Qualification Criteria\*\*: What signals indicate a high-potential prospect? \- \*\*Competitive Battlecards\*\*: Key talking points against alternatives mentioned \- \*\*Success Metrics\*\*: How should we measure and demonstrate value to customers? \## ANALYSIS METHODOLOGY REQUIREMENTS \### PATTERN IDENTIFICATION \- Look for themes mentioned by 3+ participants (frequency analysis) \- Identify outlier insights that might represent emerging trends \- Note contradictions or conflicting viewpoints and explore why they exist \- Track sentiment intensity, not just sentiment direction \### EVIDENCE-BASED INSIGHTS \- Support each insight with specific quotes and participant references \- Quantify patterns when possible (e.g., "7 out of 10 participants mentioned...") \- Distinguish between stated preferences and revealed preferences \- Separate facts from assumptions or interpretations \### STRATEGIC CONTEXT \- Connect insights to broader market trends and business objectives \- Consider how findings compare to existing assumptions or research \- Identify insights that could impact product roadmap or business strategy \- Flag any findings that require immediate action or further investigation \## TRANSCRIPT DATA TO ANALYZE: \[Insert interview transcripts, participant details, and any relevant context about interview objectives\] \## OUTPUT FORMAT REQUIREMENTS Structure your response with: \- \*\*Executive Summary\*\* (1-2 pages max) \- \*\*Detailed Analysis\*\* by framework section with supporting quotes \- \*\*Strategic Recommendations\*\* with specific next steps \- \*\*Appendix\*\* with key verbatims organized by theme Use clear headers, bullet points for scannability, and call out the most critical insights. Include participant references (P1, P2, etc.) for traceability. Focus on insights that will directly influence product, marketing, and sales decisions. \## CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE Treat all customer information as confidential. Anonymize any identifying details while preserving the strategic value of the insights. --- ## Market trend research & analysis This prompt analyzes diverse market intelligence sources to identify emerging trends, assess their potential impact, and translate trend insights into strategic business implications. To get the most from it, start by gathering diverse source materials, like industry reports, news articles, analyst research, and funding data, before analysis. Focus on 2-3 specific market areas rather than trying to cover everything. Use the trend impact matrix to prioritize strategic responses and create monitoring systems for ongoing trend tracking. Share insights with product and executive teams to inform roadmap and strategy decisions. Refresh the analysis every 6 months or when significant market events occur. **Get the prompt👇** #### Advanced market trend research & analysis power prompt You are a senior market intelligence analyst and strategic foresight expert with 15+ years of experience in identifying, analyzing, and interpreting market trends across technology, business, and consumer sectors. Your expertise includes trend analysis, weak signal detection, scenario planning, and translating market movements into actionable business strategy for product marketing teams. CONTEXT & OBJECTIVES I need you to analyze current market trends and emerging signals in \[INDUSTRY/MARKET SECTOR\] to inform our strategic planning and product marketing decisions. Your analysis should help us: - Identify emerging opportunities and threats before competitors - Understand shifts in customer behavior and market dynamics - Inform product roadmap and positioning strategy decisions - Anticipate regulatory, technological, or competitive disruptions - Develop forward-looking messaging and market positioning - Create thought leadership content that demonstrates market insight MARKET TREND ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK Structure your analysis using this comprehensive methodology: 1\. MACRO TREND IDENTIFICATION & CLASSIFICATION - ****Technology Trends**: Emerging technologies impacting the industry (AI, automation, etc.) - ****Economic Trends**: Market conditions, funding patterns, economic indicators - ****Social/Cultural Trends**: Changing behaviors, generational shifts, workplace evolution - ****Regulatory/Political Trends**: Policy changes, compliance requirements, government initiatives - ****Environmental Trends**: Sustainability pressures, climate impact, resource constraints - ****Competitive Landscape Shifts**: New entrants, consolidation, business model evolution 2\. TREND MATURITY & IMPACT ASSESSMENT For each identified trend, analyze: - ****Trend Stage**: Emerging, developing, mainstream, or declining - ****Adoption Timeline**: How quickly is this trend gaining momentum? - ****Market Penetration**: What percentage of the market is affected? - ****Impact Magnitude**: High, medium, or low potential business impact - ****Certainty Level**: How confident are we this trend will continue? - ****Geographic Scope**: Global, regional, or local trend? 3\. CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR EVOLUTION ANALYSIS - ****Buying Behavior Changes**: How are purchase decisions evolving? - ****Usage Pattern Shifts**: Changes in how customers use products/services - ****Expectation Evolution**: What are customers starting to expect that they didn't before? - ****Channel Preferences**: Shifts in how customers want to engage and buy - ****Value Perception Changes**: What customers increasingly value or dismiss - ****Decision-Making Evolution**: Changes in who influences decisions and how 4\. COMPETITIVE DYNAMICS ASSESSMENT - ****New Competitive Threats**: Non-traditional players entering the market - ****Business Model Innovation**: How are companies changing their approach to creating value? - ****Partnership Patterns**: New types of alliances and ecosystem plays - ****Investment Flows**: Where is capital flowing and what does it signal? - ****Market Consolidation**: M&A activity and its implications - ****Differentiation Evolution**: How are companies trying to stand out? 5\. TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION TRAJECTORY - ****Emerging Technologies**: What new capabilities are becoming viable? - ****Technology Convergence**: How are different technologies combining? - ****Infrastructure Evolution**: Changes in underlying platforms and systems - ****Development Velocity**: How quickly are new capabilities being developed? - ****Adoption Barriers**: What's preventing faster technology adoption? - ****Disruption Potential**: Which technologies could fundamentally change the market? 6\. REGULATORY & POLICY LANDSCAPE - ****Regulatory Changes**: New rules, compliance requirements, or policy shifts - ****Government Initiatives**: Public sector programs or investments affecting the market - ****International Dynamics**: Global trade, data privacy, or cross-border regulatory impacts - ****Industry Standards**: Evolving standards or certification requirements - ****Lobbying & Advocacy**: Industry efforts to influence policy - ****Compliance Evolution**: How regulatory requirements are changing operational needs STRATEGIC SYNTHESIS REQUIREMENTSTREND IMPACT MATRIX Create a prioritized assessment of trends based on: - ****Probability of Occurrence** (High/Medium/Low) - ****Potential Business Impact** (High/Medium/Low) - ****Timeline to Significance** (6 months, 1-2 years, 3-5 years) - ****Our Current Preparedness** (Well-positioned, Somewhat prepared, Unprepared) MARKET OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS - ****Emerging Market Segments**: New customer groups or use cases developing - ****Unmet Needs Creation**: How trends are creating new customer problems to solve - ****Value Chain Disruption**: Where new value is being created or destroyed - ****Monetization Opportunities**: New ways to generate revenue from trends - ****Partnership Opportunities**: Collaboration possibilities emerging from trends THREAT & RISK ASSESSMENT - ****Disruption Risks**: How trends could undermine our current market position - ****Competitive Threats**: New competition emerging from trend developments - ****Obsolescence Risks**: Product/service capabilities that might become outdated - ****Regulatory Risks**: Compliance or policy changes that could impact operations - ****Customer Defection Risks**: How trends might shift customer loyalty STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR BUSINESS - ****Product Strategy Impact**: How trends should influence our product roadmap - ****Positioning Adjustments**: Changes needed in our market positioning - ****Message Evolution**: How our core messaging should adapt to trend realities - ****Channel Strategy**: Changes needed in our go-to-market approach - ****Capability Gaps**: New competencies we need to develop - ****Partnership Strategy**: Alliances we should consider to leverage trends RESEARCH METHODOLOGY REQUIREMENTSSOURCE DIVERSIFICATION Analyze multiple types of sources: - ****Industry Reports**: Analyst reports, market research, industry publications - ****News & Media**: Recent articles, press releases, executive interviews - ****Social Signals**: Professional networks, discussion forums, social media sentiment - ****Patent Filings**: Technology development indicators - ****Funding Activity**: Venture capital, private equity, IPO trends - ****Academic Research**: University studies, research papers, white papers - ****Government Data**: Policy documents, economic indicators, regulatory filings SIGNAL DETECTION METHODOLOGY - ****Weak Signal Identification**: Early indicators that most haven't noticed yet - ****Pattern Recognition**: Connecting seemingly unrelated developments - ****Contradiction Analysis**: Conflicting signals and what they might mean - ****Geographic Variation**: How trends manifest differently in different regions - ****Stakeholder Perspective**: How different groups view the same trends VALIDATION & CREDIBILITY ASSESSMENT - ****Source Reliability**: Evaluate the credibility and track record of information sources - ****Bias Detection**: Identify potential biases in trend reporting or analysis - ****Confirmation Seeking**: Look for multiple sources confirming the same trend - ****Contrarian Viewpoints**: Actively seek perspectives that challenge trend assumptions - ****Quantitative Validation**: Find data that supports or refutes trend claims DELIVERABLE STRUCTUREEXECUTIVE TREND BRIEFING (2-3 pages) - ****Top 5 Trends Summary**: Most significant trends with one-line descriptions - ****Biggest Opportunity**: Single most important opportunity for our business - ****Greatest Threat**: Most significant risk to our current position - ****Action Priority**: What requires immediate attention vs. longer-term monitoring DETAILED TREND ANALYSIS For each major trend, provide: - ****Trend Description**: What's happening and why it matters - ****Supporting Evidence**: Specific examples, data points, and source citations - ****Timeline Assessment**: When we expect different phases of development - ****Impact Analysis**: How this specifically affects our market and business - ****Strategic Recommendations**: What we should do about it MONITORING DASHBOARD RECOMMENDATIONS - ****Key Indicators**: Specific metrics to track trend progression - ****Signal Sources**: Where to monitor for updates and developments - ****Review Frequency**: How often to reassess each trend - ****Escalation Triggers**: What changes would require immediate strategic review DATA SOURCES TO ANALYZE: \[Insert specific industry reports, news sources, research papers, and other materials to analyze\] OUTPUT REQUIREMENTS - Lead with the most actionable insights for immediate business impact - Support all trend claims with specific evidence and source citations - Distinguish between established trends and emerging weak signals - Provide clear timelines and probability assessments - Focus on implications for product marketing strategy and tactics - Include direct quotes from sources to support key points - Organize findings for easy executive consumption and team action planning CONFIDENTIALITY & COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE Treat all proprietary research as confidential. When analyzing competitor intelligence, focus on publicly available information and cite all sources appropriately. --- ## Voice of the customer analysis PMMs are often drowning in customer feedback data but lack systematic approaches to extract strategic insights from unstructured feedback. This prompt helps by analyzing customer feedback data from multiple sources (support tickets, reviews, surveys, NPS comments) to identify customer satisfaction drivers, pain points, feature preferences, and strategic opportunities for product and marketing improvements. Where to get started? Compile 6-12 months of customer feedback data from multiple sources before analysis. Include customer segment information (company size, industry, tenure) to enable segmentation insights. The analysis works best with 500+ pieces of feedback for meaningful pattern recognition. **Get the prompt👇** #### VoC analysis power prompt You are an expert customer experience analyst and insights strategist with deep expertise in qualitative and quantitative voice of customer analysis across support tickets, product reviews, NPS surveys, and customer feedback channels. Your specialty is extracting strategic insights from unstructured customer feedback data and translating it into actionable product marketing, customer success, and business strategy recommendations. CONTEXT & OBJECTIVES I need you to analyze voice of customer data from \[SPECIFY DATA SOURCES: support tickets, reviews, surveys, feedback forms, etc.\] to extract strategic insights that will directly inform: - Product positioning and messaging optimization - Customer experience improvement initiatives - Feature prioritization and product roadmap decisions - Customer success and retention strategies - Sales objection handling and competitive positioning - Content marketing and customer education strategies - Customer segmentation and persona refinement VOICE OF CUSTOMER ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK Structure your comprehensive analysis using this methodology: 1\. SENTIMENT & SATISFACTION LANDSCAPE - ****Overall Sentiment Distribution**: Positive, neutral, negative feedback percentages - ****Sentiment by Customer Segment**: How satisfaction varies by customer type, tenure, usage level - ****Sentiment Trend Analysis**: How customer sentiment is evolving over time - ****Emotional Intensity Mapping**: Not just positive/negative, but strength of emotions expressed - ****Satisfaction Drivers vs. Detractors**: What specifically drives high vs. low satisfaction - ****Net Promoter Score Insights**: Promoter, passive, and detractor feedback patterns 2\. PAIN POINT & FRICTION ANALYSIS - ****Primary Pain Point Categories**: Top 5-7 most frequently mentioned customer problems - ****Pain Point Severity Assessment**: Which issues cause the most customer frustration/churn risk - ****Pain Point Journey Mapping**: Where in the customer lifecycle problems occur most - ****Root Cause Analysis**: Underlying reasons behind surface-level complaints - ****Problem Evolution**: How customer problems have changed over time - ****Segment-Specific Pain Points**: How problems vary by customer type or use case - ****Competitive Pain Points**: Issues customers mention with alternative solutions 3\. FEATURE & CAPABILITY FEEDBACK ANALYSIS - ****Feature Satisfaction Scoring**: How customers rate different product capabilities - ****Feature Request Frequency**: Most commonly requested new features or improvements - ****Feature Adoption Challenges**: Why customers struggle to use certain capabilities - ****Feature Value Perception**: Which capabilities customers find most/least valuable - ****Missing Capability Gaps**: What customers say the product can't do that they need - ****Feature Comparison Feedback**: How customers compare our features to competitors - ****Power User vs. Basic User Needs**: How feature needs differ by usage sophistication 4\. CUSTOMER SUCCESS & OUTCOMES ANALYSIS - ****Success Metric Mentions**: How customers define and measure success with the product - ****ROI and Value Realization**: Customer descriptions of business impact and value received - ****Time-to-Value Insights**: How long it takes customers to see meaningful results - ****Use Case Evolution**: How customer usage patterns change over time - ****Expansion Opportunity Signals**: Indicators of customers ready for upsell/cross-sell - ****Success Barrier Identification**: What prevents customers from achieving desired outcomes - ****Champion vs. Detractor Characteristics**: What distinguishes highly satisfied from dissatisfied customers 5\. SUPPORT & SERVICE EXPERIENCE EVALUATION - ****Support Interaction Quality**: Customer feedback on support team effectiveness - ****Resolution Time Expectations**: Customer tolerance and preferences for response times - ****Self-Service Preferences**: What customers want to solve themselves vs. get help with - ****Communication Channel Preferences**: How customers prefer to get support and updates - ****Documentation & Resource Effectiveness**: Feedback on help content, tutorials, guides - ****Escalation Triggers**: What causes customers to escalate or express frustration - ****Support-Driven Product Insights**: Product issues revealed through support patterns 6\. COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE FROM CUSTOMER VOICE - ****Competitive Mentions**: What customers say about alternatives they've considered/used - ****Switching Triggers**: Why customers moved from competitors to us (or vice versa) - ****Competitive Advantage Validation**: Customer confirmation of our differentiation claims - ****Feature Gap Identification**: Capabilities competitors have that customers want from us - ****Pricing Sensitivity**: Customer feedback about pricing compared to alternatives - ****Competitive Positioning Insights**: How customers position us vs. competitors in their minds 7\. CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE & JOURNEY INSIGHTS - ****Onboarding Experience Feedback**: First impression and initial setup challenges - ****Adoption Journey Patterns**: How customers progress from trial to full usage - ****Renewal Decision Factors**: What influences customers to continue or cancel - ****Expansion Readiness Signals**: When and why customers consider additional purchases - ****Churn Warning Indicators**: Early signals that predict customer departure - ****Advocacy Development**: What turns satisfied customers into active promoters STRATEGIC SYNTHESIS REQUIREMENTSCUSTOMER VOICE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Create a 2-page strategic overview including: - ****Overall Customer Health Score**: Aggregate assessment of customer satisfaction and sentiment - ****Top 3 Customer Experience Wins**: What we're doing exceptionally well according to customers - ****Top 3 Critical Issues**: Most urgent problems requiring immediate attention - ****Biggest Market Opportunity**: Largest unmet need or expansion opportunity identified - ****Greatest Retention Risk**: Most significant threat to customer loyalty and renewals PRODUCT & POSITIONING IMPLICATIONS - ****Messaging Reality Check**: How customer language compares to our marketing messages - ****Value Proposition Validation**: Which benefits customers actually experience vs. what we claim - ****Feature Priority Insights**: What capabilities matter most to customer satisfaction and success - ****Positioning Gap Analysis**: Differences between how we position vs. how customers perceive us - ****Differentiation Validation**: Customer confirmation or contradiction of our competitive advantages CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION INSIGHTS - ****Satisfaction Segment Profiles**: Characteristics of highly satisfied vs. dissatisfied customer groups - ****Usage-Based Segments**: How different usage patterns correlate with feedback themes - ****Value Perception Segments**: Customer groups with different ROI expectations and realizations - ****Support Need Segments**: Customers requiring different levels/types of assistance - ****Advocacy Potential Segments**: Which customers are most likely to become promoters CUSTOMER SUCCESS & RETENTION STRATEGY - ****Success Milestone Identification**: Key moments that predict long-term customer satisfaction - ****Churn Prevention Priorities**: Proactive interventions needed to reduce customer departure - ****Expansion Opportunity Mapping**: When and how to approach customers for growth - ****Customer Education Priorities**: Knowledge gaps that impact customer success - ****Support Strategy Optimization**: How to better align support with customer preferences PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT INSIGHTS - ****Feature Development Priorities**: Capabilities that would drive the highest customer impact - ****User Experience Improvement Areas**: Interface, workflow, or usability enhancements needed - ****Integration & Partnership Opportunities**: Third-party connections customers are requesting - ****Platform & Infrastructure Insights**: Scalability, performance, or reliability concerns - ****Innovation Opportunities**: Completely new capabilities customers are envisioning ANALYSIS METHODOLOGY REQUIREMENTSQUANTITATIVE PATTERN ANALYSIS - ****Frequency Analysis**: How often specific themes, keywords, or issues appear - ****Trend Analysis**: How feedback patterns change over time periods - ****Correlation Analysis**: Relationships between different feedback themes and customer outcomes - ****Segmentation Analysis**: How feedback varies across customer segments, cohorts, or characteristics - ****Statistical Significance**: Ensuring patterns are meaningful, not random fluctuations QUALITATIVE INSIGHT EXTRACTION - ****Thematic Coding**: Categorizing feedback into meaningful themes and sub-themes - ****Emotional Analysis**: Understanding the intensity and type of emotions expressed - ****Context Analysis**: Considering the circumstances surrounding customer feedback - ****Language Pattern Recognition**: How customers naturally describe problems and solutions - ****Implicit vs. Explicit Feedback**: Reading between the lines of what customers actually mean EVIDENCE VALIDATION & RELIABILITY - ****Source Credibility Assessment**: Evaluating the reliability of different feedback channels - ****Sample Representativeness**: Ensuring insights reflect the broader customer base - ****Bias Detection**: Identifying potential skews in feedback data or analysis - ****Cross-Validation**: Confirming insights across multiple data sources - ****Outlier Analysis**: Understanding whether extreme feedback represents broader issues DELIVERABLE STRUCTURESTRATEGIC INSIGHTS DASHBOARD - ****Customer Health Scorecard**: Key metrics and trend indicators - ****Priority Action Items**: Top 5 actions needed based on customer voice - ****Success Metrics Tracking**: How to measure improvement in customer satisfaction - ****Risk Indicators**: Early warning signals to monitor ongoing DETAILED ANALYSIS BY THEME For each major insight category: - ****Theme Description**: What customers are saying and why it matters - ****Supporting Evidence**: Specific quotes, frequency data, and trend analysis - ****Customer Impact**: How this affects customer satisfaction, retention, or expansion - ****Business Impact**: Revenue, cost, or competitive implications - ****Recommended Actions**: Specific steps to address or leverage the insight CUSTOMER VOICE PLAYBOOK - ****Segmented Messaging Guidelines**: How to communicate with different customer types - ****Objection Handling Updates**: New sales objections and responses based on customer feedback - ****Content Creation Priorities**: Topics and formats customers are requesting - ****Product Marketing Adjustments**: Positioning and messaging refinements needed DATA SOURCES TO ANALYZE: \[Insert specific customer feedback data: support tickets, reviews, survey responses, NPS comments, etc.\] OUTPUT REQUIREMENTS - Prioritize insights by business impact and actionability - Support all conclusions with specific customer quotes and quantitative evidence - Distinguish between vocal minority concerns and broader customer sentiment - Provide clear timelines for implementing recommendations - Include customer language verbatims for authentic messaging - Structure findings for multiple stakeholder audiences (product, marketing, customer success, executive) - Focus on forward-looking insights that predict future customer behavior CONFIDENTIALITY & PRIVACY Anonymize all customer-identifying information while preserving the strategic value of insights. Treat all customer feedback as confidential and use aggregated patterns rather than individual customer details. --- ### Competitive intelligence for SEO: What you need to know URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-seo/ Last updated: 2025-06-26T07:22:57.000Z You can have the best-written guide on the internet, but if your competitors have better backlinks and smarter technical execution, your content might end up buried. That’s where [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) steps in. It’s the difference between guessing and **knowing** what’s working in your space, and more importantly, **why** it’s working. ## **What competitive intelligence actually means for SEO** Competitive intelligence for [SEO](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitor-rank-tracker/) is all about understanding the strategies that are driving organic growth for others in your niche. You’re not trying to copy and paste what they’re doing. Instead, you want to see the bigger picture: the [keywords](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/top-5-keyword-research-tools/) they’re targeting, the [content](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/my-leap-from-content-to-product-marketing-lessons-learned-along-the-way/) that performs best, how their domain authority stacks up against yours, their link-building tactics, and how their technical setup might give them an edge. The point of all of this is to outmaneuver your competitors. Let’s look at Ahrefs, for example. With their [Site Explorer](https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer) tool, you get visibility into your competitor’s top-performing pages, backlinks, referring domains, and even the keywords they’re ranking for (but not bidding on). ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfqlu-QFlg3smvWvw5M2HTgdSYZVAFpQGhBWCjxYQO59PdhG-GxIey1_qhdZtVlxF3whZlH0tbnrhoZMxmmiodqGko48fWjaKrgzvlX9QNiN51fW6QT2KTJzw3XixO_Kuj2DRkj4w?key=5guIFOkye1PpFc5oWPqxcg) This is crucial if you’re running both SEO and PPC. If your competitor is ranking on page one for “best productivity tools for remote teams” and not protecting it with paid ads, you have a chance to capture traffic with smart content – plus paid. ## **Glossier: A content strategy in action** Say you're working in the direct-to-consumer skincare space, where new brands are always popping up. Glossier’s blog, [Into The Gloss](https://intothegloss.com/), has become a traffic magnet by covering evergreen content that subtly funnels readers toward their products. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfwYkHTDxOmH2wtcBLxwjJ4mGIMQPG4WUMp76-Sut49V6NWlWxIlFUCX3BlemOQ5CFL1Nvk1m6rQjFFo7pJfP4XIudVRxWY_dg7zYpZVQ6EtLMdmnz2kRF3yiD6vO7zK-MRFhbprA?key=5guIFOkye1PpFc5oWPqxcg) A competitor like Versed or Topicals can use competitive intelligence to dissect how often Glossier’s new content is published, the site’s internal linking structure, and even word count averages. Over time, you start to see patterns: Glossier leans into storytelling and community-driven content. That insight doesn’t show up on a keyword list, but it helps you create a winning [SEO strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/). ## **Backlinks and authority** Something else you should also consider is backlinks. If you're not tracking where your competitors are earning their links, you're giving up one of the most powerful ranking signals. Tools like [SEMrush’s Backlink Gap](https://www.semrush.com/analytics/gap/backlinks/) can show you which domains are linking to your competitors but not to you. But the real benefit of [tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-swot-analysis-tools-you-should-be-using/) like these is being able to understand *why* they’re getting those links. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXchrUxYcRMPEG8zqIjAgjuT_N_lYsvP-P_qBxG01ujo5V9EvakrdApkV9byKsOSvLc2tziHQ0GqvtBwQQxtQ4GdQJYaNKmwl1om_lbJYnBJh3hFEONbi22dglCA7JalYcpTiscnhw?key=5guIFOkye1PpFc5oWPqxcg) Did your competitors publish a data-driven report? Are they quoted in a Forbes article? This kind of intelligence can shape your entire strategy. For instance, Canva increased their content output a lot, targeting high-volume keywords like “birthday card templates” – but what’s fascinating is how they combined SEO with product-led growth. The pages are designed to pull users into Canva’s editor. If you were a competitor like Adobe Express or Figma, competitive intel would show you that Canva’s strategy isn’t just about traffic, it’s also about getting people to use their products. By reverse-engineering their top content (with tools like [SparkToro](https://sparktoro.com) to understand referral sources), you could learn not just what to create, but how to build SEO assets that help direct people to your offerings. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfGDDdRBF0C35Q4VoSv9m383RbFCDVmutKMiqUJqcx1Fc3-Zhtrj5LPhNNEc1CIexX8a71ftk5dn9AEiqhYtKTs6k4ulNo81uw8jDrp9WEjvXw8HfwztolbtKRMHGg-v2MUpcdc2Q?key=5guIFOkye1PpFc5oWPqxcg) ## **Technical SEO intelligence** SEO is something that marketers either fear or ignore, but tools like [Screaming Frog](https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/) can be really helpful. They crawl your competitors’ sites to compare things like site speed, structured data implementation, and JavaScript rendering. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcDs_6MgGlRCClwnb6jfELTLX7j12v91ObfZWK6Otyo7-4jCp4pjlLzzwusPOdwDm0_u0_mu57tNPllAvSULPYv2xefo_tq6S4Hy07xwnv-1xZk_WefnDZi-jQnHpntVwEH1ukxvA?key=5guIFOkye1PpFc5oWPqxcg) If your site loads in 4.5 seconds and your main competitor’s loads in 1.8 seconds, that’s not just a UX issue, it’ll likely affect your ranking as well. If they're using schema markup to win featured snippets and you're not, you might lose an opportunity every time someone searches "how to fix a leaky faucet". Emerging competitors can often be more disruptive than legacy brands because they move faster. Take [Notion](https://www.notion.so/templates), for example. A few years ago, they were just another productivity tool. Now, they rank for terms like “project management templates” and “how to create a wiki”. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf_VPd2T3ScAGZ-XSi_IpS3ac8_DPV4rOYyP0mObWLBpVGNauRgUj5jl19OlB0Wb1sRQGk0zpfZtOKbMujnRuoi7ADs2rD99N1aLYVwdlk-FMlTxqLrBCSHf7FhANCg7IFBH3hsMA?key=5guIFOkye1PpFc5oWPqxcg) Competitors that were slow to adapt probably didn’t see Notion’s SEO growth curve until it was too late. A CI audit would have flagged that early, especially if they were monitoring traffic trends or tracking branded keyword growth. ## **The power of SEO gap analysis** Every competitor has weak spots: keywords they rank for that don’t convert or blog posts that bring in traffic but have high bounce rates. [Competitive intel](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-carry-competitive-analysis-in-digital-marketing/) helps you find them. For example, if you're in the cybersecurity sector and your biggest competitor has written a lot about "malware protection" but hasn’t touched “zero trust architecture”, you have a content gap worth jumping on. Use tools like [Clearscope](https://www.clearscope.io) not just for optimization, but to benchmark competitor content and find what’s missing, too. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfQ6uZxyUfZqEuf5wqWBmiwezD_7GRXWSGZzo97Xsv585hcaiR1-bj_qUR19g0EzHURArqU-WQA2lA18iR3hRgzHcH-AwkDe-U3YyrplqK3vguM04W8vQnIqsMrYciT8OLwyXrvaA?key=5guIFOkye1PpFc5oWPqxcg) It’s important you don’t fall into the trap of chasing rankings for the sake of it. E.g., you might see a competitor ranking for “best payroll software”, but that’s a competitive term. Instead, CI might reveal they get more conversions from a [long-tail keyword](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/top-5-keyword-research-tools/) like “payroll software for remote startups” instead. The best intelligence tells you where not to compete as much as where to double down. ## **Off-site signals** Competitive intelligence can also show you where competitors are syndicating articles, speaking on [podcasts](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tag/podcasts/), or getting quoted in industry roundups. That kind of off-site visibility helps you understand people’s broader content strategy and authority-building efforts. ## **Know when your competitors update their content** It’s not just what your competitors are writing about – it’s how often they’re refreshing their content. In some industries, content that’s more than a year old can quickly become irrelevant and drop down in ranking. You can monitor when your competitors make significant updates to high-performing pages. Did they add new stats? A recent quote? Change the headline? If you notice your competitor routinely updates their “yearly trends” post every January, that’s a signal to either beat them to it or differentiate with a more evergreen take. Knowing these patterns can help you plan your editorial calendar and stay one step ahead, especially if you’re competing on similar keywords. ## **How do you measure success?** Competitive intelligence is only as good as the actions you take from it. That means setting benchmarks, running experiments, and tracking results. If you're investing in SEO changes based on CI, whether that's targeting overlooked keywords, earning [backlinks](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-backlink-analysis/) from new domains, or improving page speed, you must set clear KPIs, such as: - Ranking improvements for targeted keywords - Increases in organic traffic to key pages - Growth in referring domains from high-authority sites - Improvement in content engagement metrics (e.g., time on page, bounce rate) Over time, your competitive intelligence strategy should evolve into a feedback loop: monitor, implement, measure, and iterate. [How to carry competitive analysis in digital marketingMaster competitive analysis in digital marketing. Discover proven strategies to analyze competitors, uncover their tactics, and gain the edge you need to win.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-72.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/How-to-carry-competitive-analysis-in-digital-marketing.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-carry-competitive-analysis-in-digital-marketing/) ## **In short** Competitive intelligence for SEO gives you a clear picture of what’s working in your niche and what’s not, and allows you to uncover keyword opportunities, blind spots, content patterns, and backlink strategies that aren’t obvious from the outside. More than anything, it turns SEO into a proactive game. Instead of reacting to lost rankings or traffic dips, you're finding opportunities early, learning from your competitors’ successes (and mistakes), and staying ahead. ### How to tackle different forms of competition URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition/ Last updated: 2025-06-17T11:32:57.000Z What if the *real* threat to your business isn’t your most obvious competitor, but the one you’re not watching? Indirect competitors may not look like much on the surface, but they’re still stealing your customers’ attention. To win, you need eyes on the full playing field. In this article, we’ll break down: - The difference between direct and indirect competition - How to identify your direct and indirect competitors - How to deal with your direct and indirect competitors Let’s get into it. ## Direct vs. indirect competition Your competitors can be divided into two main categories: [**direct** and **indirect**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/). You’ve probably heard these terms tossed around, but understanding the difference is crucial for shaping your strategy and ensuring you’re not wasting time or energy on the wrong rivals. **Direct competitors** are the ones you’ll come up against most often in sales conversations. They sell a similar product or service, targeting the same customer segments as you. Customers are likely comparing your offerings side by side, so it’s not just about having a good product but also beating them in a way that resonates with your target audience. If you’re in this space, you’re in a constant battle to [prove why your product is the best](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/stand-out-in-a-crowded-market-product-positioning/) option available. **Indirect competitors** aren’t necessarily in your lane, but they may still be eyeing the same customers. These companies offer different products or services but solve a similar problem or fulfill a similar need. They may not be direct rivals yet, but as their offerings evolve, they could easily start encroaching on your market share, so it’s important to keep an eye on them. And let’s not forget, sometimes you’re working at a company so innovative that there’s no one quite like you on the market. In that case, your direct competition might be nonexistent, but indirect competitors are still playing a role in your customers’ [decision-making process](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-are-the-5-steps-in-the-consumer-buying-process/). [![A comparison chart outlining the differences between direct and indirect competitors. Direct competitors sell similar products or services, target the same customer segments, and are frequently compared by buyers. They compete on features, pricing, and user experience, requiring constant effort to prove superiority. Indirect competitors offer different products or services that solve a similar problem or meet the same need. While not directly comparable, they may still attract the same customers and can evolve into direct threats over time. ](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcjls9-il8ONMybuBStpy_PrTzCIlxz5E7VvVMIvhzuYrjzeDp6GeYhgowg7r8jVc9KFBb7BtyLo_plVGloKxy7YeEW5muUdGHMCFDhOGf3W2gr1b20fM7t6GW1knzEOBRU5h1xDg?key=-L8_-vWtUK_TIWMqhU51TQ)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition) ### Direct competition in B2B: Example Let’s imagine you work for the task management platform **Asana**. Your direct competitors would be platforms like **Monday.com** and **Trello**. Why? Because all of you are catering to teams looking to collaborate more efficiently, keep projects organized, and improve transparency. You're all in the productivity and collaboration space, solving the same problem in a similar way for similar customer segments. When customers are comparing these platforms, it’s about which one meets their needs in the best, most efficient, or cost-effective way. This is where your competitive research should shine, focusing on [feature sets](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/), [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/), user experience, and [customer feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/). It's all about positioning your product as the superior choice in this crowded space. ### Direct competition in B2C: Example Say you work for **Adidas**. Your direct competition? **Nike**. Both brands are household names in sportswear, offering athletic apparel, footwear, and gear at similar price points. You’re not just selling sneakers – you’re selling performance, style, and identity. Consumers are constantly comparing quality, design, brand reputation, and even which athlete or celebrity is backing each product. It's a game of perception and positioning just as much as it is of product. So, your competitive research should focus on more than materials and price tags. Think customer loyalty programs, [influencer partnerships](https://www.revenuemarketingalliance.com/5-examples-of-successful-influencer-programs/), cultural relevance, and brand storytelling. Because in B2C, winning often comes down to who tells the better story *and* delivers on it. ### Indirect competition in B2B: Example If we stick with the Asana example, **Airtable** is an indirect competitor. While Airtable also targets teams and can be used for task management, it’s not directly competing with Asana; it focuses more on data management and app-building, while Asana is primarily designed for collaboration and work management. The two are different beasts, but they still serve the same audience in terms of improving workflows and team productivity. Then there’s **Todoist**. While Todoist is primarily aimed at individuals managing their personal or professional tasks, its features can be used for team projects, which puts it in the indirect competition category. Asana and Todoist may not go head-to-head on features, but they’re targeting similar themes in their content and marketing, like productivity, task management, and remote work. While these indirect competitors aren’t as immediately threatening as direct ones, they still shape the playing field. Keeping an eye on their moves can help you anticipate shifts in customer expectations – and uncover new ways to stand out. ### Indirect competition in B2C: Example Let’s come back to Adidas. While your direct competitor is Nike, **Lululemon** is a classic case of indirect competition. It’s not built for elite athletes in the same way, but it attracts a similar audience – consumers who want stylish, high-quality activewear. Its focus on wellness, community, and lifestyle branding makes it appealing to customers who might otherwise shop Adidas. Then there’s **Apple**. With products like the Apple Watch and its expanding ecosystem of health and fitness apps, Apple isn’t selling shoes – but it *is* shaping how people [engage with exercise and fitness](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/7-strategies-b2c-fitness-apps-use-to-increase-customer-engagement/). That influence can pull customers toward a fitness experience led by Apple and away from platforms Adidas is trying to build around performance and tracking. These kinds of indirect competitors might not be targeting the same buyer directly, but they still influence where customers spend their time, money, and attention. Tracking their evolution helps you stay culturally relevant – and keep your brand front of mind. ## How to identify your direct competitors Identifying your direct competitors might seem like a straightforward task – after all, you know who you’re up against, right? Well, it's a bit more nuanced than that. In reality, pinpointing your direct rivals requires a mix of research, intuition, and some strategic thinking. Let's break it down. [![Flowchart of four steps to identify direct competitors: understand customer consideration, research products and strategies, use social listening, and prioritize key rivals.](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXei6QlnRSwne8BxGO-nSmCYr4BtvtltNKO7CmgNFmboj7_8sDD1jukUnNwiNk-I-C1V9sUbrnRqqvROTyVo1A07_TZjJUsB0-0yiOHWAEoAKBsJQqQGDtjGp8SsjyN_uu_rl7QUJg?key=-L8_-vWtUK_TIWMqhU51TQ)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition) ### 1\. Understand who your customers are considering First things first – **customer feedback** is key. Customers and prospects are the ones making the decisions, so listening to them can reveal a lot about who your real competitors are. Conduct [customer interviews](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-plan-productive-customer-interviews/) to uncover which other brands your prospects are considering when they’re deciding between you and the competition. [**Win/loss analysis**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) (a fancy way of saying, “Hey, why did you choose them over us?” or vice-versa) is incredibly useful here. So, if you don’t yet have a win/loss program, now’s the time to [build one](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/5-steps-to-ignite-your-win-loss-program/). And don’t forget about [**customer success (CS)**](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/what-is-customer-success/) teams – they’re often the first to know where churned customers are going. **Sales teams** also play a crucial role. These reps face competitors in deals every single day. If they’re hearing the same names pop up repeatedly, those are your direct competitors. **61.4%** of competitive intelligence (CI) pros prioritize competitors based on how often they come up in deals, according to the [2024 State of Competitive Intelligence report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-state-of-ci-report/). And for good reason – if your product is being put head-to-head with another in deals, that’s a sign you’re in direct competition. [![Infographic showing that 61.4% of competitive intelligence professionals prioritize competitors based on how often they come up in sales deals.](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXetAuGsmNbXZZLGvcVoBiokY1wpmHMbasd9gSqm7Fg5a5CcxkPchCUO0ekHtB6EZsMyUoZtoqzHY3_1u1-hF1AQeody1YU50Hcbr59l8oIGovHR3i_KX8Yn6DDqE2jfNc91dv4TwQ?key=-L8_-vWtUK_TIWMqhU51TQ)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition) ### 2\. Dig into their products and strategies Once you've gathered some insights from your customers and sales teams, it’s time to dig deeper into the competition. Look at their **websites**, **product documentation**, and **press releases** to get a solid understanding of their offerings and strategies. What problems are they solving, and how do their solutions stack up against yours? In your research, pay close attention to their **product positioning**. Are they targeting the same pain points? Are they focusing on the same customer needs? Understanding their positioning can give you valuable insights into how they’re approaching the market. ### 3\. Harness the power of social listening [**Social media**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) isn’t just a place to post memes – it’s also a goldmine for competitive intelligence. By tracking mentions of your competitors across platforms, forums, and review sites, you can uncover what customers are saying about them. Tools like Google Alerts, [social listening](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-listening/) platforms, and even forums like Reddit can help you stay in the loop. ### 4\. Prioritize your top competitors Not all competitors are created equal, so once you’ve gathered your intel, prioritize them. If two products are very similar to yours in features and [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/), those should be high on your radar. In fact, **27.7%** of CI professionals prioritize competitors whose products are most similar to theirs. But don’t just focus on the obvious ones – look at the **top 10 competitors** in your space and see how they’re positioned. Are they carving out a niche? Creating an entirely new category? In the [Competitive Intelligence Playbook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/head-to-head-playbook/), CI pro Andy McCotter-Bicknell recommends using **the 3C framework** to understand where each competitor stands in the market and identify any gaps that might be opportunities for you to differentiate. “But what is the 3C method?” I hear you cry. So glad you asked. > *“It’s \[about\] identifying your top ten competitors’ strategies by using the following brackets:* > *Competing (for market share)* > *Carving (a niche)* > *Creating (a category).* > *Once you finish this exercise, you’ll see where there are gaps in your landscape - untapped audiences, product potential, etc. (i.e. opportunities for you to invest in to differentiate).”* –[**Andy McCotter-Bicknell**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmccotterbicknell/), AI Product Marketer at Apollo ## How to identify your indirect competitors Identifying **indirect competitors** can be a bit trickier because they’re not as obvious as your direct rivals. So, how *do* you find them? Let’s break it down. [![Diagram illustrating three steps to find indirect competitors: start with keyword research, monitor social media, and watch macro trends.](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdrbsq7TiehR1SKoaWcXco8YdkEF2i-BmORemXtPhlvwc21ZbX2hMTZU48jV5_jorCwtKCCiVNmh4xdrWqQdspWzhhOStk1XC9ssVZMn0sKGK633zazsZ8DDwzvejorEN3LwmggYA?key=-L8_-vWtUK_TIWMqhU51TQ)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition) ### 1\. Start with keyword research Now’s the time to put [SEO](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) tools like **Ahrefs** and **Semrush** to good use. Start by tracking the keywords that your direct competitors are ranking for and expand your search to see who else is competing for those same search terms. This will help you uncover companies that might not offer identical products but are targeting similar customer needs. **Google Alerts** is another easy tool you can use to keep tabs on indirect competitors. Set up alerts for keywords related to your industry, and you’ll get a stream of information about companies entering your space, even if they don’t seem like direct competitors at first glance. ### 2\. Keep an ear to the ground on social media **Social listening tools** are your friend here. Monitor social media and customer reviews to see what people are saying about alternatives to your product. It’s an easy way to spot companies that might be sneaking into your market without you even realizing it. ### 3\. Watch out for macro trends **Shifting** [**customer behavior**](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-influences-customer-behavior/) can be a big indicator of indirect competition. Coming back to our Asana example, if your customers are increasingly adopting tools focused on automation, like chatbots or AI-driven task management apps, that could signal a rise in indirect competition. These tools aren’t directly competing with Asana, but they’re addressing the same need for increased team efficiency and productivity. As a result, they’re pulling some of your potential customers in a new direction. ## How to deal with direct competitors Dealing with direct competitors isn’t just about keeping your product in tip-top shape – though that’s definitely part of it. It’s about [strategically positioning your product](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/), gathering intel, and knowing how to respond to competitive threats. Ready to take on your competition? Here’s how you can do it. [![Visual guide listing six steps to handle direct competitors: know them inside and out, listen to customers and sales, analyze marketing and customer success strategies, gather intelligence, position your product as the solution, and enable teams with competitive content.](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdQ3ZK_UI-D7lYPb4ZjUHeAbXoN7KC0_5z6EInARYfO-KfI3bBJio6Q15G7LaYm2Wu4zISjDMp8x-1IKFpQdrAA778tmcKl5F3tyJ2w63dRUBzqLn8W0R_1jTBrfiewW6RcZv1bXQ?key=-L8_-vWtUK_TIWMqhU51TQ)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition) ### 1\. Know them inside and out First things first: understand your direct competitors. This isn’t just about knowing their product features (though that’s still important). It’s about diving deep into their **positioning, customer base, and overall strategies**. What problems are they solving, and how do their solutions compare to yours? Check out their website, product documentation, blogs, press releases, and even hiring trends (yes, their job postings can reveal a lot). You’ll get insights into where they’re heading next and what new features or expansions might impact your market. This is an area that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. According to the 2024 State of Competitive Intelligence report, only **19%** of CI pros keep an eye on their competitors’ positioning. ### 2\. Listen to your customers and sales reps Your **customers** are one of your best sources of competitive intel. By talking to them, especially through win/loss analysis, you can uncover who they’re comparing your product to and why they made their decision. Getting direct feedback from customers about what they love or hate about your competitors’ products can provide actionable insights. Your **sales reps** are also on the front lines of competition. They hear about competitors constantly, so make sure you’re tapping into their knowledge. Regularly check in with your reps to understand who else is being considered in deals. This helps you track the competitors that are most likely to affect your revenue and retention. ### 3\. Dig into their marketing and customer success strategies When gathering competitive intelligence, **15%** of CI pros focus on their competitors’ marketing, and **14%** focus on their sales and customer success strategies. Understanding how your competitors engage their customers – whether through content, social proof, or other channels – can reveal gaps or opportunities for you to outshine them. ### 4\. Gather and validate specific intelligence Here’s where the fun begins – it’s time to dig for more specific intel that may not be readily available. Use **win/loss interviews** to understand your competitors’ pricing, features, and what customers like or dislike about their offerings. You can take it a step further by analyzing competitors’ pricing models, especially through methods like “order of magnitude” questions in interviews. Don’t just rely on publicly available data. Leverage tools like **Gong** and **ZoomInfo** to analyze sales conversations and customer interactions for insights into competitor strategies and pain points. You can also conduct **targeted Google searches** using filters like "competitor name pricing filetype:pdf" to find hidden gems in support docs and proposals, where pricing details or competitor information might be shared. Make sure you **validate** your findings. One data point isn’t enough. Always cross-check information from various sources and get feedback from your customers, sales, and marketing teams to confirm what’s accurate. ### 5\. Position yourself as the solution With all the data in hand, it’s time to position your product as the clear choice. Focus on the **benefits** your product provides and how it meets your customers’ needs better than your competitors. Highlight where your product excels and where theirs falls short, positioning yourself as the “antidote” to their weaknesses. Instead of just comparing features, emphasize **emotional benefits** – like superior customer support or a more intuitive user experience – that are harder for competitors to replicate. This is how you show your customers why your solution is the better fit for them. ### 6\. Enable your teams with competitive content Lastly, once you’ve got a clear understanding of your direct competitors, make sure your **internal teams** are aligned. You’ll want to create **sales enablement content** like [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/) and pitch decks that help your team confidently position your product against the competition. Update these resources regularly to reflect the latest competitor developments, so your teams stay ahead of the game. ## How to deal with indirect competitors While direct competitors take the spotlight in most [competitive analyses](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/), don’t sleep on your indirect competitors. They might not seem as threatening at first, but they can sneak up on you. Handling them requires a more subtle approach, but it’s just as important for your long-term strategy. Here's how to deal with them. [![Infographic outlining four strategies to manage indirect competitors: 1) Keep tabs without overloading by using light-touch monitoring tools, 2) Understand their market approach and positioning, 3) Identify and leverage their weaknesses to highlight your strengths, and 4) Maintain flexible strategies to adapt as the competitive landscape shifts. ](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdL49pDfGjZc32KfoKUkvlHYSv48lYaE2hpcJSA4kw8HjVqovlHMxH6AkfTdFjRxHH7q9H8xIhA8GexaTNPS5c0EMrOIrMibULSHYaGRViZlo3feoKZDp10w-hIWa8JDTsFGrsZXA?key=-L8_-vWtUK_TIWMqhU51TQ)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition) ### 1\. Keep tabs without overloading Since indirect competitors don’t pose an immediate threat the way direct competitors do, you don’t need to dedicate the same amount of resources to tracking them. However, that doesn’t mean they should be ignored. Set up a regular cadence – think **once a month** – to check in on them. Use tools like **Google Alerts** or social listening platforms to monitor their moves without drowning yourself in data. This way, if they pivot and start encroaching on your territory, you’ll be ready. ### 2\. Understand their positioning and approach While indirect competitors might not sell the exact same product, they’re still solving similar problems. It’s critical to understand how they approach the market and the solutions they offer. This will give you insight into how they meet customer needs, and how you can better position your own product. For example, if your product is focused on team project management, and your indirect competitor is offering an innovative personal productivity tool, both are aiming at efficiency but from different angles. Look at their marketing strategies, customer feedback, and the value proposition they communicate. The goal is to understand how they frame their solution and what makes them appealing to your target audience. ### 3\. Use their weaknesses to your advantage While indirect competitors may not directly threaten your market share, you can still capitalize on their weaknesses. For example, let’s say you’re in the task management space and your indirect competitor is great for data-heavy project management. However, its complex interface can be a barrier for teams that need something more beginner-friendly. In this case, you can emphasize how your platform offers easier onboarding, simpler workflows, and a more intuitive user experience for teams that want to get up and running quickly, without the steep learning curve your competitor’s product requires. ### 4\. Maintain flexible competitive strategies Unlike direct competitors, whose strategies are often easier to track and react to, indirect competitors require more **flexible** strategies. Don’t let your focus on direct competition blind you to the potential impact of these companies. Regularly review and adjust your approach to ensure you’re staying competitive across the board. ## Time to take charge of the competition Competition – whether direct or indirect – can be daunting, but it’s also an opportunity to fine-tune your strategy and stand out in your market. With the right intelligence and a focus on your product’s strengths, you can outmaneuver competitors and position yourself as the go-to solution. Now’s your chance to take control and use these strategies to lead the pack. ### How to carry out competitive analysis in digital marketing URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-carry-competitive-analysis-in-digital-marketing/ Last updated: 2025-11-11T13:38:11.000Z ## Why competitive analysis matters in digital marketing Carrying out [competitive analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-analysis-starting-a-business/) in digital marketing gives you the intel you need to make smarter strategic decisions. For [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) pros, it's about transforming market data into actionable insights that reveal competitor strategies, identify market gaps, and predict industry shifts before they happen. For digital marketers, it's your roadmap to understanding what's working (and what's not) in your space, whether that’s uncovering high-performing [keywords](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/top-5-keyword-research-tools/) your competitors are targeting to spotting content gaps you can exploit, analyzing their [social media tactics](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-social-media-to-create-a-competitive-advantage/), and benchmarking your ad spend against theirs. Without competitive analysis, you're essentially flying blind. You’re missing opportunities to: - [Differentiate](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/) your brand, - Optimize your campaigns, and - Allocate your [budget](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/pmm-budget-spend/) more effectively. It's the difference between reactive marketing and proactive strategy, and that competitive edge can make or break your campaigns. ## Define your objectives and scope Before diving into a competitive analysis, you need to establish clear objectives and define your scope. This ensures your research yields actionable insights rather than just interesting data with no strategic value. ### Define your key questions Start by identifying the specific questions you're trying to answer. For example: - Why is a competitor’s organic traffic outperforming yours? - What content opportunities are they capitalizing on that you’re missing? - What does their paid advertising strategy look like? Framing these questions helps guide your research and ensures you focus on what really matters to your business. ### Map your competitive landscape To make sense of the competitive field, categorize competitors into three groups: - **Direct competitors**: Brands offering similar products or services to the same audience. - **Indirect competitors**: Companies offering alternative solutions to the same problem. - **Aspirational competitors**: Leaders or innovators in your space that you may not compete with directly but can still learn from. [Direct vs. Indirect Competition Explained (With Examples)Indirect competition is the kind of competition you experience from indirect competitors. These are competitors that offer different products and services to you, but targeting the same set of customers.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-71.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Framework_Tiles_indirect_competitors-1.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/) ### Choose your channels and KPIs Determine which digital channels deserve your focus based on business priorities. These might include: - [Organic search](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) (SEO) - Paid advertising (PPC, display, social) - Social media marketing - Email marketing - [Content marketing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-pen-is-mightier-how-competitive-intelligence-can-influence-a-content-marketing-strategy/) For each channel, define key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help you measure success and benchmark your performance against competitors. Taking the time to set objectives and scope upfront prevents analysis paralysis and ensures you're collecting relevant, actionable intelligence. ## Identify and categorize your competitors The first step in building a comprehensive competitive analysis is identifying who you're actually competing with in the digital space. [Market segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-market-segmentation/) plays an important role here. You’ll want to look beyond obvious players and consider any brand that might be competing for the same search terms, audience attention, or customer wallet share. Tools like SimilarWeb can show which sites attract similar audiences to yours. Crunchbase helps uncover emerging players, while specialized industry directories can surface niche competitors you may have otherwise missed. And don’t overlook who’s bidding on your branded keywords or showing up frequently in your audience’s social feeds. These could be indirect competitors that traditional [market research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/) often misses. ## Select key metrics and channels to analyze Once you've identified your competitive set, focus your analysis on the digital channels and metrics that align with your business goals: - **SEO:** Dive into their keyword strategies, backlink profiles, and search rankings to understand how they're earning organic visibility. - **Paid media:** Analyze their ad creatives, estimate their ad spend, and identify which platforms or formats they prioritize. Are they investing heavily in video? Are they favoring Google Search or Meta ads? - **Social media:** Look at their follower growth, engagement rates, and post frequency. Which types of content are generating the most interaction? - **Content marketing:** Examine blog topics, publishing frequency, content formats, and quality. This helps identify gaps in your own strategy and potential opportunities they’ve overlooked. Also, don't overlook their email and CRM strategies – sign up for their newsletters and observe their customer journey touchpoints. Finally, consider using tools that track traffic sources, bounce rates, and call-to-action placement to analyze their web traffic and conversion rates, which can reveal how they're converting visitors into customers. ## Gather competitive data [Data collection](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/from-data-to-actionable-insights/) is most effective when you combine manual research with automated tools. This hybrid approach gives you both depth and scale. ### Manual research Spend time directly reviewing competitor websites, social media accounts, email campaigns, and [customer reviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/unlocking-the-power-of-customer-reviews-for-a-magnetic-brand/). These sources provide qualitative insights (tone, [positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/), UX, and brand voice) that no tool can replicate. ### Automated tools Leverage platforms that streamline your research: - **SEMrush, Ahrefs**: For SEO and backlink data - **BuzzSumo**: For content performance - **SpyFu**: For paid search strategy - **SimilarWeb**: For traffic and referral insights - **BuiltWith**: For identifying a competitor's tech stack ### Ethical considerations Always operate within ethical boundaries. Avoid scraping gated or protected data, respect platform terms of service, and rely on publicly available information to maintain compliance and professional integrity. ## Analyze the data for insights Raw data only becomes useful when it's interpreted in a way that informs your strategy. Start by looking for patterns. What are your competitors consistently doing well? Where do they fall short? Where is there an obvious market gap they’re not addressing? Organize your findings using a framework like [**SWOT**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-explained/) or **TOWS**: - **Strengths** and **Weaknesses**: Assess competitors' internal capabilities. - **Opportunities** and **Threats**: Focus on market positioning, customer expectations, and emerging trends. Also, consider benchmarking. This is looking at how your brand stacks up against theirs in key areas. Look at trends over time, not just static data. Sudden spikes in traffic or engagement may indicate new strategies, campaigns, or partnerships that deserve deeper investigation. ## Create actionable recommendations Your analysis should culminate in clear, prioritized recommendations for your marketing team. Identify: - What you should stop doing or do differently - What’s working well enough to double down on - Which strategic priorities deserve immediate focus based on competitor activity Be specific. If a competitor is dominating video content in your niche, your recommendation might be to test short-form video on YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels, backed by a budget shift or new content pipeline. This is also where you connect insights back to business value. What moves will deliver the highest ROI, improve customer experience, or open new audience segments? ## Visualizing and presenting your competitive analysis How you present your findings is just as important as what you find. Tailor your presentation to the audience: - **Dashboards** help track ongoing metrics and support real-time decision-making. - **Detailed reports** can guide strategic planning across content, media, and brand teams. - **Executive-friendly slide decks** should focus on high-level takeaways, risks, opportunities, and budget implications. Make sure technical teams have access to your data sources and methodology, while leadership gets a clear view of business impact. ## Establish a competitive intelligence process Competitive analysis shouldn’t be a one-and-done project. It should be a repeatable process embedded into your marketing operations. Establish a regular cadence: - **Quarterly deep dives** for full strategic reviews - **Monthly check-ins** to spot trends - **Ad hoc alerts** for major competitor changes (e.g., product launches or rebrands) Assign ownership for each part of the process (data gathering, analysis, reporting) to ensure consistency. Keep your tools and benchmarks updated as your industry evolves. When treated as an ongoing discipline, [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-tips-to-use-today/) becomes one of your most valuable strategic assets. ## Final thoughts In digital marketing, standing still means falling behind. Competitive analysis gives you the visibility you need to adapt quickly, innovate strategically, and seize opportunities before your competitors do. It’s not just about tracking what others are doing. It’s about using those insights to refine your own strategy, prioritize smarter, and ultimately drive better outcomes across every channel. Make it a habit. Make it part of your culture. And watch your marketing performance move from guesswork to growth. ### 5 key limitations of generative AI in competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-key-limitations-of-generative-ai-in-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T13:56:16.000Z AI tools aren’t perfect. And many of their limitations you’ve likely encountered already. Here are some of its glaring shortcomings: ## 1\. No competitive advantage to using commonly available tools As a [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) pro, you’re no doubt familiar with the logical necessity that, without variation, there can be no competitive advantage. Differentiation is the lifeblood of any competitive strategy. No matter whether it’s in how you price your products, or the problems they solve for your customers. There might have been a time when having all of your staff use computers constituted a competitive advantage. Today, their use is so commonplace, it’d be odd if a business wasn’t buying high-end computers for all its staff. Feasibly, the same is set to happen with AI. And AI business models focusing on accessibility and widespread adoption only make that outcome more likely. In short, if all your competitors are using AI, you gain no [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/) over them by using it yourself. Only competitive parity. This is not, of course, a strong argument for dismissing AI and its place in business going forward. Don’t overlook AI and its burgeoning utility. Just think of what the top developer at your business can do with a computer, compared with the least technically proficient person you know. With tools of sufficient complexity, the competitive advantage becomes wrapped up in how you use them. So, learn to use [generative AI](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-at-work/) to its fullest extent. This way, you become the differentiating variable. You become the competitive advantage. [Social media competitive intelligence: Tools and tipsSocial media competitive intelligence made easy. Get tips and tools for tracking competitors’ social feeds and gathering actionable insights.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-68.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/Social-media-competitive-intelligence-tools-and-tips-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) ## 2\. Hallucinations You’re probably already familiar with the “hallucination” phenomenon. Given the reality of how GPTs work, it’s possible for the AI to, essentially, start making things up sometimes. Hallucinations are a crucial limitation of generative AI and GPTs. Not least because they become more common when you ask the AI to think, speculate, or make predictions. Remember that creativity, as it pertains to AI, is a function of the model’s training data, and the patterns, styles, and structures it learns from it, as well as artificially injected randomness via the temperature variable. When you ask the AI to think for itself, you’re necessarily asking it to stray from its training data into the unknown and the unconventional. The AI can use this randomness to mimic patterns in speculative text it has been trained on. It appears to be making things up because it is literally drawing on randomness as the best possible solution for generating speculative responses, and it struggles to differentiate between innovation and pure factual inaccuracy. This has deep ramifications for your requests to an LLM to “predict what will happen in the next 12 months in my competitive landscape,” or for it to “perform a competitive analysis on our top five competitors and offer strategic guidance on how we can maximize our competitive advantage.” So long as you’re asking the AI to form conclusions based only on vetted data, you can probably be confident in its conclusions. But when you ask the AI to make predictions, speculate, or otherwise move away from concrete, trusted data, you’re opening the door for random output. According to [ChatGPT](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/chatgpt-how-to-lose-your-job-and-gain-a-colleague/) itself, the following are the types of prompts most likely to lead to hallucination: - Requests for highly specific factual claims or about future events. - Requests about very recent events or cutting-edge developments. - Deeply technical or specialized knowledge outside mainstream coverage. - Hypothetical scenarios with complex variables. - Extremely detailed creative writing requests. - Misleading requests, or those based on misinformation. - Ambiguous or contradictory information provided in the prompt. > *“AI has its faults. For now, you still need a human in the loop to edit the content, and vet everything. When you’re talking about something like competitive intelligence, where that data can inform major business decisions, or a specific person taking on a sales opportunity, you need a human to be able to vet that AI and its output to make sure everything is okay.” – *Ben Hoffman, Senior Manager of Competitive Intelligence, Adobe** ## 3\. Incorrect training data LLMs first go through unsupervised learning. The LLM is let loose on huge swathes of data, and it processes this information to understand probabilistic relationships between units, or tokens, of that data. What follows is supervised learning. During this stage, human beings are contracted to write varied answers to a series of questions. The LLM is then trained on these human-generated responses to learn what “good”, or “correct”, looks like for various types of queries and requests. Crucially, where humans are involved, human error can rear its ugly head. Even something as simple as a few copy-paste errors can lead to incorrect responses to questions the LLM is then trained on. Just as, in [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/), your conclusions are only as strong as the data they spring from, an LLM can only be as good as the data it’s trained on. When even a small percentage of an LLM’s training data is factually inaccurate, it could throw off the accuracy of its responses in critical situations. This is a classic case of increased complexity correlating with increased probability of error. There is some debate about this, with some considering so-called “label noise” a necessary, unavoidable evil that affects even human learning. But it underscores the reasons why we shouldn’t blindly trust AI-generated answers. [Your 7-step guide to SEO competitive analysisSEO competitive analysis reveals the gaps in your SEO strategy so you can adjust and overtake the leaders in your space – and in this article, we’re going to show you how to do it.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-69.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/SEO-competitor-analysis-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) ## 4\. Data privacy and security concerns An LLM can only be as good as the data it was trained on. For this reason, data is a critical component in making AI useful. What’s more, specialized datasets open the door for specialized responses, and can differentiate the tool’s ability in your hands versus the hands of your competitors, posing a possible avenue for competitive advantage. So it stands to reason that you’d want to provide the LLM with data that is not available to all, either purely for context, or to fine-tune it to make it more fit for particular tasks. This means data on your market, your business, and your customers. But there are privacy and security concerns when you choose to do this. > “I wouldn’t put any proprietary information into a tool where you haven’t done the due diligence to ensure it’s closed off. I wouldn’t trust putting my company’s information *or my personal information into the free ChatGPT. If it’s more generic information, that’s different. And if you’re paying for something, and you know that there are security measures in place, I’d feel more comfortable with that.” – *Ben Hoffman, Senior Manager of Competitive Intelligence, Adobe** ### The problem: By default, AI tools like ChatGPT store the prompts you give them, as well as any additional data or information you upload, for use in improving their models. It’s feasible that, if you uploaded proprietary data, that information would eventually be used to train and improve the LLM, baking that information into its knowledge base. Your competitors, or anyone else, could potentially then benefit from that knowledge. ### What you can do about it: ChatGPT has a “Chat history & training” setting you can deselect. Doing so opts you out of having anything in your chats used to improve OpenAI’s models. Also, according to [OpenAI’s own documentation](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/7730893-data-controls-faq), they “don’t use content from our business offerings such as ChatGPT Team, ChatGPT Enterprise, and our API Platform to train our models.” Judging by the text on the above reference webpage, OpenAI have, for a while, been honoring requests to not use data for certain accounts to train their models. This seems promising, but whether you trust it or not is up to you. ### So... should you trust them? There’s arguably too much at stake when it comes to your obligations to safeguarding the privacy of your customers, and your own intellectual property, for you to risk uploading proprietary data to a public LLM even with this option deselected. Using synthetic data is a possible solution. Another is to run an instance of the LLM in a sandbox environment, hosted on a private server only you have access to. This way, you can be 100% sure your data is private and secure. But these are complex tasks, best handled by a specialist. ### Threats and opportunities grow in tandem As if that weren’t enough, various LLM-based exploits have already been documented. According to the nonprofit application security organization, OWASP, “the breakneck speed at which development teams are adopting LLMs has outpaced the establishment of comprehensive security protocols, leaving many applications vulnerable to high-risk issues.” [OWASP’s Top 10 for LLMs report](https://owasp.org/www-project-top-10-for-large-language-model-applications/) documents prompt injection, insecure plugin design, and excessive agency as just a few of the exploits already in play that you, and your system administrators, should be aware of before implementing a version of an LLM that has access to your business’ proprietary data. [AI in product marketing & competitive intelligence: What you need to knowCI, PM, and AI are converging, reshaping how businesses approach strategy and sales.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-70.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceEdward Allison![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--10-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-product-marketing-competitive-intelligence/) ## 5\. The depth problem Finally, there is the classic AI “depth problem”, where generative AI can’t go deep enough into a specific problem or task to return a genuinely useful response. According to Allen Borts, Technical Marketing Director of ADSC, there are three possible solutions to this problem: The **first** solution is the default: to use a pre-trained model like ChatGPT that has been trained on a very large set of text data. The larger the training data set, the deeper the AI should be able to go into any task, and the more useful and meaningful any generated responses should be. However, if you don’t trust the company behind the AI with your data, then this is not sufficient. A **second** solution is to use subject-matter experts trained to ask the right questions, with enough prompt training to guide the AI to a meaningful response. This should improve the output of even lesser trained models. For the most useful responses possible, it’s probably necessary to meet both of the above conditions. But both are subject to the same data privacy concerns. The **third** possible solution is to use an integration, or a purpose-built generative AI agent, to extend the capabilities of the pre-trained model. Alternatively, as discussed, you can run an instance of the LLM on a secure, private server, or use synthetic data. These solutions give you peace of mind over the security and privacy of your intellectual property, but they are not simple, and are therefore not cheap. ***For more insights into AI in competitive intelligence,*** [***download the ebook***](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-ci-playbook/)***. It’ll help you optimize prompts the right way to get useful answers, save you time, and so much more.*** ### TAM, SAM, SOM: How to estimate your market size URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tam-sam-som-how-to-estimate-your-market-size/ Last updated: 2025-08-28T17:11:03.000Z [TAM, SAM, SOM](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/establishing-a-market-sizing-framework-tam-sam-video/). Everyone talks about them, and just as many probably hate them. Why? Because it’s often unclear what they mean, how to measure them, and, most importantly, where to find accurate, reliable data to make your calculations trustworthy. That’s exactly what we’ll uncover in this guide. Let’s dive in. ## TAM (total addressable market) ****TAM** represents the entire market for the problem your offering solves, either globally or across all potential segments. [TAM](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/total-addressable-market-why-its-important-and-how-to-calculate-it/) is valuable for setting a bold vision and attracting investor interest. The general consensus is that VCs typically look for a TAM of over $1B to consider the opportunity substantial. ## SAM (serviceable available market) ****SAM** represents the portion of TAM you can target, given your product/service scope, geography, target segments, business model, and legal and regulatory limitations. > `SAM` \= `TAM` × `market accessibility coefficient` Where `market accessibility coefficient` \= the percentage of the total market that you can realistically target and serve, considering both how well your product/service fits target customers and factors like geography and legal restrictions. For example, if you're a fisherman, TAM is the entire ocean and all the fish in it, while SAM is the part of the ocean you can realistically reach, given your licenses, fishing regulations, and the size of your boat. Even if your TAM is huge, your SAM may represent only a small portion of it if your product is only available in specific regions, it’s designed for a limited customer segment, or it doesn’t meet all regulatory requirements. Consider these examples: - If your product isn’t HIPAA-compliant, you can’t enter the U.S. healthcare market. - Without a Spanish localization, your reach to Spanish-speaking audiences will be limited. - If your product costs $10,000 but targets small businesses, your SAM may shrink because many can’t afford it. ## SOM (serviceable obtainable market) ****SOM** represents the portion of SAM you can realistically capture in the short term (1–3 years), considering current market dynamics, competition, your go-to-market efforts, and available resources. > `SOM` \= `SAM` × `market share coefficient` Where `market share coefficient` \= the percentage of the market you expect to capture, based on your marketing and sales strategy, budget, and other factors. SOM is the tactical subset of SAM, focused on what's achievable given current conditions. For example, back to the fisherman analogy: - TAM is the whole ocean. - SAM is the part you can reach. - SOM is the actual fish you expect to catch based on factors like fish behavior, weather, your team's skill, and competitor activity. Even with a substantial SAM, a limited initial marketing budget and a narrow focus will naturally constrain your SOM. It depends on multiple factors, including: - **Marketing strategy:** What is the plan for customer acquisition? Paid ads, targeted engagement on Reddit, word-of-mouth? - **Sales efforts:** How effectively will your team work with clients? - **Budget:** How much money do you have for promotion and product improvement? - **Competition:** How quickly will competitors react to your moves? - **Demand:** Will there be demand for your product in the current economy? - **Product:** Will your product consistently meet or exceed customer expectations in terms of features, reliability, and ease of use? - **Support:** How effectively will your support team keep customers happy? - **Team dynamics:** How well will your team collaborate, communicate, and execute across different departments to achieve shared goals? Are those shared goals clearly defined? ## Why estimate TAM, SAM, and SOM? Estimating TAM, SAM, and SOM isn't just a number-crunching exercise. Here’s why you should invest the time in understanding these metrics: 1. **Strategic decision-making:** Knowing the size of your market at different levels helps inform key business decisions, from product development to resource allocation and market entry strategies. 2. **Investor confidence:** Investors want to see that you’ve thought through the potential of your market and can realistically capture a portion of it. Having solid TAM, SAM, and SOM estimates backs up your business plan and growth projections. 3. **Sales and marketing focus:** Understanding which segments of your market you can realistically target allows you to direct your sales and marketing efforts more effectively. ## How to estimate TAM, SAM, SOM There are two main approaches to market size estimation: top-down and bottom-up. ### Top-down approach The top-down approach starts with broad market data and narrows it down to smaller segments using logical filters and assumptions. **How it works:** 1. **Find a big number:** Start with a broad, relevant market statistic from a credible source (e.g., reputable research agencies or government data). 2. **Apply filters:** Narrow that number down based on factors relevant to your specific market or product. For example: 1. Filter by industry. 2. Filter by geography. 3. Filter by technology type. 4. Filter by customer size. 3. **Result:** The remaining number is your estimated market size (often used for TAM or SAM). **Pros:** - **Quick:** Provides a fast, rough estimate, especially useful for TAM. - **Leverages existing data:** Relies on established (though sometimes expensive) research. - **Good for context:** Helps understand the overall market landscape and your potential place within it. **Cons:** - **Assumption heavy:** The quality of the estimate depends entirely on the validity of the filters and the accuracy of the source data. - **Can be generic:** May not reflect the nuances of your specific niche and doesn’t account for how your product fits within the market. - **Risk of overestimation:** It’s easy to become overly optimistic with the filters, potentially inflating the estimate. 💡 The top-down approach provides **high-level* market context and is best for **initial* market size estimates. However, investors may question such estimates unless you can prove they accurately reflect your target market. ### Bottom-up approach The bottom-up approach builds estimates from the ground up using internal data and smaller-scale research. **How it works:** 1. **Identify customer segments:** Define your specific target customer profiles. 2. **Count potential customers:** Estimate the number of potential customers in each segment you can realistically reach, given your go-to-market capabilities. 3. **Estimate revenue per customer:** Determine the average revenue you expect from each customer segment, e.g., ARPU (average revenue per user) for B2C or ACV (average contract value) for B2B. This should be based on your pricing model and expected usage/purchase frequency. 4. **Multiply and aggregate:** Multiply the number of customers by the average revenue per customer for each segment, then sum across segments. 5. **Result:** This gives you a market size estimate, typically best suited for calculating a realistic SOM and validating SAM. **Pros:** - **More realistic and defensible:** Based on your specific product, pricing, target customers, and sales potential. - **Actionable:** Directly tied to your sales strategy and go-to-market plan, helping set concrete targets. - **Good for niche markets:** Works well when broad industry data isn't available or relevant. **Cons:** - **Data intensive and time consuming:** Requires significant effort to identify segments, count customers, and validate revenue assumptions. - **Risk of underestimation:** Easy to miss potential customer segments or underestimate market penetration potential. 💡 The bottom-up approach is best for calculating a credible SOM and validating SAM based on your specific product/service, business model, and go-to-market strategy. ### Combining top-down and bottom-up approaches It’s better not to rely on just one approach but to use both. Top-down provides the theoretical maximum for market size. Meanwhile, bottom-up offers a more grounded estimate based on what you can realistically target and achieve. If the top-down and bottom-up estimates align reasonably well, your market size calculations will be much more credible. ## Calculating TAM TAM can be measured either by the total number of potential customers or by the total revenue that could be earned from them. > *TAMcustomers \= total number of potential customers* When calculating TAM based on revenue (which is generally preferable), you're looking at the potential total market size in monetary terms. > *TAMrevenue \= TAMcustomers × ARPC* Thus, to calculate TAM, you need to estimate two things: the total number of potential customers and the average revenue you could earn from each. ### Step 1: Identify the Total Number of Potential Customers Imagine you were a monopoly with 100% adoption: no limits, no competition, just you, the market, and groundbreaking success. Who would your customers be in this case? If you're in **B2B**, consider all companies globally or within relevant geographical segments that experience the problem your product or service is designed to solve. For example, if you're offering a SaaS project management tool, your total potential B2B customers could include all companies globally that manage projects and require collaboration between teams. You can search for such data in business directories and government databases (often free) or use platforms like: - [**Crunchbase**](https://www.crunchbase.com/) - [**LinkedIn Sales Navigator**](https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/sales-navigator) - [**ZoomInfo**](https://www.zoominfo.com/) Keep in mind that some data might be missing. In such cases, you can estimate the total by working with the available data. For example, if you know how many companies there are in a specific region, you can estimate the global number. If the U.S. had 50K companies in your industry and accounted for 30% of the global market, then the total worldwide would be 50K ÷ 0.3 ≈ 167K companies. If you're in **B2C**, your potential customers would include all individuals globally or within relevant geographical segments who have the need or desire for your product or service. For example, if you're offering a fitness app, your TAM could include all health-conscious individuals, people interested in fitness, or those looking to improve their lifestyle. [**Statista**](https://www.statista.com/) is a great source for market data, but key insights might be locked behind a paywall. You can also look for such data in government databases and public sources (though data on niche preferences may be limited or unavailable): - Global:[**UN Data**](https://data.un.org/)**,** [**World Bank**](https://data.worldbank.org/)**,** [**OECD Stats**](https://www.oecd.org/en/data.html) - Europe: [**Eurostat**](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data) - USA: **U.S. Census Bureau** - Country-wise: National statistics agencies If no direct data is available, you can still gauge interest in your idea by analyzing relevant trends and keyword search volumes: - Use tools like[**Google Trends**](https://trends.google.com/trends/)**,** [**Exploding Topics**](https://explodingtopics.com/)**,** [**Pinterest Trends**](https://trends.pinterest.com/) to spot what's trending. - Use **Google Ads Keyword Planner, Meta Audience Insights, Pinterest Ads Manager** to estimate search volumes. 💡 ****Tip:** If your target market can be segmented by size, industry, geography, or other factors, estimate the total number of potential customers for each segment separately. This will give you a more accurate and actionable view of your TAM. ### Step 2: Estimate the average revenue per customer In market sizing, ARPC (average revenue per customer) typically refers to the average *annual* revenue you expect to earn from a single customer. The exact metric depends on your business model: - **B2C → annual ARPU (average revenue per user)** - **B2B → ACV (annual contract value)** If you've been in the market for some time, you likely already have this data available. If you're feeling adventurous (and have a solid execution plan), you can also factor in potential revenue growth based on your historical performance when making your calculations. #### **Proxy ARPC** If you don't have any historical sales data yet, you'll need to use a proxy for ARPC. This could be based on industry benchmarks, competitor data, or estimates from similar products or services in the market. For example, you could use **average spend per customer** if you know what customers currently spend on alternatives or substitutes to solve the problem your product/service addresses. Alternatively, you could (with caution) estimate ARPC based on [**willingness to pay (WTP)**](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/willingness-to-pay-interview-questions-framework/) if you’ve conducted a survey to gather such data. However, keep in mind that survey-based WTP may overstate actual purchase behavior due to hypothetical bias (i.e., people may claim they’ll buy, but their actual purchasing behavior may differ). Another option is **competitor data**. If you can't find any benchmarks for ARPU in your industry but a major competitor reported $400M in annual revenue from 2M users, you could estimate ARPU as $400M ÷ 2M = $200. ### Step 3: Calculate TAM To calculate your TAM, multiply the number of potential customers by the average revenue per customer for each segment, then sum across all segments. This will give you a pretty handsome number. However, keep in mind that TAM is an aspirational figure. It doesn't account for the messy realities of competition, demand distribution, your own limitations, or regulatory constraints, among other factors. What's more, this estimate can quickly drift into pure fantasy – that's where inflated TAM comes into play. ### Inflated TAM > *"My product is for humans; there are 8 billion people on Earth, so that’s my TAM."* – An overly aspirational founder. While this may be an exaggeration, it's a common way to inflate TAM. #### **Industry-wide assessment** Let's say you're selling VPNs, and you come across [this Deloitte article](https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/technology/technology-media-telecom-outlooks/technology-industry-outlook.html) stating, *"The global market for security products is growing rapidly and is expected to reach US$200 billion by 2028, reflecting its critical role in securing digital initiatives."* So, you decide your TAM is $200 billion. I hope this assumption raised some questions. This approach overlooks critical factors, starting with product focus. The security market covers a wide range of products (antivirus, firewalls, etc.), not just VPNs. #### **All-users assessment** Imagine you're developing an app. [Statista says](https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/), *"The number of smartphone mobile network subscriptions worldwide reached almost seven billion in 2023, and is forecast to exceed 7.7 billion by 2028."* You plan to sell your app for $1, so you estimate your TAM as 7.7 × $1 = $7.7 billion. Unless your app is absolutely essential to every single smartphone owner on the planet, this estimate is wildly unrealistic. On the other hand, [The Startup Owner's Manual](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-startup-owners/9781119690689/) by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf suggests you shouldn't limit TAM at all, arguing that the TAM for a mobile app could include *all* smartphone owners worldwide. #### **Optimism vs. realism** Some might argue that a bigger TAM is more impressive to investors, and being optimistic is always a good thing, right? Others might say this reflects unrealistic expectations and a weak understanding of your true target audience. ### Realistic TAM It's hard to say what a *realistic* TAM is because it depends on your product and market. But here are some things to think about. #### **Focus on your product and target audience** Let’s continue with the VPN example. If you’re developing a VPN for personal use (B2C) rather than businesses, it makes sense to focus on data specific to the consumer segment. For instance, [Verified Market Research](https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/product/consumer-vpn-market/) states, *"The consumer VPN market was valued at USD 51.1 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 73.8 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 4.7% from 2024 to 2031."* This is a more realistic estimate than using the $200 billion figure for the entire security market, as it accounts for the specific consumer VPN segment. Of course, without fully understanding Verified Market Research’s methodology, it's impossible to say whether this estimate is inflated or underestimated. #### **Look at industry numbers** Look at real numbers from your industry (or adjacent ones). For example, if you’re evaluating the potential of a new mobile app, research the most popular ones. TikTok, for instance, has [1.12 billion monthly active users](https://backlinko.com/tiktok-users). This number can serve as a benchmark for understanding the adoption scale in the mobile app industry. Of course, you might believe your app will be the best and most popular, but data shows the actual volumes you’ll be (optimistically) dealing with. This helps you set more realistic expectations and ambitions. You might argue that you’ll create a whole new industry, one where no benchmark fits, and that you’ll set the trends and define the numbers. But consider this: OpenAI reached [400 million](https://explodingtopics.com/blog/chatgpt-users?ref=your-competitive-edge.com) weekly active users as of March 2025 – less than three years after ChatGPT's November 200 release. What are the odds you’ll surpass their growth? (Unless you have unlimited funding and a flawless plan, in which case, you probably wouldn’t be reading this article 😉). So yes, I'm a big proponent of seeking out benchmarks and realistically assessing your assumptions. Nothing beats a benchmark built from your own historical data, but if you're just getting started, industry averages can offer a helpful starting point. #### **Balancing ambition with reality** Limiting your TAM early on reduces the risk of unrealistic expectations, making your estimate more reliable. On the other hand, limiting TAM may underestimate your potential. If your product or business model proves revolutionary and drives rapid growth, limits based on current data may not capture future expansion. 🗝️ The key is to have a ****logical rationale** for your TAM estimate. If you can reasonably explain why everyone on the planet will buy your product, awesome! Just make sure it makes sense. ## Calculating SAM SAM, like TAM, can be measured either by the total number of potential customers or by the total revenue that could be earned from them. > *SAMcustomers \= TAMcustomers × market accessibility coefficient* Where market accessibility coefficient = the percentage of the total market you can realistically target and serve. It takes into account factors like how well your product or service fits the target customers, geographic constraints, legal restrictions, and other barriers to market entry. To estimate this, you can use analytical reports, industry studies, or government databases that offer insights into how your market is divided based on these factors. Let's say your TAM is 100 million customers, your product is focused on small businesses, and you've found data that 40% of TAM are small businesses. However, you can only sell it in three countries, which make up 50% of this segment. *`SAM` \= `100 million` × `0.4` × `0.5` \= `20 million customers`* If you have multiple customer segments, your market accessibility coefficient may differ across them. In that case, it’s helpful to calculate SAM for each segment individually and then sum them. Alternatively, if you use platforms like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to research your target audience, you can directly filter your target audience based on your specific criteria and see how many potential customers remain. This can give you a straightforward SAM without needing to apply calculations or coefficients. So, leverage the data you have and avoid overcomplicating things when an easier solution is available For monetary value, SAM can be calculated as: > *SAMrevenue \= TAMrevenue × market accessibility coefficient* or > *SAMrevenue \= SAMcustomers × ARPC* Continuing from the example above: - Your SAM in customer count = 20 million - Average revenue per customer = $100 per year - Then `SAM` \= `20 million` × `100` \= `$2 billion annually` ## Calculating SOM Like SAM and TAM, we can measure SOM either by the total number of potential customers or by the total revenue that could be earned from them. SOM can also be calculated using both top-down and bottom-up approaches, depending on the data you have available. **Bottom-up:** > *SOMcustomers \= Customers you realistically expect to capture* > *SOMrevenue \= SOMcustomers × ARPC* **Top-down:** > *SOMcustomers \= SAMcustomers × market share coefficient* > *SOMrevenue \= SAMrevenue × market share coefficient* Where market share coefficient = the percentage of the market you expect to capture, based on your marketing and sales strategy, budget, and other factors. This is often an educated estimate, informed by industry benchmarks, historical data, or competitor performance. Estimating realistic market share is tough. The best way to make your projections solid is to base them on pilot launch data, conversion testing, historical performance, or industry benchmarks. Avoid relying on pure guesswork. For example, would you believe me if I said I’ll capture 5% of the chatbot market? Just trust me, I have a big plan! Probably not. But what if I showed you hard data from a statistically valid primary study and a pilot program proving that 1% of the target population is willing to switch to my product with ABC features for $X price in the next three to six months? Or better – what if I told you that last year my market share was 1%, here are my operational metrics, NPS scores, and this year I expanded my team with experts in critical areas and increased my marketing budget by 30%? Based on this, I project my market share to grow to 3% this year by expanding into new regions, improving customer retention, and increasing marketing efficiency. With the right funding next year, I plan to scale these efforts further and reach 5% market share. That’s the difference between guessing a market share coefficient and backing it with data. Now, for the sake of continuity, let’s go on with the calculation from the previous example: - Your SAM was 20 million customers. - You plan to capture 5% of the market in the first year (ambitious but realistic *if* backed with data). - Then `SOM` \= `20 million` × `0.05` \= `1 million customers` - Average annual revenue per customer = $100 per year - Thus `SOM,$` \= `1 million` × `100` \= `$100 million annually` ## Sources Forget just asking AI (it's great for brainstorming but not always spot-on with the facts). To accurately calculate your market size, you’ll need to do some real digging. Here's a breakdown of the best places to look. ### Government and public databases (free) Raw data on all sorts of demographic & economic indicators: - Global: [UN Data](https://data.un.org/), [World Bank](https://data.worldbank.org/), [OECD Stats](https://www.oecd.org/en/data.html) - Europe: [Eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data) - USA: U.S. Census Bureau, Small Business Administration (SBA) - National Business Registries & National Statistics Agencies. ### Reports from research companies (free and paid) These provide market sizes, trends, and sometimes even customer spending insights: - [Gartner](https://www.gartner.com/), [IDC](https://www.idc.com/), [Forrester](https://www.forrester.com/bold/), [McKinsey](https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/all-research), [BCG](https://www.bcg.com/publications), [Deloitte](https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights.html), [IBISWorld](https://www.ibisworld.com/), [Euromonitor](https://www.euromonitor.com/), and [Nielsen](https://www.nielsen.com/insights/) (look for free report previews). - [Statista](https://www.statista.com/)\- a mix of free and paid data covering a broad range of industries. 💡 Use [Google Advanced Search](https://www.google.com/advanced%5Fsearch) to specify your search queries. ### Company aggregators (free and paid) - [LinkedIn Sales Navigator](https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/): Use advanced filters to find companies by industry, location, size, and job titles. - [Crunchbase](https://www.crunchbase.com/): Great for tracking startups. - [Apollo](https://www.apollo.io/) and [ZoomInfo](https://www.zoominfo.com/): For detailed company data. ### Other sources - **Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn Groups:** See what real people say about your industry. - **Surveys (Survey Monkey, Qualtrics, Typeform):** Ask potential customers directly. - **Review aggregators (**[**G2**](https://www.g2.com/)**,** [**Capterra**](https://www.capterra.com/)**,** [**TrustPilot**](https://www.trustpilot.com/)**, etc.):** See who your competitors are and what customers are saying about them. - **Company reports (SEC 10-K filings, investor calls):** If your competitors are public companies, you can find a lot of information in their financial reports. This list gives you a solid starting point. The key is to be resourceful and combine different sources to get the most accurate picture possible. ## Additional tips Estimating TAM, SAM, and SOM isn’t easy. It involves tons of data, assumptions, and hypotheses. Here's how to stay in control: 1. **Document your assumptions:** Track the logic behind your segmentation and coefficients to ensure transparency and consistency. 2. **Cross-check data sources:** Comparing insights from multiple sources helps reduce errors and build a more accurate picture. 3. **Validate with real data:** Use pilot launches or surveys to test conversions and refine your SOM based on *actual* market response. 4. **Account for uncertainty:** Build scenario analyses (optimistic, pessimistic, base case) to create flexible estimates that reflect real-world risks. And please, don’t just say, *"Statista estimates the ABC market at $500 billion, and my product will capture 10% in year one because my ChatGPT wrapper is the best ever. Trust me!"* ## Using AI for TAM, SAM, SOM analysis An unpopular opinion: generative AI won't give you accurate numbers. To craft a perfectly accurate prompt for estimating TAM, SAM, and SOM, you need: 1. A strong understanding of your market 2. A well-defined business model for your product 3. A significant amount of time dedicated to writing and refining the prompt itself Even with all this effort, you’ll still end up with numbers you can’t be 100% certain about unless you manually verify them later. And that, again, takes time. On the other hand, Generative AI *with deep research* capabilities can optimize the search for relevant data. It can help you aggregate and analyze large datasets quickly. Here's a prompt template to get you started. Feel free to use, improve, or share it as you see fit. #### Prompt template ****How to use this template:** 1. ****Customize**: Replace ALL bracketed placeholders \[ \] with specific details about your product, market, and business. The more precise you are, the more relevant the search results will be. 2. ****Search**: Paste the completed prompt into a chat with an AI capable of conducting real-time internet searches (like ChatGPT with Search enabled or similar tools). 3. ****Review**: Critically assess the search results. While AI can gather up-to-date data, cross-check the findings with your own research for the most accurate insights. 4. ****Iterate**: If the results don’t fully answer your questions or lack detail, ask for further clarification, specific sources, or more refined estimates based on additional search criteria. ****Template:** Act as an experienced market research analyst specializing in market sizing. Your goal is to conduct a real-time search for up-to-date market data and estimate the total addressable market (TAM), serviceable available market (SAM), and serviceable obtainable market (SOM) for the specific product/service detailed below. ****Your task**: - Search for reliable and current industry reports, articles, market statistics, or other data that can help estimate TAM, SAM, and SOM for the provided product/service. - Use multiple sources to compare and validate data. - Provide quantitative estimates (e.g., in currency, number of users, number of units) and explain your reasoning and methodology based on the data you retrieve. ****Product/service information:** 1. ****Product/service description**: \[Clearly describe your product or service. What core problem does it solve? What are its key features and benefits? Is it software, hardware, a service, a platform, etc.?\] \[Example: "A SaaS platform using AI to automate invoice processing for SMBs in the construction industry."\] 2. ****Target audience and customer profile**: \[Describe your ideal customer(s) in detail. Include demographics (age, location - if applicable), firmographics (company size, industry, revenue - for B2B), psychographics (needs, pain points, buying behavior), job titles (for B2B), technical sophistication, etc.\] \[Example: "US-based construction SMBs with 10-100 employees, annual revenue $2M-$50M, experiencing pain points with manual data entry and slow payment cycles."\] 3. ****Geographic scope**: \[Define the geographical market(s) you are initially targeting and potentially plan to expand into.\] \[Example: "Initial focus on the United States market, with expansion to Canada and the UK within 3 years."\] 4. ****Business model and pricing**: \[Explain your business model (subscription, one-time purchase, freemium, etc.) and pricing.\] \[Example: "Tiered monthly subscription, with an average Annual Contract Value (ACV) of $2,400 per customer."\] 5. ****Competitive landscape**: \[List your main direct and indirect competitors, and briefly describe your unique selling proposition.\] \[Example: "Direct competitors include Bill.com, Melio, and basic accounting software. Our USP is AI-powered accuracy tailored for the construction industry’s specific invoicing needs."\] 6. ****Sales and marketing strategy**: \[How do you plan to reach your customers?\] \[Example: "Primarily through online ads (LinkedIn, Google Ads), content marketing focused on improving construction finance, and partnerships with construction software providers."\] 7. ****Existing data (optional but recommended)**: \[If you have any existing market research data, include it here.\] \[Example: "The US construction SMB market size is approximately $X billion."\] ****Your task and output requirements**: ****1\. TAM** (total addressable market): - ****Definition**: The total market demand for the product or service, representing all possible customers worldwide or within a defined region. - ****Search**: Find reliable data that estimates the global or regional market size for products/services solving the same problem. The unit could be in dollars, number of companies, or number of users. - ****Estimate**: Provide the TAM estimate based on the data found. - ****Methodology**: Explain the approach taken to find the data (e.g., top-down approach using industry reports, bottom-up based on similar product categories, etc.). State assumptions. ****2\. SAM** (serviceable available market): - ****Definition**: The segment of the TAM that is aligned with your specific product offering, target customer profile, and geographic focus. - ****Search**: Find data or reports that narrow down the market by industry, company size, or region that fits your product/service. The unit could be in dollars, number of companies, or number of users. - ****Estimate**: Provide the SAM estimate based on your product and market fit. - ****Methodology**: Explain how you narrowed down from TAM to SAM (e.g., filtering by specific industries, customer needs, or geography). List assumptions. ****3\. SOM** (serviceable obtainable market): - ****Definition**: The portion of the SAM that you can realistically capture, considering your resources, competition, and market penetration strategy. - ****Search**: Look for data on competitors' market share, industry benchmarks, or customer acquisition rates. Use this information to gauge a realistic penetration rate. - ****Estimate**: Provide the SOM estimate, considering factors like marketing strategy, competition, and resources. - ****Methodology**: Explain how you determined the SOM (e.g., applying a realistic market capture rate based on competitor benchmarks and sales strategies). List assumptions. ****4\. Methodology summary**: - Summarize the search-based methodology: top-down, bottom-up, or a combination of both. ****5\. Assumptions and limitations**: - List any key assumptions made for each estimate (e.g., market growth rates, customer behavior) and acknowledge any limitations in the data retrieved (e.g., incomplete reports, differing data sources). ****6\. Potential data sources**: - Mention any online sources, industry reports, or specific platforms (e.g., Statista, IBISWorld, government databases) used for this search, as well as others that could be relevant for validation. ****Results presentation**: - Present the estimates for TAM, SAM, and SOM with their respective definitions and reasoning. - If the data is insufficient or unclear, specify which additional data or research would be useful. 🧠 Don't blindly trust the numbers AI chatbots provide, but leverage the methodologies and resources they suggest. ## Final thoughts Estimating TAM, SAM, and SOM is often a messy, iterative process. Perfect numbers are elusive, but well-reasoned, data-backed estimates are invaluable. Don't get lost chasing unrealistic perfection. Focus on building a logical case, documenting your assumptions, and using these insights to navigate your path forward. Hopefully, this guide helps you do just that. P.S. I'd like to hear your thoughts! How do you approach market sizing calculations? Top-down, bottom-up? What works for you? What doesn't? --- *This article was originally published on* [*Your Competitive Edge*](https://your-competitive-edge.com/tam-sam-som-market-sizing-guide/)*.* ### Social media competitive intelligence: Tools and tips URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2025-04-24T10:24:13.000Z What’s the role of social media in competitive intelligence? If anyone has ever told you it’s negligible, don’t listen to ‘em. Social media is fertile ground for many a competitive intel pro. It’s simple, accessible, ethical, and *fast*. 💨 In fact, according to the [2024 State of Competitive Intelligence Report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-state-of-ci-report/), social media is the second most popular source of competitive intel, with **9%** of CI pros leaning on it. In this article, we’ll take you through the ins and outs of social media competitive intelligence and how to use it to get *staggering* results. We cover: - [What social media competitive analysis is.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/fbc491b4-7d5a-4ede-9c58-83aa04847b72/#what-is-social-media-competitive-analysis) - [Why and how social media works as an intel source.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/fbc491b4-7d5a-4ede-9c58-83aa04847b72/#why-social-media-competitive-intelligence-works) - [Exactly how to monitor competitors on social media,](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/fbc491b4-7d5a-4ede-9c58-83aa04847b72/#how-to-monitor-your-competitors-on-social-media-in-5-steps) and what to do with that info. - [Social media's advantages over other CI sources.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/fbc491b4-7d5a-4ede-9c58-83aa04847b72/#social-media%E2%80%99s-advantages-over-other-sources-of-intelligence) - [The best tools for keeping track of your competitors’ social media activity.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/#social-media-competitive-intelligence-tools) ## What is social media competitive analysis? Ever analyzed your competitors via social media? If you have, you’ve done a social media competitive analysis. Potentially without even knowing it. 😉 The thing is, social media is an incredibly powerful tool for gathering information on competing businesses. Used properly, you can follow and filter information according to your favorite strategic framework. Or, you can just collect as much intel as possible, and save it for your next formal analysis. ## Why social media competitive intelligence works One of the first steps of any competitive intelligence program is figuring out who the competition actually *are*. “Obvious!” you cry. Well, yes. But social media is *great* for this. It shows you which other vendors are active on the same talking points as you, on the same platforms as you, within the same communities as you. But it’s also a great source of CI for a number of other reasons: 1. It helps you **prioritize your competitors** into tiers. 2. It helps you figure out a competitor’s **social media strategy**. 3. It gives you insights into competitors’ *other,* **overarching strategies** (like messaging). 4. It shows you their favorite **talking points** and most effective conversation starters. 5. It gives you a **built-in means of tracking** the above talking points via *hashtags.* 6. Competitor posts give you a **yardstick of success** for your own social posts. 7. You get a sense of each competitor’s **share of voice** in your industry. As [Alexis Dinac](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexistoddny/), Product Marketing Manager at Labster, notes… > “There are some channels where people are so bluntly honest it's absolutely gold. This is the power of social media. In fact, I don't think competitive intelligence research can be complete without social listening.” [![As Alexis Dinac, Product Marketing Manager at Labster: “There are some channels where people are so bluntly honest it's absolutely gold. This is the power of social media. In fact, I don't think competitive intelligence research can be complete without social listening.”](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeWbBuAaTnmgdLw7N_IewnAjh1kSR05PsjEkg-EUJm6G0jVLf0TDiD6GH2TJ5x6d-hOm1ERmJD-orPsny7jxEhMhzO2rpRLxst6mS0mARbbTtPc6isD_emNg4gkKqEDpqs_fogM?key=WVeJpiJIuU2Wrg0rbNOQz5W1)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) ## How to monitor your competitors on social media in 5 steps ### Step one: Identify the competition Again, obvious. But crucial! Roll your eyes all you want. We know you’ve done this already. But it’s best practice to re-do (or at least reaffirm) your prioritized list of competitors at regular intervals. If you’re starting from scratch and *don’t yet know* who your competition are, you can get started by identifying businesses that sell similar products or services to you. There are a couple of easy ways to get started: **First**, there’s a lot you can get done online. A quick Google search is all you need to watch an afternoon fly by as you learn about the competition. 💡 Not all the names you uncover will be **direct* competitors, though. Indirect competitors (that sell different products to you, but fulfill the same customer need) can also steal your customers if their product is good enough. Watch out for them! [![5 steps to monitor your competitors on social media: 1) Identify the competition 2) Prioritize your competitors by business value 3) Set up alerts to capture mentions 4) Analyze your data 5) Act on your findings](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfVMksqjSfXQ9I6BtqGdnwFXWnlBTdvg8ckPgD3ZYlL8oU8qa72KZqcfqeYVhfuU5jtTpfRZJkZa4hIMvNwm3qOLsIBdvH1FxE9BaPQ0uRToXnnG0TBpBJsZOqBGh3b2ibIHuBBow?key=WVeJpiJIuU2Wrg0rbNOQz5W1)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) ### Step two: Prioritize your competitors by business value So you’ve got a list of competitors. You’ve sense-checked it, refreshed it, or perhaps even built it from scratch. And you might not even have peeked at social media yet. 👁👄👁️ Don’t worry, we’re getting there – but we've got a point to make first. You can only put your eggs in so many baskets. And since competitive intelligence teams tend to be small (but mighty), you want to make sure you’re allocating those finite resources appropriately. #### **Creating a competitor tier list** To assign these resources appropriately, it’s smart to create a **tier list of competitors**. Three tiers is a great number to start with. As your program matures and you gain more resources each year, you can start to enlarge the number of competitors on your list that get your attention. Early on, though, it makes sense to focus only on that *core* set of competitors. The **Tier Ones**. These won’t always be the ones most similar to you. A better bet is to judge them by **revenue potential**. Some competitors will sell very similar products but be so much larger that competing with them is a pie-in-the-sky idea. Instead, focus on the few that you could easily win many more deals from with a shot of focused CI attention in the right place. ### Step three: Set up alerts to capture mentions This isn’t a top-to-bottom guide on competitive intelligence, so this is where we turn our attention *specifically* to social media. However, you should be following the advice below across the rest of the internet too. To start, you need data. Here’s some of the best [data you can get from social media](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/99-ways-social-media-data-can-help-you-deliver-your-best/): - The **topics driving conversation** for your competitors. - **Consumer sentiment** about competitors and competitor developments. - The specifics on **what customers like and dislike** about your competitors, their brands, and their products and services. - The **kinds of content** they publish that perform well or poorly. There’s plenty of the above you’ll be able to incorporate into your own strategies – to improve the success of your own content, for example. The rest is pure competitive intelligence, ready to be analyzed and used to inform your business decisions. The best way to capture all this is to **set up alerts** for keywords, specific competitors, or both. Within social media itself, hashtags and @ mentions are perfect for zeroing in on the key talking points. To make this process entirely passive, you’ll need the help of third-party software. 💡 Unless you’re a programming whiz, that is. If you are, you can script up something in Python (or your favorite scripting language) to do this for you. You can access Twitter’s API via Python’s Tweepy library, then monitor for a user-input set of competitors and talking points. Third-party social media monitoring tools (aka social listening software) will monitor multiple social platforms for mentions of competitors, hashtags, talking points, and more. The best will even report on the level of activity right now around each talking point. This makes the process entirely passive, pushing alerts to you either in real-time or at defined intervals, so you can deal with updates at a set time each day or week. ### Step four: Analyze your data With data coming in, you can begin analyzing! Since the point of *all* competitive analysis is to uncover actionable info that’ll drive business revenue, enable sales, and improve products, that’s what you should be filtering for as you go through your data. Here are some questions to help you move from info to action: - Where are my competitors having success? How can we replicate that success? - How does the market feel about my competitors? Is sentiment positive or negative or mixed? What’s driving those opinions, and how can we use that information to improve opinions of our brand? - Are there any imminent or existing big developments to be aware of? How might they change the market landscape? Are they opportunities or threats? [Farhan Manjiyani](https://www.linkedin.com/in/fmanjiyani/), Sr. Manager, Commercialization and Pricing at Grafana Labs, highlights the importance of user forums and events: > “I’m in a space with 20+ competitors, so to stand out, each one tries to cut through the noise by regularly speaking at industry events or hosting their own marquee events throughout the year. \[...\] > User forums (Reddit, Hacker News, X (FKA Twitter), etc.) will give you a good sense of user reactions to these announcements. What’s real and what’s hype will quickly become clear.” [!["I’m in a space with 20+ competitors, so to stand out, each one tries to cut through the noise by regularly speaking at industry events or hosting their own marquee events throughout the year. [...] User forums (Reddit, Hacker News, X (FKA Twitter), etc.) will give you a good sense of user reactions to these announcements. What’s real and what’s hype will quickly become clear." – Farhan Manjiyani, Sr. Manager, Commercialization and Pricing at Grafana Labs](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd1QMnG7pB8u_TojZLsJBCsPq-WJuwOGP9g4XXXpMTKwEWXfywUIIH6SoErAF36pRQopytESRDUJnVWbFamtUYkWIbZ55dqT2dY0Aw1HpsZJbaW_OMXP4hQUa-IwmQS-QnJfcyDnA?key=WVeJpiJIuU2Wrg0rbNOQz5W1)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) ### Step five: Act on your findings Your analysis should outline for you: 1. The ramifications of your findings for your business. 2. A plan of action in response. ☝️ Your plan of action should, of course, align with the overarching aspirations and aims for your business. #### Pivoting into action With a solid understanding of the data and, by extension, the state of the market, it’s time to put your plan into action. When it comes to moving from analysis to action, a number of pivots can help. If you’ve been using [a **SWOT** analysis framework](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/), you can pivot into a **SOAR**. This takes the Strengths and Opportunities from the SWOT, and adds ‘Aspirations’ and ‘Responses’. This means combining where you’re strong with the market’s opportunities, aligning those with your org’s aspirations (key goals), and using all that info to determine what to do with what you know. [The Four Major Elements of SWOT Analysis You Need to KnowSWOT is a framework for identifying and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of any competitive entity. That goes for organizations, products, and individuals.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/ewan-robertson-4hH8MJBQYYE-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/) Of course, a SOAR inherently biases towards the positive. You’d also want to perform a kind of ‘SOWTAR’, that also looks at your weaknesses and the threats presented by competitors and market conditions. From there, you’d combine all you know with where your org wants to be in six months, 12 months, or three years, and decide how best to make those aspirations happen. The **‘What, So What, Now What’** framework is great for orienting your analysis while you’re doing it, but also for presenting your findings to others in a way that’s super engaging. --- **So – that’s it!** A quick five-step guide to using social media to fast-track your way to a competitive advantage. Whether it’s enabling your sales team with details about weaknesses in a competitor’s feature set, or advising leadership on customer sentiment about your own products, social media can help you take action to improve the state of your business. ## Social media’s advantages over other sources of intelligence So we know social media is super effective as a platform to help you build your competitive advantage, but what are its advantages over other sources of intelligence? ### Faster updates Social media is all about broadcasting what’s happening *right now*. Getting competitive updates through an RSS feed or by browsing to your competitor’s blog is all well and good, but it takes time to curate that content. Most businesses today are spinning up dozens of social media posts a week across various social channels, talking about what they’ve got planned or in development *right now*. To keep up with the other fast movers, they have to. This makes social media a powerful source of up-to-the-minute information and real-time insights. ### Competitor-driven content When you ask the right questions, you can uncover vast depths of data about your competitors. But if there are gaps in your questioning, you’ll miss out on crucial snippets of information. That’s why it pays to gather intel from both angles: 1. Conduct your own research to dive deeper into questions specifically helpful to your business. 2. Set up ‘nets’ or monitoring services to capture and filter all the intel pushed out by your competitors and all the content published *about* them by third parties. Social media is just one source of such ‘open’ intel, and these monitoring ‘nets’ are super powerful. Your findings can inform your research, creating a positive spiral of competitive insights and intel. ### Viral possibility On social media, news spreads quickly. Positive or negative. Since it’s an open conversation, publicly visible to all, chatter around big market updates tends to grow exponentially. This gives you a rapid sense of market sentiment towards competitor developments without having to lift a finger. ## Social media competitive intelligence tools Alright, so you're convinced that social media is a goldmine for competitive intelligence. But how do you go about mining that gold without a pickaxe? That's where social media competitive intelligence tools come in. Let’s explore your options. [![Social media competitive intelligence tools. Dedicated social listening tools: Brandwatch, Meltwater, Mention, and Hootsuite. CI platforms with social listening features: Klue and Crayon. AI and LLMs: ChatGPT, Claude, NotebookLM](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeivzAuJScWhRenfnhXHCmfE8Ia9SG49F3Mq5LE1R__Lp33Ww9-APCPg-LbJFEPdG3rpBR3s0YzavVwMwYY3c5ADQvutMP5E4LxphTwNI8X0EZdxT1wM45EJn2W43kZ5m-2-6CM?key=WVeJpiJIuU2Wrg0rbNOQz5W1)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) ### Dedicated social listening tools #### Brandwatch: The crowd favorite If you're looking for a dedicated social listening tool, Brandwatch is the reigning champ. According to [our 2023 Tools of Choice Report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-report-2023/), a whopping **40%** of respondents who use such tools opt for Brandwatch. Why the love fest? Users can't stop raving about its “robust analytics and reporting, comprehensive features," and “expansive” capabilities. Oh, and did we mention the “great UI” and “ease of use”? Brandwatch claims to deliver everything you need to discover, attract, and engage customers on social media, helping you listen to your consumers and benchmark against your competitors. It's like having a social media whisperer at your fingertips. #### Meltwater: The multimedia maestro Meltwater is another social listening tool that's got its ears to the ground – and not just on traditional social media. This tool monitors data from a wide range of sources, including TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, podcasts, blogs, online news, and consumer review sites. It's like having a backstage pass to the entire internet. And if that wasn't enough, it also offers analytics on all those monitored conversations. Talk about a multimedia maestro! #### Mention: The simple social sidekick If you're after something a little more straightforward, Mention might be your new best friend. This tool is all about simplicity, with Slack integration and the ability to monitor over 1 billion sources across the web daily. #### Hootsuite: The social media manager's dream You might know Hootsuite as a social media management tool, but did you know it also offers activity monitoring? With Hootsuite, you can stay on top of conversations on key topics, track the performance of your posts and brand mentions, and monitor competitor activities. And here's a fun fact: Hootsuite's Insights are powered by none other than Brandwatch. What a dynamic duo of social media intelligence! #### Inoreader: The customizable content aggregator Imagine having a personal news feed that's tailored just for you. That’s just what you get with Inoreader, a customizable RSS reader that's praised for its user-friendliness and ability to aggregate various online content, including social media updates. ### Social listening within competitive intelligence platforms Many competitive intelligence platforms include social listening as part of their package. Platforms like Klue and Crayon offer integrated social media monitoring features, providing a one-stop shop for all your competitive intelligence needs. ### AI and large language models While not exclusively for social media, tools like [ChatGPT](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-chatgpt-for-competitive-intelligence-assistant/), Claude, and Google NotebookLM are great at quickly summarizing and analyzing large volumes of data, which could include social media content. As such, they’re super handy for identifying trends. --- So there you have it – a rundown of the tools of the trade for social media competitive intelligence. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just dipping your toes into the world of CI, these tools can help you stay ahead of the curve and keep an eye on the competition. ## Summing up Social media represents an excellent source of open, ethical competitive intelligence. It’s entirely free, and the largest platforms offer many of their own built-in methods of tracking conversation topics and competitor profiles. On X, for example, it takes just seconds to set up X Pro (formerly known as Tweetdeck) for a feed of competitors’ posts and associated hashtags for talking points. Get email notifications or roundups for those talking points, and you’ve just set up an alert system. For those with little time, small budgets, no experience, or a combination of all three, real-time social intelligence might just be the answer to all your competitive intelligence prayers. --- ## Get Competitive Intelligence Certified Do your team conversations about competitors swing between ignorance and panic? Usually, there’s no middle ground. It’s heads in the sand, or it’s falling skies. If you struggle to respond confidently when asked about the competition, relying on scattered links and incomplete information, then worry no more. Sign up to become [**Competitive Intelligence Certified**](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=resources&utm%5Fcampaign=content) and give your org the advantage. 👩‍🎓 [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/04/CIA_Certified_LinkedIn_Banner.jpg)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=resources&utm%5Fcampaign=content) --- ### Top 5 keyword research tools for successful analysis URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/top-5-keyword-research-tools/ Last updated: 2025-08-28T14:19:57.000Z Effective keyword research is essential for [SEO](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) success, helping you identify high-impact keywords to boost traffic and rankings. The right tools provide insights into search volume, [competition](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/), and [trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-trend-analysis/). Here are five top keyword research tools to elevate your strategy: - **Semrush** - **Ahrefs** - **Moz** - **seoClarity** - **Google Keyword Planner** Let's explore how each tool can enhance your keyword research efforts. ## SEMrush SEMrush is one of the most powerful and versatile keyword research tools available, making it a go-to choice for businesses, [digital marketers](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-analysis-for-digital-marketing/), and SEO professionals. Unlike free keyword research tools and search engine integrations, SEMrush offers in-depth insights that can significantly enhance digital marketing strategies. ### Advantages of SEMrush **Keyword intent analysis** One of the standout features of SEMrush is its ability to distinguish between different types of keyword intent – transactional, informational, and commercial. This is a critical advantage, as understanding keyword intent helps marketers tailor content strategies and optimize campaigns for better conversion rates. Many free tools do not offer this level of granularity, making SEMrush a valuable asset for strategic SEO planning. **Frequent data updates** SEMrush continuously updates and refreshes its data, ensuring that users have access to the most current keyword trends, search volumes, and competition levels. This is essential as outdated data can lead to ineffective SEO decisions. **Seamless integration with Google Search Console and Google Analytics** SEMrush offers easy integration with essential tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics. This allows users to consolidate their data, analyze organic search performance, and make informed decisions based on a comprehensive view of their website’s performance. **Competitive research and market insights** SEMrush excels in competitor research, providing detailed insights into rival websites' keywords, backlinks, and traffic sources. This enables businesses to analyze competitor strategies, identify gaps in their own approach, and refine their marketing efforts accordingly. **Data-driven decision making** With its advanced analytics and reporting features, SEMrush empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions. Companies can use these insights to refine their SEO strategies, enhance their content marketing efforts, and improve their online visibility and growth. ### Disadvantages of SEMrush **High cost and limited accessibility** While SEMrush offers a wealth of features, its pricing structure makes it less accessible for freelancers and individual users. The cost of a subscription can be prohibitively expensive, particularly for those who are just starting in the industry or working on a limited budget. Unlike free tools, SEMrush requires a significant investment, which may not be feasible for everyone. [SEO 2.0: Are you ready for the future of organic search?Learn how to adapt to the future of search by optimizing your site for conversational search, creating content that can’t be replicated, and more.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192--1-.png)Revenue Marketing AllianceJames Shaw![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/RMA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--1-.png)](https://www.revenuemarketingalliance.com/seo-2-0-how-to-adapt-to-the-future-of-search/) ## Ahrefs Ahrefs is widely regarded as one of the most accurate and comprehensive [SEO tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-ai-powered-seo-tools-new-opportunities-for-competitive-tracking/) available. Known for its industry-leading backlink analysis and precise data, Ahrefs provides digital marketers and SEO professionals with deep insights to optimize their strategies. ### Advantages of Ahrefs **Exceptional data accuracy** One of the standout features of Ahrefs is its data accuracy. Unlike some other tools, Ahrefs provides highly reliable search volume estimates, keyword rankings, and backlink data, making it a trusted resource for SEO professionals. **Industry-leading backlink analysis** Ahrefs is best known for its backlink analysis capabilities, offering an extensive database with detailed insights into link profiles. This allows users to analyze their own backlinks and monitor competitors' link-building strategies effectively. **Comprehensive site audit tool** The Site Audit feature in Ahrefs quickly identifies critical SEO issues, helping website owners and marketers detect and fix problems that might be affecting search rankings. It provides actionable recommendations for improving technical SEO and site health. **Advanced keyword research features** Ahrefs’ keyword research tools offer valuable metrics such as Keyword Difficulty and Click Potential. These insights help users determine which keywords are worth targeting based on their likelihood of driving traffic. **Regular updates and cutting-edge features** Ahrefs consistently updates its database and introduces new features, ensuring users always have access to the latest SEO insights and trends, which helps businesses stay ahead. ### Disadvantages to Ahrefs **Complex user interface** While Ahrefs is powerful, its interface can be complex, especially for beginners. Navigating the platform and utilizing all of its features effectively requires time and experience. **High cost and limited accessibility** Similar to SEMrush, Ahrefs comes at a premium price, which may be too expensive for freelancers, small businesses, or individuals on a budget. While it provides excellent value, the cost can be a barrier for those with limited resources. ## Moz Moz is a popular SEO tool known for its intuitive interface and strong customer support. It provides valuable features for tracking keyword rankings, identifying website issues, and integrating with web analytics tools. ### **Advantages of Moz** **Excellent customer support and user-friendly interface** One of the primary reasons behind Moz's popularity is its exceptional customer support and easy-to-use interface. Even for beginners, Moz offers a more accessible learning curve compared to other SEO tools. **Accurate keyword rank tracking** Moz’s keyword rank tracking feature closely aligns with Google’s ranking system, providing reliable insights into website performance in search results. This allows users to monitor keyword trends and make data-driven SEO decisions. **Website issue identification** Moz helps identify technical SEO issues that may affect website performance. By pinpointing these problems, users can optimize their sites for better rankings and user experience. **Seamless integration with web analytics** Moz integrates easily with web analytics tools, making it simple for users to analyze website data. The Chrome extension further enhances this integration by offering quick access to essential SEO insights while browsing. ### **Disadvantages of Moz** **High cost for beginners** On trend with these tools, while Moz provides powerful features, its pricing can be prohibitive for those just starting in SEO. Smaller businesses and freelancers may find it challenging to justify the investment. **Learning curve** While Moz is user-friendly, it still requires some time and effort to learn. However, once users become familiar with the platform, working with Moz becomes much easier. **Complex reporting functionality** The reporting functionality in Moz can be difficult to set up, especially for those who are not well-versed in SEO analytics. Users may need additional time to configure reports effectively. [How to Perform an SEO SWOT AnalysisSWOT is as crucial for SEO as for any other area of your organization. Whether you’re just getting started with SEO or want to take a comprehensive look at past efforts, a SWOT analysis will be an invaluable planning tool.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-61.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceNilesh Parashar![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/merakist-l5if0iQfV4c-unsplash-1.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-perform-seo-swot-analysis/) ## seoClarity seoClarity is an incredibly powerful SEO platform that provides deep insights into SEO performance. With a vast array of features and advanced analytics, it is particularly valuable for enterprises and large-scale digital marketing efforts. ### **Advantages of seoClarity** **Comprehensive data integration** seoClarity allows seamless integration with Google Search Console, providing a consolidated view of URL, keyword, and country-level performance. This centralization is a game-changer for tracking SEO metrics efficiently. **Fast and dynamic dashboard** One of seoClarity’s strengths is its responsive and dynamic dashboard. Users can quickly switch between keyword topics, filter categories, and analyze competitor content gaps with ease. This agility helps in making swift, data-driven SEO decisions. **Up-to-date SERP monitoring** seoClarity stays ahead of search engine ranking page (SERP) developments, ensuring users have the latest insights into algorithm changes, search trends, and ranking fluctuations. ### **Disadvantages of seoClarity** **Steep learning curve** While seoClarity is feature-rich, its complexity can make it challenging to use. The platform’s user interface is not as intuitive as some competitors, requiring prior experience or significant time investment to master. **Overwhelming for new users** Due to its extensive functionalities, it can be difficult to determine how to extract the most value from seoClarity. Many users rely on customer support to navigate the platform, which can impact efficiency and self-sufficiency. ## Google Keyword Planner Google Keyword Planner is primarily designed as a keyword research tool for advertisers. However, it can also be useful for SEO professionals looking to generate keyword ideas and assess search trends. ### **Advantages of Google Keyword Planner** **Free to use** Unlike many premium SEO tools, Google Keyword Planner is free, making it a great option for beginners, freelancers, and small businesses looking for keyword research insights without a financial commitment. **Keyword idea generation** Google Keyword Planner is particularly useful for generating keyword ideas. Users can input seed keywords and get a list of related terms, helping them brainstorm potential SEO opportunities. ### **Disadvantages of Google Keyword Planner** **Limited SEO-specific data** While Google Keyword Planner provides keyword volume and competition metrics, these figures are designed for advertisers bidding on keywords. The competition level reflects paid advertising difficulty rather than organic search competitiveness. **Uncertain organic traffic estimates** Although keyword search volume can indicate potential organic traffic, it is not always an accurate representation. SEO professionals often need to supplement Google Keyword Planner data with other tools to get a more precise understanding of organic search trends. [What should you look for in an SEO competitor rank tracker?Need to choose the right SEO tracking tool? Unlock the essential features that will help you gather intelligence effectively and stay competitive in your market.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-62.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/What-should-you-look-for-in-an-SEO-competitor-rank-tracker-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitor-rank-tracker/) ## Final thoughts Selecting the right keyword research tool depends on various factors, including budget, expertise level, and specific SEO needs. For businesses and professionals seeking advanced features and competitive analysis, **SEMrush,** and **Ahrefs** stand out with their data accuracy, keyword intent classification, and backlink analysis. However, both tools come at a high cost, making them less accessible for individuals and small businesses. **Moz** offers a more user-friendly experience with strong customer support and keyword tracking capabilities, but it requires a learning curve and can be expensive for beginners. **seoClarity** provides powerful SEO insights and quick data analysis but can be overwhelming due to its complexity and reliance on customer support. For those seeking a free option, **Google Keyword Planner** is a great starting point. While it lacks comprehensive SEO-specific data, it is useful for generating keyword ideas and assessing search trends. Ultimately, each tool serves different purposes, and the best choice depends on the user's goals. Businesses with the budget for premium insights may benefit from SEMrush, Ahrefs, or seoClarity, while freelancers and small-scale users might find Moz or Google Keyword Planner more practical. Understanding these strengths and limitations will help marketers and SEO professionals make informed decisions to enhance their strategies and online visibility. ## FAQs #### How many keywords should I use? The typical word count for an article is around 1,500-2,000 words. It’s usually advised that you use one primary keyword for each page, which should be the main keyword you are trying to rank for. You can then use some secondary keywords to make sure you’re covering that topic in full. It’s important to note that you shouldn’t overload your article with relevant keywords because this is called “keyword stuffing” and is considered a bad use of SEO. This is because you’re not writing an article for value, but rather to rank high. Search engines will likely penalize your article if they discover you are doing this. #### How to make a list of SEO keywords ****Step 1: Start with what you know** Imagine you're telling a friend about your business. What words would you use? This is your starting point for keyword research: ****Brainstorm your core keywords** - Write down your brand name - List the main products or services you offer - Include industry-specific terms that describe what you do ****Put yourself in your customer's shoes** Ask yourself: "If I were looking for my business online, what would I type into a search engine?" - Think about the problems your business solves - Write down the questions a potential customer might ask - Consider different ways people might describe your product or service ****Step 2: Expand your keyword list** ****Use keyword research tools** - While your initial brainstorming is valuable, you'll need specialized tools to dig deeper - These tools help you: - - Discover related keywords you might have missed - Understand how often people search for specific terms - Analyze the difficulty of ranking for different keywords ****Step 3: Refine your list** ****Look for keywords that:** - Directly relate to your business - Have a reasonable search volume - Aren't too competitive for your current online presence - Reflect the specific needs of your target customers ****Pro tips** - Don't just focus on single words - use phrases (long-tail keywords) - Think about the intent behind the search - Be specific and descriptive - Consider local keywords if you have a location-based business ****Example** Let's say you run a bakery in Chicago: - Brand keywords: "Sweet Treats Bakery" - Product keywords: "custom birthday cakes", "wedding cupcakes" - Location keywords: "Chicago bakery", "birthday cakes in Chicago" - Customer intent keywords: "best birthday cake near me", "unique wedding desserts" Keyword research is an ongoing process. Start simple, be creative, and continually refine your list as you learn more about your customers and their search habits. ### How can social media listening increase customer advocacy? (with examples) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-can-social-media-listening-increase-customer-advocacy/ Last updated: 2025-05-06T10:12:54.000Z Key stats you should know about social media listening: - Around [61% of businesses use social listening](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/the-state-of-social-listening-in-2022-report/623865/). - [46% of PR professionals](https://determ.com/blog/pr-statistics-2024/) use social listening to collect data. - The [social media listening market is expected to grow](https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/social-media-listening-market) to US$9.61bn in 2025 and US$18.43bn by 2030. ## **What is social listening?** First things first: [social listening](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-listening/) is the process of monitoring social media platforms to track mentions of your brand, competitors, trends, and customer sentiment. **It also allows you to engage with satisfied customers and turn them into ambassadors.** Overall, it’s not just about collecting data, but also about analyzing conversations and getting the insights you need to improve your marketing, customer service, and product development. Considering [96% of unhappy customers](https://www.forbes.com/sites/serenitygibbons/2018/09/20/why-businesses-need-to-see-customer-feedback-as-make-or-break/) won’t complain directly to you but will tell their friends, it’s important you listen. [What is social listening? Your comprehensive guideExplore the intricacies of social listening and how it can help your business. Key definitions, benefits, and real-life examples inside.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-63.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/What-is-social-listening-sharing-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-listening/) ## **How does social listening work?** > *“Listening is one of the most important things a brand can do online. If your brand is just broadcasting its own agenda, it isn’t truly engaging in a conversation.”* – **Jeremy Goldman, Author of** [***Going Social***](https://www.amazon.com/Going-Social-Customers-Generate-Energize/dp/0814432557) Social media listening is a proactive approach that helps you understand your audience better and take action based on real-time insights. Here’s how it works, step-by-step: ### **1\. Monitor conversations** With social listening, you can track mentions of specific keywords, hashtags, brand names, or industry terms across social platforms, blogs, review sites, etc. For example, a coffee shop tracks mentions of “best iced coffee in NYC” to understand consumer preferences and trends. ### **2\. Collect and aggregate data** Using tools like Sprout Social, Brandwatch, and Hootsuite, you can gather relevant posts, comments, and discussions in a single dashboard, allowing you to better analyze the information. These types of tools usually compile more than just brand mentions; for instance, you can also get customer feedback and competitor insights. For instance, if you find that “fast delivery” is a common topic in your competitors' reviews, you can gain an edge over them by addressing this gap. ### **3\. Sentiment analysis** When you use AI-driven sentiment analysis, the mentions are classified as positive, negative, or neutral, allowing you to see how people perceive you. With this information, you can curb problems before they have a chance to worsen – and identify customers who could become advocates for your brand. ### **4\. Spot trends** You can also highlight trends, recurring pain points, and frequently asked questions. This helps you to create content, tweak your product development, or refine your customer experience. For example, if you’re a fashion company, you might find a lot of discussions about “sustainable clothing” and decide, based on your insights, to launch an eco-friendly line. ### **5\. Engage and take action** Once all this is done, make sure you also engage with customers directly – respond to praise, complaints, and inquiries on time. In addition, these insights allow you to adjust your marketing campaigns. ## **What is customer advocacy?** When customers are satisfied with your product or service, they might actively promote and support your brand. These customers go beyond purchasing – they recommend the brand to their friends and family (or followers), defend it in conversations, and generate word-of-mouth. ## **How can social media listening increase customer advocacy?** Social listening can greatly boost customer advocacy by allowing you to engage with consumers in meaningful ways. ### **You can better identify brand advocates** Who’s consistently engaging with your content or mentioning you in positive ways? By identifying these people, you can create a community for your best supporters, offer exclusive perks, and engage with customers through comments and DMs – all of this reinforces advocacy. **CoverGirl** To revamp the brand, CoverGirl changed its focus from traditional advertising to partnering with thousands of social media influencers. By monitoring online beauty conversations, the brand [identified influencers](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/covergirl-makes-big-bet-on-influencers-to-revive-brand-built-with-supermodels/ar-AA1uer60?apiversion=v2&noservercache=1&domshim=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1&batchservertelemetry=1&noservertelemetry=1) like Sarahi Gonzalez and Lexie Learmann, who resonate with CoverGirl’s target audience. This strategy led to increased brand visibility and engagement among younger consumers. > [ View this post on Instagram ](https://www.instagram.com/p/C6juXRRvABO/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) > > [A post shared by Karen Sarahi Gonzalez (@iluvsarahii)](https://www.instagram.com/p/C6juXRRvABO/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fembed&utm%5Fcampaign=loading) ### **Engage in real-time convos** Responding promptly to people shows them that you’re listening and that their voice matters. For example, as a coffee shop, you might see mentions of people wanting a seasonal coffee flavour; you reply to them and might even tease an upcoming release. This makes your customers feel valued and heard. **Crumbl Cookies** This brand [actively engages with their followers on social media](https://www.flyhighmedia.co.uk/blog/crumbl-cookies-social-media-strategy/), mainly replying to comments, joining conversations, and answering customer feedback. They’re active on Instagram and TikTok and their tactic of having different cookie flavors every week lends itself to virality, since people go try them out and share their opinions with their own followers. By monitoring user-generated content and reviews, they participate in real-time conversations, a strategy they used from the start to rapidly expand to over 1,000 locations. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf9NMtfztRkqsU4uqTyZHkNfK1y49DVPlZjYFtgjTpbbdJvSQf9rtvRgD6_rogv0dpp4bQH1BWcoMz36g0h-6rqCuvZa1QNB6lWi682EllLfWgFBATLXIKw8ndSo5ZdDlgSXrhw7Q?key=7Vlo_2zxhvMxdMtpBMtelPN0) Source: [TikTok](https://www.tiktok.com/@letieats/video/7361943155022810410?is%5Ffrom%5Fwebapp=1&sender%5Fdevice=pc&web%5Fid=7379965392901899808) ### **Leverage positive mentions** Because your customers can be your best marketers, ensure you repost their content to strengthen the connection they have with your brand. So, why not: - Amplify user-generated content by resharing testimonials, posts, and reviews. - Feature customers in your campaigns. - Encourage word-of-mouth marketing by celebrating people’s loyalty. **McDonald’s** In 2023, McDonald's launched a campaign celebrating their mascot Grimace's 52nd birthday, which introduced a special "Grimace Shake." The campaign quickly went viral on TikTok ([reaching 2.5 billion views](https://www.today.com/food/trends/mcdonalds-head-of-social-media-on-grimace-shake-trend-rcna94159)), and users began creating funny content around the shake. McDonald's used this positive buzz by engaging with the trend, sharing user-generated content, and acknowledging the trend on their official channels, which increased the campaign's reach and success. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-14-at-15.11.46.png) Source: [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/CuAO4j6JYM7/) **Clean Origin** [Clean Origin](https://www.cleanorigin.com/), which specializes in lab-grown diamond engagement rings, uses social listening to engage with its audience and boost its brand presence. This allows them to gain valuable insights into what their customers want, as well as industry trends. And, of course, they also leverage user-generated content, like the post below, where the company retweets a user’s post about them. > "I have a lab-grown engagement ring, and I don't understand why you'd buy any other kind of diamond" > > We don't either! Thanks [@thisisinsider](https://twitter.com/thisisinsider?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw) we love this article! > > — Clean Origin (@CleanOrigin) [June 21, 2023](https://twitter.com/CleanOrigin/status/1671578870951346177?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw) ### **Address pain points** And do it quickly. Complaints can escalate fast but, with social listening, you can spot negative feedback early before it spreads, address issues in real-time (reducing your customers’ frustrations), and turn a negative experience into a positive one. **HelloFresh** > *“At HelloFresh, data is at the center of everything we do. It was only natural for us to turn to social listening to improve the performance and efficiency of our marketing and communications teams." – Jordan Schultz, Social Media Manager at HelloFresh* [HelloFresh uses social listening](https://www.talkwalker.com/case-studies/hellofresh-social-listening-ingredient) to keep track of their competitors and industry trends, get real-time alerts for mentions from influencers, and more. They also use tools like Chattermill to analyze customer feedback from various channels. This enables HelloFresh to pinpoint issues related to packaging, delivery, and ingredient quality. The result? The company [identified 400% more monthly mentions](https://www.andnowuknow.com/headlines/hellofresh-credits-meal-kit-success-social-media-strategy/melissa-de-leon/62023) on social media, which they used to improve their service and offerings. ### **Personalize customer experiences** People engage more with brands who understand what they want. Social listening helps you to track individual preferences based on engagement history, tailor responses with personalized recommendations, and segment audiences to offer more relevant content. **Ulta Beauty** Kelly Mahoney, the brand’s CMO, said that Ulta Beauty has used AI since 2018 to [tailor its marketing based on the way people shop](https://www.axios.com/2025/03/12/axios-event-technology-retail-personalization). > *"Beauty is so dynamic and beauty is very, very personal. So we were really forced early to think about how to personalize the experience because everybody's beauty experience is just so no one-size-fits-all."* These AI-driven social listening tools can analyze what customers are saying about beauty trends, specific products, and their shopping preferences. And, by understanding these conversations, Ulta can refine its marketing and customer engagement strategies. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfppaGxj4AqwjNlj44gYf_bCMJOt_e7gcePucvLXCmpEv833lOQjpki5oxWKAivYPRmjVlgla88Dsc49knz30iPZG9FitrmVahpLNdjbVLYXGv0jJQAiUFJd0ePRhpXeYyZR2XARQ?key=7Vlo_2zxhvMxdMtpBMtelPN0) Source: [Ulta Beauty](https://www.ulta.com/) ### **Spot trends and opportunities** By monitoring conversations about relevant topics, you can: - Identify emerging needs before competitors do. - Create timely content that resonates with your audience. - Develop new products and services based on consumer needs. **Miu Miu** Italian fashion brand Miu Miu [monitors social media to identify and set trends](https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2025/mar/08/worlds-hottest-brand-how-miu-miu-defied-sales-plunge-in-fashion-industry), including their viral micro mini skirt and satin ballet pumps. This led to significant sales growth despite many other luxury brands seeing their sales fall. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfAOrSK43NmgW_VnR6z1r4MaRY5_3fOSsRsBhz2Pr19iNykFwQsQL4C6vdmrqCzkTVOo2F6bT8_zcoEtksyMN-HciCVXiWsAbvxMkFkDPJ3ojR2Jw5ke40AZwRTImRJb1ElyzYM9g?key=7Vlo_2zxhvMxdMtpBMtelPN0) Source: [Miu Miu](https://www.miumiu.com/gb/en.html) ### **Encourage community engagement** You can also use social listening to create campaigns that encourage participation (e.g., interactive marketing), foster discussion around shared values, and reward engagement with recognition or incentives. For example, if you sold running shoes and noticed many customers discussing marathon training, you launch a hashtag challenge that encourages runners to share progress using your gear – this could help participants to feel connected to your brand and help promote it. **LTK** [LTK revolutionized online shopping](https://time.com/7177482/amber-venz-box-ltk-interview/) by connecting influencers with brands, allowing consumers to purchase products directly through social media posts. By understanding consumer preferences and leveraging influencer credibility, LTK created a community-driven shopping platform with millions of users monthly (and they have 4.4 million followers just on Instagram). ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdZH8JmMMmQkdy0F9yxAQbkGnDZ8qaCs-3tIZ25Jv3cmgC14pxD_CJybuQ3HaNELL8e_TfhmfZXcs_gH4_PuuWXs0orTeSYUMn0YCADPeixdnNAoiWih1lIlo-jhMpxQOqJoo_H?key=7Vlo_2zxhvMxdMtpBMtelPN0) Source: [LTK](https://www.shopltk.com/) ## **In short** Social media listening goes beyond monitoring, as it’s about crafting relationships, responding to your customers, and proactively building loyalty. If you listen, engage, and act, your customers become more than just buyers: they become advocates who proudly champion your brand. --- *Take our* [*Win/Loss Analysis survey*](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/state-of-win-loss-survey-2025/) *and we'll build a report that'll tell you how your peers are doing win/loss, as well as strategizing and solving challenges.* [State of Win/Loss Analysis 2025 surveyGot a minute? We need your take.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-512x512-1-1.png)Product Marketing AllianceProduct Marketing Alliance![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/Metrics-and-reporting_A-PMM-s-best-friend--2-.png)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/state-of-win-loss-survey-2025/) ### What is local search marketing? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-local-search-marketing/ Last updated: 2025-02-27T15:57:27.000Z When you’re looking for a coffee shop, a plumber, or a pizza place near you, what do you do? You probably Google it, right? Local search marketing is all about helping businesses show up when people search for things nearby. It’s how a business makes sure that when someone searches for "best tacos near me" or "plumber in \[your city\]," their business pops up in the search results, especially on Google Maps. To do this, businesses use things like: - **Google Business Profile** (so they show up in Google Maps) - **Local SEO** (using keywords like "dentist in Chicago") - **Customer reviews** (because more good reviews = more trust) - **Local listings** (getting listed on Yelp, Facebook, etc.) It’s basically digital word-of-mouth that helps people find local businesses **fast**. ## Benefits of local SEO and local search marketing Local search marketing and local [SEO](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) offer **huge benefits** for businesses that want to attract nearby customers. Here’s why they’re so important: ### More visibility and traffic As mentioned above, when people search for services like “coffee shop near me” or “best contractor in \[city\],” local SEO helps businesses show up in search results, particularly with maps. The higher a business ranks, the more clicks and visits it gets, leading to increased visibility and traffic. ### Attracts ready-to-buy customers One of the biggest advantages of local SEO is that it connects businesses with **ready-to-buy customers**. Unlike general web searches, local searches often come from people who are already looking for a specific service or product nearby. This means they are more likely to take action, whether it’s calling a business, visiting in person, or making a purchase. ### Builds trust and credibility Local search marketing also helps build [**trust**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/boosting-win-rates-building-trust/) **and credibility**. Appearing in Google’s local pack (the top three results on Google Maps) makes a business look more established. Also, having positive [customer reviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/unlocking-the-power-of-customer-reviews-for-a-magnetic-brand/) boosts reputation and influences potential customers to choose one business over another. ### Cost-effective marketing Another major benefit is that **local SEO is cost-effective** compared to traditional advertising. While paid ads can bring in traffic, they require constant spending. In contrast, once a business ranks well locally, it continues to attract customers **without ongoing ad costs**. This makes local SEO a smart investment for long-term growth. ### Competes with bigger brands For small businesses, **local search marketing levels the playing field** against larger competitors. Unlike national brands that dominate broad search terms, small businesses can outrank big companies locally by focusing on city- or neighborhood-specific keywords. This allows them to capture a loyal customer base within their community. ### Mobile and voice search friendly With the rise of mobile and voice search, local SEO is more important than ever. Many people use their phones or smart assistants to find businesses near them. Optimizing for local search ensures that businesses show up in **mobile-friendly search results**, making it easier for customers to find and visit them. ### Boosts foot traffic and sales Speaking of visits, **local SEO directly increases foot traffic and sales**. If a business has a physical location, appearing in Google Maps and local searches means more people walking through the door. More visitors often translate into higher sales and [revenue](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ways-to-increase-revenue-marketing-automation/). ### Helps you stand out Finally, **local SEO helps businesses stand out** from the [competition](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/direct-competition-examples/). Many small businesses don’t take full advantage of it, so those that do gain a huge advantage. By optimizing their Google Business Profile, collecting reviews, and focusing on local keywords, businesses can secure top spots in search results and attract more customers. ## Local SEO checklist ### 1\. Optimize your Google Business Profile (GBP) ✅ **Claim and verify** your **Google Business Profile** (if you haven’t yet) ✅ Make sure your **business name, address, and phone number (NAP)** are accurate ✅ **Select the right categories** (primary and secondary) ✅ Add a detailed **business description** (include relevant keywords naturally) ✅ Upload **high-quality photos and videos** (inside, outside, team, products, services) ✅ **Enable messaging** so customers can contact you easily ✅ Set your **business hours** and update them for holidays or special events ✅ Add links to your **website, appointments, or menu** (if applicable) ✅ **Post regular updates, promotions, or events** on your profile ### 2\. Ensure NAP consistency and local listings ✅ List your business on top **directories** (Yelp, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Facebook, etc.) ✅ Keep your **name, address, phone information consistent** across all platforms ✅ Use **a local phone number** instead of a toll-free one ✅ Get listed in **industry-specific directories** (TripAdvisor for restaurants, Houzz for contractors, etc.) ✅ Remove duplicate or incorrect listings ### 3\. Optimize your website for local SEO ✅ Add your **business name, address, and phone number on every page** (footer or contact page) ✅ Create a **dedicated contact page** with a Google Map embedded ✅ Use **location-based keywords** (e.g., “best plumber in Dallas”) in: - Page titles and meta descriptions - Headings (H1, H2, etc.) - Website content - Image alt text ✅ Improve **site speed and mobile-friendliness** (most local searches are on mobile) ✅ Add **schema markup** (LocalBusiness structured data) for better search results ### 4\. Get more online reviews ✅ Ask happy customers for **Google reviews** (via email, SMS, receipts, etc.) ✅ Respond to **all reviews** (good and bad) professionally ✅ Encourage reviews on **other platforms** (Yelp, Facebook, industry sites) ✅ Avoid fake reviews or review gating (Google penalizes this) ### 5\. Create localized content ✅ Write **blog posts about local events, news, or industry updates** ✅ Publish **local case studies or customer success stories** ✅ Create **location-specific landing pages** (if you serve multiple areas) ✅ Answer **common local questions** in FAQs ### 6\. Build local backlinks ✅ Get **featured on local news sites, blogs, and business directories** ✅ Partner with **local** [**influencers**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/product-marketing-leader-influence/) **or businesses** for cross-promotion ✅ Sponsor **local events or charities** to earn backlinks ✅ Submit guest posts to **local websites or industry blogs** ### 7\. Use social media for local engagement ✅ Share **business updates, promotions, and local news** ✅ Engage with **local customers and businesses** in comments and messages ✅ Use **location-based hashtags** on Instagram and Twitter (#DallasEats, #NYCPlumber) ✅ Enable **check-ins** on Facebook and encourage customers to tag your business ### 8\. Optimize for voice search ✅ Write content in a **conversational, question-based format** (e.g., "Where’s the best coffee shop near me?") ✅ Focus on **long-tail keywords** (e.g., "affordable emergency plumber in Chicago") ✅ Ensure your **Google Business Profile is up to date** (most voice searches pull from GBP) ### 9\. Track and measure performance ✅ Monitor **Google Business Profile insights** (views, clicks, calls, direction requests) ✅ Use **Google Search Console and Google Analytics** to track website traffic ✅ Check **rankings for local keywords** with tools like Semrush or Ahrefs ✅ Regularly update your local SEO strategy based on **performance data** ## Final thoughts In short, **local search marketing is one of the best ways to grow a business** without spending a fortune on advertising. It increases visibility, attracts high-intent customers, builds credibility, and ultimately **drives more traffic and sales**. Any business with a local presence should invest in local SEO to **stay competitive and succeed.** ### How to do an SEO competitive analysis (7-step guide) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/ Last updated: 2025-08-28T14:20:56.000Z Search engine optimization (SEO) isn't just for your [content](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/my-leap-from-content-to-product-marketing-lessons-learned-along-the-way/) team. Research into your competitors’ content strategies can, and should, be a mainstay of your [competitive research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/) process. That’s where an SEO competitive analysis comes in; it reveals the gaps in your SEO strategy so you can adjust and overtake the leaders in your space – with both your content *and* your products. And in this article, we’re going to show you how to do it. This **7-step guide** won’t just cover how to figure out which keywords your competitors are going after; we’ll also suggest ways you can use this information to learn about their overall [marketing strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-marketing-plan/) – and improve yours accordingly. So, sit back, strap in, and get ready to overtake your competitors in Search. 🚀 ## **What is an SEO strategy?** First, let’s break down how an SEO strategy works. Imagine your kitchen faucet just won’t stop dripping. Who are you going to turn to for help? Why, your old friend Google, of course! If, in the list of search results, you see the name of your favorite hardware store, you’ll likely hit that link. While you might initially search “how to fix a leaky faucet”, you’ll almost certainly follow that search up with others. If the website can answer every query you have, you’ll trust it even more, *and* you’ll trust its product recommendations more too. In the end, you might buy more than just a new cartridge to stop your faucet from leaking – and the more you buy, the more profit the store makes. !["How to fix a leaky faucet" Google search](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfhjv9BED2EHD-kVpB__IqIG1H8qW2ndocqAFMVjxfpMFGhYBJ_RAsjMxl2nn5Qb8WRJxqFUIT_V-EHWcGa7dPK8umtcaY4BNoUMKtjMH7Jqqw9T_QF7P-Is5fpmxgu1VZxRuWwiA?key=mj5qOBBAGAX6R1WrbYo4BiDM) It works the same in any industry. Businesses identify topic clusters around which to create content. These topics are hyper-relevant to the business, and to the pain points they’re trying to solve for their customers. In short, a strong SEO strategy helps you to rank higher, drives more traffic to your site, builds your authority, and converts visitors into customers. It’s a long-term investment so you shouldn’t rely on it for short-term gains. ## **Competitive organic results** Competitive organic results are the search engine rankings where multiple businesses compete for the top ranking positions on search engines – a.k.a., compete for visibility without paying for ads. The results are determined by algorithms that take into account relevance, quality, and authority. There are many factors that influence competitive organic rankings, such as keyword optimization, the quality of your content, your [backlinks](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-backlink-analysis/), the user experience of people visiting your site, and technical SEO (e.g., schema markup). ## **What is SEO data?** But what type of data can you use to measure and optimize your site’s performance? SEO data allows you to understand where your traffic is coming from, how visible you are in search engines, and the areas you can improve on. For instance: - **Keyword volume**: This tells you how many times a keyword is searched monthly. - **Keyword difficulty**: How hard is it to rank for a keyword? - **Click-through rate**: The percentage of people who click on your search result. - **Sessions and pageviews**: The quantity of people who visit and view pages on your site. - **Bounce rate**: The percentage of people who leave after viewing one page. - **Time on page**: How long people stay on a page. - **Page speed**: How fast a page loads. - **Mobile-friendliness**: How well does your site perform on mobile devices? - **Indexability**: Whether search engines can crawl and index your pages. - **Competitor rankings**: Keywords your competitors are ranking for. - **Link profile comparison**: The quality and quantity of your competitors’ backlinks. This is just some of the SEO data you can obtain, and which can make your site better and optimized for search engines – it can also guide technical fixes to improve the health and performance of your overall site. And, of course, it’ll give you information about your competitors – what strategies are they using? How is their content performing? ## **How to identify keyword opportunities** But how do businesses know which search terms to target? Well, typically content writers do research to find out which keywords their target audience is searching for, and they answer those queries with content to: - Build trust, - Frame themselves as an authority, - And ultimately sell more products. Now, the SEO strategy we’ve just outlined is not only one you should be using for your business – it’s one you can use against your competitors too. If you can figure out which keywords your competitors are targeting, you can learn more about the topics that are important to them and their customers. For example, if a competitor has five times as many pages on DIY plumbing jobs as it does on installing shelves, the plumbing content probably brings the business more leads and makes it more money. You can use intel like this to fill gaps in your own content strategy and start to capture more leads and more business. ## **Why is an SEO competitive analysis important?** Okay, but what exactly are the benefits of an SEO competitive analysis? Overall, this helps you see where you stand in your industry, your position in search rankings compared to competitors, and where you can grow. ### **Spot keyword opportunities** Doing a competitive analysis can help you uncover the high-performing keywords that your competitors are ranking for, as well as show gaps where your site can improve. ### **Improve on-page optimization** With an SEO competitive analysis, you can also compare metadata, headings, and internal linking strategies, helping you optimize your pages to increase visibility, traffic, etc. ### **Uncover gaps in your SEO** Improving the [customer experience](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/) by improving your site’s performance is crucial, so doing an analysis allows you to spot issues like slow page speed, broken links, and errors. ### **Get an edge** Another thing to consider is that doing an SEO competitive analysis can help you identify SEO topics that are currently emerging or trending in your industry – this means you might be able to adapt your strategies before your competitors do the same. ### **Understand content strategies that work** By analyzing the content your competitors produce, from [blogs to landing pages](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/role-of-ai/), you can see what resonates with audiences, what ranks well, and where you can differentiate yourself. ### **Improve your backlink strategy** Backlinks are a major ranking factor, so looking at where your competitors are getting backlinks from can help you post potential opportunities. ### **Optimize for search intent** There are many different types of content, such as informational and transactional, and understanding what ranks well for target keywords allows you to create a strategy that aligns with what people are searching for. ## **How to perform a competitor SEO analysis** We’ll use[ SEMrush](https://www.semrush.com/) to demonstrate, but there’s a wealth of free and paid tools you can use to do this, including[ Ahrefs WebMasterTools](https://ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools),[ SpyFu](https://www.spyfu.com/), and[ AnswerThePublic](https://answerthepublic.com/). At the simplest level, you can even just manually check out your competitors’ online content. **A couple of quick tips before we get started:** 1. Pay attention to the website’s folder structure for clues into how content is organized into topics. 2. Many sites also have tag pages or category pages that you can use to learn more about the highest-level subjects your competitors are interested in. Here's the process: 1. List your main competitors 2. Identify keyword gaps 3. Filter out irrelevant keywords 4. Map keywords to pages 5. Assess your competitors' efforts 6. Analyze their backlinks profiles 7. Review technical and on-page SEO ### **Step one: List your main competitors** The first step is to create a list of the main competitors that you want to analyze. Choose companies that operate in the same space and market as you, then zoom in on the ones that represent the biggest threat to your business. ### **Step two: Identify keyword gaps** Once you have a list of your main competitors, run it through an [SEO tool](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-ai-powered-seo-tools-new-opportunities-for-competitive-tracking/) like SEMrush to find keyword gaps – keywords that your competitors rank well for, but you do not. In SEMrush, you can use the Keyword Gap tool to compare the keywords your website ranks for against one or more competitors. You can filter to show just the keywords competitors rank for that you're missing out on. Let’s say you’re Home Depot. You might enter Lowe’s domain as well as your own for a side-by-side comparison. From there, you can select the keywords that Lowe’s is ranking for that you’re missing. You can also filter for keywords you rank for in common, or those you rank for that your competitor doesn’t. These might indicate that your strategy needs reworking, or perhaps you’ve identified a niche your competitors have missed. ![Keyword gap analysis in SEMrush: homedepet.com vs. lowes.com](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe5VQE_dLNzmoPqzWO_8GdXbpLKl727yiiAo41Lw16X5RfsSJfMjgwbRexBIZjmiZlJynqOvfjzh2HCRzVXyvUsaHQ3tsxtIEI0U8b97IJidfgGz4CaLSYXQZlYHpA5ni0itlP3KQ?key=mj5qOBBAGAX6R1WrbYo4BiDM) ### **Step three: Filter out irrelevant keywords** The initial keyword gap results may include some irrelevant or low-value keywords. To refine the list, filter by search intent and crank up the keyword difficulty threshold; that way, you’ll remove outliers and surface the most relevant, high-value keyword opportunities you’re missing out on. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXea6qt8syp7W8VAZ5Yc6tpvzGC5N_eDfSlJ7ditI7xZNjfHOZp494VS22cCFnmLKcNieZlH4gVK-P8tb6uFgAVRZ02y29LmlBXBJu9Ko2kjmXJ17aD0sjGWOKuRSaDYR3httEkfNA?key=mj5qOBBAGAX6R1WrbYo4BiDM) ### **Step four: Map keywords to pages** Now you have a refined list of keywords, you can start mapping them to specific pages on your competitors' websites. This will reveal which content areas they’re focusing their SEO efforts on. ### **Step five: Assess your competitors’ effort** Don't just look at what keywords your competitors are ranking for, but how much *effort* they’re putting into those pages. Are they producing high-quality, in-depth content? Or are they managing to rank despite putting in zero effort? If they’re pouring their energies into ranking for a certain topic, that’s clearly a priority area for them. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfg9Mq-EeBBX3K9_MRUDkDEoGhtG8ws4Jd_Bmsxfug7JEopuF4XF8Lb7adGcQ89fNiX5ahlpWmgvHWowcr9hBes97-jPBWrblpNkh_5N8ePc7GqW5FiyroOkxswiW85AB_WW4kmuQ?key=mj5qOBBAGAX6R1WrbYo4BiDM) *Here, Lowe's has gone to the effort of incorporating a Table of Contents, accompanying images for each step of the progress, and collapsible sections for easier navigation. All of these aspects point to the effort they've invested in creating the content for this page.* ### **Step six: Analyze their backlink profile** There’s more to SEO than just keywords;[ looking at your competitors' backlink profiles](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-backlink-analysis/) is a great way to get to grips with their off-page SEO strategies. Use a tool like SEMrush's Backlink Analytics to analyze things like: - The authority level of the websites linking to them. - Whether they’re getting links from niche-relevant or brand-relevant websites. - The types of pages (e.g. blog posts, directories, news sites) that link to them. ![Backlink analysis in SEMrush](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc5rn6OLh_PF9uKbVTykPC2L2d7uwZX7w7lsajct60gSJBcf_IMZbJsZgjGzLu4HqSpZGHfxNbl5fKFq9zzy7anOsfZWRsBnptNxnw5qSVKC_1b1wZKamMKQ7OSvQvFJHbobQTDKA?key=mj5qOBBAGAX6R1WrbYo4BiDM) Does it look like your competitor has spent time and money trying to get backlinks from particular websites, or particular types of websites? The law of effort applies here too, so if the answer is ‘yes’, you’ve learned something useful. If a competitor values votes of confidence from websites in a particular niche, ask yourself if it could help your own strategy to target similar brands and websites. ### **Step seven: Review technical and on-page SEO** It’s also worthwhile to analyze the on-page elements of your competitors’ sites. On-page SEO work, like optimizing headers and metadata, isn’t that time-consuming, but it tells you how your competitor wants people to see the page. Page-speed metrics, too, can tell you a lot about the pages your competitor is prioritizing. While it might not be surprising to see landing pages for key products being optimized for speed, when content pages answering informational queries are speed-optimized, it’s worth paying attention. These pages are probably worth something to the business and might be generating valuable leads. If this sounds like a lot of work, don’t worry – testing competitors’ web pages for speed couldn’t be simpler. Just drop the relevant URL into Google's tool at[ pagespeed.web.dev](https://pagespeed.web.dev/). ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeCe5Posee7fipDE5LnJSSJmm0WrVG-RchI2kEIcQg5jHKkNKFBe9EBbSEJc6q7xZv7vgudDI7Wq_3v9BeboZYKkviFO2Nu_bOy_Dm3Qx8HlLQZs9Gyh0ifRYNv8EPOpRASbsr_?key=mj5qOBBAGAX6R1WrbYo4BiDM) *It's rare for even well-optimized pages to pass the Mobile Core Web Vitals assessment. Pages that do should stand out, but relative performance is important, too.* ## **Summing up** By following the seven steps above, you'll gain a well-rounded understanding of your competitors' SEO strategies from both an on-page and off-page perspective. This data can then inform your own SEO priorities and content strategy. You can always dive deeper down the rabbit hole, examining your[ competitors’ presence on social media](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/), checking out online reviews, and looking at paid keyword data in Google Adwords. Combine that information with what you’ve found from your SEO competitor analysis to learn even more about your competitors’ overall marketing strategies. Finally, make sure you consider what your findings mean for your own marketing strategy. Don’t just blindly copy what your competitors are doing – instead, use what you’ve learned to identify weaknesses in your strategy and fill gaps in your existing content. This will help you create a marketing plan that’s tailored to your business objectives. --- *Have you downloaded your free copy of our* [*State of Competitive Intelligence Report*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-state-of-ci-report/)*?* *This is your essential guide to the trends, challenges, and evolving strategies shaping competitive intelligence (CI) today.* [The State of Competitive Intelligence ReportDownload our annual deep-dive into the trends, challenges, and evolving strategies shaping competitive intelligence (CI) today.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-60.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCecilia Toro![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_State_of_CI_Meta_-4.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-state-of-ci-report/) ### AI in product marketing & competitive intelligence: What you need to know URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-product-marketing-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2025-02-21T10:26:14.000Z *This article is based on* [*Edward Allison’s insightful talk*](https://productmarketing.wistia.com/medias/x9hoj201ss) *at the Competitive Intelligence Summit.* --- Competitive intelligence has evolved over time. I’ve noticed something that’s reshaping the way we approach competitive sales, strategy, and intelligence: the convergence of [artificial intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-at-work/) (AI), [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) (CI), and [product marketing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/my-leap-from-content-to-product-marketing-lessons-learned-along-the-way/) (PM). These roles, technologies, and industry trends are colliding, and the impact on businesses is undeniable. So, in this article, we’re going to explore: - The intersection of AI, CI, and PM, starting with why this shift is happening and what it means for the future, - The evolving roles of CI practitioners and product marketers, where they overlap, and how we can drive efficiency, - And what AI actually is (and isn’t) and showcase some real-world tools that can make these roles more effective. Let’s dive in. ## **Why competitive intelligence is more critical than ever** I’ve spent 20 years leading competitive intelligence programs at major tech companies like Cisco, Juniper, Polycom, and Symbol Technologies. And, over the last two decades, I’ve come to learn that one thing is clear: the world isn’t getting any less competitive. Companies are facing more pressure than ever to differentiate, and yet, many don’t have a dedicated CI team. Instead, the responsibility for [tracking competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitor-rank-tracker/), gathering insights, and supporting sales often falls onto product marketers, who already have a full-time job. It’s an overwhelming situation. CI, PM, and AI are in the early stages of convergence, and while new tools are emerging in all three areas, most professionals still don’t have the resources or bandwidth to keep up. [11 Competitive Intelligence Examples to Stay Ahead of RivalsYour competitors are trying to eke out a competitive advantage. So how do you create your own? That starts with competitive intelligence. Here are 11 types to get you started.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-55.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/11-types-of-competitive-intelligence-3-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/) ## **How competitive pressure affects every level of an organization** If you’ve worked in a sales or marketing role, you’ve probably felt the frustration that comes with not having the right competitive insights at the right time. Let’s walk through the organization and see if any of this resonates with you. - At the sales level, an **account manager** is either winning or losing deals. When they lose, it hurts—not just financially, but emotionally. Without the right competitive intel, they’re left feeling like leadership doesn’t understand what’s happening in the field. That lack of visibility can lower morale and directly impact results. - Move up a level, and you’ve got **sales managers** trying to deploy resources efficiently. Their job is to train their teams, drive strategy, and hit their number. But without a clear understanding of why they’re [winning or losing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-ratio-what-it-is-and-how-to-calculate-it/) deals, they’re left guessing. Post-deal reviews rarely happen, and frustration grows because no one has the bigger picture. - Now, let’s talk about the product team—**product managers** and **product marketers**. If you’ve ever been in one of these roles, you know the feeling: overwhelmed. There are too many markets to track, the competition is shifting too fast, and keeping up manually is impossible. Without automation, you’re stuck playing defense, reacting instead of planning ahead. - And finally, let’s go all the way up to the [**C-suite**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/). You might think they’re immune to these pressures, but they’re not. Executives want to focus on strategy, but too often, they’re pulled into the tactical—putting out fires, dealing with competitive losses, and trying to help sales teams win deals. It’s a vicious cycle, and the frustration trickles down through the entire organization. ## **The reality: No one is wearing just one hat anymore** Employees are being asked to do more than ever before. Product marketers are doing CI. CI professionals are stretched thin. Sales teams are building their own presentations and [battle cards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/). Wearing a single hat isn’t a reality anymore. We’re all multitasking across disciplines, and if we don’t get more efficient at managing these responsibilities, we’ll burn out. That’s why we need to take a closer look at the roles of product marketing and competitive intelligence—not just what they traditionally do, but how they overlap. So, we know product marketers aren’t just responsible for positioning, messaging, and sales enablement—they’re being pulled into competitive intelligence work as well. CI professionals, on the other hand, aren’t just gathering data and building reports—they’re being asked to provide strategic insights that shape sales, product roadmaps, and executive decision-making. But the biggest challenge? Competitive intelligence operates at an entirely different scale than product marketing. If a product marketer is focused on three or four products, a CI professional is likely tracking 10+ competitors, each with multiple product lines, all of which are constantly evolving. That’s an impossible volume of information to manage manually, and it leads to generic, outdated insights that don’t help anyone. I see it all the time. Companies produce battle cards, SWOT analyses, and reports that fail to influence a deal because they’re too broad, too outdated, or too generic to make an impact. It’s not that the effort isn’t there—it’s that the information overload is too much for human teams to process effectively. This is where AI changes the game. [Creating a powerful positioning strategy: the what, why, and howElements you should highlight when developing a positioning strategy include the values that resonate with your target audience, as well as benefits and attributes, such as your unique value proposition.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-56.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--1-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/) ## How AI is transforming competitive intelligence and product marketing AI is designed to solve the scale problem in CI and PM. Right now, there isn’t a single tool that fully supports both product marketing and competitive intelligence—instead, teams rely on a patchwork of different tools, many of which weren’t designed for their specific needs. So, imagine if we had an internal AI engine that housed all the structured and unstructured competitive data a company needs—win/loss reports, news updates, financials, executive moves, customer wins, web changes. With that kind of system in place, an account manager in a competitive deal could instantly pull up a real-time battle card. A sales manager could immediately understand why they’re winning and losing deals. A product developer could stay ahead of industry trends, and the C-suite could focus on big-picture strategy instead of putting out fires. That’s what [AI-powered enterprise intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-competitive-intelligence-tasks/) enablement looks like. And we’re already seeing how AI is reshaping market research. Both CI and PM teams need market research, but with different objectives. Product marketers use it to shape messaging and positioning, while CI professionals use it to analyze competitors and identify threats. AI helps both by automating news monitoring, website tracking, and trend analysis, surfacing only the most critical insights, and eliminating the noise. Take Compete IQ’s news monitoring system, for example. Instead of manually combing through endless news articles, AI scans and identifies the most important stories, summarizing them in real time. AI-powered scoring helps teams prioritize what to read first. AI doesn’t just stop at market research. It also plays a major role in positioning and messaging. The reality is, many teams struggle to identify real differentiation—they’re either too close to their own products or too reliant on gut instinct. AI can analyze competitor messaging, product specs, and even customer sentiment to pinpoint exactly where a product stands out—and where it doesn’t. This level of automation isn’t about replacing human intelligence. It’s about enhancing it. It’s about freeing up time for strategic decision-making, rather than getting stuck in endless research, report-writing, or competitive guesswork. [AI in CI Playbook 2024 | Competitive Intelligence AllianceStop feeling frustrated with AI. This playbook shows you how to use the world’s newest breakthrough technology to save you time, maximize your impact, and make your daily competitive intelligence work more enjoyable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-57.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_AI_Playbook_Meta-1-3.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-ci-playbook/) ## The future of CI, PM, and AI AI-powered competitive intelligence is quickly becoming the industry standard. The teams that embrace AI will lead, while those that continue relying on manual research will struggle to keep up. This shift is already happening. Competitive insights are becoming real-time, automated, and fully integrated into daily workflows. So, the question is: Are you adapting to the AI revolution—or are you still doing competitive intelligence the hard way? Because the companies that win in the next decade won’t just have better products—they’ll have better intelligence, delivered faster, and acted on more effectively. And that’s where AI is taking us. ## **TL;DR** CI, PM, and AI are converging, reshaping how businesses approach strategy and sales. As competition intensifies, product marketers are being pulled into CI, and CI professionals are expected to provide more strategic insights. AI is helping solve this resource problem by automating research, tracking competitors in real time, and surfacing only the most relevant insights. AI-powered tools are transforming [market research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/), positioning, and internal communications, allowing teams to focus on strategy instead of drowning in data. --- *Join our* [*growing community of CI professionals*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) *and make new connections, share your thoughts, and get inspired by what your peers are saying.* [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-58.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Meta_Image_Template-1-3.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ### Getting started with psychographic market segmentation URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/getting-started-with-psychographic-market-segmentation/ Last updated: 2025-02-20T12:11:59.000Z Trying to understand your potential customers – who they are and what makes them tick? Wish you could just crack open their minds and step right in? Good news – psychographic [segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-market-segmentation/) lets you do exactly that! Better yet, in this guide, we’ll walk you through the key types of psychographic data to focus on and how to start harnessing it for your organization. Let’s jump in. ## What is market segmentation? Before we get down to the nitty-gritty of psychographics, let’s take a broader view of market segmentation. Market segmentation is a key strategy in [product marketing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/product-marketing-leader-influence/). In a nutshell, it means dividing up your broad target market into different consumer subsets, or segments. These segments are typically based on demographic, behavioral, geographic, and psychographic characteristics – more on those in a sec! The goal? To match products and messaging to your customer segments in a way that clicks with them. Get it right, and you've got yourself some tailored marketing that feels relevant to the people you’re trying to reach. Not only that, but good market segmentation helps you boost sales, build loyalty, trim the fat on marketing budgets, and maybe even charge a premium. Long story short? Segmentation brings some serious strategy to the table. It's how smart brands get personal at scale. [Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024 | CIAAn industry report on global competitive intelligence salaries, examining correlations and discrepancies between pay and factors like seniority, gender, location, and certifications.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-50.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Salary_Report_2024_Blog-2-3.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) ## Key types of segmentation When it comes to segmenting their target markets, there are four go-to ways brands tend to slice and dice things. Let’s break them down: ### Demographic segmentation This first slice covers basic background details on your target customers – age, gender, income, and the like. This data is generally easy enough to get hold of, but it doesn’t tell you much about customers’ motivations for buying. It’s a great starting point though. ### Geographic segmentation Next up is geographic data – think languages, cities, and regions. This tells you where your target audience is. Again, it’s pretty easy to grab but not hugely useful in isolation. ### Behavioral segmentation Behavioral segmentation looks at how your customers buy. This includes handy data like how long customers spend on your site before making a purchase, which pages they browse, and whether they've signed up for your [newsletter](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) or downloaded your app. This is all valuable intel, but you’ve got to work for it. ## What is psychographic market segmentation? We’ve covered three of the four core types of market segmentation – now let’s dive into arguably the most interesting one: Psychographic segmentation. This is all about tapping into the “why” behind your customers' buying decisions – their motivations and values at a core human level. It’s the intel that clues you into the actual person behind each transaction. It works by dividing your audience into groups based on psychological qualities and behavioral traits. The goal is to ID subsets matching key criteria that set them apart from the crowd. With solid psychographic segments in place, you can get way more targeted in your messaging and product offerings. The kind of intel we're talking about here ties to personality, attitudes, opinions, interests, and [goals](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/goals-of-competitive-intelligence/) \- the building blocks shaping people's choices. It's powerful stuff, but trickier to collect than basic demographic information. Typically, psychographic data comes from direct interviews or surveys with customized questions designed to uncover views, beliefs, preferences, and more. This can then be used to build more tailored marketing campaigns. For example, take two big drink brands. Bacardi may focus its questions around fun, socialization, and status – zeroing in on laidback customers who like to party. Meanwhile, Jacobs Creek goes after would-be wine connoisseurs interested in craftsmanship and tradition. Each brand tunnels into a very different inner world. The takeaway? Psychographic segmentation is key to getting inside customers' heads, understanding what makes them tick, and uncovering why they buy. When you combine this data with demographic, geographic, and behavioral data, you can build some seriously impactful campaigns. [What is market segmentation?Knowing your audience is marketing 101, but knowing how your product can benefit your audience in a market oversaturated with competitors takes a little more finesse.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-51.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceEmma Bilardi![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--18-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-market-segmentation/) ## Six key psychographic data points How you decide to slice and dice things will depend largely on your audience and your product, but if you opt for the psychographic route, here are six key data points to consider: ### Personality Your customers' personalities – how they think, process information, and make decisions – are a big piece of the psychographic puzzle. Are they outgoing or reserved? Analytical or emotional? Adventure-seekers or homebodies? Crafting messaging that fits the most common personality traits shared by your target audience is key to forging an instant connection. For example, [Jeep](https://www.jeep.co.uk/4x4-off-road-driving) has done an awesome job of aligning itself with outgoing, adventurous personality types who see themselves in the rugged, off-road positioning – always ready for adventure. ![All-terrain vehicle crossing a ford](https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/NgYbGcJzn6WAVK-bJkHxLaNdcuWA83HB5bAaPPsft_nBPVRKkL4yuAo1dUVpK0eU6wBpZm1_8Ir6llJwn68MWef2UoIprDFMLXo4k45RrawDLYXr4yjXVt2c5BNLK7spcVoQFguaNQPhlmI-PZ460cg) ### Lifestyle Now let's look at how people actually live their day-to-day lives – how they spend their precious time, money, and energy. If your messaging can chime with that lifestyle the way Depop resonates with Gen Z, or luxury travel taps into high-flying executives, then boom – instant familiarity for customers. Athletic brands like Gymshark have crushed it by wrapping themselves in an aspirational image of healthy, active living to attract customers already living that sweatlife. [![Three women in spostswear](https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/9IbrTv1nFhOxrhvSvjeOcITAourY9z9Xfdq3KETlsM70IN_UWNGSMsNA3WUghQQRMpjM9kNAbnyHJA3wBCNdAiMjjTUsULQWAAtJ_SpsWtbsyNoa3JEuqIgc0qr4LyOlEQdfG371zAk39PNPBlyM6vw)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/psychographic-market-segmentation/www.productmarketingalliance.com/psychographic-market-segmentation) ### Social status Unlike personality or lifestyle intel, data on social status zooms out and looks at how people view themselves compared to others around them, prestige-wise. It gets at desires tied to “keeping up with the Joneses” or standing apart from the crowd. High-end fashion brands like Balenciaga, for example, target buyers wanting the latest runway styles before anyone else – similar to how Mercedes sells that feeling of having “made it” compared to the average cubicle dweller. Tapping into perceptions of status can be marketing gold. ### AIO (Activities, interests, and opinions) AIO data looks closely at the topics and ideas that matter most to your audience. This is invaluable for identifying shared viewpoints and behaviors you can play to. Workday harnessed AIO brilliantly in their 2023 Super Bowl ad, appealing to office workers sick to the back teeth of corporate clichés. ### Attitudes Attitudes data takes a high-level look at customers’ mindsets and core beliefs. If you can identify attitudes held dear amongst your audience and authentically reflect those in your brand ethos, then it's a values match made in heaven. Take [Patagonia](https://www.patagonia.com/environmental-responsibility-materials/), whose owner famously donated the company to a charitable trust fighting climate change. It’s hard to imagine how a brand could better appeal to environmentally-conscious consumers. [![Screenshot from the environmental responsibility page of Patagonia's website](https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/a1T4jWbmBg9_kHX0lu_F9Fe2U0dETHYZQEAK6OyJTYG_wg77XmLz6xIHdj7DzknVX3jDtgEHHHivI2hwyn--TXWAgERyXGBsWx8hEmEfHPPAIwhBYiG2qI-HwrMs02UbVlMYFOilO85xlFIDl7uR2dM)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/psychographic-market-segmentation/www.productmarketingalliance.com/psychographic-market-segmentation) ### Priorities and motivations Last but certainly not least, we’ve got to talk priorities and motivations – the “why” behind customer behavior. What innate human needs are they looking to fill? What goals are they locked into? If you can predict and speak to those underlying drivers fueling decisions, you’ll create an irresistible [value proposition](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/your-ultimate-guide-to-creating-a-value-proposition/) for your potential customer base. Slack have nailed this concept across their suite of offerings. Just take a look at this simple yet powerful copy from their homepage: “Speed up work with external partners, using Slack Connect.” In just nine words, it addresses the needs and frustrations of potential clients. Brilliant! ## How to carry out psychographic segmentation So, we've talked about psychographic segmentation and how it can help you make your product more attractive to your [target audience](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/audience-segmentation-guide/). Now, let's dive into how you can start collecting and using this valuable data. ### Step one: Gather data First, you need to gather as much psychographic information about your existing audience as possible. But this data needs to be solid - and size matters here: You’ll want to pull data from a large existing audience. That way, you know you’re building your segments on data that accurately reflects the people willing to spend money with you. Market segments are born from the data you collect on your audience, and the customers, web visitors, and leads that make up that audience. The larger this pool is already, the easier a time you’ll have pulling out accurate data. Small data sets are the bane of many an analyst because they give too much weight to outliers. Larger datasets make it easier to identify real patterns and trends by reducing the impact of individual data points. You’ll also want to conduct more general [customer research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/). Make sure going into this process that you’ve spoken to your customers and understand their needs. What are their pain points? How does your product solve their problems? [What is micro-segmentation in marketing?Tired of seeing your marketing campaigns miss the mark? You’re putting in the work, crafting your message, but somehow it’s just not connecting with your audience. Sound familiar?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-52.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--9-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-micro-segmentation-in-marketing/) **Data sources** To get an insight into your customers’ minds, the best place to start is with a survey. The exact questions you ask will depend on your target audience, product, business model, and aims but here are a few to get you started: - How would you describe yourself in three words? - What are your top three leisure activities? - What values matter most to you when choosing a product or service? - What’s the number one thing you care about when buying online? - Name a brand you feel loyal to and explain why. - How do you prioritize spending vs. saving? - What do you like most about our product? - What made you buy it in the first place? - What’s your number one pet peeve at work? Remember: Nobody likes spending hours filling in a survey, so choose your questions carefully and keep it brief. To boost the number of responses, it’s a great idea to incentivize your survey or enter respondents into a prize draw. Once you’ve got a nice robust survey dataset, validate it with information from the following sources: - Public, third-party research - Your marketing funnel (ad accounts, social media, your website) - Your analytics and tracking tools - Your CRM and other software ### Step two: Analyze the data Once you’ve done your customer research and gathered your audience [data](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/most-valuable-data-for-your-business/), you need to analyze it and find the patterns amongst your highest-value customers. If you can identify what they have in common, you can start to find other commonalities. This can uncover new opportunities for you to target. You can combine this knowledge of individual, high-value customers with your knowledge of the wider market and your ideal customer profiles (ICPs). This’ll give you a better theoretical understanding of how your ideal consumer interacts with your products and moves through your funnel. For example, imagine your ICP describes a risk-taker who loves experimenting with new products, but you find that most of your high-value customers are actually cautious and prefer well-established products with proven benefits. In this case, it would be wise to tailor your strategies toward those who look for reliability and proven effectiveness in their product choices. [The State of Competitive Intelligence ReportDownload our annual deep-dive into the trends, challenges, and evolving strategies shaping competitive intelligence (CI) today.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-53.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCecilia Toro![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_State_of_CI_Meta_-3.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-state-of-ci-report/) ### Step three: Combine segments for specificity Some segments are far too broad to be of much use on their own. “Fun-loving sports fans” doesn’t give you much to work with when it comes to personalizing your messaging and content delivery. “Fun-loving US-based sports fans aged 25-34, employed full-time and earning $30k-50k a year” combines criteria for a much more useful and specific segment. ### Step four: Segment by what matters Your product’s value is a measure of the emotional benefits it provides to consumers, so for real ROI on your segmentation efforts, you need to focus on the segments with the strongest emotional need for a product like yours. When you can identify specific segments, and especially when you can incorporate behavioral data, you get a clear picture of which segments are searching for a product like yours, and which of those are most likely to buy soon. Focusing your marketing efforts on members of segments like this is sure to drastically improve your [return on investment](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ways-to-increase-revenue-marketing-automation/). ### Step five: Test and tweak As with any product marketing deliverable, it doesn’t stop here. The world never stands still and new data rolls in all the time. It’s vital that you use this new data to continually improve your segments, making them even more accurate. Having a crystal-clear understanding of your market segments can give you a competitive edge in the business world. By tapping into the unique needs and preferences of your target audience, you can make informed business decisions, streamline your marketing efforts, and ultimately increase the sales of your product. Pretty cool, right? ## That’s a wrap! At the end of the day, psychographic segmentation is all about resonance. When you can target segments that share attitudes, personalities, and motivations, you start speaking your customers’ language – and that means way higher chances of turning interest into real sales. So, are you ready to get psychographic and step into your customers' worlds? --- *By joining our* [*Slack channel*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/)*, you'll make connections with other CI professionals, get answers to all your questions, share resources and ideas, get inspired by success stories, and more.* [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-54.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Meta_Image_Template-1-2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ### What is a strategic vision? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-strategic-vision/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:08:28.000Z A strategic vision is a clear, long-term statement that paints a picture of what an organization aims to achieve and how it plans to get there. It serves as a roadmap for the future, guiding decision-making, resource allocation, and strategic priorities. Unlike short-term goals or mission statements, a strategic vision looks beyond the present, helping companies stay focused on long-term success – even as markets evolve and challenges arise. However, crafting a vision that’s inspiring, realistic, and actionable isn’t always easy. In this article, we’ll cover: - **The key elements of a strong strategic vision:** What separates a great vision from corporate fluff? - **Why having a strategic vision is essential:** The impact on alignment, motivation, and resource allocation. - **A step-by-step guide to developing your own vision:** Practical tips to create a vision that actually works. - **Examples of effective strategic visions:** Real-world inspiration from companies that got it right. If your company doesn’t have a clear vision – or if it’s time for a refresh – this guide will help you build a vision that drives real impact. ## Key elements of a strategic vision A strategic vision isn’t just a fancy statement that sits on a company’s website collecting digital dust. It’s the guiding force that keeps teams aligned, inspired, and pushing toward something bigger than day-to-day operations. However, not all visions are created equal. A strong strategic vision has a few non-negotiable elements that separate the real deal from boardroom clichés. Let’s take a look. ### 1\. It paints a bold picture of the future A strategic vision is all about where you’re going, not where you are. It should lay out an ideal future state that’s ambitious yet achievable, giving people a clear destination to work toward. ### 2\. It’s grounded in reality A great vision is aspirational but not delusional. It needs to be rooted in market realities, [competitive insights](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-insight/), and internal strengths. You can dream big, but if there’s no real strategy to get there, it’s just wishful thinking. Smart companies back their vision with data – market trends, [competitive analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/), and internal capabilities – to ensure their grand plans aren’t just pipe dreams. ### 3\. It’s inspiring A strategic vision should be motivational, tapping into emotions and making employees feel like they’re part of something bigger than just hitting quarterly targets. If your vision doesn’t make people want to get out of bed in the morning, it’s missing the mark​. ### 4\. It’s inclusive A vision that only speaks to leadership isn’t a vision – it’s an executive wishlist. [Simon Sinek argues](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpzZumZCdWA&t=3s) that a great vision, or what he calls a "just cause," must be inclusive – an open invitation to anyone who shares the same beliefs and goals​. That means crafting a vision statement that resonates with everyone in the company, from frontline employees to leadership, so they feel personally connected to the mission. ### 5\. It’s resilient Markets shift, technology evolves, and trends wax and wane. A strong strategic vision can’t crumble the moment something new disrupts the industry. Your strategic vision needs to be durable enough to withstand cultural, political, or technological shifts​. If a company’s vision is too tied to a specific product, technology, or short-term trend, it risks becoming obsolete fast. ### 6\. It’s service-oriented A truly great vision isn’t just about what the company wants – it’s about who it serves. Whether it’s customers, employees, or society at large, the best strategic visions put others first. As Sinek points out, if the biggest winner in your strategic vision is your executive team’s bonus structure, it’s time to rethink things​. ## Why is it important to have a strategic vision? Now that we’ve covered what a strategic vision is, let’s dive into two major benefits it brings to your company. ### It gets everyone aligned and motivated Lack of alignment is one of the biggest workplace challenges. When employees don’t understand where the company is going or why their work matters, engagement drops, silos form, and collaboration suffers. [Slack’s *State of Work* report](https://slack.com/intl/fr-fr/blog/collaboration/slack-state-of-work-report) surveyed 17,000 knowledge workers and found a direct correlation between frequent communication of company strategy and higher ratings across key workplace factors, including collaboration, morale, productivity, and career progression. Slack’s study also found that “unaligned” employees – those unaware of their company’s strategic vision – are less likely to innovate and more likely to report low morale​. In short, a well-communicated vision keeps teams focused on the same objectives, making it easier for them to collaborate across departments and push for meaningful progress. ### It improves resource allocation When leadership has a clear vision, it’s easier to make smart decisions about where to invest time, money, and talent. Without it, resources often get spread too thin, funding may go toward short-term fixes instead of long-term growth, and teams may waste effort on projects that don’t support the company’s real goals. ## How to develop a strategic vision Creating a strategic vision isn’t just about brainstorming a catchy statement and calling it a day. It takes deep thinking, collaboration, and a solid understanding of your market. So, where do you start? Here’s a step-by-step guide to crafting a vision that actually works. ![How to develop a strategic vision: Define leadership, analyze the market, build consensus, craft a vision statement, validate with stakeholders, and communicate it.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2025/02/How-to-develop-a-strategic-vision-1.png) How to develop a strategic vision ### 1\. Define leadership and key stakeholders First things first – who’s leading this charge? A strategic vision needs champions who will shape, refine, and execute it. That means defining a clear leadership structure and identifying key stakeholders who should have a seat at the table. This could include decision-makers, analysts, external advisors, and [competitive intelligence pros](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-analyst/) – anyone who can provide valuable insight and help bring the vision to life. ### 2\. Analyze market position and competitive landscape A vision without real-world context is just wishful thinking. Before you start shaping your company’s future, you need to understand where you stand today. Conduct a competitive analysis to get a clear picture of your[ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/). What’s happening in your industry? What’s shifting in customer behavior? What are your competitors doing that you’re not? The best strategic visions aren’t built in isolation – they respond to the market, anticipate trends, and position the company for long-term success. ### 3\. Collaborate, build consensus, and define the vision type A vision that’s dictated from the top without buy-in from the team? That’s a recipe for eye-rolls. The strongest strategic visions are collectively shaped through cross-functional collaboration. Bring together executives, product strategists, and competitive intelligence teams to align on a vision that’s both ambitious and actionable. This is also the stage where you define what type of vision best suits your company: - **Market leadership?** Positioning the company as the dominant player in the space. - **Innovation-driven?** Prioritizing cutting-edge advancements and new technologies. - **Customer-centric?** Putting customer experience and satisfaction at the forefront. The key? Make sure your vision is aligned with your company’s goals and clearly differentiates you from competitors. ### 4\. Craft a clear and concise vision statement A great vision statement needs to be short, powerful, and to the point. Here’s how to get it right: ✅ **Keep it concise:** There’s no need for a manifesto. ✅ **Make it ambitious but achievable:** Inspire people while keeping it grounded in reality. ✅ **Ensure it’s resilient:** Your vision should hold up even as markets, technology, and customer needs evolve. ### 5\. Test and validate with stakeholders Before rolling out your vision, pressure-test it with the people who matter most. Share it with internal teams, trusted industry partners, and even key customers to get honest feedback. If it sparks confusion, resistance, or lack of enthusiasm, now’s the time to tweak it. A vision only works if people believe in it and see their role in making it happen. ### 6\. Communicate and integrate the vision As Yiannis Godfrey, Group Product Manager at Service NSW, puts it: > “Your strategy is only as good as the communication that goes with it.” If no one knows what your strategic vision is, all that time you spent crafting it was for naught. Here are a few ways to spread the good word: - **Internal communication:** Keep the vision top-of-mind through team meetings, reports, and leadership messaging. - **External alignment:** Make sure it’s reflected in competitive positioning docs, investor communications, and branding. - **Consistency is key:** Your vision should be reinforced by leadership, woven into company culture, and reflected in everyday actions at every level of the organization. ## Strategic vision examples Let’s look at two great examples of strategic vision statements from [**Egis**](https://www.egis-group.com/our-strategic-vision) and [**Infineum**](https://www.infineum.com/about/our-strategic-vision/), each demonstrating a different strength. ### Egis: Simple and inspiring > **“Impact the future.** > As one of the world’s leading engineering and operating firms, we hold ourselves responsible for today’s biggest challenges; fighting climate change, the digital transition and meeting the needs of growing populations.We do this by designing smart, green infrastructure, transport and buildings, creating a sustainable future for communities everywhere.” Egis nails the “short and powerful” approach to vision statements. “Impact the future” is punchy, memorable, and ambitious, while the follow-up reinforces why their work matters. Instead of focusing on what they do, Egis emphasizes why they do it – a hallmark of an inspiring vision. ### Infineum: Grounded in real-world challenges > “Our vision is to become a sustainable world-class specialty chemicals company. > This vision is aligned with growing global sustainability aspirations. Our products have consistently played a key role in aiding our industry to save energy, minimize costs, and reduce emissions. > However, as aging technologies are replaced to address global energy and climate challenges, we need to continue to innovate and develop novel solutions to meet the needs of the future and facilitate the transition towards a low-carbon economy\[...\]” Infineum takes a different approach, crafting a vision that’s tied to industry realities and future challenges. It’s clear and specific and acknowledges the evolution of their sector. Rather than making vague, feel-good promises, Infineum focuses on sustainability, innovation, and industry transition – showing a deep understanding of both market forces and corporate responsibility. ### What makes these visions work? Both examples succeed because they check the boxes of a strong strategic vision: ✅ **They inspire action:** Egis' bold simplicity makes you want to be part of their mission. ✅ **They’re forward-looking:** Both companies focus on future impact, not just present success. ✅ **They’re grounded in reality:** Infineum’s vision acknowledges industry shifts and necessary innovation. A great vision isn’t just about sounding impressive – it’s about setting a clear, meaningful direction. Whether short and punchy like Egis or detail-oriented like Infineum, the key is to craft a vision that aligns with your organization’s goals while staying relevant to the world around you. ## A strong vision starts with a single step Right now, you might be running a business without a clear destination – and you’re not alone. Many companies focus on short-term goals and daily operations without stepping back to define where they’re actually heading. A strong strategic vision changes that. It gives you a compass, guiding every decision, aligning your team, and keeping you on track for long-term success. Whether your focus is market leadership, innovation, or customer impact, a well-crafted vision ensures everyone is working toward the same goal. So, if you don’t have a strategic vision yet, now’s the perfect time to create one. Start small, define your future, and watch how much easier it becomes to steer your company with confidence. ### Reflections on CI: how to build a trusted intelligence hub URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/reflections-on-ci/ Last updated: 2025-01-28T17:26:49.000Z ## **TL;DR** Bhavik’s journey into [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) started with technical roles in IT and automation, eventually leading to a high-level CI role with significant creative freedom at SS&C Blue Prism. Over three years, he transformed CI from supporting sales to a central hub influencing marketing, product strategy, and beyond. Key to his success were networking, storytelling, and collaboration. His approach—start small, build trust, and expand—offers actionable lessons for CI professionals seeking to scale their impact. --- When people ask how I got into competitive intelligence (CI), I think back to how each step in my career prepared me for this role. I started with an IT degree and ran a small printing and exhibition business early on and then was lucky enough to move from support roles to development. But I’ve always been the kind of person who asks, *What else? What more can I do to make an impact?* So, I’m here to share my journey into CI and why I believe this particular industry is so exciting. I hope you can learn from my experience, from starting small to successfully scaling a competitive program. ## **The journey to competitive intelligence** I’ve always looked for better ways of doing things. It’s my primary motivation. And that mindset led me through several different paths. In 2014, I ended up in robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) while managing projects for Next, a retail company. One of my responsibilities along with introducing new technology for Next Directory was maintaining a huge catalog of macros, and I remember thinking, *This feels outdated—there’s got to be a better way to do this.* And that's when I came across a company called Thoughtonomy (now known as SS&C Blue Prism Cloud) and my role kind of evolved. Beyond just deploying this tool, I championed it across departments. I’d go to teams like finance, for example, and say, *Look, this tool can help you. Here’s what it can do.* I sort of became the internal salesman, promoting its value and helping others see how it could solve their problems. Then, over time, I moved from being a lead developer to leading the Center of Excellence, where I managed the automation platform and worked on making a bigger impact across the business. From there, I transitioned into consultancy roles, working with some of the biggest brands to implement automation strategies. I gained a deep understanding of the competitive landscape and the different tools available in the market. Later, I had the opportunity to build an automation and AI practice from scratch, which expanded my skills to include managing global teams and building vendor relationships. Then, when the CI role at SS&C Blue Prism came up, I felt excited. At the time, the role was broad, meaning I had a lot of creative freedom but still focused primarily on doing primary/secondary research and creating battle cards for sales. But I knew CI could do more. [A Step-By-Step Guide to Market ResearchIn this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore what it entails and why market research is an indispensable tool for any competitive intelligence expert.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-48.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceLawrence Chapman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Framework_Tiles_market_research-1.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/) I focused on building trust with senior stakeholders, showing them how CI could drive impact—not just for sales, but across marketing, product, and strategy. It took time, but over three years, we’ve transformed CI into a central hub that influences decisions across the business. ## **Expanding CI’s impact across the business** One of the challenges in CI is that you can create as much intelligence as you like, but if people aren’t using it—or contributing back—it doesn’t have the impact it should. CI *has* to be collaborative. [How to collect (and share!) competitive intelligence resultsAre you keeping a beady eye on how rival companies are occupying their time? If not, then you oughta take a long, hard, look at giving competitive intelligence the credence it deserves.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-49.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceLawrence Chapman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/matthew-ansley-8SjeH5pZbjw-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/collect-and-share-results/) Every department has its own expertise, and they know their landscape better than anyone else. That’s why communication is so important, even if it feels repetitive at times. > **It’s not just about pushing information out; it’s about building a two-way relationship.** When I started, CI was mostly about creating battlecards for sales. But I wanted to do more. Once we got feedback and refined the battle cards, I looked for the next area to expand into. Marketing was the logical choice. We started with simple ideas, like identifying competitor product launch patterns and timing our messaging to get ahead of them. It worked, and we kept building from there. From marketing, we moved to product. Initially, we were just sharing intelligence about competitors’ launches and features. Over time, we built trust, and that turned into influencing the product roadmap. We started identifying market gaps and shaping where the company should go over the next few years. It’s always about starting small, proving value, and then expanding. Once I felt 50% happy with the progress we’d made in one area, I’d move to the next. It doesn’t happen overnight, but if you keep showing value, you’ll eventually get buy-in across the business. ## **Skills needed in CI** If I think back on what led to my success in CI, I could point to some of the skills and experiences that helped me establish CI as a respected and trusted part of the business. I’ll start with one of the most important skills in CI: **networking**. Networking is certainly about building stronger relationships, sure, but it’s also about continuously learning from others. You never know when someone in your network will share something valuable. A lot of people I’ve worked with in the past have gone on to become senior leaders or CEOs, and those connections are invaluable for learning and collaboration. In the context of CI, for example, networking is great if you need to learn about specific markets or industries. Your analysts or vendors can help you piece together a larger puzzle, even with the smallest insight. **Storytelling** is another key skill. CI is about taking small pieces of information—maybe a comment about a competitor or something you’ve read—and building a bigger picture. You need to create a narrative that resonates. Personally, I use a three-point check: I test my ideas with three people from my network to see if they make sense. If they don’t, I adjust, test again, and keep refining until it works. **Technical knowledge** also plays a big role, especially in a field like software. It’s about understanding the differences between products and what those differences mean for customers. From there, you create a story about how to position your business effectively. Clear **communication** and **prioritization** are also critical. CI can’t tackle everything, so you need to decide what’s important and set expectations. For example, we use tools like battlecards for quick conversations with prospects, but deeper insights require more focus. Ultimately, CI is about collaboration. You can’t do everything alone. CI thrives on teamwork—working with others to identify and solve problems. It’s also about making an impact beyond your team. ## **Building a CI Engine** So, as mentioned before, CI can’t be done alone. If you want to establish a robust CI program, you need to put in the work. Something that I always tell my leadership is that *I treat the business as if it’s my own business.* The goal isn’t just for CI to do well—it’s for the entire organization to move forward. And today, CI at SS&C Blue Prism is a central hub for insights. It’s not just about us pushing out intelligence anymore—stakeholders come to us to validate their ideas and share what they’re hearing. It’s become a two-way engine that constantly refines itself. What’s exciting now is that we’ve moved from reporting what’s happening to predicting what will happen. We can anticipate competitor moves six months to a year in advance, and when those predictions come true, it reinforces the trust stakeholders have in us. The next challenge is scaling. We’ve built a strong foundation, but now it’s about expanding the team and embedding CI further across the business. That means finding people who are not just skilled but also hungry to make an impact. CI is always evolving, and success depends on staying adaptable, thinking strategically, and working collaboratively to drive the business forward. ## **Key takeaways for aspiring CI professionals** I know we’ve covered quite a bit. And if you’re thinking about a career in CI, then let me share a few key lessons that have helped me: - **Start small, prove value, and expand.** When I began in CI, it was about creating battle cards for sales. By refining those with feedback and delivering results, I was able to expand CI’s role into areas like marketing and product. Incremental wins build trust and open doors to bigger opportunities. - I can’t overstate how important relationships have been in my career. Your **network** often provides unique insights and opportunities that can help you see the bigger picture and refine your strategies. - **Test and refine your insights.** I always validate intelligence before presenting it. My “three-point check”—testing insights with three different personas—has been invaluable in ensuring the message resonates. - CI isn’t something you can do in a silo, so be as **collaborative** as possible. Building a two-way feedback loop with stakeholders ensures they contribute to and benefit from the intelligence you’re creating. - **Communicate effectively.** It’s not enough to generate intelligence—you need to make sure it’s clear, actionable, and aligns with business goals. - **Treat CI as a strategic business function.** I’ve always approached CI with the mindset that it’s my own business. It’s not just about helping one team or department; it’s about driving impact across the entire organization. And, finally, CI is a dynamic space—it’s always changing. You **need to stay flexible**, adjust quickly, and align your approach with the evolving needs of the business. --- *Join our* [*Slack channel*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) *to connect with other CI professionals, get resources, share ideas, ask questions, and more.* [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-47.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ### Pricing a SaaS product in 2025 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/pricing-a-saas-product-in-2025/ Last updated: 2025-02-14T11:08:24.000Z ## **SaaS pricing models** Ensuring your [SaaS](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-saas/) product has the right price is important. In comparison to more traditional pricing models used in other industries, SaaS pricing offers several options, so make sure you’re choosing the right one for your product and business. **Here are a few types of SaaS pricing models:** ### **1\. Subscription-based pricing** SaaS products are typically priced on a subscription basis, with users paying a recurring fee to access the product instead of paying a one-time fee. You can charge customers monthly, annually, or at other cadences, as you have a lot of flexibility. #### **Pros** - You get a predictable and regular revenue stream. - Recurring fees encourage companies and customers to carry on using the product. - It helps you scale the business by adding more customers instead of relying on more on-time sales. #### **Cons** - Customers may cancel subscriptions at any time, which means revenue loss and decreased customer retention. - It may cost more to acquire customers, since you may have to invest more in marketing and sales. - Customers may feel locked into a long-term commitment, especially if they’re not fully utilizing the product or aren’t entirely happy with the service. #### **Example of SaaS subscription-based pricing** [Viyard](https://www.vidyard.com/), which lets you personalize videos, get automatic transcripts, A/B test thumbnails, optimize videos, check out who’s watching your videos (and for how long), share them with stakeholders, and more. ![](https://www.developermarketing.io/content/images/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-08-at-11.54.15.png) ### **2\. SaaS usage-based pricing** Another popular model is the SaaS usage-based [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/prestige-pricing/) strategy, which means charging customers based on the amount of resources they consume, such as the data or users they go through. This is different from other pricing models that may charge a fixed fee no matter the usage. You see this model a lot in cloud-based services, where customers can easily scale their usage up or down depending on their needs, and only pay for what they actually use. #### **Pros** - Offers a lot of flexibility and cost-effectiveness for customers, which can lead to higher satisfaction and retention. - Customers understand well what they’re paying for, since the price is directly linked to their usage. - It encourages efficiency and productivity; since people are paying for usage, they may be more motivated to make the most of the product and reduce unnecessary usage. #### **Cons** - Usage-based pricing can be difficult to set up and manage when compared to other models. - It can be tough to predict costs in advance, so customers may find it hard to budget, which can lead to them choosing a competitor’s product instead. - Customers may also be hit with unexpected bills if they accidentally use more than they wanted, which can lead to dissatisfaction as well. #### **Example of SaaS usage based pricing** [Twilio](https://www.twilio.com/en-us), a customer engagement platform that uses real-time data to offer personalized comms, has two different models: monthly recurring charges and pay-as-you-go usage charges, so customers can choose what they need. They also offer volume discounts and committed-use discounts. ![](https://www.developermarketing.io/content/images/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-08-at-11.55.06.png) ### **3\. Freemium pricing** This popular strategy is all about offering a free version of a SaaS product with limited features and providing more premium features at a cost. This allows people to try out the product and experiment as much as they want before committing to a paid subscription, for instance. You normally see this type of pricing as a gateway to paid features, capacity, or users – customers get the basics and they’re encouraged to upgrade to a paid system that offers them new things or more of what they had. The goal is to ensure customers get a taste of the product’s full capabilities in order to attract new users and drive revenue growth. This is a careful balancing act, since you need to provide enough value for people to be happy with the freemium version yet still want to upgrade. #### **Pros** - Offering a free version of a SaaS product can lower the barrier to entry for potential customers, so they might be more willing to try it without committing to a paid plan. - By having a freemium model, you can also increase brand awareness and attract a wide audience. - The free version of your SaaS product is ideal to upsell customers, since you can more easily encourage them to upgrade to a paid subscription. #### **Cons** - It can be expensive to have a free version of your product because you still need to allocate resources to develop, maintain, and support it. - The customers who want a free product aren’t necessarily likely to upgrade to a paid plan, so you may have low conversion rates and revenue. - If your free version is too basic, customers may not want to upgrade to a paid one. #### **Example of SaaS freemium pricing** [Google Drive](https://www.google.co.uk/intl/en-GB/drive/) is a great example of a freemium model. You get 15GB for free but you can pay to have more storage space. ![](https://www.developermarketing.io/content/images/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-08-at-11.56.22.png) ### **4\. SaaS tiered pricing** In this model, customers get different price points, depending on the features and capabilities of each tier, which allows them to choose the level of service that best suits their needs and budget. You can provide devs with several options while continuously incentivizing them to upgrade to higher tiers for more advanced features and functionalities. #### **Pros** - You can increase your revenue potential by offering people a range of pricing options and making the most of upselling opportunities. - You can more easily differentiate your product from your competitors’, since you have several tiers with different choices (ensuring customers get as much customization as possible). - A tiered pricing model can encourage customers to upgrade to higher tiers as their needs and usage grows. #### **Cons** - Customers may become overwhelmed by all the choices and features, which can lead to confusion or hesitation when choosing the right pricing option for them. - Tiered models may limit your growth potential because they create a ceiling on revenue based on the number of tiers you offer. - Developing and implementing a tiered pricing model can be time-consuming and require additional resources to help you manage it. #### **Example of a SaaS tiered pricing model** [Slack](https://app.slack.com/plans/T02T2RL7PEF) is designed to simplify conversations with internals and externals. Convos happen in channels or private messages, and the product also integrates with other tools, allows you to drag-and-drop files, offers audio chats or face-to-face calls, the ability to share your screen, etc. The company offers a tiered pricing model that appeals to different types of customers, allowing orgs of all sizes to pick a plan that best fits their requirements and budget. ![](https://www.developermarketing.io/content/images/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-08-at-11.57.47.png) ### **5\. Competitive-based pricing** You can also use competitor-based pricing. This strategy is all about pricing your SaaS product by taking your competitors into account. It means researching prices that are either lower or higher based on product features, quality, and value. The goal is to remain competitive in the market while also ensuring profits! Competitive-based pricing is typically used when competitors have a similar product, since the SaaS market is huge and highly competitive (it’s estimated to [reach 195 billion USD in 2023](https://www.statista.com/statistics/505243/worldwide-software-as-a-service-revenue/)), as well as constantly changing, which might make it challenging to set a fixed price. There are **three different approaches** to this model: - **Lower price**: pricing your product lower than your competitors’ product. - **Higher price**: by charging a higher price, you can also have better margins than your competition, but customers also have higher expectations. - **Price match**: matching your competitors’ prices works better when you have several products to offer, especially because you may have more development costs than your competitors. #### **Pros** - Easier to adjust prices to stay competitive and attract customers. - Lower prices can attract price-sensitive customers and higher prices can signal a premium (i.e., high-quality) product. - Because you need to conduct in-depth market research when you choose this model, you get invaluable insights into trends and developer preferences. #### **Cons** - Doesn’t consider factors like market demand and development costs. - You have minimal control over pricing as it depends on your competitors’. - If you choose a lower pricing strategy, you must be mindful of your margins at all times (and consider ways to move customers to more expensive options). #### **Example of SaaS competitive-based pricing** It’s fair to say that Apple might use a competitive-based approach to pricing, since they’ve had to compete with Microsoft for a long time – in fact, their competition started in the late 1970s, and Apple ended up taking an approach focused on innovation and consumer-centric tech. Apple charges more than its competitors but every marketing and sales choice aims to justify that decision. The company has begun to [push their SaaS platforms a lot more](https://appleworld.today/archives/67034) by focusing on products like macOS, tvOS, and iPadOS – and, of course, [iCloud](https://support.apple.com/en-gb/108047?eco%5Fbudget=middle)! ![](https://www.developermarketing.io/content/images/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-08-at-11.59.03.png) ### **6\. Per-user pricing** This model charges customers based on the number of users that have access to the product, and it’s useful for teams or orgs with varying numbers of users. If you choose this model, you can charge customers a flat rate for each user account created on the SaaS platform – for example, if you charge $10/mo per user and a company or team needs 10 user accounts, the total cost would be $100/mo. This strategy is typically used for products like CRM (customer relationship management) software, collaboration tools, project management software, etc. #### **Pros** - This strategy allows businesses to pay only for the number of users who need access to the software, which can be more cost-effective for smaller teams or orgs with a limited budget. - As a business grows and adds more users to the SaaS platform, they can simply increase their subscription to accommodate the additional users. This makes this pricing structure scalable. - Per-user pricing is often transparent, making it easy for businesses to understand their costs and budget accordingly, which can help ensure satisfaction and retention. #### **Cons** - Per-user pricing can be expensive for larger teams, so this model may not be their first choice. - This structure can also become complex and difficult to manage as the number of users increases. - With this model, businesses need to manage and pay for each individual user account, which can become a time-consuming process, especially as the number of users grows. #### **Example of SaaS per-user pricing** [Canva](https://www.canva.com/pricing/) offers easy-to-use features that allows customers to create their own graphics. The company charges customers on a per-user basis for using the product. ![](https://www.developermarketing.io/content/images/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-08-at-12.00.42.png) ### **7\. Value-based pricing** Using a SaaS value-based pricing model means charging customers based on the value that they derive from using your product. It means understanding your audience, including their unique needs, pain points, and motivations. So, customers who can generate more revenue or achieve greater efficiency using your product will be charged more than those who don’t. For example, you can have several pricing tiers, each with different features, and customers can choose what gives them the most value (what will address their needs). #### **Pros** - This model can help you attract and retain customers; i.e., reduce churn. This is because you’re more likely to attract loyal customers when you’re offering them the biggest value. - If you’re offering customers the best value, they’ll be happy to tell their peers and colleagues about your product. - By tying pricing to usage and value, this model incentivizes customers to fully utilize the product to achieve the best results possible. #### **Cons** - Customers may find value-based pricing opaque or confusing, which can lead to dissatisfaction or lack of trust. - Value-based pricing can be more complex to implement than other models, since it requires a deeper understanding of customer needs. - It can be more difficult to forecast revenue, since this will depend on the value that each customer is able to get from the product. #### **Example of SaaS value-based pricing** [Trello](https://trello.com/en/pricing) is a great example of this type of pricing strategy. They offer several options, including a freemium one, and provide a selection of features and integrations. Customers can choose the option that gives them the best value for money. ![](https://www.developermarketing.io/content/images/2025/01/Screenshot-2025-01-08-at-12.01.12.png) ## **Benefits of getting your SaaS pricing right** There are many reasons why you need to set the right price for your SaaS product, including: - **A boost in revenue**: if you choose the correct price, you can generate more money for your business, since the right strategy can encourage more customers to sign up for your SaaS product. - **Improved customer acquisition**: you can also attract more customers and see a boost in retention if you provide transparent pricing and offer plans that meet the needs of different customers – you can also increase loyalty and reduce churn. - **A competitive edge**: gaining competitive advantage in a crowded market is a side effect of offering a better value proposition than your competitors, as it helps you attract a wider audience and win market share. - **More flexibility**: with the right pricing model, you can adapt to an ever-changing market and help meet developer pain points and needs. By having the ability to test different strategies and adjust your pricing plans based on feedback, for example, you can stay ahead of the competition and carry on growing your business. - **Increased profits**: once you optimize your pricing strategy, you can improve your profit margins and increase your bottom line. And, when you reduce costs and boost efficiency, you’re able to maximize the revenue generated from each customer. - **Better reputation**: a fair, transparent, and easy-to-understand pricing plan can improve brand perception and customer trust, which, in turn, leads to an increase in referrals and positive word-of-mouth marketing. - **Improved customer insights**: you can gain valuable insights into the needs and preferences of your customers, which helps you fine-tune your pricing strategy and products. ## **How to price your SaaS product** Besides choosing the right pricing model for your SaaS product, you should also consider other factors, including the following steps, to help determine your SaaS pricing: ### **Understand your developer audience** Identify your developer personas and understand their needs, preferences, and willingness to pay. You can do this through market research, surveys, customer feedback, etc. ### **Involve everyone in the decision** Pricing should be a decision made by all departments involved in the development, production, marketing, and sales of a SaaS product. They can help you [position your product](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/), as well as target your developer audience in the most efficient way. ### **Consider LTV/CAC ratio** Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) is the total revenue a customer generates for as long as they’re your client. This metric has an impact on how much you spend to acquire new customers and on your sales tactics, so it’s important you consider it when choosing the right price for your SaaS product. CAC refers to Customer Acquisition Cost, which, as it says on the tin, measures the cost of acquiring new customers. The LTV/CAC ratio is important because it measures the expected lifetime value of a customer with the cost of acquiring them – i.e., will you get enough value from a new customer, taking into account the cost of marketing and sales as well? Applying this ratio can help you develop a pricing strategy that’s aligned with your org’s long-term profitability and sustainability. ### **Evaluate your costs** Determine the cost of producing and delivering your SaaS product, including development, hosting, maintenance, and customer support. This will help you understand the minimum price you need to charge to cover your expenses and make a profit. ### **Analyze your competitors** Research your competitors and understand their pricing strategies, so you can figure out how your product compares to theirs and where you fit in the market. We’ve written an article on product market fit if you’d like to learn more about it! ### **Determine your value proposition** Understand the unique value your product offers to your customers and how it solves their pain points. This will help you position your product in the market and justify your price. ### **Test different pricing models** Consider testing different pricing models, such as freemium, subscription-based, or tiered pricing. This will help you understand what pricing model works best for your product and your target audience. ### **Consider discounts** You can provide annual discounts, for example, but make sure to analyze all costs and profits so you’re not actually leaving money on the table. ### **Include upselling opportunities** Setting a price is not a ‘one and done’ thing. You should also consider future upselling opportunities, since one of the benefits of SaaS is that you can offer upgrades, new versions of the product, etc., all of which increases its value – and drums up more money for your org. ### **Offer free trials** Many SaaS companies offer free trials to customers because this is a great way to attract people and convert them into paying customers. You can choose the option that works best for you, as long as devs have enough time to experiment with your product – 15 or 30-day trials are common. ### **Monitor and adjust** Continuously monitor your pricing strategy and make adjustments as necessary based on customer feedback, market changes, and your own business objectives. Remember, pricing is not a one-time decision, and it can be adjusted over time as you learn more about your customers and the market. ## **SaaS pricing template** Not sure where to start when setting the price for your SaaS product? Let us help! Here’s an **example of a simple SaaS pricing template** you can use as a starting point for your own pricing model: ### **Basic plan:** - Price: $X per month/year - Features: \[List of features included in this plan\] - Limitations: \[List of limitations or restrictions on this plan, such as number of users, data storage limits, or other usage restrictions\] ### **Standard plan:** - Price: $Y per month/year - Features: \[List of additional features included in this plan, compared to the Basic Plan\] - Limitations: \[List of limitations or restrictions on this plan, such as number of users, data storage limits, or other usage restrictions\] ### **Premium plan:** - Price: $Z per month/year - Features: \[List of additional features included in this plan, compared to the Standard Plan\] - Limitations: \[List of limitations or restrictions on this plan, such as number of users, data storage limits, or other usage restrictions\] ### **Enterprise plan:** - Price: Custom pricing - Features: \[List of features included in this plan, which may be customized or negotiated with the customer\] - Limitations: \[List of limitations or restrictions on this plan, if any\] ### **Additional pricing options:** - Add-ons: \[List of additional features or services that can be added on to any plan for an additional fee\] - Usage-based pricing: \[Description of any usage-based pricing options, if applicable\] - Discounts: \[List of any available discounts, such as annual billing or volume discounts\] Your pricing model may vary depending on the specifics of your SaaS product and business model. It's important to carefully consider your [pricing strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/) based on factors such as your target market, competition, value proposition, and cost structure. ## **Mistakes to avoid when pricing your SaaS product** When pricing your SaaS product, there are several common mistakes that you should avoid to ensure that you are maximizing revenue and profitability. For instance: ### **Underpricing** Don’t set your prices too low, as that means you’re undervaluing it; this can signal to developers that your product is of low quality or not worth the money, time, and effort it takes to use it. On top of this, a cheaper product may limit your revenue potential as well. ### **Overpricing** On the other hand, if you set a price that’s a lot higher than your competitors’, you risk making it uncompetitive, limit customer acquisition, and increase churn rate. ### **Ignoring market research** One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not taking [market research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/) into account, since this can lead to a pricing strategy that doesn’t meet market standards or customer needs. ### **Not incorporating feedback** Customer feedback is critical and ignoring it can have serious consequences, including customer dissatisfaction and loss of revenue. ### **Complicating pricing** If you offer too many tiers or pricing options, your customers may be confused and find it difficult to choose the right plan, leading to decision paralysis (i.e., indecision in the face of multiple options that can be hard to compare). ### **Not communicating pricing changes** If you make a change to your current pricing model, you need to make customers aware. Otherwise, if they’re surprised with a sudden hike in price, for example, they might be frustrated and stop trusting you, which can lead to increased churn rates. ### **Lack of transparency** Being unclear about pricing plans, hidden fees, and payment terms leads to mistrust and negative reviews, so be transparent every step of the way, which goes hand-in-hand with communicating clearly with your customers. ### **Ignoring lifetime value** Don’t focus only on short-term [revenue](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ways-to-increase-revenue-marketing-automation/), but remember that each customer comes with a lifetime value – consider that to make pricing decisions that are aligned with your long-term goals. ### **Not considering competitors** Another huge mistake. Analyzing the competitive landscape is crucial, so perform research and consider the different prices out there to avoid under or overpricing your SaaS product. ### **Not revisiting your strategy** If you set a price and never look at it again, you may be missing out on revenue opportunities. Assess your pricing on a regular basis and adjust it accordingly to remain competitive. ## **SaaS pricing metrics** How do you ensure your pricing strategy is working? By tracking and analyzing the right pricing metrics. Here are just a few you can take into account: - **LTV/CAC**: we’ve talked about this metric above but, in short, this ratio is critical to reach a profitable model, since it shows you whether you’re losing money with every new customer you acquire. - **MRR**: Monthly Recurring Revenue refers to the revenue your company generates each month from your customers’ subscriptions – so, by tracking MRR, you can determine if your pricing strategy is generating consistent revenue over time. - **ARPU**: Average Revenue per User is the average amount of money each customer generates, so it’s important you track this metric in order to figure out whether you need to tweak your strategy. - **Churn rate**: the rate at which your customers cancel their subscriptions. If you have a high churn rate, you need to determine whether you’re providing enough value to devs. - **NPS**: Net Promoter Score measures customer satisfaction and loyalty and, by tracking it, you can see if developers are likely to recommend your product to others. If not, the reason might be the perceived value for money, so ensure you’re setting the right price and offering value at all times. ## **In short** Pricing your SaaS product is a complex process with a lot of moving parts, but it’s crucial to take all elements into consideration to ensure you’re providing developers with the features and functionalities they actually need. There are many different SaaS pricing models, so pick the one that works best for you and resonates with your audience the most – however, if you find your strategy isn’t working, feel free to tweak and adjust as needed! --- *Join our* [*Slack channel*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) *to connect with other CI professionals, get resources, share ideas, ask questions, and more.* [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-47.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Meta_Image_Template-1-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ### What should you look for in an SEO competitor rank tracker? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitor-rank-tracker/ Last updated: 2025-08-28T14:20:31.000Z Keeping tabs on your competitors' search rankings isn't just smart – it's essential. When you know how your competitors do in search results, you gain insights. These insights can change your market strategy and show you hidden opportunities. An SEO competitor rank tracker is a tool that checks how well a website ranks in search engine results. It focuses on specific keywords and looks at how competitors are doing. Examples of SEO trackers are SEMRush, AHrefs, Moz, and Google Search Console. These trackers work like a digital radar system. They show how your competitors move online and how they [position themselves](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) in the market. Need to choose the right tracking tool? Let's dive into the essential features that will help you gather intelligence effectively and stay competitive in your market. - [The importance of SEO competitor rank tracking in competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitor-rank-tracker/#the-importance-of-seo-competitor-rank-tracking-in-competitive-intelligence) - [Key features to look for in an SEO competitor rank tracker](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitor-rank-tracker/#key-features-to-look-for-in-an-seo-competitor-rank-tracker) - [Evaluating cost and ROI](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitor-rank-tracker/#evaluating-cost-and-roi) - [Questions to ask before choosing a tool](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitor-rank-tracker/#questions-to-ask-before-choosing-a-tool) ## The importance of SEO competitor rank tracking in competitive intelligence SEO competitor rank tracking has evolved beyond simple keyword monitoring into a strategic intelligence asset. When integrated into competitive intelligence operations, it reveals how competitors position themselves in the digital marketplace and adapt their strategies over time. Understanding competitors' keyword strategies and ranking shifts provides actionable insights into their target markets, product focus, and content priorities. For instance, sudden ranking improvements for specific keywords can signal new product launches or market pivots. Similarly, competitors' success with SERP features like featured snippets or local pack rankings indicates their investment in particular [customer segments](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-market-segmentation/) or geographical markets. These insights enable CI professionals to identify emerging [market opportunities and potential threats](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-explained/) before they materialize in traditional intelligence channels. By tracking ranking trends on competitor websites, analysts can see changes in focus. They can also measure how well competitors are doing with their digital investments. This helps them give early warnings about market changes to important stakeholders. [How to Do an SEO Competitive Analysis (7-step Guide)SEO competitive analysis reveals the gaps in your SEO strategy so you can adjust and overtake the leaders in your space – and in this article, we’re going to show you how to do it.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-43.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/souvik-banerjee-OMhubJCrtu0-unsplash-1.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) ## Key features to look for in an SEO competitor rank tracker ### Comprehensive keyword monitoring Advanced competitor monitoring capabilities are essential, allowing you to track keyword performance across multiple competitors simultaneously. The tool should support both global and local search results, enabling competitive tracking across different markets and regions. ### SERP feature tracking Modern competitive monitoring requires insight into all SERP elements, from featured snippets to People Also Ask boxes and video carousels. Understanding how competitors leverage these features provides valuable intelligence about their SEO strategy and content investments. ### Accurate and timely data In competitive intelligence, timing is crucial. Your tool should deliver fresh data daily or weekly, with precise geographic accuracy for local search analysis. This ensures you can respond quickly to competitors' ranking changes and market movements. ### Competitor benchmarking tools Side-by-side competitor comparisons are vital for effective competitor email monitoring and broader digital presence tracking. Look for tools offering clear visualizations of ranking trends over time, making it easier to spot patterns and shifts in [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/). ### Historical data and trends Access to historical ranking data enables deeper competitive analysis, helping identify seasonal patterns and strategic shifts in competitor behavior. This historical perspective is crucial for predicting future competitive moves and market opportunities. ### Custom reporting and alerts The tool should offer flexible reporting options that align with stakeholder needs and integrate with your competitive monitoring workflow. Real-time alerts for ranking changes ensure you never miss critical competitive movements. ### Integration with other CI tools Seamless integration with existing [competitive intelligence platforms](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-intelligence-tools-tech-stack/) enhances your overall monitoring capabilities. Look for tools offering API access to create custom workflows that complement your current tracking systems. ### Ease of use and scalability The platform should balance sophisticated tracking capabilities with user-friendly interfaces, allowing CI professionals to focus on analysis rather than tool management. Scalability is crucial as your competitive monitoring needs grow. [How to Perform an SEO SWOT AnalysisSWOT is as crucial for SEO as for any other area of your organization. Whether you’re just getting started with SEO or want to take a comprehensive look at past efforts, a SWOT analysis will be an invaluable planning tool.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-44.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceNilesh Parashar![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/merakist-l5if0iQfV4c-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-perform-seo-swot-analysis/) ## Evaluating cost and ROI Most SEO competitor rank trackers offer tiered pricing based on keyword volume and competitor monitoring capabilities. Entry-level plans typically start at $100-200 monthly, while enterprise-level competitive monitoring solutions can exceed $1000 monthly. When selecting an [SEO tool](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-ai-powered-seo-tools-new-opportunities-for-competitive-tracking/), consider scalability – some providers charge premiums for features like competitor email monitoring or advanced competitive advertising tracking. For CI teams, ROI calculation should focus on actionable intelligence generated. Evaluate how insights from competitor tracking translate to strategic advantages, such as identifying market opportunities or preventing competitive threats. Consider metrics like time saved versus manual competitive monitoring, successful strategic pivots informed by ranking data, and improved stakeholder reporting capabilities. The ideal solution balances comprehensive tracking features against budget constraints while delivering clear competitive intelligence value. Factor in additional costs like training, integration with existing tools, and potential API usage fees when calculating total investment. [The 4 Best Sources of Competitive Intelligence | CIAWin/loss interviews; social listening tools; competitive SEO; and competitor websites present four of the very best sources of competitive intel.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-45.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Framework_Tiles_competitive_resources.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/) ## Questions to ask before choosing a tool ### Strategic alignment: - Does it track the specific competitive metrics that matter to your CI program? - Can it monitor competitors across all your target markets and regions? - Does it support the volume of tracking you need? ### Technical requirements: - Will it integrate with your existing tool and CI platforms? - Does it offer the API capabilities needed for your workflow? - Can it scale with your competitive monitoring needs? ### Implementation and support: - What onboarding and training resources are provided? - Is there dedicated technical support for enterprise clients? - How responsive is their customer service team? ### Data quality and reliability: - How frequently is ranking data updated? - What measures ensure data accuracy? - How extensive is their historical data coverage? ### Budget considerations: - Are there hidden costs for advanced features? - What's the pricing structure for adding users or keywords? - Do they offer flexible contract terms? [Is enough PMM budget spent on competitive intelligence tools?Competitive intelligence is ideal for keeping market rivals at an arm’s length; dedicating time, effort, and resources to making sure it’s done right is crucial. Are organizations taking competitive intelligence seriously enough? and are they putting their hands into their pockets to finance it?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-46.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceLawrence Chapman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/tobias-tullius-4dKy7d3lkKM-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/pmm-budget-spend/) ## Final thoughts Choosing the right SEO competitor rank tracker is important for CI professionals. It helps them stay competitive in digital markets. The ideal tool combines comprehensive keyword tracking, SERP feature analysis, and robust competitive monitoring capabilities while integrating smoothly with existing intelligence workflows. Before investing, evaluate your specific needs around competitive intelligence requirements. Consider factors like data freshness, reporting capabilities, and ROI potential. Keep in mind that the most expensive tool isn't always the best choice. Focus on features that help your CI goals and give useful insights for stakeholders. ### Get to grips with unexpected market news in 10 minutes or less URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/get-to-grips-with-unexpected-market-news/ Last updated: 2025-04-02T17:01:08.000Z As an intelligence professional, it comes with the territory that you want to be at the forefront of breaking news to the rest of your organization. On a good day, you anticipate [product launches](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-for-product-launches/) and strategy changes before they happen in the market, sharing updates as soon as new information is available. So, it can feel disheartening to be surprised when someone else finds and shares a critical piece of information about market dynamics, especially if you didn’t see it coming! ## **When you get news** The process may start with being copied on a message shared with a broad group, it has a link to an article or a blog post and one sentence saying something like: “Thought this was a good article, so wanted to share” or even something as brief as “wow”. You may wonder, “What’s my value add if I’m not the one on top of what’s happening in our market?” ## **The actions you should take** The answer I’ve found is that an intelligence team’s value-add doesn’t end at sharing [market information](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/); it’s just the beginning. So, in times like this, when I’m surprised by market news, I start with a quick set of actions (about 10 mins worth) to get on top of the situation and make notes for future work. [Competitive Intelligence vs. Market IntelligenceMarket intelligence provides the backdrop against which you compete with business rivals. Competitive intelligence is more specific than market intelligence, dealing with specific competitors instead. Rather than the larger market both you and your competitors are a part of.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-40.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/mateusz-waclawek-t2b2svMf8ek-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-vs-market-intelligence/) The process runs like this: **First, I read & summarize the article/report/news item** Whether it’s a few paragraphs or hundreds of pages, I aim to synthesize the essence into one to three sentences. The summary will provide a synopsis for anyone who doesn’t have time to read it in detail. Start with a skim read; more in-depth reading can happen later. **Categorize what type of news it is** It could be a product announcement, trends report, opinion piece, [pricing change](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/), marketing campaign, business organization update, or a new regulation. **Interpret the tone** Whether it's positive, negative, or neutral can indicate the motivation and opinions of the writer. Any spurious claims or statements without source references give me cause for concern, and I’ll make a note to follow up later. **Next, it’s time to assess why it was written** This step takes a little more effort, and it’s where my ongoing market tracking becomes useful. Recollect the last relevant news related to this piece and try to string together how this announcement may fit into a broader strategy. Thinking about what is known about this topic or competitor will help indicate why this may be happening now. Research may also involve doing some quick research on the author and their past work to assess how credible they seem. For anything that requires more than five minutes of investigation, I make a note to follow up later. **With these steps complete, the most practical step is to contextualize the information from the company’s perspective** I try to answer the following questions: - Why would my company care about this? - How will this news be interpreted, and will that interpretation vary by department? - Finally, what, if any, action should happen based on this news? [Competitive Intelligence: What It Is and How to Do ItLearn the power of competitive intelligence: Transform market insights into strategic business advantages that drive growth and outperform rivals.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-41.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/What-is-competitive-intelligence-3.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) ## **What next?** By the end, I’m able to summarize: (i) what happened, (ii) why, (iii) what points (if any) are relevant (iv) what action (if any) can be taken based on this information. I’m then ready to share a summary of the news with the organization, some background context, and what impact, if anything, this would have on the company. Finally, I’ll outline the next steps and a timeline I’ll follow to investigate further. When news is shared without sufficient context, while some people may read further, many won’t have time; your colleagues will know something important may have happened but won’t know what it is or why it’s noteworthy in the first place. Lack of context can risk spreading panic or misconceptions. Putting information in meaningful terms for your audience is the crucial value add of an intelligence team. You can provide a value-added service for 10 minutes of additional work to benefit everyone else in the company. With this process in place, I’ve gone from my heart stopping whenever I’m caught off guard with new market information to loving it because it allows me to add value to the conversation with market context. Having a good process in place also helps in high-stress situations, when time is limited, and effort can be focused on action rather than planning or hypothesizing the right approach. *Originally published on* [*Medium*](https://aislingkc.medium.com/didnt-see-that-coming-39eeffa3b6f)*.* --- *If you haven't already,* [*join our growing community*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) *of competitive intelligence professionals to connect with your peers, check out job offers, share ideas and resources, and so much more.* [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-42.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Meta_Image_Template-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ### How to perform a competitor backlink analysis URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-backlink-analysis/ Last updated: 2025-02-05T15:09:18.000Z Here’s a fact that might make you rethink [your SEO strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/): the top-ranking page on Google typically has **3.8 times more backlinks** than the pages ranked #2 to #10\. And it’s not just about quantity – diversity matters too. In the same [study](https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking), Backlinko found that pages with links from a wide range of domains tend to rank even higher. If backlinks are the currency of [SEO](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-perform-seo-swot-analysis/), then competitor backlink analysis is like uncovering your rival’s secret stash. It’s your chance to see where they’re getting their link juice, which domains are boosting their authority, and how you can tap into similar opportunities. In this guide, you’ll learn how to: - Identify the competitors whose backlinks are driving their rankings. - Use top tools like Semrush, SpyFu, Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, and Moz to uncover backlink data. - Analyze backlink metrics to spot quality opportunities. - Build a winning backlink strategy that outshines your competition. Because when it comes to SEO, you don’t just want to compete – you want to win. ## What is competitor backlink analysis? Competitor backlink analysis is exactly what it sounds like – it’s the process of examining the backlinks pointing to [your competitors’ websites](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/). Backlinks, also known as inbound links, are links from one website to another, and they play a crucial role in determining how search engines rank a page. Why do backlinks matter so much? They’re like endorsements from other websites, signaling to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy. The more high-quality backlinks a site has, the more likely it is to rank higher in search results. By analyzing your competitors’ backlinks, you can uncover the sites boosting their authority, spot patterns in their link-building strategy, and identify opportunities to replicate or even outperform their success. Think of it as reverse-engineering their SEO game plan to strengthen your own. ## Why is competitor backlink analysis important for your SEO strategy? Backlinks are a cornerstone of effective SEO. The more high-quality links a site has, the more authority it builds in the eyes of search engines. But it’s not just about quantity. [A study published on Backlinko](https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking) found that the number of domains linking to a page had the strongest correlation to higher rankings on Google. In other words, variety matters. Getting backlinks from a range of websites sends a clear signal to search engines that your content is worth paying attention to. There’s also a snowball effect to consider. [According to Ahrefs](https://ahrefs.com/blog/backlink-growth-study/), the number-one ranking page in Google search results gains **5%–14.5%** more do-follow backlinks from new websites each month. This "vicious circle of SEO" means that once a page ranks highly, it continues to attract even more backlinks, cementing its position at the top. This is why competitor backlink analysis is such a critical part of your SEO strategy. By analyzing your competitors’ backlinks, you can identify the domains boosting their rankings, uncover link-building strategies that work, and find opportunities to secure backlinks that propel your site forward. The more strategic you are in leveraging this information, the better your chances of breaking into – and staying in – that coveted top spot. ## How to carry out competitor backlink analysis: A step-by-step guide Competitor backlink analysis might sound tricksy, but trust me – it’s not rocket science. With the right tools and a clear plan, you can uncover your competitors’ backlink strategies and use that intel to level up your own rankings. The process boils down to four simple steps: [![How to do a competitor backlink analysis. Step 1: Identify your competitors. Step 2: Gather backlink data. Step 3: Analyze the data to uncover opportunities. Step 4: Build and implement a winning backlink strategy.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/12/Step-by-step-guide-to-competitor-backlink-analysis.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-backlink-analysis) A step-by-step guide to competitor backlink analysis Let’s take a closer look at each step. ### Step one: Identify your competitors First things first – you’ve got to know who you’re up against. These are the websites outranking you for important keywords or dominating your niche. But, how do you find them without spending hours combing through Google? Enter [SpyFu](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-swot-analysis-tools-you-should-be-using/#spyfu)’s RivalFlow AI, your new best friend for competitive search intel. Here’s how it works: drop in your domain URL, and RivalFlow AI instantly spits out a list of keywords you’re being outranked for, along with the competitors stealing your spotlight. And it doesn’t stop there. You can click “Generate project” under any of those insights, and in less time than it takes to brew your morning coffee, it’ll hand you detailed suggestions to outshine those competitors. It’s fast, it’s free to get started, and honestly, it feels like you’ve just cheated the SEO system (in the best way possible). [![Screenshot from SpyFu's RivalFlow AI tool. It shows that Nike.com is now ranking below Stockx.com in search results for "Jordans", and gives the option to generate a project that will turn the tide.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/12/SpyFu-s-RivalFlow-AI-tool.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-backlink-analysis) SpyFu’s RivalFlow AI tool in action Want another option? Let’s talk [Semrush](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/5-companies-that-scales-through-product-led-content/#company-one:-semrush). This all-in-one platform is a powerhouse for competitor research. Just enter your domain or URL into the Backlink Analytics tool, hit "Analyze," and head to the Competitors tab. You’ll get a ranked list of competing domains, complete with data to help you size up the competition. Here’s what Semrush highlights: - **Competition level:** How closely a domain competes with yours based on shared backlinks. A higher percentage means more overlap. - **Common referring domains:** The number of websites linking to both you and your competitors. - **Total referring domains:** The total number of unique domains linking to a competitor’s site, showing their backlink diversity. - **Backlinks:** The overall number of backlinks pointing to a competitor’s domain, giving you an idea of their link-building volume. For example, if you analyze Nike.com, you’ll see competitors like Adidas.com or NBA.com ranked by competition level and backlink overlap. This kind of intel helps you pinpoint who’s winning in your space and where you might need to step up your game. [![Competitors tab in Semrush's Backlink Analytics tool showing a list of domain competitors for nike.com, ranked by competition level, with data columns for common referring domains, total referring domains, and total backlinks.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/12/Semrush-Backlink-Analytics.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-backlink-analysis) Semrush Backlink Analytics at work With either tool, you’ll quickly build a hit list of competitors whose backlink strategies are worth investigating. Now that you’ve identified the players, it’s time to dive into their backlink profiles and uncover their secrets. ### Step two: Gather backlink data Now that you’ve identified your competitors, it’s time to dig into the details of their backlink profiles. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools to help you gather this data efficiently. Here are a few standout options: #### Ahrefs free backlink checker If you’re on a tight budget, Ahrefs’ Free Backlink Checker is a solid starting point. Simply enter a competitor’s domain, and the tool provides a quick overview of their top backlinks. While it doesn’t offer the full functionality of Ahrefs’ paid plan, it’s handy for getting a snapshot of a competitor’s backlink strategy without spending a dime. #### Moz link explorer (free tier) Moz offers a free version of its Link Explorer tool, which allows up to 10 queries per month. It provides: - **Domain authority (DA):** A score predicting how well a site will rank on search engines. - **Linking domains:** The number of sites linking to a competitor. - **Top pages:** Your competitor’s most valuable pages. While the free version is limited to ten inquiries per month, it’s useful for quickly gauging the quality and diversity of your competitor’s backlinks. #### Ubersuggest backlink tool Ubersuggest is a great choice if you’re looking for a straightforward way to gather backlink data without a steep learning curve. Its backlink overview gives you a clear picture of a competitor’s link profile, including the total number of backlinks, referring domains, and even a timeline showing how their backlinks have grown (or shrunk) over time. It’s perfect for spotting trends or figuring out when a competitor might have kicked off a big link-building campaign. You can also see new and lost referring domains, which is super helpful for identifying fresh opportunities. Then there’s the backlink details section. Here, you can dig into individual backlinks with metrics like domain authority, page authority, spam score, and anchor text. You can filter the results to focus on follow or nofollow links, or even limit it to one link per domain to keep things clean. This makes it easy to zero in on the most valuable links driving your competitor’s rankings. With its user-friendly interface and detailed insights, Ubersuggest is perfect for getting actionable backlink data without feeling overwhelmed. Whether you’re just starting out or looking for a budget-friendly tool, it’s definitely worth checking out. And good news – you can try it for free! #### OpenLinkProfiler OpenLinkProfiler is a tool brilliant for exploring competitor backlinks in detail. It provides a comprehensive overview of a competitor’s backlink profile, including metrics like: - **Total backlinks and referring domains:** See the total number of backlinks pointing to a site and the unique domains sending them. This helps you understand the scale and diversity of a competitor’s link-building efforts. - **Backlink types:** Visualized in clean pie charts, OpenLinkProfiler categorizes links by attributes like follow/nofollow, platform types (e.g., blogs, forums), and even semantic locations. These insights let you spot patterns and identify where competitors are earning their most valuable links. - **Link details:** The tool provides granular data for individual backlinks, including the URL, type (e.g., anchor or image), anchor text, and the quality of the referring page and domain. OpenLinkProfiler is particularly useful for uncovering recent backlinks, as it focuses on links acquired within the last 90 days. This gives you up-to-date insights into your competitors’ ongoing campaigns. Best of all, it’s completely free, making it a great option if you’re just getting started or looking for quick, actionable intel. ### Step three: Analyze your competitors’ backlinks Now that you’ve gathered all that juicy backlink data, it’s time to analyze it. This is where you uncover actionable insights like where your competitors are earning their most valuable links, which sites are boosting their rankings, and where you might be missing opportunities. #### Spot patterns in backlink profiles Start by looking at trends and patterns in your competitors’ backlinks. Are they getting a lot of links from blogs, news sites, or forums? Is there a recurring theme in the anchor text used (like specific keywords or branded terms)? Identifying these trends will help you understand the strategies driving their rankings and how you can replicate or improve on them. #### Focus on quality, not just quantity Not all backlinks are created equal. A few high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites will have a much bigger impact than hundreds of low-value links. Use the metrics provided by your tools – like domain authority, spam score, and traffic estimates – to assess the quality of your competitors’ backlinks. Prioritize links from trusted, high-traffic domains that are relevant to your industry. #### Use Semrush’s Backlink Gap tool for side-by-side comparisons If you want to see how your backlink profile stacks up against your competitors, make Semrush’s Backlink Gap tool your go-to. You can use it to compare your domain with up to four competitors at a time and categorize backlinks into: - **Best:** High-authority domains that link to multiple competitors but not to you. These are prime targets for your outreach efforts. - **Weak and strong:** Knowing the link quality can help you prioritize where to focus your efforts. - **Shared and unique:** Domains linking to all competitors (shared) or only one competitor (unique), giving you insights into both overlap and exclusivity. [![Semrush Backlink Gap Tool interface showing a comparison of backlinks for Nike.com and competitors (Adidas.com, SI.com, NBA.com, and StockX.com), with data on authority score, monthly visits, and the number of matches for each referring domain.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/12/Semrush-Backlink-Gap-Tool.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-backlink-analysis) Semrush’s Backlink Gap tool in action Semrush also provides key metrics like authority score and monthly visits for each domain, helping you prioritize high-impact opportunities. For example, if a competitor has backlinks from a high-traffic site that you’re missing, that’s a clear sign to reach out and close the gap. ### Step four: Build your backlink strategy Now that you’ve analyzed your competitors’ backlinks and identified key opportunities, it’s time to put that data to work by building a solid backlink strategy. The goal isn’t just to copy what your competitors are doing – it’s to find the best opportunities for your site and create a plan that propels you ahead. ### Prioritize high-impact opportunities Start by focusing on the “best” backlinks you uncovered during your analysis. These are high-authority domains that link to multiple competitors but not to you. These are prime targets because they’ve already shown they’re willing to link to sites in your industry. Reach out with tailored pitches, highlighting how your content or product adds unique value. ### Leverage existing relationships Don’t overlook the power of relationships you already have. If you’ve identified domains linking to both you and your competitors (shared backlinks), reach out to strengthen those relationships. For example, if a blogger has already linked to one of your articles, they may be open to linking to additional content if you pitch it well. ### Create link-worthy content To attract quality backlinks, you need content that’s worth linking to. Here are a few ideas: - **Data-driven content:** Original research, studies, or statistics that others will want to cite. - **How-to guides:** Detailed, actionable content that solves a problem. - **Infographics:** Visually engaging content that’s easy to share. - **Expert interviews or roundups:** Leverage the authority of industry experts to boost your content’s credibility. The more valuable and shareable your content is, the easier it will be to earn backlinks. ### Use tools to streamline outreach Outreach is a critical part of any backlink strategy, and tools like Semrush and BuzzStream make it easy. These tools allow you to find contact details for target domains, track outreach campaigns, and even automate follow-ups. When you reach out, be sure to personalize your emails to show how your content aligns with the site’s audience and why linking to your page adds value. ### Diversify your backlink profile Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Aim for backlinks from a range of sources, including blogs, news sites, directories, and forums. A diverse backlink profile signals to search engines that your site is credible and widely referenced. ### Monitor and adjust Once your backlink strategy is in motion, keep an eye on your progress. Use tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to monitor new backlinks, measure their impact on your rankings, and refine your strategy as needed. If a particular outreach approach isn’t working, tweak it. If a specific type of content is earning lots of links, double down on that format. Building a backlink strategy takes time and effort, but with a clear plan and consistent action, you’ll start to see results. The key is to focus on quality, relevance, and long-term value – because when it comes to backlinks, it’s all about building authority that lasts. ## Conclusion With a solid competitor backlink analysis under your belt, you’re equipped to take your SEO game to the next level. You’ve identified the competition, uncovered key insights, and built a strategy to target high-value opportunities. Just remember, SEO isn’t a one-and-done effort – it’s an ongoing process. Stay curious, keep experimenting, and trust that the work you’re putting in now will lead to long-term results. ### Competitive Intelligence Alliance Awards 2024: Your winners URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-alliance-awards-2024-your-winners/ Last updated: 2024-12-02T20:00:00.000Z We’ll admit… This wasn’t easy. But after thoughtful consideration and a thorough review of this year’s nominees, we’re thrilled to finally announce our 2024 CI Specialist of the Year! Though all our nominees are truly exceptional in this field, this year’s winner stands out for their relentless pursuit of elevating the CI function and those in it. So, without further ado, join us in celebrating our winner! ## **Competitive Intelligence Specialist of the Year** This competitive intelligence specialist has gone above and beyond, setting new standards and encouraging many other practitioners to achieve their best. We’re talking about none other than [**Fouad Benyoub**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/fouadbenyoub/)! Having spent nearly two decades in this space, this individual truly embodies the passion and drive needed to excel in a field as rigorous and versatile as competitive. Notably, his work and willingness to help others in the community are remarkable. Congratulations, Fouad, and thank you for all you do! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/11/Fouad-Benyoub---Winner.png) ## **A massive thank you!** We're incredibly grateful to those who cast their votes! And to our nominees, well done - it was truly difficult to pick just one winner, but we’re thankful for and recognize your unique contributions to this space. Join us once more to **congratulate our winner**, **Fouad**! And keep an eye out for next year’s awards! We can’t wait to celebrate all your hard work once again. ### My leap from content to product marketing: Lessons learned along the way URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/my-leap-from-content-to-product-marketing-lessons-learned-along-the-way/ Last updated: 2024-11-27T09:09:41.000Z I was looking for a challenge, but I didn’t know which direction I was heading. Not until a marketing director suggested I apply my skills to a role in product marketing. So, I transitioned from Head of Content Marketing to a Product Marketing Manager role and have since worked across the tech sector—from FinTech to design tech to EdTech. Now, as Director of Product Marketing at Ocelot, I’ve had the chance to reflect on my journey and the lessons I’ve learned. I’d like to share some of those with you today. # The transition from content to product marketing Let’s go back to the beginning. Honestly, I was comfortable as Head of Content Marketing. I worked well with my team and enjoyed leading them. But I started to feel like I’d hit a ceiling. That’s when my marketing director suggested I consider [product marketing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/product-marketing-leader-influence/). At first, I was reluctant. I enjoyed my role and didn’t see a clear path forward. But my director pointed out skills I already had—like simplifying complex ideas, storytelling, and understanding [personas](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/persona-building/)—and showed how they applied to product marketing. Even so, it took me two months to decide. You have to understand: Six or seven years ago, product marketing wasn’t as established as it is today. I didn’t know many product marketers and had to dig into [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/competitive-intelligence-alliance/) and reach out to people for advice. The [feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/) I got was consistent: “If you’re going to make the leap, now’s the time.” So, I took it. It wasn’t a step up or down but rather a lateral move into a new specialization, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions of my career. # Transferable skills that made the career shift easier I quickly realized there’s a significant overlap between [content](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-pen-is-mightier-how-competitive-intelligence-can-influence-a-content-marketing-strategy/) and product marketing. Content marketers can make great product marketers because both roles rely on storytelling, crafting effective messaging, and deeply understanding customer pain points and their needs. [Your ultimate guide to creating a value propositionA value proposition communicates how your product or service will benefit your customer. You need to outline why your product is essential for your target segment, how it will solve their pain points, and why your product is more desirable than others on the market.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-33.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceLawrence Chapman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/photo-1584044283481-9b18070011e1.jpeg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/your-ultimate-guide-to-creating-a-value-proposition/) However, I also realized there were areas where I needed to grow. Customer and competitive intelligence, for example, weren’t as central to my previous role, but they’re foundational in product marketing. I completed the [Product Marketing Alliance (PMA) core course](https://learning.productmarketingalliance.com/on-demand/product-marketing-certified-core) to address these gaps. It not only validated what I was already doing but also introduced me to new frameworks and techniques. One of the best parts was involving my team in the learning process. We’d complete sections of the course, discuss them together, and apply the insights to our work. It was a collaborative way to grow, making the transition smoother for all of us. ## Adjusting to the new role I’ll be honest: the move from content to product marketing wasn’t completely intuitive. At first, I missed having a team. As Head of Content Marketing, I had four direct reports and thrived on mentoring and collaboration. Transitioning into product marketing meant working more independently, which took some getting used to. ****One of the challenges I faced was the solitary nature of the role.** In many organizations, product marketing can feel like a lonely department. You’re often the only one focused on certain strategic aspects, which means you don’t have the same level of internal support. To counter this, I turned to the [PMA Slack community](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/join-slack/). It’s a growing network of product marketers worldwide, and it has become my go-to place for brainstorming, sharing expertise, and learning from others. The openness of the product marketing community is incredible. I’ve had conversations with peers in Canada, the U.S., Australia, and beyond. **It’s reassuring to know that even if you’re the only product marketer in your company, you’re never really alone.** # The move into EdTech After gaining experience in FinTech, design tech, and data tech, I moved to EdTech. Honestly, part of the decision came down to timing. I had worked closely with a CMO, and we had a strong professional understanding of each other. She knew what I could deliver as a Product Marketer, and I understood her expectations, having worked under her leadership for about two years. [How to Deliver Competitive Intelligence to LeadershipWe’ve covered sales, marketing, and product, but there’s another group that can make even greater use of competitive insights: the C-suite.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-34.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Framework_Tiles_competitive_briefs.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/) We’d been having ongoing conversations about Product Marketing frameworks and how to implement a GTM strategy at her organization. Those discussions eventually led to her inviting me to join her team to bring the vision we’d been shaping to life. But what really drew me in was the mission. EdTech is about improving access to education and supporting students, and that social impact resonated with me. Plus, I was intrigued by how AI was being used responsibly in higher education. It became clear early on that this was about making a real difference for students and higher-ed institutions, and that opportunity drew me in. ## AI and higher education Students today have different expectations than they did 10 or 20 years ago. They live in a world of instant gratification, where they can stream movies a month after their release or get answers at the tap of a screen. Higher education needs to keep up with that. [AI-powered](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-ci-playbook/) communication channels can help by providing 24/7 support, whether it’s answering financial aid questions, managing enrolment queries, or sending fee reminders. However, there’s skepticism—especially from educators. Many worry that AI might replace critical thinking or reduce human interaction. To address this, my team and I focus on “human-centered AI.” It’s about using [AI as a support mechanism](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-competitive-intelligence-tasks/), not a replacement. For example, AI can handle repetitive questions, freeing up advisors to work on complex, meaningful interactions with students. [Competitive Intelligence Certified: CoreCompetitive Intelligence Certified: Core lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/aed38082539eca9d9b8e4ba1e12ca808.png)The AllianceThe Alliance![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/222eaf9688598d606107b9b7e20245ea.jpg)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core) ## Overcoming misconceptions about AI When people fear AI, it’s often because they don’t understand it. My role as a product marketer is to demystify the technology. Early on, I learned about the specific type of AI we use at Ocelot and how it fits into the higher education ecosystem. Our messaging emphasizes that our [AI operates with human oversight](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/role-of-ai-in-competitive-intelligence-ben-hoffman/) and is informed by millions of real student interactions. It’s not scraping random data from the web but working within controlled, accurate parameters. We call it “responsible AI,” and that transparency has helped build trust with our audience. ## From skeptic to advocate Look, I wasn’t always a believer in AI. A couple of years ago, when budget constraints prevented me from hiring replacements for my team, a VP I reported to, suggested I use AI to support my work. My immediate reaction was resistance. I thought, “AI can’t possibly replace what we do as product marketers.” > “It’s kind of like Tony Stark climbing into the Iron Man suit. He is still Tony Stark, but the Iron Man suit allows him to have these amazing powers that amplify what he can already do.” – [Bart Caylor, co-host of The Higher Ed Marketer podcast](https://bartcaylor.medium.com/work-smarter-with-generative-ai-96aaf82ab07f) But over time, I realized AI wasn’t about replacing people but about **complementing** their work. I started developing processes where AI could handle repetitive tasks, allowing me to focus on strategic priorities. Looking back, it’s been transformative. AI now supports me as a solo product marketer, and I can’t imagine working without it. [A holistic approach to competitive intelligenceAcross industries, from tech to retail, the need for real-time, accurate, and actionable insights has never been greater.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-36.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceNishant Rufus John![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--5--1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/holistic-approach-to-competitive-intelligence/) # So, what’s next for AI in product marketing? Fifteen years ago, cloud computing was a differentiator. Today, it’s a given. I believe AI is on a similar trajectory. In 10 to 15 years, it won’t be the main selling point—it will just be part of how we operate, and [SaaS solutions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-saas/) are built. For product marketers, the real differentiators will come down to how we use AI to enhance the customer experience and deliver value. The tools will change, but the fundamentals—understanding your audience, crafting compelling messages, and solving real problems—will always matter. # Some final thoughts My journey from content marketing to product marketing in EdTech has been challenging and rewarding. It’s taught me the value of transferable skills, [the power of community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/), and the importance of embracing change. I’ve found that success lies in staying curious, collaborative, and adaptable. If you’re considering a leap into product marketing, my advice is simple: take the leap. Reach out to the community, invest in learning, and don’t hesitate to step into a new specialization. And if you ever want to chat, my door is always open—just be prepared for what a friend and former colleague fondly calls my "dulcet northern tones." The opportunities for growth and impact are immense if you open yourself up to them. After all, the biggest leaps often lead to the most rewarding journeys—if you're brave enough to take the first step. --- *Want to dive deeper into* [*AI in competitive intelligence*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-ci-playbook/)*? Our playbook has the answers to your questions, including: how to start using AI properly? How to optimize prompts the right way? And which tasks is AI best suited for?* [AI in CI Playbook 2024 | Competitive Intelligence AllianceStop feeling frustrated with AI. This playbook shows you how to use the world’s newest breakthrough technology to save you time, maximize your impact, and make your daily competitive intelligence work more enjoyable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-35.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_AI_Playbook_Meta-1-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-ci-playbook/) ### Your guide to implicit segmentation marketing URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/implicit-segmentation-marketing/ Last updated: 2024-11-26T09:25:30.000Z Forget your existing target market for a second. Now think of *all* the possible people you *could* target. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/ezgif.com-gif-maker--2-.gif) That’s a lot of people, right? And you know it doesn’t make sense to target all of them. That’s why, before you get down to creating buyer personas, you should divide the market up into useful pieces. These pieces are known as [*segments*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/four-types-of-market-segmentation/). But what’s implicit segmentation? And why should your organization use it? Read on to discover… 👇 - [What implicit segmentation is.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/implicit-segmentation-marketing/#what-is-implicit-segmentation-in-marketing) - [The differences between implicit and explicit segmentation.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/implicit-segmentation-marketing/#explicit-vs-implicit-segmentation-techniques-in-marketing) - [What combining the two might look like.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/implicit-segmentation-marketing/#combining-explicit-and-implicit-techniques) - [Where segmentation fits into your marketing strategy.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/implicit-segmentation-marketing/#where-does-segmentation-fit-into-your-marketing-strategy) ## What is market segmentation? Market segmentation is the practice of sorting members of a customer base into divisions based on shared characteristics. Such characteristics can be simple, including age, demographic, background, and language. Or, such characteristics can be more sophisticated, based on the customers’ needs and [goals](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/goals-of-competitive-intelligence/), or on past behavioral data. Businesses use a market segmentation strategy to improve messaging specificity, to drive product [differentiation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/) to more closely match the needs of high-value or under-served market segments, and to generally improve marketing and product strategies. (Hint: if you're building a [niche differentiation strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-differentiation-strategy/), you'll want to know more about segmentation.) ## What is implicit segmentation in marketing? Implicit segmentation is the practice of using implied data to make assumptions about customers and categorize them. From there, you can predict future behavior, produce more targeted messaging, or provide a better customer experience. Segmentation is typically the first step in targeted, personalized marketing. 💡 **Implied data is data collected in the background, without asking customers to give specific information.* Implicit segmentation could include categorizing based on customer loyalty, implied interests (based on past activity and other data), the customer’s supposed engagement level, or their assumed stage in the customer journey. ## Explicit vs implicit segmentation techniques in marketing Struggling to understand implicit segmentation? Let’s take a look at its opposite, explicit segmentation. 👀 ### Explicit data and segmentation Explicit data is made up of information customers explicitly give you about themselves; your customers can then be grouped according to that information. This could include things the customer has done, the information they’ve given, or simple facts like their location and age. Explicit segmentation techniques make it easy to categorize customers, but the [segments](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/audience-segmentation-guide/) themselves are not always super useful, since they’re not specific. Their breadth can stop us from understanding different customer needs well enough, and from helping them to buy. Some examples of explicit segmentation: - Florida residents. - People aged 25-34. - Businesses in the telecommunications industry. You might be wondering, “Why not ask customers for specific information? Then it’s both explicit and specific.” You can. But this requires you to survey customers, which carries certain risks depending on your survey design. You risk asking leading questions that encourage certain answers. Or, the answers you allow for in multiple choice segments might not match those the customer wants to give. [B2B Market Segmentation Guide: How to Succeed in B2B in 2023Not all segmentation methods work for all businesses. If your customers are other businesses, rather than consumers, there are several key need-to-knows that’ll help you avoid pitfalls, create more actionable segments, and boost the results of your campaigns.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-22.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--2--3.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/b2b-market-segmentation-guide/) ### Implicit data and segmentation Collecting implicit data is different. You passively ‘listen’ to the actions of your customers, by using internet tracking cookies, or by looking at browser data, for example. This casts a wider net, so you can collect more data points, which allows for better analysis and segmentation. Implicit segmentation (or ‘implied segmentation’) techniques use this ‘background’ data to draw conclusions about consumers. 🤔 As an example, instead of people aged “25-34”, your segment might be “people interested in basketball”. This is a more specific (and therefore arguably more useful) category for a business to look into. But how would you assess whether a customer is part of that group if they don’t tell you? Implicit segmentation has the answer: guess that an individual is part of a specific segment based on the data you *do* have. [How to Get Started with Market SegmentationMarket segmentation is the process of splitting up your target market into a set of smaller groups based on shared needs or characteristics. It helps you make more sense of your audience. And studying each segment uncovers new useful information about its members.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-26.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/coline-beulin-MPOwVcXSVAI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-get-started-with-market-segmentation/) ## Combining explicit and implicit techniques In practice, it makes little sense to produce segments based on *only* explicit or implicit data. You’ll produce more useful, profitable segments if you combine both types of segmentation. Here’s a use case for you. Let’s say you own a business that sells computer parts to tech enthusiasts. You need to find potential [customers to market to](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/unmet-needs/). You might know from past buyer behavior that more than 50% of your buyers live in just three states (explicit data). You might also know that this majority is most interested in graphics cards and CPUs since this is what your customers in these states buy most often (explicit data). From internet browser data, perhaps you see that 70% of your website visitors are men aged between 16-34\. And that the [landing pages](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/role-of-ai/) on your site with the highest click-through rates are blogs about installing this hardware in laptops. You can take this information and combine it with your other data to create a high-value segment and, from there, build a solid buyer [persona](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/persona-building/). You’ll be able to include details about where this persona spends their time and attention, and where you should be advertising in order to capture that attention. [What is market segmentation?Knowing your audience is marketing 101, but knowing how your product can benefit your audience in a market oversaturated with competitors takes a little more finesse. Segmentation arms you with the data needed to fulfill your target customers’ needs![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-24.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceEmma Bilardi![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/sheri-silver-tWOt1vRvob4-unsplash-1.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-marketing-questions-answered-by-the-experts/) ## Sources of implicit and explicit data Before you can divide up your customer base, you need data. 👨‍💻 Of all the places you can go, it makes the most sense to start with those that are readily available and which contain a lot of useful information. Here are a few to get you started: ### **Email marketing campaigns** Your email campaigns are a great place to start. Open rates and click-through rates are great for learning about a customer’s possible engagement rate or level of interest. ### **Your sales platform** Sales platforms and CRMs like HubSpot are a goldmine. Right away you’ll be able to categorize leads according to what stage of the deal funnel they’re at. If you record conversations between customers and sales reps, even just as notes, you’ll have plenty of data that are both explicit *and* specific. ### **Social media platforms** [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/competitive-intelligence-alliance/), Facebook, and other [social media](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-social-media-to-create-a-competitive-advantage/) platforms offer readily available demographic data like age and location, plus data on customer interests. ### **Website analytics** Tools like Google Analytics and Hotjar can give you the data you need, both explicit and implicit. For example, you can get user-provided information through account registrations and form submissions, and you can also gather behavioral insights like page visits, click paths, and session durations. ### **Customer feedback tools** These tools (e.g., Typeform and SurveyMonkey) give you a great wealth of information about your audience, since you're getting responses to surveys and direct feedback. You can also detect patterns and response trends; for instance, are people skipping certain questions? Are they spending a very long time on a particular question? [Avoid These 10 Common Market Segmentation ErrorsWe’ve collated a list of the ten most common market segmentation errors you’ll need to avoid if you want to create relevant, useful segments that inform your marketing strategy and drive revenue.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-25.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/sigmund-By-tZImt0Ms-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/common-market-segmentation-errors/) ## Where does segmentation fit into your marketing strategy? You may have heard about the **STP framework**: Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning. As we alluded to in our introduction, and as the STP framework implies, segmentation comes early in your marketing strategy. In fact, it should probably come first. Though you can market to anyone, you shouldn’t market to everyone. And determining the highest value groups of people interested in your product or service, and prioritizing those groups in your [marketing strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-marketing-plan/), is crucial for getting the most out of your marketing efforts. This is because segmentation is the foundation for your targeting efforts. It ensures that your campaigns focus on the right audience with messages that resonate with them, rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach. So. before you and your marketing team start creating buyer personas, collect some implicit and explicit data to segment your audience. Prioritize the highest value segments, then create buyer personas for these segments. You’ll save time and achieve greater impact. 💪 --- *Do you know what you need to stay competitive? Our* [*State of CI report*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-state-of-ci-report/) *aims to help you do just that, providing insights into how much is spent annually on competitive intelligence, how CI teams contribute to decision-making despite limited budgets and resources, the skills and tools CI pros are focusing on as AI and automation reshape the field, and so much more.* [The State of Competitive Intelligence ReportDownload our annual deep-dive into the trends, challenges, and evolving strategies shaping competitive intelligence (CI) today.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-27.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCecilia Toro![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_State_of_CI_Meta_.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-state-of-ci-report/) ### The State of CI Report 2024 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-state-of-ci-report-2024-blog/ Last updated: 2024-11-22T11:13:06.000Z ![](https://pma-assets-external.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/CIA_State_of_CI_Report_2024_Mockup.png) The State of CI Report **A comprehensive look into what's needed to stay competitive.** As CI gains importance across industries, this field faces new challenges and exciting opportunities. Our latest report combines industry data and expert perspectives to provide actionable strategies for CI practitioners. 🤝 Download the report --- ![](https://pma-assets-external.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/CIA_State_Of_CI_Report_2024_Website_Assets_3.png) Why download this report? Well, you'll gain insight into: 🫡 Who's responsible for competitive intelligence in 2024.💰 How much is spent annually on competitive intelligence. 🤝 How CI teams contribute to decision-making despite limited budgets and resources. 🤖 The skills and tools CI pros are focusing on as AI and automation reshape the field. Give me my copy --- ### There's way more in this report, but to give you an idea of what's inside... ✌️ The 2 teams CI pros collaborate with the most. 🔭 Some of the most common competitive gathering methods. 😵‍💫 The 4 main challenges CI practitioners are facing (and how they’re overcoming them). 🫨 41.4% of respondents track tier-one competitors... Daily, weekly, monthly?? 📈 Experts weigh in on what they believe individuals need to excel in CI roles. 🎯 32% of respondents said this is their main goal when gathering intel. 😤 Is data overload or outdated info frustrating you? Here's how CI pros are handling that. 👀 How open are internal teams when sharing competitive info? This year's results might surprise you... 🔍 The 3 main areas CI pros focus on most. --- ## Don't just play catch-up. Download our free report and learn how other CI leaders are staying ahead. ## ### Eye of the Tiger…Team — How competitive intelligence helps short-term initiatives succeed URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-competitive-intelligence-helps-short-term-initiatives/ Last updated: 2024-11-22T11:13:56.000Z *Originally published on* [*Medium*](https://aislingkc.medium.com/eye-of-the-tiger-team-how-competitive-intelligence-helps-short-term-initiatives-succeed-1513678a660)*.* --- Take your pick; the last few years have included no end of seismic challenges for all types of markets and industries. Whether it was weathering the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply chain disruption or recent economic downturn, there’s been plenty of reasons your business might want to reassess strategy. Most Tiger Team efforts I’ve been part of start in response to external development. Others have been proactive initiatives to get ahead of future challenges (and in my experience, these have been the most fun ones). ![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*v7AfJ13xPKKtPwWtTv4bRw.jpeg) Have you been asked to lead or join at Tiger Team effort? Are you thinking of getting one started? Perhaps you’re participating in one now, but it’s not going as planned. We will see how competitive intelligence can help an organisation get the most out of a Tiger Team before, during, and after the initiative. For competitive intelligence to make a positive impact, it’s not just about what you bring but also how you present your insights, collaborate with others and adapt based on team dynamics. Whatever the starting point, Tiger Teams: (cross-functional small teams made up of different subject matter experts across an organisation for a short-term project) usually come together in response to the emergence of some relatively unknown factor: Something that could pose an existential threat or opportunity for a company. The external focus that every competitive intelligence professional has is an excellent asset for Tiger Teams, improving the efficiency, focus and business decision that get made. ## **The before:** Does your organisation have a history of running Tiger Team efforts? If not, as a Competitive intelligence professional, it can be a fantastic opportunity for recognition for you and your efforts if you see a need and are the one to propose a Tiger Team project. If you’re looking to build your profile, initiating and/or leading a Tiger Team can be a great way to do it. If you’re like me, part of your day-to-day activity will be scanning external news and market trends. In doing this, I like to keep a record of anything new or different that may not be immediately applicable but could have some value in future. The better your archive and knowledge of an industry, the easier it will be to source the most relevant information for the project and share it with the rest of the Tiger Team. [A holistic approach to competitive intelligenceAcross industries, from tech to retail, the need for real-time, accurate, and actionable insights has never been greater.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-15.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceNishant Rufus John![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--5-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/holistic-approach-to-competitive-intelligence/) Archiving may not be sexy, but it makes preparing for Tiger Teams much quicker than without it. An excellent way to get this going is to pick up on the topics your subject matter experts are interested in; I often spend time lurking in Slack or reading through recent presentations, listening to meeting recordings, or just having regular catchups with subject matter experts to keep in tune with what’s top of mind for them. I use this info to help pick out relevant topics from my external searches and use a standardised format to record the findings where I outline: (i) The topic (ii) The relevance to the organisation (iii) What’s noteworthy about the news (iv) How it may impact the organisation. This upfront work makes the information digestible for anyone in the org to read and easy to pull from later. ## **The beginning:** A Tiger Team usually follows a process of aligning on an issue statement, defining a plan, assigning roles, establishing a term for engagement, defining measures of success and disbanding. If one or several of these steps are missing in your Tiger Team effort, align on that topic immediately, the clarity of objective will help everyone involved. For competitive intelligence, your input is most critical at the beginning and end of a project, with less involvement in the middle portion where other stakeholders, now informed with (hopefully) helpful context, are executing in their respective areas of expertise. To set up a Tiger Team effort for success, I like to meet with the Sponsor of the initiative to get their direction on what they’d like the project to achieve. During this meeting, I’ll propose the content I think is relevant to the Tiger Team and determine if there are any gaps in what the Sponsor wants compared to the intelligence I have available. Then, directly after this alignment, while the conversation is still fresh, I will send an outline of content to brief participants in the Tiger Team. In every Tiger Team I’ve participated in, there has always been an abundance of information to hand and insufficient time for the subject matter experts to take it all in. So summarising the most critical points becomes crucial to making a Tiger Team successful. Usually, the approach I’ll take is to compile all relevant information with links to external sources in one central document but begin with no more than five slides that present: (i) Front and central: if the Team only reads one slide, let it be this one, a summary of the critical points of competitive context that usually includes — who the main competitor is and why, the most relevant market dynamics to be aware of at the current market trajectory, what the most likely evolution of the Market is and finally what are the favourable factors for the Organization or opportunities for innovation and differentiation. (ii) The market context — keeping it very recent, not dwelling on five years of history (iii) The key competitors/products/offerings and the strategic importance of the Market for each (i.e. the resources each competitor has to make their offering a success) (iv) Visual representation of the various competitor positioning — usually, I’ll create a 2x2 matrix with axes that are relevant to the issue at hand (v) Expected future moves of how the Market will evolve over the agreed time horizon Even with all this pre-read context, I ensure competitive intelligence can speak for a few mins during the beginning of the initial Tiger Team meeting. In this presentation, I put a lot of emphasis on making the content engaging, meaningful and relevant to the Team. Several times in Tiger Team initiatives, I’ve seen people reference what I cover in these talks as what sticks in their minds during the project to guide their strategy. [11 Types of Competitive Intelligence to Impress Your BossYour competitors are trying to eke out a competitive advantage. So how do you create your own? That starts with competitive intelligence. Here are 11 types to get you started.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-16.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/11-types-of-competitive-intelligence-3.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/) ## **During:** Once the Tiger Team is in motion, each subject matter expert will likely be hard at work in their respective disciplines. It’s been a good practice at Tiger Teams I’ve been part of to meet regularly to share updates and discuss findings — these are valuable opportunities for competitive intelligence to understand if there are more specialised topics that any of the Subject Matter Experts could use to compare or gain context from what activity is happening in the current or related markets. Though a subject matter expert may not expressly ask for input from Competitive (this could be the first time they are on a project with you and are uncertain of your role), it has always paid off when I’ve noticed a participant who could benefit from some more external context and then followed up with them offline. Tiger Team efforts are not always totally collaborative affairs. There has certainly been finger-pointing between teams in many organisations I’ve been part of, and participants may feel that others are out to get them. Competitive intelligence may bring facts from external Markets that are contentious or threaten the perspectives or decisions that people on the Tiger Team have made. In situations like this, for the good of the Organization, Competitive intelligence needs to hold firm and present the facts and input that will help make the best decisions, even if it contradicts how internal stakeholders may view the Market. If times like this get heated, I have always relied on the facts and external substantiation to make my point. While it may be difficult to swallow, holding impartial and firm on external dynamics will always pay off, not rising to the frustration or defensive behaviour others on the Tiger Team may be displaying. As a side note, in the organisations where I’ve established strong connections ahead of a Tiger Team, these types of interactions have improved interactions throughout the whole project. Once everyone on the Team knows you are acting in everyone’s best interest, interactions are more subdues and amicable. [What are the 4 key elements of a strategic plan?Strategic planning can feel a bit daunting, right? But if you want to get your business moving in the right direction, a solid plan is a must-have.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-17.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--13-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-are-the-4-key-elements-of-a-strategic-plan/) ## **War Game?** Sometimes during a Tiger Team effort, an idea will emerge for moving forward. But to test this idea, the Team wants more certainty before moving forward. One option is to conduct a war game. War Gaming deserves an article all itself, but in brief, here are some basics to consider for Competitive intelligence to set up a war game that can have a beneficial outcome: (i) Split subject matter expertise equally between teams, (ii) Provide each Team with good context on what their specific strategic aim and resource available are (iii) Keep each round no longer than 30 mins and conduct no more than three rounds (iv) Develop a framework on how to award “points” and set the scene for each Team ahead of a round so that it focuses the participants’ creative juices. The time-sensitive nature of these sessions can bring new ideas, force critical thinking, and allow team members to see situations from a different perspective. So often, while the core idea may not change much, there is better energy and clarity on how to implement the concept best to give it the best chance of success. A war game tends to be one of the later stages of a Tiger Team effort. Sometimes it is the last activity before sharing results with external stakeholders and recommending a path forward. For the final presentation of findings, which the Business or Product functions usually lead, Competitive again can have a role in the presentation by putting the plan in the context of how it may perform in the Market. ## **The aftermath:** Work doesn’t necessarily end when the Tiger Team disbands. Now the focus goes back to monitoring how market trends are evolving and being the first warning signal to the organisation on any new trends that warrant the concern of the organisation. Defining several metrics that will indicate favorable or unfavorable performance in the Market is advantageous to ensure you’re catching timely signals to take action. It can be incredibly satisfying not just for competitive intelligence but for anyone who took part in the Tiger Team to see the Market evolving in line with predictions. Market predictions coming to pass are a great sign of success for competitive participation during the Tiger Team and may invigorate the Organization to hold more regular Tiger Team exercises to anticipate future market trends. --- *Are you being under-compensated for your work? Find out in our* [*Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/)*, where we exam the link between pay and factors like gender, seniority, and certifications.* [Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024 | CIAAn industry report on global competitive intelligence salaries, examining correlations and discrepancies between pay and factors like seniority, gender, location, and certifications.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-18.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Salary_Report_2024_Blog-2-1.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) ### A holistic approach to competitive intelligence: Integrating AI, frameworks, and best practices URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/holistic-approach-to-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2024-11-13T10:31:31.000Z [Competitive intelligence (CI)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) professionals are facing an unprecedented volume of data and a rapidly changing competitive landscape. Across industries, from tech to retail, the need for real-time, accurate, and actionable insights has never been greater. AI tools are now widely used across the CI landscape, building on the existing [machine learning ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-a-competitive-intelligence-flywheel-using-data-and-artificial-intelligence/)platforms and software repositories that have been around for years. With the rise of AI, many of these systems have added new features to improve workflows, making them more efficient and accurate. This shift helps meet the increasing demands of both [B2B and B2C markets](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/b2b-market-segmentation-guide/), though there's still room for improvement. This article explores how different categories of AI tools are helping CI professionals address common challenges, enhance sales enablement, and forecast future trends, while aligning these insights with [strategic frameworks](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-are-the-4-key-elements-of-a-strategic-plan/) and best practices to ensure actionable and effective decision-making. ## **Use cases** [AI tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-competitive-intelligence-tasks/) have brought significant innovation to the way [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-framework/) is gathered, analyzed, and implemented. The effectiveness of these tools often depends on their alignment with specific use cases. Below, we categorize AI tools based on common CI use cases and highlight how they help solve key challenges: ![A diagram of a diagram Description automatically generated](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcxA53-s7YFPND5LO5WQciQBDfQWe7wOnks50XbQPcdVMptEZqYd0jNn99NmeiVtrrJ2qqTPQpI6qW3zlsDr10BdBanU2HI7WEQgAgHBIODcDBc-2LpwFTL2ST162F6HxSSjhAb1Q?key=oF4vENMk4AuyjyJVB7UUpw) ### **1\. Real-time competitive and market surveillance** Real-time [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-vs-market-intelligence/) tools allow CI professionals to track competitor activity, market movements, and industry changes as they happen. These tools help filter out the noise by curating the most relevant insights for the sales cycle. However, the challenge lies in the sheer volume of data that can overwhelm sales teams, causing inefficiency. The best solution here is to prioritize data using role-specific dashboards, which present only actionable insights based on sales stage and relevance. **Strategic framework alignment:** Incorporating strategic frameworks like [**PESTEL Analysis**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/) and **Porter’s Five Forces** enhances the effectiveness of real-time intelligence tools. PESTEL helps organizations continuously assess external factors—such as political and technological changes—while tools monitor real-time developments, ensuring strategies remain adaptable. Porter’s Five Forces complements this by tracking competitive rivalry and the threat of new entrants, providing a dynamic understanding of industry competition. Additionally, frameworks like the **OODA Loop** (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), a.k.a., continuous intelligence help observe and orient more effectively, improving decision-making speed in response to competitive moves, while **SWOT Analysis** supports teams to categorize intel and map them to action as they emerge from real-time data. Together, these frameworks guide how to best respond to evolving market conditions and [competitor](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/) trends, ensuring more strategic decision-making. ### **2\. Competitor data aggregation and market mapping** Aggregating data from various sources into one platform is a significant advantage AI tools provide. These tools allow for better visualization of competitor relationships, [market positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/), and trend emergence. The challenge comes from data fragmentation, where information is spread across too many sources, making it difficult to form a unified view. [AI-powered data](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-at-work/) aggregation tools solve this by bringing all relevant data into one place, providing clarity and allowing CI professionals to focus on actionable insights instead of data collection. **Strategic framework alignment**:AI-powered aggregation tools are essential for building a [**Competitive Positioning Matrix**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/), enabling organizations to visualize where they stand relative to competitors in the market. By mapping out key players and their positioning, businesses can craft more informed strategies. These tools also enhance [**Porter**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-run-a-porters-five-forces-analysis-session/)**’s Value Chain** analysis by offering insights into how competitors operate across different stages of their value chain, which helps refine a company’s own competitive advantage. In addition, tools that highlight trend emergence and market gaps are crucial in implementing a **Blue Ocean Strategy**, where the goal is to identify and explore untapped markets with less competition. Lastly, **Ecosystem Mapping** benefits greatly from data aggregation by visualizing relationships between businesses, suppliers, partners, and technologies, helping organizations develop strategies that capitalize on ecosystem dynamics for sustained growth. [What is a sustainable competitive advantage?Finding an edge over other products with similar features requires clever analysis and strategic planning.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-12.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCecilia Toro![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--3-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage/) ### **3\. Social listening and sentiment analysis** [Social listening tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-listening/) track consumer/user/buyer sentiment and competitor brand mentions across social media and other digital channels. These tools help uncover insights into customer/end-user preferences and perceptions of competitors’ products and brands. However, the reliability of user-generated content can vary greatly. The key is to cross-validate these insights with verified sources such as industry reports or trusted publications and even internal experts. AI can be leveraged to filter out noise and highlight reliable trends that directly inform competitive positioning and customer engagement strategies. **Strategic framework alignment:** Social listening tools are instrumental in enhancing customer journey mapping by capturing real-time feedback from consumers at various touchpoints, helping businesses refine their customer experience strategies. Additionally, these tools contribute to **Brand Health Analysis** by providing metrics that gauge brand strength and reputation, offering insights crucial for maintaining competitive positioning. By integrating social sentiment data into **Voice of the Customer** (VoC) Programs, companies can leverage real-time feedback to improve products, services, and overall brand perception. Furthermore, sentiment analysis can directly inform **Net Promoter Score** (NPS) calculations, enhancing customer loyalty and retention strategies by identifying customer pain points and satisfaction levels. These frameworks ensure that social listening is not just about gathering data but about strategically applying the insights to improve customer experience and brand loyalty. ### **4\. Sales and customer insights** In the B2B space, market research and insights [tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-intelligence-tools-tech-stack/) are invaluable for understanding competitor tactics, customer behavior, and identifying high-value accounts. One key challenge is the fragmentation of customer and competitor data across various systems, which complicates efforts to provide sales teams with a comprehensive view of each prospect. Additionally, the long and complex [sales cycles](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measure-sales-enablement-roi/) in B2B require CI professionals to deliver timely, relevant insights throughout the sales process, ensuring that sales teams remain engaged with high-value prospects. Aligning sales and marketing strategies is another ongoing challenge, particularly when both teams operate in silos. CI professionals must ensure that the intelligence they provide is used cohesively across the organization. Finally, in complex industries, identifying high-value accounts can be difficult without a deep understanding of competitor activity and [market trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/). CI tools can assist by integrating competitor data and market insights into **customer segmentation models**, helping sales teams focus on high-value accounts. These tools also track competitor activity in target accounts, providing real-time updates that help marketing and sales teams collaborate more effectively. Additionally, predictive analytics from CI tools forecast competitor actions and market shifts, allowing sales teams to stay ahead of potential issues and keep prospects engaged throughout the sales funnel. To overcome this, companies should develop [**structured playbooks**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) that incorporate dynamic competitor profiles and real-time customer insights, ensuring tailored strategies for high-value accounts. One should also incorporate **role-playing scenarios** that allow sales teams to practice applying these insights effectively during the sales cycle. These playbooks should be regularly updated with the latest CI and refined through role-playing exercises to ensure sales reps are fully equipped to win competitive deals. [The CI-by-Industry eBook5 experts. 5 different industries. 5 case studies. Almost 50 years’ combined experience. Uncover their tried and tested methods for success.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-13.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_CI-by-industry-playbook_Blog_.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-by-industry-ebook/) **Strategic framework alignment:** Customer value-based segmentation helps CI teams prioritize accounts by analyzing both internal engagement and external competitor dynamics. Aligning CI with **Account-Based Marketing** (ABM) ensures personalized, data-driven campaigns that reflect competitor behavior, fostering collaboration between marketing and sales. Finally**, customer journey mapping**, enhanced by predictive CI, helps forecast account behaviors, enabling sales teams to address potential obstacles and maintain engagement with high-value prospects. ### **5\. Predictive analytics and trend forecasting** [Predictive](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/master-your-ci-function/) analytics tools use AI to forecast future market movements, technological advancements, and competitor strategies. These tools help CI professionals anticipate disruptions and prepare their organizations for potential challenges. However, reliance solely on AI models can be risky, especially when the data quality is not up to par. To mitigate this, it’s best to combine AI-driven forecasts with human expertise, cross-verifying predictions with multiple data points. This approach ensures that the forecasts are both realistic and practical for [strategic decision-making](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/five-dimensions-of-strategic-intelligence/). **Strategic framework alignment:** Predictive analytics plays a crucial role in **Scenario Planning**, where organizations develop multiple possible future scenarios based on different market conditions. By leveraging [AI-driven](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/role-of-ai-in-competitive-intelligence-ben-hoffman/) forecasts, businesses can plan for market shifts or disruptions and implement flexible strategies that adapt to different outcomes. Furthermore, predictive tools align with **Disruptive Innovation Theory** by identifying emerging technologies and business models that could disrupt current markets, helping companies either prepare for these innovations or take the lead in driving them. In terms of resource allocation, predictive analytics also supports the **Growth-Share Matrix** (BCG Matrix) by anticipating which products or markets are poised for growth or decline, ensuring strategic investments are well-targeted. Lastly, **Strategic Foresight** is enhanced by predictive analytics, enabling companies to plan for long-term challenges and opportunities, ensuring that their strategies remain forward-looking and adaptable to future industry trends. ### **6\. Sales alignment: Enablement and engagement supported by competitive intelligence** Sales alignment is key to ensuring sales teams can effectively leverage competitive insights in real time. Competitive Intelligence (CI) tools play a crucial role in both enabling sales teams and supporting engagement with high-value accounts. CI empowers sales teams by delivering [real-time intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/) on competitors and market dynamics, helping them position their solutions more effectively, handle objections, and engage strategically. A common challenge, however, is the lack of alignment between CI teams and sales departments, where valuable insights often go underutilized or overlooked. Sometimes, sales teams also lack access to up-to-date competitor information and struggle to apply these insights to their specific accounts, which can lead to missed opportunities. Therefore, the focus here should be to establish structured feedback loops between CI and sales teams to ensure continuous updates on competitor activity. Developing joint [competitive playbooks](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/head-to-head-playbook/) that integrate CI insights can help sales teams better understand their competitive landscape and tailor their engagement strategies. Additionally, incorporating dynamic competitor profiling through AI-driven tools ensures sales teams receive real-time updates specific to the accounts they are working on. These profiles provide actionable intelligence on competitor actions, industry shifts, and account-specific weaknesses. [Using CI to outsmart competitors year-roundSeasonality and competitive intelligence can be your way to stay ahead of your competitors all year-round.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-14.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceRaphael Moraes![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--2-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-ci-to-outsmart-competitors-year-round/) **Strategic framework alignment**: CI’s role in sales enablement is closely aligned with the **Battle Cards Framework**, where [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/) is condensed into easily digestible insights on competitors. Battle cards equip sales teams with key differentiators, objection handling strategies, and product comparisons, helping them strategically position the company during prospect conversations. CI also supports the **Challenger Sale Framework**, (teaching, tailoring, and taking control of sales conversation) where sales teams use market insights and competitor vulnerabilities to challenge a prospect’s existing thinking, positioning their solution as the best option. Additionally, the **SPIN Selling Framework** (Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-Payoff) is enhanced by CI, as intelligence on competitor offerings and market dynamics allows sales reps to ask pointed, solution-oriented questions. Lastly, CI is critical for companies adopting **Account-Based Selling (ABS)** strategies, CI offers targeted intelligence on specific accounts and industry pressures, allowing sales teams to tailor their approach to each high-value account, improving conversion and retention rates. ## **Conclusion** Competitive intelligence is evolving to address challenges like data overload and misalignment with cross-functional teams. A holistic approach combining real-time intelligence, strategic frameworks, and best practices is a better way to turn data into actionable insights. Rather than focusing solely on AI tools, CI professionals should align intelligence efforts with business goals and provide clarity on how to preempt or react to competitor actions, market shifts, and competitors’ customer behavior. This integrated approach will enable agile decision-making and transform intelligence into a competitive advantage. --- *Want more on AI in competitive intelligence? Here's a playbook with all the answers you need to understand how modern AI tools are built, optimize prompts the right way, understand which CI tasks AI is best suited for, and so much more.* [AI in CI Playbook 2024 | Competitive Intelligence AllianceStop feeling frustrated with AI. This playbook shows you how to use the world’s newest breakthrough technology to save you time, maximize your impact, and make your daily competitive intelligence work more enjoyable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-11.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_AI_Playbook_Meta-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-ci-playbook/) ### Competitive Intelligence Awards 2024: Your finalists URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-awards-2024-your-finalists/ Last updated: 2024-11-26T14:01:51.000Z The CI Specialist of the Year Award is almost here, and we can’t wait to celebrate the many innovators, creative thinkers, and inspiring strategists who drive this community forward. From the most passionate CI practitioners to the knowledge-sharing experts dedicated to elevating the field, this year’s nominations showcased the versatility of those in competitive intelligence. So… We’re thrilled to reveal the shortlist of finalists! Although there can only be one winner, join us as we honor these remarkable individuals and their impactful work. ## **Competitive Intelligence Specialist of the Year Award Finalists** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/11/CIA_Awards_NEWpng--1-.png) With its scope and value, competitive intelligence impacts nearly every department’s strategy. It’s demanding work, and managing an org’s competitive program is no small feat. Let’s meet this year’s standout CI professionals - individuals who challenge norms, rethink approaches, and foster an environment for CI experts to innovate, question, and explore new ways of strategizing: 1. [**Raphael Augusto de Moraes**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/moraesraphael) | Competitive Intelligence Specialist | Neoway 2. [**Talya Heller**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/talyahellermba18/) | Competitive Positioning Consultant and Founder | Down to a T 3. [**Mindy Regnell**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mindyregnell)| Head of Competitive Intelligence | Klaviyo 4. [**Sam Niro**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/slniro) | Senior Manager, Competitive Intelligence & Strategy | Talkdesk 5. [**Fouad Benyoub**](http://linkedin.com/in/fouadbenyoub) | Founder, Principal Competitive Strategist | Shiva Strategies ## **A huge congratulations to our nominees! Here’s what’s next…** Every one of these finalists embodies excellence in competitive intelligence. Their hard work and strategic vision have set a new standard for the industry. But, more importantly, when’s the winner going to be announced? Well, the winner will be revealed on [**December 2nd**](https://www.linkedin.com/events/7267114444072140800/comments/), so stay tuned and join us in celebrating these CI game-changers! ### Win/loss analysis: How to improve your job search strategy URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-analysis-how-to-improve-your-job-search-strategy/ Last updated: 2025-05-13T08:25:53.000Z [The job market](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-get-a-job-in-competitive-intelligence/) is always on the go, with technological developments, economic changes, and employer expectations always undergoing a change. Job market seems like a roller coaster for job seekers, full of ups and downs that affect your career a lot. The competition for the same positions is so fierce that having a clear job search strategy is very important. [Win/loss](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-ratio-what-it-is-and-how-to-calculate-it/) analysis is a viable tool you might want to investigate. And while it’s often talked about in the world of sales and marketing, it can really inform you on what’s working and not working in your job search, and give you the insight you need to get to the next stage. ## **Labor market analysis: Opportunities and challenges** ### **The strategy of job searching** In today’s job market, simply applying for jobs isn't enough—you need a solid strategy to stand out. With so many candidates and various ways to apply, it’s essential to find a way to set yourself apart from the rest. A thoughtful approach can make all the difference in how hiring managers see you. For instance, the **2024 Work Trend Index** from Microsoft and LinkedIn highlights the increasing importance of AI skills in job applications. With [**75% of knowledge workers**](https://news.microsoft.com/en-cee/2024/05/13/microsoft-and-linkedin-released-2024-work-trend-index-three-out-of-four-people-use-ai-at-work/) now using AI tools, job seekers who develop these skills are significantly more attractive to employers. Notably, [**two-thirds of leaders (66%)** wouldn’t hire someone without AI skills](https://news.microsoft.com/2024/05/08/microsoft-and-linkedin-release-the-2024-work-trend-index-on-the-state-of-ai-at-work/), emphasizing the need for candidates to adapt to this evolving landscape​. Besides this, a successful job search strategy should incorporate several key components: - **Market research**: Find out which industries and roles are sought after right now. According to the [World Economic Forum](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/05/future-of-jobs-in-the-age-of-ai-sustainability-and-deglobalization/), many jobs will be created in technology and healthcare, thus you need to tailor your search to these high-demand fields. - **Personal branding**: Setting yourself apart with a strong personal brand is possible. A polished [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/competitive-intelligence-alliance/) profile and an organized resume that tells the world who you are and what you can do are part of this. - **Skills development**: Make sure you are working to identify and pursue any other skills or certifications which will help to give you the edge in terms of employability. [Win/loss ratio: What it is and how to calculate itThe win/loss ratio evaluates the success of your company’s performance in competitive situations, like when making a sale.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/09/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--10-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/win-loss-ratio-what-it-is-and-how-to-calculate-it/) ### **Why evaluate successes and failures?** One of the best ways to improve your job search strategy is to take a look back at what went well and what didn’t. Thinking about how some applications got you an interview or job offer (those are your "wins") and some didn’t (the "losses") can help you gain a clearer picture of your job search. This kind of reflection will help you to know what’s working and what’s not. Let’s say that when you see that your applications for some jobs get more responses, you might consider applying for different roles of the same nature. On the other hand, if you continually fail to find jobs in certain fields, it’s an opportunity to find out what might be lacking—your skills, perhaps, or your presentation in your resume. You can also evaluate your successes and failures, and that gives you confidence. Winning recognition reminds you of your strength, while looking at your losses helps you learn and grow. It transforms the job search from a stressful exercise into a chance to get better. ## **Trends in the job market** Being aware of what is going on in the labor market will help you with your job search strategy. Knowing this not only makes it easier to identify some potential job opportunities, but also gives you a sense of what employers are really looking for as far as skills and experiences. ### **The growing demand for tech-related** **roles** Technology-related roles are in high demand, with predictions of millions of new technology jobs being created around the world in the near future. The reason behind this growth is the accelerating use of technology in all sectors. If you are a job seeker, the focus should be on learning and relearning new skills like software development, data analysis, and cybersecurity. The employment for software developers is expected to [**grow by 25% from 2022 to 2032**](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm), indicating the criticality of this sector, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. ### **The rise of remote work** A shift to remote work has invited greater flexibility and freedom in how and where one works as a job seeker. You can find [work-at-home opportunities](https://jooble.org/jobs-worldwide-work-at-home) that are now being offered by many employers who are now offering flexible arrangements that can be applied for by a wider range of candidates. But this has meant that it’s easier for people to search for roles outside of their immediate location, which opens up new job avenues in tech, customer service, and marketing. Having this knowledge, you are able to adjust your job search strategy and focus more on the chances that are important and respond to the job market of today. ### **Sectors actively hiring** 1. **Technology sector:** Cybersecurity roles, such as information security analysts, are experiencing rapid growth. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), employment for information security analysts is projected to grow by 33% from 2020 to 2030 due to the increasing number of cyberattacks and the need for organizations to secure their networks and data​. 2. **Healthcare**: The healthcare sector is also witnessing significant growth, particularly for roles such as nursing and telehealth. The BLS anticipates[**a 31% increase in nurse practitioner jobs over the next decade**](https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-11/mobile/what-the-long-term-impacts-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-could-mean-for-the-future-of-it-jobs.htm), driven by an aging population and a growing focus on preventive care. 3. **E-commerce**: The e-commerce industry has seen significant growth, with online sales reaching record levels during the COVID-19 pandemic. The rise of online shopping has spurred demand for jobs in logistics, digital marketing, and customer service. [Using Customer Feedback and Win-Loss Interviews to Improve Your ProductCustomer feedback and win-loss interviews are among the most effective ways to gain a firm understanding of how your product has been received, and how you can make changes, where needed.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceLawrence Chapman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/05/CIA_Framework_Tiles_win_loss_analysis.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) ## **How win/loss analysis works in job searching** ### **Overview of the process** The use of [win/loss](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) analysis in your job search can greatly improve your approach because it gives you tangible information about how you’re doing. Follow these steps to effectively integrate this analytical approach: **1\. Define wins and losses** Before diving into the ins and outs of a game you must first understand the rules: what is a win and what is a loss when you’re looking for a job? In this case, a “win” could range from getting an interview, an offer, or or even a favorable response from the employer. On the other hand, a “loss” might entail not getting past the application stage or after getting an interview and not being hired. Determining these definitions will assist in structuring your thinking and help you gain a better perspective on the outcomes experienced in the process. **2\. Gather feedback** It is equally important to [gather feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/), thus enabling you to gather details concerning factors contributing towards job search results. It is recommended that after every interview you have done for the given assignment, you should take a step further and write a thank-you note. In these notes, think about asking for interview feedback politely. Also, use other online professional relationship forums such as LinkedIn Box… other contacts that may have info about how the hiring process or the company operates. Participation in such discussions can be helpful where you get information that will guide your subsequent applications. **3\. Analyze key metrics** By [tracking certain metrics](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measure-sales-enablement-roi/), you can examine your job search efforts from start to finish. Focus on the following key metrics: **Number of applications**: Track with precision how many job applications you submit within a certain period. It will let you know your general activity in the job market. **Interviews secured**: Check how many interviews you get from your applications. This metric helps you determine how your resume and cover letter attract employer interest. **Job offers received**: Record what percentage of job offers you receive compared to how many applications you send. This will be your metric for evaluating whether you are getting from interviews to offers. **Time spent**: Determine your duration on each stage of the application procedure, from writing a resume to preparing for the interview. Knowing where your time goes can help you know where you can improve. ## **Job searching: How to increase your chances of success** ### **Analyzing each phase of the job search process** **Resume submission** Your resume often makes the first impression. To evaluate its effectiveness: - **Keyword optimization**: For each application, create your resume around keywords from the job description. Resumes often match keywords that Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) use as filters. - **Design and clarity**: Be sure your resume is readable. The layout is straightforward, clean, and easy to read with main headings and bullet points for hiring managers to quickly read your profile and find out what you’re all about. **Interview process** It is very important in the interview stage as you make an impression. Consider the following: - **Preparation and research**: Know the company culture and what role is all about. - **Feedback utilization**: Reflecting on the [feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/) you got after the interview, then. Take this information forward to do better in future interviews. This iterative approach can be good. [How to Create a Competitive Intelligence Adoption PlaybookAfter more than 100 hours of deep-dive research and calls with Sales Leads and other stakeholders, I learned people see these two fields as silos. They miss the vast potential of combining enablement with competitive insights. Use these nine proven tactics to create a stellar CI adoption playbook.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceHila Lauterbach![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/ben-white-W8Qqn1PmQH0-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-adoption-playbook/) ### **Improving your strategy** **Adapting tactics for success** Keep investing in you, by consistently learning and growing your skills. Rapidly changing job market, keeping yourself updated is what distinguishes you. - **Seek continuous learning**: You attend workshops, webinars, and [online courses](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162&%5F%5Fhstc=1387118.c4b1c5e89b491fdc4fd264c583ea3db6.1713778773509.1729846509247.1730102663024.69&%5F%5Fhssc=1387118.1.1730102663024&%5F%5Fhsfp=2735654430) so that you can learn skills related to your target industry. High-demand areas such as digital marketing, coding, and project management are offered in courses on platforms like Coursera and Udemy. - **Professional certifications**: Get certified in the field you’re in. It can also show employers that you’re serious about professional growth and add some credibility to your resume. - **Networking**: Start building relationships in your industry. Become more active in professional associations and local [meetups](https://competitive-intelligence-alliance.circle.so/c/san-francisco/pretzels-and-ci-nov-7?%5F%5Fhstc=1387118.c4b1c5e89b491fdc4fd264c583ea3db6.1713778773509.1729846509247.1730102663024.69&%5F%5Fhssc=1387118.1.1730102663024&%5F%5Fhsfp=2735654430). ## **What to do if you are just starting your job search** **Tailored applications**: And then make all that specific to the position you’re applying for, including your resume and your cover letter. With this, you’ll let the employers know that you’re quite interested in the role and stand out. **Best practices for adapting to market conditions**: To keep abreast of industry trends so you know what and how to look for. If you want to know what employers are looking for, use resources like the BLS, industry blogs and job [market reports](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-landscape-salary-survey/). **Apply win/loss analysis early**: If you’re just starting out, now, keep track of how many applications you apply to, how many interviews (or ones you missed) you have, and how much feedback (or none). It’s a foundational practice that when executed properly will help you lay a strategic foundation from the start. ## **Conclusion** Overall, we can conclude that win/loss analysis can help to build a better job search strategy, no matter what your situation is, in no particular order. The best bet is to learn [market trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/), work through what worked well and what didn’t, and network with other people. The job market may be tough, and it sure can get competitive, but you can get through by following a strategic approach and a continuous improvement mindset. --- *If you haven't already, download your free copy of our* [*Competitive Intelligence Salary Report*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/)*, which exams correlations and discrepancies between pay and factors like gender, seniority, and certifications - and more.* [Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024 | CIAAn industry report on global competitive intelligence salaries, examining correlations and discrepancies between pay and factors like seniority, gender, location, and certifications.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/08/CIA_Salary_Report_2024_Blog-2.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) ### Using CI to outsmart competitors year-round URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-ci-to-outsmart-competitors-year-round/ Last updated: 2024-12-13T15:28:14.000Z Seasonality is a natural factor that affects market dynamics across various sectors, especially in B2B. Typically, seasonal periods may cause a reduction in the demand for solutions, such as during summer vacations or at the end of the fiscal year, when many companies temporarily suspend new projects. However, there are times when demand increases, such as during budget closing periods, regulatory changes, or economic conditions that drive the need for new solutions or adjustments. So, where does [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) fall in all this? In this article, I’ll share… - What is seasonality and what are its effects on the market? - How does seasonality impact business performance? - The ideal time to prepare for seasonality. - Methods and frameworks to map and analyze seasonality. - Competitive marketing and sales strategies during seasonal periods. - How to gain a competitive advantage in seasonal actions? ## **What does seasonality mean, and what’s its impact on CI?** 💡 Seasonality can be defined as a predictable variation pattern that affects market demand and behavior throughout the year. This includes factors such as holidays, climatic seasons, and economic cycles. It also includes unpredictable elements, such as fluctuations in [consumer behavior](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-marketing-questions-answered-by-the-experts/) or abrupt changes in the economic landscape. In terms of [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-framework/), seasonality directly affects competition in the market: 1. Many companies adjust their strategies during these periods, resulting in increased competitiveness. 2. In saturated markets, competition can increase during certain seasonal periods, especially in sectors where purchasing cycles are strongly influenced by specific dates and events. 3. [According to PPCexpo](https://ppcexpo.com/blog/seasonal-marketing-strategies), advertisers tend to increase their bids in paid advertising by up to 2-3 times during peak seasons to secure better conversions and higher returns on investment. 4. Additionally, during these periods of high demand, demand elasticity may increase compared to low-demand periods, providing an incentive for pricing and promotion strategies. [The Competitive Intelligence Cycle: Explained in 5 StepsIn practice, CI is best understood as a perpetual competitive intelligence cycle, with no clear end or beginning, where each element flows into the next. We walk you through its 5 elements.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/artak-petrosyan-znoUk0mpO3o-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-intelligence-cycle/) ## **Seasonality’s impact on revenue, growth, and demand forecast** Seasonality significantly impacts various performance indicators, such as revenue, growth rate, and customer acquisition. In the technology sector, for example, software companies experience peaks and valleys as demand for new contracts increases towards the end of the fiscal year and declines during the summer. These fluctuations directly affect the sales cycle, resulting in challenges for customer retention and cash flow management. Furthermore, seasonality influences investment allocation, as companies generally adjust their marketing and expansion budgets according to seasonal demand. 💡 A study [conducted by McKinsey](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/revenue-growth-management-building-capabilities-to-sustain-impact) shows that companies aligning their revenue growth management with seasonality tend to increase demand forecast accuracy by up to 13%. This approach is particularly impactful in industries with strong seasonality, such as consumer goods and airlines, where managing peaks in demand is critical to maintaining profitability​. In this way, companies can optimize their resources during peak periods and reduce losses during low-demand periods. So, not losing revenue to competitors during seasonal periods will make competing easier after those moments. By learning to capture and retain customers when they are most sensitive to making purchase decisions, you will also gain valuable insights into pricing strategies, promotions, [positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/), and communication. Financially, your business will be ahead, allowing you to invest more in growth and prepare for the next seasonal cycle. ## **When’s the right time to prepare for seasonality?** Investing in a strategy months beforehand is essential. Why? To protect a company from competition and maximize opportunities during seasonal periods, preparation must begin well in advance. However, though there is no ideal lead time for seasonal planning, I suggest 3-6 months. It is crucial to identify the most challenging months through research methods and calculations, ensuring enough time to plan and execute effective actions. For example, [according to MDPI](https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/9/7399), the effectiveness of demand forecasting models for seasonal products can significantly improve a company's ability to anticipate market needs and optimize supply chain operations. By leveraging accurate demand forecasts, companies can reduce inventory issues and improve operational efficiency during seasonal peaks. During this period, it is crucial to [monitor competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/), watching for signs such as promotions and specific campaigns that indicate the preparation of competitors for the same seasonal cycle. One useful approach during this process is design thinking, which helps map these trends. Workshops to identify seasonal problems and opportunities, followed by collaborative planning, can generate valuable insights on how to adjust operations in response to competitor movements. [Don’t just sit back and react to your competitors’ movesGet a clear roadmap for applying Porter’s strategies and gain insights from real-world examples.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceSathvik Perapogu![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/09/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Author_Highlight--1-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/master-your-ci-function/) ## **How to predict the effects of seasonality** Alongside your preparation work, various methods can be applied to predict and mitigate the effects of seasonality in combination with [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/): ### **Time series analysis and mathematical methods** The Holt-Winters Exponential Smoothing Model, multivariate regression, and the Centered Moving Average Method effectively identify seasonal patterns and project future demand based on historical data. These methods make predicting demand variations and adjusting resources in advance to handle seasonal fluctuations easier. By predicting when seasonal demand will rise or fall, your company can adjust prices, plan the supply of key products, and launch specific marketing campaigns before competitors react. ### **Competitive intelligence frameworks** You can use frameworks like the Seasonal [SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/). This model allows the mapping of a company's internal strengths and weaknesses and the external threats and opportunities created by seasonal periods. Adding a competitive bias to the SWOT helps identify how competitors behave during these cycles and where the biggest opportunities to differentiate lie. The Seasonal [PESTEL framework](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/) (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal) also offers important insights, considering external factors that affect market and competitor behavior in seasonal contexts. [9 Tips to Master SWOT Analysis for Strategic PlanningSWOT analysis in strategic planning is the practice of applying the SWOT framework of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, to a business or product to critically evaluate where it sits in the competitive landscape.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/08/dave-photoz-BDIFIT1ILDs-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/) ### **Design thinking** This can also be an effective method for designing seasonal [competitive strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-strategy-for-business-lifecycle/). Through an empathy and prototyping approach, companies can identify new ways to engage customers during seasonal periods and minimize the impact of competition. Workshops focused on solving specific seasonal cycle challenges, with constant [feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/) from customers and collaborators, help create agile and adaptable solutions. Using technologies like [AI](https://nexocode.com/blog/posts/seasonality-in-forecasting/), marketing tools, and traffic managers (such as Semrush, GA4, SimilarWeb, etc.), or even secondary industry reports, will also provide a solid foundation for your preparation. ## **Sales and marketing strategies for sustainable growth** During seasonal periods, adjusting sales and marketing processes to maintain operational sustainability is crucial. ### **Pricing strategies are key for this adjustment.** Seasonal offers with discounts, special packages, or exclusive conditions can encourage purchases during low-demand periods. Marketing promotions, such as themed events, product demonstrations, and webinars focused on specific customer problems, also help capture public attention. ### **Capturing competitor traffic is another effective tactic.** For example, use Google Ads campaigns focused on seasonal keywords related to your primary competitors. Additionally, reactivating inactive leads in the CRM through email campaigns or promotional incentives can be an efficient way to generate conversions during traditionally slower periods. [How to Do an SEO Competitive Analysis (7-step Guide)SEO competitive analysis reveals the gaps in your SEO strategy so you can adjust and overtake the leaders in your space – and in this article, we’re going to show you how to do it.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/03/souvik-banerjee-OMhubJCrtu0-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) ### **Market studies that identify consumer behavior trends are essential.** Propensity analysis allows for the prediction of how customer behavior changes during these cycles and the adjustment of marketing campaigns to meet the needs of these consumers. [Churnkey](https://churnkey.co/resources/reactivation-campaigns/) emphasizes that 45% of customers who receive reactivation campaigns will open subsequent emails, reinforcing the importance of these strategies in increasing engagement and conversions Therefore, to distance or surpass competitors during seasonal periods, an effective strategy is to adopt exclusive stances, such as: - **Exclusive seasonal offers** – Creating products or packages specific to seasonal periods. This generates planned scarcity and attracts consumers seeking exclusivity. - **Data-based audience segmentation** – Using data to segment the audience more precisely during seasonal periods. [Salesforce's](https://www.salesforce.com/products/marketing-cloud/best-practices/customer-segmentation/) State of Marketing (2022) report highlights that 77% of ROI comes from segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns, demonstrating the effectiveness of personalization and segmentation in marketing, especially when combined with data-driven strategies. This can include using CRM to identify customers who previously purchased in seasonal cycles and offering retention or reactivation campaigns. - **Competitor response campaigns** – Track competitor promotions and actions to launch immediate response campaigns. Using competitive intelligence tools, such as [backlink analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-backlink-analysis/) or [SEO campaigns](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) focused on competitors' seasonal keywords, can capture traffic that competitors expect to absorb. ## **To sum up** 💡 Seasonality and competitive intelligence are two sides of the same coin when the goal is to shield against competition and ensure consistent results. In my experience as a CI specialist, the keyword in this context is: monitor. By doing so, you will be able to understand, plan, predict, and anticipate. Leverage historical and trend data to transform your company’s competitive structure. Success lies in strategic preparation, robust predictive data and models, and an effective combination of frameworks such as SWOT, PESTEL, and mathematical modeling applied to seasonal cycles. Integrating methodologies allows sales and marketing operations to be adjusted and adapted collaboratively and agilely, ensuring that the company is always ahead of the competition, regardless of the time of year. --- If you haven't already, [join our growing network](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) of competitive intelligence professionals to stay up to day with the latest job postings, ask questions, get up to snuff on our latest content, share resources, and so much more. [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/08/CIA_Meta_Image_Template-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ### The SWOT analysis tools you should be using URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-swot-analysis-tools-you-should-be-using/ Last updated: 2024-10-25T16:48:02.000Z [SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-explained/) is one of those tasks that sounds simple but can quickly turn into a time-sucking, manual grind. Sure, it’s great for getting a clear picture of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, but gathering all that data? Organizing it into neat little quadrants? That’s where the headaches start. In this article, we’ll dive into the tools that can help you streamline your SWOT process, from gathering competitor intel to creating a visually stunning SWOT diagram that’ll impress your stakeholders. Whether you’re a die-hard Excel fan or you’re ready to try something new, there’s a tool here to help you speed up your workflow and get those insights without the heavy lifting. Let’s get started. ## Tools for data collection and competitor research Before we jump into the best tools for collecting data and researching competitors, let’s quickly recap the [five steps involved in a competitive SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/): 1. **Identify your target competitor:** Who’s worth your time to study? This is where it all starts. 2. **Gather information from the competitor itself:** Dig into what your competitor is saying (and not saying) about themselves. 3. **Collate data about how the market sees you and your competitor:** Everybody loves to think that their competitors stink, but what are people saying in the real world? 4. **Analyze and structure this data using the four SWOT quadrants**: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Get it all down in one place. 5. **Identify next steps and action points:** SWOT analysis alone isn’t enough; now’s the time to turn those insights into actions. So, how do you gather all the right info for steps one and two? Here’s where some smart tools come into play: ### Crayon If you’re serious about [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/), Crayon is a game-changer. This platform automatically tracks your competitors’ moves across multiple channels – think product updates, marketing strategies, pricing changes, and even customer reviews. Instead of spending hours manually hunting for insights, you get a live feed of your competitor’s every step. **⭐ Why it’s great:** As one respondent pointed out in our [2023 Tools of Choice report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-report-2023/), Crayon has “very strong alerting, filtering, and reporting” functions, making it “very easy” to understand new intel as it comes in. **💡Pro tip:** Set up alerts to stay on top of any major shifts in your competitors’ strategy, so you can react faster than the rest of your team. ### SimilarWeb Need to [know where your competitors are getting their traffic](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/)? SimilarWeb has you covered. It lets you track website traffic, audience behavior, and the marketing channels driving results for your competitors. Whether they’re crushing it with organic search or pouring cash into paid ads, SimilarWeb gives you the inside scoop. **⭐ Why it’s great**: This tool is perfect for understanding your competitor’s online presence and where they’re investing their resources. Users love it because it helps them get to the “why” behind trends. **💡Pro tip**: Use SimilarWeb to identify traffic dips or spikes – they often signal a big campaign or product launch you’ll want to know about. ### SpyFu When it comes to spying on competitors’ SEO and PPC strategies, SpyFu lives up to its name. This tool helps you uncover the keywords your competitors are targeting – both paid and organic – so you can refine your own keyword strategy to go head-to-head. **⭐ Why it’s great**: Users love the support offered by SpyFu, as well as its clean and simple dashboard design, with [one G2 reviewer](https://www.g2.com/products/spyfu/reviews/spyfu-review-9759125) describing it as a “Straight shooter style SEM platform that doesn’t overwhelm with analysis paralysis.” **💡 Pro tip**: Use SpyFu to uncover keyword gaps – those juicy opportunities your competitors haven’t spotted yet. ### Google search Yep, Google still makes the list. When it comes to gathering competitor intel, sometimes the simplest solution is still the best. Search engines let you track down press releases, blog posts, and any other publicly available info about your competitors. **⭐ Why it’s great**: It’s free, fast, and gets you straight to the source of what your competitors are publishing. **💡 Pro tip**: Set up Google Alerts for key competitors to keep tabs on any new developments without having to search manually every day. --- With these tools in your arsenal, you’ll breeze through the first two steps of your SWOT analysis – no more digging through piles of random data or guessing what your competitors are up to. ## Tools for market perception and sentiment analysis Now that you’ve gathered a mountain of competitor data, it’s time to figure out how the market sees you – and your competition. This is where step threeof your SWOT analysis comes in: collecting real-world perceptions, both good and bad, about your company and your competitors. After all, what you think your strengths are may not match up with what customers see. Luckily, there are some powerful tools out there to help you gauge market sentiment without manually digging through reviews or [social media](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) comments (because let’s be honest, no one’s got time for that). ### Brandwatch If you want to get a pulse on what people are saying about your brand and your competitors online, Brandwatch is the tool to beat. This [social listening](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-listening/) platform tracks conversations across social media, blogs, forums, and even news sites, analyzing customer sentiment in real time. **⭐ Why it’s great:** Brandwatch helps you see not only what people are saying, but whether they’re saying it with love or pure frustration. It automatically categorizes mentions as positive, negative, or neutral – making it a lot easier to understand the general vibe around your brand and competitors. **💡 Pro tip:** Use Brandwatch to keep tabs on competitor crises. If they’re getting dragged through the mud on X, you might find an opportunity to highlight your strengths in that area while they’re dealing with the backlash. ### Meltwater Another powerful tool, Meltwater provides extensive social listening beyond traditional platforms. Not only does it track mentions across social media, but it also covers podcasts, blogs, online news, and review sites​. Meltwater consolidates social and news monitoring into one platform, so you don’t miss anything that’s affecting your brand’s perception. **⭐ Why it’s great**: Meltwater’s combined news and social media tracking lets you build comprehensive, unified reports. This platform is designed to save time, providing sentiment analysis that covers diverse data sources. **💡 Pro tip**: Set up Meltwater’s alerts to catch trends and themes in customer feedback as they emerge – keeping you one step ahead of the narrative around your brand and your competitors. ### Google Trends Sometimes, simple is best. Google Trends lets you compare search interest over time for both your brand and your competitors. It’s great for spotting larger trends and understanding how awareness is shifting in your market. **⭐ Why it’s great**: Google Trends gives you an at-a-glance snapshot of who’s winning the awareness game. Plus, you can see how interest in certain features or topics is evolving. **💡 Pro tip**: Keep an eye on spikes or dips in searches for competitors – these can signal the start of a new marketing campaign or product release you’ll want to monitor. --- With these tools, you’ll get a much clearer picture of how both you and your competitors are viewed in the market. Once you’ve gathered that sentiment data, you’ll be ready to dive into step four – analyzing and structuring your SWOT quadrants. ## Tools for structuring, visualizing, and analyzing SWOT data Once you’ve gathered and assessed your competitor and market sentiment data, it’s time for step four: turning all those insights into a structured SWOT analysis. This stage is all about making sense of your research and laying it out in a way that reveals strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Below, you’ll find tools that can help you organize data, add visual clarity, and structure your analysis so you can see where you stand and where you should focus your competitive efforts. ### Confluence When it comes to collaborating on SWOT analysis, Confluence is a top pick for competitive intelligence teams. Think of it as a collaborative workspace where everyone can update findings , comment on each other's insights, and link to other documents and research. It’s especially handy if your SWOT analysis is part of a larger ongoing strategy project that involves multiple stakeholders. **⭐ Why it’s great**: Confluence lets your team add notes, context, and supporting links to each section of the SWOT, ensuring everyone’s on the same page. **💡 Pro tip**: Use Confluence templates to structure your SWOT analysis. There are templates specifically designed to help organize competitive research, so you’re not building from scratch every time. ### Microsoft Excel/Google Sheets Next, we’ve got the trusty spreadsheet. Whether you’re a die-hard Excel fan or loyal to Google Sheets, these tools are the classic starting point for structuring data in SWOT’s four quadrants. These tools may be simple, but they’re also flexible and powerful. Entering your findings into a spreadsheet helps you visualize categories like pricing information, features, and service details side-by-side, allowing you to spot patterns across strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. **⭐ Why it’s great**: With easy sorting and filtering and the ability to create pivot tables, Excel and Google Sheets give you a practical way to start analyzing the data with minimal fuss. **💡 Pro tip**: Color-code each quadrant for quick reference. It may sound basic, but a splash of color can go a long way in making your SWOT sheet easier to navigate. ### Airtable For those who want a bit more structure than a standard spreadsheet but need more flexibility than Confluence, Airtable sits right in the middle. Airtable combines the simplicity of a spreadsheet with the functionality of a database, making it a fantastic choice for SWOT analysis. You can categorize data, assign team members to specific items, and add tags, all while keeping everything visually organized. **⭐ Why it’s great**: With Airtable’s easy-to-use, customizable layouts, you can add layers of information, create custom views, and even switch between grid, Kanban, and calendar formats. It’s versatile and designed to scale with your project. **💡 Pro tip**: Use Airtable’s filtering and sorting functions to organize your SWOT data by priority. That way, you can quickly identify the most pressing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats without scrolling through endless rows of data. ### Miro If you’re looking for a more interactive approach, Miro has you covered. Miro is an online whiteboard that makes visual brainstorming easy, with templates specifically for SWOT analysis. It’s especially useful if you’re running a collaborative SWOT session and want to capture everyone’s ideas as they flow. **⭐ Why it’s great:** Miro’s real-time collaboration features let your team add notes and comments, and even move items around the board together. It’s perfect for interactive sessions where you’re mapping out your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats on the spot. **💡 Pro tip:** Try using sticky notes. Your team can drag and drop them into each quadrant while you share ideas. It’s a great way to organize and re-evaluate insights on the fly. ### Canva Once your data is organized, it’s time to make it presentable. Canva is your friend here. Known for its easy-to-use design tools, Canva has customizable SWOT templates that let you add visual appeal to your analysis. It’s great for creating clear, polished visuals that’ll impress your stakeholders. **⭐ Why it’s great**: Canva’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface makes it easy for anyone to create professional SWOT diagrams, even if they don’t have a design background. **💡 Pro tip**: Experiment with icons, color schemes, and layouts to make each quadrant pop. A well-designed SWOT diagram not only looks good but also makes it easier for others to understand the big picture at a glance. --- Each of these tools brings its own strengths to the table. Whether you’re creating a collaborative Confluence workspace, polishing a presentation-ready SWOT with Canva, or hosting a brainstorming session on Miro, these tools will help you organize, visualize, and understand your SWOT data more effectively. Once you’ve nailed down your analysis, you’ll be ready for step five – turning all that insight into actionable next steps. ## Tools for turning SWOT into actionable plans You’ve gathered your data and structured it into a neat SWOT analysis, and now you’re staring at a list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The question is: what now? SWOT analysis is only as useful as the actions it inspires, so it’s time to take those insights and turn them into concrete steps. Here are some top tools that make it easy to transform your analysis into a plan of action. ### Trello For keeping things straightforward and visual, **Trello** is a great option. Trello’s board system allows you to create lists and cards for each of your SWOT categories, making it easy to move from analysis to action. You can assign team members to specific tasks, set deadlines, and track the progress of each action item. **⭐ Why it’s great**: Trello’s flexibility and visual layout make it simple to turn SWOT insights into trackable tasks. Plus, it’s easy to see the big picture with Trello’s board view, which lets you view all your action steps at a glance. **💡 Pro tip**: Create separate columns for high-priority and low-priority actions to keep your team focused on what matters most. ### Asana If you’re managing a more complex set of action points or need additional functionality, **Asana** offers a robust project management solution. Asana lets you create detailed tasks with subtasks, assign responsibilities, and set due dates, making it ideal for a SWOT plan that spans multiple departments or teams. **⭐ Why it’s great**: Asana’s interface is designed to keep everyone on the same page with task dependencies, project timelines, and even a Kanban view for visual organization. **💡 Pro tip**: Use Asana’s project templates to organize your SWOT tasks by category, such as “strengths to leverage” or “threats to monitor,” so it’s clear how each action item ties back to the analysis. --- These tools don’t just help you list out SWOT actions – they make sure those actions get completed. The right tool can transform your SWOT insights from static analysis into a dynamic, evolving plan that guides your team’s next steps and keeps everyone aligned on key objectives. With your SWOT analysis turned into actionable tasks, you’re ready to make the most of your competitive insights and drive real impact. ## Conclusion SWOT analysis can feel like a lot, but with the right tools, you can turn it into a streamlined, insightful, and impactful process. From gathering data on competitors to tracking real-world sentiment, structuring insights, and finally putting plans into action, each tool we’ve covered can make a huge difference in your workflow – and your results. So, go ahead, give some of these tools a try, and take your competitive intelligence game to the next level. After all, strategy isn’t just about knowing your strengths – it’s about using them. ### What is social listening? Your comprehensive guide URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-listening/ Last updated: 2024-10-09T16:26:19.000Z Conversations about your industry, competitors, and market trends are happening constantly across social media platforms, forums, and online communities. Social listening – the strategic monitoring and analysis of these digital discussions – has become an indispensable tool for competitive intelligence professionals seeking to gain a decisive edge in their market analysis. - [What is social listening?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-listening/#what-is-social-listening) - [Why is social listening important in competitive intelligence?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-listening/#why-is-social-listening-important-in-competitive-intelligence) - [What is social monitoring? Are they the same thing?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-listening/#what-is-social-monitoring-are-they-the-same-thing) - [Real life social listening case studies ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-listening/#real-life-social-listening-case-studies) ## What is social listening? **Social listening** is like eavesdropping on the internet – but in a helpful, ethical way! It's the process of monitoring social media platforms, forums, blogs, and other online spaces to see what people are saying about a particular topic, brand, or industry. Instead of just paying attention to direct mentions or comments, social listening goes deeper by analyzing [trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-trend-analysis/), keywords, and the general mood around conversations. Imagine you run a coffee shop and want to know what people are saying about coffee trends, your competitors, or even your own brand. Social listening tools can help you track online chatter about “best coffee shops,” customer complaints, or even new trends like a “cold brew boom.” From that, you can pick up on patterns, learn what’s working (or not working) for others, and get a sense of how people feel about your industry or business. It's not just about gathering information – it’s about **understanding** what people are thinking and how they feel, so you can respond to trends, fix issues, or capitalize on opportunities. [Social Media Competitive Intelligence: What It Is, How to Do ItSocial media is an incredibly powerful tool for gathering information on competing businesses. Done intentionally, you can follow and filter information according to your favorite strategic framework.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-10.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/alexander-shatov-CTZhGbSxWLI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) ## Why is social listening important in competitive intelligence? ### Real-time competitive insights Social listening tools allow businesses to monitor competitor activities across social platforms. This real-time information can reveal competitors' new [product launches](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-for-product-launches/), marketing campaigns, and customer engagement strategies, helping you stay ahead of the competition. ### Customer sentiment analysis Understanding how customers feel about competitors' products and services can help a company improve its own offerings. Social listening gives insights into what customers like or dislike about competitors, enabling strategic adjustments. ### Trendspotting By tracking industry conversations and keywords, social listening helps identify emerging trends. You can use these trends to guide future decisions and stay aligned with the market landscape. ### Crisis management and risk mitigation Early detection of negative discussions around a competitor could indicate potential crises or issues. You can alert your team members to these risks, giving you time to capitalize on competitor vulnerabilities or avoid similar pitfalls. ### Product and service benchmarking Social listening provides a way to benchmark your product performance against competitors by analyzing [reviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/unlocking-the-power-of-customer-reviews-for-a-magnetic-brand/), mentions, and [feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/). This helps refine a company’s competitive strategy based on real consumer voices. ### Strategic content creation Competitive intelligence often involves creating content that positions a company against its competitors. Social listening helps understand what type of [content](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-for-product-launches/) resonates most with the target audience and can inspire new content ideas that speak to consumer concerns or desires. ## What is social monitoring? Are they the same thing? Social listening and social monitoring are related, but they aren’t the same thing. **Social monitoring** is about tracking and responding to **direct mentions** and **messages** related to your brand, products, or keywords. It’s more about reacting in the moment – think of it like customer service. For example, if someone tweets at a company asking for support, social monitoring would catch that tweet, and the company would reply to help the customer. **Social listening** goes a step further. It not only tracks mentions but also **analyzes broader conversations and trends** around your brand, industry, or competitors. Social listening focuses on understanding the **why** behind these conversations. It’s about gaining insights into customer sentiment, identifying trends, and using this data to shape future strategy. So, if social monitoring is like reading each comment or mention, social listening is more like getting the big picture – seeing how people feel overall, spotting patterns, and making more strategic decisions from that information. In short, **social monitoring** is reactive, while **social listening** is more proactive and strategic. ## Real-life social listening case studies Below, I have added some real-life examples of social listening and how listening to conversations that your customers are having can significantly impact your business. Not only can you please your customers, but you can also have a **sharper edge against your competitors** because you gain invaluable real-time insights into: 1. [Customer pain points](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/) and [unmet needs](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/unmet-needs/) before they become major issues 2. Emerging market trends and shifting consumer preferences 3. Competitive [weaknesses and opportunities](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/) 4. Potential product improvements or new feature ideas 5. Brand sentiment and reputation management needs This proactive approach to understanding your market through social listening gives you the ability to stay ahead of the curve and make strategic moves before your competition even realizes there's an opportunity or challenge to address. ### Netflix Netflix has an entire [Consumer Insights](https://research.netflix.com/research-area/consumer-insights) team that conducts research in many different areas of consumer behavior, including social listening. An example of their social listening having an important outcome is their “Downloads For You” feature. This was implemented after the company noticed numerous social media conversations about users wanting to watch content offline or in areas with poor internet connectivity. Now, people can download their tv show or movie to watch on the go. ### Sonic the Hedgehog Movie After the first trailer release, fans on Twitter strongly criticized Sonic's design. Paramount Pictures listened to the backlash, delayed the movie, and completely redesigned the character to match fan expectations. The movie's director Jeff Fowler directly responded on Twitter to the social media feedback, stating "Thank you for the support. And the criticism. The message is loud and clear... you aren't happy with the design & you want changes. It's going to happen." > Thank you for the support. And the criticism. The message is loud and clear... you aren't happy with the design & you want changes. It's going to happen. Everyone at Paramount & Sega are fully committed to making this character the BEST he can be... [#sonicmovie](https://twitter.com/hashtag/sonicmovie?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw) [#gottafixfast](https://twitter.com/hashtag/gottafixfast?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw) 🔧✌️ > > — Jeff Fowler (@fowltown) [May 2, 2019](https://twitter.com/fowltown/status/1124056098925944832?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw) You can watch the change in design by comparing both trailers below. ### XBox One Microsoft initially announced restrictive DRM policies and an "always online" requirement for their new console. After significant negative feedback on social media platforms, they reversed these decisions before launch. Don Mattrick, President of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, [announced](https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2013/06/19/update/), "Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments, and listened to your feedback. So, today I am announcing the following changes to Xbox One and how you can play, share, lend, and resell your games exactly as you do today on Xbox 360." ### 11 types of competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2025-02-05T14:52:29.000Z Success hinges on transforming innovative ideas into in-demand products that customers can’t resist. 🎁 The challenge? Chances are, someone else has had the same idea. 😔 Even if they haven’t yet, once they notice your product gaining traction, competitors will quickly strategize how to improve upon it and gain their own competitive edge. So, how can you stay ahead? It all starts with understanding your competition. Gathering competitive intelligence is key. The more comprehensive and accurate your data, the better you can navigate the competitive landscape. In this article, we’ll explore 11 types of competitive intelligence with actionable examples to help you outmaneuver your rivals and sharpen your business strategy. 1. [Competitor intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/#1-competitor-intelligence) 2. [Customer intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/#2-customer-intelligence) 3. [Market intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/#3-market-intelligence) 4. [Product intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/#4-product-intelligence) 5. [More hidden information](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/#5-more-hidden-information) 6. [Technology intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/#6-technology-intelligence) 7. [Partner and supplier intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/#7-partner-and-supplier-intelligence) 8. [Regulatory and legal intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/#8-regulatory-and-legal-intelligence) 9. [Geopolitical and economic intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/#9-geopolitical-and-economic-intelligence) 10. [Reputation and brand intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/#10-reputation-and-brand-intelligence) 11. [Corporate espionage (one to avoid)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/#11-corporate-espionage-%F0%9F%99%85%E2%80%8D%E2%99%80%EF%B8%8F) --- --- ## 1) Competitor intelligence In business, it’s not enough to play the game – you need to anticipate your opponent's next move. That’s where competitor intelligence comes in. This practice involves a strategic, ongoing analysis of your rivals: - What are their strengths? - Where do their vulnerabilities lie? - How are they [positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/) themselves? By keeping a close watch on their financial reports, [product releases](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-for-product-launches/), and even key hires, businesses can gain a clearer picture of the competitive landscape. ### Why competitor intelligence is important On the effort-to-utility continuum, this one sits at low-effort, high utility. You’ll be able to perform some cracking [competitive analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-analysis-for-digital-marketing/) and come to some great strategic decisions with this kind of intel. Since they’re sharing it openly, your competitors want you (or at least the public) to know about this stuff. This also means it’s fair game and easy to obtain. The downside is there can be a lot of it, so focus on what’s most relevant to you. To do that, you’ll need to filter out the noise. ### How to prioritize competitors The best way to filter is to [prioritize your competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/), focusing on those that would yield the highest ROI if you were to beat them. That could mean those competitors you frequently but narrowly lose out to. It might not require too much work to edge them out and win a much larger number of deals each month. Or, it could mean targeting a competitor who attracts very high-value deals. Winning against this competitor just two or three more times in a month can make a great impact on your bottom line. In short, focus on those competitors where the expected return makes sense given the investment it’d take to beat them. Now onto the intel. 👇 #### Press releases Paying attention to press releases is an ethical way of obtaining intel on the most pertinent competitor developments. To scale this, a subscription to a service like PR Newswire helps a lot. You’ll set particular keywords (e.g. competitor names) to look out for and you’ll get an alert delivered straight to your email inbox every time they put out a new press release. ![A screenshot of Cision's PR Newswire home page.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/Screen-Shot-2022-08-17-at-18.07.22-1.png) A PR distribution service like PR Newswire or Reuters can help you get your hands on all-important intel. These announcements usually include everything from changes in the [leadership team](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-product-marketing/) and senior management, to mergers and acquisitions, and new product launches. The catch? Press releases have become less popular in recent years. If you’re in an established industry surrounded by huge, established competitors, they’ll probably still use press releases to make announcements. But newer industries full of fast-moving startups might not use them nearly so much, so it pays to cover multiple bases. #### Social media Your competitors’ social media pages are a great place for run-of-the-mill updates. But the signal can get lost in the noise without a filter. Today, it’s not uncommon to see larger businesses with built-out marketing and/or social teams post three or more times a day on every social platform. Trying to keep tabs on new, important developments amongst so many updates will be hard. 💡 **Tip: keeping manual tabs is scalable if you’ve succeeded in making your competitive intelligence program top of mind in your organization*. **More on this below.* However, if you’ve implemented a great CI program that has made CI top of mind in your organization, there are ways around this. Distribute the responsibility for collecting intel, and offer an easy way to deliver it. A competitive Slack channel is a simple, effective option. This way, capturing CI from social media platforms has a much lower time cost for each individual. If that’s not you yet, don’t worry. This is where competitive intelligence tools, like a social listening platform, come into their own. **Software makes the process scale.** ![A screenshot of innocent drinks' business facebook page.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/innocentFB.png) Your competitors' social media pages are a great source of intel, but you'll need a tool to filter out the noise. --- > **Frequently asked...** > *Q: What’s the difference between competitive intelligence tools and social listening tools?* > *A: Competitive intelligence tools are specific. They work around a core set of named competitors, for whom they’ll gather great amounts of information from all over the internet.* > *Social listening tools cast a wider net, looking for particular keywords across entire social platforms. This gives you a bit more freedom. If your business model thrives on social media or influencer marketing, this type of tool can make a lot of sense.* --- #### Website updates Your competitors’ websites offer information on just about everything you could want. Here’s a small sample of what you’ll be able to find: - Team updates; - Open job positions; - Changes to competitor products and [competitor pricing strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/); - Changes to content marketing strategy… And all of these things can serve as crucial indicators of changes in your rivals’ competitive strategy. ![A screenshot of innocent drinks' website jobs board.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/innocentJobs.png) Competitor got a job ad up? Insights into hiring activities make for useful competitive insights! For example, if competitor X produces a new lead magnet piece (like an eBook, whitepaper, or set of downloadable templates), you know they’ve invested a chunk of time creating that asset. The same goes for new landing pages, marketing campaigns, and other strategic initiatives. All of these require a time investment that, presumably, your competitor deems likely to pay off. If this is new or different from what they’ve done before, you might guess they’re targeting a new market segment or positioning themselves to solve an unmet customer need you’ve not yet moved to meet yourself. ## 2) Customer intelligence [Customer intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/conversation-intelligence-for-customer-experience/) is the art of listening to the heartbeat of your market. It's about diving deep into the psyche of your customers, unearthing invaluable insights about their preferences, decoding their buying behaviors, and capturing their unfiltered feedback. This powerful tool empowers companies to: - Craft laser-focused customer satisfaction surveys - Tap into the raw, real-time pulse of social media feedback and reviews - Unravel the complex tapestry of buying behavior patterns - Paint a vivid picture through nuanced [customer segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-marketing-questions-answered-by-the-experts/) data [Everything You Need to Know About Customer FeedbackCustomer and market feedback is an essential part of product marketing. Understand what it is, its importance, plus how to collect data and plan future strategies.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-8.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceLawrence Chapman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Framework_Tiles_customer_feedback.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/) ### Why customer intelligence is important Your sales leads, prospects, and existing customers are all fabulous sources of competitor intelligence. Why? ‘Coz they’re talking to your competitors. This is powerful stuff. Your customers can tell you *why* they went with you instead of with a competitor. They can tell you what their previous provider did *better* than you. Plus, they can tell you where you differentiate yourself from the competition, and you can see if this matches your expectations. #### Win/loss interviews Famous marketers and business leaders, from Naval Ravikant to Alex Hormozi, love to talk about leverage. Those areas of the business where inputs lead to disproportionately sized outputs, generating 10x or even 100x ROI. Well guess what: [**win/loss interviews**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) **are high leverage**. We’ve said it before: your sales leads and prospects are a goldmine of competitor information. Even better, that information is highly relevant and actionable, with massive ROI since your sales team has such a direct impact on revenue. Interviewing your recently won and lost prospects shows you your leads’ decision-making processes. Why did they choose competitor X over you? What swayed them? Was it a close run thing? Or did you not stand a chance? Why? Sometimes, the answers are gut-punchingly simple, like: > “Well, your competitor was just pushier. I had to make a decision and they were right there.” If this is a recurring theme, you have valuable information with an immediate fix. Just take a look at how many follow-ups your sales reps make per lead. Then increase that number and watch what happens. Other times, the answer might be more subtle. Perhaps your prospect preferred the overall branding and positioning of your competitor, even for reasons they can’t express. But this might give you cause to review your own branding and messaging and evaluate whether those are resolving your target personas’ pain points. #### Customer reviews The truth is, the customers don’t have to be yours to offer great intel. Whether you’re operating in a B2B or B2C market, customer reviews can tell you a lot. What are your competitors doing well? Where are they dropping the ball? G2 and Capterra are great sources of B2B reviews, while Trustpilot, Reviews.io, Google Reviews, and similar services do the job for B2C. ![A screenshot of G2 business reviews' homepage.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/g2reviews.png) Looking for B2B reviews? Look to resources like G2 and Capterra. #### Employee feedback Off on a tangent somewhat, but still very much relevant, is what you’ll hear from a competitor’s current and past employees. Glassdoor can offer some great competitive insights into what it’s like on the inside. Why is this relevant? Because you’ll get a sense of how their teams work internally, where the frictions might be, and which teams might be overstretched. Or, you might find that competitor X runs a tight ship and everyone’s happy as larry. Still useful to know! --- [![A call to action banner encouraging readers to sign up to the CI Alliance newsletter: CIA Signal.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/CIA_Website_Banners_3.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## 3) Market intelligence What if you wanted your competitive intelligence research to be broader in scope, with data that was still pretty easy to get ahold of? Then you’d want to take a look at the wider market, including your indirect competitors. At this point, some of you might be asking, “If you’ve got a ton of intel on your direct competitors, why would you need less specific info on the wider market?” Because some industries aren’t chock-full of big players. Take Netflix, for example. They compete directly with: - Amazon Prime Video - Disney Plus - even HBO Max. But in addition to their peer streaming services, they’re also competing with the regular ol’ cable companies. Sure, those cable companies might not be direct competitors, but they’re competitors nonetheless. [Market intelligence tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-vs-market-intelligence/) can help you with this kind of market research. Remember our definition of competitive intelligence tools? They accept the names of your competitors, then doggedly pursue those names across the ‘net. Well, market intelligence tools look for general topics, instead of specific competitors. Depending on the tool, they might act more as a data-aggregator and data-cleaner, but they’ll alert you to the wider goings-on in your industry. If you’re on a budget, Google Alerts is a good place to start. It’s a simple tool, but an effective one. Even better, it’s free and you can implement it immediately. ## 4) Product intelligence Think of product intelligence as the backstage pass to your competitors’ innovations. By dissecting their offerings, businesses unlock valuable details – everything from feature comparisons to [pricing strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/). It’s not just about observing; it’s about learning how to outsmart the competition. ### Why product intelligence is important With this intelligence, you can uncover patterns in product life cycles, spot weaknesses in competitors' pricing models, and anticipate their next moves. Essentially, product intelligence helps companies maintain a competitive edge by staying informed and proactive in an innovation-driven marketplace. ### Example of product intelligence A company monitoring a competitor’s new product release might discover an innovative feature that could disrupt the market, prompting them to accelerate the development of a similar or superior feature. ## 5) More hidden information Next, you’ve got more hidden info. This will require a bit more digging on your part and, while not strictly unethical, going after some of this info might be a little distasteful. What’s more, since it’s trickier to get ahold of, the ROI can be lower than the types of business intelligence we’ve already discussed. Remember that, with so much intel out there for you to keep up with, prioritization is the name of the game. For those reasons, you’ll have to make the call on whether this hidden info is worth the opportunity cost. But if yours is a highly competitive environment, it could help you carve out a competitive edge. ### Revenue information Your [competitors’ revenue information](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/product-managers-how-can-you-estimate-your-competitors-product-line-revenues/) *might* be intel you want to gather. ❗ **Note - for the record, we’re not talking about internal pricing documents or anything proprietary. Competitors publish publicly available financial statements and related documents. These are fair game.* The data you’ll have access to is unlikely to be perfect. This makes the final values you end up with estimates at best. For the time it takes to dig out the information, you might decide it’s better spent elsewhere. That said, accurate estimates can offer a ton of value if you know what to do with them. Financial items like gross margins, net dollar retention, debt, and operating expenses can all inform your competitive strategy and give you insight into your competitors’ inner workings. And the revenue a competitor's product or service generates is a great metric for establishing its relative success. You might use this intel for benchmarking purposes, to inform your pricing strategy, or to help you prioritize your tier-one competitors. ### Patent filings When your competitor files a patent application, it’s a big deal. Patents, of course, are exclusive rights granted for an **invention**. So, depending on your industry, this may be more or less common. In short, a patent filing is a sign your competitor has created something they think is a big deal. Big enough that they need to move to protect it as intellectual property. That could mean they’re pushing for market share in a whole new target segment. Or, it could mean a new product they’ve been working on has reached maturity. Either way, this kind of intel is similar to the press release in its level of importance. It’s an uncommon event that should force you to sit up, take notice, and decide whether a strategic response is required. --- ****Recommended reading 📘**• [Guide to implicit segmentation marketing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/implicit-segmentation-marketing/) --- ### Content and SEO strategy Only ‘hidden’ in the sense that you might not think of this as [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) (and also because it’s your content or marketing team that’s likely to collect and action this kind of data, rather than a product marketer or CI pro). Competitive SEO analysis is a pretty useful (and ethical) add-on to your competitive strategy. By using a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush to gather data on your competitors’ most successful content and targeted keywords, you’re able to see where your competitors are investing their content marketing efforts. This saves you from keeping close tabs on their published content. Plus, it can give you a clearer picture of your competitors’ priorities. Which problems are they positioning themselves as the best solution for? Which [personas](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/persona-building/) are they going after hardest? [How to Do an SEO Competitive Analysis (7-step Guide)SEO competitive analysis reveals the gaps in your SEO strategy so you can adjust and overtake the leaders in your space – and in this article, we’re going to show you how to do it.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192-9.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/souvik-banerjee-OMhubJCrtu0-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) ## 6) Technology intelligence Technology intelligence allows businesses to monitor breakthroughs in innovation, whether that’s the rise of [AI](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-competitive-intelligence-tasks/), blockchain, or other emerging technologies. This intelligence serves as a spotlight, illuminating the areas where competitors are investing in research and development, filing patents, or introducing new tech-driven products. ### Why technology intelligence is important For any company aiming to stay relevant, tracking these developments ensures they aren’t left behind as the industry evolves. Technology intelligence helps companies avoid being disrupted by competitors and allows them to lead in innovation. ### Example of technology intelligence A company tracking patent filings might discover that a competitor is working on a breakthrough in renewable energy technology, which could impact the company’s market positioning. This prompts early R&D investment in similar or adjacent areas. ## 7) Partner and supplier intelligence This type of intelligence focuses on gathering information about a competitor’s key partnerships, alliances, suppliers, and third-party collaborations. Understanding these relationships can provide insights into their supply chain, cost structure, and potential future moves. - Supplier agreements, supply chain analysis - Partnership announcements, joint ventures - Strategic alliances in technology or services ### Why partner and supplier intelligence is important Competitors often rely on suppliers and partners for critical operations. Tracking these relationships can help you spot vulnerabilities, upcoming changes, or opportunities to improve your own supplier network. ### Example of partner and supplier intelligence Analyzing a competitor's partnership with a leading tech firm, which could signal an upcoming innovation or product launch. ## 8) Regulatory and legal intelligence Regulatory and legal intelligence keeps companies ahead of potential roadblocks by tracking laws, regulations, and policy changes that could impact operations. From patent filings to lawsuit trends, this intelligence provides a comprehensive view of the legal risks and opportunities within your industry. Additionally, keeping an eye on regulatory approvals – or rejections – can offer insights into how competitors may be affected by compliance issues, helping you refine your strategies in response to emerging legal frameworks. ### Why regulatory and legal intelligence is important Staying on top of regulatory shifts allows you to anticipate changes that might affect your business or give competitors an edge (or disadvantage) in specific markets. ### Example of regulatory and legal intelligence Monitoring regulatory developments in privacy laws to understand how a competitor’s data-driven services may be affected in specific regions. ## 9) Geopolitical and economic intelligence No business operates in isolation, and the forces of geopolitics and economics can have a profound impact on market dynamics. Geopolitical and economic intelligence helps companies make sense of international trade policies, political events, and currency fluctuations that might influence their market or competitors. When sanctions or tariffs are imposed, or when economic instability arises in key markets, businesses armed with this intelligence can adapt swiftly. ### Why geopolitical and economic intelligence is important Businesses that operate internationally or source materials globally can be deeply impacted by geopolitical events. Keeping track of these factors helps you foresee risks and adjust your global strategies accordingly. ### Example of geopolitical and economic intelligence Analyzing the impact of trade sanctions on a competitor that relies on a foreign supplier, which may disrupt their operations or pricing. ## 10) Reputation and brand intelligence Reputation, as they say, can take years to build and minutes to destroy. Reputation and [brand intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/why-bother-with-brand-building/) involves tracking how competitors are perceived by the public, customers, and media. - Are they viewed favorably? - Are there vulnerabilities in their brand positioning? Through analyzing social media sentiment, media coverage, and brand surveys, businesses can adjust their own brand strategy to capitalize on competitors’ weaknesses or reinforce their own strengths. Staying aware of the shifts in public perception allows companies to react quickly, protecting their brand and seizing new opportunities in the market. ### Why reputation and brand intelligence is important Brand reputation can heavily influence customer decisions. Keeping tabs on how competitors are perceived allows you to capitalize on negative sentiment or adjust your own brand strategy. ### Example of reputation and brand intelligence Identifying a competitor facing public backlash over a PR crisis and using the opportunity to highlight your company’s strengths in the same area. ## 11) Corporate espionage 🙅‍♀️ We’ve saved this one for last. Not because it’s the best, but because it’s worth a warning. The term “corporate espionage” sounds fancy, but just describes unethical and/or illegal means of gathering intel on your competitors. This might include phone tapping, illegally accessing email records, or hacking databases and computer systems. On the “less severe, but still sketchy” end of the scale, you’ve got things like paying mystery shoppers or actors to pose as “real” customers to gather information. Even pretending to be someone you’re not when signing up for a competitor’s free trial is looked down upon. The truth is, there’s just no reason to stoop to these low levels. You’re better than that and, with the right approach, there’s a ton more useful information *freely* available for those willing to look. And hey, isn’t it more rewarding to beat your competitors with a bit of a handicap? --- ****Recommended reading 📘**• [Competitive intelligence ethics](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-ethics/) --- ## What's next? Loving our content, but want to get closer to the source of insights like these? Then you've gotta join our competitive intelligence Slack community. Don't miss out on this opportunity to connect with CI's best and brightest. Click below to see what it's all about. 👇 [![A call to action banner encouraging readers to join the CI Alliance Slack community.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/CIA_Website_Banners_2-3.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### Don’t just sit back and react to your competitors’ moves – master your CI function URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/master-your-ci-function/ Last updated: 2024-10-28T09:21:12.000Z **It’s become increasingly clear that, to stay ahead, you need a proactive strategy.** That’s exactly what Michael Porter’s Generic Strategies offer. These aren’t just theoretical concepts; they are actionable frameworks that, when integrated with your [competitive intelligence (CI) program](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-adoption-playbook/), can transform how your business competes and wins in the market. By the time you finish reading this article, you’ll hopefully have a clear roadmap for applying these strategies and gain insights from real-world examples and experiences on how I’ve successfully applied these frameworks in my work. Whether it was helping a SaaS company sharpen its differentiation strategy or enabling a health tech startup to achieve cost leadership, I’ve seen firsthand how Porter’s strategies, when paired with robust competitive intelligence, can transform a business. Let's dive into how you can make Porter’s strategies work for you. # **Understanding Porter’s generic strategies** Michael Porter, a pioneer in the field of [competitive strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-strategy-for-business-lifecycle/), introduced the concept of Generic Strategies in his seminal work "[Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance](https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=7UqQXsQ%5Fdj4C&oi=fnd&pg=PT11&dq=Porter,+Michael+E.+Competitive+Advantage:+Creating+and+Sustaining+Superior+Performance.+Free+Press,+1985.&ots=Fh4PUsDJdG&sig=Ia4uewkkeEX26ewMlo32JCXSjJM#v=onepage&q=Porter%2C%20Michael%20E.%20Competitive%20Advantage%3A%20Creating%20and%20Sustaining%20Superior%20Performance.%20Free%20Press%2C%201985.&f=false)". These strategies are based on two key dimensions: competitive advantage (cost leadership vs. differentiation) and competitive scope (broad vs. narrow target market). Porter identified three main strategies that businesses can use to achieve a competitive advantage: Cost Leadership, Differentiation, and Focus. [Cost Competitive Advantage: What it is, How to Get itA business achieves a low-cost competitive advantage when it’s able to manufacture goods and take them to the point of sale at a lower cost than competitors, while maintaining (or surpassing) competing products or services in quality.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/08/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--6-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/cost-competitive-advantage/) **Cost Leadership:** This strategy revolves around becoming the lowest-cost producer in the industry. Companies that successfully implement a cost leadership strategy can offer their products or services at a lower price than competitors, thereby attracting price-sensitive customers. **Differentiation:** In contrast to cost leadership, the differentiation strategy focuses on creating unique products or services that stand out in the market. This uniqueness can be achieved through superior quality, innovative features, exceptional customer service, or brand reputation. **Focus:** The focus strategy involves targeting a specific segment of the market, whether it’s a niche group of customers or a particular geographic area. This strategy can be further divided into cost focus (offering lower prices to a niche market) or differentiation focus (offering specialized products or services to a niche market). ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe-CZnd4fQ0cv-NZ4o3pWKTBSxZdrMnGzDqa5uvFau40lLvyoXArZJZbejDwVBT_JwlpyFz6_Q10bCnTMcPGt2ekFgH2lte8SzKs7qwHzLaUSQLeVcgXtBkwk6KukC2CFfsDdngu3ws4FRyaBCAqDZfQry-?key=B2rFCFY6Gu6B2fTzRoYxUA) # **Integrating Porter’s strategies with competitive intelligence** In one instance, I was tasked with building a competitive intelligence program from the ground up at a SaaS company. The challenge was to not only gather and analyze data but to use it to create actionable strategies that would drive our market positioning. [Stand Out in a Crowded Market with Product PositioningGuest author Vimal Cherangattu walks you through actionable frameworks and strategies that will elevate your product positioning game to new heights.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceVimal Cherangattu![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/darwin-vegher-W_ZYCEUapF0-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/stand-out-in-a-crowded-market-product-positioning/) This is when I quickly realized that I could simply look to Porter’s Generic Strategies to craft a unique CI program. This meant using the insights gathered about competitors, customers, and [market trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-trend-analysis/) to enhance my strategic decision-making. So, let’s now look at each strategy that could support your CI program. ## **Cost leadership** To succeed in cost leadership, you need to continuously monitor the market for opportunities to reduce costs. This is where competitive intelligence comes in. You can identify best practices and potential cost-saving measures by analyzing competitors' pricing strategies, supply chains, production processes, and operational efficiencies. [Competitive Pricing Intelligence: Your Ultimate GuideCompetitive pricing intelligence helps businesses make smarter decisions about their own positioning and pricing strategies, empowering them to win more market share.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/05/CIA_Framework_Tiles_pricing_intelligence.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) For instance, if a competitor has optimized their cloud infrastructure, your CI efforts should aim to understand the impact of this optimization on the market. You should investigate how similar efficiencies can be achieved—whether through negotiating better terms with cloud providers, adopting more efficient coding practices, or leveraging containerization and microservices to reduce resource usage. At one of the SaaS companies I worked for, I optimized our company’s cost structure (pricing plans) after my CI research revealed that a major competitor had altered their pricing strategy to attract budget-conscious clients. I led a small cross-functional team to explore similar optimizations in our pricing tiers, strategically segmenting our offerings to suit different target personas and enhance our competitive advantage. While these efforts didn’t necessarily *revolutionize* our pricing, we aimed to offer slight but meaningful price reductions and improved segmentation to help us stay competitive and better align with our customers. And we managed to do just that. 💡 ****Key takeaway:** Use competitive intelligence to identify and adopt cost-saving innovations and efficiencies, allowing your business to maintain or improve its cost leadership position. ## **Differentiation** [Differentiation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/) is all about standing out, and competitive intelligence helps identify opportunities for this. By analyzing competitors' offerings, customer feedback, and market trends, you can pinpoint gaps in the market where your products or services can excel. Consider a scenario where competitive intelligence reveals that customers are increasingly dissatisfied with the customer service offered by your competitors. This insight could lead you to invest in superior customer service as a differentiator. Alternatively, if competitive intelligence shows a growing demand for eco-friendly products, you might explore ways to enhance your product’s environmental credentials. [Conversation Intelligence For Improved Customer ExperienceConversation intelligence improves customer experiences by harnessing digital technologies to create richer conversations with customers, stakeholders, and partners.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceManu Pandey![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/conversation-intelligence-for-customer-experience/) In fact, here’s an example directly related to the above point, taken from my time working in a digital adoption platform company. Our competitive intelligence revealed that competitors failed to deliver a personalized customer service experience. Recognizing this as a critical gap, we enhanced our onboarding process, developed specialized help resources, and ensured that our marketing materials highlighted this focus on a superior customer support experience. While these adjustments were targeted, they helped differentiate us in a crowded market, steadily increasing customer satisfaction and retention. 💡 ****Key takeaway:** Leverage competitive intelligence to discover market gaps and unmet customer needs, allowing you to create differentiated offerings that resonate with your target audience. ## **Focus** The focus strategy requires a deep understanding of your target market segment, and competitive intelligence is vital for gaining this understanding. By closely monitoring the specific needs, preferences, and behaviors of your target market, you can tailor your products, services, and marketing efforts to meet those needs more effectively than broader competitors. [The Only Four Types of Market Segmentation You Need to KnowOf all the possible ways you can segment your market, there are four that have stood the test of time. When intelligently combined, these segmentation methods make for effective, insightful segments with high ROI and strong predictive power.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/jason-leung-D4YrzSwyIEc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/four-types-of-market-segmentation/) For example, if you are targeting a niche market that values artisanal craftsmanship, competitive intelligence might reveal that competitors are increasingly automating their production processes. This insight could lead you to double down on your handcrafted approach, positioning your products as the premium choice for discerning customers. To give you another example, while I was working within the health tech sector, competitive intelligence indicated that a niche market—mental health professionals—was under-served by our broader competitors. Instead of making sweeping changes, I tailored our marketing and sales messages to better resonate with this specific group. By highlighting relevant features like privacy compliance and ease of use for telehealth, we saw a gradual increase in engagement from this segment. This focus allowed us to carve out a small yet growing presence in a specialized area that wasn’t getting much attention from larger players. 💡 ****Key takeaway:** Use competitive intelligence to gain deep insights into your target market, enabling you to refine your focus strategy and deliver unmatched value to your niche audience. # **Some key takeaways** By integrating these strategies with competitive intelligence, you will not only gain a deeper understanding of the market landscape but also empower your organization to make informed and impactful decisions. Here’s how you can turn this knowledge into action: - **Regularly audit costs:** Establish a routine for analyzing your cost structure against competitors. Use competitive intelligence to identify new technologies or processes that could reduce costs and continuously seek out ways to streamline operations without sacrificing quality. - **Identify differentiation opportunities:** Make it a priority to monitor customer feedback and market trends. Use these insights to continually refine your product or service offerings, ensuring they stand out in ways that truly matter to your target audience. - **Deepen market focus:** Sharpen your focus on niche markets. Understand their evolving needs and preferences, and tailor your strategies to deliver unparalleled value that broad competitors can’t match. - **Integrate competitive intelligence into your strategic planning process**: Set up systems that allow you to gather, analyze, and act on intelligence in real-time. This will not only help you maintain a competitive edge but also ensure your strategies are resilient and responsive to ever-changing markets. Remember: The businesses that excel don’t just react to the market—they anticipate and shape it. And with the right combination of strategy and intelligence, your company can do just that. --- *Make sure your positioning is top notch too.* [*Our playbook*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook) *is designed to help you position yourself competitively, reposition where things aren't going your way, get buy-in across your org, and more.* [The Competitive Positioning Playbook | CIAIt’s how you position yourself relative to the competition that truly matters. In the Competitive Positioning Playbook, we show you how.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2024/09/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2022/10/blog_meta.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook) ### Key takeaways from the 2024 Competitive Intelligence Salary Report URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/key-takeaways-from-the-2024-competitive-intelligence-salary-report/ Last updated: 2024-09-19T10:59:44.000Z If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re getting paid what you deserve as a competitive intelligence (CI) pro, then the [2024 Competitive Intelligence Salary Report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) is here to spill the tea. Spoiler alert: some regions and roles are definitely banking more than others. But don’t worry, we’ve got all the stats so you can size up where you stand. Let’s take a peek: - **Average salary worldwide:** CI professionals are pulling in an average of **$115,065** a year before taxes. - **Regional dominance:** North America’s leading the charge, with base salaries an eye-popping **$62,643** higher than Europe – the second-highest-paying region. Want another shocker? Directors in Asia are earning less than analysts in Europe. - **Top earners:** Directors and those clocking over 60 hours a week are making the most. - **Hybrid roles:** They're at the top of the pay scale, offering an average base salary of **$120,059**. - **Industry insights:** Aviation and aerospace is flying high as the top-paying industry, where CI pros are averaging a massive **$203,577**. - **Gender gap alert:** Women in competitive intelligence are still earning **19.1%** less than their male counterparts. - **Salary dissatisfaction:** Nearly half of CI pros are unhappy with their pay, with an average salary satisfaction score of just **3.5 out of 10**. Now, let’s dive deeper into each of these key takeaways and what they mean for you. ## Global CI salaries: An overview Let’s talk numbers – globally, competitive intelligence professionals are earning an average base salary of **$115,065**. Not bad, right? But, as you’d expect, where you’re based makes a massive difference. North America is at the top of the compensation ladder, with CI pros earning an average base salary of **$149,034**. That’s a cool **$62,643** more than their counterparts in Europe, the next highest-paying region. ![Bar chart comparing the average base salary by region in 2024 versus 2023. North America leads with an average base salary of $149,034 in 2024, up from $138,088 in 2023. Europe follows, with an average base salary of $86,391 in 2024, up from $83,651 in 2023. In the Middle East, the average salary is $78,376 in 2024, an increase from $68,724 in 2023. Asia shows $40,398 in 2024, up from $35,587 in 2023. Africa has the lowest average base salary in 2024 at $18,000, down from $27,570 in 2023.](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcbLcCKdN0FtfJgWXl9sd9OjHoH83ujHXxOd44uw3sQecYCM7yBIdVFViU621H5DPd-JVbMuzzU7tuDPLF0YHk8lysa65R9or867W200U164gwK8bhlLz0pX3LuTlhJgHXRzDEb5CYwQXwfPohu7y_dWYAL?key=jyZ9CsJHLD1fOqdAaEMS8Q) Source: [Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) Asia and Africa, however, are a different story. Salaries in these regions are significantly lower, with CI professionals in Asia bringing in an average base salary of **$40,398**, and those in Africa seeing even less at **$18,000**. The disparities are striking – especially when you realize that directors of competitive intelligence in Asia often earn less than analysts in Europe. It’s not just about geography, though – company revenue plays a role, too. If you’re working at a company pulling in $100M–$249M annually, you could be earning nearly **40% more** than someone at a $50M–$99M company. Bottom line? Location and company size are two of the biggest factors impacting your paycheck. ## Director-level positions and long hours: Leading the way in earnings Director-level roles are at the top of the salary scale for competitive intelligence professionals. In North America, directors of competitive intelligence are earning an average salary of **$171,077**, making them some of the highest-paid in the field. Seniority clearly pays off when it comes to CI compensation. ![Average salaries for competitive intelligence analysts: North America – $100,667, Europe – $42,321. Average salaries for directors of competitive intelligence: North America – $171, 077, Europe – $125,768, Asia – $32,401.](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf0YuI7d1h2BF3Dy_-qu4E7ds6nrt8hnCO-MhzAyE37NtOSoCAGSFcJ1b7COfZIhPWwYjGMvlVejYKQqnaC9IR_ClEtwyTc3lljSauDl_Rg_kGrcpi75YcMtypND22HFUd13vdwBUHLfqckjhkEpDziUkVs?key=jyZ9CsJHLD1fOqdAaEMS8Q) Source: [Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) On a separate note, putting in longer hours can also boost your paycheck – those working more than 60 hours per week see some of the highest salaries across all roles, making an average of **$177,500**. However, working more hours doesn’t necessarily equate to higher pay. Those clocking in 16 to 25 hours a week actually earn slightly *more* than those plugging for 50 to 60 hours. ## Hybrid roles: The new top earners With an average base salary of **$120,059** and total yearly compensation reaching **$137,903**, professionals who split their time between the office and remote work are cashing in more than their fully remote or in-office counterparts. Interestingly, those who work entirely from the office are the lowest earners, with a stark **46.9%** gap compared to hybrid workers. ![Bar chart comparing total yearly salary (mean and median) based on work location. For hybrid roles (sometimes in-office, sometimes remote), the mean salary is $129,000, and the median is $120,059. For those always 100% remote, the mean salary is $127,535, and the median is $117,959. For those always in the office, the mean salary is $63,798, and the median is $55,000.](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdEkiPv5JmPBd_Be0wjXZdjlhpOo1hdBFksivjcbDRnrRvEoX_B0sdD_tqL1bmp-Kmx76TVP5mtyrfy81I9ju6W9ngiwc5JMd-N2hK6f04bqvddGeZKBvNXx9jP1M9kJySaWgvE_QuaCPOtTCWZJs-fR3sV?key=jyZ9CsJHLD1fOqdAaEMS8Q) Source: [Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) This shift highlights the growing value placed on flexibility in the workplace. Hybrid roles seem to strike the perfect balance between in-office collaboration and the autonomy of remote work, making them a sweet spot for both job satisfaction *and* compensation. ## Aviation and aerospace: The highest-paying industry If you’re looking to maximize your earning potential as a competitive intelligence professional, the aviation and aerospace industry is where you want to be. With an average salary of **$203,577**, this sector tops the charts for CI pay, far outpacing other industries. While other industries like market research (**$180,010**) and restaurants (**$185,038**) also offer attractive compensation, aviation and aerospace leads the way by a significant margin. The high salaries reflect the critical need for deep insights and strategic intelligence in an industry where the stakes are high and innovation and competition are fierce. CI professionals in industries like packaging and containers (**$35,003**) or machinery (**$55,054**) are earning far less, showing a stark contrast in how different sectors value competitive intelligence. In short, if you’re looking to make a strategic career move, you might want to start brushing up on your aviation and aerospace knowledge. ## Gender pay gap: A persistent issue The 2024 Salary Report makes it clear that [the gender pay gap in competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/gender-pay-gap-in-competitive-intelligence/) is a stubborn reality. On average, women in CI earn **19.1% less** than men do. That’s a significant difference, with men earning an average of **$124,297**, while women bring in **$100,572**. The gap becomes even more pronounced when you look at the median salary – **$140,000** for men versus **$105,753** for women, a staggering **$34,257** difference. ![Mean yearly base salary for men in CI: $124,297. Median yearly base salary for men in CI: $140,000. Mean yearly base salary for women in CI: $100,572. Median yearly base salary for women in CI: $105, 753. ](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc3DWqC502kPXyworD51hc_pR8KbK4Tq8ElCp5yoLDnDLLdlAghivXvkqnN3UXH1XhsJ_vn_ZAr8jmA187sxWEykLi5jG23OpubpZmMX7a__XgRL3bAj2WT7LZ95EyhMTNpk-gzId0KH4AMBdL5imFuhKzm?key=jyZ9CsJHLD1fOqdAaEMS8Q) Source: [Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) This disparity isn’t limited to one region, either. In Europe, the pay gap is particularly striking, with men earning **70.8%** more than women on average. While there are exceptions, like the Middle East where women out-earn men by **51.5%**, these cases are rare. Even when you break it down by job title, men consistently out-earn women, whether they’re [competitive intelligence analysts](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-analyst/) or directors. It’s a worrying trend that shows the gender pay gap remains a significant barrier in the industry. For companies committed to fairness and inclusivity, addressing this issue needs to be a top priority. ## Can’t get no (salary) satisfaction Salary dissatisfaction is widespread among competitive intelligence professionals, and the 2024 Salary Report highlights just how deep the issue runs. Nearly half of all respondents (**48%**) are unhappy with their compensation, and the average salary satisfaction score sits at a low **3.5 out of 10**, highlighting the gap between pay expectations and reality for many CI pros. The discontent is most pronounced among CI analysts, with a staggering **85.7%** expressing dissatisfaction. At the director level, while there’s more ambivalence, it’s still not a glowing picture – **73.3%** of directors feel indifferent about their pay, with none rating their satisfaction higher than a seven. This widespread dissatisfaction raises questions about how well compensation reflects the value that CI professionals bring to their organizations. With almost half of practitioners feeling underpaid, salary satisfaction is clearly a pressing issue that could impact retention and morale across the industry. ## Conclusion The 2024 Competitive Intelligence Salary Report offers a vivid snapshot of the evolving industry pay trends. From director-level roles leading the charge in pay to hybrid positions becoming the new sweet spot, it’s clear that where you work, how you work, and the role you hold all play a pivotal part in determining your earnings. However, the persistent gender pay gap and widespread dissatisfaction with compensation show that there’s still work to be done to ensure fair and competitive pay across the board. If you’re a CI professional looking to advance your career or simply want to know where you stand in relation to your peers, this report is packed with insights to help guide your next move. --- *Want to dive deeper into the data?* [*Download the full 2024 Competitive Intelligence Salary Report*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) *for all the details and to see where you can optimize your earning potential.* [Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024 | CIAAn industry report on global competitive intelligence salaries, examining correlations and discrepancies between pay and factors like seniority, gender, location, and certifications.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Salary_Report_2024_Blog-2.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) ### Decoding competitor pricing intelligence: How to master this crucial strategy URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/decoding-competitor-pricing-intelligence/ Last updated: 2024-09-13T12:42:53.000Z [Pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) is one of the most crucial parts of a company’s strategy due to its immense impact on revenue. It is also a very sensitive topic because of this direct connection to revenue, and companies don’t rush to publicly reveal their pricing plans and strategies. Competitive Intelligence (CI) professionals play a crucial role in identifying, gathering, and [analyzing competitor pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/) data to inform strategic decision-making. From my experience, companies that are very private about their pricing are either startups that probably want to leave more room for flexibility in their first deals or more “legacy” companies with complicated pricing models that may scare customers away right off the bat. But even then, you’ll usually be able to get a certain understanding of what that model looks like. In my opinion, the cloud of secrecy hovering over the topic and how difficult it can be to uncover these insights only make it more satisfying when you *are* able to form a relatively clear picture of the pricing landscape. In this post, I’ve gathered some of my personal best practices for acquiring competitor pricing intelligence and transforming that data into actionable insights. I’ve focused on what usually works for me, and I hope you find a few useful tips! # Step 1: Setting clear objectives and defining the scope Any good research project starts with defining its objectives, and pricing intelligence is no different. Before diving into data collection, understand what you need to achieve. If you are working with a stakeholder like a Product Manager or Pricing Strategist, align on the goal of your research. Whether you aim to benchmark industry standards, uncover trends, or get intelligence on competitors’ discount strategies, understanding your goal shapes your research and analysis strategy. [A Step-By-Step Guide to Market ResearchIn this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore what it entails and why market research is an indispensable tool for any competitive intelligence expert.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceLawrence Chapman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/CIA_Framework_Tiles_market_research.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/) The most common compelling event for pricing research is a new product launch, when the organization needs to figure out how to price that new product against existing competitors in the market. The goal here would be to conduct a comparative analysis to provide stakeholders with visibility on the industry benchmark and how others price similar solutions so they can better price their own solution. Another example of a research goal is to uncover competitors’ discounting strategies and help your organization understand how other companies deal with customer engagements in order to compete better and provide similar or better discounts. This will involve questions like: - Does this competitor normally provide discounts? - What type of discounts? Multi-year deals, volume discounts, buying out the remainder of the existing contract? No matter the goal, you will also need to define the scope of competitors relevant to the specific study—select [direct and indirect competitors ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/)with similar target markets or product offerings. Note that when entering a new domain or launching a new product, this might not be 100% obvious—remember to look further than just your direct competitors and search for other solutions that solve the same pain for customers. You might have to go through a few iterations to get it right. # Step 2: Sourcing data from reliable sources Competitor pricing data can be sourced from a variety of places: - Public sources: Websites, price comparison tools, e-commerce platforms. - Primary research: Customer surveys, direct interviews. - Secondary sources: Industry reports, financial filings, and analyst reviews. These are my own tried and true sources, to which I will turn to first and usually do the job: 1. **Vendor websites - Pricing page** This might go without saying, but the competitor’s website is the first place you should look for pricing information. Some vendors will offer full or near-full visibility into their pricing model and costs, but even if they don’t, you might still be able to tell what type of pricing model they offer or how they package their product. 2. **Vendor websites - Documentation** If the pricing model isn’t available on the vendor’s website, and even if it is, you might be able to get information from their documentation. Look for a “Billing” page that could explain how the pricing model is built. 3. **Cloud marketplaces** If your competitors are SaaS or cloud products and pricing isn’t available on the vendor’s website, it’s likely available on the cloud marketplace. Search for the vendor’s seller page or specific product. It might not be the precise pricing model, but it will probably give you some indication of the price range. 4. **Review websites** Sometimes customer reviews on websites like G2 or TrustRadius include pricing or discounting information. 5. **Human intelligence - customers and former employees** A great way to get deeper insight into competitors’ pricing is to conduct interviews with customers who have used competitive products, or with new employees at your company who previously worked for a competitor.Some customers will even share discounting information they got from other vendors - which is like striking gold! # Step 3: Analysis Like everything in CI, the key is to not only gather pricing data but also to extract actionable insights that inform strategic decisions and contextualize the data within broader market dynamics and competitor strategies. Naturally, the type of analysis will change according to the research goal. Here’s what I normally take into consideration when analyzing competitor pricing: - **Normalize data:** Adjust prices for differences like currency, packaging size, or unit types to ensure a like-for-like comparison. Companies don’t always price their products in the same way. Some use a user-based model, and some use a consumption-based model. It’s usually not an apples-to-apples comparison, so try to find the price of the base unit that will make the comparison a bit easier. - **Categorize product tiers:** Group competitors' products by categories or tiers (e.g., premium, mid-tier, entry-level) and analyze pricing within each group. Are they targeting SMBs or enterprises with their pricing? What features do they include in each tier for each of these groups? - **Refine and review the competitive landscape:** As mentioned before, you might have to go back to the drawing board a few times to pinpoint the right competitors for the research scope. This is good! Especially when you’re entering a new domain or launching a new product, this process helps refine the competitive landscape for further research and positioning. # Step 4: Communicating insights to stakeholders I’m sure you’ve done a great job collecting and analyzing the data – but it doesn’t end there. Turning data into strategy requires effective communication. Delivering insights that are clear, relevant, and aligned with stakeholder needs ensures that pricing intelligence drives decision-making. Tailoring your findings to different stakeholders is essential. Executives may require high-level summaries, while pricing teams might need detailed data analysis. ## Here's a free template to get you started. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/09/_Competitor-Pricing-Intelligence_1.png) ### Total addressable market (TAM): Why it's important, and how to calculate it URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/total-addressable-market/ Last updated: 2024-09-19T11:00:08.000Z As a Product Marketing Manager dedicated to bringing innovative healthcare software products to market, I recognize the significance of understanding your target market. In my current role, where I develop and execute go-to-market strategies for [healthcare software solutions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-in-healthcare/), I’m passionate about making a difference in the lives of healthcare providers and patients. In this guide, I’ll guide you through the importance of total addressable market (TAM) analysis in [product marketing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/product-marketing-leader-influence/) within the healthcare software realm. Together, we’ll delve into the process of calculating TAM for your product or service, equipping you with the insights to make data-driven decisions on product development, [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/mastering-full-stack-pricing/), and market expansion in the healthcare technology sector. Imagine you have a game-changing idea for a new product or service but are still determining if it's worth the investment. As a product marketer, having a deep understanding of your target market is critical to the success of your product. One of the [key metrics](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measure-sales-enablement-roi/) for evaluating the market potential of your product is the total addressable market (TAM). TAM estimates the maximum revenue opportunity available in a specific market, assuming that the product or service captures 100% of the market share. ## Why is total addressable market important in product marketing? With my firsthand experience in launching healthcare software solutions, I recognize the immense value of TAM estimation in evaluating the market potential of healthcare software. By comprehending the size of the TAM, product marketers can gauge whether a specific market has the capacity to support their solution and if it is a viable investment. Evaluating TAM allows you to determine if it's worthwhile to invest in enhancing your software's features, user experience, or marketing efforts to capture a larger market share. Ultimately, understanding TAM is paramount for making informed business decisions and maximizing the potential success of your healthcare equipment management software. [Creating a powerful positioning strategy: the what, why, and howElements you should highlight when developing a positioning strategy include the values that resonate with your target audience, as well as benefits and attributes, such as your unique value proposition.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceTeresa Garanhel![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/08/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--1-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/) ## How to calculate total addressable market (TAM) The first step for product marketers in calculating TAM is to gather data on the number of potential customers and the average revenue per customer in a given market. The potential customer base can be estimated using data from [market research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/), industry reports, and government statistics. The average revenue per customer can be estimated using historical sales data or data from industry reports. Once the data has been gathered, TAM can be calculated by multiplying the estimated number of potential customers by the average revenue per customer. To better illustrate the concept of TAM, I’ll walk you through the process of calculating TAM for your healthcare equipment management software. Envision a company developing an advanced healthcare equipment management software solution. In this case, you’d identify the total number of potential customers, including hospitals, medical clinics, and healthcare organizations. Then, estimate the average revenue per customer, such as licensing fees or subscription costs. If you estimate a potential customer base of 500 in the healthcare equipment management software market, with an average revenue of $10,000 per year, your TAM will amount to $5 million per year. This number would represent the maximum revenue opportunity available to the company if it were to capture 100% of the healthcare equipment management software solutions market share. While capturing the entire market share is improbable, understanding the TAM empowers you to set realistic growth targets and make informed decisions on pricing, marketing, and market expansion within the dynamic healthcare technology landscape. [B2B Market Segmentation Guide: How to Succeed in B2B in 2023Not all segmentation methods work for all businesses. If your customers are other businesses, rather than consumers, there are several key need-to-knows that’ll help you avoid pitfalls, create more actionable segments, and boost the results of your campaigns.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/08/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--2-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/b2b-market-segmentation-guide/) ## Potential pitfalls and limitations of total addressable market Drawing from my expertise in healthcare technology product marketing, I’m well-versed in the limitations of TAM analysis. It's essential to recognize that not all of the revenue TAM represents is realistically achievable. It’s crucial to also consider the Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) and the Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) in the healthcare equipment management software sector. SAM focuses on the portion of TAM that your company can realistically target based on the fit between your product and market demand. It allows you to concentrate on the market segment that aligns best with your healthcare equipment management software's capabilities and value proposition. Additionally, SOM represents the percentage of market share that your company can realistically capture, considering your capabilities, resources, and the competitive landscape. By calculating SOM, you gain a clearer understanding of your achievable market share and can tailor your marketing strategies to effectively differentiate your healthcare equipment management software from competitors. Having immersed myself in the healthcare technology landscape as a Product Marketing Manager, I possess a wealth of expertise in market assessment metrics. While TAM serves as a valuable tool for estimating maximum revenue opportunities, I’m aware of its limitations. That's why I advocate for the inclusion of SAM and SOM as additional metrics to provide a more realistic evaluation of a company's market potential. Leveraging my deep understanding of product marketing dynamics, I emphasize the significance of considering TAM, SAM, and SOM in tandem to gain a comprehensive understanding of market potential. By employing this holistic approach, product marketers can make informed decisions regarding product development, [pricing strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/), and targeted marketing campaigns, ultimately maximizing their chances of achieving remarkable success in the industry. --- *To ensure you're well positioned in the market (and boost your chances of doing so), check out our* [*Competitive Positioning Playbook*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/)*, perfect for CIs wanting to carve their own niche.* [The Competitive Positioning Playbook | CIAIt’s how you position yourself relative to the competition that truly matters. In the Competitive Positioning Playbook, we show you how.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2022/10/blog_meta.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) ### Recruiting competitive intelligence specialists: Tips for non-CI hiring managers URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/recruiting-competitive-intelligence-specialists-tips-for-non-ci-hiring-managers/ Last updated: 2024-09-06T14:00:07.000Z If you’re a hiring manager tasked with bringing a [competitive intelligence (CI)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) professional on board, you might feel a bit out of your depth. And that’s okay! CI is one of those roles that often lands in the laps of folks who aren’t necessarily familiar with what it actually entails. Whether you’re in product marketing, sales, or product management, you’ve probably noticed that CI isn’t always its own department. Instead, it’s often woven into other functions, and that’s where things can get tricky. Hiring the right CI professional isn’t just about finding someone who can crunch numbers or compile reports. It’s about finding someone who understands the full scope of what CI can offer – someone who can help your team see around corners and anticipate your competitors’ next moves. So, how do you ensure you’re hiring the right person for a CI role, and more importantly, setting them up to succeed? That’s what I’m here to help with. Drawing on nearly 20 years of experience in the field, as well as conversations with other CI professionals, I’ll share some tips and insights to help you better understand what makes a great CI hire, how to avoid common hiring pitfalls, and how to set your new hire – and your organization – up for success. Let’s get into it. ## Understanding CI's role and placement in organizations One of the biggest challenges when [setting up a competitive intelligence function](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/from-data-to-actionable-insights/) is figuring out where it should live within your company. Is it a part of product marketing? Should it sit with sales? Or maybe it's better off under the product team? The answer is – it depends! CI is a bit of a chameleon; it can thrive in different places depending on what your organization needs most. If your focus is on understanding market [positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/stand-out-in-a-crowded-market-product-positioning/) and how your competitors are selling their products, then placing CI under product marketing might make the most sense. Here, CI can help you dig into competitors’ go-to-market strategies, [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/), and [branding](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-the-worlds-most-valuable-real-estate/), giving your marketing team the insights they need to [differentiate your product](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/) and sharpen your messaging. If you’re in a very technical industry – say, you’re developing cutting-edge AI tools – then CI might be more valuable in a technical department. Why? Because here, it’s not just about what your competitors are saying, but what they’re building. Here, CI can help you get into the weeds of product capabilities and how your offerings stack up against the competition in terms of [features and performance](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/). But remember, no matter where CI sits, the key is not to limit its scope. I’ve seen CI teams stuck in sales, only cranking out [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) and [win/loss reports](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/). Sure, those things are useful, but they’re just a fraction of what CI can offer. CI should be your company’s secret weapon, providing insights that fuel strategies across the board – from [marketing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-marketing/) and [product development](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-product-teams/) to [long-term business planning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/planning-competitive-intelligence/). ## Advice for non-CI managers If you’re a non-CI manager suddenly tasked with hiring or managing a CI professional, you might be thinking, “Where do I even start?”. Here’s the good news: you don’t need to be a CI expert to set your team up for success. There are just a few key things to do. ### Understand the full scope of CI First, you need to recognize that CI is more than just gathering data or creating battlecards. It’s about connecting the dots between market trends, competitor moves, and your company’s strategy. Your CI hire needs the space to think strategically, not just reactively. So, avoid the temptation to narrow their role to just [sales support](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) or basic market analysis. Give them the freedom to explore and analyze broadly so they can provide [real insights that benefit the entire organization](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/aligning-ci-with-company-objectives/). ### Educate yourself on CI essentials Second, educate yourself on what good CI looks like. Spend some time learning about the different aspects of CI – like [market research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/), product comparisons, and [strategic recommendations](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/) – so you can better understand the value it brings. This will help you set more realistic expectations and give your CI team the support they need to shine. ### Foster open communication and integration Finally, communicate openly with your CI team. Make sure they know you’re there to support them, even if you’re not a CI expert. Encourage them to share their findings regularly and involve them in strategic discussions. The more integrated they feel, the more value they’ll bring. And remember, CI is all about perspective – sometimes they’ll need to deliver tough truths. Be open to hearing them, even if it’s not what you were hoping for. By understanding these basics, you’ll be well on your way to making the most of your CI function, even if it’s new territory for you. ## Crafting effective job descriptions Let’s talk about job descriptions for a sec. If you’re looking to hire a CI professional, the job description is where you set the stage. But here’s the kicker: too often, these descriptions are either too vague or too narrowly focused, and both of these issues can scare off the talent you want to attract. I’ve seen job postings that are labeled as CI roles but sound more like they’re hiring for a [sales enablement](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/what-is-sales-enablement/) specialist. Everything is about “building battlecards” or “supporting sales with talking points.” If that’s what you need, great – just be upfront about it. Call it what it is: a sales enablement role with some CI elements. Don’t call it a CI role if all you're looking for is deal support. Trust me, CI professionals can spot these red flags a mile off, and they’re not going to be interested in a role that’s just one narrow slice of what they do. [Sales enablement manager guide: salary, key skills | CIASales enablement sits right next to revenue. With so much opportunity to impact the bottom line, there’s some eyebrow-raising compensation attached to successful sales enablement positions, with the average sales enablement manager earning $120,000.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/chris-hardy-jMILWeXY0fM-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-manager/) On the flip side, some descriptions are so generic that they don’t say anything about what the job actually entails. If you’re just copying and pasting from a template or using phrases like “conduct market analysis,” you’re not giving potential hires a clear picture of the role. Remember, CI is a multifaceted field. Your job description should reflect that complexity by outlining the full range of responsibilities – from gathering and analyzing intelligence to making strategic recommendations. A good job description should excite CI professionals. It should show that you understand the value they bring and that you’re looking for someone who can contribute at a high level. So, don’t just list tasks – talk about the impact you want them to have. When you craft a job description that speaks to the heart of what CI is all about, you’ll attract the kind of talent that can really make a difference in your organization. ## Key skills and qualities for CI professionals So, you know what you need from your CI hire, you’ve posted a tantalizing job description to attract the right kind of talent, and the applications have started to pour in. Now, how do you determine who’s going to be the best fit for your company? As I always say, “Don’t trust resumes.” Sure, experience and qualifications matter, but the best CI professionals bring a lot more to the table than just a list of past jobs and diplomas. There are a few key skills and qualities that really make a great CI hire, and they’re worth paying attention to. First off, **curiosity** is huge. A great CI professional is naturally curious – someone who loves to dig deep, ask questions, and figure out the “why” behind what’s happening in the market. You want someone who isn't satisfied with the surface-level answer and is always looking for that extra layer of insight. **Analytical thinking and critical thinking** are also crucial. CI is all about connecting the dots, spotting trends, and challenging assumptions. Your CI hire should be someone who can look at data from all angles, think strategically about what it means for your company, and isn’t afraid to go against the grain when necessary. [Competitive Intelligence Certified | Frameworks for ImpactFrom mapping the market to uncovering the real reasons you’re winning or losing deals. From crafting untouchable positioning, to nailing cross-functional collaboration. This course gives you what you need to build a compete program with impact.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2023/04/CIA_Copetitive_Intelligence_Masters_.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-certified-blog/) And let’s not forget **communication skills**. The best CI insights are worthless if they’re not communicated effectively. You need someone who can clearly [present their findings](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-make-the-most-of-competitive-intelligence-findings/), tailor their message to different audiences, and influence decision-making across the organization. Sometimes, that also means delivering hard truths that people don’t want to hear. It's not about just telling product teams “You’re doing great! Our product is the best on the market!”; it's about providing a clear, unbiased view of the competitive landscape – even if that means challenging existing beliefs or strategies. A great CI professional knows how to do this tactfully but firmly, so the organization can make informed decisions based on reality, not wishful thinking. So, when you're hiring, don't just look for a CI professional with impressive logos and certifications on their resume – look for someone who brings all the right qualities to the table. They’re the ones who will drive real value and help your organization stay ahead of the competition. ## Testing your CI candidates' aptitudes When it comes to hiring competitive intelligence (CI) professionals, the mantra should be “**Test aptitude, hire for attitude**.” Traditional hiring methods – like scrolling through resumes or asking standard interview questions – won’t cut it because they don’t capture the full range of what CI professionals can bring to the table. That’s why it’s time to think outside the box and use more innovative hiring practices that truly test a candidate’s abilities. One of the most effective approaches I’ve seen is incorporating real-world challenges into the interview process. Instead of just asking about their past experience or hypothetical situations, give candidates a practical test that mirrors the work they’ll be doing. For example, provide them with a scenario: “Here’s our company, and here’s one of our competitors. You have 24 hours to research, analyze, and come back with a strategic recommendation.” This exercise isn’t just about testing their research skills – it’s about seeing how they think on their feet, how they connect the dots, and how they communicate their insights. Once the candidates have completed their research, don’t stop there. Give them a full hour to present their findings and answer your questions. This isn’t a speed test – it’s about depth and clarity. You want to see how they structure their thoughts, how well they understand the competitive landscape, and how effectively they can convey their recommendations. The Q&A is particularly revealing because it shows you how candidates handle pressure, think critically on the spot, and defend their analysis. You’re not just looking for the right answers; you’re looking for their ability to engage in a strategic discussion, explain their reasoning, and adapt to new information on the fly. By setting up these real-world challenges and discussions, you can get a better feel for their potential and see who can think strategically, not just reactively. ## Developing career paths for CI professionals You’ve hired the perfect candidate for your CI role – congratulations! 🥳 Now you can sit back and let them bring you competitive insights until the end of time, right? Wrong! Competitive intelligence is an exciting field with a lot of potential, but here’s a hard truth: too many organizations don’t think about where CI professionals can go next. I’ve seen it happen time and time again – CI folks are brought in to do great work, but then there’s no clear path for them to advance. And guess what? They leave. A lot of CI professionals start as [analysts](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-analyst/), diving into the data and learning how to connect the dots. But where do they go from there? What’s the path to becoming a strategist, a manager, or even a director of competitive intelligence? Having a clear career path isn’t just about titles or [promotions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/want-to-earn-more-in-competitive-intelligence/); it’s about recognizing the value CI professionals bring to the table and making sure they know they have a future with your organization. This could mean creating roles that go beyond basic intelligence gathering and focus on strategic influence, cross-functional leadership, or even building out a CI team. So, if you want to keep your CI talent engaged and motivated, show them that there’s room to grow. Lay out a path that rewards their expertise and drive. Because when CI pros see a future for themselves, they’re more likely to stick around and continue delivering valuable insights that drive your company forward. ## The case for a dedicated CI function Imagine if you had a dedicated CI function within your organization, led by someone who eats, sleeps, and breathes competitive strategy. That’s the dream scenario. Why? Because when CI is a stand-alone function, it has the freedom to offer a full, unbiased view of the competitive landscape. You’re not just feeding the needs of one department; you’re providing insights that can drive strategy across the entire company – keeping tabs on what competitors are doing, spotting trends, and providing actionable intelligence that informs everything from product development to sales tactics. In an ideal world, CI would report directly to the C-suite, rather than being buried in another function where priorities can get skewed. That way, the CI function has the autonomy to deliver the good, the bad, and the ugly – without the risk of it being filtered to fit a particular narrative. After all, you want to get the full picture, not just the version that makes one team look good. Bottom line: a dedicated CI function empowers your organization to make smarter, more informed decisions, and as markets grow ever more crowded, that’s not just nice to have – it’s essential. ## Key takeaways Hiring the right competitive intel professional and setting them up for success might seem challenging, especially if you’re not from a CI background. But with the right approach, you can build a strong CI function that delivers real value across your organization. Here are some key takeaways to keep in mind: 👀 **Understand the full scope of CI**: CI is more than just data collection – it’s about providing strategic insights that drive smart decisions. 📝 **Craft effective job descriptions**: Make sure your job postings reflect the true breadth of CI work, not just a narrow focus on one aspect. 🕵️ **Test aptitude, hire for attitude**: Use real-world challenges in your hiring process to find candidates who are not only skilled but also adaptable and strategic thinkers. 🚀 **Develop clear career paths**: Show your CI hires that there’s room to grow within your organization to keep them engaged and motivated. 💪 **Advocate for a dedicated CI function**: Consider the benefits of having a stand-alone CI team that can offer unbiased, comprehensive insights. 🤝 **Support your CI team, even if you’re not an expert**: Learn about CI, keep communication open, and encourage them to deliver the full value they can offer. With these strategies, you’re not just hiring for a role – you’re building a powerhouse that will keep your company ahead of the curve. Stay curious, keep learning, and watch your competitive strategy thrive! ### Is there a gender pay gap in competitive intelligence? We did the research to find out. URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/gender-pay-gap-in-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2024-09-04T09:35:12.000Z In competitive intelligence (CI), a field where strategy and insight are everything, you'd think compensation would be based solely on skill and results. However, [the latest Competitive Intelligence Salary Report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) tells a different story. If you're a woman in CI, chances are you’re making less than the men in your field – **19.1%** less, on average – and that gap has only widened over the past year. If you’re wondering how this could impact your career and your future in CI, let's break it down. This article will explore: - The stark reality of the gender pay gap in competitive intelligence, backed by the latest salary data. - How the gap varies across different regions and roles within CI. - Potential reasons behind this disparity (spoiler alert: it's not just about working fewer hours). - The broader impact of unequal pay on your career advancement and overall satisfaction. - Practical steps you and your organization can take to help close this gap and create a fairer playing field. So, stick around. We’re digging deep into the latest salary findings to find out why, in a field driven by data, the numbers still don’t add up. ## Exploring the gender pay gap in competitive intelligence Let’s start by exploring what exactly the gender pay gap is. Simply put, the gender pay gap represents the average difference in earnings between men and women. Beyond just a number, it also indicates systemic inequality that can impact everything from workplace morale to career advancement opportunities. In many industries, this gap shows that women often receive less pay than men for doing the same work. This disparity can lead to long-term effects, including reduced lifetime earnings, lower retirement savings, and a devaluation of women's contributions in the workplace. ### Key statistics on the gender pay gap Let’s dig into the numbers. The [2024 report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) reveals that the average base salary for women in competitive intelligence (**$100,572**) is significantly lower than that for men (**$124,297**) – a difference of **$23,725** or **19.1%.** The median salary numbers tell a similar story, with men earning **$34,257** more than women. ![Mean yearly base salary for men in CI: $124,297. Median yearly base salary for men in CI: $140,000. Mean yearly base salary for women in CI: $100,572. Median yearly base salary for women in CI: $105, 753. ](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdNYvzE9AyIOPKnv3lsbQU0q9sK1XuivlPc_sRTdyQmkUQHVQxVbDgt3KJevohZJWRghf77Vqmh2-1QoqjgNgjOvPAMnO2V4HO6EvNj8Mxnxb6D10pzlceRGQhCZs_1uMVUI7PRPUQaZHaN3zcWk_d24AaC?key=GFMGNPIM49_rupFji2C73g) **Source:* [**Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) What’s even more concerning is that this gap has widened since last year. In 2023, the difference in mean salary was notable but not as stark, at **$9,650**. Clearly, when it comes to the gender pay gap, the trend is heading in the wrong direction, and action must be taken to make salaries more equitable. ### Regional differences in gender pay When we break down the gender pay gap by region, the disparities become even more pronounced. In Europe, men earn **70.8%** more than women, while in Asia, men earn **52.8%** more. This isn’t just a matter of a few dollars here and there – it’s a huge difference that can have serious implications for women’s economic security and general well-being. However, the story is quite different in regions like the Middle East and South and Central America. In these areas, women in CI earn, on average, more than men. In the Middle East, for example, women in competitive intelligence roles earn **51.5%** more than men. In South and Central America, the trend is similar, with women earning **19.0%** more. While these figures may seem like positive outliers, they could also indicate a higher representation of women in senior roles in these areas, or they may simply reflect variations in the data due to smaller sample sizes. These regional differences highlight that the gender pay gap isn’t a one-size-fits-all issue. It varies widely depending on where you are in the world, and understanding these nuances is crucial if we’re going to tackle the problem effectively. Addressing these disparities will require a targeted approach that considers the unique cultural and economic factors at play in each region. ## Factors contributing to the gender pay gap in CI While the numbers show a clear disparity in how much men and women are paid, the reasons behind them are complex. From the distribution of job titles to differences in hours worked, these elements all play a role in shaping the gap. Let’s explore some of the key factors contributing to this issue. ### The role of job titles and promotions One major factor driving the gender pay gap in CI is the distribution of job titles and the pace of promotions. According to the report, **71.4%** of those in analyst roles are women, whereas a whopping **80.2%** of directors of competitive intelligence are men. This skew suggests that fewer women are being promoted to higher-paying positions, which significantly contributes to the overall pay gap. When you consider that the jump from an analyst to a manager, or from a manager to a director, comes with a significant increase in salary, it's clear how staying in junior roles can limit earning potential. ![Average salaries for competitive intelligence analysts: North America – $100,667, Europe – $42,321. Average salaries for directors of competitive intelligence: North America – $171, 077, Europe – $125,768, Asia – $32,401.](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdl365JJ0lfdpsfSR2PYdvcZ8P_2YcinbVFl-KKKTm1i5lqtg0TNLVDBwRtsRgbsGXs4GoVhcR628tm-8Y7f31dJ2-V_7m3A6jf-zo9uyjBa5ks74SnETW4V3fdUBP62OqlScFdVBtRaC8w2jgaV034MMmP?key=GFMGNPIM49_rupFji2C73g) **Source:* [**Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) Across all almost competitive intelligence specialist roles, from analyst to director, we found that men are paid more than women. Take a look: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/09/Screenshot-2024-09-04-at-10.00.08.png) ### Hours worked and impact on pay Another factor that often comes up in conversations about the gender pay gap is the disparity in the number of hours worked. The (often incorrect) assumption is that working longer hours correlates with higher pay, and that women tend to spend less time at their paid jobs so they can spend more time taking care of their families – but what do the stats say? The 2024 Salary Report shows that **44.8%** of men in CI work more than 46 hours a week, compared to just **20.5%** of women. At first glance, this might suggest that men are earning more simply because they’re working longer hours. ![Graph showing the distribution of the number of hours worked per week by gender. 0-15 hours per week – Women: 5.2%, Men: 0.0%. 16-25 hours per week – Women: 1.2%, Men: 3.2%. 26-35 hours per week – Women: 0.7%, Men: 1.8%. 36-40 hours per week – Women: 42.2%, Men: 29.3%. 41-45 hours per week – Women: 30.2%, Men: 20.9%. 46-50 hours per week – Women: 15.4%, Men: 26.2%. 50-60 hours per week – Women: 5.1%, Men: 15.5%. 61+ hours per week: Women: 0.0%, Men: 3.1%.](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdYHJvsrVJcqzsczMcan2gc_SV0als_jf3_oucuSdK_AdimSQQrqApOvoyCscbI7_4NLv-f64odQdoYWARBHn1Ks5sMLuPRtQgO3TWdnlFd69OKeHDY4bxJiiJxwr9TgS-_p2joa0DRUXLr4OjLKIYWwK0z?key=GFMGNPIM49_rupFji2C73g) **Source:* [**Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) However, the data shows that there’s more at play here. While men *are* more likely to work 46 hours or more per week, the report found no consistent correlation between hours worked and pay. In fact, those who work 26 to 35 hours per week were found to earn *more* than those who work 46 to 50 hours! This indicates that while working hours might play a part, they don't fully account for the gender pay gap in CI. The gap is likely influenced more by how work is valued and compensated within different roles and levels, rather than just the number of hours put in. So, addressing CI’s pay disparity problem isn't as simple as encouraging women to work more hours or pursue promotions. Instead, we need to take a closer look at how organizations value different employees and how they can better support women’s career progression. ## Broader implications of the gender pay gap in CI The gender pay gap in competitive intelligence (CI) isn't just a number on a report – it has real-world implications that can affect the entire profession and the organizations that rely on CI expertise. Think that sounds a tad dramatic? Well, let’s explore the consequences of this disparity. Pay inequality can lead to decreased career satisfaction, as people who feel undervalued may question their worth and place within the organization. This dissatisfaction often translates to lower motivation, reduced engagement, and a lack of enthusiasm for taking on new challenges. Over time, this can result in a talent drain, where skilled CI professionals – particularly women – seek opportunities elsewhere, where their contributions might be more fairly rewarded. The loss of talent not only disrupts team cohesion but can also negatively impact the quality of insights and strategic decisions the CI function delivers. What’s more, when organizations fail to address pay inequalities, they risk fostering a work environment where gender biases are perceived as acceptable or even inevitable. This can lead to a toxic culture that undermines diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, making it even harder for women to break into leadership positions, where they can address these systemic biases. [Study](https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/featured%20insights/diversity%20and%20inclusion/diversity%20wins%20how%20inclusion%20matters/diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters-vf.pdf) after [study](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ijfe.2089) has shown that companies with higher gender diversity in leadership teams outperform those that don’t give women a seat at the table. So, addressing the gender pay gap in CI isn't just about fairness – it's about building stronger and more profitable companies. Ultimately, organizations that recognize the broader implications of pay inequality and take steps to close the gap will be better positioned to attract, retain, and develop top talent, driving better outcomes for their CI functions and the business as a whole. ## Addressing the gender pay gap: What can be done? It's clear that the gender pay gap in CI is a problem that needs addressing. But what's less obvious is how to go about fixing it. The good news? There are several actionable steps you and your organization can take to start closing the gap. So, let’s dive into some strategies that can make a real difference. [Want to earn more in CI? Here’s what the research saysIn this article, we’re diving into the numbers and uncovering the key factors that could help you land a bigger paycheck. Whether it’s choosing the right industry, changing location, or fighting for pay transparency, we’ve got the insights you need to make your next career move count.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/08/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--3--1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/want-to-earn-more-in-competitive-intelligence/) ### Promoting transparency and fairness in pay One of the most effective ways to tackle the gender pay gap is to highlight it. Organizations should implement transparent salary policies that clearly explain how pay is determined and what factors influence compensation and promotions. When everyone knows what’s required to move up the ladder, it levels the playing field. This clarity can help ensure that promotions and raises are based on merit and performance, not on internal biases. Regular pay audits are another crucial step. These audits can help identify any disparities in pay between men and women and provide a basis for making adjustments. Think of it as a check-up for your organization’s salary health. Just like you wouldn’t skip your annual physical, companies shouldn’t skip regular reviews of their pay practices. ### Encouraging mentorship and support for women Another powerful tool for closing the gender pay gap is [mentorship](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/find-a-product-marketing-mentor/). By pairing up-and-coming talent with experienced professionals, organizations can help women navigate their careers more effectively and prepare for leadership positions. A good mentor can help a woman in CI see her own potential, advocate for herself, and pursue the roles she deserves. Organizations should actively encourage mentorship programs and make sure they’re accessible to all employees. Support doesn’t stop at mentorship, though. Companies need to actively invest in the career development of women within CI. This could mean offering professional development workshops, creating leadership training programs, or simply fostering a culture that values diversity and inclusion. When companies make it clear that they’re committed to supporting all employees, regardless of gender, it helps create a more equitable workplace. In the end, addressing the gender pay gap in CI isn’t just a nice-to-have – it’s a must. By promoting transparency, fairness, and support, organizations can help ensure that everyone has the opportunity to succeed, thrive, and get paid what they’re worth. --- ***Want to stop wondering if your earnings are in line with your workload? Find out exactly how much CI pros like you are paid.*** [Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024 | CIAAn industry report on global competitive intelligence salaries, examining correlations and discrepancies between pay and factors like seniority, gender, location, and certifications.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/08/CIA_Salary_Report_2024_Blog-2.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) ### Mastering full-stack pricing: Insights from a decade in pricing strategy URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/mastering-full-stack-pricing/ Last updated: 2024-08-30T14:30:34.000Z *This article is based on* [*Brett Waldman*](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bwaldman/)*’s brilliant interview with* [*Farhan Manjiyani*](https://www.linkedin.com/in/fmanjiyani/) *on the Pricing to Win podcast. Check it out* [*here*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brett-waldman-pricing-to-win-ep-2/)*!* --- As a competitive intelligence specialist, having a solid understanding of pricing strategies is crucial. Having spent nearly a decade in the field, driving pricing and packaging strategies for companies like Citrix and Fireblocks, and now as the Director of Pricing and Packaging at Imprivata, I’ve garnered extensive experience and insights that I can’t wait to share with you. This article delves into: - The concept of full-stack pricing, - The importance of cross-functional collaboration, - The operational aspects of pricing, - The value of market research, - And practical tips for competitive intelligence specialists. Let’s get into it. ## Understanding full-stack pricing I like to think of my role as ‘full-stack pricing.’ Let me explain what I mean by that. When I think about full-stack pricing, I think about strategy, analytics, operations, and collaboration with product, product marketing, and RevOps teams. A lot of people think [pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) is just about setting a price tag, but it's the culmination of a series of strategic steps, starting with [understanding the market](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-vs-market-intelligence/), analyzing data, operationalizing the strategy, and finally collaborating with product teams to ensure the pricing aligns with the overall [value proposition](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/your-ultimate-guide-to-creating-a-value-proposition/). In my experience, the actual price is the last step in the process. Before arriving at a price point, you must consider [positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/), [value](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/why-pricing-based-on-value-is-better-than-pricing-on-cost/), and how the product will be introduced to the market. This holistic approach ensures that pricing strategies are well-rounded and effective. ## Where should pricing fit in an organization? Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to report to various functions within organizations, including marketing, finance, operations, and product. Each function has its pros and cons, but if I had to choose the ideal placement for pricing, it’d be under product marketing. Product marketing drives the [positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/) and messaging of a product, and they’re heavily involved in the new product introduction process. This alignment with product marketing ensures that pricing strategies are in sync with how the product is positioned in the market. Are you trying to be a premium brand like Apple, or are you trying to be a low-cost competitor like Walmart or Amazon? How you position your product and how you go to market will drive your pricing strategy. ## Aligning with the C-suite Each executive – whether it's the CFO, CMO, or CEO – has different priorities. The CFO might focus on operational processes and costs, while the CMO emphasizes value positioning and market penetration. Understanding these different perspectives helps tailor the pricing strategy to meet the company's overall goals. One key strategy is to ensure that the C-suite understands the importance of pricing. When I consider taking a job, I always assess whether there’s general alignment among the executive team regarding the significance of pricing. Without this agreement and buy-in, it’s hard to implement a successful pricing strategy. Finding an executive sponsor and understanding what they care most about is a good idea. For example, if you’re reporting to the CFO, they might be more worried about the costs or the operational process. In contrast, a CMO might focus more on positioning and market strategy. This alignment helps ensure that the pricing strategy supports the broader [company goals](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/goals-of-competitive-intelligence/) and [metrics](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measure-sales-enablement-roi/). ## A three-step guide to making price changes ### Do your market research There's always the ideal state and then the reality when it comes to pricing changes. Ideally, you start with a hypothesis about what you're trying to do and what impact you think it'll have. Then, you want to do some market research, whether that's [in-depth interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) or quantitative surveys. I like conjoint surveys when you have the time to think about the key trade-offs you want to focus on. Once you've got that research done, you review the results and think about your packaging. If you have a good-better-best model, you need to consider questions like: - Should this feature be in the "good" tier to get people into the product right away? - Should it be in the "better" or "best" tier? You need to think through these different trade-offs as you develop your go-to-market strategy. ### Align with sales Whether you're a [product-led growth](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-build-a-culture-that-values-customer-interaction-in-product-led-growth/) or sales-led company, it doesn't matter – you need to be talking to sales. They're the ones who have to reinforce the value messaging and positioning that your [research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/want-to-earn-more-in-competitive-intelligence/) has uncovered. If it doesn't resonate with sales, they're not going to reiterate it, and your plan will fail. You've got to get that feedback from this team. ### Test your offerings Then, you can move on to testing. How you test these offerings will differ depending on the company's size. At larger companies like Citrix, you might start with a smaller country, like Australia or New Zealand, where you can test different things without it leaking to other parts of the world. In a hyper-growth startup, you can roll things out across the board and tweak as you go. For example, at Fireblocks, when we were going through that hyper-growth phase, we didn't always have time to do all that research. Sometimes, you just have to move fast and throw things out there to see what happens. As much as I love having data and doing research, reality will always be a little different from your plans. But there's always a balance, as with everything in business. If you just go forward with testing without thinking things through, you can put yourself in a bind. At some point, you may need to take a step back, do some more interviews, and figure things out before you continue to iterate. ## The value of market research and data I’m a firm believer that you can never have too much data. However, in reality, there are often constraints on the amount of research that can be done, especially in a startup environment. The goal is to gather enough good data to make informed decisions. In my experience, even a few in-depth [customer interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) can provide valuable insights. At Citrix, we often conducted four or five interviews with key customers to [understand their needs](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/) and willingness to pay. While this may not be statistically significant, it provides a starting point for developing and testing a hypothesis in the market. When it comes to market research, you can get by with fewer interviews, but only if you ask the right questions and talk to the right people. These interviews can give you a great place to start and help you formulate a hypothesis. However, it’s important to take the responses with a grain of salt and understand that they are just one piece of the puzzle. ### Practical research tips for competitive intelligence specialists #### **Engaging with sales teams** For those just starting in pricing research or facing similar pricing challenges, my first piece of advice is to engage with the sales team. Salespeople are on the front lines and have valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t. They can provide feedback on pricing strategies and help identify potential issues early on. #### **Leveraging resources and building skills** Whether it’s through reading, attending workshops, or networking with other professionals, investing in your knowledge will pay off in the long run. Some great resources for pricing strategy include "Monetizing Innovation" by Simon-Kucher & Partners and Kyle Poyar’s "Growth Unhinged" newsletter. These resources provide valuable insights and updates on [industry trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-trend-analysis/), helping you stay informed and build your expertise. ## The importance of involvement in new product introduction ### Getting involved early One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is the importance of getting involved early in the new product introduction (NPI) process. Whether at Citrix (where I was the first Head of Pricing and had to transform how the company worked together) or at an early-stage startup like Fireblocks, being involved from the beginning is instrumental. The earlier you can get involved with the product team, the better. It’s not about saying an idea is good or bad; it’s about understanding if customers are willing to pay for it. Sometimes, features are table stakes and other times, they can drive significant value. Being part of the NPI process allows you to help shape the product in a way that aligns with customer needs and this willingness to pay. ### Building credibility with the product team When I first took over pricing at Citrix, I did a bit of a world tour, meeting with product teams all over the country. During one meeting, a senior leader bluntly asked, “Who are you and why should I care?” This experience taught me the importance of clearly explaining my role, credentials, and the value I bring to the table. So, make sure to build credibility with the product team and position yourself as a collaborator who’s there to support their efforts and make [product launches](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-for-product-launches/) successful. When you approach the product team, explain who you are and what you can do for them. Make it clear that you’re there to help, not to take over. Emphasize that you rely on their expertise and customer knowledge to shape effective pricing strategies. This collaborative approach fosters [trust](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/boosting-win-rates-building-trust/) and ensures you’re brought in early in the NPI process. ## The operational side of pricing ### Strategy vs. implementation A significant part of full-stack pricing is ensuring that the strategy you develop can be effectively implemented. This often involves working closely with the revenue operations (RevOps) team to ensure that the systems in place can support the pricing model. Sometimes, you’ll need to adjust your strategy to meet the operational capabilities of your organization. For instance, while at Fireblocks, we had to launch pricing changes rapidly. This meant sometimes making decisions with limited data and iterating based on feedback. In these cases, strong operational support was necessary to quickly adjust and implement changes without disrupting the workflow. ### The role of RevOps RevOps ensures that the systems and processes are in place to support the pricing models. This includes everything from billing systems to sales processes. Working closely with RevOps can help identify potential issues early and ensure the pricing strategy can be effectively implemented. At Fireblocks, we often had to work closely with RevOps to ensure that our rapid iterations and changes could be supported operationally. This [collaboration](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-a-collaborative-competitive-intelligence-program/) was key to quickly adapting to market needs and ensuring our pricing strategies were effective and executable. ### Practical operational tips for competitive intelligence specialists #### Engaging with stakeholders Engaging with stakeholders includes the sales team and product managers, marketers, and executives. Each group can provide valuable insights and feedback that can help shape the pricing strategy. When engaging with stakeholders, listening to and understanding their perspectives is important. For example, the sales team can provide insights into customer preferences and objections, while product managers can share information about product capabilities and upcoming features. This holistic understanding helps ensure the pricing strategy aligns with the broader organizational goals. #### Building strong relationships Building strong relationships with key stakeholders involves regular communication, collaboration, and a willingness to understand their needs and concerns. By building these relationships, you can ensure that pricing is seen as a strategic function that adds value to the organization. During my time at Citrix, building relationships with different product teams involved meeting with teams across the country, understanding their needs, and explaining how pricing could support their goals. This approach helped build credibility and ensured pricing was integrated into the broader strategy. ## Final thoughts Mastering full-stack pricing requires a comprehensive approach that includes strategy, analytics, operations, and collaboration with product marketing teams. By understanding the importance of these elements and integrating them into your pricing strategy, you can develop effective and adaptable pricing models. Remember, the key is to stay flexible, continuously gather and utilize data, and build strong cross-functional relationships within your organization. Focus on collaboration, leveraging good data, and understanding the operational aspects of pricing. Then, you can develop strategies that drive value and support your company’s goals. ### Book review: On Competition by Michael E Porter URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/book-review-on-competition-by-michael-e-porter/ Last updated: 2024-08-29T08:00:28.000Z Every strategist will be familiar with Michael E. Porter. His book, "On Competition," is a seminal work that explores the complexities of competitive strategy and industry dynamics. Although the book is old, its contents provide foundational knowledge for anyone interested in strategy and [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy) for their company, brand, country, or location. Through decades of study, Porter examines how competition creates value and necessitates strategic approaches for organizations to deliver superior value to customers. As global competition intensifies across all sectors, including arts, education, healthcare, and philanthropy, organizations must efficiently meet or exceed customer needs to thrive. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/08/61j-tYhgBIL._AC_UF894-1000_QL80_--1-.jpg) The book is organized into five parts: - **Core concepts of competition and strategy:** This section discusses the foundational principles of competitive strategy for companies, emphasizing industry competition, [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/cost-competitive-advantage/), and strategic positioning. It highlights the importance of understanding competition within individual businesses to inform broader corporate decisions like diversification. - **Competitiveness of locations:** Explores how location influences competition, arguing that local environments significantly impact the prosperity of companies and nations. It challenges the notion that globalization diminishes the importance of location, emphasizing the need for a new relationship between businesses, governments, and local institutions. - **Competitive solutions to societal problems:** Applies competition and value creation frameworks to societal issues such as environmental sustainability, urban poverty, and healthcare. Porter argues that economic principles and competition can offer sustainable solutions to these problems, creating win-win opportunities for society and businesses. - **Strategy, philanthropy, and corporate social responsibility (CSR):** Discusses how strategic principles can enhance the effectiveness of philanthropy and corporate social responsibility. Porter stresses that philanthropic efforts and corporate social initiatives should create true social impact and align with business strategies to be effective. - **Strategy and leadership:** Examines the role of leadership in achieving superior value creation. Porter highlights that developing a strategy is a crucial leadership act, especially in large organizations, where leadership roles are subtle and indirect. Effective leadership aligns the organization around a common purpose and direction. Porter provides a comprehensive and insightful discussion on various aspects of strategy, the role of advancing technology, and its impact on an organization’s competitive strategy. Unlike most strategy books that discuss frameworks individually, throughout the book, the author integrates various frameworks to help readers understand how to analyze their industry and make competitive and strategic decisions. [What is a sustainable competitive advantage?Finding an edge over other products with similar features requires clever analysis and strategic planning.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCecilia Toro![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/08/CIA_Website_Article_Images_Doodles--3-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage/) ## **Key frameworks / models** As with any strategy and CI book, On Competition offers insights into multiple frameworks. The key ones discussed are: ### The five competitive forces that shape strategy A chapter is dedicated to this holy-grail framework on strategy. Expanding on his original Harvard Business Review article, Porter provides a detailed discussion of each factor in the Five Forces model that shapes a company's strategy. The key takeaway for a [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/want-to-earn-more-in-competitive-intelligence/) professional is that managers often define competition too narrowly, focusing only on direct rivals. However, competition for profits extends to customers, suppliers, potential entrants, and substitute products, collectively forming the five competitive forces that shape an industry’s structure and profitability. This framework frequently serves as the foundation for many organization-wide initiatives, new projects, or products before significant investments are made. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/08/Elements_of_Industry_Structure.svg.png) [Image source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter%27s%5Ffive%5Fforces%5Fanalysis#/media/File:Elements%5Fof%5FIndustry%5FStructure.svg) ### Operational efficiency vs. strategic positioning While operational efficiency is an important aspect of profitability, Porter argues that managers often become overly fixated on efficiency. True strategy involves creating a unique position through a distinct set of activities, which competitors find difficult to replicate due to trade-offs. There are three sources of strategic positioning: - **Variety-based positioning:** Offering a subset of industry products or services using distinct activities. - **Needs-based positioning:** Serving most or all of the needs of a specific group of customers through tailored activities. - **Access-based positioning:** Serving customers accessible in different ways, such as geographic location or scale. A sustainable strategic position requires making clear choices about what not to do. [Positioning Statements: All You Need to Know (With Examples)Your brand positioning statement is a single sentence that sums up your competitive position - it’s your elevator pitch. If you were to describe to a new hire (or anyone else in the business) how you want people to see your product, your positioning statement would fill that role.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/pexels-alfred-gf-198265263-11521138.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/) ### Value Chain Model Porter intertwines his Value Chain Model across chapters discussing in detail how managers can examine their organization’s dependencies, advantages, and gaps in creating products/services. This model breaks down a company's activities into primary and support activities. The aim is to identify where value is added and how to optimize these processes for greater efficiency and competitive advantage. By breaking down operations into distinct activities and analyzing their impact, companies can optimize their strategies, reduce costs, and achieve sustainable competitive advantages. ### Diamond Model Porter continues his discussion on competition by expanding the principles of Competitive Strategy to Locations and Nations. One of the models he introduces is the Diamond Model. The "diamond" model illustrates how various national attributes collectively foster competitive industries. Governments play a crucial role in creating an environment conducive to innovation, while companies must adopt strategies that leverage and enhance their national advantages. This is a good framework for CI professionals working on global expansion and new market entry strategies. Porter also discusses the importance and impact of clusters in enhancing competitiveness at various geographic levels, such as national, state, and local economies. Cluster theory emphasizes the importance of geographic concentrations of interconnected companies, specialized suppliers, service providers, firms in related industries, and associated institutions (e.g., universities, trade associations) that compete and cooperate. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/08/Porters-Diamond-Model.webp) [Image source](https://www.business-to-you.com/porter-diamond-model/) ### Environment and competition Porter extends his competitive framework to societal issues, arguing that competition can generate significant social value. "Green and Competitive: Ending the Stalemate" posits that environmental regulations can drive innovation and improve resource productivity, aligning economic and environmental goals. Porter argues that properly designed environmental standards can spur innovation, leading to increased resource productivity and offsetting compliance costs. He discusses the example of how the Dutch flower industry responded to stringent environmental regulations by developing a closed-loop system for cultivation, which improved product quality, reduced costs, and enhanced global competitiveness. Through other examples and case studies, he opines that environmental progress and competitiveness are connected through innovation and resource efficiency. Industries that innovate in response to environmental challenges are more likely to stay competitive globally. ## Competition and inner cities, philanthropy, CSR… Porter extends his discussion on [competition](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/unmet-needs/) and how to evolve competitive strategy in the context of national development, managing philanthropy, and combining corporate social responsibility activities of companies to achieve competitive advantage. Though these topics may not be directly relevant for a CI professional, I believe these chapters in the book open up a different perspective on how policies and organizational change initiatives can be undertaken for sustained development. Also, professionals working in these sectors can get a different perspective on their projects and approaches through the lens of competitive advantage. Many foundations fall short of their potential by not thinking strategically or measuring results. Foundations are uniquely positioned to lead social progress due to their independence and scale, but they often act as passive intermediaries. To maximize their impact, foundations need to adopt strategic approaches, focusing on selecting the best grantees, signaling other funders, improving grantee performance, and advancing knowledge and practice in their fields. This requires [clear positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/), operational alignment, and a commitment to evaluating and learning from their efforts. By doing so, foundations can create greater social value and fulfill their potential as leaders in social progress. Co-author of the chapter, Milton Friedman argues that the only social responsibility of a business is to increase profits, suggesting that charitable contributions should be made by individual stockholders or employees, not corporations. This argument holds when corporate contributions are unfocused and piecemeal, as they often are today. However, corporations can strategically use their philanthropy to improve their competitive context, aligning social and economic goals. In the final chapters, the authors argue that companies should integrate social responsibility into their core business strategies rather than treating CSR as a cost or PR exercise. This involves identifying their unique impacts on society and leveraging their resources to address issues that intersect with their business goals, creating mutual benefits. Examples include Toyota's hybrid cars and Cisco's Networking Academy. Companies can enhance their competitiveness by focusing on strategic CSR while making meaningful social contributions. Integrating CSR with business strategy requires organizational changes, engaging management, and shifting from a defensive to an affirmative approach, ultimately leading to greater social and economic value. **Leadership and strategy** The final section addresses the critical role of leadership in strategy. "Seven Surprises for New CEOs" offers valuable insights into the unique challenges faced by CEOs of large organizations, emphasizing the importance of strategic thinking in leadership roles. Overall, a highly recommended book that delves deep into the intricacies of competitive strategy, offering valuable insights for both practitioners and scholars. This book brings together some of Porter's most influential articles, providing a robust framework for understanding competition and value creation across various contexts. --- Want to blend CI and customer research for a rock-solid positioning strategy? Our [Competitive Positioning Playbook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook) is for you! Here's a sneak peek at what you get in this free doc: - Why you should position competitively. - What ‘minimum viable positioning’ is and why you should work towards it. - The [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/stop-obsessing-over-features-and-competitors-focus-on-getting-your-competitive-positioning-right/) process, from foundations to deliverables. - How to reposition when things *aren’t* working. - How to get buy-in across your organization. [The Competitive Positioning Playbook | CIAIt’s how you position yourself relative to the competition that truly matters. In the Competitive Positioning Playbook, we show you how.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2022/10/blog_meta.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook) ### What is micro-segmentation in marketing? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-micro-segmentation-in-marketing/ Last updated: 2024-08-21T14:03:29.000Z Tired of seeing your marketing campaigns miss the mark? You’re putting in the work, crafting your message, but somehow it’s just not connecting with your audience. Sound familiar? The problem might not be your message – it could be who you’re sending it to. Enter micro-segmentation, the strategy that lets you laser-focus your marketing efforts and deliver personalized messages to the people who are actually listening. Ready to find out how to hit the bullseye every time? Let’s get started. ## What is micro-segmentation? Micro-segmentation is a [marketing strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/undifferentiated-marketing-strategy/) that takes your customer base and slices it into tiny, hyper-specific groups based on detailed criteria. That way, instead of shouting your message from a megaphone to a crowd, you're whispering personalized sweet nothings into each customer's ear. That's micro-segmentation in a nutshell. So, what sets micro-segmentation apart from its older, less refined cousin, [segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/audience-segmentation-guide/)? It's all about the details. [Implicit Segmentation Marketing: A Marketer’s Guide | CIAImplicit segmentation is the practice of using implied data to make assumptions about customers and categorize them. From there, you can predict future behavior, produce more targeted messaging, or provide a better customer experience.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/charlesdeluvio-oAa4BY3b-vo-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/implicit-segmentation-marketing/) While traditional [segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-marketing-questions-answered-by-the-experts/) (a.k.a. “macro-segmentation”) might group customers by age, location, or income, micro-segmentation goes way deeper. We're talking behavioral patterns, customer journey stages, personal values, specific interests, and even how customers interact with your product. It's the difference between saying “Hey, millennials!” and “Hey, eco-conscious, cat-loving, remote worker who's addicted to cold brew and true crime podcasts!” – the key to capturing your audience’s attention ## Why micro-segmentation matters in modern marketing Now that we've covered the “what,” let's talk about the “why.” Why should you care about micro-segmentation? Let’s take a look at the benefits this strategy can unlock for your organization. ### Personalized customer experience You know that friendly neighborhood take-out server who remembers not just your name, but your usual order and the fact that you hate onions? That’s the kind of service that micro-segmentation enables you to deliver – and it can skyrocket customer loyalty faster than you can say “targeted marketing.” Micro-segmentation allows you to create experiences that feel tailor-made for each customer. In a world where we're all being bombarded with generic ads and one-size-fits-all marketing messages, that level of [personalization](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-use-personalization-tactics-in-your-product-marketing-strategy/) is like a breath of fresh air. [Passive vs Active Marketing: The Right Approach for Your BusinessAll marketing activity is either passive or active. The question is, which is the right approach for your business, and how do you know which is best?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceClive Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/08/deva-darshan-Jt9syHEhrPE-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/passive-vs-active-marketing-the-right-approach-for-your-business) ### Increased ROI and conversion rates Let's talk money, honey. Micro-segmentation can lead to [higher return on investment (ROI)](https://www.revenuemarketingalliance.com/continuously-improve-your-revenue-and-roi-with-real-marketing-measurement/) and [better conversion rates](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/conversion-rate-optimization-five-industry-proven-strategies-for-saas-products/) by targeting niche markets. Instead of spraying messaging into the ether hoping for the best, you're laser-focused on your [ideal customers](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-determine-your-ideal-customer-profile/). It's more efficient, more effective, and way more likely to hit your target. ### Better adaptability The market is constantly evolving, and customer preferences can change in the blink of an eye. Micro-segmentation allows you to quickly adapt to market changes by adjusting strategies for specific segments without having to overhaul your entire marketing strategy. ## Types of micro-segmentation ### Behavioral segmentation The old saying is true – actions *do* speak louder than words. That’s why behavioral segmentation is such a vital part of this strategy. By looking at what your customers do – like their purchasing habits, how they interact with your website, or even how often they open your emails – you can start to predict what they might do next. It’s all about spotting those little tells that can clue you in on how to keep them coming back for more. The best part? You can tailor your messaging to fit their specific behaviors, making your marketing feel like it was made just for them (because it was). [A 6-Step Guide to Customer Research (And Profiting From It)Customer research aims to learn more about the needs and behaviors of customers and to use that information to create products, features, and messaging that resonate with them. In other words, customer research helps you sell your products by tailoring your approach to the needs of your customers.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceLawrence Chapman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/05/CIA_Framework_Tiles_customer_research.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/) ### Customer journey segmentation Now let’s dive into the [customer journey](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/customer-journey-mapping-making-sales-buyer-centric/) and how micro-segmentation fits in at every stage, starting with awareness. #### **Awareness stage** First-time visitors are just becoming aware of your brand – maybe they stumbled upon you through a Google search, saw an ad on social media, or heard about you from a friend. Then you’ve got cold leads. These are folks who’ve interacted with your brand but haven’t shown strong interest yet. They’re aware you exist, but they’re not sold – yet. #### **Consideration stage** Next up, the consideration stage. Here, you’ve got engaged visitors who are actively researching and considering your product or service. They’re the ones downloading whitepapers, signing up for webinars, or browsing your product pages like it’s their new hobby. Then there are prospective buyers. These are the people who’ve shown strong interest – they’ve added items to their cart, signed up for a demo, or reached out to your sales team. At this stage, they’re weighing their options and sizing you up against the competition. #### **Decision stage** When we hit the decision stage, we’re dealing with ready-to-buy customers. These are the folks who are right on the edge of making a purchase. They’ve completed a trial, asked for pricing, or had a chat with your sales team. But let’s not forget about cart abandoners – those almost-customers who were *this* close to buying but didn’t. They’re not lost causes; they just need a gentle nudge to complete their purchase. #### **Purchase stage** Then we move on to the purchase stage. New customers have just made their first purchase – yay! This is a critical moment to build loyalty and make sure they have a stellar post-purchase experience. And then there are your repeat customers. They’ve bought from you before, they know the drill, and with the right engagement, they’ll probably buy again. [Competitive Pricing Intelligence: Your Ultimate GuideCompetitive pricing intelligence helps businesses make smarter decisions about their own positioning and pricing strategies, empowering them to win more market share.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/05/CIA_Framework_Tiles_pricing_intelligence.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) #### **Post-purchase stage** The buyer journey doesn’t end once a customer has bought from you. In fact, if you play your cards right, this could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. In the post-purchase stage, you’ll want to keep an eye out for loyal customers – repeat buyers who love your brand. They’re your bread and butter, so keeping them engaged is key. You want to turn these folks into brand ambassadors. Don’t forget about your inactive customers either – the ones who haven’t bought anything in a while. A well-timed re-engagement campaign might be just what they need to come back into the fold. #### **Advocacy stage** Finally, we arrive at the advocacy stage. Brand advocates are your biggest fans. They’re out there promoting your brand through reviews, social media, and good old-fashioned word of mouth. And then there are the [customer feedback](https://productmarketingalliance.com/the-what-why-and-how-of-customer-market-feedback/) providers. These customers love giving feedback, and their insights can help you improve your products and services. Treat them well, and they’ll keep coming back for more. ### Demographic segmentation While micro-segmentation goes much deeper than traditional segmentation, you can’t ignore the classics. Demographics – things like age, gender, income, and education – still play a crucial role in this strategy. ### Firmographic segmentation If you’re in B2B, you can’t afford to ignore this type of segmentation. It’s all about understanding the kinds of companies your customers work for. Are they in a teeny-weeny startup or a honkin’-chonkin’ enterprise? What sector are they in? Do they work for a private company, a public company, an NGO, or a [governmental organization](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-art-of-government-product-marketing-tailoring-your-proposal-to-public-sector-needs/)? It’s vital to answer these questions so you can show your customers the products and features that will best meet their needs. ### Geographic segmentation Different regions often have different preferences, and recognizing these can help you tailor your approach, so don’t forget to check where your customers are. [Geographic segments](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-ultimate-guide-to-geographic-segmentation/) can span entire countries or be hyper-targeted on specific neighborhoods. [Avoid These 10 Common Market Segmentation ErrorsWe’ve collated a list of the ten most common market segmentation errors you’ll need to avoid if you want to create relevant, useful segments that inform your marketing strategy and drive revenue.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/sigmund-By-tZImt0Ms-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/common-market-segmentation-errors/) ### Lifestyle segmentation Depending on the type of product you offer, it may also be worthwhile to consider your customers’ lifestyles. Do they love to travel? Are they obsessed with fashion? Can they not wait to get their hands on the latest gadget? All this intel will help you tap into their interests and make sure you’re speaking to your customers in a language that resonates. ### Occasion-based segmentation A great way to add a personal touch to your messaging and offers is to tie them to special moments in your customers’ lives. So, if possible, take note of their birthdays, anniversaries, and any other occasions they celebrate. From there, you can send out emails and in-app notifications that let them know you care. ### Psychographic segmentation If you want to get really fancy, you’ll also need to consider [psychographics](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/psychographic-market-segmentation/). This is where you delve into the mindset of your audience. What are their values? What are their interests? What are their priorities? Psychographics give you a richer, more nuanced picture of your customers, allowing you to connect with them on a deeper level. It’s not just about knowing who they are; it’s about understanding what makes them tick. ### Technographic segmentation Finally, there’s technographic segmentation. This one’s about understanding the devices and platforms your customers are using. Are they iPhone lovers or Android aficionados? Are they glued to [social media](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/), or are they more into emails? Knowing this helps you deliver your marketing on the platforms they’re most likely to engage with. 💡 By combining these different considerations, you can get super specific with your micro-segments, taking you from “US-based HR professionals” to “ambitious, Instagram-addicted, 30-something, Chicago-based HR professionals born in October, who work in NGOs and are ready to buy” and craft irresistible messages to match. ## How to get started with micro-segmentation So, you’re ready to implement micro-segmentation and start targeting your customers like a pro. Awesome! But before you start slicing and dicing your audience, let’s walk through the steps to get it right. Here’s your seven-step guide to getting started with micro-segmentation: ### Step one: Establish broader segments First things first, you’ll want to set up some broader segments, along classic macro-segmentation lines. Think of this as the foundation of your micro-segmentation strategy. Start by grouping your customers based on big-picture criteria like demographics, geography, or product categories. This step helps you see the lay of the land and gives you a solid framework to build on. ### Step two: Collect and analyze data Next up, it’s time to gather customer data – lots of it. You’ll want to pull in information from everywhere you can: transaction histories, website behavior, customer surveys, and especially your CRM. But don’t just gather data – analyze it. The goal is to identify patterns, behaviors, and common traits that’ll help you define more specific micro-segments, as outlined above. [How effective data visualizations can drive actionIs your data not engaging your team or shareholders? Look no further than the power of effective data visualizations.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceElla Harrison![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-03-at-16.15.38.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/visualizing-success-how-effective-data-visualizations-can-drive-action/) ### Step three: Define your micro-segments Now comes the fun part: defining your micro-segments. Using all the juicy insights you’ve gathered from your data, start narrowing down those broader segments into smaller, more specific groups. These micro-segments should be laser-focused, based on shared characteristics like purchasing behavior, engagement levels, and psychographics. You can use AI tools or even a good old-fashioned manual analysis to really fine-tune these segments. The more precise, the better! ### Step four: Develop personas for each micro-segment Once you’ve got your micro-segments, it’s time to bring them to life with [personas](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-personas/). For each micro-segment, create a detailed customer persona that represents the typical customer in that little group. These personas will help you tailor your marketing strategies to the unique needs of each segment, making your campaigns feel personal and relevant. ### Step five: Build and implement targeted campaigns With your personas in hand, you’re ready to build and launch targeted campaigns that speak directly to each micro-segment’s specific needs and preferences. This is where marketing automation tools become your best friend. Use them to deliver personalized content, offers, and messages to each micro-segment. You’ll want to set up automated workflows, dynamic content, and behavioral triggers to ensure that the right message reaches the right people at the right time. ### Step six: Test, monitor, and optimize While it can be tempting to set it and forget it, don’t! Micro-segmentation is all about continuous improvement. You’ll need to keep an eye on your campaigns and run some [A/B tests](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-choose-the-right-kpis-for-your-a-b-tests/) to see what works best. It’s essential to monitor key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates for each micro-segment. You can then use these insights to tweak your segmentation criteria and adjust your marketing strategies. The goal is to keep refining until your campaigns are hitting all the right notes. ### Step seven: Iterate and refine Here’s the thing about micro-segmentation: it’s never really done. It’s an ongoing process that requires regular updates and adjustments. Keep revisiting and refining your segments, personas, and marketing strategies based on new data, changing customer behaviors, and market trends. By iterating and refining, you’ll ensure your micro-segmentation strategy stays sharp, effective, and responsive to your customers’ evolving needs. ## Key takeaways Micro-segmentation is your ticket to more effective, personalized marketing that truly resonates with your audience. By breaking down your customer base into smaller, more focused groups, you can deliver messages that feel like they were made just for them. Ready to take your marketing strategy to the next level? Here are the key points to remember: 🔍 **Data is your best friend**: Collect and analyze data to uncover insights that will help you define precise micro-segments. ✨ **Personalization is power**: The more specific your segments, the more personalized your messaging can be. 🎯 **Targeted campaigns win**: Tailor your marketing efforts to each micro-segment for better engagement and conversion rates. 🔄 **Test, tweak, repeat**: Continuously monitor and optimize your campaigns to keep improving the results. 🚀 **Never stop refining**: Micro-segmentation is an ongoing process – keep revisiting and refining your segments to stay ahead of the game. --- *If you're a competitive intel professional wondering if your earnings are in line with your workload, you can now find out how much other CIs are paid in our Competitive Intelligence Salary Report.* [**Get your free copy**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/)**.** [Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024 | CIAAn industry report on global competitive intelligence salaries, examining correlations and discrepancies between pay and factors like seniority, gender, location, and certifications.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/08/CIA_Salary_Report_2024_Blog-2.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) ### Want to earn more in competitive intelligence? Here's what the research says. URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/want-to-earn-more-in-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2025-03-12T10:50:24.000Z [Competitive intelligence (CI)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) might just be one of the most underappreciated roles in the business world today. You’re digging through mountains of [data](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/most-valuable-data-for-your-business/), [analyzing competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/), and providing insights that could make or break your company’s strategy. Yet, despite all that hard work, are you really getting paid what you’re worth? According to the latest [Competitive Intelligence Salary Report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/), the answer is likely a resounding “no.” [Competitive Intelligence Salary Report 2024 | CIAAn industry report on global competitive intelligence salaries, examining correlations and discrepancies between pay and factors like seniority, gender, location, and certifications.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/08/CIA_Salary_Report_2024_Blog-2.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/) With the average baseline salary sitting at **$115,065** globally, it might seem like CI professionals are doing okay. But dig a little deeper, and you’ll find that almost half of all CI practitioners – **48%**, to be exact – are downright displeased with their compensation. The average salary satisfaction score? A dismal **3.5 out of 10**. So, what’s going on? Why aren’t CI professionals raking in the big bucks? And more importantly, what can you do to boost your earning potential? In this article, we’re diving into the numbers and uncovering the key factors that could help you land a bigger paycheck. Whether it’s choosing the right industry, changing location, or fighting for pay transparency, we’ve got the insights you need to make your next career move count. ## Location matters: The best regions for CI professionals When it comes to earning more in competitive intelligence, where you work can make all the difference. Our survey findings make it crystal clear: North America is the place to be if you’re looking to maximize your paycheck. With an average base salary of **$149,034**, CI professionals in North America are pulling in significantly more than their counterparts in other regions. In fact, they’re making **$62,643** more on average than CI pros in Europe, the next highest-paying region. Europe, while trailing behind North America, still offers respectable pay for CI professionals, with an average salary of **$86,391**. But it’s a different story in Asia, where the average salary plummets to just **$40,398**. And don’t even get us started on Africa, where CI professionals are earning as little as **$18,000** a year. But why the massive pay gap? It largely comes down to the economic landscape and demand for competitive intelligence across these regions. North America, with its thriving tech industry and corporate giants, places a high value on CI, driving up salaries. Meanwhile, in regions like Asia and Africa, the role of CI is still emerging, leading to lower pay scales. Now, we're not suggesting that you pack your bags and move stateside right away, but if you've been thinking about pursuing the American dream perhaps this is the sign you've been waiting for. After all, who wouldn't want to get paid what they’re worth? ## Climbing the ladder: How job titles and seniority affect earnings In competitive intelligence, your job title isn’t just a fancy line on your resume – it’s a direct ticket to a bigger paycheck. The 2024 Competitive Intelligence Salary Report shows a clear trend: the higher you climb the CI ladder, the more money you’ll bring home. So far, so obvious, right? 😏 Well, the leap in earnings as you move up the ranks might surprise you. Let’s start at the bottom. If you’re a [Competitive Intelligence Analyst](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-analyst/), you’re likely earning around **$51,100** a year. It’s a respectable start, but here’s the kicker – once you step up to a Competitive Intelligence Manager, your salary nearly doubles, jumping to an average of **$102,000**. But it doesn’t stop there. As you climb higher into senior roles, the pay keeps increasing. Senior Competitive Intelligence Managers are making an average of **$142,800**, while Directors of Competitive Intelligence are bringing in around **$155,700**. The highest-ranking roles, like the Head of Competitive Intelligence, see average salaries of **$157,500**. Clearly, seniority pays off big time in this field. But what’s driving these pay bumps? It’s all about specialization and experience. The more you know and the more specific your expertise, the more valuable you become to your organization. It’s not just about how long you’ve been in the game (though that certainly helps!) – it’s also about the depth of your knowledge and your ability to lead and strategize at a high level. If you’re looking to fast-track your journey up the CI ladder, getting [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core) could be the key to landing that specialized or higher-ranking role. Certification not only boosts your credibility but also shows that you’ve got the skills and knowledge to excel – and that can translate into a major salary boost. ## The role of work hours: Does working more pay off? Whatever your role, it’s easy to assume that putting in longer hours automatically leads to a bigger paycheck. After all, more hours worked should mean more value delivered, right? Well… not exactly. The relationship between the time you spend at work and your salary isn’t as straightforward as you might think. Let’s break it down. The data shows that CI professionals who work more than 60 hours a week *do* tend to earn the highest salaries, with an average of **$177,500**. That’s a pretty enticing number, especially when compared to those clocking 36 to 40 hours a week, who are making significantly less – just **$87,000** on average. But here’s where it gets interesting: the trend isn’t consistent across all working hours. For instance, those working 46 to 50 hours a week are earning around **$154,000**, which is a big jump from the 41-to-45-hour group, who make about **$101,000**, but also a slight increase from the **$150,000** earned by CI pros working *50 to 60* hours per week. So, does working more hours pay off? In some cases, yes – but it’s not a guarantee. What’s clear is that simply putting in more time at your desk doesn’t necessarily lead to a higher salary. Instead, it’s likely that the value of those extra hours comes from the nature of the work being done, the level of responsibility, and the seniority of the role. High earners in the 60+ hour group are probably not just working longer; they’re likely in roles that demand high levels of strategy, leadership, and impact. Before you start burning the midnight oil, consider the trade-offs. Those long hours might boost your paycheck, but they could also lead to [burnout](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-burnout-is-and-how-you-can-prevent-it/) if not managed carefully. Instead of just working more, focus on working smarter – using your time to take on more strategic, high-value tasks that can drive your career (and salary) forward. ## Industry insights: Where does CI pay the most? If you’re looking to maximize your earnings, the industry you choose to work in can make a huge difference. At the top of the pay scale, we have the aviation and aerospace industry, where CI professionals are earning a sky-high average salary of **$203,577**. This sector not only values the insights that CI brings but is also willing to pay a premium for it. Whether it’s due to the high stakes involved in the industry or the need for cutting-edge intel to stay ahead of the competition, this is clearly a lucrative space for CI experts. Close behind is the restaurant industry, where CI pros are pulling in an average of **$185,000**. It might be surprising to see restaurants so high on the list, but in a market where margins are thin and competition is fierce, understanding the competitive landscape is crucial. This sector’s willingness to pay top dollar for CI indicates just how critical these insights are for success. Another high-paying industry is market research, with an average salary of **$180,010** for CI professionals. Given that market research is all about gathering and analyzing data, it makes sense that companies in this space would place a high value on competitive intelligence. If you’ve got a knack for data-driven insights, this could be the perfect industry for you. On the other end of the spectrum, some industries are far less generous. CI professionals in the music industry, for instance, are earning an average of just **$27,000**, while those in packaging and containers are making around **$35,000**. These figures suggest that in these industries, CI may not be as integral to business strategy, or the budgets simply aren’t there to support higher salaries. If you’re looking to boost your earnings, it might be worth considering a move to one of the higher-paying industries. The skills you’ve honed in CI are transferable across sectors, so don’t be afraid to explore new opportunities where your expertise will be valued – and compensated – at a premium. ## Company size and revenue: Bigger can be better Other factors that can have a significant impact on your paycheck are the size and revenue of the company you work for. We found a clear trend: bigger companies with higher revenues tend to pay more. First, let’s talk about revenue. The report shows that there’s a strong correlation between a company’s annual revenue and the salaries of its CI professionals. For instance, those working at companies with annual revenues between $100 million and $249 million earn, on average, **39.11%** more than their counterparts at companies bringing in $50 million to $99 million. Why is this? Well, one possible explanation is that the higher the revenue, the more is at stake – and the more valuable your role becomes to the company. The size of the company’s workforce also plays a role in determining salary. CI professionals working in companies with 1,001 to 5,000 employees are earning about **$134,224** on average, a **14.65%** increase over those in companies with 201 to 500 employees. However, the correlation between company size and pay doesn’t continue beyond this point – salaries at companies with more than 10,000 employees actually see a slight dip to **$124,920** on average. So, why does this happen? In mid-sized companies, CI professionals are often in a sweet spot where their contributions are highly visible and impactful, without the dilution that can sometimes occur in massive organizations. In contrast, in very large companies, individual contributions are harder to spotlight, leading to slightly lower average pay. But don’t let that deter you from aiming high. The overall trend still favors larger companies with substantial revenues. These environments often offer more resources, opportunities for specialization, and the potential for upward mobility – all of which can boost your salary over time. ## Inclusivity and pay: Addressing inequities in CI Everyone should have an equal opportunity to succeed, regardless of their background, gender, ethnicity, or disability status. Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of work to be done when it comes to inclusivity and fair compensation in the field of competitive intelligence. Let’s start with gender. The gender pay gap is alive and well in CI, and it’s not a pretty picture. On average, women in CI earn **19.1%** less than men. To put it in perspective, while the average base salary for men in CI is **$124,297**, women are earning just **$100,572**. This gap spans all levels of the CI hierarchy. For example, men with director of competitive intelligence titles are making an average of **$171,333**, while women in the same role are earning **$132,323** – a whopping **29.5%** less. The same depressing pattern can be seen at the lower end of the hierarchy, with men in analyst roles earning **44%** more than women with the same title. Ethnicity also plays a significant role in pay disparities. The report reveals that respondents who do not identify as part of a minority group earn an average of **$118,501**, compared to **$105,024** for those who do. That’s a difference of **$13,477**, which has grown compared to last year’s report. This widening gap suggests that the challenges faced by minority professionals in CI are not being adequately addressed, despite the increasing focus on [diversity and inclusion](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/why-we-need-to-amplify-diverse-voices-in-marketing/) in many workplaces. The situation isn’t much better when you look at disability status. CI professionals who identify as having a visible or invisible disability earn an average base salary of **$109,215**, while those without disabilities earn **$117,168** – a gap of about **7.3%**. So, what can be done to bridge these gaps? For starters, companies need to take a long, hard look at their pay structures and ensure that compensation is based solely on skills, experience, and job performance – not on gender, ethnicity, or disability status. Regular pay audits, transparent salary bands, and unbiased recruitment and promotion practices are essential steps toward achieving pay equity. For you, the individual CI professional, it’s important to advocate for yourself. Don’t be afraid to negotiate for the salary you deserve and use data – like the findings from this report – to support your case. If you identify as part of a minority group, are a woman, or have a disability, seek out companies that prioritize diversity and inclusivity, as these organizations are more likely to offer equitable pay and opportunities for advancement. While progress has been made in promoting inclusivity in the workplace, there’s still a long way to go. Addressing these pay disparities isn’t just about fairness – it’s about ensuring that the CI profession leverages the diverse talents and perspectives that everyone can bring to the table. ## Key takeaways So, you’ve seen the numbers, and it’s clear that there’s a lot to consider when it comes to maximizing your earnings. Here’s a quick recap of the key takeaways: 🌎 **Location matters:** North America offers the highest salaries, so if you’re eyeing a pay boost, it might be time to consider a move. 🪜 **Climbing the ladder:** Higher-ranking roles and specialized positions in CI are your best bet for bigger paychecks. ⏰ **Work hours:** More time spent at work doesn’t necessarily equate to better pay. ✈️ **Industry insights:** Certain industries, like Aviation and Aerospace, are willing to pay top dollar for CI expertise. 👩‍💼 **Gender pay gap:** Women in CI earn 19.1% less than men, highlighting a persistent issue that needs addressing. 🌍 **Inclusivity and pay:** Minority and disabled Ci practitioners face significant pay disparities, underscoring the importance of equitable practices. Whether you’re looking to switch industries, relocate, or simply negotiate better pay, we hope these insights can guide you toward getting what you deserve in your CI career. ### Creating a powerful positioning strategy: the what, why, and how URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/create-a-powerful-positioning-strategy/ Last updated: 2024-08-19T11:05:28.000Z > *“The basic approach of positioning is not to create something new and different, but to manipulate what's already up there in the mind, to retie the connections that already exist.” — *Al Reis & Jack Trout, authors of Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind** ## **What is a positioning strategy?** A positioning strategy is all about the actions aimed at improving the image and visibility of your brand, company, or product. In other words, it helps you stand out from your competitors. To create a powerful positioning strategy, you must first understand the [competitive landscape](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/). Elements you should highlight when developing a positioning strategy include the values that resonate with your target audience, as well as benefits and attributes, such as your [unique value proposition](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/your-ultimate-guide-to-creating-a-value-proposition/). The goal is to create a clear, distinct, and desirable image in the minds of your customers, positioning your brand or product above competitive offerings. The idea of positioning began to take shape in the late 1960s, when it was first articulated by marketer Jack Trout in his article titled “Positioning”, published in **Industrial Marketing*. Later, the concept was developed and popularized by Trout and Al Reis, who solidified positioning as a central strategy in marketing. ## **Why is positioning important?** Positioning shapes your customers’ perception, influences buying behavior, and drives brand loyalty. In addition to this, it: - **Offers a** [**competitive advantage**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage/): A well-defined position helps you to stand out in your market, especially if many products and services are similar – making it easier for customers to choose your brand over others. - **Creates brand consistency**: Positioning ensures that all marketing and communication efforts are aligned, which leads to a consistent message across all your channels. - **Boosts customer loyalty**: By clearly articulating what your brand stands for, you can build stronger emotional connections with your audience. This, in turn, can lead to customer retention. - **Allows you to cater to market segments**: This means you can tailor your offerings to meet the unique needs and preferences of your target market. - **Influences your** [**pricing strategy**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-differential-pricing-strategies-with-examples/): A value-based position might require competitive pricing while a premium position may allow you to set higher prices. - **Sustains the long-term success of your brand**: Over time, as markets evolve and new competitors emerge, having a well-established position allows you to adapt and maintain your [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/). - **Better allocates resources:** When you fully understand your competitive position, you can more easily focus on areas you have a competitive advantage in and invest in marketing, innovation, etc., that reinforces that position in the market. [Competitive Positioning: What It Is and Why It’s ImportantCompetitive positioning is the most effective type of positioning strategy in marketing. That’s because it takes the competitive environment, and the spaces your product is best placed to compete for within it, into full account.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/kevin-mueller-Q-fL04RhuMg-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) ## **Types of positioning strategies (with examples)** Which positioning strategy suits you best? ### **Product positioning** > *“Understanding the competitive landscape is a critical step in effective product positioning. It involves conducting a comprehensive analysis of your competitors to gain insights into their strategies, strengths, weaknesses, and unique value propositions. By understanding the competitive landscape, you can identify opportunities to differentiate your product and position it in a way that highlights its distinct advantages.” –* [***Vimal Cherangattu, Head of Product Marketing at Improvado***](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/stand-out-in-a-crowded-market-product-positioning/) [Product positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/stand-out-in-a-crowded-market-product-positioning/) is the way you present your product to your target market in relation to competing products. It involves creating a distinct image or identity for a product in the minds of consumers. Things like defining your target audience, highlighting your product’s unique features (e.g., superior quality, cutting-edge tech, innovation, etc.) and doing a competitive analysis to see how your product compares to others are crucial. **Example**: Red Bull positions itself as a premium energy drink synonymous with sports and adventure. It differentiates itself from other energy drinks by investing a lot in sponsorships and events related to extreme sports, creating a brand identity closely associated with high performance. Other companies tend to focus on functional benefits like “longer-lasting energy” instead. ### **Price positioning** This strategy is used by many companies to establish the price of their products in a way that reflects their perceived value in the minds of consumers. Price positioning can range from premium pricing, where your product is positioned as a high-value, luxury option, to economy pricing, where your product is marketed as an affordable or budget-friendly option. **Example**: Rolex is a well-known brand that uses price positioning effectively. The prices of their watches are set higher than many other watch brands, which reinforces the perception of exclusivity, craftsmanship, and prestige. By maintaining these high prices, Rolex continues to be seen as a symbol of luxury and status, appealing to affluent consumers. [The Power of Transparent Pricing: From a 3x Founding PMMWhen used strategically, pricing is a powerful growth lever. But it’s about far more than picking a number. In this article, I’ll share how to balance value and strategy in your pricing model.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceJason Oakley![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/07/ernesto-norman-u42fJDQZcxs-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/power-of-transparent-pricing/) ### **Market positioning** This is the process of establishing a brand or product in the minds of consumers within a specific margaret segment. To achieve this market positioning, you want to define a clear, distinctive image for your product that differentiates it from competitors. In short, it’s all about creating a perception of the product in the marketplace. **Example**: Nike positioning itself as a brand that inspires and empowers athletes of all levels. The slogan “Just Do It” really showcases Nike’s focus on motivation and performance – as well as on overcoming challenges. The company tends to feature top athletes like Serena Williams and Michael Jordan, further linking it with high performance and excellence in the minds of customers. ### **Benefit positioning** Simply put, benefit positioning is the strategy of promoting a product by highlighting its benefits to your target audience. For this, focus on the unique advantages you offer and the positive outcomes that customers will experience when they use your product (this could be solving a problem, improving their life, or fulfilling a need). Your goal is to create a strong connection between your product and the customer’s pain points. **Example**: Colgate positioned its products by highlighting benefits such as cavity protection, teeth whitening, and fresh breath. The products tend to be marketers to address a specific concern, making it easy for people to choose the product they really need. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfjOItCx8Rtqq56Z2KgSy3TfP3DOWx-QVOstl5bV_-7YB3DGetQgJVFDpPWrqu4CNZNfBF3_IIiRG7Sfo8r-bde8yT99d-f38LrBTPs1r5NF3JwuY6EQEaCjTu3V9iA8DoDr0kmy8hSSYgLHWWY8VWU3AqH?key=zkpw_jFRXEAtlahyHBwrQw) **Image source:* [**Colgate*](https://www.colgate.com/en-gb/colgate-total) ### **Competitive positioning** Competitive positioning is all about finding out what makes your product distinctive and, therefore, more attractive to your target audience. This could be quality, features, and brand reputation. The goal is to establish a unique place in the market that resonates with your customers and sets you apart. **Example**: Apple is a prime example of a company that uses this strategy effectively. All of its products, such as the iPhone, iPad, and the Mac, are perceived as premium, innovative, and user-friendly, as Apple emphasizes design and overall user experience. The brand also differentiates itself through its ecosystem, where all Apple devices work together seamlessly. ![venn diagram of competitive positioning](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe2iuH3PUQfpPE7lsS-_XMabyk0QZcJy4qFy92gyICYyITVpJhhlBWlOBq8nuO5DoTL9gyiCv6pRXOWSWJycR3YbmzNqibPYaW_y8LxVd15M6J5bDLE7K7Rfh1iyhO3h5l4LqVsQwrF-FpKguOnKy7yV--n?key=zkpw_jFRXEAtlahyHBwrQw) ## **How to create a positioning strategy** > *“Positioning is not what you do to a product. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect. That is, you position the product in the mind of the prospect.” – *Al Ries & Jack Trout** ### **Analyze your market and competitors** [Researching and understanding the market](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/) – a.k.a., analyzing every component of the market, from size and growth trends to customer needs and preference – should be part of your positioning strategy. You must also identify and analyze your competitors. A [SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-marketing-plan/) can give you a lot of vital information. Of course, it’s also important to map out where your competitors are positioned in regards to price, features, etc. ### **Find your unique value proposition** Identify what makes your product unique compared to others out there, be it its quality and price, or its innovation. It could even be the customer service you provide. Having a clear unique value proposition means you can easily communicate the specific benefits your customers will receive – and address their [needs](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/unmet-needs/) and pain points. ### **Segment your audience** Make sure to identify and [segment the target market](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/audience-segmentation-guide) based on demographics, psychographics, behaviors, or needs. This way, you can create messaging that resonates with each segment and highlight how your product meets those needs better than your competitors’. ### **Write a positioning statement** Create a clear and concise statement that encapsulates your brand or product's positioning in the market in order to build a great [positioning statement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/). This typically includes the target audience, the category in which your product is competing, the unique value proposition, and the primary reason customers should believe in that value. If you’re looking for inspiration to write a powerful product positioning statement, Geoffrey Moore, author of *Crossing the Chasm*, offers a simple template you can use: 💡 “For (target customer) who (statement of the need or opportunity), the (product name) is a (product category) that (statement of key benefit – that is, compelling reason to buy). Unlike (primary competitive alternative), our product (statement of primary differentiation).” ### **Develop your brand personality and voice** Do you know your brand’s personality? Whether you’re innovative, trustworthy, or playful, defining this personality is essential to help you create an emotional connection with your customers. The same goes for tone of voice. Make sure everyone in your org is aware of the tone and style of communication you’re using, since this should reflect the personality of the brand and be consistent across all channels. ### **Create brand associations** What do people associate your brand or product with? Identify and reinforce positing attributes and imagery, so that customers only have positive perceptions of your brand. Make sure to balance emotional appeals (e.g., trust, status) with rational appeals (e.g., features, performance) to strengthen your brand's positioning. [Brand Positioning: The World’s Most Valuable Real EstateA positioning framework enables you to find the right place for your brand in the marketplace, as well as in the consumer’s mind. Ignore it at your peril.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceMarc Stoiber![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/robina-weermeijer-3KGF9R_0oHs-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-the-worlds-most-valuable-real-estate/) ### **Be consistent** It goes without saying – though we’ve already mentioned this a few times – that consistency is important, whether you’re posting articles on your site or using [social media](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-social-media-to-create-a-competitive-advantage/). So, ensure your positioning is consistently communicated across all touchpoints, from advertising and packaging to customer service and digital platforms. Your positioning should be consistent over time to build strong brand recognition and loyalty. --- No product exists in a vacuum. The way you position yourself relative to your competitors is crucial, as we saw in this article. But, if you’re unsure where to start, how to create a rock-solid strategy, and the three steps you really can’t skip, get your free copy of our [Competitive Positioning Playbook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) – with all the answers you’re looking for. [The Competitive Positioning Playbook | CIAIt’s how you position yourself relative to the competition that truly matters. In the Competitive Positioning Playbook, we show you how.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2022/10/blog_meta.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) ### Stop obsessing over features and competitors. Focus on getting your competitive positioning right. URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/stop-obsessing-over-features-and-competitors-focus-on-getting-your-competitive-positioning-right/ Last updated: 2024-08-20T11:53:08.000Z *This article is based on an insightful conversation with Talya Heller. Want to listen to the full episode?* [*Tune in here.*](https://alliance.ghost.io/podcast/gtma-gtm-fm/?wchannelid=dmf15kwmj1&wmediaid=cctmjuh4rk) --- As a product marketer with over seven years of experience across various company sizes and industries, I've seen firsthand the critical role that [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) plays in go-to-market success. Yet, many companies struggle to prioritize this effective framework when trying to really stand out in their unique markets. In this article, we'll explore the key challenges in competitive positioning and how to overcome them, drawing from my journey from product management to go-to-market strategy. Before we dive in, let me first share a bit about my experience and background, and why I saw competitive positioning as the common thread in how I approach strategies. ## **The journey from product marketing to go-to-market** My path to specializing in competitive positioning wasn't a straight line. I started in project management, moved into product roles, and then found my way to product marketing. Each step was incredibly cross-functional, which turned out to be crucial for what came next. As I progressed in my career, I began to see a clear connection between my varied experiences and [go-to-market (GTM) strategy.](https://www.gotomarketalliance.com/ultimate-guide-to-building-a-gtm-strategy/) When you're working on strategy, you're constantly thinking about what works well in different contexts. You start to pay attention, reverse engineer, and make assumptions based on these observations. But it was competitive positioning that really caught my attention. [Stand Out in a Crowded Market with Product PositioningGuest author Vimal Cherangattu walks you through actionable frameworks and strategies that will elevate your product positioning game to new heights.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceVimal Cherangattu![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/darwin-vegher-W_ZYCEUapF0-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/stand-out-in-a-crowded-market-product-positioning/) I noticed a significant gap in how companies approach it. Many don't take full advantage of it or don't do it right. Competition and market analysis are part of any positioning framework – it's not rocket science. But I feel like this is the phase that most people or companies tend to skip or not pay enough attention to. From my experience, competitive positioning can truly unlock a lot of different questions down the line. It's about understanding your place in the market, not just in terms of [features](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/), but in terms of solving customer problems. Many companies don't fully see the potential or take advantage of the actual process of competitive positioning. That's why I decided to focus here. And if working across different company sizes and industries has taught me anything it’s that everything is transferable. So, really, it felt like a natural transition, bringing together my cross-functional experience, my interest in strategy, and my passion for solving complex problems. ## **Why competitive positioning matters** You might be wondering, "Why focus so much on competitive positioning?" Well, here's the thing: whether we like it or not, every human being constantly compares things in their head. Your potential customers aren't just learning about your product in a vacuum – they're mentally mapping it against alternatives they already know. 💡 Think about Coca-Cola and Pepsi. You can hardly think of one without the other, right? Even if someone knows your brand well, they're still likely to compare you to at least a couple of other options. That's just how our brains work. Competitive positioning is about acknowledging this reality and helping your [Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)](https://www.gotomarketalliance.com/ideal-customer-profile-icp-vs-buyer-persona-whats-the-difference/) understand where you fit in their mental map. If we ignore this and just say we're "best in class" or "leading" without explaining how we fit into the rest of their world, we're doing ourselves a disservice. We're not really helping them understand where to place us. ## **The foundations of effective competitive positioning** So, how do we approach competitive positioning effectively? Let me break it down for you: ### **1\. Know your ICP inside and out** Understanding your ideal target audience should be the foundation for everything you do in competitive positioning. And I'm not just talking about knowing their industry or company size. You need to dig deeper. What are their pain points? What triggers them to take action? What language do they use? Unfortunately, I've seen many companies treat ICP definition as a one-time exercise, then put it on autopilot. Don't fall into this trap. Your ICP should be a living, breathing entity. Regularly revisit and refine it through win-loss analyses and ongoing customer interactions. ### **2\. Elevate your competitive research and map out alternatives** It's time to stop thinking about competitive research from a purely tactical perspective. 💡 It's not about feature comparisons or checklist items. Instead, focus on capabilities, strategies, and end goals. When I approach competitive positioning, I start by mapping alternatives. This includes direct competitors but also different approaches to solving the same problem. Then, I look beyond features to reverse-engineer go-to-market strategies. I analyze the language competitors use, their described use cases, marketing channels, and collaborations. [What is a sustainable competitive advantage?Finding an edge over other products with similar features requires clever analysis and strategic planning.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCecilia Toro![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/08/steven-lelham-atSaEOeE8Nk-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage/) ### **3\. Identify your *true* competitors** Here's something that might surprise you: your perceived top competitors might actually be targeting a different audience. I've seen this happen many times. A company starts with a list of competitors, putting their "nemesis" on top. But when we dig deeper, we often find that their top competitors have a completely different ICP. Instead, focus on competitors who target the same ICP as you. This is crucial when you're explaining to your ICP what you're doing and how you're different. ### **4\. Map your distinct capabilities** Create a matrix of your company's distinct capabilities (not just product features) and how they compare to each alternative. For each competitor, identify the capabilities that set you apart. This becomes your path to win against each alternative. [The Positioning Matrix: A Beginner’s Guide | CIAWhat tools can you use to rapidly communicate your findings to internal stakeholders? And are there any tools that can inform your own competitive projects? Visual learners rejoice. The positioning matrix is here.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/sigmund-B-x4VaIriRc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/) Remember, your [differentiators](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/) don't always have to be product-related. We're seeing more examples today of companies standing out through their community, their brand loyalty, or other non-product factors. ### **5\. Translate to customer benefits** Once you've identified your unique capabilities, translate these into pains you solve and benefits you provide for your ICP. Being exceptional at something your ICP doesn't care about is meaningless. You need to articulate why your strengths matter to them. ### **6\. Align with your company vision** Every company should have a clear reason for existing. Being able to articulate this story internally is crucial before we can effectively communicate it externally. If we can't explain our purpose to ourselves, how can we expect to convey it convincingly to the market? ## **Staying ahead: how to do it** Now, you might be thinking, "Talya, this all sounds great, but how do I keep up with the rapid pace of change in the market?" It's a valid concern! But here's how I approach it: **1\. Regular reviews:** Don't treat competitive positioning as a one-and-done exercise. At a minimum, revisit your strategy when - you're launching something new, - your product's capabilities change significantly, - you notice shifts in competitors' strategies, - or your ICP evolves. **2\. Monitor subtle signals:** Look beyond product releases. Pay attention to changes in competitors' landing pages, shifts in their blog content topics, or new messaging in their marketing materials. These can indicate upcoming strategic shifts before product changes occur. **3\. Leverage cross-functional insights:** You don't have to do all the research alone. Engage with your sales teams, product managers, and sales engineers. They often have real-time insights about competitors and market trends. **4\. Stay close to customers:** To do this, talk regularly with your sales team, listen to sales call recordings, engage directly with customers when possible, participate in customer advisory boards, and attend industry events. **5\. Make things fun and collaborative:** Engage your wider team in competitive intelligence! At one company, we hosted a "competition about competition" quiz for our sales team. It was a fun way to refresh their competitive knowledge and keep everyone engaged. ## **Balancing reactivity and strategy** One of the biggest challenges in competitive positioning is finding the right balance between staying informed and not overreacting to every piece of competitive news. For example, almost every company has that infamous competition Slack channel where people post updates about rivals. While these can be great for keeping everyone involved, they can also lead to emotional reactions and unnecessary panic. 💡 Remember, you don't want to be obsessed with competition to the point where you're purely reactive. If you're constantly consuming information about competitors and thinking about how to respond, you'll end up in a reactive cycle that burns everyone out. Your positioning should be strong enough to withstand minor shifts in the competitive landscape. The key is finding that fine balance between staying aware of what's happening in the market and not overreacting to every competitive move. Stay informed, but don't let every competitor's action dictate your strategy. ## **Final thoughts** As we’ve seen, competitive positioning is both an art and a science. It requires a deep understanding of your product, your market, and most importantly, your customers. By focusing on these foundational elements we've discussed, you create a solid base for effective competitive positioning. Remember, specificity is your best friend in product marketing. Be clear about who you're targeting, what problems you're solving, and how you're different from alternatives. Seek regular feedback, maintain a growth mindset, and don't be afraid to update your strategy as the market evolves. Most importantly, don't try to do this alone. Competitive positioning is inherently cross-functional. Engage with your colleagues across sales, product, customer success, and beyond. Their insights are invaluable in crafting a positioning strategy that truly resonates with your target audience. By taking this approach, you'll be well-equipped to navigate the complex competitive landscape with confidence, always keeping your target audience at the center of your strategy. --- *Want more about* [*competitive positioning*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/)*? Check out our in-depth guide that explores what this concept is, its importance, how you can create the best competitive positioning strategy, and more (including real-world examples).* [Competitive Positioning: What It Is and Why It’s ImportantCompetitive positioning is the most effective type of positioning strategy in marketing. That’s because it takes the competitive environment, and the spaces your product is best placed to compete for within it, into full account.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/kevin-mueller-Q-fL04RhuMg-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) ### What is a sustainable competitive advantage? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage/ Last updated: 2025-05-14T11:50:13.000Z Every business aims for a unique position in the market. However, finding that edge over other products with similar features requires clever analysis and strategic planning. Without this, you risk a misaligned purpose and your entire product concept can fall flat. Sure you think you’ve got some advantage over other competitors, but that alone isn’t enough. And let’s be honest: sometimes, it’s hard to compete with businesses that have successfully found their place in the market. More specifically, it’s hard to beat those companies that have achieved what’s known as a sustainable or [sustained competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). Now, if you’re wondering what we mean by that, stick with us. In this article, we’ll share: - Why understanding the distinction between competitive and sustainable competitive advantage is key for CI practitioners, - What leads to long-term success, - And some ways you can start working towards a sustainable competitive advantage in your specific market. So, let’s go ahead and start by defining these key terms. ## **What’s the difference between a competitive and a sustainable competitive advantage?** Put simply, when we talk about [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/), we’re talking about a set of characteristics or capabilities that allow for a specific product or company to outperform others in a similar industry or space. More importantly, you’re at an advantage over competitors when those capabilities address your ideal customers’ needs or you’ve tapped into your niche in the market. Now, think of sustainable competitive advantage as an extension of the above definition. It’s essentially the same, but competitors in this category are *really* hard to replicate or beat. Why? When you achieve a more long-term position in the market, you’ve likely addressed your unique ideal customer profile’s (ICP) pain points to such a degree that you’re—frankly—in a really healthy place. It’s when you can pinpoint a couple of [features or strengths](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/) your product has that no one offers the same way or at all. As in, if you can succinctly explain how those strengths benefit your customers specifically, you’ve likely gone from having an advantage to securing a more stable place in the market. ### **Why is this type of advantage good to have?** To quote a [Harvard Business Review study on sustainable advantage](https://hbr.org/1986/09/sustainable-advantage): > “The literature on strategy is crammed with accounts of why a sustainable competitive advantage is A Good Thing To Have. But all those accounts beg two key questions: Which advantages tend to be sustainable, and why? > Sustainable advantages fall into three categories: size in the targeted market, superior access to resources or customers, and restrictions on competitors’ options. Note that these advantages are nonexclusive. They can, and often do, interact. **The more of them, the better**.” When we consider closely why those three categories play a crucial role in your business’s success, it’s important to remember that sustainability and endurance in changing market conditions come from your ability to sustain said success. So, taking those categories to understand how successful companies manage to stay ahead of competition, let’s consider a company like Nike. Though they might be competing with other companies in a similar market, Nike’s nailed their branding, gathered enough of a low-cost/high-value advantage, and produced some stellar marketing campaigns that consistently stand out. Companies like that won’t just be knocked out of the playing field despite having competitors with similar ICPs. This is where that sustainability really shines through. When you’ve established yourself as the leading option for customers, you sit comfortably at the top, and market disruptors aren’t going to shake you out of that position for some time. It’s going to be especially tougher for smaller companies to outperform a well-established company because of the amount of budget and resources needed to do so. And success doesn’t come without a lot of time, effort, and a really focused and comprehensive competitive strategy in place. [Comparative vs Competitive Advantage: What’s the Difference?Comparative and competitive advantages are economic terms that, when applied to a business, refer to a business’ ability to produce goods and services and to win against competitors over time.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/anastasiya-romanova-vGY31qO4518-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) Sometimes it’s better, though, not to obsess over what competitors are doing. 💡 Remember, if you want to achieve this level of long-term viability, you need to put your customers first. After all, you’re likely going to be your customers’ top choice if—you guessed it—you put them at the center of your strategy. However, even if everchanging market dynamics weren’t to disrupt your place in the landscape: > “\[Sustainable advantage\] requires constant vigilance, adaptation, and improvement. Companies must continuously monitor market trends, customer preferences, and competitors' actions and be ready to adjust their strategies accordingly.”—[Ross Kernez](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2024/02/07/competitive-advantage-the-key-to-business-success/), Forbes Council Member ## **What are some ways to achieve this sustained edge over competitors?** As we’ve said, maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage isn’t a one-time effort. Think of companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google. What they’ve achieved in the market isn’t easily imitable, sure, but we can learn from them what’s been done exceptionally well. Let’s take a peek at what positions a company as a market leader: - Exceptional customer service or customer-centric culture, - Consistent brand recognition, - A pretty solid reputation, - An ecosystem of products and services, - And a low-cost advantage. Of course this varies by business, but if you’ve got the above, you’re set to turn your standard advantages into more long-term ones. So now let’s look at things to keep in mind when determining where your business sits in the competitive landscape. ### **Assessing your competitive strengths** Don’t just assume your product’s unique. Verify it. For this, you need to first assess your own strengths and weaknesses before you can even think of [positioning yourself competitively](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/). To determine if you’ve achieved a sustainable competitive advantage, ask yourself these questions: - Can you clearly identify and articulate what sets your product or service apart from competitors? - Are these differentiators difficult for competitors to replicate? - Do your customers recognize and value these unique attributes? - Are you continuously adapting to market changes and customer preferences - How do you ensure your competitive positioning and messaging is clear despite shifting market dynamics? Similarly, a good way to track where you stand is to touch base with internal teams. Get them involved in your competitive mapping exercises. This is because cross-collaborating can give you a wider view of your product. Sales reps, your customer success managers, and marketing strategists can all help shape your competitive strategy. Another must when assessing your company’s advantages is to stick with simple frameworks. These could really help you find the answers to the questions shared in this section. [7 Surprising Alternatives to SWOT AnalysisIf you’re looking for a comprehensive strategic analysis of your business, of a competitor, or even of a project, you might want to account for these weaknesses by turning to an alternative to SWOT analysis. Here are seven SWOT analysis alternatives you can use to do just that.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/format/png/2024/07/CIA-ICON.svg)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/markus-spiske-I-0OS5iRp0Q-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/alternatives-to-swot-analysis/) ### **How to identify sustainable advantage** As mentioned, frameworks like[ SWOT,](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/) [VRIO](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/), and [PESTLE](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/) can be quite handy when helping you identify your advantages over competitors. For example, if we follow the VRIO framework, you can narrow down your [market research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/) to the very basics of what’s need to outperform your rivals, or at least to give you a clearer picture of where you might fall in the market. 💡 Bear in mind that you’ll want to first conduct an overall strength (SWOT) analysis before you jump into your VRIO framework. You can’t base your research on much if you don’t first understand what your product features or capabilities are or aren’t. VRIO stands for Value, Rarity, Inimitability, and Organized. What these parts of the framework aim to focus on are - the **value** your product provides your costumers, - whether you possess a **rare** strength in your unique market, - if competitors can easily **imitate** that strength, - and if your business and teams are **organized** and ready to position that strength effectively. Once you’ve gathered as much intel on what sets you apart, you can then develop a long-term growth strategy to keep you ahead. ## **Here’s what you need to secure that long-term success** ### **Position your product successfully** We’ve said this a few times throughout the article, but sustained success really does boil down to how well you can position your product according to the customers you’re aiming to serve. **Hence, you need a clear, customer-centric strategy.** Conduct thorough market research to grasp their needs, pain points, and preferences and then tailor your products and services to meet these specific needs. And better than your competitors can. ### **Ensure consistent innovation** What bigger companies get right is **consistent innovation**, whether through design, updating features, or partnering with the right companies to elevate the customer experience. Innovation doesn’t always have to cost more resources or time. Simply, companies should invest in conducting the relevant research, updating their competitive strategies or collateral often enough to meet new demands proactively. This ensures that you remain competitive, relevant, and valuable to your unique customers and market. ### **Create a great reputation** A solid **reputation** can take you far—or secure your place at the top. This comes from sustaining high standards of quality control and operational excellence. This, in turn, helps build trust and enhances your reputation among your ICP. If you want to get this part of the strategy right, just remember to implement robust quality control measures to ensure that your offerings consistently meet (or exceed!) customer expectations. ### **Ensure a powerful customer experience** An extension of the customer-centricity we’ve really been emphasizing throughout is exceptional **customer experience**. This is vital if you want to stand out. Pre-sales and post-sales, make sure you’ve a solid customer experience practice in place. Think: how are you going to boost retention or improve acquisition? Use active listening when gathering feedback and feed that into your next planning sessions. Improvement comes from personalizing your product to meet new demands or existing customers’ problems. ### **Build a strong brand** So, if we consider what larger companies we often trust or buy from, what they all likely put a lot of time into is their **branding, positioning, and messaging**. When you manage to create a strong brand, this creates a positive image and reputation in the market, attracting customers and fostering loyalty. Finetune and improve existing marketing campaigns if they fall short of externalizing your message and vision. 💡 Help others understand what your product’s all about, don’t let users guess. ### **Foster strategic alliances** Finally, if your company’s in a healthy place and you’re aiming to grow in new markets, **form strategic alliances and partnerships** that can enhance your capabilities and extend your reach within your ICP. Simply, the value of partnerships can’t be overstated. These beneficial relationships provide access to new technologies, markets, or expertise that complement your strengths and amplify your competitive advantage. --- ***Want to build your competitive intel foundations and boost your strategies? Our course shows you the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intelligence with confidence.*** [Competitive Intelligence Certified: CoreCompetitive Intelligence Certified: Core lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence.![](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/6347e1a02d41b022282cb2e7-public/aed38082539eca9d9b8e4ba1e12ca808.png)The AllianceThe Alliance![](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/6347e1a02d41b022282cb2e7-public/222eaf9688598d606107b9b7e20245ea.jpg)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core) ### Paul Maguranis - How to use value to properly price your products URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/paul-maguranis-how-to-use-value-to-properly-price-your-products/ Last updated: 2024-08-01T10:30:28.000Z In this episode of Pricing to Win, Brett and Paul discuss: - Why and how pricing comes down to understanding your product’s value, and how to communicate it. 🗣️ - The unique mental model Paul uses to reframe someone’s perception of value. 🧠 - The three things value breaks down to. 🛠️ - The surprising difference between pricing roles (and the pricing process) at small businesses and large enterprises. 😲 --- --- ## **About our guest, Paul Maguranis:** Paul is a certified pricing professional with over a decade of experience leading pricing initiatives at large enterprises, and as a consultant, specializing in the tech space. Right now, he’s Senior Pricing Manager at Covetrus, and is responsible for all pricing actions and go-to-market activities for Covetrus Pulse, the largest Cloud PiMs in the World. ## **Resources discussed on this episode** - [Professional Pricing Society](https://www.pricingsociety.com/) - [Connect with Paul on LI](https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-maguranis/) ### Brett Waldman - Full-stack pricing: how an analytics background helped inform a unique pricing approach URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brett-waldman-pricing-to-win-ep-2/ Last updated: 2024-08-19T11:23:15.000Z On this episode of Pricing to Win, Brett and Farhan discuss: - How your positioning drives your pricing strategy. 🏎️ - Why setting the price is the last step in the strategic pricing process. 🏁 - How to choose a pricing role. 🤔 - The four stakeholders you need on your side if you’re going to succeed in a pricing role. 🍀 - How Brett’s market data background helped him excel in pricing roles. 📊 - The one thing you have to understand from your customers that’s more important than the price itself (that’s more difficult to change after the fact). 🤫 --- --- ## About our guest, Brett Waldman: Brett led pricing and pricing strategy at Citrix and Fireblocks, and is now Director of Pricing and Packaging at Imprivata. Brett is a “full-stack” pricing expert, with skills and expertise that run the gamut through pricing’s components, including analytics, operations, and strategy. ## Resources discussed on this episode - [Monetizing innovation Simon Kucher Partners team](https://www.simon-kucher.com/en/insights/monetizing-innovation) - [On Amazon](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Monetizing-Innovation-Companies-Design-Product/dp/1119240867) - [Kyle Poyar’s Growth Unhinged newsletter](https://www.growthunhinged.com/) - [Connect with Brett on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bwaldman/) ### The power of transparent pricing: Lessons from a three-time founding PMM URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/power-of-transparent-pricing/ Last updated: 2024-08-19T11:24:38.000Z 🎙️ **This article is based on Jason Oakley’s interview with Farhan Manjiyani on the Pricing to Win podcast. Check out the full episode* [**here*](https://alliance.ghost.io/podcast/cia-pricing-to-win/)**.* "How much should we charge?" It's a question that keeps many product marketers up at night. But what if I told you that [pricing competitively ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/)is about much more than just picking a number? As someone who's built product marketing teams from scratch at Chili Piper, Uberflip, and Klue, I've learned that pricing is a powerful tool for growth – when used strategically. In this article, I'll share my hard-earned insights on: - Balancing value and strategy in pricing. - Implementing a transparent, no-discount policy. - Tackling complex pricing scenarios. - Making your pricing easy for customers to understand. - Considering the [competitive landscape ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/)in your pricing decisions. By the end of this piece, you'll have a new perspective on pricing that could revolutionize your approach. Let’s get into it. ## Pricing as a growth lever: Balancing value and strategy One key lesson I've learned is that [pricing is a powerful growth lever ](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/unlock-growth-with-these-pricing-power-plays/), especially in venture-backed startups with aggressive growth targets. But it's crucial to approach pricing changes thoughtfully. Here are three tips to help you do that: 1. **Understand the rationale:** Before implementing a price increase, make sure you understand the reasoning behind it. How will you explain this to customers? What's the [value proposition ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/your-ultimate-guide-to-creating-a-value-proposition/)that supports this change? 2. **Don’t increase prices without increasing value:** You can’t just [raise prices ](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-raise-the-price-of-your-product/)to boost your average contract value (ACV). Customers expect more when they're asked to pay more, so you should justify any price hike with added features, improved functionality, or enhanced user experience. 3. **Communicate changes clearly:** When increasing prices, especially for existing customers, you need to be prepared for customer churn. It's easier to justify the price increase if you can point to specific improvements: "We've added so much in the last six months, and now we're adjusting our pricing to reflect that." ## Chili Piper's no-discount pricing strategy: simplicity and transparency At Chili Piper, we implemented a unique pricing strategy that reflected the company’s commitment to “buyer enablement” – making it as easy as possible for prospects to experience and buy the product, without having to wait around for a demo. Here are two key elements of this strategy: 1. **Transparent pricing:** We always displayed our pricing on the website. There was no attempt to hide costs or make them difficult to find. 2. **No discounts:** We believed our product was worth what we charged. Our stance was that we offered a fair price for a good product, eliminating the need for discounts and making things fairer for customers. This strategy had a ton of great benefits: 1. **Simplicity:** By removing discounts, we simplified the sales process for both customers and our sales team. This made the buying process more straightforward and stopped it from devolving into a complex negotiation. 2. **Predictable revenue:** Without end-of-month or end-of-quarter discounts, deals came in steadily throughout the period. This created a more predictable revenue stream. 3. **Focus on product value:** By removing discounts from the equation, we kept the focus on the product's value rather than its cost. This approach may not work for every company, but for Chili Piper, it aligned perfectly with our values of transparency and simplicity in the buying process. It forced us to ensure our [product's value justified its price ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/why-pricing-based-on-value-is-better-than-pricing-on-cost/), and it simplified our entire sales and marketing approach. ### Challenges with the strategy However, it’s not all sunshine and lollipops. Implementing a no-discount policy, especially when dealing with enterprise clients, can present significant challenges. We often had to walk away from deals, which wasn't easy. Procurement teams would push hard for discounts, and that led to some pretty tough conversations. However, we stood firm on our policy, maintaining that giving discounts would be unfair to other customers. Ultimately, by being transparent, consistent, and willing to stand our ground, we made it work. ## How the competitive landscape influences pricing The [competition plays a role in pricing analysis ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/)– always. As a product marketer, I've found that anyone who claims competition doesn't affect their pricing isn’t telling the whole truth. The reality is that we price our products relative to the market, taking into account both direct competitors and alternatives. Market expectations heavily influence pricing decisions. When people look for a product within a certain category, they come with preconceived notions about pricing models and ranges. These expectations are shaped by the overall market, not just specific competitors. As a result, we often find ourselves deciding between two approaches: 1. Aligning with typical models (e.g., usage-based or user-based pricing) 2. Deliberately differentiating ourselves with a unique pricing structure > The ROI was so clear that it was easy for potential customers to make a business case for choosing us, even if we weren't the cheapest option. At Chili Piper, we experienced firsthand how transparent pricing can impact competitive dynamics. Our no-discount policy and public pricing made it easier for competitors to undercut us. They knew exactly what price to beat, which presented challenges. However, Chili Piper's experience also demonstrates that price isn't everything. Our product's strong differentiation and clear ROI often outweighed small price differences. We could confidently say, "When you plug in Chili Piper, your conversion rates are going to go up." The ROI was so clear that it was easy for potential customers to make a business case for choosing us, even if we weren't the cheapest option. Remember, pricing isn't just about the numbers – it's about [how you position your product in the market ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/)and communicate its value. By focusing on these aspects, you can create a pricing strategy that withstands competitive pressures and resonates with your target customers. ## Challenging pricing scenarios In my experience, there are three common pricing scenarios that can be particularly tricky: 1. **Adding new products or features:** This can change your pricing model. For example, at Uberflip, we added a new product called "sales streams" which required us to shift from a straightforward, usage-based model to one that included user-based pricing. This added complexity to our pricing, and we needed to do a lot of sales enablement. 2. Pricing new, innovative products: When you're dealing with [cutting-edge technology like AI ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-competitive-intelligence-tasks/), there often isn't a clear precedent for pricing. We struggled with this at Uberflip when launching our AI product. We tried to price it as a percentage increase and that did *not* go well – people weren’t sure of the product's value. 3. Unbundling products: Breaking a simple, all-in-one pricing model into separate components (like platform fees and user licenses for different features) can create complexity. While it might make sense internally, it can be confusing for customers and complicate the sales process. In all these scenarios, the key is to balance the need for revenue growth and how customers perceive the value of your product. Remember, pricing isn't just about numbers – it's about communicating value to your customers and positioning your product effectively in the market. Don't be afraid to test different approaches and iterate based on market feedback. Especially in startups, sometimes the best strategy is to make a decision, get it out there, and be prepared to adjust as you learn. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/01/cta_banner_blogs_inline.png) --- ## How to simplify complex pricing There's a crucial difference between raw complexity in your pricing model and buyers finding it confusing. You can have a pricing model with multiple variables, but explain it in a way that's easy for customers to understand. Here are a couple of ways to do that: 1. **Put your pricing on your website:** In [a product-led organization ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-become-more-product-led/), your pricing page often replaces the role of a sales rep in explaining costs and options. Therefore, it needs to be clear, informative, and persuasive. At Chili Piper, we were big advocates for this approach. It helps qualify leads (if they can’t afford your product, they’re not going to book a demo) and set expectations. 2. **Use interactive tools:** Calculators can be helpful, but make sure they're more than just fancy sliders. The best tools highlight your key differentiators and help users find the right plan for their needs. Atlassian and HubSpot do this brilliantly. 3. **Use social proof:** One cool tactic I've seen is including logos of the companies that use each pricing tier. This not only builds trust but also helps potential customers identify which tier might be right for them based on company size or type. 4. **Take a consultative approach:** If you’re in [a sales-led organization ](https://www.productledalliance.com/product-led-vs-sale-led-vs-market-led/#sales-led-approach), instead of overwhelming prospects with all the pricing options upfront, have your sales reps take a consultative approach. They can listen to the customer's needs, provide a tailored quote, and then break down the pricing only if the customer requests more detail. Remember, the goal isn't to hide the complexity of your pricing, but to present it in a way that's easily digestible for your potential customers. ## Handy pricing resources When it comes to pricing, there are several valuable resources I always recommend: 1. [Price Intelligently ](https://www.paddle.com/blog)(now part of Paddle): Their blog content has consistently been excellent, offering great insights on pricing. 2. [Tamara Grominsky ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaragrominsky/): One of my co-captains on the "Ready for Launch" podcast, Tamara runs [Product Marketing Alliance’s Pricing Certified course ](https://learning.productmarketingalliance.com/on-demand/pricing-certified-masters). I've learned a lot from her, so it's definitely worth checking out if you want to do a deep dive into pricing. 3. For those who prefer to stay updated through social media, I recommend following [Karan Sood ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/soodkaran/)and [John Kotowski ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kotowski1/)on LinkedIn. Both of them regularly post about interesting pricing strategies and tests that they see companies implementing. 4. Lastly, if you'd like to discuss pricing further, feel free to [connect with me on LinkedIn ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/oakleyjason/). I'm quite active there and always enjoy a good conversation about product marketing. Remember, pricing is a crucial growth lever, but getting it right requires continuous learning and adaptation. These resources can help you stay informed about the latest trends and strategies in pricing, enabling you to make more informed decisions for your products. ## Key takeaways As we've seen, pricing is far more than just slapping a number on your product. It's a strategic tool that can drive growth, communicate value, and position you effectively in the market. Whether you're a startup or an established company, these lessons can help you navigate the complex world of pricing. Let's recap the key points to remember: 📈 Pricing is a powerful growth lever – use it wisely and strategically. 🔍 Transparency in pricing can simplify your sales process and build trust with customers. 💪 Don't be afraid to stand firm on your pricing if it reflects your product's true value. 🧩 When adding new features or products, carefully consider how it impacts your pricing model. 🚀 For innovative products, be prepared to educate customers on the value to justify the price. 🧠 Simplify complex pricing for your customers, even if it's complicated behind the scenes. 💻 Put your pricing on your website – it helps qualify leads and sets clear expectations. 🏆 Differentiate on value, not just price, when facing competitive pressure. 🧪 Be willing to test and iterate your pricing strategy based on market feedback. 📚 Stay informed about pricing trends and strategies – it's an ever-evolving field. Remember, the goal is to create a pricing strategy that not only drives revenue but also reflects your product's value and resonates with your target customers. Happy pricing! [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Watch the full conversation Get all of Jason's insights from his episode of the Pricing to Win podcast: --- ### What is a cost competitive advantage, and how do you implement one? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/cost-competitive-advantage/ Last updated: 2024-08-19T11:27:26.000Z ## What is a cost competitive advantage strategy? A low-cost competitive advantage strategy (also known as a cost leadership strategy) is a way of establishing a competitive advantage in business. A business achieves a low-cost competitive advantage when it’s able to manufacture goods and take them to the point of sale at a lower cost than competitors, while maintaining (or surpassing) competing products or services in quality. A business with a cost advantage has lower outgoings. This gives it an advantage in one of two ways. It’s able to either: 1. Pass those savings onto the customer, enticing more market share as a result of its lower prices, or… 2. Keep prices comparable to competitors’, increasing profit margins and opportunities for reinvestment. Most typically, a business will combine a cost competitive advantage with some other source of competitive advantage to solidify that advantage, and to make it more likely to sustain over time. 💡 **Other types of competitive advantage include the* [**niche competitive advantage*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-competitive-advantage/)**, achieved with what Michael Porter calls a focused, or* [**niche differentiation strategy*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-differentiation-strategy/)**.* ## How to implement a cost advantage strategy So, how do you implement a cost leadership strategy in an effort to establish your own cost competitive advantage? In practice, it’s not simple: ### • The competitive pricing trap Imagine you’ve just entered an established industry, and you believe your competitors have a cost advantage. How do you catch up? Will you need to invest money in new manufacturing processes? Invest time in finding and improving inefficient processes? Investment today needs to be offset by a greater return on that investment in the future. If you just level the playing field, there’s no guarantee you’ll do anything but slow the steady erosion of your customer base as users flock to cheaper competitors. In his 5,000-word Harvard Business Review article from 1984, [*Strategies for Staying Cost Competitive*](https://hbr.org/1984/01/strategies-for-staying-cost-competitive)*,* Arthur A. Thompson, Jr. calls this a “competitive pricing trap.” ![](https://i.giphy.com/26tPcRGbvMEcKmrRe.webp) **Increasing your prices in line with inflation without adequate investment into economies of scale and reducing excess costs can lead to what's called a competitive pricing trap.* ### • Escaping from pricing traps using strategic cost analysis According to Thompson, to escape this, you must perform a strategic cost analysis. This involves spelling out your business’ “value chain.” A value chain is like a list of everything that’s involved in getting your goods or services off the drawing board and in front of the customer. Specifically, everything in that process that costs money. That means: - Raw materials, - Research and development, - Manufacturing costs... ...and so on, and takes you “all the way from the raw materials stage to the final price paid by the ultimate consumer.” If you want to pursue a cost advantage strategy, you’ll need to construct a value chain like the one described above. Preferably, before you find yourself in a competitive pricing trap. From there, you’ll look for opportunities to save on costs. ## Where to find cost-saving opportunities in the value chain (6 places) Perhaps you can strike a better deal with your suppliers. Perhaps there are unnecessary steps and inefficiencies in the manufacturing process you can cut out. These are the kinds of cost savings you’ll be looking for, but you’ll need to examine the entire value chain. Remember, the value chain includes every step of the process that costs you money. Here are some of the best places to look, either to establish savings, or to establish economies of scale so you can drive down costs by expanding, rather than shrinking, operations: 1. Raw materials 2. Processes 3. Automation 4. R&D 5. Distribution 6. Patenting ### 1) Raw materials If you can get the raw materials your product is made of more cheaply, you’ll also bring down overall production costs. **Here’s a tip:** If you’re able to sustainably place very large orders with suppliers when rivals can’t, you may gain a bulk-buy discount competitors cannot get. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/v2osk-c9OfrVeD_tQ-unsplash.jpg) **When you're able to efficiently handle a large volume of goods, you'll net bulk-buy discounts that might be unavailable to your rivals.* ### 2) Processes Improving processes means increasing your output per unit of time, or reducing your error rate during production, which improves efficiency by cutting down waste. Economies of scale apply here. The initial costs of getting a factory, for example, up and running become easier to offset as the factory begins to produce more products per unit of time. ### 3) Automation Automating tasks frees up spend that would have gone toward salaried individuals performing those tasks. Automation also enables production to run around the clock, rather than in line with two or three daily work shifts. ### 4) Research and development (R&D) R&D and other internal departmental expertise can drive a cost competitive advantage too. Once a team has performed initial, expensive research, the costs of applying those findings to increase efficiencies in production processes, or technology usage, can reduce the costs of getting a product onto store shelves. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/louis-reed-pwcKF7L4-no-unsplash.jpg) **Investing in L&D can pay for application of better technology, market expertise, and other domain-specific knowledge, leading to greater efficiencies, lower costs, and increased competitive advantage.* ### 5) Distribution Transporting your products to the end consumer isn’t a zero-cost exercise, either. If you can hold inventory for less, package your goods for less, or transport your goods for less, you can free up spend and increase your cost competitive advantage. Again, economies of scale apply here. Companies can secure discounts for chartering more trucks, ships, or cargo planes at once. Fuller loads mean more efficient spend per product transported, too. ### 6) Patenting When you have control over ideas, processes, or technologies your rivals are barred from using, it’s much easier to maintain and [sustain any competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/) you have. ## Cost advantage benefits ✅ Okay, so we’ve covered what a cost competitive advantage is. Why might you want to achieve this kind of advantage instead of, say, a niche competitive advantage? ### Opportunities for reinvestment and growth When you successfully cut costs by identifying inefficiencies, or using economies of scale, you **widen your profit margins**. Either by attracting more market share with your lower prices (if you decide to pass those savings onto the customer), or by simply widening the gap between what it costs you to get the product to market, and what your customers pay for it. Naturally, you’ll want to reinvest your excess returns in other areas of the business to further cement your competitive edge. Whether you invest in better understanding your target audience, in better machinery, in better processes, or in building out new arms of the business (like a marketing team), these will lead to even greater efficiency and greater profits in the future. ![](https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExdTM0Nzc4cWdsMWZmbDZ6dWQ3dmU3NXBtaHMyaXZrcTJzdzE4cWl6YiZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/IVPKtoFABf1gUPZkm9/giphy.webp) **Create excess returns, then reinvest them back into your business to build a moat around your competitive advantage and keep rivals at bay.* ### Increased productivity When you identify (and stamp out) inefficiencies, and implement economies of scale, you make your entire operation more efficient. More efficiency means you’re able to produce more products per unit of time. This in itself plays into your cost advantage, since it reduces the overall impact of your manufacturing costs. When you’re more productive, you’re better able to meet the demand you’re generating thanks to the hard work of other departments around the business. ### Win more market share Remember: one of the two ways a cost competitive strategy works is that it gives you the chance to pass savings onto the consumer. Do this, and you’re almost certain to attract more market share thanks to your lower costs relative to competitors (or, at the very least, relative to what you were charging previously.) Of course, pricing strategy isn’t as simple as “she who charges the least, wins.” Price can act as a value signal, and some customers prefer to pay higher prices for what they perceive to be higher-quality products (this is known as a [prestige pricing strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/prestige-pricing/)). For more on pricing strategy, check out these resources: - [The Pricing to Win Podcast](https://alliance.ghost.io/podcast/cia-pricing-to-win/) - [Competitive pricing strategy: Your ultimate guide](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) - [Loss leader pricing strategy: Definition, examples, pros, and cons](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/loss-leader-definition/) ## Disadvantages of a cost advantage strategy ⛔ But a cost advantage strategy isn’t for everyone. ### Less viable for young businesses In some industries, it may be difficult to go to market cheaply enough early on for it to be practical to pursue a cost competitive advantage until much later. This makes cost advantage strategies difficult for startups and other small, young businesses to implement. In competitive environments where entrenched competitors already have economies of scale and other efficiencies in place that lend themselves to a cost competitive advantage, it can make more sense for newcomers to pursue other strategies early on, like a niche differentiation strategy. --- [When Does a Low Cost Strategy Beat Differentiation?Low cost and differentiation are both competitive strategies for growth. They’re attempts at establishing competitive advantages. A low cost provider strategy has you aim to beat the competition on costs. A differentiation strategy has you aim to boost profits by offering more value.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/tom-wilson-Em2hPK55o8g-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/when-does-a-low-cost-provider-strategy-beat-a-differentiation-strategy/) --- ### High-cost industries Other industries cost a lot to operate in. High costs for raw materials, or the assets needed to acquire them, can make it difficult or impossible to cut overall costs down enough to gain an advantage over the competition. Investopedia lists examples of high-cost industries as “automotive, airline, oil, and gas.” Businesses in all these industries have to pay for expensive assets before they can even operate. ### Cost competitive advantages are difficult to sustain What you can do, your competitors can (almost always) do too. It’s only a matter of time until younger companies are able to start using economies of scale to cut costs; to develop better relationships with suppliers and secure better deals; to improve their own knowledge and expertise of the field and apply those learnings across the entire business to improve overall efficiency. Apply the VRIO framework to many sources of cost competitive advantage, and you’ll find they don’t perform too well. 💡 **The* [**VRIO framework*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/) *is a means of classifying your internal sources of competitive advantage.* They might be Valuable, they might even be Rare, but if they’re not Inimitable (difficult or impossible for competitors to imitate), then they’re [temporary competitive advantages](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/). Most sources of cost advantage aren’t impossible for competitors to imitate, even if they’re tricky to replicate. That makes them sources of temporary advantage you may one day lose. By contrast, differentiation-based competitive advantages are often rooted in a product’s having been engineered to solve a specific customer problem, giving the business first-mover advantage. (Once a solution exists, replica solutions hold less value unless they can themselves adequately differentiate from what exists already.) ## Example of a cost competitive advantage: SpaceX Elon Musk famously tackled his rocket problem by going back to First Principles. How much do the raw materials for a rocket cost? Much less, it turns out, when you buy them straight from the source. Suppliers and manufacturers were marking up the prices of rocket components so drastically, it turned the act of building a rocket into a financial black hole. Musk set aggressive, often impossible deadlines for his staff, always pressuring them to get things done more quickly and more cheaply. The pressure produced incredible results, and paved the way for the first-ever reusable rockets. Being able to produce space-faring rockets for so much less than their government-backed rivals kept SpaceX in the game despite a string of early public failures, and eventually won them government contracts that would keep the company alive. ## TL;DR Okay, so what have we learned? - A cost competitive advantage is achieved when a business is able to successfully cut costs in its value chain so that it can produce goods for less than its rivals can. - Opportunities to save on costs and use economies of scale include: procurement of raw materials, processes, automation, R&D, distribution, and securing patents for intellectual property. - Cost advantages benefit businesses through higher margins and opportunities for reinvestment, increased productivity, and greater market share. - Cost advantages can, though, be less viable for younger businesses, are entirely less viable in certain industries, and are often harder to sustain over time. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/image-9.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-report/) --- ### Features vs. benefits: Differences, examples, and traps to avoid URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/ Last updated: 2025-04-02T09:32:21.000Z ## What is the difference between a feature and a benefit? Features are all about the product, while benefits are all about the customer. The difference might seem subtle, but using benefits instead of features in your marketing strategy makes a huge difference to how likable your brand is. Think back to the last time you were cornered by someone at a party who wouldn’t stop talking about themselves and how great they are. How did it come across? ![](https://i.giphy.com/GusNfQJKBKfqpoI1QP.webp) **Our product is great. Way better than other products. It has 5x the features. So many features. Did I mention how great we are?* You come across the same way when you shout *only* about your product’s features. It’s all “me, me, me”, and as lovely as you are, you need to make your customers *care* first. - “Look at all our product’s awards!” 😏 - “Our product is twice as fast as our closest competitor’s!” 😏 - “Our product can do backflips!” 😏 What do all these have in common? They’re not about the customer *at all*. They expect the customer to do all the work. The prospect has to figure out how the product is relevant to them, and how it can help them. This is lazy marketing. We can do better. Benefits are *how* you do better. Unlike features, benefits are *all* about the customer, and how your product saves them pain, or makes their dreams come true. ## How to sell your benefits instead of your features 💡 What’s the fastest way to get someone to like you? Answer: Get them to talk about themselves. Think about this conventional wisdom next time you’re wondering how to persuade people to buy your product. Why would they buy it? In fact, why should they even be *interested*? 💡 The simple truth is that people (read: your target audience) are interested in themselves first. They have their own worries, concerns, hopes, and dreams. Remember that, when your marketing and your messaging are dominated by all the things your product can do, you limit your messaging’s effectiveness. Instead, flip the script. Make your marketing and your messaging all about *what your product can do for the customer*. Trust us, they’ll pay attention. So… how do you make it all about the customer? ## Advantages, features, and benefits. How do advantages fit in? Before we move on… What about advantages? **Advantages** are like benefits, but they’re more comparative. They’re the benefits your product has that an alternative solution does not. Remember that **benefits**, on their own, are powerful. They have emotional weight, and they create desire for our products by tying them back to our target audience’s real, existing, deep-seated emotional needs. **Features**, remember, are simply descriptive – not persuasive. They describe what your product does, with no reference to how that might benefit the prospect. On their own, they’re not very powerful. Advantages *might* reference features. For example, “Our software architecture is built in a way that makes us 170% faster than our nearest competitor.” But notice how listing *feature* advantages calls out the advantages your *product* has over competing products. Advantages that call out *benefits* constitute advantages the *customer* experiences when they use your product over a competing product. (As is the case with all benefits, they’re about the customer, and are therefore more powerful.) For example, “Get your work done 170% faster than with other tools.” 🧠 **Tip: Notice how you can identify benefits by their “you” language, while features use more “our” language.* ## How to turn any feature into a benefit (5 ways) To craft great benefits, you need to be able to speak to your customers’ pain points, and their hopes and dreams. In order to do *that*, you need to intimately understand them, which is why customer research is always vital. Once you’ve done that work, you can start mapping your product’s features to specific needs you’ve identified in your target audience. Here are five tools to help you do that: 1. The **3-word trick** to instantly turn any feature into a benefit. 2. The **surprising, low-effort method** you can use to create buyer curiosity. 3. **Two simple questions** that make your messaging more effective. 4. The **“5 Whys”** method for creating bulletproof benefits. 5. The one **trap you must avoid** if you want your benefits to work. ### 1) The 3-word trick to instantly turn any feature into a benefit There’s a quick hack you can use to turn any feature into a benefit. So quick, it’s just three words: *“So you can…”* These three words can turn any feature into a benefit. They force *you* to think about what the feature empowers the customer to do, and sets you up to spell it out for them. “Our product is twice as fast as our competitor’s… so you never have to worry about hitting a deadline again.” Woah… sounds pretty good all of a sudden, huh? When you’ve got a feature you’re struggling to link to a benefit, use *“So you can…”* to help draw it out. --- [Temporary Competitive Advantage Explained (with Examples)A temporary competitive advantage is one that doesn’t last. It might survive a few years, but it’s not going to pay dividends decades down the line. But that doesn’t mean they’re not valuable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/10/denny-muller-4NcVKXV3OAI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/) --- ### 2) Create curiosity by saying less But you don’t have to stop with “*So you can…*”. After listing out the benefit, you can drop the feature altogether. Do this, and something powerful happens… Drop the feature from the line above, and you’re left with: *“Never worry about a deadline again.”* What runs through the prospect’s mind now? “Oh… that’d be great. But how? What do I have to do?” The benefit is powerful enough on its own that you get the prospect invested in searching for the great things *about your product*. In other words, benefits get people interested in *features*, while features on their own leave prospective customers yawning. ### 3) Two questions to make your messaging more effective Here are two questions to ask yourself whenever you want to make your messaging more effective. **1)** Ask yourself what work your copy expects the **prospect to work out for themselves**. Then figure out how you can give them that information on a platter. **2)** Ask yourself if you’ve identified the **most foundational emotional benefits** you can. **The first question:** Remember that an effective marketing funnel is like a greased slide. A prospect enters the funnel and, before they know what’s happening, they’re reaching for their credit card details. Such is the persuasive power of the journey you’ve taken them on. ![](https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExdjhzaGxraTcwMnVuc213MGNjYWFmc3NiemY2ZDQ3dWc1NXo5M3VwOSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/SYpPCwE5X1zlxKx4LN/giphy.webp) **An effective funnel is like a greased slide. Though perhaps a little gentler than this.* 👆 So when you create work for the prospect by not giving them all the answers and the information they need when they need it, you’re introducing unnecessary friction into what should be a frictionless process. Identify where you’re making things hard for the prospect, and commit to improving those aspects of your funnel. **The second question:** The second question to ask revolves around making sure you *really* understand what your prospects want. Your prospects are obsessed with their core emotional motivators – the needs, desires, and pain points that keep them up at night. When you know what these are and speak directly to them, they’re immediately receptive to your message. ![](https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExYzN5ajcyYmU1dmlnbjN3cDAyZ202NmFraGFlanpzd3VqYmR4NWd1ciZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/WmoX7msf4HfYkMYmfF/giphy.webp) **Base-level emotional needs and desires play on your prospects' minds. They keep them awake at night. It's your job to figure out what these are, and to use them.* But, when you speak to only surface-level benefits, like being able to hold more impactful meetings (an example we’ll cover in more detail soon), you force work upon your prospects. They have to figure out how more effective meetings tie back to their most foundational emotional motivators and needs. Save them this work, and watch your prospects reach for their wallets. ### 4) The “5 Whys” The Five Whys is a great method for getting right to those base emotional benefits. In case you’re not familiar with it, the Five Whys has you continually ask “Why” until you get to the root cause of something. The point being, by the time you’ve asked “Why” five times, you’ve identified the root cause. To get to the base-level emotional benefit of a feature, you can take the same approach, and just keep asking, “So you can…”. Here’s an example: **On Microsoft Teams, meetings are integrated with PowerPoint Live, and Microsoft Whiteboard, so you can hold more impactful meetings (1)… so you can save time and increase alignment (2)… so you can work more effectively and efficiently as a team (3)… so your impact on the business is greater (4)… so you can achieve more with less effort (5).* Achieving more with less effort is a pretty universal desire. It’s not too difficult to identify these desires – they’re usually quite unflattering. (More on these below.) ### 5) The 1 trap you must avoid if you want to write effective benefits The question to ask yourself here is, who are you speaking to? Who is the buyer? Remember: Benefits don’t just beat features on your landing pages. They also belong in your [competitive battle cards ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/). In fact, it’s crucial that your [sales and customer success reps ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/), as well as any other customer-facing member of the business, is able to speak fluently about the emotional benefits your product or service offers for members of your target audience. The most common trap we see marketers fall into is assuming they’re always talking to a business owner. If you’re making this assumption without realizing it, the benefit you’ll default to calling out will be, “increase company revenue.” The thing is (brace yourselves), at the *individual level*, people often don’t care about company revenue. Senior members of staff will do. They’ll understand how important it is for their own pay packet, and that influencing it is a ticket to the top. But the tired majority probably want: - An easier time at work. - Less stress. - To get more done with less effort. - To be paid more without a proportional increase in responsibility. (We did say they were unflattering!) The above doesn’t paint the most attractive picture of the average corporate worker, but… is it wrong? Wouldn’t those things be *really nice?* Of course they would. If your buyer is one of *these* people, then appealing to these core desires is your best bet. However, in those instances where you *are* speaking to a business owner, things like bottom line, growth trajectory, and revenue metrics will all be things they’re *very* interested in. This is why knowing who you’re speaking to with your messaging is so important. 💡 Unlock expert templates, frameworks, and insider content from industry giants like Google and Amazon, right at your fingertips. [Become an Insider member today. ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/) ## Examples of features and benefits (and their differences) To really hammer this home, let’s list some features of well-known products and turn them into benefits. Here are a few [features of the Microsoft Teams communications platform ](https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software), taken directly from the website: 1. “Meet: Make meetings more impactful with features like PowerPoint Live, Microsoft Whiteboard, and AI-generated meeting notes.” 2. “Call: Make and receive calls directly in Teams with features like group calling, voicemail, and call transfers.” 3. “Collaborate: Create spaces that keep everyone in sync with the help of channels, shared task lists, and collaborative apps.” 4. “Chat: Be inclusive and connect quickly using emojis, suggested replies, and Microsoft Loop components.” Some of the copy above hints at the benefits while describing these features. First, we’ll look at how the product benefits are hinted at, and then turn to how we could make them more effective. ### Meet: “Make meetings more impactful.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/image-3.png) Microsoft’s Meet feature (“solution”), like Russian dolls, has its own features like a Whiteboard and PowerPoint live. The benefit, or “*so you can*”, that’s explicitly listed is that customers can hold “more impactful” meetings. Remember the first of the two questions you can ask to make your messaging more effective: What is Microsoft expecting its prospects to figure out for themselves? It’s not *immediately* obvious how holding more impactful meetings benefits the prospect. It sounds good, sure, but they expect the prospect to figure out how that helps them achieve their most foundational desires. And that’s the problem. We want to *explicitly* tie this back to a core emotional need, desire, or pain point the prospect has. How do we fix this? By using the second question: Have they gotten to the most foundational desire their prospect has? Let’s use the Five Whys method to get to the base emotional benefit: **On Microsoft Teams, meetings are integrated with Powerpoint Live, and Microsoft Whiteboard, so you can hold more impactful meetings… so you can struggle less to get your point across… so you can reach alignment more quickly and with less effort… so your projects are more likely to succeed… so you’re more likely to look good and rise in status and stature in the business.* The core promise here is that *you’ll get more done in less time, and with less effort*. No more fighting with multiple pieces of software. No more struggling to communicate. No more wrangling for buy-in from stakeholders. You’ll *communicate* more effectively during your meetings with these features. End result: less stress, less hassle, more ease. ### “Call: Make and receive calls within Teams.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/image-5.png) In this second feature, the benefit is even more hidden than the first. Users can make and receive calls within the Teams platform. Presumably (since it’s not made explicit), this is easier than the alternative, which is to make and take calls outside the app, with a desk phone, for example. But does this really speak to an important emotional need Microsoft’s prospects have? If they’re speaking to a decision-maker in charge of the overall budget for tools, it *might* be. If, for example, desk phones cost the business a lot of money, and a solution with built-in calling could save them a lot, and make them look good for more efficiently allocating the budget, then yes! But nowhere does it say, “Save money by moving your phone calls into Teams,” or (even better), “Allocate your budget with astonishing efficiency with an all-in-one software solution that saves customers like you over $11,353 dollars annually by taking care of internal calls so you can get rid of your desk phones.” This is the kind of **specific benefit** that gets prospects to sit up and take notice. ### “Collaborate: Spaces that keep everyone in sync.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/image-6.png) Here, again, Microsoft lists features within the feature. Task lists, channels, and collaborative apps are the features in question. But it’s up to the prospect, once again, to figure out how these things (1) keep everyone in sync, and (2) how keeping everyone in sync benefits *them*. Even if these things seem obvious, even if it takes the prospect only fractions of a second to figure these things out, language like this engages the thinking part of a customer’s brain. Selling is far easier when you’re appealing to the emotional part of a prospect’s brain, showing them how much better their future could be once they’re using your product, and how much pain they’re needlessly suffering right now without it. “Spaces that keep everyone in sync” is not a benefit. Not really. It *implies* greater ease, but doesn’t do so strongly enough to be truly effective. ### “Chat: Be inclusive, connect quickly.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/image-7.png) This fourth feature has all the same issues as the third one. “Connect quickly” is language that implies greater ease, but it doesn’t make it explicit. “Microsoft Loop components” might mean nothing to many prospects, and assumes the reader knows what these are, and why this would be a good thing. With all four of the features listed here, the implied benefit is that customers can get more done, in less time, with less effort. This is a good benefit. But nowhere is it stated explicitly. Adjusting the messaging here to make this the one, resounding base benefit of all these four features, and tying each feature back to that core benefit (explicitly) would make this a much more effective panel on the landing page. Finally, there’s another question prospects will have bouncing around their heads at this point. It’s the *competitive* question: “compared to what?” As in, “They’re promising me I can get more done, in less time, with less effort… compared to what?” Answering this question is where [competitive positioning ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/)comes in. Knowing how to get *that* right sets you up for ongoing success via a [sustained competitive advantage ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). --- ## Want a competitive advantage? You need competitive positioning. Learn how to position your products *competitively.* No product exists in a vacuum, so ignoring your competitors leaves your prospects with questions. Questions you *could* be answering strategically, leading to more won deals and fewer missed opportunities. Learn to do it all in the competitive positioning playbook. 👇 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/blog_meta.png) #### No product is created in a vacuum The Competitive Positioning Playbook teaches you... 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a ****rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you ****must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom ****tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s ****revenue** ceiling. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ### All you need to know about positioning statements (with 7 examples) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/ Last updated: 2025-02-05T14:44:32.000Z ## What is a positioning statement? Your brand positioning statement is a single sentence that sums up your competitive position - it’s your elevator pitch. If you were to describe to a new hire (or anyone else in the business) how you want people to see your product, your positioning statement would fill that role. Your positioning statement is a key deliverable in the [competitive positioning process](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/). One that will be invaluable to your colleagues. Though it might feel sacrilegious to whittle your hard work down to one sentence, it’s worth it. It’ll force you to carve every facet of your findings down to the single pillar holding up everything else. This makes your brand’s position in the market more communicable across teams and to new hires. It makes it more understandable, too, and gets everyone on the same page about where the brand stands. Finally, it lets everyone know how they should speak about the product and the brand to prospects, ensuring a more cohesive buyer journey with a higher conversion rate. ![](https://i.giphy.com/jyu0rExxpCw1nJxqAQ.webp) ## What a positioning statement is not You shouldn’t confuse your positioning statement with: - Your business’ mission statement. - Your product’s value proposition. Your business’ **mission statement** outlines *why* your business has taken a position in the marketplace at all. It relates to what the business wants to achieve, and the values you hold as a collective. Many businesses today care about sustainability, social justice, or about pushing the frontiers of human achievement. Mission statements encapsulate these things, and tend to be independent of the murkier, scrappier realities of doing business in a competitive space. A **value proposition** outlines precisely what makes its product or service valuable to customers. This often involves language about the specific problems and pain points the product or service solves for customers, and why those are the right ones to focus on. For example, a password manager’s value proposition would refer to the practical issues people face staying secure online while trying to remember unique logins for all their accounts. ## 3 reasons why you need a brand positioning statement ### 1) A value proposition isn’t enough Even if you already have a mission statement and have stated your product’s value proposition, neither of these encapsulates your positioning. And since positioning is a necessary piece of the puzzle, you need to cover that base. Remember, a positioning statement describes your place in the competitive landscape. It takes competitor solutions into account, while a simple value proposition doesn’t. Your reasons for being in business, and the unique benefits your product will provide to customers, aren’t enough to convince prospects why they should choose you instead of a superficially similar alternative. Your competitive positioning statement should clarify what problems you’re solving, for whom, and how you manage to be the best option available. ### 2) Leaving your positioning up to interpretation means leaving money on the table If different people interpret your positioning differently, they’ll speak about your product differently to prospects. This is liable to confuse prospects, and muddle up the buyer’s journey. You want your funnel to be like a greased slide, sucking people in, and whisking them along to the “ready to buy” phase with as little friction as possible. Imagine you’re researching a product. The website leaves you with one sense of who they are, what they do, and how they relate to alternatives. Speaking to a salesperson on the phone, you’re left with a slightly different impression. A follow-up conversation with someone else leaves you with a third impression. None of these impressions match. You’d feel confused, right? ![](https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExdHEycHhibDJ0bjg2ejZxc3E4cHo4dTZjODh5d2d6dmE1YXp0dzllbSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/f47n7fRpnMKvDeTDhA/giphy.webp) Confusion and doubt are anathema to the buying decision. Uncertainty means risk. And part of your job as a competitive intelligence or product marketing professional is to de-risk the buying decision for your prospects. If you show your buyers that even employees can’t agree on the reasons why their product is the right one for them, you’ll degrade trust, and increase the amount of last-minute resistance you face come crunch time. ### 3) Positioning goes hand-in-hand with messaging Remember, if you don’t communicate consistently with prospects about your products, they’ll find it difficult to form a coherent picture of your brand. Having consistent messaging associated with your products and your brand is therefore critical for making prospects trust your brand. But before you can have solid, consistent guidelines around your messaging, and define *how* you’ll communicate with your prospects, you need to know *what* you’ll communicate to them. The way to do this is with a positioning statement. **Your positioning statement** acts as the single source of truth telling folks across the business where your product wins, and the defensible space you occupy in the competitive landscape. It gets people on the same page about your competitive advantage, and how to communicate it when talking about your product. ## How to create a positioning statement You’re not just positioning, you’re positioning *competitively*. So when you’re writing a positioning statement, you want to incorporate what you’ve learned about your competitors. The process will look like this: 1. Outline your product’s features. 2. Turn those features into emotional benefits. 3. Identify the emotional benefits that customers care about the most. 4. Identify the emotional benefits that you deliver better than any competitor. 5. Identify the ways in which you’re the antidote to a competitor’s weaknesses. 6. Summarize these into a positioning statement. 👋 **Note: the above process assumes you’ve already done the necessary work to segment your target audience, and to canvass them for a comprehensive list of their pain points and emotional problems. These come into play in steps three and four.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/blog_meta.png) #### No product is created in a vacuum The Competitive Positioning Playbook teaches you... 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a ****rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you ****must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom ****tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s ****revenue** ceiling. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) ### Creating a competitive positioning strategy Before you can craft a positioning statement, you need to know what space in the market you should occupy. If you haven’t yet done this work, don’t worry. We’re here to help. Here’s a tip: **Don’t position yourself to fight an unwinnable battle.** Fight where you know you can win. Anything else is a waste of resources, so you need to position deliberately to target the weaknesses in your competitors’ products, while making the most of your own strengths. ![Venn diagram of value zones for positioning strategies. One says "what customers want", another "what your competitors do best", and the last, "what you do best".](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/value_zones.png) As the above diagram shows, you only exist in relation to what your customers want, and what your competitors or alternatives offer to that same audience. Opportunities abound in these zones: **High-value zone:** You offer customers what they want with little to no strong competition. **Mid-value zone:** You offer customers what they want with strong competition, but it’s a close race. ### i) The high-value zone There’s often a temptation to assume you’re playing in the high-value zone by default. Especially if others in the organization are dismissive of your competitors. But there’s no excuse for assuming you’re strong, or that your competitors are weak, in any given area. You need to hear it from your customers. When your research and analysis suggests you can position yourself in the high-value zone, do so. And make the most of it. The high-value zone necessarily shrinks as competitors imitate you. No competitive edge can stay large for long. At least not without understanding your competitive advantage extremely well and defending it against imitation by cutting off your competitors’ avenues of attack. That means patenting or trademarking your intellectual property, or negotiating exclusive contracts with suppliers, for example. ### ii) The mid-value zone Mid-value zones are like swing states. A few votes in either direction can mean the difference between winning and losing a deal. These are massively leveraged opportunities to impact revenue, where a few persuasive points in your favor could help you win a large number of deals, or a small number of very high-value deals. It pays to invest here, but the fight will be constant as you and your competitors race to create the best solution and convince prospects. ### iii) The low- and no-value zones These are the zones where you’re competing with very strong alternatives where your own offering is weak, or you’re competing with a strong competitor for something the market isn’t interested in. Obviously, you shouldn’t aim to position yourself in either the low-value or no-value zones, but don’t forget about them altogether. Audit your positioning at intervals to make sure you’re not in danger of drifting into one of these zones as the competitive landscape shifts and new competitors enter the fold. ## 7 Positioning statement examples We’ve tracked down 7 examples of official, publicly available statements that encapsulate some of the aspects of positioning we’ve spoken about. Check them out: ### 1) Semrush > *“The best marketers enjoy and love what they do. Semrush ensures marketing professionals always have time for creativity and experiments while we take care of data. Semrush is the only software which enables marketing professionals to build, manage, and measure campaigns across all channels to improve their online visibility. Semrush is your digital team member—your analytics buddy, your mentor, your safety net, and a compass to new markets.”* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/image-2.png) Positioning statements don’t have to mention competitors by name, and - in fact - almost always *shouldn’t*. Semrush’s statement above, though, calls attention to the fact that theirs is “the only software” that lets you “build, manage, and measure” across all channels. Airtable’s Director of Product Marketing, Alex McDonnell, says most businesses can occupy one of three different positioning buckets: the Aggregator, the Simplifier, and the Specializer. Semrush, here, exhibit the Aggregator archetype. Where businesses used to have to manage their channel campaigns using multiple software products, and measure them in still others, now they can do everything with a single product. ### 2) DuoLingo > *“Personalized education: Everyone learns in different ways. For the first time in history, we can analyze how millions of people learn at once to create the most effective educational system possible and tailor it to each student.* > *"Our ultimate goal is to give everyone access to a private tutor experience through technology.”* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/Screenshot-2024-05-29-at-15.07.54.png) **Duolingo's public statement* DuoLingo’s positioning statement calls out what it’s able to offer that’s new: its analytics. DuoLingo goes head-to-head with traditional language education and aims to use its data to create a system that democratizes language learning in a way that was impossible up ‘til now. ### 3) Makita > *“Makita has always had the vision that society and global communities should be able to develop for themselves, and future generations. By providing the tools, Makita is ensuring that anything is possible.* > *"We can be certain of this by the initiatives that guide our business every step of the way. From our regard for the environment, evolving safety measures and innovations in design and manufacturing, we're sure that not only are we contributing to a better today, but investing in a better future.”* Publicly-facing variations of positioning statements can be more verbose than the ideal, snappy, single-sentence versions you should strive to create internally. But Makita’s public statement above implies much about its competitive positioning, while also making clear the business’ mission. Makita positions itself as a brand that innovates sustainably, while democratizing the power to build and develop through affordable, quality tools. ### 4) Ryobi: > *“Innovation at the service of users: As one of the largest and most innovative power tool manufacturers in the world, we are dedicated to delivering outstanding performance and reliability, we’ve built a solid and enviable reputation by developing a real knowledge of exactly what people need from their power tools, so that you can work more efficiently, more safely and more comfortably in your home and garden.”* Ryobi’s statement, when compared with Makita’s above, is a good example of how two competitors position themselves differently in the marketplace. Makita mentions the environment, sustainability, and the future in relation to its innovation. Ryobi mentions its users in relation to its innovation. In this sense, Ryobi positions itself as a brand looking to provide its users with tools that solve their specific problems better than any competitor could. Mentioning “home and garden” as the places their tools are likely to be used implies (intentionally or not) that these are tools for use around the home by individuals, and not for industry professionals. ### 5) Ikea On its website, Ikea refers to its, “IKEA business idea”: > *“To offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low, that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/image.png) This is a great, concise positioning statement. Ikea aims to democratize “well-designed, functional” home furniture by offering them at super competitive prices. Their [low-cost provider strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/when-does-a-low-cost-provider-strategy-beat-a-differentiation-strategy/) makes for an interesting case study in a business’ pursuit of a competitive advantage. ### 6) ClickUp: > *“Save people time by making the world more productive: While we absolutely love productivity software, we believe productivity, in general, is broken. There's just too many tools to keep track of, too many things in entirely separate ecosystems. There has to be a better way to work - that's why we created ClickUp, first an internal tool, now as a way to fulfill our vision of making the world more productive.”* ClickUp’s positioning statement mentions “too many tools… too many things in entirely separate ecosystems.” Again, this is an example of a brand positioning itself to fill the Aggregator archetype. They’re bringing what were once many siloed solutions together into a single solution, so you can have a single solution for a single big problem. ### 7) Slack > *“Slack is the AI-powered platform for work, bringing all your conversations, apps and customers together in one place. Around the world, Slack is helping businesses of all sizes to grow and send productivity through the roof.”* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/image-1.png) **Source: Slack.com* Slack’s statement, too, echoes the Aggregator archetype, bringing “all your conversations, apps, and customers together in one place.” The references to their global presence, “around the world”, and suitability for “businesses of all sizes” emphasizes the product’s versatility. ## How to use your positioning statement for competitive intelligence Positioning doesn’t stop with a one-pager strategy document. Its influence spreads far and wide to influence many other aspects of the business. There are a few key deliverables that, once in circulation, provide valuable data about how your positioning is working. This is your enablement content. [Sales enablement collateral](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-sales-enablement-content/), including battlecards, pitch decks, and any other kind of content that eases the sales process for your reps, is perhaps the fastest way of getting to grips with what’s working and what isn’t. So after your strategy, the enablement assets you create with the positioning you have are perhaps the most important deliverable. Once your reps start using them on calls, you’ll begin to hear how your new positioning is landing. This gives you a sense of what’s working, and what isn’t. A full process for creating enablement assets is beyond the scope of this article, but here are some ideas: ### Battlecards [Battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) are slides of essential information for your sales reps to call upon when you’re going head-to-head with a key competitor. They should contain a ‘quick dismiss’ of the competitor, acknowledging their strengths, but quickly explaining why those strengths aren’t so relevant to your target market, or why those strengths don’t put them in the best position to solve the customer’s problem. That should dovetail nicely into bullet points about why your product is the ‘antidote’ to the competitor’s weaknesses. ### Pitch decks Pitch decks give you a chance to tailor your positioning to a specific target. That might be a potential investor, a new customer, or a client. They visually educate on your product or service, making it very clear how your product can solve their problems and meet their specific needs in ways the competition cannot. ### Informational content Informational articles, product documentation, written guides, product demos, and video walkthroughs… All of these things represent ‘enablement content’, in that your sales reps (and other folks around the business) can save themselves time by sending this content across to prospects to provide valuable information at a particular stage of the buying process. This standardizes the way your business talks about and explains particular concepts and gives you opportunities to refine that content as you go. You have a decisive ‘control’ piece that gets the job done, against which you can measure the performance of similar content. ## Refining and reworking positioning Your positioning is not a one-and-done thing. Your positioning statement, and any documents you’ve created, should be living, breathing representations of your positioning that you refresh at intervals. You must continually update in light of new competitor developments, and with the fresh feedback coming in from the systems you put in place at the end of Stage 1. Over time, you’ll update your positioning statement, strategy, and enablement assets to more accurately reflect where you actually win in the eyes of your customers, and to give you the best possible chance of winning new opportunities. Here are some tips from the experts on testing, tweaking, and refreshing your positioning: "Your positioning is always going to be evolving, both at a brand level and in a competitive sense. Keeping track of new releases and new messaging from competitors can help you continue to adjust it. If you see a competitor is adopting a similar story to you, you should A) feel pretty good because mimicking is the sincerest form of flattery! B) Think about updating yours to better position why you're different.” **\~Mitchell Comstock, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, Medbridge** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/mitch.jpeg) "I’d start by running some experimentation on your top-of-funnel areas to test your positioning. Work with marketing to test landing pages, or paid ads, with your new positioning and see how it’s landing in the market.” **\~Kevin Chan, Director of Product Marketing, Fleetio** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/kev.jpeg) "We use CI to evaluate how to launch a new solution and also how to reposition our existing portfolio. The market is constantly evolving, as are the technologies within it – not to mention the actual customer needs, demands, or even regulatory influences...CI helps provide insights as to what others are doing, what we ARE doing, and what we SHOULD be doing next.” **\~Matt Tyrer, Director of Competitive Intelligence, Druva** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w600/2024/06/matt.jpeg) ## Summary **Here’s a quick summary of what we’ve learned:** 1 - A good positioning statement distills your brand positioning into an ‘elevator pitch’ one-liner use with your internal teams. 2 - A watertight positioning strategy takes full account of the highest-value market opportunities available to you. 3 - A positioning statement can help you build enablement collateral that helps sales win deals while field-testing all aspects of your new positioning. 4 - It’s important to continue to optimize your positioning and your enablement assets as you move forward and continue to learn more about your customers and competitors. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/blog_meta.png) #### No product is created in a vacuum The Competitive Positioning Playbook teaches you... 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a ****rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you ****must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom ****tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s ****revenue** ceiling. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) ### 5 competitive intelligence challenges in 2024 (and how to conquer them) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-competitive-intelligence-challenges-2024/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T08:43:29.000Z 👋 **This article is based on* [**Fouad Benyoub*](https://www.linkedin.com/in/fouadbenyoub/)**’s brilliant interview on the Compete Clarity podcast. More into listening than reading? Check out the pod* [**here*](https://alliance.ghost.io/podcast/cia-the-compete-clarity-podcast/?%5Fgl=1%2Ap2tytv%2A%5Fga%2AMTIzMzg4Nzc5NS4xNjk1Mjk1NDQ0%2A%5Fga%5FPFVK9L5J31%2AMTcxNjk3MjkzMS4xMTEuMC4xNzE2OTcyOTM2LjU1LjAuMA..&wchannelid=gdmqjciwdr&wmediaid=o38xy9j597)**!* CI professionals today are facing a *lot* of challenges. There are the obvious ones – like budgetary constraints, building and maintaining an effective team, and clarifying the CI function's role and scope – and then there are a whole load of not-so-obvious ones. I like to bucket these into five main areas: 1. Demonstrating the value of CI, 2. Organizational misalignment, 3. False debate, 4. Internal politics, 5. Internal competition. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at each of these not-so-obvious challenges and how to solve them. Then, we’ll explore one of the biggest changes shaking up our industry today – [the rise of AI](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-competitive-intelligence-tasks/). Let’s get into it. ## Challenge #1: Demonstrating the value of CI In my 20 years of experience and discussions with CI pros and stakeholders, a key challenge I’ve noticed is the perception of CI’s value. This is a vital challenge to overcome because it directly impacts the budget and resources allocated to our function, as well as where it sits within the organization. ## Challenge #2: Organizational misalignment Another challenge I see a lot is misalignment between what CI produces and [the organization's goals](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/aligning-ci-with-company-objectives/). The CI function may be churning out work, but if that output is disconnected from the organization’s strategic initiatives and struggles, what’s the point? Don’t get stuck in the tactical, deal-level stuff. You need to make sure that *everything* you do in CI ladders up to those big overarching company goals. Avoid distractions and deliver value. This is also going to help you resolve challenge number one – showing the value of your function so you can secure more resources. ## Challenge #3: False debate We’re drowning in false dichotomies when it comes to CI. Art vs. science, old school vs. new school approaches, short-term vs. long-term monitoring, full-time vs. part-time CI staff – who cares? These debates are holding everybody back, and we need to move past them. My advice is to avoid distractions and unproductive debates. Instead, find what works for you and your situation. Learn from all sources – leverage established frameworks and research, but also learn from on-the-ground practitioners sharing hard-won tips and techniques. Use what applies to your role, and discard what doesn't. Just make sure you consider all options. Sometimes, the keys to success are hiding in the unlikeliest of places. ## Challenge #4: Internal politics Next, there are unspoken challenges around internal politics and influence. In the face of these kinds of obstacles, even the most talented and well-equipped CI teams can struggle to build bridges with other teams and get the exposure they need to not only showcase the value of what they do, but make a real impact. To overcome this challenge, try formal [stakeholder management](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-power-of-stakeholder-management/) strategies like Mendelow’s matrix. This can help you plan how to properly inform, consult, and involve different stakeholders based on their interest and influence levels. ## Challenge #5: Internal competition In any company, other groups will probably have niche competitive knowledge on a specific segment. While it’s great to have a knowledgeable team, the issue is that when you’re presenting your findings, these people may jump in and challenge you. Whenever I find myself in this kind of situation, I embrace it as an opportunity. I'm happy to learn from subject-matter experts who know more about a particular competitor. My role is to federate intelligence across the organization, so I try to connect with these people, learn from them, involve them in the CI process, and make them a part of the broader intelligence network. The key is to put your ego to the side and get into the student mindset. Don’t get defensive when someone comes to you claiming to know better – start taking notes. You’re not here to know everything – you’re here to learn and share that knowledge. Give internal subject-matter experts a platform, give them credit, and thank them for sharing their expertise. --- --- ## Harnessing AI in competitive intelligence What would an article on the challenges facing CI pros in 2024 be without a section addressing the [impact of AI](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-at-work/)? AI is undoubtedly the hottest topic of our time, and it's not just a passing fad. AI represents a massive shift, impacting everything – competitive intelligence included. And this is just the beginning – right now, we're barely scratching the surface of what AI can do. Last year, I had the pleasure of hosting a [virtual session](https://competitive-intelligence-alliance.circle.so/c/webinars-virtuals/?sort=asc) for Competitive Intelligence Alliance. In it, we explored how CI professionals should get to grips with AI. The advice then was to learn, experiment, and test. That advice still stands. In the future, many of the activities we currently perform manually will be automated, and rightfully so. It's not that we in CI aren't providing value, but sometimes we fall victim to the path of least resistance – doing rote, mentally undemanding work out of habit or fatigue. If a task is that straightforward for a human, it will be easily automated by AI-powered tools. 0:00 /0:51 1× The obvious areas ripe for automation include text and content generation. If you want to create competitor assessments or market landscape summaries, there are already plenty of platforms that can generate that content. When it comes to the deep reasoning required for sophisticated key intelligence topics, things get a little more complex. Current generative AI models struggle with that level of analysis, but who knows what GPT-5 or future models will be capable of? Even before the rise of advanced language models like [ChatGPT](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-chatgpt-for-competitive-intelligence-assistant/), the CI field was already talking about “toil” - tedious manual tasks ripe for automation. In my 2021 book, [*The Competitive Intelligence Playbook*](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59242309-the-competitive-intelligence-playbook), I had a chapter on the automation we could expect to see in coming years. In it, I discussed how steps of the intelligence cycle, like intelligence gathering, analysis, and sharing insights and recommendations would be augmented by automation. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/05/benyoub-book.jpeg) Parts of the process are clear targets for automation. Gathering intelligence from reliable online sources, and setting up streams of data from RSS feeds and APIs – that's table stakes. This is a development worth paying attention to. If your job today is just monitoring feeds and sources, be careful, because that task can and will be optimized via automation – it’s much more cost-effective. The true value of CI is tackling the organization's most complex, strategic issues - being laser-focused on the key intelligence topics tied to the company's strategic objectives. I believe AI is still a ways away from being able to fully understand that level of operational context and nuance. AI’s impact on CI will be significant, no doubt. My advice isn't to fear it, but to adapt and embrace it. Get ready by upskilling. Prompt engineering – learning how to effectively query AI assistants to extract exactly what you need – is job skill number one right now, not Boolean search operators. As CI professionals, we need to keep Nassim Taleb’s idea [of the black swan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FBlack%5FSwan:%5FThe%5FImpact%5Fof%5Fthe%5FHighly%5FImprobable) in mind. Don't be like the turkey, blindly delighted by the benefits of automation, without considering if your neck might soon be on the butcher’s chopping block. Instead, make sure you have the skills you need to remain indispensable as more and more CI tasks are automated. Focus on high-value, strategic deliverables, not low-hanging fruit tasks that are easy to automate. That's the key to thriving in CI's AI-augmented future. --- ## The AI in CI Playbook Bursting with no-nonsense info to bring you up to speed with AI for CI in no-time, the AI in CI Playbook sidesteps hype and speculation to bring you the most practical guide on using AI for your competitive intelligence work possible. Stop feeling frustrated with AI. Start prompting like a pro and discover how to use context the *right way* so you can finally receive outputs that save you time and maximize your impact. 🦾 Click the banner below to grab your complementary copy. 👇 [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/05/CIA_AI_Playbook_CTA.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-ci-playbook/) --- ## The future of AI In *The Black Swan,* Taleb talks about the importance of listening to the “silent evidence” – but it's not so silent anymore. There are so many people actively exploring groundbreaking AI capabilities. In [a recent conversation with Sam Altman](https://lexfridman.com/sam-altman-2-transcript/#chapter9%5F%5F7%5Ftrillion%5Fof%5Fcompute), CEO of OpenAI, Lex Fridman asked whether Altman would focus compute power on automating menial, easy tasks to free humans for more complex work. Surprisingly, Altman said, with computing power becoming so expensive and invaluable, why would you waste it on totally menial tasks versus applying it to harder, more complex challenges? It was eye-opening. We have to remain humble learners here because things are moving so fast, I don't think anyone truly knows where this AI evolution will ultimately land. Why am I saying this? Because understanding the full context and dynamics of how an organization operates is tough to digitize. The human cues, power dynamics, decision-making processes, and politics – mapping all that into a digital twin that can comprehend it all is incredibly difficult. I'm sure some future AGI system will be able to pull it off, but we're not there yet. My take may seem contrarian, but I'm comfortable with that. If you get complacent about reskilling or assume you'll smoothly transition into our AI-powered future, you could be as oblivious as the turkey who didn't foresee its destiny with the butcher. This is a nuanced, rapidly evolving situation – keeping your eyes open and staying humble is key. --- ## Closing thoughts As we’ve seen, competitive intelligence pros face some major challenges in 2024 and beyond. To overcome these challenges, it's important to clearly demonstrate the value of [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) in line with your organization's goals. Also, try not to get caught up in unproductive debates and internal politics. And don't forget to collaborate with subject-matter experts in different departments. But perhaps the biggest disruptive force is AI. As it automates many routine CI tasks, you'll need to upskill to focus on sophisticated, context-rich strategic analysis that delivers unique insights that the bots can't (yet!) produce. Embracing skills like prompt engineering while developing indispensable stakeholder management abilities will separate the future-proof CI rockstars from those who are made obsolete. Despite the obstacles, this is an exciting time for CI. By focusing on the work that matters most, helping stakeholders to grasp CI's full potential, and continuously reskilling to stay ahead of the AI curve, you can cement CI's role as an essential strategic function. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/05/CIA_AI_Playbook_CTA.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-ci-playbook/) ### The what, why and how of customer and market feedback URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T08:44:06.000Z Customer/market feedback presents [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) professionals with the opportunity to step into the mind of their audience, with their responses providing an indicator of how well a product or service has performed, and where changes can be made in the future. But is it *really* that essential? *How* should marketers complete the process? And more to the point, *how* should findings influence long-term strategy. In this article, we'll focus on key areas, including: - [What is customer/market feedback?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/#what-is-customer-market-feedback) - [Why is customer feedback important?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/#why-is-customer-feedback-important) - [How often should you collect customer feedback?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/#how-often-should-you-collect-customer-feedback) - [How to collect customer feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/#how-to-collect-customer-feedback) - [How should customer/market feedback feed into your strategy?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-and-market-feedback/#how-should-customer-market-feedback-feed-into-your-strategy) --- ## What is customer and market feedback? Often confused with [win/loss interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/), customer feedback is the process whereby customers who have completed their journey through the sales funnel are quizzed about their experience with the product, post-purchase. For instance, companies may ask their target market questions to establish how easy a product is to use, and what modifications could be made to enhance its overall quality. Unlike with win-loss interviews (which take place approx. four weeks after a deal’s won or lost), this process can take place at any stage throughout the customer journey. ## Why is customer feedback important? Customer feedback is an essential part of the product marketing process. It enables marketers to not only identify and comprehend pitfalls in their current practice but also introduce relevant changes whereby they can be improved in the future. Although you as a product marketer may know the dynamics of your product, you probably don’t use it day in, day out, like your customers, in which case, feedback can provide invaluable insights that could otherwise go unnoticed. When PMMs use customer feedback, products can be improved, which in turn will increase customer satisfaction, decrease churn, and give you the upper hand on rivals within your market. Customers mold companies, not the other way around. **Did you know...** It’s widely acknowledged that attracting new customers is much harder than keeping the existing market happy. Lead generation can be a time-consuming exercise, and an expensive one, at that; it costs [5x to 25x more money to secure new customers than keeping existing clientele happy](https://www.hubspot.com/customer-feedback?ref=productmarketingalliance.com), highlighting the sheer value of giving customers a platform to make their voices heard. This process attributes value to the customer and makes them feel important. When customers are engaged, it’s been proven to have a profound effect on buying habits, with engaged customers likely to purchase a [product 90% more often and spend up to 60% more, per transaction](https://www.hubspot.com/customer-feedback?ref=productmarketingalliance.com). --- ## How often should you collect customer feedback? There’s no definitive time frame in which feedback from customers needs to be collected; it’s an ongoing process, and this will vary. When we speak to product marketers in search of a more clear-cut answer, there’s no consistent answer provided, with some conducting customer feedback daily, whilst others check in fortnightly. Nonetheless, it’s worth noting that customers are at the core of your practice and so liaising regularly will enable you to spot flaws quicker and rectify such issues. --- ## How to collect customer feedback When collecting customer feedback, it’s pivotal to utilize all resources and contact points available. While phone or face-to-face interviews are the preferred means of collecting customer feedback, we get this can be difficult to facilitate sometimes. However, there are alternative options out there, like: - **Internal data** \- communicate with your sales and customer success teams, to ensure their data is being used to its fullest potential. - **Surveys** \- whether it’s in-app or over email, sending out surveys in standalone communications, or engrained into your email footer, for example, is a fairly low-resource route to topping up your feedback pot. - **Social media** \- with 3.8 billion people registered, the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram are a great way to generate feedback from your target market. User-friendly tools such as poll options present product marketers with the opportunity for customers to offer their opinions in an engaging, interactive way. - **Email** \- email contact forms are a simple, yet highly effective way to generate feedback from your customers, and there are proactive steps that can be introduced to improve response rates. For instance, set expectations amongst the recipients of the correspondence, and let them know when you’ll be back in touch. A range of specialist tools are also available, to ensure that minute details are captured. - **Customer interviews** \- Going direct to the source and proactively seeking feedback is an effective way to gain useful customer insights. Interviews give customers the chance to candidly express their opinions, and this qualitative data can add further detail to quantitative findings that may have materialized. - **Online tools** \- Analytical tools such as Google Analytics and Hotjar offer statistical insights into the performance of a product or service. Plugins such as website heat maps indicate which areas of a website are being attracted to most, while statistics such as bounce rate reveals whether the content is engaging, or not. So, you’ve got the customer on the phone or convinced them to open your online survey, now what? There is a multitude of questions that can be asked when asking customers for product feedback, and here are just a few: - How did you find our onboarding process? - How would you rate the usability of our dashboard? - How can we improve a certain feature? - How would you describe our customer service? --- ## How should customer and market feedback feed into your marketing strategy? Having collected feedback from your target market, it’s essential to act proactively and implement relevant measures within your product marketing strategy. For example, if your feedback suggests you’re targeting the wrong market, reassess your strategy and reevaluate the existing buyer personas. Or, if customers indicate they’re unhappy with their customer service experience, introduce appropriate alternatives. For instance, if they want around-the-clock support, a live service, like a chatbot, could be a solution, or if they’re struggling to understand a certain part of your product, creating and communicating out a how-to video could be a relatively quick fix. And remember, feedback isn’t always just acting on negatives. For example, if you identify a trend that tons of your customers are seeing inordinate amounts of value in a feature you weren’t previously promoting all that much, it could spark a new marketing campaign, or even new messaging. [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### How to test internal assumptions URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-test-internal-assumptions/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T08:44:39.000Z Whether it’s confidence, or an indicator of arrogance, as [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) pros we've all been in scenarios when we’ve put our eggs in one basket, took a risk, and been led by our gut instinct. There are times when it’s acceptable to take a calculated gamble, but there are others when we need to have *absolute* confidence in the outcome of a decision. While a culinary experiment may burn your mouth, or taking an uncertain shortcut could add even *more* time to your journey, these merely minor inconveniences don’t equate to the possible financial implications if you don’t test a business hypothesis, with such shortcomings damaging to your pocket, as well as your reputation. 72% of all new products end up failing, while 42% of failed startups were unsuccessful because their product or service didn’t address a real market need. So, whether you’re a new kid on the block [launching a new product](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-market-a-new-product-feature/) for the first time, or a market heavyweight developing an existing offering, be sure to put contingencies in place to keep your business, and pride, intact. In this article, we'll focus on: - [Top tips for testing assumptions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-test-internal-assumptions/#top-tips-for-testing-assumptions) - [Testing assumptions case studies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-test-internal-assumptions/#testing-assumptions-case-studies) - [How to test assumptions as a new business](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-test-internal-assumptions/#how-to-test-assumptions-as-a-new-business) --- ## Top tips for testing assumptions We’re not fans of massaging our ego… (yep there’s a *but* coming), BUT we’re well versed in the product marketing field and we like to think we know what we’re talking about. So, believe us when we say we’ve seen *plenty* of people walk off with their tails in between their legs having ignored our advice to ignore a hunch. We’d hate for you to experience similar shortcomings, so we’ve popped together what we’d consider useful advice - and we *strongly recommend* you follow it. ### Analyze risk There’s a fine line between being sensible and being paranoid. After all, if you spent time testing every assumption you and your team made, you’d get nothing done - right? Before you make the decision how thoroughly you’re going to test, identify the risks involved, and if it transpires the potential damage is minimal, or even non-existent, consider testing on a smaller scale. There may even be instances whereby testing may not be warranted whatsoever, but only if the circumstances are right. Always address the following question when testing your idea: *Is there a chance that getting it wrong could cost me money, customers, and reputation?* Suffice to say, if the answer’s yes, you’ll want to run rigorous testing to mitigate risks. ### Don’t assume, hypothesize While we’re not *scientists*, as such, treat your testing the same way a scientist approaches an experiment; outline a hypothesis, carry out the method, and evaluate your findings. Reframe your assumptions, and instead, form hypotheses that you’ll be able to assess at the end of the research. For example, if companies such as Harrys.com send men shaving products and grooming kits in the post. Let’s use this example to illustrate how an assumption can be reshaped as a hypothesis. **Your Assumption:** Customers will be happy with the shaving kits they receive via our website. **Reframed as a Hypothesis:** We believe that customers will be happy with shaving kits they receive via our website. ### Prioritize hypotheses When testing multiple hypotheses as part of your research, it’s important to decipher which are most important, as these will warrant greater attention and more rigorous testing. If there isn’t sufficient importance attributed to a particular hypothesis, and it transpires to be overruled by the results, this could potentially throw a spanner in the production. This cannot be left to chance. Call a meeting with your team, and vote on which would be most threatening to the product’s success if the assumption turned out to be false. ### Take off the rose-tinted specs We can’t stress the importance of establishing impartiality and distancing yourself from when testing assumptions. An inability to judge in a logical, non-partisan manner will not only cloud your overall judgment but can potentially lead to catastrophic results, not only for the product in question but for your company as a whole. Sure, we understand there are times when you may have embarked on a passion project and may be reluctant to acknowledge that some elements of the product or service don’t work. To combat this potential issue, seek the opinion of people who can maintain a degree of impartiality, to gain a true sense of whether or not you’re onto a winner or a potential flop. There’s a fragility between pivoting and persevering. If you pivot prematurely, there’s a fair chance you could miss out on a truly exciting opportunity. On the other hand, if you pivot too late, you could be licking your wounds, having lost out financially, reputationally, and competitively. To make sure you’re basing your decisions on reliable information: 1. Avoid vanity metrics - for example, just looking at the number of customers or clients who’ve taken out service X could feed you with misleading information if revenue isn’t taken into account too. 2. Always review your progress and amend your targets accordingly. 3. Combine qualitative and quantitative data. ### Human feedback is the *best* feedback You can crunch numbers until the cows come home, but ultimately, a number won’t pull out a wallet and buy your product. Testing assumptions hinges on the viewpoints of the views of people within your target market; you need to put yourself out there and have a conversation with relevant personas - they’re the ones that matter. Nobody else. Pop over an email, fire out a social media post, pick up the phone; with so many members of communication at your disposal, there’s no excuse for not speaking with people directly to see whether their views provide credence to your initial thinking. Granted, sometimes people may be reluctant to talk, and this can be frustrating. Thankfully, there’s a simple solution - dangle an incentive and they’ll take the bait. They always do. ### Invest in a prototype Having completed a few cycles of testing, measuring, and learning, you'll have an idea whether your initial assumption was on the money, or well wide of the mark. Either way, if you’ve conducted thorough research, you’ll have an in-depth idea of what consumers within your market *want, not* what you *think* they need. Which leads us to our next stage of building a prototype and/or Minimum Viable Product, otherwise known as an MVP. But before you set the ball rolling, let’s decipher the difference between a prototype and MVP: **Prototypes:** - These don’t resemble the final product, but allow you to test out their features and functionality; - Provide qualitative and quantitative findings; - Help you understand the product’s values and limitations; and - Highlight useful areas (which could become your USPs) and, most importantly, where improvements could be made. And remember, to collect robust and accurate feedback a fresh prototype should be rolled out for every new feature or function you add. **MVPs:** - Are a stripped back version of your product that contains all and *only* its key features; - Usually, come after several rounds of prototypes; - Test the fundamental elements of your whole product rather than specific areas; - Are by no means the perfect end product, but are a truer reflection of it than a prototype; and - Miss some functionalities, design, and features (you should flag this to any potential testers and investors). Ok, we get it, prototypes and MVPs aren’t something you can buy off the shelf in the local department store; they can cost a lot of money. However, it’s essential to acknowledge how they can be an integral part of the process. A prototype or MVP can highlight a subtle change that could make the world of difference to the overall quality of your final product. Remember, there’s a time for speaking and a time for listening, so make sure you put those ears to good use, and take on board any advice coming your way. --- ## Testing assumptions: case studies There are other ways to analyze your inkling, with the generation of online content a common method utilized by many companies seeking reassurance their ideas hold credence. #### **Hubspot: Publication of blog content** SaaS heavyweights Hubspot incorporated this approach with aplomb, with founders Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan publishing a series of blogs about inbound marketing, and monitoring the subsequent on-site traffic. Upon assessing the data, the increase in visitors validated their initial hypothesis that the concept had potential, and they decided to press ahead safely in the knowledge their market was receptive to their idea. ### Buffer: Data capture Similarly, Buffer also tested their idea before pressing ahead and launching their service. Although a minimum viable product, or assets, weren’t in place, CEO Joel Gascoigne validated his idea following the launch of two pages, seeking feedback from the people who submitted their email address, and using their responses to refine his initial concept. This feedback proved critical and the only thing left to do was make sure people were willing to pay for it, a question answered via the launch of a third landing page. --- ## How to test assumptions as a new business If you're a brand new business, unlike more established companies, you have less room for maneuver; you’ll still be building your reputation, and finding your feet in your respective industry. Crowdfunding should be considered as a serious option if you’re in the testing stage as a new company. If your campaign is successful, you'll have a product with paying customers ready and if you fail, you've learned that product may not be the best idea after all. As a bonus, you’ll build a rapport with potential future customers too. As always, it’s always essential to scope out your current, our soon-to-be competitors, and establish what products they’re offering, as well as price points, etc. This information can be discovered by conducting competitor research. If you’re unfamiliar with how to complete this process, there are a [whole host of tools to help](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-intelligence-tools-tech-stack/). Revenue is the biggest indicator as to whether a business is successful or not. So, your competitor research has revealed a company is making a fortune from a product you’re looking to produce yourself, logic would suggest there’s demand, and much of the validation has been completed for you. That said, rather than go head-to-head with an identical product, you’ll need an eye-catching differentiation strategy in place, to convince your target market to select your product ahead of the competition. [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### Want to crush the competition? Identify and address unmet needs URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/unmet-needs/ Last updated: 2024-06-19T17:27:26.000Z Have you ever wondered what sets market leaders apart from their competitors? It's simple - more often than not, they're dedicated to identifying and solving their customers' unmet needs. By understanding the unaddressed frustrations and desires of their customers, these companies gain an advantage that helps them out-innovate their rivals. This guide is here to help you understand how to map unmet needs across your industry – and use those insights to develop strategies that will keep you miles ahead of the competition. Let's dive in and get started! 🤿 ## What are unmet needs? We've all been there – feeling frustrated with a product or service that just doesn't quite tick all the boxes. Maybe it lacks certain features you wish it had. Or perhaps it's just not delivering the level of convenience or performance you were hoping for. These niggling problems are what we call “unmet needs”. Basically, they're those desires, or pain points that existing products and services aren't adequately fulfilling for customers. Unmet needs can be varied – from **practical needs** like better functionality and reliability, to more **emotional needs** around things like: - User experience, - Empathy from customer service, - And overall convenience. 💡 Your customers may express some of these needs explicitly, but some may be latent desires people don't even realize they have. **The key point is:** that wherever these unmet needs exist in the market, that's an opportunity. For the smart, customer-focused company, identifying and addressing those underserved needs is the golden ticket to winning over new clients, keeping existing customers happy, and gaining an edge over the competition. So, as a competitive intelligence pro, getting laser-focused on unmet needs has to be high on your priority list. Pinpointing those gaps where customers aren't getting what they want is how you uncover make-or-break insights to feed back into your company strategy. ## How to identify unmet customer needs Uncovering those gaps where customers' needs aren't being met is no walk in the park. It takes proactive research and analysis using a variety of methods. The good news? We’ve got some tried-and-true techniques to help you get those valuable insights. ### 1 - Focus groups Sometimes you just have to go straight to the source – your customers themselves. Focus groups allow you to have open, candid discussions with a sample of your target audience. Listen closely as they share what frustrates them about current products, or what features they wish existed. This unfiltered feedback can be a goldmine for identifying unmet needs. ### 2 - Social media listening These days, your customers are taking to [social channels](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) like X and Reddit, and ranting about products that disappoint them. Monitor relevant hashtags and brand mentions. If you see recurring complaints about missing features or poor user experiences, bingo – you've pinpointed an unmet need to explore. ### 3 - Keyword research Just like the rest of us, when customers have an unsolved problem or desire, they typically turn to their trusty friend, Google. The keywords and phrases they use can clue you into what their needs are. So, you’ll want to add tools like Google Trends and SEMrush to your customer research toolbox. If top-ranking keywords suggest needs that current products aren't addressing, that could represent a prime opportunity to shine. ### 4 - Customer surveys Survey your customer base about their awareness of competitors, brand perceptions, product satisfaction, and more. Their responses can help you understand where your offering may be falling short of their needs compared to alternatives. Just be sure to choose your questions carefully, and include open-ended questions to uncover as much detail as possible. ### 5 - Means-end analysis Once you have survey data, perform a means-end analysis to discover the reasons why a customer would buy your product. Are they prioritizing certain [features or benefits](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/) over others that could signify unmet needs? Means-end analysis can provide those insights. 💡 The key is employing multiple methods and looking for patterns across the different datasets. Where you consistently see gaps between what customers want and what's currently available – that's where the unmet needs lie. Focusing your competitive intelligence on those areas can reveal your ripest opportunities to get ahead. ## Examples of unmet needs The list of possible unmet customer needs is endless. We’ve outlined the main types below and divided them into two categories: product needs and service needs – take a look! ### Product needs #### 1 - Functionality Customers won't settle for products that only partially solve their problems. They expect solutions that check all the boxes and get the whole job done – and done right. If existing products are lacking must-have features or key capabilities, that represents a functionality gap just waiting to be filled. #### 2 - Price Buyers have budgets they can't exceed, no matter how valuable a product seems. If a solution's [pricing ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/)structure doesn't align with what customers can realistically afford, that price point itself is an unmet need. Common causes for this include rigid packaging with limited options or overpricing in comparison to the product's value. #### 3 - Compatibility B2B customers in particular need products that integrate seamlessly into their existing tech stack and workflow. If a solution doesn’t mesh well with the other tools and platforms a customer uses, they're going to feel that friction. Lack of interoperability and connectivity is a prime unmet need to jump on. #### 4 - Performance There's no room for excuses - customers expect products to perform as advertised. If an existing solution is buggy, slow, unstable or just doesn't efficiently get the job done, that subpar performance represents an unmet need. Buyers won't settle for underwhelming solutions. #### 5 - User experience No matter how powerful a product is under the hood, if it's actually difficult to use due to confusing UI, poor design flows, or lack of intuitiveness, the overall user experience is an unmet need. Seamless, intuitive experiences are table stakes nowadays. #### 6 - Convenience If customers wanted to jump through hoops, they’d have joined the circus. Above all, they want things to be easy and convenient. By offering straightforward, practical solutions, you can make their lives a lot easier and win their eternal gratitude. --- [A Practitioner’s Complete Guide to Competitive IntelligenceCompetitive intelligence is your tool for knowing your competitors’ strategies, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses. Armed with this information, you can fine-tune your product strategy and marketing initiatives to win. In other words, competitive intelligence is your ticket to the top.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2022/12/CIA_Meta_-intelligence.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) --- ## Service needs #### 1 - Touchpoints Customers today expect to be able to reach out on their preferred channels and get through to a human. Having to constantly navigate phone trees and pre-recorded messages is a sure way to create an unmet need. You can address this need by providing multiple easy touchpoints – phone, chat, email, social media, and more. #### 2 - Empathy When customers contact support, it's because they have an issue that needs resolving. A lack of empathy and understanding from support reps who seem indifferent or impatient is a major unmet need. Customers expect helpful and caring service. If your competitors aren’t providing that, you’ve got a golden opportunity to differentiate. #### 3 - Fairness Nobody likes being ripped off. Ever. Misleading pricing, confusing contracts, sneaky fees – anything that makes customers feel nickeled-and-dimed or taken advantage of qualifies as an unmet need around fairness. Transparency in all policies and transactions is essential to fostering trust – and can be a great way to stand out from the crowd. #### 4 - Clarity Customers hate being left in the dark, whether it's about an upcoming price change, policy update, or any other key info. A lack of proactive, crystal-clear communication inevitably leads to an unmet need. You can meet this need through newsletters, in-app notifications, or more hands-on interventions from customer success teams. #### 5 - Control Modern customers want to feel empowered. Restrictive policies that limit flexibility – like the inability to easily return items or make changes to their subscription – breed an unmet need for more autonomy and control. If your rivals are rigid, you can differentiate by providing customers with more flexibility. #### 6 - Information When customers don’t have the info they need to make fully informed purchase decisions or get maximum value from a product, that’s an unmet need around education and enablement. Savvy brands can meet this need by providing robust content like guides, videos, and support docs to empower customers. --- [A 6-Step Guide to Customer Research (And Profiting From It)Customer research aims to learn more about the needs and behaviors of customers and to use that information to create products, features, and messaging that resonate with them. In other words, customer research helps you sell your products by tailoring your approach to the needs of your customers.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceLawrence Chapman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/03/madison-oren-uGP_6CAD-14-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/) --- ## How to use unmet needs to build a winning competitive strategy With the right strategy, you can turn customers’ unmet needs into a competitive advantage for your company. Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started. ### Step one: Uncover market opportunities Comprehensively mapping unmet needs across your market lets you identify opportunities competitors are missing. Maybe your rivals are failing to address customer needs that your company is already handling – awesome! Pass that intel on to your product marketing colleagues so they can work it into your positioning. Or perhaps there are unmet needs that no company, including yours, adequately solves yet – those white spaces represent potential openings to disrupt. ### Step two: Identify your own gaps Be brutally honest in assessing weaknesses in your product and service portfolio. Are there areas where you're not hitting the mark? Understanding the needs you’re not meeting allows you to get ahead of issues before competitors outflank you. ### Step three: Refine your product roadmap Your product roadmap should be a direct reflection of the unmet customer needs you aim to address. So, [work with your product management leaders](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-product-teams/) to analyze your research on unmet needs and ensure your roadmap prioritizes solving the most critical frustrations, desires and pain points customers face. Proactively shoring up those weak points is key to getting ahead. ### Step four: Optimize customer experiences As we’ve seen, unmet needs don’t only pop up in products and features – you can find them all around the customer experience too, in areas like support, education, transparency, and more. Are customer support tickets taking too long to resolve? Make sure your head of customer success is in the know. Don't overlook service-oriented gaps. They open up a prime opportunity for you to team up with customer success leaders and rethink your processes, enablement, and overall engagement model through the lens of unmet needs. --- ## Onwards, to competitive differentiation! Putting unmet needs at the core of your [competitive strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-strategy-for-business-lifecycle/) is a powerful way to get ahead. When you're maniacally focused on identifying and filling those gaps, positioning your company as the audience-centric disruptor happens almost automatically. Your products will be purposefully solving the problems customers truly care about, and your customer success engine will be firing on all cylinders to deliver experiences competitors can't match. That's when you've got a complete, unmet needs-driven strategy for blowing away the competition and delighting your audience. So, absorb those unmet needs insights like a sponge, collaborate across teams, and start building winning product portfolios and world-class customer experiences. That's how you'll cement your position as the company that just “gets it” when it comes to what modern customers truly want and need. --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### What competitive intelligence tasks is AI good for? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-competitive-intelligence-tasks/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T08:44:57.000Z *This article is adapted from the AI in CI Playbook. Grab your complementary copy* [***here***](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-ci-playbook/)*.* So, what work can AI actually do for us, and with us, to make us more efficient and effective in our [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) work? First, we’ll walk through some of the competitive intelligence tasks accessible AI tools can meaningfully help you with. In Part 5 and beyond, we’ll walk you through your options for improving outputs to make them even more useful. ## What can AI do in competitive intelligence work? Here are some examples of common competitive intelligence-related tasks generative AI can help you perform. - Automation. - Data processing, summarization, querying, and analysis. - Data visualization and reporting. - Market trend analysis. - Competitor monitoring. - Sentiment analysis. - Product and pricing analysis. Let’s dig into each one of these in some more detail. We’ll offer sample prompts for each use case, though we’ll come to discuss optimizing output in later sections. ### 1) Automation Some AI tools integrate with [the apps you use every day](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-intelligence-tools-tech-stack/). It’s worth squirreling out an exhaustive list of these integrations, because they could save you a ton of time. But there’s more. Gone are the days when you’d have to learn Python, Lua, or some other scripting language to automate time-consuming tasks. ChatGPT can write code. What’s more, it’s *really good* at it. **Sample prompt:** 🤖 **“Write me a python script that scrapes our website at and reads all the news articles from the previous month, then emails a bullet point summary of each of these posts to . Write an accompanying crontab entry, with instructions, that schedules this python script to run at midnight on the first of every month.”* Because developers are such sticklers for writing detailed documentation, all the big programming languages have extensive written instructions on how to use them, just sitting there on the internet. While you could go and peruse them yourself, your favorite LLM was *trained* on that information. It *knows* it. And, since there are usually accepted methods for solving coding problems, and these are also extensively documented online, your favorite LLM *knows those too*. So you can ask it for help with tasks like this: **Sample prompt:** 🤖 **“Adopt the role of a software developer specializing in automation with 20 years of experience. I am a competitive intelligence analyst specializing in producing reports summarizing monthly developments in our market and offering points of view on what those mean for our business strategically.* **I spend a lot of time writing in Google Docs. Give me 5 ideas for Google Apps Scripts that would improve my workflow and make me more efficient in my everyday work. Before responding, ask me 5 questions to improve your understanding of my requirements and therefore your final response.* **<...>* **“Now write scripts to achieve all the use cases you’ve outlined above.”* ### 2) Data processing, summarization, Q&A, and analysis An AI can ingest large amounts of data, of all kinds, extremely quickly. When you’re pushed for time, and you have a new PDF report on a new competitor product or feature to sift through, upload it to your AI tool of choice. Ask the AI to summarize the data for a quick overview, or get even more targeted by asking it specific questions about the document. 📝 **Note: Response accuracy tends to decrease as the context window (length of input) increases. However, GPT-4 made huge progress versus GPT-3.5 with mitigating these performance dips with longer context windows, and we can expect future models to improve further. So, while output won’t always be perfect, it’s more than usable for now, and output will only improve as time goes on.* > **“It mostly comes down to text analysis. So we're doing it on news, and PDF analysis. Every day, there are dozens of news articles that come out. A lot of those are noise, but some are really important. There are tools now that can condense those articles down to the key takeaways. And you can get a sense really quickly of whether an article is worth digging into more deeply or not.** > **“If I'm looking at a 50-page PDF, I can get information out of the PDF that I don't have to dig for. And we use another tool that analyzes reviews from customer review websites like G2, TrustRadius, Gartner, Peer Insights, and is able to piece together trends based on the keywords using AI. So those are the use cases, and they're all things that are major time savers for us.” - Ben Hoffman, Senior Competitive Intelligence Manager, Adobe** ***Sample prompt:*** 🤖 “Assume the role of an industry analyst specializing in competitive trends. I am a product marketing manager who owns competitive intelligence at a small startup, tasked with putting together a presentation on our competitive landscape for the upcoming company meeting. Using , generate a report summarizing the latest trends in for the last quarter, highlighting major innovations, consumer behaviors, and emerging competitors. Pay particular attention to our main competitors .” ### 3) Data visualization and reporting GPTs aren’t limited just to text data. ChatGPT’s Data Analyst is a Custom GPT that specializes in data handling. Though they share the same training data, thanks to detailed (pre-configured) custom instructions, the Data Analyst’s outputs will often be better (for data-based inputs) than those of vanilla GPT-4. 📝 **Note: Depending on how your business chooses to handle data privacy, either deselect the Chat history & training option in your Data controls settings, or run your LLM on a private server, before uploading any proprietary data for the AI to analyze, like your sales data, for example.* Ask the AI to identify correlations and patterns in the data for you, or to summarize general findings. You’re only really limited here by your ability to ask the right questions, so think about what you’d like to learn from the dataset if you were analyzing it yourself, and ask the AI about *that*. Another excellent use case here is to ask the AI to *visualize* the data for you. Most often, it’ll lean on its knowledge of the Python libraries Pandas and Matplotlib to plot your data. You can even ask it to combine various datasets, aggregate data from particular columns, and plot *their* outputs. **Sample prompt:** 🤖 “From , plot media sales cycle duration for each rep against their enablement content access frequency.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/05/padnas.png) **An AI will often use its knowledge of libraries like Pandas and Matplotlib to work with and plot numeric data.* ### 4) Market and competitor monitoring If you’re able to provide real-time, ongoing access to various data sources, like news articles, financial reports, social media, and industry publications, an AI will be able to parse this data and scrutinize it for emerging trends. The same holds true for markets as it does for information from and about your competitors. AI tools can scan and analyze your competitors’ presence online across social media channels, websites, and customer feedback platforms like G2, to name a few examples. It can alert you when there’s a new development, a shift in sentiment, or a new product launch, and provide automated summaries. Given AI’s chatbot capabilities, you can even engage it in a Q&A and ask it pointed questions about its findings. **Sample prompt:** 🤖 “Assume the role of an expert in enterprise marketing and competitive intelligence. I’m a CI analyst working in healthcare, interested in learning more about a specific competitor. Perform a competitive analysis of , whose website is located at . Include, as part of your competitive analysis, a SWOT analysis of this organization versus their top 5 competitors, only for , and none of their other services. Don’t include large companies with more than <$x million> in gross annual revenue in your choice of competitors.” > **“AI can help with market research, collecting the information, providing value, summarization, classification, and really sorting the information for you to use. For positioning and messaging, the system can help you identify those key differences around which you may create positions or messages. And then, for internal communications, AI can save you hours when it comes to creating a particular deliverable. “ - Ed Allison, Founder, CompeteIQ** ### 5) Sentiment Analysis We don’t need to tell you competitive intelligence is as much about your customers and your target audience as it is about your competitors. Thanks to its natural language processing (NLP) capabilities, GPTs are particularly useful for [evaluating customer opinions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/) and evaluating their general sentiment towards you or your competitors from various sources. Combine findings from sentiment analysis on particular competitors with well-established (well documented online means well understood by the LLM) frameworks like [SWOT analysis to identify weaknesses, opportunities, and threats](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/) posed by how your target audience is feeling about those competitors. **Sample prompt:** 🤖 “I am a competitive intelligence professional looking to better understand how our products compare with those of our competitors. Judge the strength of customer sentiment towards based on all the text data available from . Make each individual mention a separate data point, and assign a numeric value to its sentiment on a scale from negative 5 to positive 5\. Use Python libraries to plot these values to visualize overall customer sentiment towards our product.” > **“A transcript from a win/loss interview might be 24 pages. If I want to know what the customer said about the competitor’s scalability, the AI would be able to pull out a sampling of different mentions of that. That's a great use case, and a major time saver. And once you have the prompt for that, you can reuse it to save even more time.” - Ben Hoffman, Senior Competitive Intelligence Manager, Adobe** ### 6) Product and Pricing Analysis Like any competitor strategy, a [pricing strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/prestige-pricing/) is best understood framed through the context of various sources. Pricing data, promotional materials, even an increase in the frequency of promotional posts on social media, are all data points that are difficult to track or make sense of manually, that an AI can make short work of. Your GPT of choice can aggregate such data, and analyze it for insights, much more quickly, efficiently, and cost effectively than any human could. In short, AI can automate repetitive tasks, process and analyze data faster than you’d ever be able to, and run advanced analytical and statistical analyses on this data. Already, but especially when fine-tuned by a professional, AI can even offer strategic insights and recommendations that will only improve with time, and as more advanced LLMs become available. --- ## Your copy of the AI in CI Playbook If you found these sample prompts and insights useful, you *have* to check the AI in CI Playbook. Bursting with no-nonsense info to bring you up to speed with AI for CI in no-time, the AI in CI Playbook sidesteps hype and speculation to bring you the most practical guide on using AI for your competitive intelligence work possible. Stop feeling frustrated with AI. Start prompting like a pro and discover how to use context the *right way* so you can finally receive outputs that save you time and maximize your impact. 🦾 Click the banner below to grab your complementary copy. 👇 [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/05/CIA_AI_Playbook_CTA.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-ci-playbook/) --- ### How to gather competitive intelligence from internal teams (5 ways) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/gather-competitive-intelligence-internal-teams/ Last updated: 2024-07-22T15:20:25.000Z We get it. Much of the time, you’ll want to get your competitive intel straight from the horse’s mouth. 🐴 But confining yourself to working only with external sources of competitive intelligence paints you into a corner. Fast. We all know competitive intelligence teams are small, and budgets are limited. If you want to be effective, you *must* work efficiently. Thankfully, you’ve got dozens of reps dotted around the business, beavering away doing [competitive intelligence work](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) *without even knowing it*. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/05/beavering.gif) Those folks beavering away? **Use 'em.* Leverage this existing, willing workforce, and you’ll kickstart the success of your competitive program faster than you could believe. Here’s our guide on how to gather competitive intelligence from internal teams and stakeholders. 👇 ## Orient with the company’s goals and objectives first Making sure you’re on board with your company’s goals and objectives is always your starting point. Already know your business’ objectives? Great, you can move on. But if you can’t articulate those goals right now, you’ll need to seek them out and make sure you’re crystal clear on what they are. Why is this important? Your company goals will serve as your frame of reference when collecting intel from your internal teams, and will help you to ask the right questions, and to pick out the important stuff. ## Internal sources of competitive intelligence We’ll walk you through collecting competitive intel from internal teams and stakeholder groups in terms of the *actions* themselves, rather than listing through ways to extract information from each team one-by-one. Not only can you use some of the following methods to gather data from more than one team, but you can just look down the list of actions, check off those you’re already doing, and pick up those you’re not. ### Be sure you’re collecting data from these teams First, here’s a quick list of the teams you’ll want to make sure you’re collecting from: - Sales teams. - Product teams. - Leadership. - Customer success teams. - Marketing teams. **Why these teams?** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/05/graph1.png) For the [**2023 Competitive Intelligence Trends Report**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-report/), we asked respondents which teams provide them with competitive intel most regularly. Sales came in top, supplying **83.33%** of respondents with intel. Product and leadership came in second and third, providing **48.48%** and **43.94%** of our survey takers with intel and information. Depending on the goals and objectives of your business (we told you they were important!) there might be others, too, but these teams make up the core most will want to prioritize. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/05/toldYa.gif) **We told you they were important!* ### Most popular internal gathering methods The best competitive intelligence pros are proactive. They don’t wait for other teams to give them intel, they provide those teams with processes and places to log and share that intel when they come across it. For the CI Trends report, we also asked survey takers how they collect competitive intelligence from other departments. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/05/graph2.png) Email correspondence leads the way, with **60.61%** of respondents using this method. **59.10%** of our survey takers reported using a dedicated Slack channel, or similar solution. Let’s examine some of your options in detail: 1. Competitive Slack channel. 2. Sync meetings. 3. Rep interviews. 4. Competitive workshops. 5. Internal software and tools. ### 1) Competitive Slack channel First up is the competitive Slack channel. (Or Microsoft Teams, or any similar software solution.) Basically, wherever you do your messaging, make sure there’s a dedicated spot for folks to throw their ad hoc competitive findings. A dedicated competitive feedback channel allows people to deposit those “through the grapevine” discoveries, no matter which team they’re in. If one of the development team picks up the phone on a busy day and hears something they want to feed back, for example, they can do so. One of the key benefits of a dedicated channel is it encourages the coveted “culture of compete,” where everyone in the business considers themselves, in-part, responsible for competitive success. This is essential if your small CI functions is to thrive. The findings you get won’t be well organized, but you can use your software’s search function to filter on: - Particular keywords, - The person who posted the message, - A particular date range. Smart use of these search filters will help you locate key information after the fact, and organize related findings for subsequent write-ups. ### 2) Sync meetings Sync meetings are meetings you’ll own and hold with some frequency. Just how frequently is up to you, but you should check in with all your stakeholder groups from time-to-time. Remember, that includes your: - Product, - Sales, - Customer success, - And leadership teams. You might need to hold sync meetings with some groups, like leadership, less often out of necessity. Leaders are busy, after all. The purpose of the sync meeting? To sit down with a number of representatives from each stakeholder group at once, and to get a high-level overview of what they’ve been seeing. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/05/sync-up.gif) **3... 2... 1... Synchronize* These meetings are most useful if reps spend some time beforehand thinking through what they’ve heard, and what they’ve found, over the last month, or the last quarter. So send out some pre-reading material, or some questions for reps to consider, before the meeting to ensure everyone comes prepared. Again, sync meetings are most useful when you’re looking to get a sense of shared perspective from an entire stakeholder group. This should help inform you of mid- to long-term industry trends that are developing right now. When you want to drill down deeper, you should hold rep interviews instead. ### 3) Rep interviews Rep interviews are (most often) one-on-one meetings. These allow you to get more granular, and to: - Question individual reps about things you’ve heard from them. - Corroborate things you’ve heard from others in the business. - Develop a deeper understanding of an emerging competitive development. Here, too, you’ll find it useful to conduct rep interviews with individuals from all your usual stakeholder groups. But you don’t have to. It’d be impractical to interview every rep from every team, so you naturally have to be more selective about whom you speak to. That’s why it pays to have these one-on-one catch-ups with reps *reactively.* This in contrast to sync meetings, which it’s best you *proactively* book into your calendar, and hold at regular intervals. Here are some things that might trigger a rep interview: - Seeing something interesting in someone’s sales notes, or noted down in the CRM. - Seeing something reported in the competitive Slack channel. - Hearing something over call recording, or reported via conversation intelligence software. - Overhearing something in the office. You shouldn’t really need to think about this. Something caught your eye? Something pricked your ears up? Go check it out. That’s the guiding principle of the rep interview as a source of internal competitive intelligence. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/CIA_CI-by-industry-playbook_Blog_.png) #### CI-by-Industry eBook ****Download your copy** to learn... - 😰 Why field intelligence can be dangerous, and how to use it the right way. 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([Page 66](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ### 4) Competitive workshops Most often, a competitive workshop is a time for you to share *your* findings with *others*. However, like all good means of communication, a competitive workshop will spur a dialogue between you and its participants. This can be especially useful for uncovering information reps consider common knowledge, or underestimate the importance of. Role playing a competitive scenario with your sales reps is the perfect way to shine a light on this kind of information. Chances are, at least once per workshop, you’ll hear something that blows your mind. ### 5) Internal software and tools Your internal software and tools should collect competitive information as a matter of course. Either by virtue of a process, like sales reps noting down findings in the CRM, or automatically, like conversational intelligence software automatically recording calls and pulling out findings for you. Make a habit of periodically checking your internal software and tools for new competitive intelligence. ## Challenges when gathering CI from internal teams Some sales reps, and perhaps even some customer success reps, will go rogue. This might sound strange, but think about their incentives, and you’ll understand why. ### The problem 😡 Your sales reps are benchmarked against their peers. As a result, they want to outperform the people sitting next to them. This means they’re all seeking their own competitive edge over one another. Seeking out new competitive intelligence, and developing bespoke enablement materials for themselves, is a core part of this. This information, and the way it’s delivered, can be invaluable for you and the rest of the business if you can uncover it. But uncovering it isn’t always easy. Think about this from the rep’s perspective. If Jack from sales stays late three nights a week, poring over notes from calls, and collating all the information that might improve his performance, why should anyone else benefit from his hard work? That’s his performance bonus on the line. So what do you do about this? ### The solution 😇 Pull Jack aside and explain it to him like this: You’ll make sure he gets all the credit. He did the work, and he developed this material, so that’s only fair. You’ll take personal responsibility for rolling out Jack’s findings and assets to the rest of the team, so there won’t be any additional work for him. At the same time, you’ll make sure Jack is the face of this roll out, and you’ll track adoption of his content. This way, you’ll be able to tie increases in revenue back to his hard work. Jack *should* now get *more* recognition and reward for having impacted company revenue on a scale far greater than he’d have been able to do alone. This should be persuasive enough to open up even the cagiest and most competitive of reps, no matter who they are, or what team they work in. --- [Competitive Intelligence Trends 2023 (Free Industry Report)4 years. 24 examined topics. Commentary from 5 experts. Zero cost. Discover emergent trends in the CI function and stay ahead of the curve.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2023/11/CIA_CI_Trends_Report_2023_Meta_--1-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-report/) --- ## External sources of competitive intelligence Of course, internal sources of competitive intelligence aren’t your only option. You can, and should, work hard to uncover information directly from the source yourself. However, successfully establishing a culture of compete lets you cast a much wider net for intel than you’d ever be able to do alone. You essentially crowdsource the efforts of others, and leverage the work many are already doing, to massively boost the effectiveness of your competitive program. Some [**external sources of competitive intelligence**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/) you should consider include: - [Social media mentions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/). - [Customer feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/). - [Win/loss interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/). - [Competitor websites](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/). - Press releases. - Public newsletters and news articles (industry-wide or competitor generated). - Competitor help and support documentation. - Broader [market intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-vs-market-intelligence/). For more information on gathering competitive intelligence, check out our [**practitioner’s complete guide to competitive intelligence**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/). ## How to use the intelligence you’ve gathered Once you’ve gathered all that information, what do you do with it? 🤔 The **first** thing to do is to consolidate all the information. You’ll want to tie-in all the findings you’ve gathered via external sources of competitive intelligence, too. **Second,** you’ll want to analyze this information. How you do this is up to you. You can apply formal analysis frameworks, like [SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/) and [PESTLE analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-pestle-analysis/). If you prefer, you can ponder your way through it, and use your experience and expert intuition to guide you in tying threads together between various pieces of intel. The purpose at this stage is to come to conclusions about how what you’ve learned should inform your business’ strategy, along with any other deliverables you’re responsible for. If you’re responsible for [enabling your sales team](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/), for example, then you should be looking to pick out findings that could help your sales reps to win more deals. You might learn something that impacts how you feel reps should [position your product against a particular competitor](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/). If you’re responsible for improving product messaging, you’ll want to sift through customer feedback for telltale signs of (perceived) unmet needs your product or service can already fill. Here’s a list of ways in which your competitive intelligence research can benefit your business: - Informs the business’ decision-making processes. - Offers deeper understanding of the [competitive landscape](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/), and your place within it. - Helps you understand, and be able to handle, the threats and opportunities presented by the state of your competitors’ products and services. - Helps you establish a [sustained competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). - Informs your marketing strategies. - Creates better understanding of customer pain points. --- ## Learn how the pros do it Looking for more guidance on how to run a successful, impactful competitive intelligence program? We spoke to veterans from **five different industries**. No matter how unique the challenges you're facing are, you're bound to find applicable wisdom in the CI-by-Industry eBook. Learn more below, then grab your complementary copy. 👇 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/CIA_CI-by-industry-playbook_Blog_.png) #### CI-by-Industry eBook ****Download your copy** to learn... - 😰 Why field intelligence can be dangerous, and how to use it the right way. ([Page 24](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🙅‍♂️ Why you should think twice before having reps from [****this team**](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) on a win/loss call. ([Page 24](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🤖 The truth about automation, and how much time tools can really save you. ([Page 22](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🤯 The [****surprising key skill**](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) every one of our industry experts said was crucial for CI success. ([Page 66](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ### AI in CI Playbook URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-in-ci-playbook-2024-blog/ Last updated: 2025-02-14T11:06:57.000Z A playbook on using artificial intelligence to scale and improve competitive intelligence work. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2024/04/CIA_AI_Playbook_Mockup_02.png) Save time with AI. **Finally. A practical primer on AI you can understand.** Stop feeling frustrated with AI. Start using the world's newest breakthrough technology to **save you time**, **maximize your impact**, and make your daily competitive intelligence work **more enjoyable.** [ Download the playbook ](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1i1RcqzKwQ0m2qhbXmLxM9A2b1vun) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2024/04/CIA_AI_Playbook_Website_Assets_1.png) AI in CI Playbook 2024 😤 Are you **frustrated** with AI tools? 😩 Are you wondering **what all the fuss is about** with GPTs and LLMs? 😡 Have you **tried using AI,** but been left feeling confused and overwhelmed? **We’ve got the answers.** We're proud to present the AI in CI Playbook. A digital doc with all the answers you need to: - Finally understand how modern AI tools are built, so you can start using them properly. - Optimize prompts the right way to access the right knowledge sets and start getting relevant, useful answers. - Understand which CI tasks AI is best suited for, so you can save time and maximize your impact. [ Give me my copy ](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1i1RcqzKwQ0m2qhbXmLxM9A2b1vun) --- ## One eBook. 56 pages. Dozens of practical takeaways. Here's a sample of what you'll discover when you grab your copy: 🪡 Why fine-tuning isn’t the answer to your problems (and what is!) 📖 How GPTs really “learn,” and how to give any AI the information it needs to generate a great response, no matter which AI tool you use. 📈 6 ways of improving any GPT’s performance, and the two that are the best options for most CI pros. 🐳 What the “Depth Problem” is, and how to solve it. 🧩 5 other limitations of modern-day AI tools, and how these inform the best ways to use these tools for work. 🤫 The one sneaky prompting hack that can instantly lift the quality of an AI’s answers. 🤖 Why AI deserves a place in your competitive intelligence workflow (and how to fit it in.) 😮‍💨 6 types of CI tasks AI can help you with today to save you time and effort, without sacrificing quality. 🪛 5 special prompting techniques that’ll help you maximize the quality of any generative AI agent’s responses. [ Download your free copy ](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1i1RcqzKwQ0m2qhbXmLxM9A2b1vun) --- ## Grab your no-cost copy 👇 ### "I wanted to learn best practices from experts who have been there and had success." - Janani Rangarajan URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/janani-rangarajan-community-case-study/ Last updated: 2024-05-01T10:45:49.000Z Janani Rangarajan, Product Marketing Manager at Uniphore, sat down with us recently to discuss her experience as an active member of Competitive Intelligence Alliance's [Slack community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/). > “Being a member of Competitive Intelligence Alliance has given me a platform to learn, discuss with other professionals, and exchange ideas while getting answers.” We spoke to Janani to get to the bottom of: - What Janani most enjoys about being a part of Competitive Intelligence Alliance. - Her motivations for joining the community. - How being a member has helped her in her career. ## **What were your motivations for joining the community** “I wanted to learn from the community how they approach competitive intelligence. I also wanted to learn best practices from experts who have been there and had success. “I was also keen to participate in events and webinars to stay abreast of what's happening in the world of CI, and engage with peers who are undergoing similar CI and career challenges. In short, to network!” ## **How has being a member of the CIA community helped you in your career aspirations or goals?** “Being a member of Competitive Intelligence Alliance has given me a platform to learn, discuss with other professionals, and exchange ideas while getting answers to questions I have. “From a career perspective, CIA has also helped me deepen my competitive intelligence skills. Being a member has opened up to me a community of CI professionals and improved my understanding of certain CI frameworks. “Also, as a PMM working on CI, I get to interact with other PMMs doing CI and exchange notes as we build and evolve the CI programs in our respective organizations. It has also been very interesting to see how different organizations use and leverage competitive intelligence.” ## **What have you found most valuable about engaging with the community?** “For me, it has been the quality of interactions and the wealth of knowledge stored in the community. The community, and how everyone within it is eager to discuss or help, has been the most valuable part of being here. “We have a mix of pure CI professionals and others, like me, who are PMMs straddling the intersection of CI and PMM – so our approaches to solving CI challenges are different. Exchanging notes helps me to broaden my horizon.” --- [![](https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/pBxwi9WQ6ec3lBtojoauzsoSCfQTZjpLNoNvDz_Y-VE8wvnQOv4I0ogYXWhkmFYxdkjhMKAg5-eAz_Uug6EoLt9gv70yc8wyNyANLHQgJPiv5ZMi8wFnZcXuxjy_XTYWVOZwdimpQ4-blXbCvnAv34o)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ## Join the free community Join Janani and almost 2,000 other competitive intelligence professionals in the Competitive Intelligence Alliance [Slack community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/). You’ll gain instant access to a community full of networking opportunities, chances to ask questions, a world-class collaborative environment, and access to some of CI's best and brightest minds. Just click below to get started. 👇 [Join the community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ### AI at work: Revolutionizing competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ai-at-work/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T08:45:56.000Z *This article is based on Ben Hoffman’s brilliant interview on the Compete Clarity podcast. Check out the full episode* [*here* ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/role-of-ai-in-competitive-intelligence-ben-hoffman/)*.* No matter what you do for a living, you need to start thinking about generative AI and how it will impact your career. In the field of [competitive intelligence (CI) ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/)specifically, AI has the potential to be tremendously helpful in our day-to-day work. Constantly tracking competitors, and consuming vast amounts of information, is a massive part of CI. Anything that can make digesting and understanding all that data faster naturally benefits us as CI professionals. That's why I'm really excited about the potential for generative AI to play a major role in the CI profession going forward. It could significantly ease our workload. I know a lot of people are concerned about AI replacing human CI roles. Personally, though, I don't think our field is directly in the line of fire – at least not anytime soon. I see far more potential benefits than threats, particularly in the short term. I'm truly excited to see where AI technology goes over the next couple of years. So, let’s explore how you can leverage AI to make an even greater impact in your competitive intelligence role. ## Use cases for AI in competitive intelligence AI has been advancing rapidly over the past few years, and I believe it's now at a point where it can significantly impact our CI work, particularly by saving us time and automating routine processes. Let’s explore a few use cases. ### Summarizing news articles on competitors I lead CI for Adobe Experience Cloud. We have hundreds of competitors, and the constant influx of news about them can be overwhelming. Every day, my team and I encounter dozens of news articles. While some of these might just be fluff, others contain crucial updates. That’s where AI tools come in. They help us quickly sift through this sea of information by condensing articles down to the key takeaways. This lets us decide whether an article is worth digging into more deeply, or if we can skip to the next one. It’s a huge time saver. However, while AI helps with the initial screening, the deeper, strategic analysis still requires a human touch. For instance, if an article announces a new product or hints at a new service, AI won't fully decode what that means for the competitive landscape or strategize accordingly. That's where you and I step in. We need to piece together these insights and decide on our strategic response. While AI's role in competitive intelligence might currently be limited to initial steps like gathering and summarizing information, I see its potential growing. I envision a future where AI can handle more of the process – maybe even the first few steps of analysis – allowing us to focus on the more complex, strategic aspects of our roles. ### PDF analysis Right now, in my own work, AI is most useful in text analysis. That doesn’t just mean news articles, either. Apply AI to your PDFs, too. Whenever I’m faced with a 50-page PDF, AI helps me extract vital information without having to comb through each page. That’s another major time-saver. You can even pinpoint specific information within extensive documents. For example, if I need to understand what a report says about a particular topic – like a competitor’s scalability – the AI can search through the document and extract relevant passages. That’s great if I want to analyze a win/loss report, for example. ### Analyzing customer reviews At Adobe, we use a competitive intelligence tool that can analyze customer reviews from platforms like G2 Crowd, TrustRadius, and Gartner Peer Insights. Using AI this way, we can identify trends and insights based on keyword analysis, which helps us understand broader market sentiments and customer preferences. --- [How To Perform a Competitor Website Analysis in 10 StepsWe show you how to examine competitors’ websites and their materials, giving you valuable insights that help your org beat the competition.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/markus-spiske-Skf7HxARcoc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/) --- ## Choosing the right AI tools for effective competitive analysis Amongst the AI tools already mentioned, we also use Feedly; which has become our primary news-tracking tool. It’s great for aggregating news and condensing it to key takeaways. Its team is also continuously integrating new AI features into the platform. Regarding other AI tools, while ChatGPT is interesting, we don't use it extensively at work. We don't have the paid version, so I have a hard time trusting the output. However, it’s still pretty great for condensing single articles into just the key takeaways. ## The limitations of AI As helpful as generative AI can be, we have to acknowledge its limitations. As powerful as AI can be, you still need humans in the loop to review and vet the output. When it comes to competitive intelligence, which can inform major strategic decisions for your company – things like sales initiatives, messaging, product development, and more – you need a human to validate the AI's work. The bigger concern down the line is whether we'll have an “AI that edits the AI” – some automated system checking the initial AI-generated output. I don't see that happening anytime soon. For now, it's on us to scrutinize and approve AI-generated content before using it. There are also aspects of competitive intelligence that AI just can't handle yet. It can't have nuanced conversations and gather insights from stakeholders across your company and beyond like a human can. I don't think companies actually want a world where bots just talk to bots. The goal should be to leverage AI as one piece of the analytical puzzle, not the entire puzzle itself. Even with these caveats, I think there's a massive opportunity for AI and humans to work together to make competitive intelligence more powerful than ever. I don't see AI taking the place of humans, but I do see it taking over the more mundane day-to-day tasks, freeing us up to focus on the work that matters most. ## The dangers of using AI for competitive intelligence When using AI-powered tools, it's crucial to be cautious about the security of proprietary data. Personally, I would never put sensitive company information into a free AI tool that hasn't been thoroughly vetted to ensure it operates within a secure, enclosed environment. This is especially true for tools like the non-paid versions of ChatGPT, which I wouldn’t trust with personal or company-specific data. When you're subscribing to a service, you can generally expect better security measures to be in place, making them more suitable for handling generic data. However, it’s still essential to conduct thorough due diligence. If possible, you should get a security expert within your organization to review these tools and how you’re using them. That internal confirmation that the tool is secure before you begin feeding it sensitive data is crucial, in my opinion. In terms of specific tools, services like ChatGPT Enterprise or Gemini Advanced claim to offer a more secure, organization-specific environment. Despite these assurances, I’d still advise caution with any AI tool, especially free versions, which might integrate your data into the large language model, exposing it to external entities. ## The future of AI oversight in organizations Much like how the emergence of social media led to the creation of social media manager positions, I can envision a future where companies start establishing AI-specific departments, complete with dedicated security protocols. Watch this space – roles like Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer (CAIO) could soon become commonplace! At big tech companies, this shift might already be underway. Of course, not all companies are moving at the same pace. While some are at the forefront, others might lag behind, possibly unaware of potential security risks associated with AI. This disparity could lead to issues like data breaches, or data losses. It’s vital to be aware of these security risks and get ahead of them, so creating roles focused on ensuring AI tools are used in the right way could be a smart move. --- [How to Do an SEO Competitive Analysis (7-step Guide)SEO competitive analysis reveals the gaps in your SEO strategy so you can adjust and overtake the leaders in your space – and in this article, we’re going to show you how to do it.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/03/souvik-banerjee-OMhubJCrtu0-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) --- ## How AI might shape the future of CI AI’s use cases today revolve around day-to-day tasks like sifting through articles or crunching datasets. What I’d like to see next is AI surfacing strategic recommendations based on the data you give it. Imagine AI systems that could analyze five years of your sales data and not only report back findings but also suggest potential actions, like identifying co-selling opportunities between products. Or, AI could analyze a series of articles about a competitor and deduce market movements or alignments with other industry players, recommending possible strategic moves. Although I don’t think we're there yet, the trajectory AI is on suggests it won't be long before it can propose actions based on patterns observed in market data, like predicting potential acquisitions based on recent market activities. Some people won’t be keen on that idea, viewing strategy as something only humans should handle. But I think AI could play an invaluable role here. If it were to happen, we’d all have another informed voice at the decision-making table. Taking it a step further, it might not be long before AI starts making predictions. It might tell you that, based on the last 10 acquisitions in the market, Company A could acquire Company B. Whether that turns out to be true or not, it could be worth considering. Right now, there isn’t a lot of AI-driven analysis going on. However, given the rate at which AI is developing, I wouldn’t be surprised to see such a tool before the end of the year. ## The threat of AI-powered communication The intersection of AI with strategic business processes is an area I'm particularly excited about, despite some reservations in the wider business community. However, the potential for AI to take over aspects of communication in the workplace is both intriguing and alarming. I recently came across an ad for a company called Air AI, which is like a next-level customer service bot with baked-in sentiment analysis. The technology is so sophisticated that it feels like you're talking to a real person. It’s honestly kind of scary. This capability raises questions about the future of communication roles. Imagine a scenario where an AI, equipped with my speech patterns and lingo, manages all my communications with industry analysts, vendors, and even internal teams. On one hand, this “Ben bot” could allow me to outsource routine tasks like interviews with the sales team about their recent experiences against a competitor. On the other hand, we have to ask ourselves whether this development poses a threat to jobs that primarily involve human interaction, like customer service roles. If AI can handle these communications, what does that mean for the future of these jobs? The prospect of AI replacing human roles isn't just limited to customer service. Other fields like accounting and journalism could also face significant changes as AI becomes capable of performing tasks traditionally handled by humans. We have to think carefully about how we deploy AI, ensuring that it complements human labor – rather than replacing or devaluing it entirely. --- ## Key takeaways It’s clear that AI is shaking things up in competitive intelligence, making our jobs easier while also raising questions around ethics and security. Here’s a quick rundown of the big points we’ve covered: 🔍 **AI's current role:** AI significantly reduces the time we need to spend on routine tasks like summarizing articles and analyzing data, allowing CI professionals to focus more on strategic analysis. 🛡️ **Security concerns:** When using AI tools, especially the free ones, it's crucial to ensure they’re secure and won't compromise proprietary information. 👥 **Future roles in AI:** The rise of AI may lead to new corporate roles, such as a Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer, to oversee AI strategy and security. 🤖 **Ethical implications:** As AI begins to take on more communication and strategic functions, we need to consider the impact on jobs that involve significant human interaction. 🌐 **Strategic AI:** Looking forward, AI's potential to offer strategic recommendations based on extensive data analysis could revolutionize how decisions are made in competitive intelligence. There you have it – AI is transforming competitive intelligence in exciting ways, but it's up to us to harness it wisely. --- ## The AI in CI Playbook Our brand new playbook launches this **May 2nd.** Forget the hype, this playbook is all about arming you with the practical know-how you need to save you time, maximize your efficiency, and help you fall in love with your role again. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/CIA_AI_Playbook_CTA.png) --- ### Direct competition vs indirect: The differences explained (with examples) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/direct-competition-examples/ Last updated: 2024-05-30T12:01:16.000Z ## What is direct competition? Direct competition is the type of competition you experience from your direct competitors, who target the same [customer segments ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/four-types-of-market-segmentation/)as you do, and offer the same kinds of products and services. Two smartphone manufacturers, like Apple and Samsung, both compete for customers in the market for a new smartphone. Notice, though, that the distinction between direct and indirect competitors isn’t always clear-cut. Segment further, and you can split customers into Android and iOS users. Looking specifically at businesses that produce Android phones, and marketing to Android users, Samsung and Google are direct competitors, but Apple is removed from the equation. Now, you’d consider Apple an indirect competitor, since iOS is an alternative mobile operating system to Android, but meets the same customer needs. ## Direct competitors examples Remember, direct competitors sell similar products or services to you, and have the same target audience. You and your direct competition literally go head-to-head for the same slice of the pie. Here are some examples of direct competitors: 1. Netflix and Amazon Prime Video 2. Asana and Monday.com 3. Casetify and Caseable 4. Wayfair and Ikea ### 1) Netflix and Amazon Prime Video Both Netflix and Prime Video are at-home streaming services. They both solve the same customer problem: the need to be entertained at low-cost. They’re both convenient, and great value for money, offering thousands of hours of entertainment for a monthly cost less than your Saturday night takeout. ![Netflix vs Prime Video: the ONE thing!](https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/C5612AQFj6RQpMSVMKg/article-cover_image-shrink_720_1280/0/1650127117870?e=2147483647&v=beta&t=C6tDfGWWGqPXx_Xx1ZyWOHEMgvZelM2oyZ6ljAgCW-Q) **Credit: LinkedIn* ### 2) Asana and Monday.com Just to bring you back to B2B-land (sorry), Asana and Monday.com both sell project management software. Their primary audience isn’t single users. It’s entire businesses. They want dozens or even of hundreds of users signing up when they win an account. They know that’s where the money is, and they’re going up against each other for those same accounts. ### 3) Casetify and Caseable Both Casetify and Caseable sell phone cases. Multiple brands, many models, and even more designs. They sell online, and they compete for the same target audience: those in the market for a phone case with a fun design. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/image.png) **Casetify.com sells fun phone cases for most modern brands and models. But they have their fair share of competition.* ### 4) Wayfair and Ikea The furniture giant has its competitors – Wayfair being one of them. Affordable flat-packed furniture is convenient. And the ability to browse online is a luxury. Both businesses offer these selling points, and both are competing for customers looking to spruce up their home decor at affordable prices. Both use similar distribution channels, too, offering affordable home delivery and discounts for orders over a certain price. --- [Use a Competitive Gap Analysis to Blast Past CompetitorsA competitive gap analysis compares the results you’re actually getting with the results you expected to get, taking into account the overall competitive landscape.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/absolutvision-uCMKx2H1Y38-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/#how-to-perform-a-competitive-gap-analysis) --- ## How to overcome direct competition As we’ll see in the next section, if your products aren’t adequately differentiated, your prospects will struggle to see why they should choose you over any competitor. In fact, while it can be tempting to fixate on all the things you have in common with your direct competitors, and hence everything that makes it so difficult to compete with them, you’ll find that you start to outpace these competitors when you effectively emphasize the *key differences* between your products and theirs. That means refining your [competitive differentiation ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/)and [competitive positioning ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/), to make clear as crystal to your prospects how you’re different, and how you solve their problems better than your competitors can. ## ## What is indirect competition? Indirect competition is the kind of competition you experience from indirect competitors. These are competitors that offer different products and services to you, but targeting the same set of customers. The products and services your indirect competitors offer are sometimes called “substitutes” or “alternatives”. Consider any alternative means your target customers could use to solve their pain points as indirect competition. For customers looking to be entertained, video games are a substitute for books, or for movies. Social media can entertain, too, so you could consider this another substitute for books or movies. ## Indirect competition examples To make this a little clearer, let’s go through some examples of indirect competitors: 1. Blockbuster and Netflix. 2. Smartphones and desktop computers. 3. Motorcycles and bicycles. ### 1) Blockbuster vs. Netflix Netflix and Blockbuster is the classic example of an indirect competitor having a massive impact on an established business. Blockbuster offered a movie rental service at accessible prices to customers. For a while, it was the most convenient option around, and became synonymous with weekend movie nights. Netflix’s streaming service was different. There were no physical stores, customers accessed the service entirely online. When streaming technology took off, and people had access to massive libraries of TV shows and movies without having to leave home, Blockbuster was in trouble. Though the services weren’t the same, both companies solved the same customer need: the need to be entertained, at home and for cheap. ![15 Fast-Forward Facts About Blockbuster Video | Mental Floss](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_1440,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape/cover/sport/75171-davidfriedman-gettyimages-1652097-cd7835d7c011d9862502ac131c752fac.jpg) **Credit: Mental Floss* ### 2) Smartphones vs. desktop computers There was a time when, if you wanted access to the internet, or to word processing software, or messaging services, you needed a desktop computer or laptop. Today, smartphones make all of those things accessible. Many people don’t have a desktop or laptop computer in their home at all, making their smartphone their only computer. Smartphones even make gaming, traditionally only available via game consoles or PCs, available to users. In these ways, smartphones are drawing many potential customers away from traditional computers and game consoles, despite being a different product. But they’re meeting the same customer need: the need to be connected to the internet, to interact with others online, and to access particular online services. ### 3) Indian Motorcycles vs. Ridgeback Bicycles Okay, you might not think a bicycle could compete with a motorcycle for customers, but you’d be wrong. Some people are just on the lookout for something reliable and quick on two wheels that can handle their daily commute. They might not want, or be able to afford a car, but public transport isn’t their answer. Motorized, foot-pedaled, or even electric bikes could feasibly all compete with each other indirectly for particular customer segments. ![SHARK2.0 Fast 30mph|1000W Ebike|Moped Style Ebike|2 seater – Roll Road Ebike](https://roll-road.com/cdn/shop/files/1_fb3b1c64-f000-4456-aef1-3aac410c6e90.png?v=1713318428) **Some modern electric bikes capture a roadster motorcycle aesthetic at a fraction of a cost. Would-be buyers don't even need a license. This makes them strong indirect competition to motorcycle manufacturers. Credit: roll-road.com* --- ## How to overcome indirect competition The truth is, the business strategies for dealing with direct and indirect competition aren’t so different. Even if you’re getting eaten alive by alternatives and substitutes, you need to return your attention to your unique value proposition. What is it that makes your product special? Is it the price point? Is it some unique feature? Is it a special distribution channel? In short, [what’s your competitive advantage ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/)? If you don’t have one, it’s time to build one. Luckily, many businesses have hidden sources of competitive advantage just sitting there, unloved and underutilized. [The VRIO framework ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/)is purpose-built to help you find these underused sources of competitive advantage and refine them until they’re the beating heart of your business’ success. --- ## Grab the competitive positioning playbook... ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/blog_meta.png) #### No product is created in a vacuum The Competitive Positioning Playbook teaches you... 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a ****rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you ****must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom ****tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s ****revenue** ceiling. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ## How to perform a competitive analysis to challenge your direct and indirect competition If you want to overcome competition of any kind, you first need to understand it. Whether you’re interested in convincing your prospective customers that indirect competitors and substitutes can’t offer the perfect solution to their problems (while you can), or you’re racking your brain as to how to beat your direct competition, a competitive analysis is always a great first place to start. Here’s a five-step overview of how to perform one: 1. Get clear on your objectives. 2. Start with the customer. 3. Identify your competitors. 4. Gather data. 5. Analyze the data. ### 1) Get clear on your objectives The first step, as always, is to figure out what you want to achieve. This keeps you focused while you perform your competitor analysis. The last thing you want is to put in hours of work only to realize the direction you’re heading won’t help you in the ways that matter to your business. ### 2) Start with the customer Whether you’re interested in your direct or indirect competition for this analysis, start with the customer. After all, it’s the customer you’re competing for. You want to understand your customers and what they want. Do your own customer and market research to fill in your understanding. From there, you’ll be in a strong position to finish the analysis. ### 3) Identify your competitors When you know what your customers want, you can lift your sights beyond the usual suspects, and begin brainstorming a list of competitors (direct and indirect) that are trying to solve the same customer problems as your own products and services. This doesn’t mean you should ignore key data, like how often customers mention names of other businesses they’re interested in, but it does mean you’ll be able to create a more exhaustive list of possible competitors, before whittling it down to the few you want to focus on. --- [How to Prioritize Your Competitors in Crowded IndustriesHow do you decide which competitors to prioritize in a crowded industry? That’s what Erik Mansur discusses with Matt Tyrer, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Commvault, on this episode of Into the Fray.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2022/11/into_the_fray-3.jpeg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-prioritize-your-competitors/) --- ### 4) Gather data With a shortlist of competitors to hand, it’s time to gather data on them. Not sure how to do this? Grab a copy of [the competitive intelligence playbook ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/head-to-head-playbook/). ### 5) Analyze the data Don’t get caught up here – “analyze” really just means “think about the data.” What have you found? What could it mean? Ask questions of the information in front of you, and tie it back to the goals and objectives of your business as a whole, as well as your objectives for this particular analysis. If your aim is to get clearer on how you can steer prospects away from your two biggest direct competitors and towards you, then you’ll want to get clear on things like: - What are these competitors **doing well?** - What are they **doing poorly?** - How are they **positioning themselves** competitively through their product messaging? - What **strategies** could you use to position your own products as the best solutions to the pain points of your target market? ### What’s next? The analysis might be done, but don’t stop there. Now it’s time to turn those insights into action points, and to start rolling those out across the business. That might mean delivering competition reports to leadership, refining your positioning and messaging with marketing, or creating enablement material for sales. In short, you’ll want to come up with a strategy off the back of your analysis, and then set about [operationalizing your strategic plan](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-operationalize-strategic-plan/). [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### Direct vs. indirect competition: The differences explained (with examples) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/ Last updated: 2025-06-11T14:51:18.000Z ## What is indirect competition? Indirect competition is the kind of competition you experience from indirect competitors. These are competitors that offer different products and services to you, but targeting the same set of customers. The products and services your indirect competitors offer are sometimes called “substitutes” or “alternatives”. Consider any alternative means your target customers could use to solve their pain points as indirect competition. For customers looking to be entertained, video games are a substitute for books, or for movies. Social media can entertain, too, so you could consider this another substitute for books or movies. ## Indirect competition examples To make this a little clearer, let’s go through some examples of indirect competitors: 1. Blockbuster and Netflix. 2. Smartphones and desktop computers. 3. Motorcycles and bicycles. ### 1) Blockbuster vs. Netflix Netflix and Blockbuster is the classic example of an indirect competitor having a massive impact on an established business. Blockbuster offered a movie rental service at accessible prices to customers. For a while, it was the most convenient option around, and became synonymous with weekend movie nights. Netflix’s streaming service was different. There were no physical stores, customers accessed the service entirely online. When streaming technology took off, and people had access to massive libraries of TV shows and movies without having to leave home, Blockbuster was in trouble. Though the services weren’t the same, both companies solved the same customer need: the need to be entertained, at home and for cheap. ![15 Fast-Forward Facts About Blockbuster Video | Mental Floss](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_1440,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape/cover/sport/75171-davidfriedman-gettyimages-1652097-cd7835d7c011d9862502ac131c752fac.jpg) **Credit: Mental Floss* ### 2) Smartphones vs. desktop computers There was a time when, if you wanted access to the internet, or to word processing software, or messaging services, you needed a desktop computer or laptop. Today, smartphones make all of those things accessible. Many people don’t have a desktop or laptop computer in their home at all, making their smartphone their only computer. Smartphones even make gaming, traditionally only available via game consoles or PCs, available to users. In these ways, smartphones are drawing many potential customers away from traditional computers and game consoles, despite being a different product. But they’re meeting the same customer need: the need to be connected to the internet, to interact with others online, and to access particular online services. ### 3) Indian Motorcycles vs. Ridgeback Bicycles Okay, you might not think a bicycle could compete with a motorcycle for customers, but you’d be wrong. Some people are just on the lookout for something reliable and quick on two wheels that can handle their daily commute. They might not want, or be able to afford a car, but public transport isn’t their answer. Motorized, foot-pedaled, or even electric bikes could feasibly all compete with each other indirectly for particular customer segments. ![SHARK2.0 Fast 30mph|1000W Ebike|Moped Style Ebike|2 seater – Roll Road Ebike](https://roll-road.com/cdn/shop/files/1_fb3b1c64-f000-4456-aef1-3aac410c6e90.png?v=1713318428) **Some modern electric bikes capture a roadster motorcycle aesthetic at a fraction of a cost. Would-be buyers don't even need a license. This makes them strong indirect competition to motorcycle manufacturers. Credit: roll-road.com* --- [Use a Competitive Gap Analysis to Blast Past CompetitorsA competitive gap analysis compares the results you’re actually getting with the results you expected to get, taking into account the overall competitive landscape.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/absolutvision-uCMKx2H1Y38-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/#how-to-perform-a-competitive-gap-analysis) --- ## How to overcome indirect competition The truth is, the business strategies for dealing with direct and indirect competition aren’t so different. Even if you’re getting eaten alive by alternatives and substitutes, you need to return your attention to your unique value proposition. What is it that makes your product special? Is it the price point? Is it some unique feature? Is it a special distribution channel? In short, [what’s your competitive advantage ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/)? If you don’t have one, it’s time to build one. Luckily, many businesses have hidden sources of competitive advantage just sitting there, unloved and underutilized. [The VRIO framework ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/)is purpose-built to help you find these underused sources of competitive advantage and refine them until they’re the beating heart of your business’ success. --- ## Looking for next steps? **Competitive intelligence is a powerful growth lever for any organization... if done right.** There are many concepts to master if you're to satisfy your customers, motivate your team, and optimize your workflows. Enter our Competitive Intelligence Framework. 🏁 It covers everything you need to know to navigate the competitive intelligence cycle, from start to finish. [The Competitive Intelligence FrameworkCompetitive intelligence done right is a powerful growth lever for any organization. But getting it right? That’s the hard part. There are many concepts to master if you’re to satisfy your customers, motivate your team, and optimize your workflows. Enter our Competitive Intelligence Framework.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/06/CIA-Framework-Wheel_Meta.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-framework/) --- ## What is direct competition? Direct competition is the type of competition you experience from your direct competitors, who target the same [customer segments ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/four-types-of-market-segmentation/)as you do, and offer the same kinds of products and services. Two smartphone manufacturers, like Apple and Samsung, both compete for customers in the market for a new smartphone. Notice, though, that the distinction between direct and indirect competitors isn’t always clear-cut. Segment further, and you can split customers into Android and iOS users. Looking specifically at businesses that produce Android phones, and marketing to Android users, Samsung and Google are direct competitors, but Apple is removed from the equation. Now, you’d consider Apple an indirect competitor, since iOS is an alternative mobile operating system to Android, but meets the same customer needs. ## Direct competitors examples Remember, direct competitors sell similar products or services to you, and have the same target audience. You and your direct competition literally go head-to-head for the same slice of the pie. Here are some examples of direct competitors: 1. Netflix and Amazon Prime Video 2. Asana and Monday.com 3. Casetify and Caseable 4. Wayfair and Ikea ### 1) Netflix and Amazon Prime Video Both Netflix and Prime Video are at-home streaming services. They both solve the same customer problem: the need to be entertained at low-cost. They’re both convenient, and great value for money, offering thousands of hours of entertainment for a monthly cost less than your Saturday night takeout. ![Netflix vs Prime Video: the ONE thing!](https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/C5612AQFj6RQpMSVMKg/article-cover_image-shrink_720_1280/0/1650127117870?e=2147483647&v=beta&t=C6tDfGWWGqPXx_Xx1ZyWOHEMgvZelM2oyZ6ljAgCW-Q) **Credit: LinkedIn* ### 2) Asana and Monday.com Just to bring you back to B2B-land (sorry), Asana and Monday.com both sell project management software. Their primary audience isn’t single users. It’s entire businesses. They want dozens or even of hundreds of users signing up when they win an account. They know that’s where the money is, and they’re going up against each other for those same accounts. ### 3) Casetify and Caseable Both Casetify and Caseable sell phone cases. Multiple brands, many models, and even more designs. They sell online, and they compete for the same target audience: those in the market for a phone case with a fun design. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/image.png) **Casetify.com sells fun phone cases for most modern brands and models. But they have their fair share of competition.* ### 4) Wayfair and Ikea The furniture giant has its competitors – Wayfair being one of them. Affordable flat-packed furniture is convenient. And the ability to browse online is a luxury. Both businesses offer these selling points, and both are competing for customers looking to spruce up their home decor at affordable prices. Both use similar distribution channels, too, offering affordable home delivery and discounts for orders over a certain price. ## How to overcome direct competition As we’ll see in the next section, if your products aren’t adequately differentiated, your prospects will struggle to see why they should choose you over any competitor. In fact, while it can be tempting to fixate on all the things you have in common with your direct competitors, and hence everything that makes it so difficult to compete with them, you’ll find that you start to outpace these competitors when you effectively emphasize the *key differences* between your products and theirs. That means refining your [competitive differentiation ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/)and [competitive positioning ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/), to make clear as crystal to your prospects how you’re different, and how you solve their problems better than your competitors can. 💡 Unlock expert templates, frameworks, and insider content from industry giants like Google and Amazon, right at your fingertips. [Become an Insider member today. ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/) ## How to perform a competitive analysis to challenge your direct and indirect competition If you want to overcome [competition of any kind](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition/), you first need to understand it. Whether you’re interested in convincing your prospective customers that indirect competitors and substitutes can’t offer the perfect solution to their problems (while you can), or you’re racking your brain as to how to beat your direct competition, a competitive analysis is always a great first place to start. Here’s a five-step overview of how to perform one: 1. Get clear on your objectives. 2. Start with the customer. 3. Identify your competitors. 4. Gather data. 5. Analyze the data. ### 1) Get clear on your objectives The first step, as always, is to figure out what you want to achieve. This keeps you focused while you perform your competitor analysis. The last thing you want is to put in hours of work only to realize the direction you’re heading won’t help you in the ways that matter to your business. ### 2) Start with the customer Whether you’re interested in your direct or indirect competition for this analysis, start with the customer. After all, it’s the customer you’re competing for. You want to understand your customers and what they want. Do your own customer and market research to fill in your understanding. From there, you’ll be in a strong position to finish the analysis. ### 3) Identify your competitors When you know what your customers want, you can lift your sights beyond the usual suspects, and begin brainstorming a list of competitors (direct and indirect) that are trying to solve the same customer problems as your own products and services. This doesn’t mean you should ignore key data, like how often customers mention names of other businesses they’re interested in, but it does mean you’ll be able to create a more exhaustive list of possible competitors, before whittling it down to the few you want to focus on. --- [How to Prioritize Your Competitors in Crowded IndustriesHow do you decide which competitors to prioritize in a crowded industry? That’s what Erik Mansur discusses with Matt Tyrer, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Commvault, on this episode of Into the Fray.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2022/11/into_the_fray-3.jpeg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-prioritize-your-competitors/) --- ### 4) Gather data With a shortlist of competitors to hand, it’s time to gather data on them. Not sure how to do this? Grab a copy of [the competitive intelligence playbook ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/head-to-head-playbook/). ### 5) Analyze the data Don’t get caught up here – “analyze” really just means “think about the data.” What have you found? What could it mean? Ask questions of the information in front of you, and tie it back to the goals and objectives of your business as a whole, as well as your objectives for this particular analysis. If your aim is to get clearer on how you can steer prospects away from your two biggest direct competitors and towards you, then you’ll want to get clear on things like: - What are these competitors **doing well?** - What are they **doing poorly?** - How are they **positioning themselves** competitively through their product messaging? - What **strategies** could you use to position your own products as the best solutions to the pain points of your target market? ### What’s next? The analysis might be done, but don’t stop there. Now it’s time to turn those insights into action points, and to start rolling those out across the business. That might mean delivering competition reports to leadership, refining your positioning and messaging with marketing, or creating enablement material for sales. In short, you’ll want to come up with a strategy off the back of your analysis, and then set about [operationalizing your strategic plan](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-operationalize-strategic-plan/). [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### The best competitive intelligence tools for your CI tech stack URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-intelligence-tools-tech-stack/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:46:57.000Z With so many software options available, building an effective competitive intelligence tech stack can feel like a daunting task. But fear not! We've got your back. We've compiled a list of the top three [competitive intelligence tools ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/#2-competitive-intelligence-tools-%F0%9F%9B%A0)in every key software category – from dedicated CI platforms to social listening tools and CRMs. Everything you’re about to read is based on a survey of CI professionals, carried out for the [2023 Competitive Intelligence Tools of Choice report ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-report-2023/). In order of importance, as voted by CI pros at the likes of Johnson & Johnson and Zoom, the software categories to focus on are: 1. CRMs (used by 85% of respondents). 2. Sales enablement platforms (used by 69% of respondents). 3. Competitive intelligence platforms (used by 67% of respondents). 4. Conversational intelligence tools (used by 56% of respondents). 5. Win/loss platforms (used by 43% of respondents). 6. Social listening tools (used by 40% of respondents). 7. Market intelligence platforms (used by 21% of respondents). So, let's dive into the top tools that'll give you a competitive edge! ## CRMs Of all the categories of tools we canvassed our community on, CRMs are by far the most adopted. Only **15%** of respondents claimed to not use a CRM as part of their CI tech stack, and of the **85%** who did, a whopping **78%** used Salesforce. **10%** used Hubspot, with the remainder scattered amongst other tools. CRMs are themselves great sources of data for CI professionals, with many integrating with, or even offering their own, tools that help you analyze that data (like Tableau for Salesforce). And with such widespread adoption, they’re an almost ubiquitous data source for those without the budget for more dedicated competitive intel-gathering tools. The downside? Some CRMs are big. So big that entire job roles exist just for people to become experts in the CRM, train others in its use, coach on best practices, and implement and maintain the CRM. Those without the resources to spare will need a simpler solution. Thankfully, some of those simpler solutions are on this list. ### Salesforce Among our respondents, **78%** of all those who reported using a CRM as part of their tech stack said they used Salesforce. This sets Salesforce up as the dominant force in the CRM space. Interestingly, though, much of the feedback we received about Salesforce implies that it was simply the ‘default choice’. “It’s just the industry standard”, said one respondent, while others said they used it because it was the “company choice”, or just “what we use”. This suggests Salesforce may be so dominant many users aren’t even aware of alternatives. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/Salesforce-logo.webp) That’s not to say all feedback was neutral or negative, though. Many respondents gave Salesforce a lot of praise, calling it “very robust” and “vast” with “endless possibility to configure your own fields and workflows”. This last point makes the tool “very useful” for gathering “competitive knowledge”. Others gave Salesforce’s “ease of use” and “functional capability, adaptability, and integration” as their reasons for adopting the platform. Salesforce itself calls its platform the “no. 1 customer relationship management tool for small, medium, and enterprise businesses”. ### Hubspot Hubspot came in a distant second to Salesforce amongst our respondents in terms of adoption, with **10%** of those who use a CRM reporting using it. Even so, it has a firm hold on that second-place position, with Zoho CRM coming in a distant third with only **4%** of the vote. Those we surveyed enjoyed Hubspot’s “customization features, great templates, and integrations” with many specifying that the platform is “easy to use”. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/HubSpot-Logo.png) Hubspot itself takes this “easy to use” approach in its messaging, with the words “Powerful, not overpowering” on the home page of its website. With one Salesforce user referring to that platform as “vast”, this counter-positioning as a less-overwhelming, easier-to-use alternative that’s friendlier to users without compromising on power or features makes sense. Interestingly, another of our Salesforce users reported that they’d prefer to use Hubspot, citing that, in their experience, “Sales seems to function best in Salesforce; I believe as a Marketing person that HubSpot is actually better and optimizes both teams. But sometimes you default to whatever helps optimize Sales because that's what '[ sales enablemen ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/)t’ truly is.” ### Zoho CRM Zoho sits in a distant 3rd place, with only **4%** of our respondents using it. So how might you be persuaded to opt for it as your CRM? Ease of use seems to be the answer. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/zohocrm-logo.png) Zoho’s messaging focuses on the platform’s ease of implementation. If you’ve ever had headaches rolling out Salesforce, Zoho positions itself as a possible answer to your prayers. And our surveyees seem to agree with their comments on its simplicity, calling the platform “simple yet feature-rich”. Zoho CRM offers “omnichannel presence, segmentation, KPIs, predictive intelligence” and more to help you deliver personalized experiences to your customers and drive brand loyalty. ## Sales enablement platforms [Sales enablement ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/making-enablement-work-in-remote-settings/)platforms help CI practitioners deliver their insights to sales teams and collaborate more effectively with enablement teams. They also give valuable feedback on which enablement content is having the most impact, as well as on adoption rates. For product marketers conducting CI as a part of their role, [sales enablement ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-modern-sales-organizations-are-approaching-sales-enablement-to-drive-results/)platforms offer invaluable feedback on the revenue impact of your competitive intelligence deliverables. **69%** of our respondents use a dedicated sales enablement platform, making sales enablement platforms the second most-adopted category of tools amongst respondents. For that reason, we’ve classified a sales enablement platform as an essential tool in your CI tech stack. Of the **69%** who used a dedicated sales enablement platform, **33%** used Highspot and **18%** used Confluence. Seismic and Showpad were tied, with **12%** of the vote each. The remaining votes were scattered across a number of platforms. ### Highspot Highspot was the leading sales enablement platform amongst our respondents with **33%** of the vote. One talking point amongst respondents was the platform’s UI. While one respondent claimed “the UI needs some work”, all other feedback was positive. One user praised the “great UI and easy navigation”. Another cited its “usability” and “customizable design”. Yet another, its “end-user design/ease of use”. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/highspot-logo.png) Other points of praise were Highspot’s static content URLs and smartpages, interactive training function, and customizability. According to Highspot, their sales enablement platform “helps you turn strategy into action” with a combination of “intelligence content management, contextual guidance, training and rep coaching” and customer engagement with AI-powered analytics. ### Confluence Confluence was the second-most popular sales enablement platform amongst our respondents. The common theme in user appreciation was its simplicity. A “simple, rich text editor” offering “templates, integrations” defined by its “transparency” that puts all information together, allowing you to “tag people” and “link other pages”. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/confluence-logo.png) One user said Confluence is “very easy to navigate and add and edit content on.” They went on to praise the platform’s content search feature. Confluence integrates with other software your business might already use, like Jira and Trello, and gets you in sync on projects inside or outside your org. You can customize the platform with over 1000 apps for tools including Dropbox, Microsoft Teams, Figma, Miro, Zoom, and Slack. ### Seismic Seismic’s sales enablement platform, according to its users, helps you gather “all assets in one place” and “organize content”. It syncs with Google Drive, allows you to “track buyer engagement”, is “easy to use” and delivers the “right content at the right time” – all things you’d expect from a sales enablement platform. But what sets Seismic apart? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/Seismic-Logo-RGB2.jpeg) Unfortunately, some of our respondents even went so far as to say it was just the “company choice” and “it’s not that great”, though its integration with Klue (the most popular tool in our competitive intelligence platform category) is reported to be “pretty good”. According to Seismic themselves, their platform will help you [prepare your reps ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/)with the skills and knowledge they need to close more deals, while tracking the impact of sales content for visibility on what’s helping close deals - helping you prioritize collateral and/or training. ## Competitive intelligence platforms Your [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) platform serves multiple functions, helping you gather, analyze, and report information on your competitors. Different competitive intelligence tools have strengths in different areas, with some excelling in [content ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/optimize-sales-content/)delivery and enablement, while others focus primarily on automated data gathering. When we surveyed CI pros for our 2023 Tools of Choice Report, over **67%** of respondents said they use a dedicated CI platform, with the rest preferring to gather their data using the monitoring functions of tools in other categories. This makes the competitive intelligence platform the third-most adopted product category by our respondents. If you’ve got the budget for it, a dedicated competitive intelligence platform will save you hours of manual work by automating much of the data-gathering process, intelligently alerting you to competitor developments. These platforms also help you organize and search through this data as you collect it. Such functions make CI platforms invaluable in crowded, competitive markets where it’s crucial to keep up to speed with competitor developments as they happen. So, what are the most popular CI platforms out there today? ### Klue **34%** of all those who used a competitive intelligence platform in their tech stack used Klue, making it the most popular competitive intelligence platform amongst our respondents. Respondents appreciated Klue’s [battlecard ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-swot-analysis-to-build-your-battlecards/)building and weekly digest features, with many praising its engaging UI/UX. More still appreciated Klue’s “excellent” customer success team, as well as the platform’s ease of use, breadth, and scope for integration with other software in the tech stack. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/Klue-Logo-White-on-Dark-Background.webp) According to Klue themselves, their tool provides users with “Competitive Enablement that wins business”, allowing you to “collect, curate, and deliver competitive and market intelligence across every department”. This sets Klue apart from sales enablement platforms, which specialize in delivering enablement content while also focusing on coaching reps on best practices, and tracking content adoption. ### Crayon Crayon’s competitive intelligence platform was second-most popular among respondents, with **14%** of all those who reported using a CI tool in their tech stack opting for Crayon. Respondents appreciate Crayon’s ease of use for both admins and viewers, its strong integrations, and its helpful customer success team. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/crayon-logo.png) One user praised Crayon’s “very strong alerting, filtering and reporting”, claiming the tool made it “very easy” to understand new intel as it comes in and identify trends as they emerge. Another said the tool’s comprehensive web scanning made them feel “like I have a superpower”. According to Crayon themselves, their platform is built to help you “stop losing revenue to rivals”. Their award-winning platform “arms your team with the right intel at the right time”. ### AuroraWDC FirstLight AuroraWDC’s FirstLight competitive intelligence platform was third-most popular among our respondents, **9%** of whom opted for it as their competitive intelligence platform of choice. The platform’s users gave it strong praise, particularly for the platform’s depth of customization and flexibility. It’s widget-based, allowing users to build their own dashboards. Additional kudos came in for the platform’s strong mobile UX and its built-in machine learning and artificial intelligence components. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/aurora-wdc-logo.png) Though little pricing information is available, one user reports that they don’t charge a per-user fee, as many other platforms do. Instead, one price covers as many users as you need. Other users also reported price as a deciding factor in their decision to go with – and stick with – the FirstLight platform. According to AuroraWDC, FirstLight is “for those analysts committed to a full Intelligence Operating System”, offering “a complete bespoke competitive intelligence backbone” capable of serving organizations of every size. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/01/CIA_Tools_of_Choice_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ## Conversational intelligence tools When it comes to leveraging internal data sources, there are few better platforms than your [conversational intelligence ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/conversation-intelligence-for-customer-experience/)tool. Conversational intelligence tools log almost every customer interaction. Some tools do so across email and chat as well as over the phone, and transcribe all calls. As such, these tools let you search, tag, and filter through an extensive history of customer interactions. When a customer mentions a competitor, your conversational intelligence tool can alert you, and show you what they’re saying. As part of the data gathering process, this is super valuable. As a tool that can directly influence revenue, adoption among our respondents was strong. **56%** of our survey takers used a dedicated conversational intelligence tool. Of those, **67%** used Gong, making it far and away the most popular conversational intelligence tool. ### Gong Our respondents had a lot to say about Gong, but the recurring themes were its strong UI and ease of use; its breadth of integrations, including with Slack and many CRMs; and its searching, tracking, tagging, and filtering capabilities. When it comes to logging calls, then separating the signal from the noise, what could be a mammoth manual task seems to be made easy through conversational intelligence tools like Gong. When you can set alerts for keywords, and customize where these alerts notify you, as well as quickly search and filter through a library of conversations to find exactly what you need, when you need it, you’re probably onto a winner. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/gong-logo.webp) But it’s not just administrative tasks that Gong makes easier. One respondent said outright that Gong “helps me [win more deals ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-enablement-best-practices/)”. Another said that using it “feels like you are in the room with a customer”, with others still praising its “accuracy” (important when transcriptions are involved). Of course, it’s not just your phone calls Gong tracks and analyzes. Gong “analyzes your customer-facing interactions across phone, email, and web conferencing to deliver your team the insights they need to close more deals.” ### Chorus A ZoomInfo product, respondents used Chorus for its “call recording” and “competitor mention tracking”, as well as to share calls “with colleagues to drive best practice”. Aside from simple descriptions of Chorus’ features, though, there wasn’t much positive language to be found among its users. Contrasted with words and phrases like “love”, “super helpful”, “clever” and “easy” used to describe Gong, the lack of praise for Chorus makes its user experience sound lackluster. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/chorus-logo.png) Chorus’ biggest selling point is perhaps that it’s built around ZoomInfo’s contact and company data. Used in combination, ZoomInfo and Chorus present a more solid revenue operations suite than might be found with conversion intelligence alone. While existing ZoomInfo customers will get special pricing on Chorus, the tool isn’t included, so they’ll still need to pay for two tools to benefit. ### Jiminny Jiminny uses “conversation intelligence to record, transcribe and analyze your customer conversations”. The tool is aimed primarily at sales and customer success teams, helping the former to “tailor your sales approach and maximize success”, and the latter to “nurture closer, more profitable relationships”, as well as to provide win/loss insights. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/jiminny-logo.png) Jiminny offers a wide array of integrations across communications tools (dialers and video conferencing), CRMs, and calendars to make recording and logging calls seamless. Jiminny handily offers what it calls “insight seats”, users that can access the platform and listen to calls at no charge. Useful for marketing and product professionals who’d benefit from listening to customer calls, without needing direct access to deeper analytics. ## Win/loss platforms [Win/loss ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-a-win-loss-and-competitive-intelligence-functions-from-scratch/)platforms and services aim to uncover the truth of why you win and lose deals. Specifically, win/loss programs aim to gather buyer feedback to uncover key decision drivers for prospects and reasons why they did or didn’t choose your product. This data is invaluable for product marketers, since it helps inform product development via feature feedback and learning where your products underdeliver for customers. For competitive intelligence practitioners, though, relevant [win/loss data ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/)helps you understand where you’re losing revenue to competitors. Best of all, there’s no guesswork involved, since the feedback comes directly from your customers, leads, and prospects. Your win/loss platform itself helps streamline the customer research process and deliver relevant data. It will offer features like automated buyer surveys, standardizing survey questions and reporting on responses, and means of logging and organizing customer feedback. With an adoption rate on the lower end of the scale (**43%** of respondents reported using a dedicated win/loss platform or service), our findings suggest win/loss platforms are a luxury that many can’t afford. If your business can, though, the insights you’ll uncover are well worth the price of entry. ### Clozd **43%** of all our respondents who said they used a win/loss platform as part of their competitive intelligence tech stack used Clozd. Our survey takers loved its “automated buyer surveys”, “strong interview capabilities” and “killer platform”, calling Clozd “simple, and intuitive” to use and praising its “flexibility”. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/clozd-logo.png) According to Clozd themselves, they help “uncover the truth about why \[users\] win and lose - so they can hone product strategy, refine messaging, enable sales” and win more deals. To achieve this, the platform helps you conduct systematic interviews and automated buyer surveys to collect structured win-loss data. In addition to a win/loss platform, Clozd also offers a consultancy service. ### DoubleCheck DoubleCheck offers an independent win-loss research service for vendors. From speaking with buyers, they’ve found they often don’t want to offend vendors by providing direct feedback, but are open to providing honest feedback to a third party. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/doublecheck-logo.png) DoubleCheck acts as that third party, building, handling, and reporting on the win/loss program for you. By outsourcing something as critical as your win/loss program, you ensure it’s being allocated the resources it deserves. Our respondents praised DoubleCheck as “experts in win/loss analysis” who are “very easy to work with”. The service delivers a good “balance of qualitative and quantitative results” and provides you with a “great dedicated analyst to support your projects”. ### Qualtrics When it comes to win/loss analysis software, Qualtrics’ Core XM product provides an online survey function that “powers +1B surveys every year”. Appreciated by our respondents for its “usability”, you can use Qualtrics to survey your buyers and get to the root decision drivers behind won and lost deals. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/qualtrics-logo.webp) The Qualtrics CustomerXM product offers further insights for increased “sales effectiveness and retention”, offering a breadth of customer research functions you won’t see with smaller tools. A complicated offering fit for enterprise businesses, SMBs might do better with a simpler SaaS solution like Clozd, or an outsourcing service like DoubleCheck. ## Social listening tools While competitive intelligence software listens for mentions of core competitors across a range of data sources, including press releases, industry news, [social media ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/), website updates, and more, they also focus on analysis and delivery of that intel. Social listening tools are simpler. They focus solely on gathering information - primarily across social media, though a few tools include other data sources. **40%** of our survey respondents said they use a dedicated social listening tool as part of their competitive intelligence tech stack, making this one of the less popular categories. This lower adoption rate is perhaps a byproduct of the much higher adoption rate for competitive intelligence tools, which should cover social listening as part of their package. If yours is an industry that makes a lot of use of social media and influencer marketing, and/or you don’t have the budget for the more involved competitive intelligence tools out there, a social listening tool could be a good option. Especially since many of these tools include capable social media management functions. ### Brandwatch Of the **40%** of respondents that use a dedicated social listening tool, **40%** used Brandwatch, making it the clear winner in popularity. Many respondents applauded Brandwatch’s “robust analytics and reporting, comprehensive features” and “expansive” capabilities, while others reported enjoying its “great UI”, “ease of use” and broad coverage. Still others spoke about the ability to create “read at speed” dashboards around Net Promoter Score (NPS) sentiment for analyzing customer experience. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/brandwatch-logo.png) As a social media management solution and social listening tool, Brandwatch claims to deliver “everything you need to discover, attract, and engage customers on social, across teams and regions”. Its social insights empower you to “listen to your consumers and benchmark against your competitors” through brand monitoring, extensive historical consumer data, and customizable dashboards. ### Sprinklr Also voted into our competitive intelligence platform category, Sprinklr isn’t constrained to pure competitive intelligence. It also offers brand monitoring and social listening products. Respondents enjoyed Sprinklr’s “ability to create custom dashboards for internal customers” (like sales, marketing, and product teams), while others called its platform “feature-rich”. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/sprinklr_logo.png) Sprinklr itself refers to its social listening product as a collection of “AI-powered social listening tools” that empower users to “tap into 500 million conversations” beyond core brand channels alone. The platform gives you access to “years of historical data”, meaning you can contextualize and analyze customer conversations to better understand and meet customer needs. ### Meltwater Meltwater’s social listening product prevents users from missing out on mentions of topics important to their business. No matter where they’re mentioned across the web. An example of a data gathering tool that stretches to sources beyond “traditional” social media, Meltwater monitors data feeds from a huge number of sources. These include all the most popular social media platforms (TikTok, YouTube, and Twitch included), as well as podcasts, blogs, online news, and consumer reviews sites. Meltwater also offers analytics on the conversations it monitors, as well as social media management products. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/Meltwater_Logo.png) Meltwater makes a big deal of its combined news and social media monitoring, claiming to save your teams time and resources in only having to train on a single platform, as well as being able to build combined reports more quickly. Despite this apparently comprehensive offering, none of the **10.5%** of our respondents who use the tool gave any written feedback about what they liked or disliked about it. ## Market intelligence platforms The boundaries can start to blur between [competitive intelligence and market intelligence ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-vs-market-intelligence/)software. While competitive intelligence platforms focus on core sets of named competitors, market intelligence platforms deliver intel across industries. Casting a wider net requires more resources to sift through and analyze the greater volume of data. For this reason, many market intelligence platforms are aimed at large enterprise businesses that have the necessary resources at their disposal. Providers in this category tend to offer suites of intelligence and enablement products that carry out multiple functions. This creates overlap with the last category and “feature drift” which makes it hard to pin down some of the following tools into a single category. This is perhaps why market intelligence platforms are the least-adopted tool type among CI practitioners. Only **21%** of respondents use a dedicated market intel platform. Of those, **40%** used Pitchbook, making it the most popular tool in this category. ### Pitchbook Pitchbook users loved the high degree of data availability, especially on private and venture-backed companies. Multiple respondents cited this as their favorite thing about the Pitchbook platform. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/pitchbook-logo.png) Like other enterprise-focused platforms, Pitchbook offers a suite of different solutions for those in need of industry and market data. Pitchbook provides market intelligence across venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, and private equity. It also provides solutions to help your business with deal sourcing, fundraising, execution, and asset allocation. For large businesses looking for big data, Pitchbook seems a popular and respected option. ### AuroraWDC Not just a competitive intelligence product, AuroraWDC offers a suite of products and solutions to meet the varied needs of enterprise businesses. Its FirstLight SaaS platform aims to fulfill both competitive and market intelligence roles for enterprises, and “gathers information from thousands of public and private sources”, binding them into a “cohesive picture” for insights. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/aurorawdc-logo.webp) Other products, like AuroraGPS, are committed to helping you “achieve alpha in \[your\] marketplace through ethical intelligence gathering, incisive analysis and transformative skill-building”. Our respondents gave AuroraWDC the same strengths as a market intelligence platform as they did for its competitive intelligence platform. Namely, its customizability, mobile features, and single price regardless of user count. ### Digimind Digimind Intelligence is a platform our respondents called “comprehensive”. It’s a web and mobile-friendly application that gives you the power to “monitor changes in your business environment”. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/04/digimind-logo.webp) The platform collects data from a variety of sources, including webpages, databases, RSS feeds, forums, and social media. Digimind deploys a variety of machine learning and natural language processing algorithms to analyze rich text and quantitative data in real time. Its website messaging also suggests an ability to monitor behind “password-protected sources” and “the invisible web”. If the above isn’t enough to convince you of Digimind’s comprehensiveness, there’s also a ton of choice when it comes to deliverables. Newsletters, printed reports, watchlists, and websites are all possible reporting avenues when you choose Digimind as your market intel platform. ## Conclusion As our survey results show, the most essential tools for any CI tech stack are CRMs, sales enablement platforms, and competitive intelligence platforms. These form the backbone of your CI efforts, allowing you to manage customer data, enable your sales team, and gather and analyze competitor information with ease. Other tools can further enhance your CI capabilities. Conversational intelligence tools, win/loss analysis platforms, social listening tools, and market intelligence platforms can provide valuable insights into customer interactions, deal win/loss drivers, social media trends, and industry-wide intelligence. If investing in all these tools sounds mighty pricey, don’t worry! Plenty of CI pros use budget-friendly workarounds like building in-house solutions, leveraging free or low-cost tools, and focusing only on the most essential tools to establish a solid CI foundation. Remember, the ultimate goal of your CI tech stack is to empower your team with the insights and tools they need to make informed decisions, stay ahead of competitors, and drive business growth. By carefully selecting the right tools and continuously adapting your stack to meet your evolving needs, you'll be well-equipped to navigate the competitive landscape and achieve long-term success. --- ## Looking for even more competitive intelligence tools? Grab your copy of the Competitive Intelligence Tools of Choice report for a full breakdown of the tools your CI tech stack can't do without. 👇 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/01/CIA_Tools_of_Choice_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) [Give me my copy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-report-2023/) --- ### 9 tips for aligning your CI function with company objectives URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/aligning-ci-with-company-objectives/ Last updated: 2025-02-07T17:13:27.000Z Does your competitive intelligence (CI) function feel like an afterthought, disconnected from your company's core strategic objectives? If so, you're not alone – a lot of CI teams struggle to demonstrate their value, and to impact key business decisions. The good news is it doesn't have to be this way. By aligning your CI efforts with company goals from the get-go, you can transform competitive insights from a nice-to-have into the lifeblood of your organization. This article outlines nine practical tips for aligning CI with your company's goals and using it to shape strategy and planning across the organization. From getting clear on the company vision to streamlining intelligence delivery, you'll learn how to position your CI function as an indispensable driver of business growth and competitive advantage. The path won't be easy, but the payoff for getting CI alignment right is immense. So, let’s get to it. ## 1) Sit down with company leadership We get it – [your executives are busy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/). However, if you can’t sit down with them to talk about their strategic goals and vision for the company’s future, how will you know where to focus your efforts? If you're at a smaller startup, cornering your CEO for a quick chat should be pretty straightforward. However, if you’re at a larger enterprise where you don’t bump into company leaders every day, you might need to try a different approach. Why not set up a short meeting and shoot them an email like the one below? 📝 ****Subject:** Quick chat: CI and company goals Hey \[CEO's name\], I just wanted to touch base about integrating our competitive intelligence with our company goals. I think aligning our CI strategy with our broader objectives could give us a real edge in the market. I’ve grabbed 15 mins on your calendar for next week – feel free to move it to best suit your schedule. Looking forward to it! \[Your name\] This might seem like a bold tactic, but that’s the point! Remember: Fortune favors the bold. ## 2) Go on a listening tour Whether you’re [building a CI function from scratch](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/), or [revitalizing an existing CI program](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-step-guide-to-fixing-competitive-intelligence/), you need to understand how each of your internal customers contributes to company goals before you can support their work with tailored competitive insights. As August Jackson, Senior Director of Market and Competitive Intelligence at Deltek [puts it](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/planning-competitive-intelligence/): > “Successful competitive intelligence teams align their key performance indicators with the KPIs of the stakeholders that they're trying to support.” To this end, David D’Aprile, VP of Global Product Marketing at Onapsis, [recommends taking a listening tour](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-step-guide-to-fixing-competitive-intelligence/#step-one-assess-the-damage). As he says: > “You can even shadow your sales reps. This is going to help you understand who your stakeholders are, what has and hasn’t been working, and how pitching, trap-setting, and objection-handling are being done. This listening phase is essential for understanding the current state of affairs.” ## 3) Identify and fill key intelligence gaps Whether your company is B2B or B2C, chances are that product, sales, and executive teams are already keeping half an eye on the competition. There's no value in trying to duplicate or compete with their existing workstreams and responsibilities. Instead, you should aim to identify the key competitive and market intelligence gaps across the organization. Use your expertise to fill those voids with insights that elevate the entire company's decision-making. For example, you may find teams struggling with: - Ad-hoc, manual competitive analysis that doesn't scale or provide consistently reliable intelligence. - Lack of data-driven market assessments and win/loss analysis, forcing teams to rely on gut instinct. The more you can systematically identify and meet these types of intelligence needs, the more indispensable your role will be in strategic planning and execution. It builds trust that will win you a seat at the table for major initiatives impacting the business. ## 4) Translate insights into actionable recommendations It’s not enough to gather and share cold hard facts on your competitors – you need to transform this intel into concrete recommendations that’ll drive strategic priorities across the organization. Translate your findings into clear implications for product roadmaps and [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/). Spell out how this intelligence will help them differentiate and outcompete, as well as how it should shape future feature development. ## 5) Embed CI Into strategic discussions When major product initiatives are being planned, it's a great idea to step back and consider how different scenarios might impact important metrics like revenue, market share, and customer acquisition. By bringing a data-driven competitive perspective into strategic discussions, you can make sure you're setting the business up for success. For example, let's say your company is revamping its pricing model. A great way to make an informed decision is by conducting a thorough [competitive pricing analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/). With these insights, you can then shape your new pricing strategy to better meet the needs of your customers. ## 6) Aspire for game-changing impact As your [competitive intelligence capabilities](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) mature, you’ll want to start actively exploring how you can uncover game-changing insights that elevate your company's products and initiatives to best-in-class. For major upcoming launches or innovations, develop “hero” scenarios backed by your research and modeling. Lay out a vision of how this offering could redefine the market and customer experience if shaped by your competitive recommendations. Inspire stakeholders to dream bigger based on the opportunities you've identified through CI. ## 7) Strive for seamless CI delivery To drive impact with your competitive insights, it’s vital to establish consistent standards for how that intelligence gets packaged, distributed, and embedded across the organization. The aim is to provide tailored and actionable CI to stakeholders in a reliable and streamlined way. We recommend focusing on these three key areas: - **Reliable cadence:** Establish a predictable calendar for delivering up-to-date competitive intelligence outputs. Whether weekly competitor intelligence newsletters, monthly market trackers, or reports aligned to annual planning, stakeholders need clarity on when to expect new insights that’ll support their priorities. - **Enterprise-wide relevance:** Although each team or region may have unique CI needs, look for ways to bundle core deliverables that provide valuable insights applicable across multiple groups. - **Seamless experience:** Make it frictionless for stakeholders to access and digest competitive intelligence by integrating CI directly into collaboration tools, knowledge repositories, and workflows they already use. When you standardize your delivery of CI based on these areas, you’ll help everyone to make the most of your competitive intelligence and use it to drive strategic impact. ## 8) Trade instant gratification for long-term value As you launch or revamp your CI function, your stakeholders might be expecting quick wins. While getting a few of these under your belt is a great way to prove the value of your CI function, it’s important not to lose sight of overarching company objectives. If you can, aim for an 80/20 split between the time you dedicate to long-term strategic contributions and the time you spend on short-term gains. This approach will lay the groundwork for sustainable strategic impact. ## 9) Manage expectations When you're working on integrating CI with broader strategy and planning processes, it's important to be transparent about the trade-offs and priorities involved. Don't hesitate to explain why some tasks are more urgent than others when it comes to achieving your larger goals. Clear communication helps everyone stay on the same page and avoid misunderstandings. --- ## Key takeaways Aligning your CI function with company-level objectives takes a lot of work upfront, but the payoff is more than worth it. So, let’s recap the key takeaways that’ll make CI an indispensable driver of your organization's success: 🌟 Start to foster executive buy-in by sitting down with leadership to understand their [strategic vision](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-strategic-vision/) and goals for the company. This ensures your CI efforts are laser-focused on supporting the priorities that matter most. 👂 Go on a listening tour across teams to understand their roles, pain points, and how they currently approach competitive analysis. This context allows you to identify and fill key intelligence gaps. 🎯 Push beyond just sharing data – translate your competitive insights into clear, actionable recommendations that directly inform strategic decisions around product roadmaps, go-to-market strategy, and more. 🧭 Aspire for game-changing impact by developing research-backed "hero" scenarios that inspire stakeholders to dream bigger about potential market opportunities and innovations. 📦 Establish consistent standards for packaging and delivering CI, striking the right cadence, relevance across teams, and seamless integration into existing workflows. 🔭 Be upfront about managing stakeholder expectations – prioritizing long-term strategic impact over short-term wins. 💪 Be persistent! Aligning CI with big strategic objectives isn’t easy, but it unlocks faster growth, more confident decision-making, and the power to outmaneuver competitors. [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### A 6-step guide to customer research (and profiting from it) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/ Last updated: 2024-06-19T17:25:06.000Z **This article was adapted from* [**What is customer and market research?* ](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-research/)**on our sister site, Product Marketing Alliance.* As a competitive intelligence pro, you’re likely hyper-aware of what’s going on in the market, but are you missing a crucial piece of the puzzle? Analyzing your competitors is key, but understanding your customers' needs, behaviors, and motivations is arguably even more crucial. After all, it’s the target audience that’s informing your competitors’ strategies. Just like you, they’re trying to win the hearts, minds, and wallets of their chosen market. If you can understand customers’ motivations better than your competitors, you’ll be well-placed to deliver stronger solutions to their pain points and win market share away from your rivals. To that end, your customer research is the key to delighting your audience and outmaneuvering the competition. Let us show you how. 🤿 ## What is customer research? Customer research aims to learn more about the needs and behaviors of customers and to use that information to create products, features, and messaging that resonate with them. In other words, customer research helps you sell your products by tailoring your approach to the needs of your customers. Customer research typically involves more qualitative approaches like in-depth interviews, ethnographies, usability testing, social listening, and feedback surveys. The goal is to gain specific insights into the end-user experience with a company's brand, products, services, and communications. While market research and customer research are often spoken about in the same breath, they’re not the same. [Market research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/) explores the wider marketplace, while customer research focuses on: (i) Your customers themselves, and (ii) Your interactions with them. **Key questions customer research can answer include:** - Who are your customers and ideal buyer personas? - What are their daily challenges, needs, and desires? - How do they feel about your company and its competitors? - What excites them or frustrates them? - How can you improve your customer experience? --- [Avoid These 10 Common Market Segmentation ErrorsWe’ve collated a list of the ten most common market segmentation errors you’ll need to avoid if you want to create relevant, useful segments that inform your marketing strategy and drive revenue.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/sigmund-By-tZImt0Ms-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/common-market-segmentation-errors/) --- ## The advantages of customer research While market research works top-down to size up opportunities, customer research works bottom-up to optimize the customer experience. Its strategic power comes from providing a detailed view of real people that market data alone often misses. Armed with this granular feedback, businesses can: - [Fine-tune their buyer personas](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/#%E2%80%A2-fine-tuning-buyer-personas) - [Create tailored marketing campaigns](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/#%E2%80%A2-crafting-tailored-messaging) - [Drive referrals and boost loyalty](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/#%E2%80%A2-driving-referrals-and-loyalty) - [Develop customer-focused products](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/#%E2%80%A2-improving-products-and-services) - [Identify new opportunities](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/#%E2%80%A2-identifying-new-opportunities) - [Guide business decisions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-research/#%E2%80%A2-guiding-business-decisions) Let’s explore how. ### Fine-tuning buyer personas Buyer personas represent different consumer groups that make up your broader target audience. They include details on demographics, attitudes, behaviors, pain points, and brand perceptions. This data comes straight from talking to living, breathing customers through interviews, focus groups, and surveys. Vivid personas should guide product design and all marketing decisions. ### Crafting tailored messaging Communicating effectively starts with understanding motivations. Customer interviews and focus groups provide context on why people buy certain products and what messaging best resonates with their needs or desires. These perspectives enable your teams to craft relevant, compelling messaging and campaigns that get results by appealing to prospects' core desires, and [tying features back to emotional benefits](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/). They also reveal how customers describe your products in their own words, which can be integrated into selling points. ### Driving referrals and loyalty Loyal customers spend more and refer others. But you can’t engender true loyalty without delighting people with outstanding products, services, and support. In-depth customer feedback exposes pain points and unmet needs you can address to boost satisfaction. It also uncovers potential new offerings or upgrades to make customers raving fans. ### Improving products and services Usability testing and customer co-creation sessions help optimize every aspect of your offerings. Seeing real people interact with products provides insights that lead engineers, designers, and product marketers would never uncover on their own. ### Identifying new opportunities Customer research also illuminates latent needs and new product ideas you may never have considered. These seeds often sprout into disruptive innovations or entirely new lines of business. ### Guiding business decisions Customer perspectives provide tangible guidance on where to invest resources versus where to cut your losses. Their feedback should steer everything from new market entry to brand repositioning. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/blog_meta.png) #### No product is created in a vacuum The Competitive Positioning Playbook teaches you... 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a ****rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you ****must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom ****tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s ****revenue** ceiling. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ## How to conduct effective customer research So, we know customer research is important, but how exactly do you carry it out? Here’s a six-step guide to uncovering those all-important insights: ### 1) Define your goals First, pinpoint the questions you need to answer. Is it about improving customer retention? Identifying new product opportunities? Optimizing pricing? Defining your goals upfront is crucial to gathering the right kind of data. ### 2) Choose your research methods Select techniques that best provide the insights you need. Some possibilities include interviews, focus groups, surveys, usability testing, ethnographies, and social listening. Why not mix quantitative surveys with qualitative insights? Surveys easily gather wide-ranging feedback from many customers, while open-ended interviews and ethnographies provide the understanding needed to transform findings into human-centered insights. Balance both for a holistic perspective. ### 3) Ask the right questions Craft questions that will guide upcoming strategic decisions. For interviews, focus groups, and usability tests, prepare **open-ended questions** that support your research goals. And be sure to avoid jargon and keep your language conversational. ### 4) Define your sample It’s essential to gather the opinions of those who matter, i.e. people who match your buyer personas. To get a good sample, here are some guidelines we recommend you follow: - **Aim for 10 participants per buyer persona**: Depending on your audience, you may need to target multiple personas. Be sure to source separate sample groups and include roughly 10 people in each. - **Search recent surveys**: If you’ve carried out a survey recently, use it to your advantage. Those participants have recently interacted with your company, so their recollections may be more reliable. - **Mix it up:** While a sample formed entirely of your loyal fan base may massage your ego, it’ll compromise the quality of your market research. So, mix it up a little, and seek a variety of opinions. Include people who’ve purchased your product, people who opted for your competitors, and people who may be on the fence. Get out of your comfort zone, put on your hard hat, and prepare for a mixed response; criticism is your friend, not your enemy. ### 5) Engage your participants Market research firms have catalogs of potential participants at their fingertips, but not every company has the same luxury – meaning you need to get your hands dirty and find people yourself. That may sound like a hassle, but don’t worry – here are some tips to make recruiting participants easier: - **Use incentives:** People like to be compensated for their time, and a small incentive will make them more likely to take part in your research. Whether it’s a small cash payment or a shopping voucher, it’s a small price to pay to get your study over the line. If you can’t afford to offer incentives, give them access to exclusive content, or discounts on future purchases. - **Be social:** Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn have one thing in common: they bring together your fans and followers in one place, meaning you can send a blanket rallying call asking for support – piece of cake! - **Use your CRM:** Your CRM system should be your best friend when it comes to picking a sample. With the click of a button, you can filter your customers by time period, company size, account type, etc., and contact the relevant people for your study. Also, be sure to liaise with sales teams if you need help accessing accounts. - **Spread the word:** Whether it’s your family members, friends, or colleagues, tell everyone you can think of you’re conducting a study and need help. Share posts on LinkedIn and ask others to like and share, and before you know it, your initial post will reach thousands of prospective respondents. The more creative you are, the more people you’ll attract. ### 6) Analyze and share your findings Don’t silo research within a single department – be generous with your knowledge! Make sure all teams apply insights to enhance products, services, and experiences. Look for key themes, insights, and representative quotes. Produce an executive summary, then disseminate learnings across all teams to drive solutions. ## Conclusion Let’s wrap up with a quick recap of our top tips for successful customer research: - Mix quantitative surveys with qualitative techniques for comprehensive data. - Engage both current and potential customers to avoid confirmation bias. - Observe real customer behaviors as well as soliciting opinions. - Keep an open mind to learn something new rather than validating assumptions. - Make the research experience positive to build goodwill. - Follow up with participants to share how their feedback impacted business decisions. 🧠 Remember: customer research isn’t a one-and-done tactic. Your ears should always be open to feedback. The more your company listens to customer perspectives, the better it will understand and serve its market. Over time, you’ll spot insights faster and research efforts will scale. But avoid analysis paralysis – take action on the feedback you receive to maximize its value. [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### Blueprint for Tomorrow: AI's Emerging Role in Competitive Intelligence | Ben Hoffman URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/role-of-ai-in-competitive-intelligence-ben-hoffman/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:58:26.000Z In this episode of the Complete Clarity Podcast, we chat with Ben Hoffman, Senior Manager of Competitive Intelligence at Adobe, exploring the transformative impact of AI on competitive intelligence (CI). Ben shares insights on how AI not only streamlines the immense task of data analysis, but also serves as a vital tool for strategic planning, without overshadowing the irreplaceable value of human intuition and decision-making. We delve into the nuances of AI's application in CI, the importance of security in its deployment, and Adobe's forward-looking approach to leveraging AI for future innovations in competitive strategy. [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast: Blueprint for Tomorrow: AI’s Emerging Role in Competitive Intelligence on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Compete Clarity Podcast, Ep Blueprint for Tomorrow: AI’s Emerging Role in Competitive Intelligence - Mar 20, 2024![](https://t0.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blueprint-for-tomorrow-ais-emerging-role-in-competitive/id1678079061?i=1000649853997&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/9d/0c/36/9d0c3698-c69a-ff19-f51f-f7371cd41832/mza_2588363255601066954.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blueprint-for-tomorrow-ais-emerging-role-in-competitive/id1678079061?i=1000649853997) **Reasons to listen:** - 🚀 Discover the two AI-driven techniques Adobe employs to monitor competitors effectively. - 🕵️‍♂️ We reveal a unique approach to using AI to distilling actionable insights from mountains of data. - 🤝 Uncover how Adobe's CI expert harnesses AI to enhance his day-to-day output and impact. …and much more. --- 🎬 **Watch the episode in full:** 👇 --- ## **Want to be a guest on the podcast?** We're looking for guests! If you consider yourself (or anyone you know does!) something of a thought leader in competitive intelligence, drop us a line at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io. We can't wait to host you! ### Your step-by-step guide to market research URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-research-guide/ Last updated: 2024-07-09T14:45:27.000Z **This article was adapted from* [**What is customer and market research?* ](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-research/)**on our sister site, Product Marketing Alliance.* Staying ahead of the competition demands a deep understanding of your market landscape. Yet, far too often, businesses find themselves operating in the dark, unable to grasp the nuances of their target audience. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. Luckily there’s a solution: market research. In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore what it entails and why it's an indispensable tool for any [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) expert. From identifying customer needs and avoiding costly missteps to benchmarking against rivals and optimizing your marketing tactics, market research holds the power to elevate your competitive strategy. We'll dive into the different types of market research, including primary and secondary sources, as well as quantitative and qualitative data, equipping you with the knowledge to harness each approach effectively. Let’s get into it. 🤿 ## What is market research? Market research is the systematic process of gathering data on target markets or industries as a whole. Its goal is to identify market trends, sizes, growth potential, pricing models, competition levels, and customer demographics. It typically involves quantitative research methods like surveys, polls, and data analysis. It serves to answer questions like: - Who makes up the target market? - How big is the total market size? - What macro-level trends are shaping the market? - How are competitors positioned? - What are average prices and price sensitivity? This high-level information allows companies to: - Validate market opportunities. - Develop new products or features. - Set competitive pricing. - Position brands effectively. - Allocate resources to the most lucrative segments. - Maximize marketing ROI. Market research refers to understanding the competitive environment and overall market that your company operates within. This allows you to position your product more effectively in the market. ## Why is market research important? Do Hershey’s launch a new candy bar without taste tests? Do ad campaigns get signed off without test screenings? Or do fast-food chains launch new burgers without checking out what the punters’ taste buds are craving? **Answer: A resounding no.** Rather than acting on a whim, companies complete meticulous market research to improve their chances of a hit, and reduce the likelihood of an expensive pink elephant. In a nutshell, market research spills the beans on what prompts customers to put their hands in their pockets, buy products and services, and part with their hard-earned cash. The process is critical to ensure that the best decisions are made by a company. But how does it help, and why should every company sit up and take notice? All shall be revealed… ## The benefits of conducting market research ### It helps you identify your customer base It’s impossible to build a successful product unless you communicate with prospective customers. Market research provides a set of definitive answers to key questions, including: - **Who** is your product aimed at? - Who are your customer **personas?** - What **features** do they want from your product? - How much are they willing to **spend?** The market research process allows you to clearly paint an image of: 1. your ideal customer – gender, age, location, income, etc. 2. the product you’re going to create, as dictated by the needs of the customer. When you’ve identified who you're targeting and what you’re creating, you’re able to tailor your marketing strategy and pricing plans accordingly, tying each of your product's [features to benefits](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/) your target customers want. ### It can prevent sloppy mistakes Before[ launching a product ](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/blueprint-for-a-compelling-product-launch/), it’s important to conduct rigorous[ research and testing ](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-test-internal-assumptions/), to avoid silly (and expensive) errors. Let prospective buyers test it out beforehand, so you can iron out any imperfections by conducting market research. While your gut may tell you your product will resonate with consumers, making decisions based on gut instinct alone isn’t a great idea; if things go wrong, you’ll be left ruing your choice not to do some simple testing. Focus groups are a great source of[ customer and market feedback ](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-what-why-and-how-of-customer-market-feedback/). If things go swimmingly, you’ve got the peace of mind you need, and you can push on with the launch. If there are areas for improvement, just go back to the drawing board and make your service even better. ### It can protect your business Market research not only indicates what the market is like now, it allows you to forecast how your industry could shape up in the future. Proactivity helps you exploit potential gaps in the market other companies may not have spotted, so always stay on your toes and keep your eyes peeled for market opportunities. Take UK record store HMV, for example. While they continued to channel their efforts into the sales of CDs and DVDs, Spotify and Netflix researched the market and developed mobile platforms offering music and film on demand, in line with emerging trends. In 2019, Netflix’s assets were $34.9bn, and Spotify was being heralded as ‘the savior of the music industry’, while HMV called in administrators for the second time in six years. Winner: Market research, by knockout. ### It allows you to size up opportunities How big could your market be? Are there adjacent segments ripe for expansion? Market research surfaces crucial data on market size, growth rates, and demographic factors that make new ventures viable. It also maps out expansion opportunities beyond early adopters by revealing underserved consumer needs in a category. ### It helps you benchmark against competitors Monitoring competitors goes hand-in-hand with understanding customers. Market research tracks factors like competitor market share, brand awareness, consumer sentiment, pricing, promotional strategies, and perceived product strengths/weaknesses. These benchmarks help position your business competitively. They also highlight tactical advantages to better meet customer needs in an evolving marketplace. ### It informs business strategy Understanding the market is crucial for any business to make informed decisions. It helps you identify trends that’ll impact corporate strategy and planning. Plus, it provides valuable insights to guide decisions around selecting target markets, developing products or services, creating marketing and sales strategies, and staying ahead of the competition. ### It helps you optimize marketing spend No marketing budget is infinite. Market research identifies high-potential customer segments so you can allocate marketing spend for maximum ROI. It also surfaces media consumption habits and influencers to refine messaging and choose cost-efficient channels. The end goal is better conversion rates and lower customer acquisition costs. --- ## Looking for next steps? **Competitive intelligence is a powerful growth lever for any organization... if done right.** There are many concepts to master if you're to satisfy your customers, motivate your team, and optimize your workflows. Enter our Competitive Intelligence Framework. 🏁 It covers everything you need to know to navigate the competitive intelligence cycle, from start to finish. [The Competitive Intelligence FrameworkCompetitive intelligence done right is a powerful growth lever for any organization. But getting it right? That’s the hard part. There are many concepts to master if you’re to satisfy your customers, motivate your team, and optimize your workflows. Enter our Competitive Intelligence Framework.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/06/CIA-Framework-Wheel_Meta.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-framework/) --- ## 8 ways market research supports customer research While market and customer research are two distinct practices, they ultimately work towards the same goal: to help you make the right strategic decisions by deeply understanding your audience. Here are eight ways market research complements customer research: **1\. Validating market segments:** Market data indicates segments with distinct needs. Customer research explores those needs with real people. **2\. Sizing target markets:** Macro-level market research gauges potential sales volume for new products or services. Customer research assesses actual interest and buying criteria. **3\. Identifying customer archetypes:** Market data reveals demographic clusters. In-depth interviews turn those statistics into living buyer personas. **4\. Comparing against competitors:** Market share metrics show key rivals. Customer studies reveal why people prefer them over you. **5\. Selecting new markets:** High-level market scans uncover blue ocean opportunities. Customer studies determine product-market fit. **6\. Forecasting industry trends:** Market forecasts predict future shifts. Customer input guides strategies to leverage them. **7\. Choosing marketing channels:** Market research identifies major media outlets and influencers. Customer interviews reveal which touchpoints matter most. **8\. Pricing products or services:** Industry benchmarking provides pricing ranges. Conjoint analysis finds optimal price points. ## Primary vs. secondary market research There are two types of data sources you can use when carrying out market research: Primary and secondary. Let’s take a look at what they each involve and how you can get your hands on them. ### Primary research Primary research is research you conduct for yourself or hire a specialist to collect on your behalf. For example, at Competitive Intelligence Alliance, we used data we collected ourselves for the [Competitive Intelligence Trends report ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-report/), and we’re continuing to [survey ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-landscape-salary-survey/)members of our community for upcoming editions. Primary research is based on two types of information: exploratory and specific. Exploratory research is open-ended, with respondents usually providing their views in an unstructured interview scenario. On the other hand, specific research tends to be more structured, to solve a particular problem highlighted during the exploratory phase. #### How to conduct primary research When arranging primary research, it’s important to identify your research subjects’ preferred method of communication, whether this is direct mail, phone, or interviews. These should be considered carefully, given the response rate for each method varies. For example, people tend to prefer a quick chat on the phone over penning lengthy responses to questions sent by email. Social media is also widely used for conducting market research. Features like LinkedIn polls allow companies to quickly gather opinions from thousands of followers. ### Secondary research Secondary research is research conducted by some other party. You can get it from sources like: - Reports - Books - Journals - Newspapers - Letters - Government websites Secondary research intel is often available to the public and can be found online or in libraries. Media outlets such as newspaper publishers and TV stations also host a range of information that can be useful for secondary research. ## Quantitative vs. qualitative data There are not only two types of research to be aware of, but also two types of data: quantitative and qualitative. Let’s take a look. ### What is quantitative data? Quantitative data consists of cold, hard facts that can be easily converted into graphs and charts. The research is usually carried out using surveys and questionnaires with closed-ended questions, yes or no questions, checkbox or multiple-choice questions, and questions with intervals or ratios. It’s structured, statistical, and numbers-based. #### What are the benefits of quantitative data? Quantitative data is useful for conclusive answers, it’s easy to analyze and can help prove or disprove hypotheses. The questions are also quicker and easier to answer, so you’re likely to get more responses. ### What is qualitative data? Qualitative data is non-statistical and consists largely of impressions and opinions. It’s generally used to answer ‘why’ questions. It’s investigative in nature and asks open-ended questions. Qualitative data can be generated through: - Surveys - Audio and video recordings - Images and symbols - Interview transcripts and focus groups - Observations and notes #### What are the benefits of qualitative data? Qualitative research gives you a deeper insight into the motivations behind the statistics. It’s used to theorize and interpret. Instead of asking how many people buy your product, it asks why they buy it (or not!). ### Which data is better for research? Whether you decide to use qualitative or quantitative data will depend on the results you’re looking for. If, for example, your product was an app that maps bike routes, using qualitative questions like “What do you think of our app?” will lead to many, many different answers. They might focus on speed, responsiveness, and price, which could be invaluable information for you to look at. However, if you want a specific question answered, like: “How responsive is this app?” 1. Super responsive 2. Sometimes responsive 3. Not at all responsive Then, quantitative data is your best bet. The two approaches aren’t mutually exclusive though. You can gather both quantitative and qualitative data for a more holistic view of your target market. ## Conclusion Market research is invaluable for any CI pro. By tapping into its power, you gain a profound understanding of your target market, empowering you to make informed decisions that help you outmaneuver your competitors and drive sustainable growth. So, don't be afraid to embrace market research and use it to your advantage! --- [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### How to use competitive intelligence to guide (re-)positioning projects URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-positioning/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T10:25:45.000Z 🎙️ **This article is based on Fiona’s insightful interview on the Compete Clarity podcast. Check out the full episode* [**here*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/crafting-killer-competitive-positioning-fiona-finn/)**.* --- If you want to stay ahead of the pack, you have to understand your rivals. But how can you use competitive intelligence to craft a winning strategy? You’ve come to the right place to find out! Get ready to learn… - What role competitive intelligence (CI) should play in your positioning campaigns. - How to leverage competitor insights for major product and pricing shifts. - How to get started with CI. - How to use [SEO](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-perform-seo-swot-analysis/) and SEM data to exploit unique competitive advantages. - And much more. Whether you're a dedicated CI pro or a product marketer (PMM) juggling competitive intel with your other duties, you'll walk away ready to outsmart your fiercest competitors. --- **Listen here** 👂 --- ## The role of competitive intelligence in positioning Competitive intelligence lays a strong foundation for [differentiated competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/). It gives us a clear sense of common language, product categories, and problem/solution spaces others play in. If you’re a product marketer focused on positioning, your job is to understand where competitors play and then use that knowledge to differentiate your product. It’s vital to layer in messaging about the unique value you provide to your target customer, too. Distilling your core competitive advantages down to a single [positioning statement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/) can do wonders for clarifying your thinking around positioning. However, you can’t just set and forget your positioning. It needs to be regularly revisited and refreshed, much like CI toolkits or battlecards do. ### So… how often should you revisit your positioning? There’s no one-size-fits-all rule. It depends on your industry, competitiveness, product changes, and target customers. However, as a rule of thumb, to mesh competitive and positioning refreshes, I tend to advise teams to refresh competitive research quarterly to stay current. You can tie this into a positioning and messaging refresh if necessary. The scope of positioning and messaging refreshes varies. Smarter than making assumptions is A/B testing two homepages with different messaging to find what resonates. Ads are another fantastic testing ground for messaging. You can continuously track conversion rates, and use those learnings to inform broader quarterly refreshes. How much input PMM has into messaging channels matters too. The homepage is what most new customers see first, so strong positioning there is key. Then it’s vital to connect the dots to other touchpoints like ads, and events that inspire homepage visits. If your organization has sales reps or support staff, you need to enable those teams to test messaging and provide feedback, too. Their insights are invaluable. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/blog_meta.png) #### No product is created in a vacuum The Competitive Positioning Playbook teaches you... 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a ****rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you ****must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom ****tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s ****revenue** ceiling. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ## Leveraging competitor insights for major product and pricing shifts Competitive intelligence’s role in shaping product marketing strategies isn’t limited to positioning. When I led product marketing at Unbounce, I oversaw the repositioning of the product from a landing page builder to a conversion intelligence platform. I also navigated two pricing changes. Competitive intelligence guided these projects. Competitive and market intelligence were huge drivers for Unbounce's strategic decision to build a new category, with all the pricing, messaging, and other changes that entailed. Let me rewind a little to show you what I mean. ### Some context… Many moons ago, Unbounce was first to market with its user-friendly, no-code landing page builder tailored for marketers and designers. But fast-forward a decade, and every SaaS product category was swamped. Landing page builders were suddenly a dime a dozen, especially with full website builders emerging. There was a strong need to differentiate; competitive intelligence helped us realize that. Thanks to our intel, we understood the core value propositions of landing page builders. Onto that, we layered-in the customer needs existing solutions weren't addressing well. Customers wanted clicks and conversions, not just landing pages. Knowing that informed our decision to create a conversion intelligence platform, rather than just another landing page builder. Our new messaging, our understanding of our customers’ needs, and the value proposition we wanted to chase, all of these guided the roadmap for our platform. All of that stemmed from our foundational customer, market, and competitor intelligence. ### The real value of competitive intelligence in re-positioning Competitive intelligence not only informed our pricing strategy by revealing competitors' existing approaches and pricing models – it also highlighted unmet customer needs we could differentiate on. For us, that meant connecting the dots between our unique value prop (driving conversions) and our pricing strategy and structuring our pricing tiers accordingly. While competitive pricing was a consideration, [value-based pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/why-pricing-based-on-value-is-better-than-pricing-on-cost/) aligned to our [competitive differentiation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/) was the main strategy at Unbounce, rather than simply matching competitors. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/CIA_CI-by-industry-playbook_Blog_.png) #### CI-by-Industry eBook ****Download your copy** to learn... - 😰 Why field intelligence can be dangerous, and how to use it the right way. ([Page 24](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🙅‍♂️ Why you should think twice before having reps from [****this team**](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) on a win/loss call. ([Page 24](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🤖 The truth about automation, and how much time tools can really save you. ([Page 22](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) - 🤯 The [****surprising key skill**](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) every one of our industry experts said was crucial for CI success. ([Page 66](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) ## How to get started with competitive research Whether you're a dedicated CI professional or a product marketer with CI responsibilities, the number one thing you need to know is your customers. In this case, your internal teams are your customers. Start by talking to your stakeholders to uncover their pain points, rather than making assumptions about what kinds of intel they need. Identify where your knowledge can fill gaps and drive new value across the organization. For example, perhaps your current SEO strategy overlooks competitor keyword gaps – capitalizing on this could unlock new organic traffic, inform content architecture, and inspire fresh brand campaigns. By leading with curiosity about internal customer needs, you can continually evolve CI's value proposition. Discover where you can uniquely contribute based on your organization's specific gaps and priorities. Then apply your CI expertise to pragmatically and innovatively solve those needs. ### What makes a successful CI practitioner? The most impactful CI practitioners are those who intimately understand the strategic objectives and blindspots across marketing, product, sales, and leadership. They then laser-focus their efforts on delivering competitive insights tailored to helping those teams win, rather than just generating reports and data for data's sake. It's about creating value. Once you know what your stakeholders need, how can you go about gathering those all-important competitive insights? Competitor websites are usually a product marketer's first port of call – but you shouldn’t stop there. ### Go-to [sources of competitor intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/) Whenever I’m onboarding new PMMs, I provide a competitive intelligence handbook to set up that foundational awareness during their first week. This includes tips like… - Set up Google keyword alerts. - Sign up for competitor newsletters. - Sign up for trials of your competitors’ products – using your work email for the sake of transparency. - Keep a close eye on the pricing pages of companies in similar industries to your own. You can even create alerts for changes using tools like Visualping. As a PMM, you want to be able to set and forget alerts where possible. That’s a great way to stay on top of changes and trends in your industry. Then for strategic initiatives like pricing overhauls, you’ll want to dig deeper – visiting websites, talking to customers who've used competitors, and closely following online user communities. User communities are goldmines for unfiltered feedback and sentiment. Check competitors' own community platforms of course, but also Reddit, Facebook groups, forums, etc. Following influencers in the space also means you’ll be one of the first to hear about price changes or any dissatisfaction with the product. Hearing from users is always impactful. We sometimes overlook just how many vibrant online communities exist to tap into the voice of the customer. Finally, don't forget to leverage your [internal sources of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/gather-competitive-intelligence-internal-teams/#most-popular-internal-gathering-methods) for maximum efficiency. --- [How to Perform an SEO SWOT AnalysisSWOT is as crucial for SEO as for any other area of your organization. Whether you’re just getting started with SEO or want to take a comprehensive look at past efforts, a SWOT analysis will be an invaluable planning tool.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceNilesh Parashar![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/03/merakist-l5if0iQfV4c-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-perform-seo-swot-analysis/) --- ## How to hone your SEO strategy One of the most useful yet least talked-about avenues of competitive research is search engine data, but how can you go about exploiting it? The good news is you don’t need to be an SEO expert or have a huge budget to get started – there are a ton of freemium keyword research tools out there that make keyword research simple and cost-effective. **Start by asking questions:** - What language do your customers use to describe your software category? - What phrases do they use when searching for better solutions? Applying that **customer-centric lens** to keyword research should provide you with an initial list of top-quality questions to answer with your content. It’s also a good idea to find out which terms your competitors are trying to rank for. Again, this is something many SEO tools can help you with. Better yet, you’ll want to identify untapped keyword opportunities your competitors haven't claimed yet, where you can get a first-mover advantage for your brand. Next, I’d recommend mapping out an SEO playbook, which will define the content types you’re going to create. These could include long-form guides and whitepapers that Google's helpful content updates will favor, or glossary pieces to strategically target keywords. And, of course, you can’t just set and forget your SEO work. It’s vital to refresh existing content by layering in new competitor insights and targets. This is a great way to stay ahead of the game without investing tons of time and money. While product marketing may not fully own the execution of your SEO strategy, providing this competitive expertise and customer perspective is crucial. ## Using CI to address new threats Competitive intelligence projects can take many forms, depending on the situation and your organization’s needs. However, there are three primary types of CI initiatives you're likely to encounter over the course of your career: - 🏃‍♂️ **Reactive projects:** These come about when leadership, sales, or marketing come to you saying, “Who are these new players? We need to know everything yesterday.” This urgent need for competitive insights is usually driven by sudden competitive threats or deal losses. - ♟️ **Strategic initiatives:** These are longer-term projects to redefine your market positioning and strategy. They require more investment of budget, time, and resources to contribute meaningful competitive research and analysis. - 🐲 **Myth-busting:** In some cases, you'll join an organization that believes they have no competitors and don't need CI. You have to dispel those myths and build an evidence-based case for why competitive intelligence matters. **Where I had most success...** The most success I've had has been rapidly spinning up effective reactive CI programs. At a previous company, we were previously first-to-market but then seemingly overnight faced five or six very capable, targeted new competitors. I could feel the internal anxiety brewing around them, even if no one was talking about it. I proactively went to leadership, deprioritized other projects, and said, “Give me two weeks to get us up-to-speed on the full competitive landscape.” I scoped the work upfront, outlined deliverables, and got buy-in for that short-term project. The competitive intelligence I provided in those two weeks set us up for about a year and a half. It comprehensively charted the new competitive environment, and gave us a strategic response plan – all from a rapid reactive project initiated due to an urgent internal need. **This is the key...** The key is to make the hard decision to fully prioritize and timebox the project. You have to be able to say no to other responsibilities and set clear expectations upfront like: “I'll create toolkits, training, refreshed positioning, pricing analysis, a detailed competitive overview and Q&A session with leadership, and strategic product recommendations – all within a two-week sprint.” That intense focus and well-defined scope can be extremely effective. But, beyond just the competitive insights themselves, it helped establish a much-needed culture of competitive awareness for the first time. Suddenly, employees had talk tracks and consistent messaging to address rivals. There was a sense of calm and preparedness that we didn’t have before. As CI practitioners and PMMs, contributing to that organizational culture shift is invaluable. ## Key takeaways At the end of the day, competitive intelligence isn't about creating reports or flexing your data muscles. It's about being a strategic partner who helps every team win by delivering insights tailored to their needs. Ready to level up your CI game? Here are the key takeaways: 💡 Don't make assumptions about what your stakeholders need – lead with curiosity to uncover their competitive blindspots. 🗺️ Map out a comprehensive CI process drawing insights from competitor websites, user communities, search data, and more. 🔁 Revisit positioning and messaging regularly through testing and incorporating new competitive context. 🎯 Use CI to guide major strategic shifts like repositioning, pricing overhauls, and building new product categories. 🌐 Align your SEO strategy with the language customers use to describe your space and evaluate solutions. 📈 Have a plan for rapidly addressing urgent competitive threats through short-term, high-impact CI projects. 🙌 Help instill a culture of preparedness by arming teams with competitive messaging and playbooks. It's about being proactive, not just reactive – so you can outsmart rivals at every turn. --- ## Put yourself in first place 🥇 Differentiation is critical. In today's job market, interview processes have four, five or even more stages. Competition is fierce, and proving your worth is getting harder. How valuable would it be to you to be able to bypass all that in the eyes of the recruiter, because they’re already familiar with your work? We're offering you the means to do just that. We’ll work with you to quickly adapt your work into SEO-optimized articles, ghostwritten guides, and podcast episodes. It’s never been easier to differentiate yourself, so why not start today? Sound interesting? [Send us a message](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io to discuss next steps. 🤝 --- ### Key findings from the Competitive Intelligence Trends Report URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-key-findings/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T08:47:48.000Z As a competitive intelligence (CI) practitioner, you’ve likely got the scoop on your rivals, but have you ever wondered what your peers are up to? After all, they certainly have lessons to share that could help you raise your CI game *even higher*. Luckily for you, every year we survey the crème de la crème of competitive intel to get a sneak peek into their practices (oh, how the tables have turned!). So, strap in and get ready to learn: - Which teams CI practitioners work with most closely to get the job done. - How CI pros [gather competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) from other departments (and how they deliver it to teams.) - How CI pros get hold of hard-to-access pricing intel. Let’s get into it. ## Cross-functional collaboration in competitive intelligence [Collaboration ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-a-collaborative-competitive-intelligence-program/)is at the heart of competitive intelligence (CI). Effective CI programs crowdsource the intelligence-gathering process, leveraging the many eyes and ears throughout the business to capture as much relevant intel as possible. Sounds great in theory, but how does that pan out in practice? Well, every year for the [Competitive Intelligence Trends Report ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-report/), we ask product marketers and CI professionals to rate other teams' openness and proactivity when it comes to sharing competitive intelligence. In our most recent survey results, the modal value was a perfect 10/10 with **16.67%** of respondents awarding internal teams this score. Great news, right? Not so fast! The *average* score hit a four-year low last year at just **6.56**, down from 6.9 in 2022 and 7.4 in both 2021 and 2020\. But is this declining score a cause for concern? We asked [Fiona Finn ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/crafting-killer-competitive-positioning-fiona-finn/), Director of Product Marketing at Jane.app, what she thought: > “If I see a declining score in anything, I’ll turn that into a question. Do folks know how to do this? Do they know where to share this? > “If the answer is ‘no’, there’s something very actionable. You can build those programs, open a Slack channel, set up check-ins… > “If the answer is ‘yes’, that could be indicative of two things. Either your own CI program is too siloed, so that’s a negative. Or, it could be a *good* thing in that you’ve now taught your stakeholders how to fish, how to do competitive research, and they’re feeling confident to run things themselves.” --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/CIA_CI_Trends_Report_2023_CTA_--1-.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-report/) --- ### Cross-functional CI superstars So, when it comes to gathering and sharing CI, the more the merrier (though not all teams are as proactive as they could be). But which functions are actually coming up with the goods? We asked our CI and PMM pros which teams provide them with competitive intel most regularly. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given their constant contact with customers and their vested interest in getting all the competitive intel they can lay their hands on, sales came in top, supplying **83.33%** of our survey respondents with intel. Meanwhile, product and leadership came in second and third place respectively, serving the tea to **48.48%** and **43.94%** of our survey takers. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/asdf1.png) **Source:* [**Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2023*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-report/) It’s fair to say that sales teams are *on it* as far as gathering CI is concerned, while other departments have some serious catching up to do. Want to help them get involved? Check out [these top tips from Patrick Wall ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/#tips-for-working-with-your-stakeholders), Director of Product Marketing and Competitive Intelligence at Imperva. ## How CI pros gather competitive intelligence from other departments… The best CI pros are proactive. They don’t wait for other teams to give them intel – they provide those teams with processes and places to log and share key info when they come across it. So, how are today’s CI whizzes collecting competitive intelligence from other departments? According to our survey results, email correspondence continues to lead the way, – albeit by a narrower margin than in previous years – with **60.61%** of CI pros relying on this medium to gather intel internally. Hot on email’s heels are dedicated Slack channels (or similar solutions), which are used by **59.10%** of our survey takers. Meanwhile, good old-fashioned one-on-one chats are the third most popular way of gleaning intel from other teams, with **50%** of survey respondents sitting down for regular chinwags with their cross-functional peers. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/asdf2.png) **Source:* [**Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2023*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-report/) ## How CI pros deliver intel to teams When it comes to collecting intelligence internally, email reigns supreme – but how do CI professionals prefer to spread the word about their company’s competitors? Our survey found that the two most selected most common methods are updating a central hub of self-serve resources (**65.15%**), and updating [battlecards ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/)(**62.12%**). A fair chunk of respondents (**45.45%**) also reported updating other teams via in-person briefings. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/asdf3.png) **Source:* [**Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2023*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-report/) Other (less popular) methods included: - Dedicated **Slack** channel - Microsoft **Teams** channel - Written **reports** - Internal blog **articles** - Slack and Loom **updates** Your best bet might well be to leverage a combination of these approaches – that way, you increase the chances that everyone knows what’s up with your rivals. Here’s how Fiona Finn does it at Jane.app: > “There’s the proactive and reactive side. We’ll do once-a-quarter proactive outreach to our Customer Success folks, just to make sure everyone’s in the know there. > “The reactive sourcing would be through a Slack channel, and then ensuring that product marketing updates the sources of truth, and that the whole organization is very aware of what those sources of truth are. > “We’ve recently started doing a CI newsletter, which is very simple, very high level. We’re not trying to overwhelm, but we include any updated competitive toolkits, the top three need-to-know headlines of what’s going on in the CI world, and then an ‘in case you missed it’ from the last one.” So, why not take a leaf from her book and start broadening your approach to sharing intel today? ## The challenges faced by competitive intelligence practitioners today Whether you’re a PMM struggling to perform CI alongside a list of other responsibilities, or a dedicated CI pro battling to win your stakeholders’ buy-in, CI has its challenges. We wanted to get a sense of the challenges competitive intelligence practitioners have been facing over the last 12 months, so we asked! Four clear themes emerged from their responses: 1. A **lack of time** (or other resources). 2. Getting access to **non-public information**. 3. **Collaborating effectively** with internal customers and competitive-facing teams. 4. **Verifying** the accuracy of the intel you find. Here are just a few of our respondents’ comments: ### **Lack of time** - “It takes a lot of time to be thorough.” - “Since we don't use any CI tools, I have to comb through articles and the internet and just don't have the bandwidth to do this with any consistency. Plus, I believe CI tools are able to do deeper dives and uncover more information than I am able to do manually.” - “In the B2B2C world, info like pricing and product specs are hard to come by. It takes a lot of manual resources to locate information.” ### **Accessing difficult-to-obtain information** - “Getting information on pricing and packaging.” - “Lack of access to information on privately held companies.” - “Capturing the intel we can't see – sales team conversations, prospect feedback or insights, etc.” ### **Collaborating with internal customers** - “Ensuring our customers (our internal customers of our competitive intel, e.g. sales) understand the value of their contribution (i.e. the depth of detail they provide, sources, etc.)” - “Getting customer-facing teams to read our materials and use our materials.” - “Translating findings into impacts.” ### **Verifying intel’s accuracy** - “Validating the authenticity of the information, especially when it's not available on the competitor’s website.” - “Cross-checking information to make sure it’s accurate. Getting it in real time, not a month later.” - “Determining whether the source of the intelligence is credible.” Yikes! 🤯 Before you start to despair at the scale of the challenges ahead of you, let’s explore some solutions to the challenge of laying your hands on that tricky-to-gather pricing intel. And why not check out the [Competitive Intelligence Playbook ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/head-to-head-playbook/)for more tried-and-tested tips on running a stellar CI program? ## How CI pros get hold of hard-to-access pricing intel Pricing intelligence is notoriously difficult to gather. In case you were wondering how to get your mitts on it without breaking the law (please don’t do that!), we asked our survey respondents how they go about finding a competitor’s pricing information when it’s not listed on their website. “We don’t,” was the despondent answer from more than a few of our respondents. As one person said, > “In B2B SaaS, this is very challenging. We have some intel from employees that came from a competitor, but honestly, we have very little information around pricing.” However, for those with the time and the tenacity, the best bets could include: - **Asking prospects:** *“Sales reps share what they are hearing and then benchmark for trends.”* - **Asking your own customers:** “\[We\] ask customers/buyers through surveys or interviews, \[then\] analyze their discounting practices relative to our price through CRM data.” - **Asking your competitors’ customers:** *“Existing and former customers and prospects, former employees, industry analysts.”* - **Mystery shopping:** *“Use their product or request a demo.”* ## That’s a wrap! Hopefully, this whistle-stop tour of the competitive intelligence landscape has given you some ideas to integrate into your own CI practices. If you’re ready to dive even deeper, why not check out the [Competitive Intelligence Trends Report ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-report/)in its full glory? [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/CIA_CI_Trends_Report_2023_CTA_.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-report/) To make your voice heard in the next report (shameless request alert!), just click [**here**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-landscape-salary-survey/)! ### A guide to business wargaming for strategy planning URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/ Last updated: 2024-05-30T14:17:37.000Z Business strategies are high stakes. There’s money on the line, and mistakes matter. That’s why pressure testing your business strategy is key. In this article, we’ll explain what business wargaming is, and how you can use it to test and improve your business’ strategies and tactics. ## What is a war game in business strategy? Business wargaming (aka corporate war gaming) sees you battle test your [strategic plans](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-facilitate-a-strategic-planning-session/) via role play before putting the fate of your business in their hands. To test your strategies, you’ll form a group, split into teams, and throw various scenarios at your strategy. These scenarios tend to involve changes to large-scale macro factors, like those examined in a PESTLE analysis. Teams will simulate moves and counter moves in response to these scenarios, based on the strategy you’re using, to play out the war game scenario. This simulates how your business would cope under dynamic (and often challenging) market conditions. Those with greater budgets can even incorporate computer simulations of events and scenarios to try to glean the most out of them. ### Types of war game There tend to be two types of business war games: strategic war games, and tactical ones. Strategic war games are relatively all-encompassing, and take a comprehensive look at your overarching strategy. Tactical business wargames are smaller in scope than strategic ones. When you want to test a few different tactical approaches to one or two specific problems or questions you have, tactical games make the most sense. --- [Rapidly Operationalize Any Strategic Plan in 5 Simple StepsIn this article we take you through the six steps to operationalize a strategic plan, including how to make the plan actionable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/soro-6-F4Trc09WlWw-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-operationalize-strategic-plan/) --- ## War gaming benefits Here are a few reasons you should run a business war game workshop. It: - [Encourages cross-departmental communication.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#%E2%80%A2-encourage-cross-departmental-communication) - [Allows you to pressure test ideas.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#%E2%80%A2-pressure-test-ideas) - [Can spark creativity.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#%E2%80%A2-spark-creativity) - [Challenges the status quo.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#%E2%80%A2-challenge-the-status-quo) - [Creates buy-in for your final plan.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#%E2%80%A2-create-buy-in-on-new-business-strategies-and-plans) ### • Encourage cross-departmental communication When departments don’t communicate, grievances can build up over time. 😤 Encouraging semi-structured interaction between members of these teams who wouldn’t usually interact is always positive. It helps break down barriers, and encourages communication. Involve the entire organization in the creation of strategic plans (not just leadership), and the end result is tighter teams, more used to communicating, and more willing (and able) to collaborate. ### • Pressure test ideas The idea of wargaming is to purposely seek out blind spots and weaknesses in your strategy in a low-stakes environment. (As well as to validate its positives). This way, you can rectify weaknesses and bolster your overall business strategy against the real threats of your competitive environment. This strengthens your final strategic plan, and ensures you’re not betting your business’ future on an unproven strategy. ### • Spark creativity Done right, role-playing is fun. 🕹️ Combining the competitiveness of opposing teams with the gamification of the strategy pressure testing process, and representation from all corners of the business, makes a war game workshop a melting pot of creativity. As a result, you’ll uncover creative, innovative new solutions to potential obstacles. ### • Challenge the status quo For any business, but especially large organizations with well-established processes, preconceived notions of the “right” way of doing things can go unchallenged for too long. This leads to stagnation and blind spots – two things a war game workshop is adept at identifying and eliminating. Workshops also give diverse voices from across the business a chance to be heard. Any business that wants to stay competitive must challenge preconceived ideas, not least to ensure it doesn’t get blindsided by Black Swan events and unforeseen circumstances. ### • Create buy-in on new business strategies and plans When people from across the business have been involved with the creation of your business strategy, they’ll naturally be more invested in it. 🤝 This nets you advocates, and buy-in for your strategy across all departments. So, not only does business wargaming improve your final strategy, it should also improve your business’ ability to implement that strategy by getting reps emotionally invested in its outcome. ## How to set up, structure, and perform a war game workshop War game workshops tend to occur in three stages: 1. [The planning stage.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#stage-1-the-planning-stage) 📝 2. [The pre-briefing stage.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#stage-2-the-briefing-stage) 📖 3. [The role-playing stage.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#stage-3-the-role-playing-stage) 🎱 Let’s dig into each one in detail. ### Stage 1: The planning stage For large businesses, war game workshops can be big affairs. For these businesses, some organization will be necessary to make the most of the event. But even smaller businesses should spend some time prepping. Answers to the following questions, at least, should be figured out during the planning stage: - **Who** should attend the workshop? - **Where** will you hold it? (Virtual workshops will have their own logistical challenges). - **What** are the objectives for the workshop? With these questions answered, you’ll be ready to move on to the briefing stage. ### Stage 2: The briefing stage Here’s where you’ll create any pre-reading material your workshop participants will need to get up to speed before the workshop begins, and share them with the attendees. This material aims to give workshop attendees a rundown of everything they need to know to participate. 🙋 They can get up to speed in their own time, so the workshop can hit the ground running once everyone arrives. To be clear, during this stage you will: - Prepare the necessary pre-reading / briefing materials. - Distribute these materials to attendees. - Follow up with attendees to make sure they’ve had a chance to familiarize themselves with the materials, and also to field any questions that may arise before the workshop. ### Stage 3: The role-playing stage Here’s where you’ll engage in the actual business wargaming workshop itself. #### Creating the teams Generally, attendees split into teams. One team represents the ‘home’ organization (like the home team in a football match). 🏈 Two or more teams can represent various competitor players. But not every team needs to play *opposing* sides. It’s often useful for at least one team to serve the function of a governmental, or legislative organization with regulatory authority. Other good options include: - **Consumer groups** and particular segments of your target market. - **Distributors.** - **Suppliers.** - **Regulatory bodies.** #### Possibilities for teams role playing competitors Your competitor teams can be closely (or loosely) based on real competitors. Or they can be based on fictional, or even idealized versions of competitors that emphasize particular competitive challenges. If you’re limited on teams, and not so limited on competitors, a final option is to combine real-world competitors. Do this for competitors that share similar attributes, and pose a similar threat level to your business, combining them into a single entity to make things more manageable. #### Take turns to make strategic moves To begin, your home team and competitor teams will take turns making strategic moves and counter-moves. ♟️ After each turn, the consumer group, or ‘market team’, awards a portion of the market share to one of the competing groups. The regulatory, or ‘control’ group, goes last each turn, and opens up a dialogue about how things worked, and how external macro factors could have played a part. The control group can also change the rules to impact the dynamics of the war game. ## How is a war game different from strategic planning? War gaming is a means of pressure testing and improving your strategic plans. It’s dynamic, and the role-play itself tests your plans under changing conditions your business might not be familiar with. Your control group team can change the rules – they might restrict unfair advantages, or new social factors might limit the viability of certain strategies. The competitive nature of war gaming gets teams thinking creatively as different teams try to actively poke holes in your plan. At the end, you’ll have a far better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of your strategic plan. --- [How to Roll Out a Strategic Plan (To Guarantee Success)Building a strategic plan takes a lot of work. So when it comes time to put it into action, you want to get it right. But the truth is, an effective rollout starts during the planning process. Want to learn why? Stay tuned.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/andy-hermawan-O1jUvZX9DOA-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-roll-out-a-strategic-plan/) --- ## Possible scenarios to role-play In your scenario planning, consider role-playing the following scenarios to best pressure test your business strategy. - [Product launches.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#%E2%80%A2-product-launches) - [Legislative changes.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#%E2%80%A2-legislative-changes) - [Competitor mergers and acquisitions.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#%E2%80%A2-competitor-mergers-and-acquisitions) - [The impact of environmental disasters.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#%E2%80%A2-environmental-disasters) - [Outbreak of war.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#%E2%80%A2-outbreak-of-war) - [Emergence of disruptive new technologies.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#%E2%80%A2-emergence-of-disruptive-new-technologies) - [Weakening or strengthening of currencies.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/#%E2%80%A2-weakening-or-strengthening-currencies) ### • Product launches It perhaps makes most sense to start by testing something specific you’re planning on doing. A strategic plan doesn’t have to be all-encompassing, after all. You can develop a go-to-market strategy for a new product, and want to pressure test it. War gaming comes into its own in such scenarios, allowing for tighter, more focused role-plays that examine particular business events. ### • Legislative changes Legislative changes are some of the easiest, most interesting, and most easily understood scenarios your control group can throw out to other teams in your war game role-play. Lawmakers and legislators exist, in part, to prevent monopolies. If one side gains a clear [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) during your role play, your control group can step in to dampen that advantage. How your own business adapts to such rule changes is a key factor in strategic planning, so it pays to simulate them. ### • Competitor mergers and acquisitions Facing off against a number of competitors can feel daunting enough. But what about when multiple competitors join forces? Mergers and acquisitions make for a turbulent competitive landscape. If those at the helm don’t handle the transition well, both companies can end up worse off. But when they go *right*, you get a new formidable opponent that’s greater than the sum of its parts. ➕ Devising tactics and strategies for when competitors join forces is never a bad idea. ### • Environmental disasters Environmental disasters can damage key infrastructure, and lead to political and economic unrest. In the wake of such disasters, legislators can perform emergency changes to national budgets, maneuvering money out of industries quickly. Such changes could have knock-on effects for your business. Pressure testing your plans against such changes is necessary if you’re to have the greatest possible confidence in those plans. ### • Outbreak of war When wars break out, things change. Border controls get tighter for affected countries. Imports and exports can be restricted or shut down. Tourism grinds to a halt, and for some regions and countries, this can have a hugely negative economic impact. Disruptive scenarios like these can be opportunities for some. Supply chain issues give those with deeper pockets a chance to stockpile greater volumes of goods, limiting supply to manipulate prices. Smaller players without the same financial freedoms get squeezed, and can go out of business. They’ll need to get creative if they want to continue being first choice for their customers. ### • Emergence of disruptive new technologies Right now, everyone is witnessing in real time how artificial intelligence (AI) is impacting industries. 👾 New and emerging technologies have the power to disrupt and change the ways we work. But this is difficult to simulate. Part of the reason new tech is so disruptive is it’s so difficult to predict what it’ll be, when it’ll come into existence, and how rapidly it’ll exert influence. At the very least, role-playing the impact of technological change is wise. ### • Weakening or strengthening currencies A change in the strength of any currency that’s involved in your regular business operations will have knock-on consequences for your business. If you source materials from suppliers in Europe, the EUR/USD exchange rate becomes important for your bottom line. 🏦 Other economic factors can influence exchange rates, so a stronger or weaker rate can be a critical secondary consequence of some other factor that you’ll want to pay attention to, since it can heavily influence your final profit margins. Trying to model or predict changes in foreign exchange rates is more or less pointless. Massive teams of very smart people are paid enormous sums of money in their attempts to do this in financial institutions. Instead, create contingencies for the possible consequences of various changes in exchange rates. ## Is the war metaphor right for competitive scenarios? ### Alex McDonnell’s dance battle analogy A debate you frequently hear come up is whether the whole ‘war’ metaphor is really fitting for competitive scenarios. Alex McDonnell, Director of Product Marketing at Airtable, prefers his much-loved ‘dance battle’ analogy. 🕺 In a dance battle, the opposing sides don’t try to tear each other down. Instead, with mutual respect, they watch each other’s moves and continually try to outdo each other. With one key aim in mind: to please the audience. The same, argues McDonnell, should be the case for competing businesses. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/ahmad-odeh-TK_WT3dl2tw-unsplash.jpg) Is competition in business a war? Or, like Airtable's Alex McDonnell, argues, is it more like... a dance battle? In a war, there is no audience. There is no target market. There is no customer. There’s just the goal of winning against the enemy. This way of thinking lends itself to the “competitor-obsessed” frame of competitive intelligence, which is often looked down upon. ### The counterargument > “You might want to dance with your competitors, but if they’re out for blood, and are willing to get their hands dirty, you better be willing to step up to the plate and fight back.” Okay, but if business is just… well, business, then competitors aren’t enemies. Any good business leader knows competition makes for better products. Competition benefits the consumer, and when businesses get their market strategies (and competitive positioning) right, there’s plenty of room for them to co-exist profitably. --- ## TL;DR So, what have we learned? 💡 Business wargaming tests your strategic plans through role-play, simulating market conditions to identify their strengths and weaknesses. 🛠️ Distinguish between strategic wargames for overarching strategies and tactical ones for specific issues. 🤝 Wargaming fosters communication across teams, bringing diverse insights and strengthening strategies. 🎭 Organize your wargame in three stages: planning, briefing, and role-playing, to ensure a comprehensive test of your strategies. 🌍 Role-play scenarios like product launches, competitor mergers, legislative changes, environmental disasters, and currency fluctuations to robustly test and refine business strategies against real-world challenges. [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### How to perform a competitor website analysis in 10 simple steps URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/ Last updated: 2024-08-06T17:24:51.000Z In this article, we’ll show you how to analyze a competitor's website and materials. When you examine competitors’ websites and their materials, you gain valuable insights that help your organization beat the competition. So understanding how to deconstruct your competitor's online presence is a crucial competitive intelligence skill. As always, there are ethical and legal boundaries you must respect when doing this kind of analysis. Never fear, we’ll explore those too. 🫡 First, here’s how to get the job done. 👷 --- ## How to analyze a competitor’s website Here are the 10 steps: 1. [Establish your aims](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/#1-establish-your-aims) 2. [Get the lay of the land](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/#2-get-the-lay-of-the-land) 3. [Perform a content analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/#3-perform-a-content-analysis) 4. [Perform SEO analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/#4-perform-seo-analysis) 5. [Assess their user experience (UX)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/#5-assess-their-user-experience-ux) 6. [Examine your competitor's product offerings](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/#6-examine-your-competitors-product-offerings) 7. [Assess their social media presence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/#7-assess-their-social-media-presence) 8. [Check up on customer feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/#8-check-up-on-customer-feedback) 9. [Read their news updates](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/#9-read-their-news-updates) 10. [Analyze their job postings](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-website-analysis/#10-analyze-their-job-postings) ### 1) Establish your aims Before you start with any analysis, it’s crucial you get crystal clear on just what it is you want to achieve. Do you want to identify weaknesses in your competitor’s strategy? Do you want to identify areas where their online presence is stronger than your own, to give your own online strategy some informed direction? Is your analysis of their website just part of a larger overall competitor analysis, or is this all you’ll be doing? Questions like these help orient your subsequent analysis. When you know what you want to see, it’s easier to distinguish signal from noise and draw solid conclusions. ### 2) Get the lay of the land Start by… visiting your competitor's website. Take a general look around. You’ll want to note the design, layout, and user-friendliness of the site. A thoughtfully laid-out website is a sign of a business that knows what it’s doing. Particularly in the SaaS space, a website is a direct reflection of the probable product experience. Prospective customers will be paying attention, and so should you. Pay particular attention to the: - Homepage, - Product or service offerings, - Any unique website features that differentiate the experience. You should also look at the competitor’s support pages. These can give you a sense of the level of customer support your competitors provide. Note down anything that jumps out at you. With time and practice (and through talking to customers and prospects yourself) your judgment about what’s important will improve. For example, when analyzing multiple competitors’ websites, you’ll notice that many follow a similar pattern. When one deviates from the pattern, it’s often important. ### 3) Perform a content analysis Now it’s time to examine the content on the website. This includes: - Blog posts, - Articles, - Product landing pages, - Help documentation, - And news updates. Analyze the tone, style, and messaging used to understand this competitor’s target audience and brand identity. ### 4) Perform SEO analysis When you dig further into your competitor’s articles, blog posts, and other online content, you can start to uncover information about their SEO and content strategy. [Competitive SEO analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) is solid gold. Quality content is time-consuming to produce, which means it’s not cheap. If a competitor is producing lots of high-quality content around certain topics, it’s because these topics are valuable to them. Perhaps they’re associated with high search volume, and bring them a lot of leads. Or perhaps, they’re obsessed with appearing as an authority on a particular niche topic, but it increases trust in their brand. 💡 Whatever the reason, it’s wise to use online tools, like Ahrefs or SEMrush, to analyze their website's search engine optimization (SEO) elements, such as keywords, meta tags, and backlinks. ### 5) Assess their user experience (UX) Good competitor research should always come back to the customer. At the end of the day, you’re trying to win the hearts and minds of the same people as your competitor. That’s why paying attention to the user experience your competitors offer on their website is a must. As you’re navigating their website, identify any usability issues, loading speed problems, or broken links. If certain areas of the website are more polished than others, ask yourself why pages on these topics have received more investment and attention. Just like with the SEO analysis, there’s a good chance it’s because these sections of the website are more valuable to your competitor. Plus, identifying areas of weakness in their website’s user experience can help you identify opportunities to exploit, winning you more market share. ### 6) Examine your competitors' product offerings Whether you have access to a competitor’s products through their website or not, you should be able to learn more about them. Some (but not all) websites will list [pricing information](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/). Almost all will have detailed information about their product offerings, helping you identify where and how they differ from your own. Pay particular attention to any unique selling points (USPs) and pricing strategies they’re using. USPs form the basis of differentiation, so you can use this information to help build [sales enablement material](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-sales-enablement-content/). Your sales reps will need to handle objections in the form of prospects bringing up these USPs. They’ll also need to know how and where your offerings differ from this competitor’s. Put this information in your sales battlecards for the best results. --- [Competitive Battlecards Guide (2022)Up-to-date battlecards, sprinkled with the finest competitor intel, make your salespeople’s lives so much easier. Often, they’ll forego the obvious. The stuff sales prospects can find in a blink.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/joshua-flores-5RQffqRkmWQ-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) --- ### 7) Assess their social media presence Your web research wouldn’t be complete without taking stock of the competitor’s social media presence, though. Technically, you’re moving off-site at this point. But in certain industries and niches, like live events, businesses integrate their social media into their website experience. Even if your competitor’s social media exists totally separately from their website, it pays to investigate their social media profiles and activity. As part of your [social media analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/), pay attention to follower engagement, content sharing, and any customer feedback or reviews. Use what customers are saying as a form of customer research. You can learn what customers like or dislike about this competitor’s products, the user experience, and even more. ### 8) Check up on customer feedback Competitor websites are often a nifty portal into their customer feedback. Businesses with lots of positive feedback will be less selective about what the feedback they share on their website (since so much of it is positive). Those that share aggregated Trustpilot scores, for example, usually have lots of customer feedback. Whether a competitor features such feedback on its website or not, it’s worth actively seeking out feedback left for them across multiple platforms (Trustpilot and Google Reviews, for example). This will net you the most representative sample of consumer sentiment towards your competitor. Look to understand what their customers appreciate, and what they complain about. This can give you an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors’ products, which can inform your own business strategy. ### 9) Read their news updates Any business that has something to update people about will use its website to do so in the first instance. For very large enterprises, press releases and keynote speeches, might also factor in. But these will almost always wind up on their website too within minutes of release. Some competitors will also announce upcoming releases and even changes to products, new partnerships, and rebrands. Analyze their strategic moves and changes in direction. Do your best to understand the motivations behind what they announce, too. Does what this reveals about their strategy and their view of the competitive landscape, and the future of the industry, reflect your own org’s beliefs and opinions? ### 10) Analyze their job postings Finally, if your competitor has a job board, it can be very useful to analyze their job postings on their website. This will show you what they’re prioritizing. Sudden surges in hiring activity can also tell you a lot. For example, if they suddenly start hiring a lot of product managers, they might be looking to make substantial changes to their products. A surge in data analysis hires clearly shows you they’re investing in understanding large volumes of data. --- [A Practitioner’s Complete Guide to Competitive IntelligenceCompetitive intelligence is your tool for knowing your competitors’ strategies, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses. Armed with this information, you can fine-tune your product strategy and marketing initiatives to win. In other words, competitive intelligence is your ticket to the top.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2022/12/CIA_Meta_-intelligence.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) --- ## A note on competitive intelligence ethics We can’t end without talking about the [ethics of competitive intelligence gathering](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-ethics/). All the sources of intel, and all the methods we’ve described above, constitute fair, legal, collection of publicly available information. There are ethical lines one shouldn’t cross when performing competitive intelligence and web research. Here are perhaps the two most important: ### Only access publicly available, legal information First, you should only look to access information that’s publicly available. Let’s be clear – hacking, and any other method of extracting information you shouldn’t have access to, isn’t okay. Unauthorized access to a competitor's website or systems is illegal and unethical. It's a criminal act, and even attempting to hack a closed, protected system, has severe consequences – including prison sentences. Phishing is another practice you should avoid. This involves creating fake websites or emails to trick competitors into revealing sensitive information. It's a fraudulent practice that can result in anything from fines to imprisonment. Focus on gathering information that’s publicly available, and be mindful of how you’re using this information. Don’t ever reproduce or use copyrighted materials or trademarks without permission. Always respect intellectual property rights. ### Represent yourself truthfully You also shouldn’t misrepresent yourself. Falsifying your identity, affiliation, or intentions to obtain information from competitors is deceptive and unethical. The penalty for misrepresentation varies. This is because some forms of misrepresentation count as fraud, which carries a possible prison sentence. The definition of fraud is “dishonestly making a false representation, with the intention of gain for yourself or someone else, or to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss”. Regardless of whether misrepresentation counts as fraud or not, you should always be honest and transparent in your interactions. ## So what does it all mean? Your ability to sift through all of these factors (as well as factors from sources that don’t relate to your competitor’s website or online presence), and pull meaningful conclusions from them about: 1. What this tells you about your competitor’s strategy, and 2. How (if at all) this should alter or inform your own business strategy, …is the very essence of being a successful competitive intelligence pro. Want to learn the skills necessary? Bring yourself up to speed with [**Competitive Intelligence: Core**](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162). 👇 [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### 7 surprising alternatives to SWOT analysis URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/alternatives-to-swot-analysis/ Last updated: 2025-04-02T09:32:07.000Z SWOT is a strategic analysis framework. The four factors it has you examine are the [strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/) impacting your business. It has stood the test of time, but [it has some weaknesses](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/) of its own no good strategy professional should ignore. If you’re looking for a comprehensive strategic analysis of your business, of a competitor, or even of a project, you might want to account for these weaknesses by turning to an alternative to SWOT analysis. Here are seven SWOT analysis alternatives you can use to do just that. ## 1) The VRIO framework The [VRIO framework](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/) is unlike the other SWOT alternatives on this list. Those (and SWOT analysis itself) aim to help an analyst make sense of the various internal and/or external forces that can impact a business’ efforts to achieve its goals. VRIO, meanwhile, helps a business identify its competitive advantages. Specifically, it asks an analyst to consider the business’ capabilities and resources, and grade them according to each of four factors: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/CIA_Infographics_1920x1080_--3-.png) For example, a capability or resource that is: - **Valuable** - **Rare** - **Inimitable** - **Organized** …is said to constitute a *sustained competitive advantage* for that business. By contrast, a capability or resource that’s valuable and rare, but not inimitable (difficult to imitate/replicate) or organized (being exploited in an organized way), is said to constitute a *temporary competitive advantage* for that business. ## 2) SOAR analysis While a SWOT analysis examines both some internal and some external business factors, a SOAR analysis examines purely internal factors. SOAR stands for: - **Strengths** - **Opportunities** - **Aspirations** - **Results** SOAR has the strengths and opportunities factors in common with SWOT, but asks something SWOT analysis does not: what are your business’ aspirations? What are its goals? In this way, SOAR covers what is perhaps one of SWOT analysis’ greatest weaknesses. SWOT doesn’t ask the practitioner to consider the business’ wider goals. A smart analyst might do this, but the SWOT framework doesn’t give any obvious guidance on how to incorporate them. ### Is SOAR analysis better than SWOT analysis? Most of the alternatives to SWOT analysis discussed here have their limitations when taken in isolation. For a comprehensive analysis of your business or competitive landscape, it’s wise to combine multiple analytical tools. SOAR analysis has the advantage of explicitly demanding that practitioners consider their org’s aspirations, as well as the concrete results they’d like to achieve. This helps orient the analysis and keep things practical. But a SOAR analysis examines only the positives. A SWOT analysis encourages analysts to keep on their guard against external threats and internal weaknesses as well, so arguably has fewer blind spots. --- [Is SWOT Analysis Outdated? Our Research Holds the Answers.Remember SWOT analysis? The framework has been the darling of business school textbooks the world over for some time. But not everyone’s so positive about it.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/george-bakos-HaHmfQ7SioM-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/is-swot-analysis-outdated/) --- ## 3) NOISE analysis A NOISE analysis consists of the following factors: 1. **Needs** 2. **Opportunities** 3. **Improvements** 4. **Strengths** 5. **Exceptions** The NOISE analysis is similar to the SOAR analysis in that is has you consider your organization’s needs, and then has you identify areas for improvement. Also like SOAR analysis, rather than focus on weaknesses and threats, the NOISE analysis aims to keep things positive. It uses solution focused language, and has you consider mere ‘exceptions’ to strengths, rather than overt weaknesses. While a NOISE analysis doesn’t necessarily encourage practitioners to ignore negative aspects, other frameworks more explicitly call for practitioners to consider the possible negatives. This is a possible weakness of NOISE analysis that SWOT does not share. 💡 Unlock expert templates, frameworks, and insider content from industry giants like Google and Amazon, right at your fingertips. [Become an Insider member today. ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/) ## 4) PESTLE analysis While the SOAR analysis purely examines factors internal to a business, it doesn’t go that much further than SWOT analysis itself. One of the weaknesses our experts cited about SWOT analysis was that there are *many* external factors that could impact a business’ efforts to achieve its goals. The vanilla framework offers no insight as to what these factors could be. PESTLE analysis, however, goes deep into possible external forces. The following are its six component factors: - **Political** - **Economic** - **Social** - **Technological** - **Legal** - **Environmental** This fairly comprehensive list of factors that could impact a business and its future gives you a lot to think about. That said, it’s easy to combine PESTLE and SWOT analysis, running through each of the six PESTLE elements as you’re considering SWOT threats and opportunities. 💡 **Notably, each of these factors will have widespread ramifications for entire industries and competitive landscapes. Not just individual businesses. Taking this into consideration is crucial when performing these analyses.* ### Which is better SWOT or PESTLE analysis? The question isn’t really which analysis framework is better, so much as it’s which is more appropriate for your needs? PESTLE calls attention to seven key macro factors that can impact your competitive landscape. Considering how these could impact your business, [your products](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/), and your competitors, and how the interplay between these should inform your strategy, is a solid approach to creating viable, forward-thinking business strategies. SWOT analysis *might* lead you to uncover similar depth of insight, but it’ll help to work your way through each of the factors of PESTLE analysis while you’re considering opportunities and threats. Combining both frameworks is a great idea, and a simple but robust way of looking at the spectrum of possible internal and external factors that shape your business’ strategy. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_Blog_-4.png) #### State of SWOT Report ****Download your copy** to learn... - The five top ****challenges** you face performing SWOT, and how to solve them. - The best ways to measure ****success or failure** post-SWOT. - Whether SWOT is ****falling out of favor** in modern businesses. - The best ****alternative frameworks** and how they compare with SWOT. - The ****future of SWOT** analysis. [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ## 5) PORTER’S five forces analysis A Porter’s five forces analysis, like PESTLE, also considers factors purely external to the business. ‘Porter’ refers to the framework’s namesake, Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter, who wrote *Competitive Advantage* and *Competitive Strategy,* and first introduced the Five Forces in an article for *Harvard Business Review* in 1977. The five forces are as follows: 1. The threat of **competition**. 2. The threat of **new entrants**. 3. The threat of **supplier** bargaining power. 4. The threat of **customer** bargaining power. 5. The threat of **substitutes**. As is the case with each of the elements of PESTLE analysis, each of Porter’s five forces has ramifications for entire industries. The first force considers the threat of existing competition. The second, the threat of the possibility of new, emergent competition over time. The third and fourth forces have to do with the threat of diminishing profit margins via the excess bargaining power of either suppliers or customers (or both). Suppliers can drive up purchase prices for raw materials, while customers can drive down sale prices. Finally, the fifth force deals with the threat of alternative solutions to the market’s problem, making the solutions you’re selling redundant. (For example, DVDs to VHS, or Netflix to Blockbuster). --- [9 Tips to Master SWOT Analysis for Strategic PlanningSWOT analysis in strategic planning is the practice of applying the SWOT framework of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, to a business or product to critically evaluate where it sits in the competitive landscape.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/08/dave-photoz-BDIFIT1ILDs-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/) --- ## 6) McKinsey 7-s framework The McKinsey 7-s framework consists of seven factors. Unlike the previous two SWOT alternatives discussed, this one deals solely with internal factors. It has you break down your organization into seven components. You’ll then consider how to align each element with the others to achieve a unified whole. The seven components are: 1. **Strategy** 2. **Structure** 3. **Systems** 4. **Skills** 5. **Staff** 6. **Style** 7. **Shared values** If your business has strong systems in place, a proven strategy, and experienced, skilled staff, it has a lot going for it. But if values aren’t shared across the business, or if its structure isn’t conducive to effective collaboration, you have weaknesses that, once addressed, could pave the way for greater success. ## 7) TOWS analysis Finally, some argue that reversing the order of the ‘SWOT’ acronym forces practitioners to look at the problem from a rarely-considered angle. By first considering threats and opportunities (the external factors), these people argue that practitioners can access spurts of creative insight they might not otherwise have had access to had they stuck with the traditional order of considering the problem. Rather than obsessing over your approach, and aiming to do an analysis the ‘right’ way, take inspiration from every possible source, and aim to be creative in your answers. ## Conclusion For a comprehensive analysis of your business (or of one of your competitors), it pays to pull inspiration from most, if not all, of the above frameworks. For example, it’s difficult to determine your business’ strengths if you’re unaware of your leaders’ vision and goals for the business. These goals inform the business’ needs. And if you’re to sidestep the inherent weaknesses of a framework like SWOT analysis, you’ll want to consider the exceptions called out in a NOISE analysis, and the additional external factors in PESTLE or Porter’s five forces analysis. In short, a comprehensive analysis will incorporate the best elements of all of the above frameworks. --- ## Download the State of SWOT Report We had far more questions about SWOT analysis for our survey-takers. 🎯 Which **SWOT applications** offer the best ROI? 👍 How do you measure the **success or failure** of a SWOT analysis? 🔮 What does the future hold for SWOT analysis? And how do you overcome its **inherent challenges**? Want to dig deeper into the reasons why modern attitudes towards SWOT are the way they are? Want to read the real comments and opinions of practitioners to learn how to improve your own application of strategic frameworks in your business? Grab **your no-cost copy** of the report today and upgrade your competitive intelligence toolkit. 🧰 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ### Temporary competitive advantages explained (with examples and sources) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/ Last updated: 2025-05-14T11:45:20.000Z ## What are temporary competitive advantages? A temporary [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) is one that doesn’t last. It might survive a few years, but it’s not going to pay dividends decades down the line. According to the VRIO framework, a business has a temporary competitive advantage when it has resources or capabilities that are both *valuable* and *rare,* but: (i) not difficult or expensive for your competitors to copy, or (ii) you don’t have systems in place to take advantage of their rare value. **The value of a temporary advantage:** So… are temporary competitive advantages *bad*? Not necessarily. In fact, some have suggested leaders should move away from [sustained competitive advantages](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/) *in favor* of temporary ones. Why? Modern marketplaces move more rapidly than ever before. There’s more disruption, in the forms of both new competition, and new disruptive technologies, than ever. As such, they argue, *no* [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/) can be sustained. There are only shorter-term temporary competitive advantages and slightly longer-term ones. So why bother? Still, others have suggested that temporary competitive advantages (TCAs) are a necessary step in the creation of long-term, sustained competitive advantages (SCA). And that firms without a clear competitive advantage should first focus on establishing one or more clear TCAs, and use these as stepping stones on the way to building a strong SCA. ## What is the difference between a temporary and a sustained competitive advantage? Sustained competitive advantages are those that endure for the long term. These *tend* to be slow to build, but slow to degrade. Temporary competitive advantages are those that don’t last long-term. However, they tend to be faster and easier to create than SCAs. Easy come, easy go. Of course, what is “long-term” depends on the time horizon you’re interested in. But a reasonable rule of thumb is that a sustained competitive advantage might pay off over decades. A temporary advantage might have evaporated after just a few years. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/CIA_Infographics_temporary-vs-sustained-competitive-advantage.png) --- ## Example of a temporary competitive advantage ### An exclusive supplier deal Here’s an example: you’ve cut a new deal with a supplier. They’re going to help you out on pricing until the end of the contract. The contract lasts three years. **How the deal might help you:** This is going to help you. No question. If it’s an exclusive contract, then none of your competitors can get in on the deal (at least not with *this* supplier. They can, of course, cut similar deals with alternative suppliers. But let’s assume this supplier is the bee’s knees.) You can do what you like with the extra cash. You can pass the savings on to your customers, giving your product a lower (and possibly more attractive) price point. Or you could keep your prices the same to improve margins. You could reinvest your new profits in your team, in your product, or in your infrastructure. Over the short term, any of these approaches could constitute an advantage over your competitors, enabling you to outperform them in the market. **But contracts come to an end…** But that contract is headed for expiry. And by that time, things have changed. Your competitors, having seen how lucrative this deal has been for you, will be circling like sharks. The supplier, too, might have changed their mind. Maybe they feel they didn’t get a good enough deal out of something that turned out well for you. Maybe their costs have gone up. Either way, they want to renegotiate. If terms for this deal are less favorable than before, well… That’s the stone-to-stone contact in the attrition of your competitive advantage. --- [Comparative vs Competitive Advantage: What’s the Difference?Comparative and competitive advantages are economic terms that, when applied to a business, refer to a business’ ability to produce goods and services and to win against competitors over time.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/anastasiya-romanova-vGY31qO4518-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) --- ## Example of a sustained competitive advantage Remember me saying SCAs take more time to build? Here’s a great example for you: *culture.* Having the right company culture takes time to get right. It takes years. At minimum, you’ll need to invest dozens of hours making sure it’s scalable. That it’s not getting degraded or lost as you grow. But if you get it right, it’ll pay off for *years* down the line. **Oh, you don't believe me?** Don't take my word for it. Just look at businesses, like Apple, whose staff are some of their biggest advocates. When people love coming into work every day, you’ll: 1. Attract **better people.** 2. See a **higher quality** ofwork. 3. See a **greater quantity** of work. These three things might not sound like much, especially if you’re the finance person validating yet *another* expense request for a taxi ride home from a karaoke night at the summer party in the name of *culture*. 🕺 But think about it: If your output is higher than your competitors, *and* the quality of that output is higher too, *and* people are smiling while they’re doing it, you’re onto a winning formula. Then, if you can sustain that culture over time, it’ll *really* start to pay off. --- [How to Use Social Media to Create a Competitive AdvantageHow can you make use of all those eyeballs, those collected brains, to get ahead in your competitive intelligence and strategy work? To put it another way, how do companies use social media to create a competitive advantage?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/adem-ay-Tk9m_HP4rgQ-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-social-media-to-create-a-competitive-advantage/) --- ## Sources of competitive advantage Believe it or not, there’s a fair bit of academic literature on competitive advantage. In this literature, there are two accepted *models* for how a firm can establish an advantage. **The first:** a firm establishes a stronger market position. This approach is mostly attributed to Porter and his generic strategies. **The second:** a firm collects and uses special resources. According to the VRIO framework, a firm may derive a competitive advantage from having resources and capabilities that are Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, and Organized. Let’s examine the market position approach first: ### Market position and Porter’s generic competitive strategies In 1980, Michael E. Porter published [*Competitive Strategy*](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Competitive-Strategy-Techniques-Industries-Competitors/dp/0684841487), exploring the various ways a business could establish a competitive advantage. According to Porter, there are three main ways to gain an advantage, known today as Porter’s Generic Strategies: - Cost leadership - Differentiation - Focus A business pursuing the **cost leadership** strategy (in an attempt to [establish a cost competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/cost-competitive-advantage/)) will try to undercut its competitors on price. A business more interested in **differentiation** tries to outcompete the market by making its products more uniquely valuable than those of its competitors. A business with a **focus strategy** takes one of two routes: cost focus, or differentiation focus (also known as a [niche differentiation strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-differentiation-strategy/)). **Competitive scope:** The difference between the focus strategy and the other two is the *competitive scope*. In other words, are you targeting a mass market, or a specific niche? If you’re targeting a niche, then you’re taking a focus strategy in an attempt to establish a [niche competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-competitive-advantage/). Then, the only question is whether you’re focusing on winning that niche via your pricing strategy, or via a differentiation strategy. With a cost focus strategy, you’ll aim to undercut competitors in a particular niche. With a differentiation focus strategy, you’ll look to differentiate your product for a niche audience. Any one of these approaches may help you win a segment of the market. Your market position, as a result of being a cost leader, or strongly differentiated (in the right ways), you’ll have a strong market position. Consumers will choose you over your competitors as a result of being a leader in either of these ways. --- [Competitive Strategies for Each Stage of the Company LifecycleIf you’re looking for the right competitive strategy for where your business is at, you’re probably in either the startup, growth, or maturity phase. This article takes a look at which types of competitive strategies you should adopt at each stage of the cycle.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/wolfgang-hasselmann-WoOMLfUa43A-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-strategy-for-business-lifecycle/) --- ### The problem [Porter’s generic strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/michael-porter-generic-strategies-video/) constitute very high-level looks at how you might try to win a segment of the market. But there’s no mention of the practical steps it takes to get there. While Porter discusses such practicalities further in [*Competitive Strategy*](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Competitive-Strategy-Techniques-Industries-Competitors/dp/0684841487)*,* recall the second possibility: a firm may create a competitive advantage by way of possessing resources that are more Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, and Organized than those of the competition. Interestingly, a firm that works on identifying its strongest resources and capabilities, and on exploiting those resources and capabilities to the best extent possible, may end up creating a competitive advantage for itself. At least a temporary one. Let’s take a closer look at each of those four attributes: Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, and Organized, as described in the VRIO framework. ### Resources and the VRIO framework [The VRIO framework](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/) is a strategic analysis tool like SWOT analysis or PESTLE analysis. The difference is that VRIO provides a structure for assessing your firm’s resources as potential sources of competitive advantage. **VRIO stands for:** 1. **Valuable.** 2. **Rare.** 3. **Inimitable.** 4. **Organized.** You examine your business’ internal resources and capabilities, and assign them a simple, binary ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ for each of these attributes. 💡 ****To be clear:** you want to identify things about your business that (i) **have real value*; (ii) **aren’t found often*; (iii) **are difficult to imitate or copy;* (iv) **have processes and systems in place for you to take advantage of* **them*. 1. **Without valuable resources**, a business is said to be at a *competitive disadvantage*. 2. If a firm has resources that are **Valuable, but common** (i.e. not Rare), it is said to be at *competitive parity,* meaning it’s on even footing with its competitors. 3. If a firm has resources that are **Valuable, and Rare**, but are **easy for its competitors to copy** (i.e. not inimitable), then it’s said to have a *temporary competitive advantage.* Competitors will look at what it’s doing, copy it, and soon catch up. 4. If a firm has resources that are **Valuable, Rare, and Inimitable**, but it’s **not using them** in an organized way, it has an *unused competitive advantage.* If the resources or capabilities meet every requirement of the VRIO framework, they constitute a **sustained competitive advantage* for the business. --- [The VRIO Framework (What it is and How to Use it)The VRIO framework is a strategic analysis tool focused on helping a business find potential sources of competitive advantage. VRIO looks at a firm’s internal capabilities and resources, so differs from other strategic analysis frameworks like PESTLE analysis that examine external market factors.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/joey-graham-rHP-c0r_Uso-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_Blog_-4.png) #### State of SWOT Report ****Download your copy** to learn... - The five top ****challenges** you face performing SWOT, and how to solve them. - The best ways to measure ****success or failure** post-SWOT. - Whether SWOT is ****falling out of favor** in modern businesses. - The best ****alternative frameworks** and how they compare with SWOT. - The ****future of SWOT** analysis. [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ## How to gain a sustained competitive advantage If every TCA has a shelf-life, then a single TCA will never guarantee long-term success. But a *series* of temporary competitive advantages over time *might*. That’s because *together* they constitute a sustained competitive advantage for your firm. The VRIO framework suggests a firm has a temporary competitive advantage if it has resources that are both valuable and rare (the V and the R of the acronym), but a sustained competitive advantage if those resources are valuable, rare, inimitable, and organized. Therefore, you might be able to [create a sustained competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/) out of your TCAs by making them more organized and inimitable. While it might seem obvious how to go about creating processes for milking every last drop of value out of your TCAs, how would you make them harder for your competitors to duplicate? One solution might be to create barriers to entry into your market. If you can make it more difficult for new competitors to enter the competitive arena *period*, you inherently make it harder for them to copy your advantages. Examples of such barriers include economies of scale, highly differentiated products, or big investments. ### Transforming temporary advantages into sustained ones But there are other possibilities, too, if you want to *transmute* a temporary advantage into a sustained one. One 2015 paper from the British Journal of Management, *“*[*From Temporal Competitive Advantage to Sustainable Competitive Advantage*](https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/23872118/From%5FTemporal%5FCompetitive%5FAdvantage%5Fto%5FSustainable%5FCompetitive%5FAdvantage%5FBJM%5FFinal%5FSubmission.pdf)*”* (Huang et al.), examines the possibility of a firm creating an SCA out of a temporary one. One suggestion made in the paper is that a firm can use outsized profits, won from its temporary competitive advantages, and reinvest them into resources to position itself for a sustained competitive advantage. “We argue that the better outcome of TCA, a static outcome of market position, can provide sufficient pockets of capital for supporting continuous innovation and competition to acquire value and rare resources or capabilities, particularly technological resources or capabilities for high-technology firms, for the sustainability of competitive advantage (or persistent superior economic returns).“ \~ “From Temporal Competitive Advantage to Sustainable Competitive Advantage”, Huang et al. In other words, you turn small advantages into larger ones by reinvesting all your additional profits into building up stronger resources and capabilities. ### What might this look like in practice? That crack-shot marketing team whose every campaign turns to gold? That team, right now, constitutes a competitive advantage for you. But it’s *temporary*. It’s up to the leaders in your business to start capturing the knowledge stored inside the collective brains of the team. Turning that siloed expertise into shared knowledge for someone to roll out into SOPs, onboarding sequences, and training programs. Such programs and sequences will require further investment. And maintaining and sustaining that thought leadership over time will require additional L&D and hiring investment from your business leaders. But in the end, if your firm can reclaim and store enough knowledge and expertise, it can become a training ground for world-class practitioners. *That’s* valuable. *That’s* something that takes time to build, but that the business *owns*, cementing its practitioner knowledge as a sustainable competitive advantage, rather than one that’s conditional on a few individuals choosing to stay at the business. [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### SWOT Analysis Explained ▶︎ URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-explained/ Last updated: 2024-02-08T20:07:14.000Z SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. You probably already knew that much, but what on Earth is SWOT analysis? And how, and why, is it used? That’s one of the questions we’ll be answering in our newest video, available to watch now in full on YouTube. 👇 --- ## Further resources [How to Build a Marketing Plan Using SWOT AnalysisUse SWOT analysis to develop an understanding of your competitive landscape, and you’ll better understand all the factors that go into creating a successful marketing plan.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/kaleidico-26MJGnCM0Wc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-marketing-plan/) [How To Do a SWOT Analysis of a ProductWe discuss how to do a SWOT analysis of a product, with examples, sample templates, and frameworks to save you time.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/saif71-com-KcbD8QoBGIk-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/) [9 Tips to Master SWOT Analysis for Strategic PlanningSWOT analysis in strategic planning is the practice of applying the SWOT framework of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, to a business or product to critically evaluate where it sits in the competitive landscape.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/08/dave-photoz-BDIFIT1ILDs-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/) [5 SWOT Analysis Benefits (and 4 Limitations)The SWOT analysis framework has its benefits, but it also has its fair share of detractors and limitations. Here they are according to our experts.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/08/carlos-alberto-gomez-iniguez-jqiAU_JQGyk-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/) ### The VRIO framework (what it is and how to use it effectively) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/ Last updated: 2025-02-07T17:14:06.000Z ## What is the VRIO framework? The VRIO framework is a strategic analysis tool focused on helping a business find potential sources of competitive advantage. VRIO looks at a firm’s *internal* capabilities and resources, so differs from other strategic analysis frameworks like PESTLE analysis that examine *external* market factors. **VRIO stands for:** 1. **Valuable.** 2. **Rare.** 3. **Inimitable.** 4. **Organized.** In a VRIO analysis, you’ll examine your business’ core competencies, internal resources and capabilities, and grade them against each of these four attributes. You want to identify resources that (i) *have real value*; (ii) no, or few, competitors have; (iii) *are difficult or costly to imitate;* (iv) you *have processes in place to exploit*. ### Examples of resources or capabilities: We’ve been talking about ‘resources and capabilities’. But what could these be? They’re typically the result of repeated investment over time. Here’s a short list of possible candidates: - In-house expertise. - Physical assets. - Raw materials for production and manufacturing. - Infrastructure or technology (hardware or software). - Large proprietary data stores. - Strong brand equity and/or customer loyalty. - Particular product features\*. 👆 \*It’s not typical to apply the VRIO framework to products or services, but there’s nothing stopping you from doing so if it makes sense to you. Now we’re familiar with some of the resources we’re interested in, let’s examine each facet of the framework in some more detail: ### Value, rarity, inimitability, and organization **Value** First, does the resource you’re examining have real value? If it doesn’t, it’s not a great candidate for a source of competitive advantage (CA). You’ll also want to consider valuable resources your competitors have that *you* *don’t*. Where this is the case, you’re considered to be at a *competitive disadvantage.* This is something you may (or may not) want to rectify, depending on your [competitive strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-strategy-for-business-lifecycle/) and the threat you feel it poses to your firm. **Rarity** So, where you’re confident you have capabilities or resources that are valuable, the next item up for consideration is their *rarity.* If what you have is valuable, but it’s found everywhere, then it’s far from unique to you. If your product has a valuable integration with a popular CRM, for example, but every one of your competitors offers the same thing, it’s not rare. If your resource is valuable, but not rare, you’re said to be at *competitive parity*, and are on equal footing with your competitors. --- [Comparative vs Competitive Advantage: What’s the Difference?Comparative and competitive advantages are economic terms that, when applied to a business, refer to a business’ ability to produce goods and services and to win against competitors over time.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/anastasiya-romanova-vGY31qO4518-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) --- **Inimitability (resistance to duplication by competitors)** But what if your feature of value *is* rare? If you’re one of the few (or the only one) with a valuable resource or capability, you have a CA. But for how long? That depends on how difficult it is for your competitors to copy whatever is giving you your advantage. If that’s a large pool of customer data, for example, they’d have to spend the time collating a similar pool of data to duplicate your advantage. Would that be expensive? Would it be time-consuming? If it *would*, you have an advantage it’ll be difficult for your competitors to duplicate. If it’s *not*, you have a *temporary competitive advantage*, since it’s only a matter of time before your competitors close the gap. **Organization** Right, so you’ve checked all the boxes so far. You have a valuable resource that few competitors have. It’d be prohibitively expensive for them to duplicate that resource. You have an advantage. But unless you have processes in place to systematically extract as much profit and value out of this advantage as you possibly can, you’re letting your advantage go to waste. When this applies, you’re said to have an *unused competitive advantage.* Create sensible processes for extracting value, however, and you’ve got a *sustained competitive advantage.* ### Sustained competitive advantage All businesses want one or more sustained, or [sustainable competitive advantages](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). Such advantages persist over time. So long as a firm can defend them, they can feasibly last indefinitely (though that’s unlikely). [Temporary competitive advantages](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/), by contrast, have a shelf life. That’s because, according to the VRIO framework, it’s not prohibitively difficult for competitors to see your advantage and reverse engineer it, closing the gap and eventually drawing all vendors in a space towards *competitive parity.* --- [How to Use Social Media to Create a Competitive AdvantageHow can you make use of all those eyeballs, those collected brains, to get ahead in your competitive intelligence and strategy work? To put it another way, how do companies use social media to create a competitive advantage?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/adem-ay-Tk9m_HP4rgQ-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-social-media-to-create-a-competitive-advantage/) --- ## How to use the VRIO framework effectively The aim of a VRIO analysis is to [uncover sources of *sustained* competitive advantage.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-analysis-competitive-advantage-video/) While you might also uncover existing temporary CAs while performing a VRIO analysis, sustained advantages are generally considered more valuable to businesses. After all, as per the VRIO framework itself, they’re advantages that are difficult for competitors to imitate, and that your firm has established processes and systems to exploit maximally. **Here’s a process** for using the VRIO framework more effectively: 1. Identify **existing** advantages and disadvantages. 2. Identify the **types** of advantage you have on your hands. 3. Figure out which advantages you can **progress** through the framework with little work. 4. **Prioritize** your choices based on business value. 5. Put your plan into **action**. ### 1\. Identify existing advantages and disadvantages The first thing to do is to figure out where you’re at. This means a few things. **First,** identify any competitive *disadvantages* according to the framework (resources and capabilities that lack value relative to those of the competition). For example, you might learn that, while many competing firms have access to advanced technologies, you do not. You lack a valuable resource, and so are at a *competitive disadvantage* with this particular resource. You’d want to note that down. **Next,** you’ll also need to identify which of your resources and capabilities constitute competitive *advantages* relative to the competition, and where they exist within the VRIO structure itself. Which brings us to the next step… ### 2\. Identify the type of advantage you have on your hands. Once you have a list of valuable resources, you need to start bucketing them into types of CAs according to VRIO. For example, you might have access to strong brand equity and customer loyalty. These are valuable resources. Do your competitors also have strong brand equity? Or is this rare in your space? If it’s rare, are you taking full advantage of it? If not, you might have an *unused CA* on your hands. Map your resources and capabilities (or lack thereof) according to the structure the VRIO framework provides. --- [Niche Competitive Advantage: Everything You Need to KnowNot every business has the resources to throw behind a global marketing campaign. Whether your business is large or small, resource-rich or on a budget, sometimes a niche competitive advantage is the best fit.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/jason-leung-3rq6DqLKakc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-competitive-advantage/) --- ### 3\. Identify which advantages you can advance through the framework The key is to find the advantages that, with a bit of work, you can move through the framework. It makes most sense to start at the end, with your *unused* CAs*.* So look at your unused CAs, that is, the resources and capabilities you have that are valuable, rare, and hard to imitate, but that you’re not making best use of currently. Which of these can you make better use of? What systems or processes can you set up to better exploit these advantages? **Do the same for advantages at other stages of the framework** Where you have temporary CAs (valuable and rare resources that are not too difficult for competitors to duplicate), can you make it harder for competitors to imitate or duplicate? One way of making duplication harder is to establish barriers to entry for your competitors. For example, you could file trademarks and patents to protect your intellectual property. **Examples of possible barriers to entry** Here’s a list of possible barriers to entry you could try creating that’d possibly convert your temporary competitive advantages into sustained ones: - Brand equity. - Customer loyalty. - Favorable long-term contracts and agreements with suppliers. - Geographical advantages. - Economies of scale. - Long-term customer contracts with early-exit fees. - Product patents and trademarks. It’s also worth noting that firms won’t be able to create or influence all barriers to entry, but that doesn’t stop these barriers to entry from making a sustained CA out of an otherwise temporary one. Legislative barriers and steep startup costs can make it prohibitively difficult for new competitors to enter the field, for example. 🤔 **Note: while you can create better internal systems to exploit your existing-but-unused advantages, and can perhaps create or influence certain barriers to entry for competitors, it’s doubtful you’ll be able to make a common resource more rare.* **However, you can probably correct at least a few of your competitive disadvantages to take you to competitive parity with your rivals with some intelligent investment.* ### 4\. Prioritize your choices based on business value Having completed the prior steps, you’ll probably be left with options in a few different categories: 1. Competitive **disadvantages** to rectify with investment (e.g. infrastructure or technological disadvantages.) 2. **Unused** CAs to more effectively exploit (e.g. by creating better systems and processes for extracting value and profit from them.) 3. **Temporary** advantages to make more sustainable (e.g. by making it harder for new entrants to compete.) Not every category, and not every item in each category, will warrant the same attention, however. Some will offer greater rewards for less work, or less risk. **For example**, making it harder for competitors to duplicate certain advantages you have might be an incredibly costly exercise, while filing a patent might be relatively cheap and straightforward, depending on your industry. And even the cheapest and simplest fix for a temporary CA might pale besides how easy it is for you to correct for an *unused* CA. This might only require a new question to be added to a CRM workflow. Or a new, reusable project template to be created in your project management software. **It's not one size fits all** The answers for every business will be different. But it’s up to you to prioritize the fixes you *can* make, and to come up with a shortlist of the fixes you *will* make, which could look like this: 1. Investment to fix a competitive disadvantage and bring you up to parity with your rivals. 2. A pledge to negotiate more advantageous contracts with suppliers. 3. A new internal process to better exploit your business’ strong intellectual capital and its strong customer loyalty. Decide on an order for your fixes, put your plan into action, and reap the rewards. 🚨 ****Aside: this is not a perfect framework** Follow the above process to perform a VRIO analysis effectively. But to do **strategic planning* effectively, you’ll want to adjust for some of VRIO’s limitations (discussed below). --- ## What is the difference between SWOT analysis and the VRIO framework? SWOT analysis has you examine your business’ internal Strengths and Weaknesses, as well as the external Opportunities and Threats offered and posed by the market. SWOT aims to help you understand where your business is at right now, and what strategic decisions you need to make to stand the best chance of improving your competitive market position. There are various methods for doing this, like matching your firm’s strengths with your market opportunities, and your weaknesses with market threats. This might show you market opportunities you’re uniquely placed to exploit, or where you’re most at risk of losing market share to certain competitors. From there, you can determine appropriate actions to take to maximize your competitiveness over time. The VRIO framework, on the other hand, aims to help you establish which resources and capabilities your firm possesses that constitute possible competitive advantages. While SWOT has you look both internally and externally, VRIO is a more strictly internal analysis, concerned with factors internal to your business. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_Blog_-4.png) #### State of SWOT Report ****Download your copy** to learn... - The five top ****challenges** you face performing SWOT, and how to solve them. - The best ways to measure ****success or failure** post-SWOT. - Whether SWOT is ****falling out of favor** in modern businesses. - The best ****alternative frameworks** and how they compare with SWOT. - The ****future of SWOT** analysis. [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ## Why use the VRIO framework? VRIO framework benefits ### 1\. Identify new internal sources of competitive advantage. It’s of huge benefit to a business to discover it has a valuable resource or capability it stands to profit from. The VRIO framework helps you identify internal sources of CA, and to determine whether you’re exploiting them sufficiently. For example, you might have begun investing in a particular new solution or technology (like AI), only for your time and financial investments to fall by the wayside in favor of other projects. Discovering these half-built, potential sources of CAs, and scrutinizing them under the VRIO framework, can give you the boost you need to finish building out these technologies into full-blown competitive advantages. ### 2\. Inform strategic planning decisions The VRIO framework can help your firm’s strategic planning, too. For example, if you find that many of your business’ resources and capabilities constitute only temporary CAs, then it makes sense to take steps to make it harder for competitors to duplicate those advantages. Such information can inform [your business’ larger strategic vision](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-strategic-vision/), and shape the decisions leaders make regarding its future. ### 3\. Identify underutilized advantages. The VRIO framework might also show where you’re not taking full advantage of your CAs. It’s possible your firm possesses resources or capabilities that are Valuable, Rare, and Inimitable, but you don’t have processes or systems in place to capture the additional profits they make possible. This can be easy to rectify, lending you a new advantage at little cost. ## Limitations of the VRIO framework While the VRIO framework can help organizations uncover their potential, it’s not a silver bullet. It’s not a comprehensive framework. Nor is it a sure thing that it’ll be suitable for your business. ### 1\. It’s not comprehensive If you’re looking for a comprehensive business analysis framework, VRIO ain’t it. It focuses solely on internal factors. Realistically, a combination of frameworks, like VRIO, SWOT, and PESTLE analysis, will offer the most comprehensive strategic overview of your business. ### 2\. It might not suit small businesses Resources and capabilities that stand as strong candidates for competitive advantage usually rise out of repeated investment over time. Younger businesses at early growth stages may not have had time yet to invest in these possible sources of competitive advantage. For these businesses, the framework may not offer any value until a later date. ### 3\. It’s not forward-thinking You’ve heard it before: markets are more competitive than ever. Technologies are more disruptive than ever. So how is it helpful to apply a static strategic planning framework, that only takes into account your *existing* capabilities and resources, to your business? After all, this time next year, new powerful resources could be demanding your attention and disrupting your plans. VRIO analysis doesn’t necessarily take these future resources into account. ## Example of VRIO analysis: Kleenex Kleenex is a brand with strong brand equity. After all, when you think “tissue”, you think Kleenex. The brand has become synonymous with the product. If someone wants a box of tissues, and asks you to pick up a box of Kleenex while you’re at the store, what are you likely to come back with? Competitors have to go up against *that*. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/kleenex2.jpeg) Kleenex considers itself 'the original', and wants you to know it. Here’s an example of a VRIO analysis examining Kleenex’s brand equity as the resource in question. **Valuable:** Having strong brand equity is valuable. Customers are much more likely to buy from brands they recognize. Recognition breeds trust, an all-important factor when it comes to anyone parting with their hard-earned cash. Strong brand equity increases perceived value. It allows businesses to increase their prices without losing market share. It attracts talent to the business, and can feed into the creation of further CAs. **Rare:** Name a tissue brand that’s not Kleenex. We’ll wait. Sure, they exist. You’d even buy them if they presented you a good enough deal. But that doesn’t mean they enjoy anything *close* to Kleenex’s level of brand equity. So… rare? We think so. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/kleenex3.png) **Inimitable:** The difficulty with duplicating Kleenex’s brand equity is that they haven’t sat on their laurels. Any new or existing brand that wants to start competing with Kleenex’s brand presence also needs to go up against Kleenex’s (probably much) deeper pockets. And with a product as simple as this, there’s arguably not *that* much space for another household name brand in the market. **Organized:** Kleenex has continued to invest in, and exploit, its brand equity. They’ve poured additional products into [undifferentiated marketing strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/undifferentiated-marketing-strategy/) (mass marketing) and nationwide ad campaigns. Kleenex is a company that knows the strength of its position, and it’s willing to lean into it. As a resource that’s valuable, rare, inimitable, and organized, Kleenex’s strong brand equity gives it a strong, sustainable competitive advantage. [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### How to get a job in competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-get-a-job-in-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T08:48:06.000Z *This article is based on Farhan Manjiyani’s interview for the Compete Clarity podcast. Check out the conversation in its full glory* [*here*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-open-source-problem-farhan-manjiyani/)*!* Back in my days as a sales development rep (SDR), [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) was definitely not part of my career plan. However, a few serendipitous opportunities opened the door to the world of product marketing, eventually leading to a full-time competitive intelligence role at Grafana Labs. In this post, I’ll briefly share my winding journey from SDR to product marketer to dedicated CI manager. You’ll see how I leveraged side projects and internal networking to pave my transition into new areas. I’ll also pass along some key lessons I picked up along the way. Let’s get into it! ## How to transition into a new role I apply the same principles every time I want to take on a new role. This framework works for breaking into almost any position – product marketing, technical, non-technical – the process is largely the same: **First**, put yourself in the hiring manager's shoes. They likely already have someone doing this job, but that person is trying to free up their time to focus on other priorities. So when considering you for the role, the hiring manager wants to de-risk their investment – they don't want to trade the time they currently spend on those responsibilities for the time it will take to train you. Their goal is to find someone who can fully take over the work so they don't have to think about it anymore. If you don't have direct experience in the specific role, the key is to **start building up your portfolio** ahead of time. Most hiring managers have a long list of projects and tasks they want to get to eventually, but just don't have the bandwidth for. Ask what those are, and look for opportunities to help out with items from their backlog – that’s a great way to start building your portfolio. I followed this approach when I wanted to transition from an SDR role into product marketing. Later, when I wanted to move into competitive intelligence, I did the same thing – while staying in my product marketing role, I went to people already working in competitive intelligence and asked: > “What's a project you want to get done soon that you don't have bandwidth for? I'd like to take a stab at it and get your feedback. All I need from you is to point me in the right direction. If you have an example of something you’ve done before, that would be extremely helpful for me to understand what the final output should look like. But if not, just set me loose on the project – I can figure it out.” ## How I landed in competitive intelligence When I was an SDR, I took on some competitive analysis work, which became my first foray into product marketing. There was a competitor, a tier-three player, that kept coming up in our sales conversations. The product marketing team didn't see this competitor as a [high priority](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-prioritize-your-competitors/), but my team kept hearing about them. So I did a quick competitive analysis and got some feedback from the product marketing team. Then I had an opportunity to create training for my SDR peers on this competitor. Later, I kept improving the [battlecard](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) I’d built based on new objections we were hearing. At the time, I didn't fully realize I was doing product marketing work. I viewed it more as experimentation and skill-building for my SDR role. But I realized I actually enjoyed those external responsibilities much more than my core job. That's when it clicked: I wanted to move into a product marketing role. Similarly, once I started working in product marketing, the competitive intelligence piece was the work I had the most fun with. So when the opportunity came to double down on competitive intel full-time, I was thrilled. --- [Competitive Intelligence Analyst: Role Guide and SalaryA competitive intelligence analyst gathers, analyzes, and makes actionable, data on key business competitors. Analysts gather this data from sources both internal and external to the business.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/alexander-mils-aASWYaw-3HI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-analyst/) --- ## What it’s like to transition into CI In my opinion, of the three main product marketing functions – enablement, competitive intelligence, and go-to-market/messaging – CI is the easiest area to break into. That's because there’s generally more overlap with the responsibilities you’ve taken on in other roles. For example, product marketing often has to pick up competitive analysis if there isn't a dedicated team. Product managers doing market research and talking to customers about competitors are essentially doing competitive intel as well. Technical sales and solutions engineers who come from the competition also bring key insights. So many roles end up doing some level of competitive work. > It's risky for salespeople to change their messaging – that directly impacts their livelihood every quarter. They’re incentivized to stick to what has worked before. And then there are the skills you need for CI – running a program and scaling it company-wide, building processes to consistently acquire and organize competitive information, creating networks to gain intel, and taking an iterative and experimental approach to improve over time. Those are all skills that can be taught. In contrast, crafting positioning and messaging is a skill that unfortunately requires a lot of refinement. My experience writing emails as an SDR didn’t directly translate into writing effective landing pages as a PMM, for example. ## How my PMM experience shapes my CI work My past pricing and enablement responsibilities as a product marketer heavily influence how I approach competitive intelligence work now as a dedicated CI lead. I took inspiration from our pricing lead on prioritizing how I spend my time. Compared to many other CI professionals I meet, my time breakdown is very different – the majority, 60% or more, goes to deal strategy and direct sales enablement. I'm often in the field training teams on our differentiation, or talking directly with customers to pressure test and defend our value propositions. Our pricing lead taught me that you can spend all day working on pricing models, but if you can't confidently defend that pricing to an actual customer, you shouldn't expect the rest of the company to rally behind it either. I apply the same principle to competitive intelligence. Before putting anything out in collateral or doing any sort of enablement, I make sure I've had 10 or so real customer conversations to sanity-check the messaging. That way, not only do I get critical feedback from the source on what resonates or what needs adjustment, but I also build credibility. 0:00 /0:31 1× Now my entire enablement approach revolves around recapping field conversations: "Hey, here are 5 calls where we tried out this new talk track and battlecard. These are the reactions we got. Here's what worked and what didn't. So here are a few tweaks I recommend as we continue rolling this out." ## CI surprises When I moved from more general product marketing to competitive intel, the biggest surprise was realizing **how much is in our control.** As a product marketer, when performance lagged, we'd have these long hypothetical conversations about all the complex external factors that were impacting our performance. But often the problem isn’t external at all. It's not that the competitor has some bulletproof talk track that makes everyone magically convert. **In reality, it often comes down to consistency.** For example, even if you feel confident about your differentiation in the market, can 10 people across departments actually articulate it the same way? In my experience, maybe only one or two can. When I first joined Grafana Labs and talked to product managers, I got different takes on our differentiation based on their specific product lens. It makes sense in hindsight – product managers and marketers live in the world of their own product. They don't always connect the dots on the full customer workflow across offerings the way a competitive intelligence pro needs to. That fragmentation means you end up with diluted, inconsistent messaging that is harder to land. --- [How to Stay Competitive in the Open Source SpaceHey there, I’m Farhan Manjiyani. I’m the Senior Manager of Commercialization and Pricing at Grafana Labs, and today I’m here to share what it’s like to run a competitive intelligence program in the open-source space.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceFarhan Manjiyani![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/matt-duncan-IUY_3DvM__w-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-stay-competitive-in-the-open-source-space/) --- ### Where the friction actually lies Often the friction actually lies between products – it's the small disconnects in how we tell our platform story that make us less effective against the competition. Early on, I think I over-indexed on the competition being this huge, scary external force that could crush us if we didn't watch their every move. In reality, it comes back to focusing on what you actually control: - How quickly can you educate new hires on your methodology and approach? - How easy is it for customer-facing teams to find key enablement materials on competitors after the fact? - How much space is there to practice new talk tracks live? Those cringe-worthy customer calls you listen to on Gong are often from someone trying to adopt a new talk track. Before you go and judge them, ask yourself: where could they have safely practiced this instead? It's risky for salespeople to change their messaging – that directly impacts their livelihood every quarter. They’re incentivized to stick to what has worked before. We have to appreciate that dynamic and meet reps where they are with the proper training and tools to take on new plays comfortably. ## Key takeaways If you’re feeling inspired to explore internal opportunities at your organization, keep these top takeaways in mind: 🧠 Put yourself in the hiring manager’s shoes. ✏️ Identify related side projects to build your target portfolio. 🤝 Proactively network and offer help where you can. 💪🏽 Focus on consistent execution of the fundamentals. 👣 Don’t be afraid to pave your own path over time. What’s an area that intrigues you outside your formal scope? Use the strategies we covered to start expanding your skill set there. Who knows, an exciting new opportunity could be just around the corner! --- ## Put yourself in first place 🥇 Differentiation is critical. In today's job market, interview processes have four, five or even more stages. Competition is fierce, and proving your worth is getting harder. How valuable would it be to you to be able to bypass all that in the eyes of the recruiter, because they’re already familiar with your work? We're offering you the means to do just that. We’ll work with you to quickly adapt your work into SEO-optimized articles, ghostwritten guides, and podcast episodes. It’s never been easier to differentiate yourself, so why not start today? Sound interesting? [Send us a message](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io to discuss next steps. 🤝 --- ### Competitive pricing intelligence: Your ultimate guide URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T08:48:41.000Z We’ve talked before about the importance of your [competitive positioning strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/), of understanding the market landscape, its opportunities, and working to fill them. When you do this well, you position yourself to capture as much under-served market share as possible, maximizing your growth potential by working smarter, not harder. But if you’re to do that, there’s one crucial element you cannot overlook. Your pricing strategy. The article gives you an overview of **competitive pricing intelligence.** We teach you: - [What it is,](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/74f2e03a-17cd-4b3c-a210-f21ca7192ab8/#competitive-pricing-intelligence-what%E2%80%99s-that) - [Why it's important,](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/74f2e03a-17cd-4b3c-a210-f21ca7192ab8/#why-is-competitive-pricing-intelligence-important) - [How you perform one...](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/74f2e03a-17cd-4b3c-a210-f21ca7192ab8/#how-do-you-do-a-competitive-pricing-analysis) ... and more. ## What is competitive pricing intelligence? Competitive pricing intelligence is simply data on your competitor’s prices. But the practice of gathering and analyzing pricing intelligence sees you monitoring your competitors’ prices, promotions, and pricing strategies. The aim is to inform your own pricing strategy and make you an even more dominant player in the [competitive landscape](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/). ### Why is competitive pricing intelligence important? Alright, so far so simple. Why should you care about pricing intelligence? Though simple, information about your competitors’ prices is powerful. Whether you’re selling personal training services online, leather jackets on the high street, or software as a service to businesses, pricing intelligence is information that can help make you more competitive. Here are some reasons why: **Easier benchmarking:** **First,** when you know what your competitors are charging for products and services similar to yours, you have an idea of how to benchmark yourself. But a solid pricing strategy goes far beyond pinning your prices in the ballpark of your closest competitors. That’s why competitor price data is best viewed in context. That context being the other the rest of the [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) you've managed to collect. Together, price data and other intel pushes you towards a complete understanding of your competitors’ pricing strategies. **Understand competitor positioning:** **Second,** you can learn a lot about a product by its price. You can also learn a lot about how a business wants the market to perceive its product, in turn learning valuable information about its positioning strategy. Understanding a competitor's positioning is a great springboard for developing your own [brand positioning strategy.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-strategy-examples/) Essential if you want to dominate your own subsection of the market. **Boost sales and profitability:** **Finally,** prices have a direct impact on your sales and profitability. If all your competitors price themselves lower than you, you’ll need to work that much harder to communicate why your product is still great value at its higher price point. Get this right, and it can work massively in your favor. [Prestige pricing strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/prestige-pricing/) take advantage of exactly this effect. But to do that, you first have to understand the game you’re playing, and where you stand within it. Competitor pricing intelligence can help with that. ## What is a pricing intelligence strategy? Your competitive pricing strategy is the set of strategic decisions you make about the price of a product or service in an effort to drive more sales and profitability, capture more market share, or more competitively position your brand and your products. Again, you can tell a lot about a product or service by its price. Everyone loves a bargain, but there’s a ton of research indicating that price affects perception. ### Pricing and perception [In one study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0950329321000501?via%3Dihub#b0070), 140 participants were served three wines, each at different price points: one cheap, one expensive, one in the middle. The catch? The prices were entirely made up. The results showed that deceptively marking up the price of a wine boosted its ratings. The same goes for reviews, too. Consumers’ ratings of wines improved if they had been shown positive reviews by experts first, and decreased if they were shown negative reviews. > If this is true, higher prices make for better products. These findings have all sorts of fascinating implications for consumer behavior. One possible conclusion is the positive reviews and/or the high prices affected consumer perceptions to actually *improve* their experience. If this is true, higher prices literally make for better products. After all, if someone enjoys their meal more, because they feel they’re treating themselves to expensive, fine wine, then it was worth what they paid for it. Regardless of how much a restaurant marks up the price. ### Everyone loves a bargain! Or do they? So what does this have to do with your pricing strategy? As we’ve seen, pricing impacts perception, but pricing isn’t the only way you try to affect buyer perceptions. Your whole positioning strategy is built around this, too. **Budget vs premium options:** Some of your competitors will position themselves as the ‘budget’ option. That comes with a bunch of associations and implications, both positive and negative. But there’s a section of the market that needs a solution and loves a good bargain. They’ll be more open to the positive associations, and more oblivious to the negative ones. They’ll be less put off by the tradeoff in features, or customer service quality, and more attracted to the low price point. But this doesn't necessarily mean you need to price your products low *all the time*. Nor that you should make yours a budget brand. [Loss leader pricing strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/loss-leader-definition/) see businesses pricing items low temporarily, or strategically pricing only essential items low. On the other hand, there’s a section of the market looking to pay high prices. They’d rather spend a big chunk of the budget on something that *offers* value in the form of peace of mind, reliability, and personable customer service reps. In exchange, they’re willing to pay ten or even a hundred times the price of the budget option. ### Building your strategy Your competitive pricing strategy is a subset of your [competitive positioning strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/). When it comes to marketing, pricing is a part of positioning. Pricing affects everything from how enticing your offer is to how your brand is perceived as a whole. When you price your products properly, as part of an overarching strategy, it won’t matter whether you’re outrageously expensive or losing money on every initial unit. If the strategy as a whole is sound, the price becomes a hook, grabbing people’s attention and emotions and urging them to examine the deal further. 💬 ****Competitive pricing strategy example** Let’s say you’re an SEO consultancy. All your competitors charge high prices from the outset. You want to differentiate, so you offer a ****free audit** to businesses to generate leads. That’s where the strategy really kicks in. You ****funnel all these leads** to an upsell in the form of a one-time consult call with you to run through the results. After demonstrating the value of this kind of consult call, you upsell the takers into further calls. Perhaps at biweekly intervals for more advice and accountability. Separately, you put all leads into ****another email funnel** with information about your technical SEO makeover service. With this service, you remap website folder structure to make it more crawlable by search engines, improve site speed, and perform a bunch of other neat tricks to rapidly boost rankings. On the initial consultation, you lose money, sure. But your initial offer is so much ****more attractive than the competition** that you generate more than enough converting leads. So many, in fact, that you offset your losses with a ton of margin leftover. And when you take lifetime value (LTV) into account? Then you’re really winning. ## Benefits of Competitive Pricing Intelligence Alright, but what are you actually trying to *achieve* with pricing intelligence? Here are a few of the key goals: ### 1) Increase Revenue Better pricing strategies mean better positioning strategies, which means a more concrete chunk of the market can be yours to own. When you own a particular chunk of the market, you’re said to have a [niche competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-competitive-advantage/). Just like it sounds, a competitive advantage means you’ve got an edge the competition doesn’t. If you can [sustain that competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/), it means an even higher probability of increasing your revenue over time. ### 2) Strengthen your competitive advantage Like any strategy, your pricing strategy exists to help you win. Data on how your competitors price their products helps you make more informed pricing decisions about your own, leading to better pricing and positioning strategies overall. And, as we’ve implied throughout this article, a strong competitive positioning strategy gives you your best shot at dominating a specific niche in the market. You’ll avoid competition where it’s unnecessary, and win where it’s unavoidable. Pricing information is also an essential component of any successful [competitive battlecard](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/). When you’ve got up-to-date pricing data on your key competitors, you can add the information to your enablement material. This ensures your sales team has the knowledge it needs to maximize win rates. ### 3) Gain Insights into Market Trends and Consumer Behaviour Supply and demand influences prices. As much as you might want to take the spot of the most expensive, most premium product in your category, you have to turn a profit at the end of the day. If the market disagrees with you about what your product is worth, and there’s no demand for it at that price, you’ll have a hard time making money. But consumer perceptions of value change over time as supply and demand shifts. If you weather a financial downturn, for example, but your main competitor doesn’t, customers now have one solution fewer to choose from. As such, you’ll be in greater demand and be able to charge more as a result. Viewing your competitors’ pricing decisions through this lens is enlightening. Trending fluctuations in their product prices over time can reveal information about consumer sentiment and supply and demand. ### 4) Avoid Price Wars with Competitors The ‘race to the bottom’ never works. When a business doesn’t know its value, it thinks being the cheapest is the only way to win. Most often, they peg the price right below the current cheapest competitor. This is a losing strategy. Positioning your product as a commodity only works if you’ve got deep pockets, the experience to play the long game (and win), and if you’ve built your business around this strategy from the start. If your business isn’t built from the ground up to manufacture, process, market, and fulfill its services and products as cheaply as possible, your margins will be too small. When you start driving prices down, they’ll quickly dip into the negative. A smart marketing team can create a positioning strategy that makes the most of your unique differentiators. Combine that with a bit of [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/), and you’ll have yourself a smart competitive positioning strategy. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/blog_meta.png) #### No product is created in a vacuum The Competitive Positioning Playbook teaches you... 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a ****rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you ****must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom ****tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s ****revenue** ceiling. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ## How to gather competitive pricing intelligence? So - a [competitive pricing analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/) sounds pretty useful, huh? We thought so too, which is why we’d be letting you down if we didn’t tell you how to perform one. Here's how you do it. 👇 ### Collection and Analysis of Competitor Pricing Data It all starts with collecting competitor pricing data. We won't lie - this step can be difficult. The [ethics of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-ethics/) can be murky, and it’s up to you to make sure you’re not getting hold of any information you shouldn’t have access to. Even secret shopping is a gray area. It's unethical to misrepresent yourself, so don’t hide your business email address when you go signing up for a free trial of your favorite competitor's service. **Field intelligence:** **First,** a lot can come from the ‘field’. There’s a lot to be said for ‘crowdsourcing’ your CI efforts, and that holds true for gathering competitor pricing information. That means talking to customers, as well as finding out what your colleagues know. In [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters), Alex McDonnell, Director of Competitive Intelligence and Product Marketing at Airtable, recommends devoting a question to competitor pricing during your customer research and win/loss calls. > "It might sound like, 'Hey, after all that, what was the cost for XYZ competitor?', or maybe more broadly, or a little bit more gently, 'How did we compare on cost, or how did our product compare to \[the\] competitor's product on cost?'" 💬 Bear in mind, some people are uncomfortable with questions on pricing, so ask them last to collect all other information without putting your interviewee on the defensive. --- 0:00 /0:41 1× --- Whether you have a third party do this for you, or you handle the program internally, you can be the one to create the list of questions you need answers to. You can then supply sales reps with these questions, uploading it to wherever they like to consuming their content. This has the benefit of giving you a chance to optimize phrasing for best responses, and to ensure these questions are never missed. **Competitor websites:** **Second,** competitor websites are a treasure trove of insights. Price monitoring software is out there to help you, but you can always have your dev team build you your own dynamic pricing strategy with web scraping libraries and packages. Pricing data you can gather doesn’t just have to include product prices, though. It can also include data like: - Discounted pricing. - When particular discounts and promotions run. - Who these promotions and discounts are offered to. Once you’ve collected as much data as you can, it’s time to analyze what you've got. As we alluded to previously, this involves viewing the pricing information you’ve got *in context*. That means in the context of each competitors’ positioning strategy as a whole. It also means comparing pricing strategies between competitors. **Internal teams:** **Finally,** be sure to [gather competitive intel from internal stakeholders](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/gather-competitive-intelligence-internal-teams/#most-popular-internal-gathering-methods), too. Reps from various teams including sales, product, and customer success, make for great sources of intel of all kinds. Sales and customer success reps (in particular those handling retention), are likely to come across pricing data while on calls with customers. Use what they know to aid your pricing efforts. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/01/CIA_Tools_of_Choice_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) ## Challenges of competitive pricing intelligence Pricing intelligence is notoriously tricky to get hold of, but in some industries it's almost impossible. In last year's [Competitive Intelligence Trends Report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-report-2022/), one respondent listed the acquiring of price tariffs as one of CI's main challenges: > "Pricing tariffs are hard to get, whilst dtails of product features can be sketchy." Of course, that doesn't mean the best competitive intelligence pros give up. But you sometimes have to get creative. Here are some of the challenges you might run into while gathering pricing intelligence: 1. Competitors often **don't list their prices**. 2. **Ethical solutions** can be hard to find. 3. Product trials and secret shopping are **vulnerable to bias.** Let's examine these in more detail: ### 1) Competitors often don't list prices Depending on your sector and industry, you might not be lucky enough to have competitors that list their prices on their websites. Many businesses, especially in the B2B space, only offer their prices on request. Not only do they not want you, their competitor, knowing how much they charge, but they also want to capture every real lead and, depending on the projected value of the account, may even offer discounted prices in a bid to win a high value prospect. ### 2) Ethical solutions can be hard to find There's a limit to what you can find ethically when your competitors don't want to list information publicly. Sometimes, you have to dig a little deeper, but you must do so without misrepresenting yourself or breaking any laws. That means getting creative. SEC filings, earnings reports, and other official documents are a necessity when prices aren't printed in plaintext on a competitor's website, or when a company representative won't share them. **Make informed pricing estimates:** Such official documents won't list product prices, though. Instead, you'll have to combine this information with a whole lot of lateral thinking to *project* what their prices are *likely* to be based on what you also know of other competitors. For example, if you know what competitor X's production costs are, but you know both competitor Y's production costs *and* their prices, you might be in a position to extrapolate what competitor X's prices might be. Especially if their production costs are similar. In practice, you'll likely need more than two pieces of information to triangulate probable prices. But doing so can help you fill in the blanks to a reasonable degree of certainty. ### 3) Product trials and secret shopping are vulnerable to bias Not only is it unethical to misrepresent yourself, but even if your competitors *do* let you in the door for a trial or conversation, you're only guaranteed a very limited snapshot of their pricing strategy. Some businesses have huge product lines. Quotes for customers can vary massively depending on the particulars of a given deal. Some customers will drive harder bargains, some accounts will be considered more valuable. All of these factors can alter the final price one customer gets versus another, even for the same product. What's more, you're not the customer. And you're biased (whether you know it or not). You're likely to live and breathe the intricacies of your own products, and your competitor's product is likely similar. It'd be *oh so easy* to emotionally trivialize many of the very real benefits competitor products offer to customers. So after putting together a report on a competitor product informed from a free trial, you should ask yourself, *can I really trust this?* ## TL;DR Competitive pricing intelligence is valuable. In many industries, it's also *rare*. But get your hands on even a good approximation of your competitors' prices, and you'll be well on your way to crafting a more competitive pricing strategy. Stay on the right side of the ethical line, get creative, and put in the work, and you'll experience first hand how prices can shape perceptions and profits. [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### Announcing: Competitive Intelligence Certified: Core URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/announcing-competitive-intelligence-certified-core/ Last updated: 2024-02-01T12:24:29.000Z ![](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/6347e1a02d41b022282cb2e7-public/b2ef17aeca2bc35d338d5e7f52bd43b7.png) Competitive Intelligence Certified: Core **Give yourself an unfair advantage. This competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence.** [ Get certified ](https://certified.thealliance.io/payment?product%5Fid=competitive-intelligence-certified-core) - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can stop worrying and start winning. - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you an unfair advantage. - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that make analysis a cinch. [ Download the brochure ](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/to/gXMdLBNC?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ![](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/6347e1a02d41b022282cb2e7-public/09de9877c4a117e473c4b3e163287204.png) Course overview. No one goes to school for competitive intelligence. But what if we told you there’s a way to trivialize your competitive headaches? That there exists a competitive bible of best practices, tested frameworks, and pipelines for market analysis and differentiation that, once discovered, could change your competitive game forever? In Competitive Intelligence Certified: Core, you’ll uncover how to ethically deconstruct competitor strategies, develop powerful competitive positioning, inform and advise on crucial strategic projects, and elevate your role to ensure career progression. Whether competitive intelligence is a portion of your role, or your daily bread and butter, this course has what you need to stand out and succeed in the demanding yet dynamic world of competitive intelligence. ![](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/6347e1a02d41b022282cb2e7-public/a9542882d7a415cfdee122e706abe7b2.png) By the end of this course, you'll be able to: - Lead development of your org’s all-important competitive positioning. - Master CI’s essentials, including its most powerful research techniques. - Arm sales and customer success with intel to skyrocket win rates and turn down churn. - Offer leaders critical intel that informs their decision-making and strategy. - Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure career progression. [ Get certified ](https://certified.thealliance.io/payment?product%5Fid=competitive-intelligence-certified-core) --- > “Speaking as a CI Professional this course covers really serious forms of **advanced analysis** and brings them to the level of **real-world usability** for Competitive Intelligence Professionals... Give yourself a good start and ride on the built-up understanding of a community of Competitive Intelligence Professionals.” > \- Allen Borts, Technical Marketing Director, Applied Direct Services Corporation --- ## **Learn from industry experts like:** ![](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/6347e1a02d41b022282cb2e7-public/c7ffbcdaaef517eb46ec7fb22189d768.png) Alex McDonnell, Product Marketing & Competitive Intel at **AirTable** ![](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/6347e1a02d41b022282cb2e7-public/18dbd0e7fa54fcea46afd89f7e306816.png) Mindy Regnell, Head of Market Intelligence at **Klaviyo** ![](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/6347e1a02d41b022282cb2e7-public/bbe1cb8da87be7885fb8245c72344276.png) Gal Toren, Competitive Intelligence Team Lead at **JFrog** ![](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/6347e1a02d41b022282cb2e7-public/b0060667d00751aa5b60f4d5e4da24d0.png) Tracy Berry, Director of Competitive Intelligence & Communication at **Freshworks** ![](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/6347e1a02d41b022282cb2e7-public/f0b7d6ee41f706061969ce35ed83ea68.png) Pat Wall, Director of Competitive Intelligence at **Imperva** ![](https://lwfiles.mycourse.app/6347e1a02d41b022282cb2e7-public/525f2dab8f2ff8ff9dd7e216f2ab57d6.png) Ben Hoffman, Senior Manager, Competitive Intelligence at **Adobe** --- ## **What to expect from Competitive Intelligence Certified Core.** [ Get certified ](https://certified.thealliance.io/payment?product%5Fid=competitive-intelligence-certified-core) --- ## “You’ll leave equipped with the strategic acumen needed to navigate and execute against evolving competitive landscapes.” \- Nicole Hayes, Product Marketing Director at Platform Science --- ## **All this is waiting for you:** - A **100% self-paced and online course** packed with competitive wisdom so you can stop worrying and start winning. - Optional coursework activities to really test your **competitive mettle**. - **Bonus features** from established competitive professionals to give you an unfair advantage. - **Official certification**, providing you pass the exams. - 6 downloadable, **customizable templates** and frameworks that make analysis a cinch. [ View the full curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) ## ****Looking to learn as a team?** If you're looking to get a team of three or more certified, then speak to Tom about team rates on [****t.madden@pmmalliance.com**](mailto:t.madden@pmmalliance.com). **P.S. Need to convince your boss? We've done the hard part for you:** [ Convince your boss ](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kbG2O%5FKH9T0x5gHlPM%5FPGk2cpGJn7%5F3smcfmRhX0eXs/edit?usp=sharing) --- ## FAQs #### Is this course right for me? Are you a Competitive Intelligence Lead looking to cement your skills and knowledge? Or are you a PMM performing competitive intelligence as a part of your role? A Director of Product Marketing looking to enable sales, and align cross-functional teams on brand and product positioning? If any of these sound like you, this course is right up your alley. #### Is there a time limit on completing the course? The course is 100% on-demand and self-paced. Once you enroll, you’ll work through the chapters in chronological order. At the end of each module, it’ll be time to test your knowledge with our confidence-building exam questions. Once you pass all these, you’ll be Competitive Intelligence Certified! #### How long does the course take to finish? Smart cookies can complete the base course in about 5+ hours. The bonus material, discussion panels, and fireside chats will take an additional 1 hour to complete. #### What do I do if I don't pass the exams? If you fail the first time around, you'll be given the option to retake the exam. If you fail the second attempt, unfortunately, it means you won’t get the certificate. But all is not lost! You’ll still have learned LOTS, and you’ll have lifetime access to the course materials. #### For how long will I have access to the course content? Course takers get lifetime access. A single, one-off payment gives you free rein on all course content. [ Get certified ](https://certified.thealliance.io/payment?product%5Fid=competitive-intelligence-certified-core) ### The practitioner’s complete guide to competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/ Last updated: 2024-07-30T10:31:33.000Z Here’s the thing: Your competitors want to **beat** you. There are only so many prospects out there looking for a solution like yours. So if you’re stepping into their territory, they’ll want to make sure it’s *their* product customers think of first. [Competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) is your tool for knowing your competitors’ strategies, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses. Armed with this information, you can fine-tune your product strategy and marketing initiatives to win. In other words, competitive intelligence is your **ticket to the top**. Read on to learn: - [What competitive intelligence is.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#what-is-competitive-intelligence) - [How competitive intelligence works.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#how-competitive-intelligence-works) - [The best sources of competitive intelligence.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#sources-of-competitive-intelligence-methodologies-and-strategies) - [The primary uses of competitor intelligence.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#uses-of-competitive-intelligence) - [Competitive intelligence best practices.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#competitive-intelligence-best-practices) …and a whole load more. ## What is competitive intelligence? At its simplest, competitive intelligence is information about your business competitors. You’ll use this information to inform your marketing strategies, from positioning to messaging, and even your product roadmaps. Competitive intelligence can also refer to the role, or practice, of collecting this info on your competitors. Dedicated [competitive intelligence functions and roles](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-analyst/) are becoming more and more common in businesses today. Some argue that a competitive intelligence professional is one of the earliest roles a small business owner should look to fill. Why? Because teams are doing competitive intelligence every day. Whether they know it or not. Even if you don’t have a dedicated role for it yet. ![jobs board website search bar with the text 'competitive intelligence analyst'](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-08-at-12.06.21.png) **Competitive intelligence roles are in greater demand today than ever before.* Your competitive, goal-driven sales reps, for example, are interested in increasing their sales numbers. That involves getting to grips with *who* prospects choose when they don’t choose *you*. Yep. We’re talking about a competitor here. The information they manage to gather during their research is competitive intelligence - even if they don’t know it. That’s why, when you’re [building out a competitive intelligence program](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/), you’ll first assimilate all the competitor intelligence floating around in the business. ## The history of competitive intelligence Early on, [competitive intelligence was covert and undercover](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/past-present-future/). Before the internet, CI stemmed from a human intelligence model, borne from government intelligence agencies (think FBI). People would frame themselves as new customers and speak with competitors to gain [competitive pricing intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) and product intel. Think that sounds… kinda ethically unsound? You’d be right. Ethics concerns prompted a shift away from this model and, with the birth of the internet and more freely available intel, this kind of inspector gadgetery became unnecessary. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/ezgif.com-gif-maker--15-.gif) Now competitive intelligence amounts to market research, focused on core competitors. With these competitors, a tiny competitive advantage means hundreds more deals won, and massive ROI over time. This is what’s driving CI’s impressive growth, with the percentage of organizations monitoring competitors at least once per month [jumping from 64 to 70% from 2020 to 2021](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/trends-report-2021/). 📈 ## How competitive intelligence works Competitive intelligence can sound scary and complicated, but the process is actually super simple. Let’s break it down: 1. [Data gathering](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-data-gathering) 2. [Data analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-analyzing-the-intel) 3. [Data reporting](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-sharing-your-findings) 4. [Data execution](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-creating-deliverables-and-executing) It’s a cyclical process. Executing on your plans will reveal new information that you can feed back into the beginning of the cycle. ### • Data gathering Data collection is the first step in competitive intelligence. As we’ve said, people in your org already gather information about your competitors. And all of that info’s fair game. What your data gathering process looks like will depend on your CI function’s maturity, the size of your CI team, and your budget. 💰 You’ll usually pull in data using a number of competitive intelligence techniques, but you'll start with the following methods: - Ad hoc research from other departments (e.g. sales, customer success). - Active intelligence gathering (e.g. viewing competitor websites, free trials). - Passive data gathering (with the help of a competitive intelligence platform). Good competitive intelligence research has a system for capturing all the insights coming out of conversations with customers. And other day-to-day activities too, even if they’re not strictly CI-related. You’ll also be collecting intel actively. There’s no substitute for getting up, close, and personal with your rivals. On their websites, they’ll announce the latest updates, publish news articles, and reveal clues about their hiring activities. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/image-1.png) **The three most popular methods for gathering competitor intelligence are all manual and intentional, like reading press releases and competitor emails.* Finally, competitive intelligence platforms and social listening tools are like Google Alerts’ better-looking, more charismatic siblings. They monitor the web and social media platforms for competitor activity. Then they’ll report that data back to you. ### • Analyzing the intel Now it’s time to put that data to work. Through competitive analysis, you’ll extract meaning from the information you have and give it **context**. That means having an opinion and, in the next stage, sharing that opinion with key stakeholders to help create a plan of action. Don’t feel uncomfortable offering an opinion. As the competitive intelligence expert, it’s your job to stay up to speed with all the developments in the competitive environment. So when a competitor development lands on your desk, it’s you who’s best placed to make sense of it. You’ll decide whether this intel constitutes a threat or an opportunity to your brand and, from there, you’ll go ahead and get things done. ![](https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/111xs73rii/swatch) > In competitive intel your deliverable is not just the information. It's a clear and defensible point of view that's based on that information. \- *Alex McDonnell, market & competitive intelligence at Airtable* ### • Sharing your findings Other departments are relying on you to bring them up to speed quickly on the stuff that matters. With your analysis in hand, you’ll report your conclusions to stakeholders. If you’re currently experiencing panicked visions of spreadsheets and graphs, don’t worry. While number crunching skills are useful, a lot of the most valuable data in competitive intelligence is qualitative. Feedback from win/loss interviews with new customers and lost prospects, for example, is invaluable. The people you’re targeting tell you directly which factors are most important to their decision-making process. Being able to dissect this kind of feedback, identify patterns, draw conclusions, and report those to your peers is what this stage is all about. ### • Creating deliverables and executing With a plan of action in hand and your stakeholders on board, it’s time to execute. This is CI’s true purpose. To help you make informed decisions about your business strategy, come up with a plan of action, and execute it. Your deliverables should enable everyone in the organization to contribute as best they can to beating your competitors. Sometimes that means offering enablement assets to sales and customer success teams directly. Other times it means opening channels of communication to let people feel heard, strengthen the flow of intel through the business, and get everyone informed. A simple fix like creating a competitive Slack channel has great ROI. It’s quick to implement, open to everyone, and people can use it to ask questions, report their findings, and raise concerns. This keeps CI top of mind across all arms of the business. --- ### What's that? Competitive intelligence on Slack? Join our competitive intelligence community on Slack for access to the industry's best and brightest. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/CIA_Website_Banners_2-2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- Similarly, a competitive newsletter, distributed internally, is a great way to keep everyone up to speed with the latest competitor developments and strategy changes. 💭 **Remember: CI is an ongoing process. You’ll continue to track progress and tweak your assets and strategies for continued success.* --- ### The competitive intelligence framework Let's quickly review that process: 1. Before you even start gathering data, you must first orient yourself and **define** critical factors like unmet customer needs, internal assumptions about the state of the competitive landscape, and who your target audience is. If this work has already been done, locate the documentation and brush up on that knowledge. 2. Then, you can start to **gather** data. Customer feedback, win/loss analysis, insights from subject-matter-experts internally... all of these are great sources of useful intel. 3. With data in-hand, **analyze** it for deeper insights. That means pulling out conclusions that'll be useful for your stakeholders. Depending on whether you're supporting sales and marketing, product and product marketing, or the leadership team, the shapes these conclusions should take will differ. 4. Finally, it's time to **implement** those conclusions. This begins with delivering them to stakeholders in a format they can use, be it sales enablement content, workshops on primary competitors, or creating miscellaneous competitive resources for the organization at large. Our [competitive intelligence framework](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-framework/) aims to outline every aspect of the competitive intelligence cycle, showing you the gaps in your knowledge you must fill if you're to really excel in competitive intelligence roles. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/07/CIA-Framework-Wheel_Colourv3--2-.png) [Download the framework](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/n3xbb1d39aarqdavsrjbj/CIA-Framework-Wheel%5FColourv3.png?rlkey=giocqeuvehdyu9y8cp361a2uz&st=dx40ahs2&dl=0) --- ## Sources of competitive intelligence: Techniques and methods So that’s the competitive intelligence process. But where do you actually get competitive intelligence from? What are [the best competitive intelligence sources](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/) and which [types of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/) should you prioritize? Here are our top five competitive intelligence techniques: - [Win/loss analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-winloss-analysis) - [Customer research and interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-customer-research-and-interviews) - [Competitor research](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-competitor-research) - [Passive monitoring and tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-passive-monitoring-and-tools) - [SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-swot-analysis) ### • Win/loss analysis Win/loss analysis is powerful. By speaking directly to newly won and lost prospects, you get an unbiased understanding of what’s driving their decision-making. Do it right, and you’ll know exactly how to sway new leads in your favor. And if that’s not a superpower, what is? 🦸‍♀️ ![](https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/a8ldomcnux/swatch) > CRM data is not enough. Real win/loss analysis involves actually interviewing customers who have recently evaluated you versus a competitor. \- *Alex McDonnell, market & competitive intelligence at Airtable* ### • Customer research and interviews More broadly than win/loss interviews, getting up to snuff with the opinions of your target audience makes it obvious what you’re doing well and where you can improve. How does this tie back to your competitors? [Positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/). Over time, your product, your brand, and your business will grow and change. That’s a good thing, but it also means the sands are always shifting. You need to keep a vigilant eye on how your customers perceive you and where you’re truly winning with them. Combine that with your research on the wider competitive landscape, and you’ll nail your place in the competitive landscape and know which battles you can win. [Customer needs and how to meet themGiving customers what they want and need is an essential part of product marketing. Check out our insights on how to identify and act upon customer needs.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceLawrence Chapman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/jon-tyson-vVSleEYPSGY-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/) ### • Competitor research Manually monitoring your competitors, even through a browser and a tab for each website, gives you the lowdown on their latest developments. Most business websites publish news articles and blogs full of information about their products, business updates, even customer case studies. Having a nosey around’ll give you a sense of their content strategy. They’ll be trying to win high-value keywords with their content, but behind this SEO strategy, they’re trying to solve customer problems. Just scanning article titles can show you the ones they think are most important, but an [in-depth competitive SEO analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) is even better. By tying these findings back to your own strategies, you can determine whether your competitors are way off the mark, or are matching you step for step. ### • Passive monitoring and tools Even the most vigilant researchers might miss something. After all, the internet’s a big place. 🕸 Passively monitoring the web for mentions of your competitors, or associated keywords and queries, can act as both a safety net in case you miss something, and as an early indicator for competitor developments. Whether you choose Google Alerts or dedicated competitive intelligence software to take care of this stage in the data gathering pipeline, it pays to cast a wide net. ### • SWOT analysis SWOT analysis has you take a look at your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats present in the marketplace. But you can apply the SWOT framework to anything. Apply it to one competitor, all your key competitors, or to the market as a whole. Apply the framework to your own organization too. A comprehensive SWOT analysis that covers all these angles gives you a view of the whole market, and your place within it. When it comes to identifying your competitive edge, and how it might come under threat, there’s no better framework out there. But hold on! Make sure you do your customer research first. Incorporate it into this competitor analysis. This way, you go into the process with open eyes and an objective outlook. 👀 [Competitive intelligence planning: short & long-term | CIATo learn more about the long- and short-term planning that’s so important for a well-tooled competitive intelligence program, Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon, sat down with August Jackson, Senior Director of Market and Competitive Intelligence at Deltek.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/hello-i-m-nik-MAgPyHRO0AA-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/planning-competitive-intelligence/) ## Uses of competitive intelligence Why use competitive intelligence at all? There are a number of key deliverables competitive intelligence can drive, and a number of key initiatives that those deliverables support. Let’s focus on those initiatives: ### Sales and revenue enablement The goal of any business function is to drive revenue. Whether it’s increasing customer satisfaction scores or adding new product features, trace the line back far enough and you’ll arrive at “increased revenue” as the primary motivator. Your sales team does battle with your competitors every day. Indirectly, with their prospects as the proxy, sure. But their ability to persuade those prospects comes down to how well positioned your product and brand are against your competitors. Enabling your sales teams to win new deals with rock-solid messaging and objection handling is just one of CI’s uses. The best-known deliverable here is the [competitive battlecard](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/), an on-hand, scannable flashcard primed with all the sound bytes your sales reps need to handle objections and position your product as the best one to meet the customer's need. [What is sales enablement content?In this article, we’re going to be focusing on sales enablement content, both internal and external-facing, and how to make it great.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceDaniel O’Dowd![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/patrick-tomasso-Oaqk7qqNh_c-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-sales-enablement-content/) ### Product positioning and messaging Marketing teams, too, can benefit from a strong CI program. ‘Cause CI makes it clear what you do best as a business (in the objective eyes of your customers and prospects, rather than your own) and where you fall short versus certain competitors. It lets you know [where your competitive advantages lie](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/) and how to stop your cheeky rivals from imitating them. 😤 With a firm grasp of your competitive advantages, you can also choose your battles more wisely. Choose the ones you’re in the best position to win, rather than competing against alternatives that are too well established, or that the market doesn’t consider similar to you. This also informs where you choose to stand in the competitive landscape, influencing your [product positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/), your messaging and value propositions, and even your product development roadmaps. Finally, as your CI program uncovers new competitor developments, you’re in a great position to advise when it’s time to pivot and reposition. [Prestige Pricing Strategy: What It Is, How To Use OnePrestige pricing, also known as premium pricing, or image pricing, is what businesses do when they sell at a high price to communicate value.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/joe-hepburn-moJvG_1AwMU-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/prestige-pricing/) ### Content strategy Yep, competitive intelligence can even inform your content marketing strategy. In fact, all that keyword research your content managers do is itself a form of competitor intelligence. How, you ask? 🤨 Because they’re trying to uncover and reverse engineer your rivals’ successes. By tracking competitor performance across keywords, and keeping an eye on the content that’s performing best in your niche, they’re finding openings in the competitive landscape to exploit and aiding strategic business decisions. And, for your part, the intelligence you uncover will help your content writers speak confidently about competitors. It’ll help them speak about your products in relation to theirs. This competitive intelligence technique can help identify different content types and lead magnets (like video and long form ebooks) that you might want to give a shot. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-08-at-14.02.58.png) **SEO strategy can contribute to your CI research and vice versa.* ## Competitive intelligence best practices OK, so we’ve covered what competitive intelligence is. We’ve covered what sources to use, and even what to use it for. But, in the most practical sense, how do you *do* it? And, more importantly, how do you do it *properly*? 🤔 Here’s a shortlist of some competitive intelligence best practices we learned from industry experts in our community: 1. **Over-communicate** 2. **Show your work** 3. **Start with sales** 4. **Before you start, orient yourself** 5. **Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize** ### 1) Over-communicate Competitive intelligence is *not* all about data. In fact, it’s a mostly relationships-based discipline. So, how you work and communicate with your colleagues is crucial to your success as a competitive intelligence practitioner. This is all about building trust, so erring on the side of over-communicating is a competitive intelligence best practice. Especially at first. That means getting your stakeholders involved early whenever you start a new project. **This helps for a few reasons:** 1. Gives stakeholders an opportunity to voice concerns. 2. If it’s another group kicking off the project, you can be there while they’re defining the objective or research question. 3. Helps to build trust and mutual respect. Both essential for a healthy ongoing working relationship. ### 2) Show your work Many of CI’s outcomes aren’t so easy to measure. So if you want career progression, you might need to work a little harder than some of your colleagues to prove your value when your next annual review rolls around. This is especially true if yours is a business that undervalues competitive intelligence ([as many businesses in Europe and APAC seem to](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report/)). So it’s a competitive intelligence best practice to dedicate a portion of your time towards evidencing the value you’ve brought to the company and the revenue you’ve been a part of generating. **Clearly track things like:** - The **won deals** you’ve directly contributed to. - How many teams are asking for training and **enablement sessions** from you. - The projects other people are pulling you into, and the **success of those projects.** If you can supply the breadcrumb-lined path that shows how *your* actions have led to good outcomes, you’ll make it that much easier for your boss to agree to a pay rise. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/asana.webp) **A simple project management tool can serve as a great starting point to begin tracking your work and your value contributions to your business. Credit: asana.com* ### 3) Start with your sales team As we mentioned, building trust is huge. That starts with getting small wins, and building on that momentum to seize bigger wins over time. Your sales team is a key stakeholder both early on and even after your CI program matures. 💰 In the beginning, sales presents perhaps the most measurable means of contributing to company revenue. When you enable the sales team, and help them generate success, you’ll also build trust in your own abilities and in your CI program’s ability to drive positive change for the business. Soon, other teams will come on board, and you’ll have earned your seat at the table with leadership, marketing, and product teams. ### 4) Orient yourself first Sure, start with sales when you’re ready to launch your CI program in earnest. But the very first thing to do when you land in a new competitive intelligence role is to *orient yourself.* If your predecessor left behind a competitive intelligence program, best practice says to start by assessing the damage. What do you have in place that’s working? What *isn’t* working? And, if there’s nothing in place at all, you have the benefit of starting with a clean slate. But if it’s your first time, blank slates can feel a bit… daunting. For that reason, whichever scenario you find yourself in at first, it pays to orient yourself right away. **That means:** 1. Learning the **business’ goals**, and the aspirations of your leaders. 2. Figuring out what competitive intelligence **exists already**. In the heads of your peers, in your CRM, or even scribbled in notebooks in the drawers of your salespeople. 3. Learning what **competitive content** people like, and what they’re using most right now. Take the lay of the land. Figure out where you are. That’s point A. At the same time, tease out what direction your leaders want the business to head in. That’s point B. With point A and point B firmly in mind, you can start drawing up a plan for how to get there. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/gcal.png) **Your first week doesn't need to look like this, but to orient yourself effectively, you will have to set up some meetings. Credit: research gate.* ### 5) Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize It’s just a fact. It’s impossible to succeed in competitive intelligence without learning to prioritize. Competitive intelligence teams are often small. Resources are often limited. And budgets are often tight. Yet, with so many possible stakeholders (every department in the business can benefit from competitive intelligence in some way), you’re bound to get too many requests to deal with. Since there aren’t enough hours in the day for you (or your small team) to do everything, you have to pick your battles. **That means prioritizing on everything, including:** - Which **competitors** you’ll dedicate resources to monitoring, reporting on, and trying to beat. - Which **departments** you’ll dedicate resources towards enabling, informing, and helping. - Which **projects** you’ll spend time contributing to. - Which types of **content** you’ll spend time producing. Knowing what to prioritize and what to bump into the “later” pile comes down to being aligned with the goals of the business. See the section on ‘orienting yourself’ above. ## Competitive intelligence tools We’ve said it before, but the internet’s a big place. Competitive intelligence software and tools can mean the difference between missing key developments and staying one step ahead. And it doesn’t have to cost the world either. Free tools like Google Alerts can save the day when you’re out of budget. But for those with the dollars to spare, investing in the following types of tools empowers you to rapidly scale your CI program and squeeze out every last drop of its value. - [Competitive intelligence software](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-competitive-intelligence-software) - [Social listening tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-social-listening-tools) - [Market intelligence tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-market-intelligence-tools) - [CRMs](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-crms) - [Sales enablement platforms](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-sales-enablement-platforms) - [Conversational intelligence platforms](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-conversational-intelligence-software) - [Win/loss platforms](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#%E2%80%A2-winloss-platforms) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-08-at-13.59.14-1.png) **Competitive intelligence tools help you gather, centralize, and draw insights from data.* ### • Competitive intelligence software Competitive intelligence software exists to make your life easier. These tools accept a list of competitors, and they’ll monitor the web in real-time for mentions of them. That means minimal delay between a competitor’s product launch or announcement and you knowing about it. ### • Social listening tools In the other direction, you can get narrower by using a social listening tool. 👂 Rather than scanning the entire web for mentions of a competitor, these tools will scan social media platforms. These are life-changing for organizations relying on influencer marketing and social media marketing strategies. ### • Market intelligence tools Like competitive intelligence software, but for the wider marketplace. The easiest way to understand the difference is to think of industries with only a few very strong competitors, but where both emerging and legacy players still hold a large portion of the market share. Netflix, for example, competes closely with Amazon Prime Video and a number of other streaming service providers. But they also compete indirectly with the cable TV providers, movie theaters, and even with YouTube for people’s viewing attention. If your organization wants intel on the wider market and its indirect competitors, they’ll benefit from a market intelligence platform. ### • CRMs Chances are your organization already uses a CRM. Customer relationship management systems like these are the cornerstone of many a sales program, and for good reason. A central store for everything customer- and sales lead-related, your CRM is a fab resource for [gathering competitive intelligence from your sales reps](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/gather-competitive-intelligence-internal-teams/#most-popular-internal-gathering-methods). But it’s also a good place to keep your enablement assets. Hey, your sales reps spend all day in there anyway. It’s like leaving a bowl of steaming spag’ bol’ outside your teenager’s bedroom door. You know they appreciate it, even if they don’t say so. 🍝 ### • Sales enablement platforms Sales enablement platforms take the enablement function of a CRM and offer a dedicated solution for it. Once you’ve created a framework for your sales reps that works, you can deliver it to them, track its success, and see key metrics for what’s working and what’s not. Not enough for ya? Sales enablement tools also identify new opportunities and prospects, giving you ways to engage with them meaningfully while providing plenty of juicy data. 🍋 ### • Conversational intelligence software Conversational intelligence software uses AI to analyze calls, emails, and text chat messages between sales reps and prospects. For organizations with humongous call volumes, this makes deriving insights from conversation data scalable. And it helps you improve your buyer experience and boost conversions. 🤩 To give your data context and make next steps easier, your conversation intelligence software integrates with the other tools in your stack, including your CRM. How helpful! ### • Win/loss platforms Win/loss platforms offer supporting solutions for your win/loss research. They’ll automate this crucial part of the data gathering process for you so you can set and forget it. Nice and easy. 🙌 Since it’s always on, you’ll never miss an opportunity to gather actionable insights from newly won or lost prospects either. And the platform will give you the data you need to tweak and hone your surveys for best results. Basically, win/loss platforms let you be lazy with a very important part of your CI process. If you’re up to your eyeballs, or if you just like to automate tasks like this, grab ya’self a subscription to some win/loss software. You won’t regret it. --- ## A directory of tried and tested tools. 🪛 You’re drowning in work. And that’s before you even get to your CI responsibilities. 😞 If only there was a way to automate the time-consuming tasks. To grease the wheels of key processes. To eliminate all the unnecessary drag and friction, so it takes minutes, not days, to get you up to speed. Hold up! CI tools already do this! 🦸 Wondering which to use? We’ve got the answers. The Competitive Intelligence Tools of Choice report has landed, with stats on the stacks the pros (that’s you! 🫵) use to get the job done. Grab your copy. 👇 [Competitive Intelligence Tools of Choice Report 2023 | CIACompetitive intelligence sits at the intersection of marketing and revenue enablement. With high stakes, disparate data sources, and a mandate to leave no stone unturned, CI pros face an organizational nightmare. The answer? Tools.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/CIA_Competitive_Tools_of_Choice_Report_2023_Blog_2-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-report-2023/) --- ## Competitive intelligence ethics [The ethics of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-ethics/) isn’t a shadowy subject hounded by shades of gray. So long as you don’t enter the realms of corporate espionage or illegal activity (like wiretapping your rival’s phone lines or cracking their customer database), you’ll be on the right side of the ethical divide. Information from publicly available sources is all you need to succeed. Customer reviews, competitor press releases, announcements, social media posts, and even published financial statements. All of these are legal and ethical sources of intel on your competitors. In fact, you’ll probably struggle to keep up with all of it, which is why automation via competitive intelligence tools can be so powerful. But developments can be subtle, and the signs often lie in small departures from baseline behavior. That’s why it’s so important to ID that baseline and become intimately familiar with your core competitors. The ones that represent your greatest opportunities. --- ## More competitive intelligence resources - [Competitive intelligence Slack community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) - [Competitive intelligence articles](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/articles/) - [Competitive intelligence newsletter: CIA Signal](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) [ See the curriculum ](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### “The go-to platform for businesses and professionals seeking a competitive edge”, Sathvik Perapogu, Hiver URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sathvik-perapogu-community-case-study/ Last updated: 2024-01-31T17:26:57.000Z Sathvik Perapogu, Product Marketing Manager at Hiver, joined the Competitive Intelligence Alliance community late last year. He liked what he saw, and quickly filled an application to become a [CIA ambassador](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/become-an-ambassador/). > “I found myself immersed in a world of unparalleled collaborative intelligence.” We got to the bottom of: - What Sathvik enjoys about being a part of the community. - The specific benefits CI pros get from being a part of the community. - How you, too, can experience these benefits. ## What Sathvik enjoys about the community Sathvik said he was “thoroughly impressed by the invaluable insights and opportunities this forum has provided. From the moment I joined, I found myself immersed in a world of unparalleled collaborative intelligence.” Here's what else he had to say about the community: > "The Competitive Intelligence Alliance is, without a doubt, the go-to platform for businesses and professionals seeking a competitive edge in today's fast-paced markets. The wealth of knowledge shared within this forum is unparalleled, and the collaborative spirit among members is truly commendable." When asked for specifics, here are a few aspects Sathvik reported enjoying about being a member of the Competitive Intelligence Alliance: ### 1\. Knowledge Hub “The forum serves as an extensive knowledge hub where industry experts and professionals come together to share their insights, experiences, and expertise. The discussions are not only insightful, but also thought-provoking, providing a deep understanding of market trends and competitor strategies.” ### 2\. Collaborative Environment “The collaborative environment fostered by the Competitive Intelligence Alliance is remarkable. Members willingly share their knowledge, research findings, and best practices. The collective intelligence of the community is harnessed to analyze market dynamics, enabling businesses to make strategic decisions with confidence.” --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/CIA_Website_Banners_2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### 3\. Networking Opportunities “The Alliance offers exceptional networking opportunities. Engaging with professionals from diverse backgrounds has broadened my perspective and allowed me to establish meaningful connections within my industry. The alliances formed here have opened doors to new partnerships and collaborations that have proven to be incredibly valuable for my business.” ### 4\. Timely and Relevant Content “The forum administrators ensure that the content shared is always up-to-date and relevant. The discussions range from emerging industry trends to in-depth analyses of competitors' moves. This timely information has been instrumental in helping me anticipate market changes and make informed decisions for my organization.” ### 5\. Supportive Community “One of the standout features of this alliance is the supportive community it fosters. Members are always ready to assist, share ideas, and offer guidance. The sense of camaraderie among professionals with a shared goal of staying ahead in the competitive landscape is truly inspiring.” --- ## Join the free community Join Sathvik and almost 2,000 other competitive intelligence professionals in the Competitive Intelligence Alliance [Slack community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/). You’ll gain instant access to a community full of networking opportunities, chances to ask questions, a world-class collaborative environment, and access to some of CI's best and brightest minds. Just click below to get started. 👇 [Join the community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ### Loss leader pricing strategy: definition, examples, pros and cons URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/loss-leader-definition/ Last updated: 2024-06-28T12:40:48.000Z ## What is a loss leader? “Loss leader” refers to products sold (or manufactured)\* at a loss in the short-term to turn greater profits in the long-term. Loss leader products achieve this by (i) attracting new customers who would otherwise shop elsewhere, and (ii) tempting them into buying other products priced at a relative premium. \*Loss leader products don’t themselves have to be priced lower than alternatives. Luxury items the majority of your target audience can’t afford can draw customers off the street and into your store. While you might not expect to sell many $100,000 watches, customers might dream about owning such a luxury product from a brand like yours. Dreams fuel more affordable purchases, nonetheless outside the price bracket a customer would have originally opted to pay. 🧠 **Note: the above loss leader strategy combines with the Price Anchoring heuristic to be even more effective. Customers who see a premium price early in their buyer’s journey consider that price fair value. Lower prices that still turn you a great profit are considered cheap by comparison.* ## How do loss leader strategies work? Loss leader strategies only start to make sense when you consider them in terms of customer lifetime value (CLTV, or LTV). A customer’s LTV is the sum total earnings you can make from them over the course of their time with you as a customer. The longer they’re with you, and the more products they buy, or the more times they renew their subscription, the more they’re worth to you. It’s generally accepted that customer acquisition costs are higher than customer retention costs. Loss leading is (mostly) about customer acquisition. At the level of the individual sale, you’re making a loss. You’re selling a product for less than it costs you to make it. However, when you expand your time horizon and consider what these small sales can lead to in the long-term, the strategy makes much more sense. --- [Competitive Pricing Intelligence: Your Ultimate GuideCompetitive pricing intelligence helps businesses make smarter decisions about their own positioning and pricing strategies, empowering them to win more market share.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/10/helena-hertz-wWZzXlDpMog-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) --- ## 5 loss leader strategy examples There are various types of loss leader pricing strategies. Here are five examples you can use right now to boost your business’ profits. ### Strategy one: the free trial If you’re trying to break into a new market, you need a strong incentive to challenge the status quo, break people’s habits, and convince them that *this time* it’s worth their while to come and shop with *you*. While your product differentiation is undoubtedly important, businesses often need to slash the risk to the consumer if they’re going to come and try out their product or service. This brings us to our first loss leader strategy: **the free trial.** A free trial gives potential customers the chance to try out your product risk-free. By offering your services for up to a month free of charge, you don’t earn while you’re fulfilling those services. But, if your trial customers convert at the end of the trial period, you’ll eventually make your money back plus profit. ### Strategy two: the convenience buy Loss leader strategies work wonders in physical stores. The classic example? The grocery store. Everyday essentials (bread, milk) are priced at a loss. The prices are convenient, and since they’re bought by almost everyone, customers will search through the store for them. When placed at the *far end* of the store, customers are forced to walk past strategically-placed, promotional plinths, designed to catch the eye and persuade people to buy. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/food_business_news.png) **Everyday essentials are often priced as loss leaders, but located at the far end of the a store, encouraging customers to buy other products along the way. Credit: FoodBusinessNews* This brings us to the second of our loss leader pricing strategies: **the convenience buy.** You’ll know yourself how tempting it is to throw a couple of additional items into the basket when you’re in the store for bread and milk. But when you get to the till, you realize you’ve racked up $20-$40 dollars’ worth of items. That’s a hefty bill compared to the few bucks you intended to spend. When it’s convenient to do so, and the items are *right there*, it doesn’t take much convincing to buy a few extra items. It’s on these extra items the store makes its profit. ### Strategy three: the upsell Another classic loss leader strategy is **the** **upsell**. When you buy a burger and fries, you’re attracted to the main item. An attractively priced burger is hard to turn down. Often, restaurants turn minimal to negative profits on such items. But the fries? Those are *very* expensive relative to their cost. (And when’s the last time you turned down a side of fries?) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/openTable.jpeg) **Would you like fries with that? Upsells and cross-sells are where many businesses make their profits from their loss leaders. Credit: OpenTable* Expect further upsells, too, once it comes time to make your order. Add a drink, a side of wings… when you’re hungry, these offers are difficult to turn down. You might not even know their prices. But it’s on these items that the store turns a profit. --- [Cost Competitive Advantage: What it is, How to Get itA business achieves a low-cost competitive advantage when it’s able to manufacture goods and take them to the point of sale at a lower cost than competitors, while maintaining (or surpassing) competing products or services in quality.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/simon-kadula-8gr6bObQLOI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/cost-competitive-advantage/) --- ### Strategy four: the promotion Promotions are usually time-limited. Sometimes they’re seasonal, other times they’re rotated in or out depending on customer demand. But, typically, stores make a loss on these promotional items. After all, products don’t have to be priced as loss leaders year-round. Popular items can be promoted as loss leaders for a while, before being brought back to full price. Low prices attract new customers, who then keep coming back for the great deal. When the deal is eventually pulled, it’s harder for people to break the habit of going to that store to buy those items. This loss leader strategy is even at work in two-for-one promotions. Customers who might’ve not considered buying one see the great value and get two rather than zero. This lets them try the product at lower-perceived risk, and higher-perceived value. Eventually, the promotion gets pulled, and many customers continue to buy the item. 🧠 Free product samples are loss leader items that combine elements of promotional items and free trials, and can be particularly effective, removing all risk for the customer, and letting the product do the talking. ### Strategy five: the radical sale Black Friday sales drive many products into the loss leader category with their huge discounts. They serve a similar function, drawing customers in for the sale, and winning new customers who’ll pay full price for future purchases. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/edited.png) **Extreme sales like those seen on Black Friday drive many products to loss leader status for a short time. Credit: Edited.com* Of course, the risk here is that many customers don’t do this, and instead only buy hugely discounted items during the sale, never to return. In such scenarios, stores make a loss on their sale items, and never make them back due to the lack of repeat business. --- [How to Do a Competitive Pricing Analysis (With Examples)A competitive pricing analysis sees you gather the prices of your competitors’ products over time. You’ll use this data to draw comparisons and conclusions about which direction your own pricing strategy should head in.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/artem-beliaikin-kTd2PvtqE_o-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/) --- ## Advantages of loss leader strategies Loss leader strategies work. They’re dynamite for winning you new customers. They give buyers the push they need to break existing habits, giving you the chance to capture their hearts, minds, and wallets with your own great products. This is why you see them, and their variations, everywhere you look. Sales, promotional items, essentials priced at rock-bottom. All of these loss leader strategies share the same core principles: taking on the risk of short-term losses in exchange for the possibility of higher profits in the medium to long term. But what advantages do they have over [other types of pricing strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/prestige-pricing/)? Here are some more concrete advantages of loss leader strategies: ### 1) They’re great for physical stores Loss leaders are great for physical stores, where they can be strategically placed at the deepest part of the store, forcing customers to walk past other items (priced at a relative premium) to get to them. ### 2)They’ll help you break into new markets As a temporary strategy, using loss leaders can help you win market share from your competitors in the online world, or from rival retail stores. ### 3) They can help you earn more overall You can attract customers with low-priced essentials and attractive offers, and then upsell items with real profit margins, leading to greater overall profits. ## Disadvantages of loss leader strategies ### 1) Risk There’s no reward without risk. And, as is all-too-true, when you try to sidestep the risk, you also tend to sidestep the reward. Loss leader strategies work *because* you’re taking on risk, rather than in spite of it. The risk here being that customers *only* buy your loss leaders. This is known as ‘cherry picking’. If your entire loss leader strategy, whether it includes upsells, physical product placement, or anything else, is ineffective, you’ll rack up small losses over time. ### 2) It’s restricted in some places As it’s such an effective strategy, when used effectively, loss leader strategies can disrupt entire competitive landscapes. There’s also the chance for larger, more established businesses to abuse this strategy, since they’ll need to pull promotions much less often thanks to their deeper pockets. Larger businesses can also afford to make small losses for longer, giving them more chances to iterate over their loss leader strategy until they get it right for their target market. This gives these larger businesses a [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/) over smaller ones that could be considered unfair, or even unethical. As a result, in some places, using loss leaders is restricted. In some states of the U.S., it’s banned entirely. --- ## TL;DR So, here’s what we’ve learned: - 📈 Loss leaders are products you sell (or manufacture) at a loss in the short-term, in favor of making greater profits in the long-term. - 🤑 Loss leader strategies work because they reward you for taking on short-term risk your competitors might not be comfortable with. - 🛍️ More practically, they attract new customers with your lower prices, allowing you to break into new markets, win over customers, and boost interest. - 🏷️ Upsells, promotions, sales, and free trails are alternative ways of using loss leaders. - 🚫 Loss leader pricing strategies are powerful, but their use is restricted in some states and countries. --- ## Need help with competitive intelligence? Does your competitive intelligence program leave something to be desired? Imagine if you could: - Set up your listening stack to gather competitive intel with **ruthless efficiency**, giving you more time to analyze, enable, inform, and become your business’s champion. 💪 - Set up win/loss interviews to unveil the **powerful reasons** why customers aren’t choosing you, even if you’ve got no time or resources. 🔎 - Deliver a competitive news briefing that **gets people talking**, no matter which set of stakeholders you serve. 📣 We’ve got a brand new course that covers every aspect of competitive intelligence, and what it takes to be successful. Interested? Click below right now to check it out. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/12/CIA_CI_Masters_Promotional_Assets_--1-.png)](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters) --- ### How to stay competitive in the open source space URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-stay-competitive-in-the-open-source-space/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T08:49:09.000Z 📣 **This article is based on Farhan Manjiyani’s interview for the Compete Clarity podcast. Check out the conversation in its full glory* [**here* ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-open-source-problem-farhan-manjiyani/)**!* Hey there, I’m Farhan Manjiyani. I’m the Senior Manager of Commercialization and Pricing at Grafana Labs, and today I’m here to share what it’s like to run a [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) program in the open-source space. Grafana Labs is behind a lot of popular open-source projects, notably our namesake data visualization tool, Grafana, which was launched back in 2014\. Since then, we’ve been expanding into commercial products too, both for visualization and for data storage. This allows us to offer alternatives to proprietary vendors. In my role, I get asked a lot about what it’s like to have so many open-source competitors. And it’s true – our market has a ton of open-source tools that users love – but there’s still plenty of revenue and growth potential. For instance, four years ago, Grafana Labs had fewer than 200 employees. Today, there are more than 1200\. Similarly, many of the players in our space boast billion-dollar valuations and 30-40% annual growth. So, while offering open-source solutions breeds challenges, it also unlocks amazing opportunities if you do it right. --- --- ## The open-source competitive landscape The observability and data visualization space has lots of big-name competitors, some that have been around for a while – the Datadogs, Splunks, and AppDynamics of the world – and others that are relatively new on the scene. And then there are the open-source providers – completely free alternatives to proprietary vendors. And it’s not just the major players; there are probably at least 10 competitors with over $1 billion in revenue. Most of them have even gone through IPOs and become public companies, yet still put up staggering growth numbers year after year. So, how can they all keep thriving in the same market? ### More use cases means competitors can co-exist Well, when you consider the breadth of use cases we serve, it makes more sense. At Grafana Labs alone, we have seven or eight commercial products. And some competitors have over 20! You can imagine the number of verticals and distinct applications we cater to. Part of what makes this space so exciting is that customers often buy from multiple vendors to maximize reliability. In fact, over 50% of the 2000 customers we surveyed use four or more observability tools across their organizations. That’s true of organizations of all sizes – from small startups to huge multinational banks. Industries with so many choices *and* so much revenue potential are rare. That’s part of what makes my job so fun. At the end of the day, it’s hard to compete in this space, but as long as you choose the right lane, you can be super successful here. --- [Niche Competitive Advantage: Everything You Need to KnowNot every business has the resources to throw behind a global marketing campaign. Whether your business is large or small, resource-rich or on a budget, sometimes a niche competitive advantage is the best fit.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/jason-leung-3rq6DqLKakc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-competitive-advantage/) --- ## Leveraging open source for competitive advantage One of the best things about open-source offerings is they allow developers to try out your tools without having to talk to the sales team. That’s great because developers, by their very nature, tend to be tinkerers. Your open-source tools let them check out your tech to see for themselves if it’s legit. And if they like what they see? Then they’re much more willing to talk to you, usually in a support-type situation, which then opens the door to a sales conversation. That puts you in a much stronger position than, say, cold-calling their head of IT. This allows you to go bottom-up into an organization – a smart move when your end-users are developers who won’t hesitate to start an all-out war if an exec tries to tell them what tools to use. ### Striking a balance is crucial That said, if you have an open-source offering alongside your commercial products, you need to strike a delicate balance between value creation and value capture. If you want to build a relationship with the open-source community, you need to think about how much useful free stuff you provide. You’re going to get vilified if you only put a less-good version of your product in the open source offering, and keep everything else behind a paywall. Many companies have tried this and their reputations in the open-source community have been destroyed. However, as I said, you need to strike a balance. Your open-source offering can be your **biggest differentiator**, but if you’re not careful, it can also become your **biggest competitor** from a sales perspective. ### Competing with yourself can become a risk Your sales teams might even start to look at it as a horrible beast that they constantly have to figure out how to conquer. They might even grow to resent the open-source community instead of nurturing relationships that lead to deals. You end up cannibalizing yourself. After all, what incentive do your users have to upgrade or switch products if they can get all the functionality they need for free? That’s why it’s essential to maintain a clear delineation between your open-source and enterprise capabilities. As a CI practitioner, I make it my responsibility to loop back constant feedback to our product teams on this issue. We have to maintain compelling reasons – killer differentiators – in our commercial offerings that motivate users to convert from open source. ## Conclusion The open-source space is exciting and full of potential. My experience at Grafana Labs has taught me that success here is about more than just great products; it's about building a community and understanding the delicate balance between open-source offerings and commercial ventures. This approach will not only fuel your growth, but also deepen your connection with your community. --- ## Get the CI-by-Industry eBook ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/CIA_CI-by-industry-playbook_Blog_.png) #### CI-by-Industry eBook ****Download your copy** to learn... - 😰 Why field intelligence can be dangerous, and how to use it the right way. 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([Page 66](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-by-industry?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io)) [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ### Prestige pricing strategies: what they are, and how to make them work URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/prestige-pricing/ Last updated: 2025-02-05T14:40:38.000Z ## What is prestige pricing in marketing? Prestige pricing, also known as premium pricing, or image pricing, is what businesses do when they sell at a high price to communicate value. Prestige pricing aims to take advantage of a simple heuristic, or mental shortcut, the brain takes when evaluating something. Simply put, since products of higher quality are usually priced higher, it’s easy reasoning to assume products that are priced highly are also higher quality. While the relationship doesn’t have to go both ways at all, it *tends to*, so we tend to assume along these lines. You see a highly priced product, you assume it’s of high enough quality to be worth (close to) its high price. ## Do prestige pricing strategies work? Will a prestige pricing strategy work for you? Do they work in general? Do they work better than other types of pricing strategies, like [loss leader pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/loss-leader-definition/)? Get ready for the answer you knew was coming… *it depends.* In *$100 Million Offers*, be-capped and be-flannelled business influencer Alex Hormozi says: “There are really only two ways to grow: get more customers, and increase each customer’s value.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/ah.jpeg) There's a whole section on pricing in Hormozi's book, **$100 Million Offers* Increasing the price of your stuff is just one way to increase each customer’s value. The other way Hormozi highlights is *getting them to buy more times.* That is, extending their lifetime value (LTV). If you make your stuff more expensive, but damage your customers’ LTV in the process, you haven’t done yourself any favors. You’re not after a single sale, after all. You’re after sustained sales over time. And preferably for some of your existing customers to be so pleased with your products that they go and tell all their friends and colleagues about them as well. ### Illustrating this with… muffins If you were selling muffins, and yours was the most expensive muffin stall at the market, people would probably think, *“Wow! These are expensive muffins. What makes them worth it?”* If you can answer that initial question in a way that *sounds right* (enough to hold up to some initial scrutiny – that level of scrutiny presumably being proportionate to the price of the thing you’re trying to sell. Lower for selling muffins. Higher for selling tech companies, for instance.) you should get a first sale. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/blueberry-muffins.jpg) I always found them a bit dry myself. **Credit: butternutbakery.com* But, if your baking skills are anything like mine, your muffins suck. Big time. And if your highly-priced product doesn’t hit the mark, your customers will be understandably unhappy. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling. You want the customer to be *over the moon* with their experience. No matter the price they’ve paid. The high price actually serves to *attract* those with the budgets to pay it, but you have to walk the walk too. ### Price altering perception But… there’s more! At least for some products, price can alter perception. **Prices improving product enjoyment:** Consider the wine example cited in this article on [competitive pricing intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/). Three bottles of wine, all of them the same. Big price label on each one. The listed prices all different. The most expensive wine consistently scored the best in tasting reviews. Even though it was exactly the same as the other two. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/winecaseoffers.jpg) Imagine all these wines at different price points, but all containing the exact same liquid. Tasters enjoyed the expensive-labelled bottle most, despite no actual difference in the wines. But that’s not the only way higher prices can alter the customer experience… **Prices securing emotional buy-in:** Imagine you sell a personal training service, helping clients reach their fitness goals. If you sell your service for a dollar, how likely do you think they are to show up for that first check in? How about if you sold your service for $500? If they pay that high price, they’re going to make sure they get their money’s worth. Whenever you need the customer to *do* something for them to get the result you’re promising, charging a higher price is one of the most effective ways to get their buy-in. ### Is prestige pricing versatile? At this point, you’d be forgiven for thinking certain types of products lend themselves better to prestige pricing strategies than others. Those associated with luxury are obvious examples. Imagine two teams on an episode of The Apprentice. One has to make a prestige pricing strategy work with high-end jewelry. The other? With hot dogs. Who’ll have an easier time? Well, you might be surprised. **Prestige pricing is relative:** See, prestige pricing doesn’t have to mean thousands of dollars. In fact, it’s all relative. If your hot dogs are three times the price of the average hot dog, but they’re *really special*, people could rave for them. Celebrities might relish being seen doing something as *scandalous* as eating a high-end hot dog. **I’m actually pretty sure “posh dogs” are a real product, out there somewhere…* 🤔 So, yes, prestige pricing strategies *can* be versatile. And that’s because they’re about more than just the price, or the product alone. They’re about the entire *brand image* (hence why they’re sometimes referred to as ‘image pricing’ strategies). If the overall brand image doesn’t work in favor of the pricing strategy, all you really have is an overpriced product. Which brings us to the pros and cons of prestige pricing… ## The pros and cons of a prestige pricing strategy ### Pros - Higher margins. - Better end product as a result of reinvestment opportunity. - Better customer experience. - Value-based sales vs. price-based sales. Let’s examine each of these in a bit of detail. **First**, a prestige pricing strategy involves charging more for your products. All else being equal, that means higher margins, and therefore more money. Nice! The **next** advantage of prestige pricing is the extra opportunity afforded you as a result of that additional profit. You can reinvest that money anywhere you like and use it to [cement your competitive advantage ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/)*.* **Third,** as we’ve discussed above, is the chance for a better customer experience. Since price can alter the perception of value, and even play into the customer getting better results from your service, prestige pricing can improve the customer experience. **Finally**, and this really sums up all of the above, prestige pricing plays into winning you *value-based sales* rather than *price-based sales*. By marking your prices up, you’re not winning on price. That’s out the door straight away. Instead, you *must* focus on value-based sales. This means crafting solid positioning and messaging that communicate *exceptional value* despite high price. This pulls you out of the race-to-the-bottom that traps so many businesses. ### Cons - Lower sale volume. - Additional risk. Now for the cons. **First**, you’re going to sell fewer units. There’s no avoiding that really, but the higher prices should more than offset this. **Second**, there *is* some risk involved. You can’t just charge more for products that aren’t worth it. You still have to do the work of making your product or service the best it can be. If your product isn’t worth the price, you’ll anger your customers and damage your reputation. ## Prestige pricing strategy examples So… which brands that you know use a prestige pricing strategy? Many designer fashion brands use this strategy, for starters. And if you’re wondering how far you can take this, well… there’s no better place to learn the sky’s the limit than here. Case in point: [**Louis Vuitton** ](https://uk.louisvuitton.com/eng-gb/men/bags/all-bags/%5F/N-t1uezqf4). On their website right now, they’re selling short sleeve tees. Plain white. They have a chest pocket. Oh, and they’re charging $1,070 for them. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/lv.png) That's $1,070 for a plain white tee. Prestige pricing? You bet. But this calls attention back to how important brand image is. People would pay eye-watering sums for Louis Vuitton bin liners if they could. Just because the brand name is on the bags. Rolls Royce and other high-end automobile manufacturers make for similar case-studies, as do many other luxury brands. But let’s get a little more bricks-and-mortar for the next two. ### Prime Fitness USA [Prime Fitness USA ](https://www.primefitnessusa.com/)is a gym equipment manufacturer. They sell their products to other businesses (the gyms that buy them), and are competing with, you guessed it, other manufacturers of gym equipment. Their [chest press machine ](https://www.primefitnessusa.com/collections/evolution/products/evolution-chest-press)costs $5,700\. This is *far* in excess of the cost of the chest press machine in my local gym. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/prime.webp) The Prime Fitness chest press. A premium product with a premium price. But everyone raves about Prime Fitness. It’s quickly becoming recognized as the best. Savvy gym rats travel further to gyms *with* Prime equipment. Prime even offers certain gyms a special badge they can put on their website to show they’ve got more than a certain amount of Prime equipment. But what makes these products special? The “SmartCam” tech on these machines allows users to alter the resistance profile of the movement. To oversimplify it, this means selecting where the exercise should be hardest: at the beginning, middle, or end of the movement. If that doesn’t sound like much, it’s actually pretty revolutionary. Almost no other manufacturers are doing this, and this is just one of the ways Prime is revolutionizing equipment. And gym owners are lining up to pay their premium prices as a result. ### Elite Kleanz Detailing [Elite Kleanz Detailing ](https://www.elitekleanzvaletingmanchester.co.uk/)is a small, local business – a mobile valeting & detailing business based out of Manchester, England. But they’re also a great example of a successful prestige pricing strategy applied to a simple B2C business. The owner is marketing to a particular niche: those who take pride in the appearance of their vehicle, and are willing to pay a premium for someone to do the job well. Their rates are high, with basic packages starting at about £40 (about $50), more expensive ones at about £68 an hour (about $90), and they all scale up depending on how soiled the vehicle is. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/Screenshot-2024-01-12-at-09.32.16.png) Elite Kleanz Detailing's pricing page Consider that you’re not just potentially paying almost $100 for a car wash. Some of these jobs take this guy *all day*. Four, or even six-hour cleans aren’t uncommon. So, let’s correct ourselves. *$300-600* for a car wash. But take a look at their [YouTube shorts](https://www.youtube.com/@Elite%5FKleanz%5FDetailing/shorts), and you’ll see firsthand the high quality of care they put into their work. The level of experience and knowledge, too, of which tools to use for the job to get the best results without damaging different surfaces, for instance. These are the signs of expertise that allow businesses to thrive with prestige pricing strategies. ## How to implement prestige pricing for your business OK, so how do you make a strategy like this work? Potential buyers need to be able to justify a higher price point. Either to their bosses, or to themselves. Therefore, you need strong differentiation to make it clear to your target customers why yours is the product or service that’s right for them. That means good products and, more importantly, a strong understanding of your audience. ### 1 ) Start on the right foot You need to choose a target audience from the start that’s likely to (i) have the funds and (ii) be willing to pay your higher prices. So, proper [audience segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/b2b-market-segmentation-guide/), and [niche differentiation strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-differentiation-strategy/), are solid early bets when it comes to preparation and strategy. Like any competitive pricing strategy, though, you need to know how you're pricing yourself relative to the competition. For that reason, a [competitive pricing analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/) is also a good idea at this stage. ### 2) Craft your brand image carefully You’ll also have to continually reinvest in boosting your brand image itself. Your brand should *ooze* quality. PR will become super important. Understanding what your high-end target market values, associating yourselves with those things, and being *very* careful not to associate your brand with the things it’ll find distasteful, will be vital. ### 3) Using price anchoring to implement prestige pricing When it comes to implementing the pricing strategy itself, here’s a top tip: Use price anchoring to help you. Remember those *heuristics* we mentioned earlier? Here’s one you can use that good marketers and pricing strategists use *all the time*. It’s called *price anchoring*. This helps you charge more on average by making a higher-priced package seem like a better deal *relatively speaking*. Here’s an example. Let’s say you offer SEO consulting services, and you have two pricing tiers: Simple, and Advanced. The Simple tier is priced at $99\. The Advanced tier is priced at $249. By adding a third *Premium* tier in there for $299, since the jump from Advanced to Premium is so much smaller than the one between Simple and Advanced, it seems like a no-brainer to move up to that package. *Even if all your competitors are charging less.* Buyers *anchor* to the increase in value from the first to second tier, and judge that as fair value. In contrast, the jump from the second to third tier they’ll see as a steal. ## TL;DR So… here’s what we’ve learned. - Businesses can use prestige pricing strategies to charge a premium and associate their brand with superior quality. - Price alters perception, so premium prices can enhance customer experiences of your products and services. - Prestige pricing strategies are surprisingly versatile. - Some of their pros are they win you higher margins, and the opportunity to reinvest those profits. - Some of their cons are they come with some additional risk, and you’ll make fewer sales overall. - Using price anchoring can help when implementing a prestige pricing strategy. --- ## CI Landscape & Salary Survey ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/CIA_Survey_Meta_2024-1.png) **Same great annual reports. Half the time filling out surveys. This year, we’re doing things differently.** You want insight-packed reports. Ones that give your career a leg-up. We’ve combined the surveys for our two most popular annual reports into a \*condensed\* version. Short, sweet, simple. The final reports will give you all the information you need to modernize every aspect of your existing programs, and keep your pay in line with the weight of your responsibilities. Best part? With light fingers, you’ll get through this new, combined version in under 10 minutes. 👇 [ Have your say ](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/to/vTeRgqpi?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) ### 5th Industrial Revolution: AI & Competitive Intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5th-industrial-revolution-ai-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2023-12-06T19:13:53.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/12/competeiq-webinar--15--1--4--1.png) **Are you ready to delve into the future of Competitive Intelligence?** > We had an exciting webinar recently featuring the esteemed [**Allen Borts**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenborts/), a seasoned technology expert with over three decades of experience pioneering digital transformation. Did you miss it? Don't worry, we've saved you a recording! 🤩 As we stand on the cusp of the 5th Industrial Revolution (5IR), watch the recorded session to explore the remarkable intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Competitive Intelligence. 🌟 🌐 **Unveiling Generative AI:** Discover the transformative power of Generative AI, an innovation that makes the history of human knowledge accessible like never before. Allen will delve into Competitive Intelligence, explaining how this paradigm shift empowers businesses to gain a competitive edge effortlessly. Imagine having a wealth of human knowledge at your fingertips, accessible through simple conversations, both written and spoken. 💡 **Navigating New Business Realities:** Gain insights into ethical modelling, accurate predictions, and creative problem-solving, all empowered by AI. 🌟 **Highlights Include:** ✅ Brief overview of all 5 Industrial Revolutions. ✅ How 5IR transforms business paradigms. ✅ Safeguarding your Intellectual Property (IP) with private AI servers. ✅ Bridging the creativity deficit with Generative AI. ✅ Demonstrations illustrating real-world applications. ✅ Exploring regulatory frameworks and safety measures. ✅ Envisioning plausible futures in the 5IR landscape. **Watch the recording here**👇 🤝 **Get to know the speaker:** > [**Allen Borts**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenborts/) is a 30-year veteran of competitive intelligence. He is the founder of both Applied Direct Services Corporation (ADSC) & The SwiftSel Methodologies. ADSC is a marketing communications group from Toronto, Canada that is specialized to the High Technology Industry, and SwiftSel Methodologies have given rise to an estimated 80,000+ Enterprise Grade opportunities for High Technology Groups in a wide variety of valuable & serious technological capabilities. Not done chatting about Bing & ChatGPT? Join our free Slack community and network with hundreds of your competitive intelligence peers about AI-powered tools and much more. To join, just click right here.👇 [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/15.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ### The open source problem: challenges of competing in a tech space where nothing’s secret | Farhan Manjiyani URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-open-source-problem-farhan-manjiyani/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:58:39.000Z No one goes to school for competitive intelligence. If you’ve hung out with other CI pros, you’ll know that, despite their diverse professional backgrounds, most end up saying the same thing: “Well, I kinda just fell into it.” But what if that’s *not* you? If you’ve got your sights set on CI, do you have to hope and pray you ‘fall into it’ too? Not according to today’s guest. Farhan Manjiyani is Senior Manager of Commercialization and Pricing at Grafana Labs, a tech company with over 1200 employees responsible for a lot of popular open source projects, including its namesake, the Grafana data visualization platform. [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast: The open source problem: challenges of competing in a tech space where nothing’s secret | Farhan Manjiyani on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Compete Clarity Podcast, Ep The open source problem: challenges of competing in a tech space where nothing’s secret | Farhan Manjiyani - Dec 5, 2023![](https://t3.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-open-source-problem-challenges-of-competing-in/id1678079061?i=1000637585751&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/9d/0c/36/9d0c3698-c69a-ff19-f51f-f7371cd41832/mza_2588363255601066954.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-open-source-problem-challenges-of-competing-in/id1678079061?i=1000637585751) **Today we discuss:** - Farhan’s transition from product marketing manager to full-time competitive intelligence pro. - His advice for those looking to make a similar transition. - What it’s like working on open source projects. - The impact having the very DNA of your products open for the world to see has on your competitive intelligence efforts. …and much more. --- ## **Want to be a guest on the podcast?** We're looking for guests! If you consider yourself (or anyone you know does!) something of a thought leader in competitive intelligence, drop us a line at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io. We can't wait to host you! ### Competitive intelligence trends report 2023 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-report-blog-2023/ Last updated: 2024-07-18T14:45:59.000Z **The fourth edition of our report examining trends in the competitive intelligence function:** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/11/CIA_Competitor_Intel_Trends_Report_2023_Mockup_--1-.png) Ready to learn from your peers? **Predict the future of competitive intelligence, and discover what you need to do to stay ahead of the curve.** This latest edition of our annual CI deep-dive focuses on the intricacies of how competitive intelligence and product marketing go hand-in-hand. 🤝 Download the report --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/11/CIA_CI_Trends_Report_2023_Website_Assets_.png) Want answers to these questions? ❓ Who’s responsible for competitive intelligence in 2023?🤔 How is competitive intelligence executed in orgs?💰 How much is spent annually on competitive intelligence? 🤝 How is competitive intelligence shared across internal teams? 💡 Plus, learn invaluable tips and tools from experts to streamline your approach. Give me my copy --- ## Competitive Intelligence Trends 2023 ## 4 years. 24 examined topics. Commentary from 5 experts. Zero cost. Here's a sample of what you'll discover inside this eBook: 🧺 The 2 surprising intelligence gathering methods that reign supreme for the 4th consecutive year. 🔭 93.94% of respondents focus on THIS when studying competitors. Are you doing it too? 🖐️ The 5 simple methods our respondents favored for finding competitor pricing intel when it isn’t listed on a competitor’s website. 📉 When you see a declining score in the openness of other teams to share intel, you know something’s wrong. Experts weigh in on why and how to fix it. 👥 The truth about the teams owning competitive intelligence in 2023. 😡 Does your blood boil when you’re expected to monitor dozens of competitors? Find out if you’re alone. 😤 The recurring challenge that’s still frustrating almost all CI pros. ⭐ The easily overlooked soft skill that could make all the difference in the efficacy of your compete program. 💸 The surprising direction competitive intelligence budgets are moving in, and what that might mean for you. ## Featured experts: Meet the experts featured in this report: --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/fionaFinn.jpeg) **Fiona Finn** Director of Product Marketing, **Jane.app** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/patWall.jpeg) **Patrick Wall** Head of Competitive Intelligence and Enablement, **Imperva** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/farhan1.jpeg) **Farhan Manjiyani** Sr. Manager of Commercialization and Pricing, **Grafana Labs** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/galToren.jpeg) **Gal Toren** Competitive Intelligence Team Lead, **JFrog** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/11/DAPRILE_Headshot-1-1-1.jpg) **David D'Aprile** VP of Global Product Marketing, **Onapsis** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/11/CIA_Community_Website_Assets_--1-.png) **...and YOU** Members of the competitive intelligence and product marketing communities. --- ## Download the 2023 Competitive Intelligence Trends Report Grab your copy. 👇 ### How to facilitate a strategic planning session (in 9 easy steps) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-facilitate-a-strategic-planning-session/ Last updated: 2025-04-02T09:31:17.000Z ## What is strategic planning? Strategic planning is the process of figuring out (i) where you want to go as an org, and (ii) how to get there. All while fielding the challenges and obstacles that could prevent you from getting to your destination. Think about it this way: When you get on board a plane, you expect your pilot to have some idea of 1. How to operate the plane, 2. The destination, and 3. How to get to that destination, right? Right. Now imagine your organization is that plane. Are you flying blind? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/giphy--1-.webp) A solid strategic plan ensures you’re not. ### The elements of a strategic plan For businesses, this means knowing the: 1. Internal state of the business; 2. The external state of the industry, or competitive environment; 3. Your goals and aspirations for the future. Knowing these three things gives you all the ingredients you need to cook up a roadmap for future success. You know where you are now, where you want to get to, and what the terrain you’ll be navigating over the next few years looks like. ## What is a strategic planning session? A strategic planning session is a meeting where members from across the business share ideas and formulate a strategic plan for the next few years. Three-to-five year plans are typical, and meetings usually last anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on the size of the business. A strategic planning session typically has **multiple goals**, including: - For leaders to share their vision of the future. - To share knowledge from across the organization. - To establish clear and measurable goals and milestones along the way to achieving the leaders’ vision. - To explore possible threats to achieving that vision. - To assess the success of past and existing plans, and to pivot, change, or adapt those plans as needed. - To develop a solid, but flexible\*, plan for the future. **The importance of flexibility:** \*This is important. Your plan should be flexible, but not casually so. A strategic plan should be well-thought-out; planned carefully; only deviated from under special circumstances. That said, no one is blessed with the power of foresight. As things change, you want your plan to be adaptable, so it’s still useful as late as year three. 🤔 In short, your plan shouldn’t be something you discard in a few months. Bringing leaders together is expensive, and you have to honor and respect that cost by coming out of your strategic planning session with a rock solid plan. ## The benefits of holding a strategic planning session Here are some of the benefits strategic planning meetings offer: 1. Gather feedback from across your organization. 2. Set long-term goals. 3. Define your route to success. 4. Develop resilience to change and market disruption. 5. Increase internal cohesion. ### 1 - Gather feedback from across your org It’s difficult for staff members to feel happy if they don’t feel heard. Your strategic planning sessions give you a chance to bring together diverse perspectives from different departments. Not only does this keep staff happy, it actually makes for a more effective planning session. Without diverse representation, you risk creating an echo chamber. If there’s a time for hard truths to be heard, for unfamiliar thoughts to be voiced, or for unpopular opinions to be raised, it’s now. ### 2 - Set long-term goals Strategic planning meetings are the time to set long-term goals for your business. You can set medium-term goals too, though these usually manifest as milestones on the way to achieving your longer term goals. The point is to establish where you want to end up as an org in a few years’ time. While no one wants to go backward, this is the time to think strategically. And sometimes a step backward is needed to make way for future progress. **Stepping back to step forward:** For example, some businesses might have no choice but to downsize in the short-term if they’re to survive in the long-term. Others might need to take steps to slow expansion so they can ensure they scale sustainably into the future. The long term goals you set in your strategic planning meetings should take into account: - The current state of your organization; - The state of the economy; - The state of your industry; … and they should give you a solid set of motivational goals to work toward. Strategic planning sessions offer the perfect opportunity to work on these important goals as a team and as a business. 💡 Get 1000s worth of elite professional development resources - completely free. Unlock expert templates, frameworks, and insider content from industry giants like Google and Amazon, right at your fingertips. [Become an Insider member today. ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/) ### 3 - Define your route to success Knowing where you want to end up is only half the battle. The real effort is in defining how you’ll get there. Creating a roadmap for success is perhaps the largest task you’ll take on in your strategic planning session. Your roadmap is the practical template for how you’ll move from where you are to where you want to go. It needs to be practical, achievable, and realistic while making room for inevitable disruption. **Roadmap considerations:** Your roadmap should take into account, as much as possible, your existing resources, and the trend they’re moving in. If you’re actively hiring and growing rapidly, you may well have more resources in one and two years from now with which to achieve your goals. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/200w.webp) If you’re in a difficult spot in an economic downturn, might you need to make some difficult decisions and initiate some layoffs? And, if so, how much is your productivity likely to fall as a result? These are the kinds of considerations that a truly competent business strategy will account for, and strategy sessions make it possible. ### 4 - Develop resilience to change and market disruption One of the greatest benefits of developing a strategic plan is the resilience your org develops to market disruption. As part of the planning process, you’ll analyze potential threats in your competitive environment, as well as developing market trends, and brainstorm ways these could impact your org’s ability to reach its goals. When you take the time to look ahead and account for such threats in your plan, you’ll be more prepared to weather the storm if and when they occur. ### 5 - Increased cohesion between teams Bringing leaders and representatives together from across your business gives everyone a chance to get on the same page with your business’ overarching strategy. It also offers folks the opportunity to voice concerns about the plan, and work together on solutions. When everyone has had a hand in building the solution, everyone has skin in the game and an increased personal interest in the outcome of the plan as a whole. Getting buy-in like this before the fact is a crucial step in later success when it comes to [rolling out your strategic plan](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-roll-out-a-strategic-plan/). Once your plan is complete, you’ll be free to disseminate it across your org and broadcast your collective vision for where you’re headed over the next few years. --- [The VRIO Framework (What it is and How to Use it)The VRIO framework is a strategic analysis tool focused on helping a business find potential sources of competitive advantage. VRIO looks at a firm’s internal capabilities and resources, so differs from other strategic analysis frameworks like PESTLE analysis that examine external market factors.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/joey-graham-rHP-c0r_Uso-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/) --- ## Who to include in your strategic planning meeting So, who should you include in your meeting? ### • Business leaders and department heads Business leaders and department heads are obvious choices. Department heads and leaders should, for the most part, be able to speak for their teams as a whole, and are well-placed to gather feedback from their teams ahead of your strategic session. Members of the leadership team are necessary since they’ll be the ones with the final say on what gets implemented. But try to include at least one person from each relevant department for best representation. ### • Less senior staff members Leaders can’t be expected to know everything. Many organizations see success enlisting representatives in more junior positions as well. Having representation from those with their boots on the ground, doing the job day in and day out, helps you avoid blind spots. Especially when it comes to analyzing the internal state of the business. These people might be aware of problems their department heads are not. **Representation can take multiple forms:** What form you decide this representation should take is up to you. You can only invite so many people (as we’ll discuss later), so you might decide to just invite a member of middle management from some of your larger teams. You can always oversee a process of gathering feedback from the most junior members of staff ahead of the meeting to ensure nothing is missed. Whatever you choose, do your best to make sure your team represents a fair sample of folks from across the business, who’ll be able to contribute meaningfully to strategic discussions. ### • A meeting facilitator Your meeting facilitator leads the strategic planning session. They’re the one responsible for getting the desired outcome. Your facilitator can be someone internal or external to the business, but it’s important you choose carefully, as there are pros and cons tied to each choice. **External facilitators:** - May take longer to develop rapport and trust with the group. - Cost more. - Do this for a living (and should be pretty good). **Internal facilitators:** - Can be hand-picked by you or a leader. - Cost less. - Might not be as skilled at running a session like this. Whichever you choose, remember that a lot rides on your strategy meeting being successful. The cost of getting a bunch of business leaders together for a day, or even a few hours, is high. Coming out the other side without a usable plan is almost always a result of poor time management and focus within the meeting. A strong facilitator won’t be able to completely eliminate the possibility of a meeting that’s less productive than hoped for, but they should be able to drastically diminish it. ### • Strategy professionals Representatives from your market and competitive intelligence teams are clear choices for attendance, too. They should be able to lead or help facilitate some parts of the session, like the SWOT analysis. Many intelligence pros will be able to comment on the state of your industry, developing trends, and how particular competitors are tackling particular problems. Intel like this is gold dust for building a plan to overcome the challenges of your competitive environment. **Competitive roles are varied:** But competitive roles are varied, and can be structured in ways that don’t lend themselves so well to long-term strategic thinking. Depending on how you’ve structured the role, and who you’ve hired, you may or may not have someone with the skills and the knowledge to be of use in a session like this. For example, your CI person might be excellent at enabling your sales team to beat two or three key competitors in hands-on deal support. But they might never have needed to bring themselves up to speed with industry trends in detail. So, before you call on them, ask if they’re confident they can bring value to the table. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_Blog_-4.png) #### State of SWOT Report ****Download your copy** to learn... - The five top ****challenges** you face performing SWOT, and how to solve them. - The best ways to measure ****success or failure** post-SWOT. - Whether SWOT is ****falling out of favor** in modern businesses. - The best ****alternative frameworks** and how they compare with SWOT. - The ****future of SWOT** analysis. [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ## How to run a strategic planning meeting in 9 steps (best practices for success) Ok. We know what a strategic planning session is, why you might want to run one, and who to invite. How do you actually facilitate one successfully? Here’s a short list of the nine steps we think it takes to succeed at facilitating a strategic planning session: 1. Be prepared (do the advance work). 2. Define a meeting agenda. 3. Set expectations and ground rules. 4. Break the ice. 5. Get in sync on vision and long-term goals. 6. Do a SWOT analysis. 7. Identify the current state of your organization. 8. Identify external threats on your path to success. 9. Build the roadmap. ### 1 - Be prepared (do the advance work) As with anything, facilitating a successful strategic planning session starts with the preparation. This means a number of things: - **Decide who gets an invite:** See the previous section for details, but it pays to have representation from across the business. - **Limit the size of the group:** You want a good balance of diverse input and snappy decision-making. If the group is too large, you run the risk of a bloated session. 10 people is a good number to start with, but it might take a few tries to settle on a number that works for you. - **Gather feedback early:** Diversity of input is critical for success. But not everyone can be present at the meeting. Therefore, it’s important to gather feedback from all corners of the business early. You might wish to survey the entire business a month or two ahead of time. Or you might prefer to hold small brainstorming sessions in department meetings. This also gets stakeholders bought-in ahead of the meeting itself. - **Share materials ahead of time:** All the usual meeting rules apply here. Supply attendees with pre-reading materials so they can bring themselves up to speed before the session starts. This way, you can hit the ground running. This can include the current strategic plan, and the results of any recent SWOT analyses, if you’re not going to do one during the session. - **Have an agenda:** Again, usual meeting rules apply. When people know what to expect before they arrive, there’s less time spent preparing to begin when the clock has already begun counting down. ### 2 - Run through the agenda When it comes to the meeting itself, it pays to fill everyone in on any essential info before you get going. That means running through the agenda and any changes to it (you shared one beforehand, remember), as well as briefly summarizing critical elements of any pre-reading material. This orients your attendees, serves as the springboard for the rest of the session, and calms everyone by letting them know what to expect. ### 3- Set expectations and ground rules Speaking of getting everyone on the same page… Facilitating a strategic planning session is no easy job. There’s a careful balance to strike between making people feel comfortable enough to voice their opinions, concerns, and thoughts openly, and keeping the meeting moving. You have to be productive. Especially if you’re short on time. However, shut people down too aggressively in the interests of time, and you risk shutting them down for good, losing access to any insights they might have shared. That’s why setting expectations, and reiterating those expectations, at intervals throughout the session is integral to its success. Here are some topics for which you might want to set ground rules early: **• Time:** If you’re short on time, say so. Make it clear that there’s a lot to get through, and you’ll be cutting people off if necessary. Explain that it isn’t personal, and that everyone’s input is essential to the success of the session. But everyone’s time is valuable, so tangents, emotional venting, and other such unnecessary excursions aren’t allowed, and you’ll shut them down in the interest of preserving precious time. **• Radical transparency:** This is a concept championed by **Ray Dalio, Founder, Co-Chairman, and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Bridgewater Associates**, the world’s largest hedge fund, and author of [Principles: Life and Work](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Principles-Life-Work-Ray-Dalio-ebook/dp/B071RBPKGR/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=32PVLX65P2JUG&keywords=principles+ray+dalio&qid=1700228077&sprefix=principles+ray+dalio%5C,aps,89&sr=8-1). As we mentioned above, if there’s an issue, now is the time to shine a light on it. Not to play the blame game, but because without honesty about what’s not working in your org, it’ll be impossible to devise a business strategy that fixes the problems you inevitably have. It’s crucial, too, that the most junior member of the group knows it’s acceptable, at least for this session, to challenge the most senior member of the group. Everyone is capable of both good and bad ideas, no matter how junior or senior. It will be up to an arbitrator or leader to make the call on which ideas to go with, but all should be heard and debated with equal respect. This is essential if you’re to build the best plan possible, though may be less comfortable for some members of the panel. **• Everyone deserves a voice:** A point that bears repeating: the success of your session depends on the participation of all panel members. Coax the quiet ones into speaking up, if they’re willing. Don’t let louder members of the group hold the floor for too long. Do your best to offer everyone in the group the opportunity to speak equally. Not everyone will take it, but it’s important views are heard from across the business. Without diverse input, your final strategic plan will be vulnerable to avoidable blind spots and oversights. So, early on, make it clear everyone’s views are welcome. **• But know when to break the rules:** If you’re short on time, you might have to make tactical exceptions to the above rule. While you should seek input from everyone, you must still strive to strike that delicate balance of thoroughness versus time. If leaders have come to the meeting with certain decisions already made, and some points aren’t going to be up for discussion as a result, don’t waste time with them. Make this clear, and move on. So remember: good ideas can come from anywhere. You don’t have to respect bad ideas, but you do have to respect that good ideas can come from junior people. ### 4 - Break the ice Icebreaker? Yuck. Sure, they might sound old-fashioned, but icebreakers are useful. Sawyer, Braz, and Babcock [led a study](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ899305.pdf) into how icebreaker activities correlated with how strongly students reported liking their classmates, their instructor, and the course material itself. Your strategic planning session will benefit if you can get past any initial awkwardness or resistance to contributing. Resistance is natural when people first come together to sit around a desk, but it’s not conducive to getting to an effective strategic plan. **Icebreaker goals:** That’s why, after establishing ground rules for behavior and setting an agenda, an icebreaker is a great next activity. The icebreaker should set the stage for success by making everyone more comfortable with each other, and (crucially) with speaking up in front of each other. The process should humanize authority figures and leaders while validating more junior members. --- [Competitive Strategies for Each Stage of the Company LifecycleIf you’re looking for the right competitive strategy for where your business is at, you’re probably in either the startup, growth, or maturity phase. This article takes a look at which types of competitive strategies you should adopt at each stage of the cycle.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/wolfgang-hasselmann-WoOMLfUa43A-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-strategy-for-business-lifecycle/) --- ### 5 - Get in sync on vision and long-term goals With everyone comfortable and sharing ideas, it’s time to get in sync on the company vision. This can come from a leader, but don’t neglect this being a collaborative process, at least in part. **Lean on your competitive leads:** Reps from your strategy and competitive intelligence teams can help out here, as they’ll be able to share insights into where the industry is going, and in which areas competitors seem to be investing. Such data serves as helpful intel that can and should inform your strategy. Even if you decide the right path for your org is to turn away from what others are doing, this should be a conscious and informed decision. **Why alignment is important:** Getting in sync on your vision and goals at this stage gets everyone aligned on your end goals. These long-term goals, since you’re defining them early, act as North stars, and inform the rest of the session. You’ll define more concrete goals (measurable, medium-term goals) as the session draws to a close. ### 6 - Do a SWOT analysis With your end goals established, and with everyone in sync, it’s time to start planning how to achieve them. But before you can do that, there are a couple of things you need to know: 1. The current state of your organization. 2. The state of your market and industry. An accepted method for getting this information out in the open efficiently is a [strategic planning SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/). In a SWOT analysis, you examine [four major elements](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/): your organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as the external opportunities and threats the market presents you with. 🚨 [SWOT analysis has its limitations](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/), though. Experts in the State of SWOT report expressed this clearly. For example, being vulnerable to blind spots and internal biases. **Combine SWOT with other frameworks:** If you’ve the time, you can combine SWOT analysis with other frameworks, like PESTLE analysis, or Porter’s Five Forces analysis, that more closely examine external market factors and other external influences. But assuming you don’t have the luxury of time, limitations like SWOT’s vulnerability to internal bias reemphasizes the importance of pulling together a diverse set of representatives from across the business for your strategic planning session. A well-performed SWOT analysis gets you on the right track in terms of thinking about factors that might impact your org’s ability to achieve its goals. It's not just frameworks, though. Get members from across the entire business involved with a [business wargaming](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/) session to pressure test your plans before you roll them out. --- [How to Build a Marketing Plan Using SWOT AnalysisUse SWOT analysis to develop an understanding of your competitive landscape, and you’ll better understand all the factors that go into creating a successful marketing plan.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/kaleidico-26MJGnCM0Wc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-marketing-plan/) --- ### 7 - Identify the current state of your organization Your SWOT analysis should unveil much about the internal state of your organization. Remembering the importance of *radical transparency,* by examining your org’s strengths and weaknesses you’ll have begun to reveal much about the current state of the business. When you know where you are, as well as where you want to go, there’s just one more thing you need to know before you can start mapping out a plan on how to get there. ### 8 - Identify external threats on your path to success As the final step before building your roadmap, examine the externals: the market in which you’re working. Your SWOT analysis should have helped you out here, too. You should now be able to identify opportunities and threats in your competitive landscape that could help or hurt your chances of reaching your goals. Start linking together your internal strengths with external opportunities to identify possible avenues of growth. Do the same for threats and strengths, to identify where you might be less vulnerable than some of your competitors, or with weaknesses, to show you where you might want to stay alert and careful. ### 9 - Build the roadmap Finally, it’s time for your cohort to chart the course. By now, you should have facilitated the team spending a very productive few hours (or days) examining all aspects of your business, your market, and your goals from multiple angles, with diverse views and perspectives, offered by your session panel members. You should now, as a group, be able to articulate the current state of the business, and agreed-upon goals for where you want to end up over the next few years. Your roadmap is your plan for how you’ll get there. As you build it, remember to take into account possible threats and opportunities in the marketplace, as well as your internal strengths and weaknesses as a business. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/giphy--5-.gif) --- ## TL;DR To summarize, an effectively facilitated strategic planning session should deliver you the following: - Synchronicity on your org’s vision, and where you want to go. 🤝 - A sense of the current state of the business. 🧘‍♂️ - A sense of the external threats and opportunities presented by the market. 🔍 - How you’ll use your org’s resources to tackle those threats and exploit those opportunities to reach your goals and achieve your vision. 🧲 With a successful strategy meeting behind you, and a roadmap in hand, all that’s left to do is share the results of your meeting with the business, and begin to [operationalize your strategic plan](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-operationalize-strategic-plan/). --- ## Download the State of SWOT Report We had far more questions about SWOT analysis for our survey-takers. 🎯 Which **SWOT applications** offer the best ROI? 👍 How do you measure the **success or failure** of a SWOT analysis? 🔮 What does the future hold for SWOT analysis? And how do you overcome its **inherent challenges**? Want to dig deeper into the reasons why modern attitudes towards SWOT are the way they are? Want to read the real comments and opinions of practitioners to learn how to improve your own application of strategic frameworks in your business? Grab **your no-cost copy** of the report today and upgrade your competitive intelligence toolkit. 🧰 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ### Crafting killer competitive positioning by putting the customer first | Fiona Finn URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/crafting-killer-competitive-positioning-fiona-finn/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:53:16.000Z Back when the Competitive Intelligence Alliance first launched, one of the first topics we explored was Competitive Positioning. Now, a year later, we wanted to revisit the topic, and brought an expert on board to help: today’s guest, Fiona Finn. In a previous role at Unbounce, Fiona oversaw the platform’s repositioning from landing page builder, to conversion intelligence platform. All while navigating two pricing changes in a little over a year. Now Director of Product Marketing at Jane App, Fiona joins us on the show to talk us through how competitive intelligence fits into the very important puzzle that is positioning. [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast: Crafting killer competitive positioning by putting the customer first | Fiona Finn on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Compete Clarity Podcast, Ep Crafting killer competitive positioning by putting the customer first | Fiona Finn - Nov 15, 2023![](https://t1.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crafting-killer-competitive-positioning-by-putting/id1678079061?i=1000634902666&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/9d/0c/36/9d0c3698-c69a-ff19-f51f-f7371cd41832/mza_2588363255601066954.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crafting-killer-competitive-positioning-by-putting/id1678079061?i=1000634902666) ## Expect to learn: - What role competitive intelligence should play in your **positioning campaigns**. 🧠 - How dedicated CI folks can best support their product marketing colleagues with **positioning-related intel.** 🫶 - How to use **SEO and SEM data** to exploit unique competitive advantages. 👨‍💻 - The advantages of your positioning being a set of values that permeates your **company culture**, rather than just a strategy. 💚 …and much more. --- ## **Want to be a guest on the podcast?** We're looking for guests! If you consider yourself (or anyone you know does!) something of a thought leader in competitive intelligence, drop us a line at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io. We can't wait to host you! [ Register your interest ](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### A 5-step guide to revitalizing a broken competitive intelligence program URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-step-guide-to-fixing-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T08:49:28.000Z 🎙️ **This article has been adapted from David D’Aprile’s insightful interview on the Compete Clarity Podcast. Pop on your headphones and listen to it in its full glory* [**here*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-fix-broken-competitive-intelligence-programs/)**.* Have past problems turned your [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) program into a hot mess? Are stakeholders disengaged? Or even antagonistic? You’re not the first to face such challenges. The good news is that with the right strategy and mindset, plus a little elbow grease, you can resuscitate your org’s CI program. From assessing the damage to achieving quick wins, in this article I’ll share some proven tips to transform your program from flatlining to thriving. Let’s get into it. ## Fixing a broken CI program vs. building one from scratch Whether you’re [building a program as a solo practitioner](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/) from scratch or repairing what’s already there, the basic components of a good CI program remain the same. **The key difference is trust:** But there’s one major difference – on top of creating content, enabling teams, and all the usual stuff, you have to **rebuild trust**. When you're dealing with cross-functional stakeholders, you have to reassure them that, *this time*, it'll work. This is especially challenging compared to building a new CI program, where there are no past failures or negative experiences to overshadow your efforts. Rebuilding means competing against past disappointments, like lost deals or poor impressions made in front of prospects or partners. Regaining trust in those scenarios can be an uphill battle. **It's a challenge, but persevere:** It's demanding but ultimately rewarding. Seeing the team use your insights to outmaneuver competitors and secure deals is gratifying. It's one of the most exciting aspects of competitive intelligence. So, aside from winning back your stakeholders’ trust, what else is involved in fixing a broken CI program? Let’s take a look. ## Step one: Assess the damage Reviving a broken CI program is a bit like refurbishing a dilapidated house – the first thing you need to do is assess the damage. Do a thorough audit of what currently exists, what's missing, and the overall perception of the program. Understanding how the program is used and the extent of its shortcomings is crucial. From there, you can identify the biggest issues you need to tackle. **Auditing means talking to stakeholders:** To understand what’s working and what’s not, you’ll need to talk to your stakeholders. Initially, it might seem tempting to declare a state of emergency and call a meeting, but this isn't the most effective strategy in a rebuild situation. Stakeholders might be somewhat helpful, but they're probably not going to be as cooperative as they would be if you were building a brand-new program. (That broken trust rears its head again.) **The 'listening tour' is a great format:** A better idea is to conduct a sort of listening tour during the first 30 days of your rebuild project. You can even shadow your sales reps. This is going to help you understand who your stakeholders are, what has and hasn’t been working, and how pitching, trap-setting, and objection-handling are being done. This listening phase is essential for understanding the current state of affairs. Fundamentally, we all want to be heard and listened to. People are going to gripe. They’re going to vent their frustrations about past issues with the program issues and the challenges they’re facing. Showing that you care is an essential step in both rebuilding the program and rebuilding lost trust. --- ### Prefer to listen? --- ## Step two: Develop a game plan Once the initial assessment is complete, it's time to devise a strategy. This involves identifying the most pressing issues and determining the best approach to tackle them. **Every rebuild is unique:** It's important to recognize that every rebuild is unique. What your game plan looks like will vary based on factors like team size, company scale, product types, and the [competitive landscape](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/). Tailoring the program to these specific conditions is essential. Creating the right program involves avoiding the trap of 'square peg, round hole' solutions. What worked in one context might not work in another. 🪛 For instance, when I was at Cisco, the focus was on [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) and videos. While at RSA Security, it was about developing larger decks, because that’s how people preferred to consume competitive intelligence. Understanding these nuances is crucial. **Elements of the game plan:** Then, as you build your game plan, you have to carefully consider your: - Targets - Processes - Service-level agreements (SLAs) - Content creation - Enablement strategies - ...and communication methods. Having a clear plan of attack is invaluable. Throughout my career, I’ve found that consistently referring back to a well-defined strategy – be it a deck or a charter – is a great way to ensure we focus on what’s important. ## Step three: Test, commit, and communicate The next step is to implement the plan, focusing on execution rather than perfection. This involves testing ideas, committing to strategies, and regularly updating stakeholders on progress. The goal here is to communicate effectively, enable team members, and empower sales reps, [product managers](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-product-teams/), and other key personnel. **Err on the side of being *too* helpful:** During this phase, you might want to go above and beyond – taking your helpfulness to the next level. That’s going to help you build trust. However, it’s also vital to maintain balance – you don't want to end up working around the clock on less critical tasks, like tackling a tier-three competitor. As long as you can lay out your priorities and the reasoning and research behind them, people will understand if you can’t drop everything to build a brand-new [battlecard](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/) on a peripheral competitor they’ve only just heard about. **Be the SME for your sales reps:** Another great way to establish trust is just to show up in sales meetings as the subject matter expert when your sales reps are getting twitchy about a new player on the scene. This is way more effective than just sending over a document and wishing your reps good luck. It’s about showing that you can provide valuable insights and support, helping salespeople see the tangible value you bring to the table. It’s leading by example, and that's a powerful way to rebuild trust and demonstrate the worth of the CI function. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/CIA_CI_Masters_Social_Sharing_Assets_3.png) #### Is your competitive program effective enough? Imagine if you could: - Set up your listening stack to gather competitive intel with ****ruthless efficiency**, giving you more time to analyze, enable, inform, and become your business’s champion. 💪 - Set up win/loss interviews to unveil the ****powerful reasons** why customers aren’t choosing you, even if you’ve got no time or resources. 🔎 - Deliver a competitive news briefing that ****gets people talking**, no matter which set of stakeholders you serve. 📣 We’ve got a brand new course that covers every aspect of competitive intelligence, and what it takes to be successful. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters) --- ## Step four: Build your CI content pillars When it comes to creating content, you can borrow certain elements from the fundamentals of CI. There are undoubtedly types of content you’ve created before that will serve you well once more. **Core content types:** I generally start by building three core sets of content: 1. **A large competitive deck:** This should cover your main competitors comprehensively. Encourage stakeholders to read through it until they scream “Uncle!”This deck is the foundation for your other assets. 2. **A battlecard:** You can build this based on the intel in the deck. They’re ideal for refreshing stakeholders' knowledge right before meetings or customer calls. 3. **Competitive bulletins:** Theseare reserved for breaking news alerts and updates on your competitor watchlist. They help you respond appropriately and prevent people from getting unnecessarily worked up over news about competitors. Bulletins provide instant talking points to address urgent questions like: 1. What does this competitor move mean for us? 2. How should we respond when customers bring it up? 3. What's our official position on the news? **These aren't set in stone. Adapt them!** These three content pillars can then be adapted as needed. If stakeholders prefer consuming CI in video format, walk them through the deck on camera. If they like their content short, lean on battlecards. You can pivot your approach to content based on what works best for your stakeholders, but start with long-form decks, battlecards, and news bulletins as the core pieces. ### How to ensure people use CI content One of the biggest challenges in CI, whether you’re fixing a broken program or building one from scratch, is getting people to consume your content. You can build the most beautiful slide decks and the best-looking battlecards; you can create videos with state-of-the-art graphics. However, if nobody looks at your content, your program is doomed to fail. **Get people to consume your content with these practical tips:** Now, you could resort to bribery, but if you’ve got a lot of sales reps, that’s going to get expensive. Instead, here are three more cost-effective ways to get folks consuming your content: 1. **Lean into enablement:** Ensure your stakeholders not only know that your CI assets exist, but also that they know how to use them. 2. **Use scorecards:** Make it easy for teams to give feedback on the assets you create, and optimize them accordingly. 3. **Become best friends with your sales leaders:** They’re going to be your biggest allies in making sure that sales teams know where to get the content and how to use it. It takes a little bit of work, but if you can get people to digest [the intel you gather](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/gather-competitive-intelligence-internal-teams/#most-popular-internal-gathering-methods), you’ll set your program up for success. --- [Use These 10 Tips to Optimize Your Sales Content | CIASales enablement is all about deal support. Sitting between sales and marketing, your sales enablement team exists to support your sales staff with key information at crucial moments. Information about competitors and about your product. All in line with your brand messaging.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/isaac-smith-6EnTPvPPL6I-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/optimize-sales-content/) --- ## Step five: Quick wins and continuous improvement Finally, focus on securing quick wins to build momentum. These early successes are crucial for demonstrating the program's potential. From there, just lather, rinse, and repeat. Sales leaders will likely want intelligence as soon as possible – that tends to be the expectation with a rebuild. However, you may not have the resources to go deep into the weeds on all your competitors – particularly if you have a lean CI team – so you’ll need to focus your efforts where it counts and aim to deliver at least one quality piece of content within the first quarter. **Getting your first big win:** Which competitor does the sales team encounter most frequently? Who are you constantly competing with? Who’s causing the greatest difficulties in closing deals? Focus on covering that primary problematic competitor as deeply as possible. Produce some solid content and train your stakeholders thoroughly on it. Whether you have a large team or a small one, this is a really effective way to demonstrate you can deliver stellar intelligence that assists sales in winning deals and enables product teams to build better offerings. That’s going to help you win that all-important trust and build momentum for your CI program. ## Disseminating competitive intelligence to the broader organization It's all too easy to give the lion’s share of your attention to your go-to-market organization – after all, they're the ones going head-to-head against competitors every day. However, it’s vital to provide great CI to your other teams as well – particularly the [executive leadership team](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/). You need to keep the product management team in the loop too – the intelligence you gather is going to help them define a better product strategy by understanding what they need to build to stay competitive. **Building the 'competitive enterprise':** Fundamentally, you want your competitive intelligence program to be the lifeblood of the organization – what I call “the competitive enterprise.” If you're able to pull in intel from stakeholders across the organization, validate it, and disseminate it, you’ll provide all kinds of benefits to the company: - You’ll allow your customer success team to better serve your customers. - You’ll allow your professional services team to plug gaps in the product. - You’ll help your product management team build better products and fill gaps that are causing problems on the sales front. - You’ll help your sales team pitch better and win more deals. - You’ll help marketing create better messaging. In short, CI is fundamental to the success of your organization, but if you just gather intel and hope your stakeholders show up and read it, you're just not going to be successful. So communicate, communicate, and communicate some more. ## Key takeaways Rebuilding a broken CI program takes work, but with a little effort, you’ll soon be back on track. Here’s a quick recap of how you can do just that: 👉 Do a thorough damage assessment to understand what went wrong. 👉 Devise a solid game plan tailored to your specific context. 👉 Test ideas quickly, communicate progress, and lead by example. 👉 Create foundational content like decks, battlecards, and bulletins. 👉 Focus on quick wins to build momentum and trust. 👉 Get stakeholders consuming content through enablement and scorecards. 👉 Make your CI program the lifeblood of the entire organization. 👉 Never stop improving – a great CI program is a continual work in progress! 💪 --- **Check out some of these resources for more inspiration and information:** 📘 ****Suggested reading:** • [A practitioner’s complete guide to competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) • [The CI-by-Industry eBook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-by-industry-ebook/) [• The VRIO Framework (what it is and how to use it effectively)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/) --- ### Role of AI in persona building & simulating reactions with purpose-built agents URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/persona-building/ Last updated: 2024-01-23T15:08:10.000Z Are you ready to uncover the power of AI in persona building & reaction simulation? 🚀 🌐 **The Journey of Persona Evolution** In this captivating webinar, [Allen Borts](https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenborts/?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) guides us through the thrilling journey of persona evolution. Discover how to seamlessly segment your market by integrating valuable insights from win/loss analyses and other critical data. Learn how to merge this knowledge with private, confidential data to create personas that resonate with authenticity. 🧠 **Unlock the Power of AI** Have you ever wondered what is more in tune with Competitive Intelligence than predicting behaviors? The answer lies in the realm of AI! Allen Borts unveils the secrets of using Generative AI to forecast market behaviors with unparalleled precision. Dive deep into the world of purpose-built agents, enabling you to simulate persona reactions like never before. **Watch the recording here**👇 ![](https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/6lw8iluw6l/swatch) 🤝 **Get to know the speaker:** > [**Allen Borts**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenborts/?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) is a 30-year veteran of competitive intelligence. He is the founder of both Applied Direct Services Corporation (ADSC) & The SwiftSel Methodologies. ADSC is a marketing communications group from Toronto, Canada that is specialized to the High Technology Industry, and SwiftSel Methodologies have given rise to an estimated 80,000+ Enterprise Grade opportunities for High Technology Groups in a wide variety of valuable & serious technological capabilities. ### How to nail competitive intelligence in SaaS URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-saas/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T08:49:49.000Z Staying ahead of the competition is crucial, but it can feel like an impossible task in fast-moving industries like eCommerce SaaS. How do you track your competitors when new features and updates are released almost daily? This article will walk you through an expert-approved competitive intelligence process tailored to the eCommerce SaaS industry. You'll learn: - Where to find the most valuable competitive data. - How to analyze it effectively. - How to report your findings to stakeholders. We'll draw on insights from **Mindy Regnell**, an eCommerce expert with over 15 years of experience. As the **Principal Market & Competitive Intelligence Manager** at **Postscript**, an SMS marketing platform, Mindy has honed her approach to ensure she always has her finger on the pulse. Ready to get a leg up on the competition? Let's get started! ## The most valuable sources of competitive data in SaaS In fast-moving industries like eCommerce SaaS, you can't rely solely on official marketing materials to understand your competitors. The most valuable intel often comes from other sources. ### 1) Changelogs and help documentation "If I only had one resource at my disposal, I would almost always take support documentation.” **\~Mindy Regnell, Principal Market & Competitive Intelligence Manager, PostScript** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/10/mindy.jpg) Help center articles, user manuals, and changelog notes are written for customers, not investors – that means you get the unvarnished truth about competitors’ capabilities and limitations. For Mindy, changelogs represent the crème de la crème of support and help documentation. They’re particularly useful once you've learned the basics of a competitor's platform, as they let you quickly see what's new. ### 2) Marketing collateral In the absence of up-to-date, accurate support documentation, marketing collateral can help you stay abreast of updates to your competitors’ platforms. However, mentally translating all the marketing speak into hard-and-fast facts can be draining, to say the least. ### 3) Google alerts Google Alerts are another valuable source of competitor and market intel. However, a word of advice: Rather than drinking from the firehose of alerts, start with just one or two keywords. Then, build up your list of alerts over time as you learn to filter out the noise. ### 4) iOS updates It’s also a good idea to keep an eye on iOS updates, which are, as Mindy puts it, “a really big deal for SMS marketing.” Articles can then fill in the gaps, specifically those on SMS marketing and SMS sales, different eCommerce platforms, and other competitors. ### 5) Field intelligence And what about field intelligence from colleagues, customers, and partners? Field intel can provide unique insights, but be sure to take it with a grain of salt and validate anything that seems questionable. "I generally assume if I hear something from a sales rep, from a customer, or from a partner at an agency, they might be wrong.” **\~Mindy Regnell, Principal Market & Competitive Intelligence Manager, PostScript** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/10/mindy.jpg) It’s not that people are inherently untrustworthy; the problem is that with updates being constantly released, it’s easy for people to get their wires crossed or miss some key piece of information. ### 6) Win/loss interviews Finally, who could forget the power of [win/loss interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) for [gathering competitive insights](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/gather-competitive-intelligence-internal-teams/#most-popular-internal-gathering-methods)? If your budget allows, consider having a third party conduct them – that way, interviewees are far more likely to share what they really think, without worrying about hurting any feelings. As with other forms of field intelligence, though, be sure to look at win/loss insights with a critical eye. Actions speak louder than words, and customers’ behavior doesn’t always reflect what they say. For instance, as Mindy notes, customers may *tell you* security is crucial to them, but their actions might tell you it’s actually not that far up their list of priorities. At least not when making a purchasing decision. 💡 In short, it’s best to cast a wide net for competitor intelligence, but focus on sources like support documentation that provide factual data on competitors’ capabilities – and always vet the intel you get via word of mouth. ## Streamlining data collection and organization While [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) requires some manual effort, you can optimize parts of the process. Tools like Google Alerts automate data collection, but sifting through alerts is still manual work. The good news? You get faster at scanning and filtering over time, ignoring stock updates and honing in on what matters. And if you come across any interesting tidbits that you don’t have time to investigate right away, why not save them to your Google Drive or project management platform for later? ### Organizing the data When it comes to organizing all the data pouring in, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. > "I have several key resources, including ‘Start Here’-style documents, that I point people to." These resources live in Guru, the AI-powered information aggregating tool that helps teams answer questions using all the available information from the multitude of [CI tools and software](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-report-2023-blog/) you use. By using such platforms to connect siloed data and streamline your processes, you’ll free up time to focus on the important stuff – analysis. As the old saying goes, work smarter, not harder! ## How to analyze and validate the data With competitive data pouring in from various sources, it's crucial to have a process for digesting it all. But there's no one "right" way – the best approach is what works for you. > "At the end of the day, data analysis is a mental exercise. It's up to you to spot the patterns and tease out the possible answers, so find an analysis process that gets your own creative and problem-solving juices flowing." ### Refining your thinking For instance, you may want to start by jotting down long-form, stream-of-consciousness ideas about a competitor or trend. This helps get thoughts flowing. Later, you can boil it all down into more consumable tidbits. Talking through competitive scenarios can also help refine your thinking. Bounce ideas off colleagues in other departments, or chat virtually with your distributed team. The discussion will help you sharpen your narratives and positioning. ### A note on analysis frameworks 💡 As for analysis frameworks, while classic structures like [SWOT](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/) or PESTLE analysis can be useful, you don't need to rely on them all the time – especially once you've internalized those factors. With enough experience, you’ll begin to see insights more holistically. ### Validate claims first That said, it helps to have a process for validating claims before you incorporate them into your analysis: - First, consider the believability of the source. How experienced are they? Who did they hear this from? - Next, relate the claim back to your understanding of market trends. Does it track or seem totally incongruous? The more outlandish the statement your rep or customer makes, the firmer the evidence that backs it up should be. - If you’re still not sure if the insight you’ve received is accurate, look to validated third-party reviews and analysis on sites like Trust Radius, G2, or even X (formerly Twitter). The key is to start your analysis from a place of healthy skepticism. Then, use all the tools at your disposal to connect the dots. ## How to report your findings in a SaaS business Once you’ve gathered and analyzed your competitive insights, it’s time to share them. The most appropriate formats for this depend on factors like company culture, team dynamics, and stakeholder needs. ### Orient yourself first! But first, it's crucial to orient yourself and figure out where your priorities lie. That means you need to establish a) which stakeholders to serve first and b) which of your competitors to zoom in on. It’s a great idea to get feedback from sales leadership on which competitors are giving them the most grief. That way, you can focus your effort where it matters most, rather than trying to boil the ocean. > “Figure out the top one to two, maybe three \[competitors\]. I wouldn’t go more than three when you’re getting your solid foundation.” ### Identify your best deliverables With your priority competitors established, consider what deliverable formats work best for your company. Here are a few you might want to try: - **"Five reasons why" reports:** These briefs, containing five reasons why you win against a competitor can easily be scanned and digested by sales reps even while on a call. A value prop on its own rarely makes sense, but these reports provide differentiation and context. What’s more, they’re a great alternative to [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) if you struggle to make those work for your organization. - **Short and long video explainers:** For distributed teams, recorded video demos can quickly get everyone up to speed on competitive developments and your unique differentiators. Make a TL;DR version and a deeper dive. - **Slack channel:** Give real-time updates to leadership in a dedicated competitive Slack channel. This is a great way to quickly share news and analysis. ### Tailor the findings to the audience Regardless of the format you choose, be sure to tailor your content to your audience. [Sales reps](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/) typically want concise bulleted info to reference during calls. Meanwhile, enablement teams need deeper dives. Reporting competitive intelligence in SaaS is an evolving, collaborative process. Be ready to tweak both what you deliver and how you deliver it based on stakeholder feedback. Their engagement will show you what's working and what’s not. ## Validating your materials with stakeholders Creating assets in a silo rarely leads to competitive intelligence others can easily understand and act on. You need to test your work. As Mindy explains, you should refine your CI materials by working with stakeholders. ### You've more than just the sales team It’s crucial to resist the temptation to rely solely on your top sales reps to provide feedback – loop in some brand-spanking-new BDRs too. Getting feedback from both groups helps you ensure you've boiled down the analysis into simple, digestible logic anyone can follow. It also ensures you haven't oversimplified and left out crucial details. ### Test your deliverables Testing your CI goes beyond sharing deliverables and asking for feedback. It’s also wise to observe stakeholders interacting with your materials. Watch sales reps reference a competitive battlecard on a call. See if leadership asks follow-up questions after a report. This will help you understand if the format and content of your deliverables work, or if certain areas consistently cause confusion. It also clues you into knowledge gaps to address in the next iteration of your materials. The validation process never really ends. Be prepared to regularly test new CI assets with stakeholders, and use their feedback to continuously improve your SaaS competitive intelligence function. ## Key takeaways With the right competitive intelligence processes in place, you can stay agile amidst constant change and give your company an edge. With that in mind, here are our top takeaways for conducting competitive intelligence in fast-paced SaaS environments: 📚 Support documentation and changelogs provide unfiltered competitor insights, so make friends with them. 🔎 Validate any intel you receive via word-of-mouth before acting on it, vetting sources and tying claims back to your understanding of the market. 🤖 Streamline repetitive tasks so you can focus on connecting the dots and spotting trends. Work smarter, not harder. 🧠 Choose an analysis process that fits your thinking style, whether that's writing long-form insights then condensing them or talking through scenarios. 🧭 Orient yourself first to understand stakeholder needs and prioritize your biggest competitors. 💌 Tailor your reporting formats and cadence to your audience. 🤝 Be ready to tweak your process over time based on stakeholder feedback. ✅ Validate analysis and deliverables with stakeholders. Watch them interact with your materials and solicit ongoing feedback. ### AutoGPT Demo: Creating websites & landing pages for competitive positioning URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/role-of-ai/ Last updated: 2023-12-06T19:03:04.000Z This webinar contains an exclusive demo, featuring [Allen Borts](https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenborts/?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io), a seasoned expert in cutting-edge AI technology. In this demo, Allen will share the remarkable power of AutoGPT in creating web content that sets you apart from the competition. 🔥 This session will not only showcase the incredible potential of AutoGPT, but also unveil a spectrum of innovative agents and agent-building capabilities. Missed it? No worries, we've got you a recording! 🤩 ![](https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/fr68ty4nqx/swatch) 💡 Imagine a world where you simply articulate your thoughts with precision and AI takes care of the rest, bringing your vision to life. 🤝 **Get to know the speaker:** > [**Allen Borts**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenborts/?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) is a 30-year veteran of competitive intelligence. He is the founder of both Applied Direct Services Corporation (ADSC) & The SwiftSel Methodologies. ADSC is a marketing communications group from Toronto, Canada that is specialized to the High Technology Industry, and SwiftSel Methodologies have given rise to an estimated 80,000+ Enterprise Grade opportunities for High Technology Groups in a wide variety of valuable & serious technological capabilities. By the end of this session, you'll gain insights into the art of competitive positioning and learn how to captivate your audience in real time. 🤩 [Book your spot here](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAvce6tqjssHtYUiWkZmSH8UTHMT-snVvn0#/registration) ### How to fix broken competitive intelligence programs | David D'Aprile URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-fix-broken-competitive-intelligence-programs/ Last updated: 2025-02-05T16:45:21.000Z Building a competitive program from scratch is a topic that’s been covered before. But what about *rebuilding* one? You’re walking into a situation where people are jaded, where their expectations of you and your program aren’t necessarily positive... That's the topic of this episode of the Compete Clarity Podcast, tackled by our guest, David D'Aprile, VP of Global Product Marketing at Onapsis. [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast: How to fix broken competitive intelligence programs | David D’Aprile on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Compete Clarity Podcast, Ep How to fix broken competitive intelligence programs | David D’Aprile - Oct 11, 2023![](https://t3.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-fix-broken-competitive-intelligence-programs/id1678079061?i=1000630980841&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/9d/0c/36/9d0c3698-c69a-ff19-f51f-f7371cd41832/mza_2588363255601066954.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-fix-broken-competitive-intelligence-programs/id1678079061?i=1000630980841) ## Expect to learn: - The **five-step process** for rebuilding a CI program from scratch. - The **biggest challenge** you’ll face when doing so. - Which **three pieces of content** are foundational, reliable, and essential in any competitive program. - Why it might not be the best idea to try and build out a **tech stack** while doing a rebuild. - How to **build momentum** by getting wins early. …and much more. Take a listen. 👇 [ Listen now ](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6XHSUVT3LMCyZwBuCPAFaP?si=26a4212abf2d43f0) --- ## **Want to be a guest on the podcast?** We're looking for guests! If you consider yourself (or anyone you know does!) something of a thought leader in competitive intelligence, drop us a line at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io. We can't wait to host you! [ Register your interest ](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### Elevating product launches: Using AI to create content for competitive advantage URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-for-product-launches/ Last updated: 2023-12-06T19:22:20.000Z Are you ready to revolutionize your product launches and marketing collaterals? This exclusive webinar deep dives into the power of Generative AI in shaping your competitive strategy! 🔥 **Key discussion points:** ✨ Leveraging generative AI for competitive landscape analysis ✨ Crafting content for unbeatable product launches ✨ Elevating collaterals with user-centric sentiment, tonality & intensity ✨ Gaining a distinct competitive edge ✨ Staying ahead in the dynamic market ✨ Realizing the potential of AI-enhanced marketing **Watch the recording here** 👇🏻 ![](https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/q4mucjbqef/swatch) 🤝 **Get to know the speaker:** > [**Allen Borts**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenborts/) is a 30-year veteran of competitive intelligence. He is the founder of both Applied Direct Services Corporation (ADSC) & The SwiftSel Methodologies. ADSC is a marketing communications group from Toronto, Canada that is specialized to the High Technology Industry, and SwiftSel Methodologies have given rise to an estimated 80,000+ Enterprise Grade opportunities for High Technology Groups in a wide variety of valuable & serious technological capabilities. Not done chatting about AI? Join our free Slack community and network with hundreds of your competitive intelligence peers about AI-powered tools and much more. To join, just click right here.👇 [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/15.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ### Competitive intelligence vs market intelligence: what’s the difference? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-vs-market-intelligence/ Last updated: 2024-07-22T15:23:54.000Z Do the terms ‘competitive intelligence’ and ‘market intelligence’ seem ambiguous? If you’re unsure what distinguishes one from the other, join us as we break down: - The **key differences** between competitive intelligence and marketing intelligence. - Where exactly competitive and market intelligence **differ**. - Where the two actually **overlap**. ## What’s the difference between competitive intelligence and market intelligence? Market intelligence provides the backdrop against which you compete with business rivals. [Competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) is more specific than market intelligence, dealing with specific competitors instead. Rather than the larger market both you and your competitors are a part of. We asked **Jayde Phillips**, Senior Manager of Strategy and Market Intelligence at Egencia, how she understands the differences between competitive and market intelligence. **Here are her thoughts in short:** > **Competitive intelligence:** zeroes in on your top competitors. At Egencia, they focus on three. Their strategy is based on win rates against these top competitors. > **Market intelligence:** revolves around industry trends. It's about identifying patterns in the industry and understanding their implications. For instance, AI is a hot topic right now across most sectors, from finance to travel. --- --- ## Where competitive intelligence and market intelligence differ ### Competitive intelligence and market intelligence have different goals and aims The aim of market intelligence is to understand **what drives consumer & buyer behavior**. Marketing intelligence tends to be concerned with the wider, longer-term trends visible in the market, as well as emerging factors driving consumer behavior. As a business, you’re looking to understand how you can leverage a greater understanding of your target market to increase sales and brand awareness. The aim of competitive intelligence, on the other hand, is to **learn all you can about a key set of competitors**, what they’re doing, what their strategies are, and what consumers think about them. This way, you can make more informed business decisions about how you’re going to compete for market share. ### Competitive intelligence and market research sources can differ 💬 As we’ll see, the sources by which you’ll collect market and competitor research aren’t **always* entirely different. But some sources lend themselves more to one type of research than the other. **Market intelligence sources:** An analysis framework like PESTLE analysis has you examine the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental factors currently impacting your business and the wider market. This type of framework helps you learn, in detail, about your market and what the future might hold for it. But it’s possible to perform a PESTLE analysis and learn nothing about a single competitor. **Competitive intelligence sources:** The same is true of some competitor analysis techniques. A competitor SEO analysis aims to uncover details about a given competitor’s content marketing strategy by examining which keywords it’s pouring resources into creating content to rank for on search engines. Understanding where a competitor is pouring resources can help you understand its priorities, and what moves it might be looking to make in the near future. But a competitor SEO analysis teaches you nothing about the wider market. ## How competitive and market intelligence are similar ### Sources don't always differ... So it’s often not the case that sources of competitor intelligence teach you about the wider market, and vice versa. Still, some sources, like field intelligence, *do* teach you about both the market and your competitors. Think about when your customers talk to you about your competitors. [Win/loss interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/), for example. In a win/loss interview, a customer might tell you why they chose you instead of one of your competitors. This helps you understand more about buyer behavior and the factors that drive buying decisions, but it also helps you learn more about your competitors’ products and what the market likes about them. So with win/loss interviews, you learn more about both the market, *and* about your competitors, from a single source. ### One can inform the other Similarly, aggregated intelligence about multiple competitors informs you about larger scale market trends. For example, you might study a number of direct or indirect competitors during the course of a competitive analysis. By studying multiple competitors, you might notice that the majority of them seem to be focusing more on a new type of feature. **How about an example?** Recently, it’s been difficult to escape news about AI. But even before GPT products were being released en masse, a savvy competitive intelligence practitioner might’ve been able to figure out the market was moving in that direction. Imagine more competitors begin publishing articles about AI, speaking about AI at conferences and industry events, and publishing public job listings for AI and machine learning professionals. Taken together, this is an early warning signal your competitors might be beginning to invest more in AI. Report signs like these to leadership and other stakeholder groups, so your organization can make fully informed business decisions. ### Information about competitors can inform marketing strategies While marketing practices like segmentation might not overlap with competitive intelligence all that much, your messaging and positioning strategies are best created in light of what you know about your competitors. As **Alex McDonnell**, Director of Competitive Intel and Product Marketing at Airtable, puts it: > “There is no positioning without competitive positioning”. Your competitors own at least some of your target audience’s “mind share”. --- [The Positioning Matrix: A Beginner’s Guide | CIAWhat tools can you use to rapidly communicate your findings to internal stakeholders? And are there any tools that can inform your own competitive projects? Visual learners rejoice. The positioning matrix is here.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/sigmund-B-x4VaIriRc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/) --- If your messaging and [brand positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-strategy-examples/) ignore this fact, they’re far more likely to miss the mark. Acknowledge it, though, and you’ll be able to answer the unasked questions floating around in your prospects’ heads, and neutralize their doubts and concerns, even as they’re thinking them. This makes for *far* more effective [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/). The truth is, no matter how unique you think your product is, your prospects will find something to compare it to. Whether that comparison comes out in your favor or not is up to you. Don’t passively position your product in direct competition with strong alternatives. Take charge of the narrative. Understand the competitive landscape, where alternatives are strong or weak, beloved or disliked; understand your own strengths and weaknesses in the eyes of your customers. **In short, position competitively.** --- ## Looking for the playbook on how to position competitively? Grab your copy of the Competitive Positioning Playbook. It won't cost you anything, but here's some of what you'll take away: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/blog_meta.png) #### No product is created in a vacuum The Competitive Positioning Playbook teaches you... 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a ****rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you ****must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom ****tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s ****revenue** ceiling. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ### How to use competitor analysis for sales enablement: Workera case study URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-analysis-for-sales-enablement/ Last updated: 2023-09-22T12:35:33.000Z Doing competitor analysis and saving insights on a spreadsheet is not enough. To be effective, product marketers need to be able to transform these insights into sales enablement: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/1.png) [Jon Itkin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonitkin?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs%5FminiProfile%3AACoAAAHJLlUB6iLsKN7QagXZjhPKJpfy-O-6RRs&ref=salesenablementcollective.com) \-[ Anthony Pierri 🎸](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonypierri?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs%5FminiProfile%3AACoAABb4HHkBoi6B%5FMzvCcyw7VhyR41lGNyW9VE&ref=salesenablementcollective.com) Doing competitor analysis without feeding product roadmap and sales is the same. You need to be able to bring those insights into sales enablement materials. This week, I'd want to show how as a product marketer at Workera, you can become a driving force behind everything from product launches to sales enablement resources and market trend analysis. I've broken this case study into two sections: 1. *How to strike the right balance when doing competitor analysis* 2. *Examples of how to use competitor analysis for sales enablement* ## 1\. How to strike the right balance when doing competitor analysis From identifying relevant competitors to analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, pricing, and addressing questions, doing competitor analysis can be a daunting task. **Especially if you're not clear on how you will be using this info.** - *How much info is enough?* - *How do you know if you have the right data?* - *How do you present this data to cross-functional teams?* Think about outcomes and deliverables. The type of analysis required will be determined by how you use this info. I think of two types of research: 1. **Detailed and in-depth:** typically used as input for planning your product roadmap development. It needs to be detailed, especially when it comes to key use cases and product features. 2. **Specific and actionable:** Sales team will use this analysis. It usually surfaces on training decks or battlecards. Here's how they both look: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/2.png) I really like this framework when it comes to sales enablement. It provides a great overview of key competitors and makes it easier for sales team members to go through. In this case, it's easier to see how [Gloat](https://www.linkedin.com/company/gloat/?ref=salesenablementcollective.com), [ActivTrak](https://www.linkedin.com/company/activtrak-com/?ref=salesenablementcollective.com), [Phenom](https://www.linkedin.com/company/phenomtxm/?ref=salesenablementcollective.com), and [Workera](https://www.linkedin.com/company/workera-ai/?ref=salesenablementcollective.com) stack against each other: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/3.png) Once you've conducted competitor research, there are several ways you can leverage these insights to drive sales enablement. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/blog_meta.png) #### No product is created in a vacuum The Competitive Positioning Playbook teaches you... 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a **rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you **must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom **tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s **revenue** ceiling. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ## 2\. What are ways in which competitor analysis can enable sales? In this section, I want to show how all this effort you've done as a product marketer can influence your sales funnel: 1. Battlecards 2. Sales slides 3. Comparison landing pages 4. Messaging and copy 5. Content gaps 6. Lead nurturing campaigns ### 2.1 Build battlecards that are used to prepare for sales calls Create battlecards as quick reference guides. These docs live on Showpad, Notion, or Google Slides and include information that usually answers these common questions: - *How do we compete with our competitors?* - *What are our strengths and weaknesses?* - *How is pricing compared?* - *How to address or tackle certain questions?* - *How do you handle common objections?* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/4.png) ### 2.2 Give sales team members more content for their decks Slides are great sales content that your team can use to address customer needs and position your product as the best choice in the market. These slides usually address pain points, highlight outcomes, test new messaging, and show proof through case studies. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/5.png) ### 2.3 Help users decide with comparison landing pages Build landing pages that highlight your product's benefits over competitors, based on your research, to help potential customers who are comparing your solution against others. Drift and Intercom are great examples of creating these kinds of comparison landing pages: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/6.png) ### 2.4 Use cases comparison to drive product roadmap Compare core use cases against rivals to identify gaps in your product roadmap. These tables can make it evident how you stack against competitors to guide your product strategy. Makes it easy for the sales team to better understand how your product works. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/7.png) ### 2.5 Test new messaging and copy Going through competitors is a great way to find new ideas or angles for messaging you can test on your website, sales decks, and content. A small change in your copy can have a great impact on your conversion rates across your sales funnel. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/8.png) ### 2.6 Identify content gaps to educate and nurture leads Competitor analysis can be a great way to identify gaps in your content strategy. Also, it helps you understand how to frame your platform better and address common objections. ### 2.7 Launch nurturing campaigns Enterprise sales take time and usually lead to long sales cycles. I usually like to sign up with competitors and see how they are nurturing their leads. - *What channels are they using?* - *What type of content are they promoting?* - *How are they nurturing their funnel?* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/9.png) This type of research gives you good ideas to drive new campaigns. --- [Your Go-to Guide to Competitive Sales EnablementIn this guide to using competitive intelligence to power your sales enablement program, we cover everything you need to know about the discipline.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/CIA_Meta_sales_enablement.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) --- ## Conclusion Competitor analysis can become a great tool for product marketers. However, it can also result in wasteful time, effort, and deliverables that are never used. > **Remember:** This will generally determine which data points and how much info you need to gather in your analysis. --- ***Diego Rios is a product marketer for B2B startups - he first published this article on LinkedIn* [*here*](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/workera-case-study-how-use-competitor-analysis-sales-enablement-rios/?ref=salesenablementcollective.com)*.*** --- ### Boosting win rates and building trust with competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/boosting-win-rates-building-trust/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:47:38.000Z 🎙️ **This article has been adapted from Jayde’s outstanding appearance on the Compete Clarity Podcast. Pop on your headphones and check it out* [**here*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-012-jayde-phillips/)**!* Ever wondered how to harness the power of competitive intelligence (CI) to give your business a [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-competitive-advantage/)? Look no further. As the Senior Strategy and Market Intelligence Manager at Egencia, a tech company in the business travel space, I've navigated the intricate world of CI and learned some valuable lessons along the way. Being the sole market and competitive intelligence specialist in a company of over 4,000 employees has its challenges, but it's also filled with opportunities to drive impactful change. In this article, I'll be sharing insights and strategies that have shaped Egencia’s approach to CI. Here's a sneak peek at what we'll cover: - **Choosing the right CI sources.** - **Securing stakeholder buy-in for your CI program.** - **How to boost win rates against your top competitors.** - **How to run tactical combat sessions that resonate.** - **Tips and tricks for sharing your insights.** Join me as I delve into these topics, and share success stories and lessons learned from my journey in the [competitive intelligence realm](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/). --- ## Choosing the right competitive intelligence sources The [best competitive intelligence (CI) sources](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/) for your company largely depend on the nature of your project and the specific data you're after. When embarking on any data-gathering project, the first step is to **clearly define your objectives.** 🤔 Ask yourself: What insights am I aiming to uncover? Then, it’s a good rule of thumb to use a combination of both primary and secondary data sources. **Primary intelligenc**e can be gathered by diving into tools like Salesforce to gather feedback from sales reps. If they've gone head-to-head with a competitor, they’ll probably have some valuable insights from prospects or customers. Meanwhile, help centers can be incredibly handy **secondary sources**. Since most of them are open to the public, you can easily explore the latest enhancements and tools they're rolling out. If you're using an aggregator or competitive intelligence platform, it’s even more straightforward. These tools centralize information, making it easier to understand what competitors are up to. ## Securing buy-in from stakeholders To get buy-in for your project, you’ll need to rope in your stakeholders from the very beginning. If you're conducting research for a specific department, like the commercial team, sit down with those stakeholders to clarify the nature of the project and its goals. That way, there’s less risk of miscommunication, and everyone involved will be aligned on the project’s focus and deliverables. Regular touchpoints, whether through Zoom, email, Slack, or whichever channel works best for your organization, are essential. Use these touchpoints to keep your stakeholders up to date about the project's progress, milestones, and successes, and emphasize the value of your research and how it benefits their roles. Communication is key! 🔑 --- ## Aside: Competitive intelligence vs. market intelligence There’s a lot of ambiguity surrounding the terms ‘competitive intelligence’ and ‘market intelligence,’ and many people are unsure what distinguishes one from the other. Let's break it down. 📖 ****Competitive intelligence:** zeroes in on your top competitors. At Egencia, we focus on three. Our strategy is based on win rates against these top competitors.****Market intelligence:** revolves around industry trends. It's about identifying patterns in the industry and understanding their implications. For instance, AI is currently a hot topic across most sectors, from finance to education and travel. --- ## The art of data analysis and tailoring insights to your audience Once you've gathered your data from various sources, the next crucial step is analysis. The best approach to take largely depends on the nature of your project and its objectives. For instance, if I'm researching win/loss trends, I'll focus on behavioral patterns as well as feedback related to products, sales, and marketing. These insights are invaluable to the teams I support. - The commercial team will benefit from insights into buying patterns. - The product team is best served by feedback on tools and features that prospects find valuable or lacking. - The marketing team needs feedback to align their campaigns with customer needs and demands. ### The importance of recommendations Beyond just presenting data, it's crucial to add your recommendations and key takeaways. In the CI realm, executives often lean on us for business direction. For example, if the data indicates we're losing ground because we don’t offer certain product features, it's essential to highlight this and recommend potential solutions. Or, if trends show a shift towards mobile usage, we might suggest optimizing our mobile product offerings. ### Delivering your insights How you present these insights can vary depending on what kind of research you’ve done and who it’s for. Some data might just be used to update your core materials, like [battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) or sales decks, for example, while other data might merit a full-blown enablement session. The format of your CI insights should be tailored to the audience. Product teams might prefer an in-depth document on competitor products, while the commercial team is more likely to appreciate a concise presentation. Ultimately, it's about being flexible. Since we're serving others, it's essential to cater to their needs and take into account how they prefer to consume information. --- [A Practitioner’s Complete Guide to Competitive IntelligenceCompetitive intelligence is your tool for knowing your competitors’ strategies, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses. Armed with this information, you can fine-tune your product strategy and marketing initiatives to win. In other words, competitive intelligence is your ticket to the top.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/CIA_Meta_-intelligence.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) --- ## Strategies to boost your win rate against top competitors Egencia’s CI strategy is all about improving our win rate against top competitors. I’d like to share how you can do the same. This can be approached in three main ways: ### 1 - Win/loss analysis 🎖️ **Win/loss analysis:** In my experience, conducting about six win/loss interviews every quarter allows you to gather a broad spectrum of feedback and identify trends and reasons behind both successful and unsuccessful deals. Sharing these insights with the commercial teams through interactive sessions, highlighting why you win, why you lose, and your competitive edge, can be invaluable. You can even incorporate gamification techniques to ensure the information you’re sharing is resonating. ### 2 - Deep dives and combat sessions 🥊 **Deep dives and combat sessions:** Dedicate sessions to thoroughly analyze your top competitors. Break down their product and service offerings, delving into the specific tools and features they provide. Follow this with a combat session on how to outperform the competitor in question. Instead of focusing on their weaknesses, [emphasize your company's strengths](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/). When competing against them, what are the top three to five points you should highlight to prospects? The goal isn't to bash the competitor, but to underscore why a customer should choose your company based on its merits. ### 3 - Centralize competitive information 🗼 **Centralize competitive information:** A centralized self-service hub for all the insights you've gathered and enablement material you’ve created is essential. You want everyone to be able to find the resources they need easily. Now, let’s dive a little deeper into each of the strategies I’ve outlined and see how you can best harness them for your organization. ## 1: Navigating win/loss analysis Win/loss interviews can be tricky. Interviewees might hold back from giving candid feedback because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. To navigate this, it’s essential to establish trust. You want your interviewees to understand their feedback is confidential and solely for educational purposes; that way, they’re much more likely to be open and honest. If budget allows, consider hiring a third party for these interviews. Interviewees might feel less obliged to sugarcoat their comments when they’re talking to an external organization. ### CRM data for win/loss That said, interviews aren't the only way to gather that all-important win/loss data; your CRM can play an important role here too. There should be a dedicated section for feedback related to specific deals and customer experiences. When conducting win/loss analyses, this is invaluable. It’s a key way to identify trends among prospects and look at the ways sales reps approach deals. For example, are there patterns among large organizations versus SMEs? It's crucial to incorporate this data into your research and share it with the team, ensuring they can leverage it in future deals. ### Analyzing and sharing When you’re analyzing feedback and presenting win/loss insights to the commercial team, the goal isn't to play the blame game, but to educate and offer constructive solutions. For instance, if you spot a trend indicating people are uncomfortable with the way your company approaches prospects, the response shouldn't be finger-pointing. Instead, suggest alternative approaches, test them, and if they work, integrate them into the sales strategy. ## 2: Building relationships for effective tactical combat sessions Let's dive deeper into those tactical combat sessions I touched on earlier. 🤝 The key to making them work is relationship building. You have to foster great relationships with key members of the teams you support. ### CI champion program One way to do this is to establish a CI champion program. For example, if you're working with the commercial and marketing teams, having representatives from those teams in your program to voice customer or peer concerns can be invaluable. These champions can help secure buy-in from their departments and promote your initiatives through various channels, be it Slack, email, or team meetings. They're a fantastic resource for gaining broader acceptance. ### Building trust To build that trust and confidence, sometimes you just have to dive in. Schedule meetings, be genuine, and most importantly, be yourself. When conducting these sessions, aim for an informal tone. You don't want to come across as dictatorial. Instead, engage and involve participants in the discussion. Encourage questions and feedback during your presentations. This interactive approach not only strengthens relationships but also ensures that the competitive enablement content you create will be adopted and used consistently. 💬 Remember: putting a face to a name can make all the difference. When team members recall a productive discussion or feedback session you led, they're more likely to incorporate the insights you provided into their daily tasks. In essence, it's all about nurturing relationships. Start with key team members, and over time, build trust through consistent interactions. This approach has served me well in all my CI and product marketing roles. ## 3: Building an effective self-serve CI hub Now for the final piece of [effective competitive enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/): the self-serve hub. Feedback from the commercial team has been invaluable in shaping Egencia’s CI hub. I used to hear from sales representatives that they didn't use certain content simply because they couldn’t find it, or it wasn’t where they’d usually look. I built a centralized hub to address this issue. It ensures the content we invest time and money creating is actually used. ### Key elements for the success of your CI hub In my experience, the success of a CI hub boils down to two things: organization and user feedback. If you don't already have a dedicated platform, it's worth the investment. Not only does it save time, but it also reduces the barrage of questions about where content is. Platforms like SharePoint are great for this. When setting up a CI hub, your main goal should be to make sure all the essential information is easily accessible. This includes key assets like win-loss data, interview transcripts, presentations, and deep-dive analyses. If you're using a CI platform or tool for your battlecards, make sure you include direct links within the main hub. ### Making content easily navigable Organizing content so it's easily navigable is paramount. For instance, we have dedicated sections for win-loss data, reports, and research, which are all broken down into themes and topics. This ensures users can quickly find what they're looking for. If you’re super organized, you might even consider segmenting content by departmnt. If you've crafted content specifically for the marketing team, having a dedicated space for their resources can be very useful. However you choose to organize it, just make sure you house everything in one platform, so users don't have to jump between multiple apps to find what they need. ## Key takeaways The world of competitive intelligence can be complex, but it’s filled with exciting opportunities to drive impactful change. As we wrap up, let's recap some of the essential insights and strategies we’ve covered: 🔍 **Diversify your CI sources:** Both primary and secondary sources have their place. Find the right balance for a comprehensive data gathering approach. 🤝 **Stakeholder buy-in is crucial:** Engage your stakeholders early on. Their feedback and alignment can make or break your CI projects. 📊 **CI vs. MI:** Remember, competitive intelligence zeroes in on competitors, while market intelligence focuses on industry trends. 🧠 **Data analysis is an art:** Always tailor your insights to your audience. And don't just present data – add your recommendations! 🏆 **Boost those win rates:** Focus on a targeted group of competitors and equip your sales team with the insights they need. 🤗 **Relationships matter:** Build trust, foster relationships, and consider setting up a CI champion program. 🖥️ **Centralize your CI hub:** Make it user-friendly. A centralized hub ensures easy access to resources and boosts content utilization. The beauty of CI lies in its ability to transform raw data into actionable insights. As we navigate this journey, let's remain adaptable, collaborative, and always eager to learn. To brighter insights and bolder strategies! --- ## Put yourself in first place 🥇 In today's job market, interview processes have four, five or even more stages. Competition is fierce, and proving your worth is getting harder. **Differentiation is critical.** How valuable would it be to you to be able to bypass all that in the eyes of the recruiter, because they’re already familiar with your work? We're offering you the means to do just that. We’ll work with you to quickly **adapt your work** into: - SEO-optimized articles; - Ghostwritten guides; - And podcast episodes. It’s never been easier to differentiate yourself, so why not start today? Sound interesting? [**Send us a message**](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io to discuss next steps. 🤝 --- ### How to build a marketing plan using SWOT analysis URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-marketing-plan/ Last updated: 2024-07-22T15:10:43.000Z SWOT analysis is a simple and effective strategic planning technique that helps you identify your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in relation to your market and your competitors. Sounds like the sort of thing that’d be helpful in creating a marketing plan, right? Understand your competitive landscape, and you’ll better understand all the factors that go into creating a successful marketing plan (which we’ll cover in a little bit). In this article, you'll discover: - What a SWOT analysis is in marketing. - How to do a SWOT analysis marketing plan (quickfire guide). - Why SWOT is useful in marketing. - How to use SWOT analysis to create a marketing plan. - An example of a SWOT analysis marketing plan. ## What is a SWOT analysis in marketing? 🤝 SWOT is super simple. We go into [SWOT analysis’ four elements](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/) in depth elsewhere, but here’s the abridged version: SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It’s a framework that helps you evaluate the internal and external factors affecting your business that can influence your marketing performance and potential for success. Let’s break those factors down. - **Strengths** are the things that give you an edge over your competitors. That means your brand’s unique value proposition, your brand reputation, the loyalty of your customers, or your innovative products. - **Weaknesses** are the things that put you at a competitive disadvantage. Limited resources, high costs, low market share, or poor customer service, are all examples of weaknesses that might be afflicting your business. - **Opportunities** are the things that can create new possibilities for your marketing success. That could mean new technologies, new markets, new trends, or new regulations. - **Threats** are whatever can pose a risk or challenge to your marketing success. Economic downturns, competitive pressures, changing customer preferences, or legal issues are all good examples. ## How to do a SWOT analysis in 4 steps This won’t take long. As we said, SWOT is super simple. To do a SWOT analysis, you follow these four steps: 1. **Identify your strengths.** First, list out all the aspects of marketing your business excels in. What resources do you have available? What are the unique benefits of your products or services? If you’re unsure, testimonials and positive reviews from customers can help you enumerate your strengths. 2\. **Identify your weaknesses.** Next, list all the aspects of marketing you need to work on as a business. What resources do you lack? What are the common criticisms that you get from customers? Are there any areas where your competitors have an advantage over you? 3\. **Identify market opportunities.** Are there emerging technologies, untapped markets, changing customer needs or behaviors, or favorable regulations that could create new opportunities for your business and its products or services? List these out too. 4\. **Identify threats.** Finally, are there any factors that can create challenges or risks when it comes to your continued marketing success? Simple examples include economic crises, increased competition, shifting customer demands or expectations, or unfavorable regulations. You can use various sources of information to help you collect factors for each bucket. **Sources include:** - Your own data and analytics. - Field intelligence and CRM data. - Employee interviews. - Customer feedback and surveys. - Competitor analysis and research. - Market trends and industry reports. - Industry news and updates. How you go about collecting the information is up to you, but there are some standard approaches to gathering and organizing this information. ### SWOT matrix The SWOT matrix is a simple table, in a 2 x 2 grid, that shows the four categories of SWOT analysis. It really doesn’t get any more simple than this, but a SWOT matrix can help you visualize the relevant facets of your business according to the SWOT framework. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/Untitled-drawing--2-.png) ## SWOT analysis taskforce and focus groups When it comes to collecting the information to help with your marketing plan, it can be helpful to assemble a marketing plan taskforce. Just as when you kick off any other project, it’s important to involve relevant stakeholders early. Put together a taskforce for the SWOT analysis, and hold one or more focus group sessions. You’ll give those with a stake in the success of your marketing plan a chance to offer their opinions on which factors should sit in each sector of the SWOT. Different teams are also likely to be more familiar with, or have privileged access to, certain kinds of data or information. Your sales and customer service reps, for example, will be the most up-to-date with feedback (positive and negative) about your products. Put together a SWOT taskforce, and you’ll ensure you get the fullest possible perspective on the current state of your business and its marketing efforts, and what you can do to construct the strongest possible marketing plan. 🤝 ****Summary**• Identify factors for each component of the SWOT.• Organize and visualize these factors in a 2 x 2 SWOT matrix.• Involve stakeholders early with a SWOT analysis taskforce. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_Blog_-4.png) #### State of SWOT Report ****Download your copy** to learn... - The five top ****challenges** you face performing SWOT, and how to solve them. - The best ways to measure ****success or failure** post-SWOT. - Whether SWOT is ****falling out of favor** in modern businesses. - The best ****alternative frameworks** and how they compare with SWOT. - The ****future of SWOT** analysis. [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ## Why a SWOT analysis is useful in marketing A SWOT analysis is useful in marketing because it helps you: - Understand where you stand and how you perform in relation to your market and your competitors. - Discover the gaps and areas for improvement in your marketing strategy. - Discover new possibilities and potential markets for growth and expansion. - Anticipate and prepare for possible challenges and risks that can affect your marketing outcomes. - Set realistic and achievable goals and objectives for your marketing plan. - Develop effective and efficient actions and tactics to achieve your marketing goals. But these are just some of the reasons SWOT analysis can be useful in marketing. SWOT is a versatile tool. It’s earned its place in just about every business school textbook, and it’s possible to find variations of the framework going back more than half a century. In our [2023 State of SWOT Report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-swot-report-2023/), we asked the strategy professionals amongst our members what they thought SWOT had going for it to keep it around for so long. Here were the top responses: “When you’ve got emerging competitors, or ankle biters as we call them, we’ll produce a SWOT analysis for them to demonstrate why we’re saying they’re important or not important.” **\~Nishant John, Competitive Intelligence Consultant** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/nishant.jpg) "In the early stages, SWOT is a really powerful tool. When I’m looking at a new competitor, and I’m thinking, “Ok, is this a competitor I want to build a battle card or quick dismiss for?” I’ll do a SWOT analysis." **\~Pat Wall, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Imperva** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/pat.jpeg) "SWOT is a great tool to paint that picture of how we’re positioned, not against each competitor, but overall in a market segment or, with a specific product.” **\~Fouad Benyoub, Director of Competitive Strategy, Databricks** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/fouad.jpg) ## How to create a marketing plan using SWOT analysis To know exactly how our findings from our SWOT analysis are going to help us put together a marketing plan, it’ll help to define exactly what we’re looking to create. Here we’ll define what a marketing plan means to us, but it’s important you do this for yourself and agree the definition with relevant stakeholders so you know exactly what you’re working towards. ### Defining your marketing plan: A marketing plan is a document that describes your marketing strategy and tactics for a specific period of time. It includes information such as: - Your target market and customer segments. - Your value proposition and positioning statement. - Your marketing goals and objectives. - Your marketing budget and resources. - Your marketing channels and platforms. - Your marketing activities and campaigns. - Your marketing metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). ### Creating the marketing plan step-by-step When you know what your final marketing plan should look like, and what it should include, you can get started on creating your marketing plan using your findings from the SWOT analysis. **Here's the method:** 1. Analyze your SWOT results and prioritize the most relevant factors for each category. 🎖️ 2. Match your strengths with opportunities to create strategies that capitalize on your competitive advantages. 💪 3. Match your weaknesses with threats to create strategies that reduce or eliminate your vulnerabilities. 🗄️ 4. Match your strengths with threats to create strategies that maintain or protect your market position. 🤝 5. Match your weaknesses with opportunities to create strategies that develop or enhance your market potential. 📈 6. Write down the specific actions and tactics that you will implement for each strategy. 🗓️ 7. Assign responsibilities, timelines, budgets, and resources for each action and tactic. ⏳ 8. Define the metrics and indicators that you will use to measure and evaluate the results of each action and tactic. 📏 ### Breaking down the steps There are certain tactics, like matching and converting, contained within the above steps it might be useful to break down. We discuss them more in detail on our post dedicated to [SWOT analysis for strategic planning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/#how-to-perform-a-swot-analysis-for-solid-strategic-planning), which you might also find interesting. ## Example marketing plan using SWOT analysis Let’s round off with an example to illustrate how to use a SWOT analysis to create a marketing plan. We’ll use an example of a fictional company called No Bake Cakes, which sells gluten-free and vegan bakery products online. No Bake Cakes did a SWOT analysis and got the following results: ### Strengths: - • Healthy and delicious ingredients. - • High customer loyalty and referrals. - • Creative and appealing designs. - • Recyclable and compostable packaging. ### Weaknesses: - • High prices compared to competitors. - • Limited product range and variety. - • Low online presence and traffic. - • Dependence on third-party suppliers and shippers. ### Opportunities: - • Growing demand for gluten-free and vegan products. - • Increasing health and wellness awareness. - • Diversification to new markets and segments. - • Collaboration with bloggers and influencers. ### Threats: - • Strong competition from established and new entrants. - • Price sensitivity and instability of raw materials. - • Regulatory changes and compliance requirements. - • Cybersecurity and data privacy risks. ### The marketing plan: Based on these results, No Bake Cakes created the following marketing plan using SWOT analysis: | Strategy | Action | Responsibility | Timeline | Budget | Resource | Metric | | ---------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------- | -------- | ------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------- | | Capitalize on strengths & opportunities | Launch a new product line of sugar-free and low-carb bakery products | Product manager | Q1 2024 | $70,000 | R&D team, suppliers, packaging designers | Sales, revenue, market share | | Capitalize on strengths & opportunities | Create a referral program that rewards customers for inviting their friends to buy from No Bake Cakes | Marketing manager | Q2 2024 | $20,000 | Web developers, customer service agents | Referrals, conversions, retention | | Capitalize on strengths & opportunities | Partner with bloggers and influencers who share No Bake Cakes's values and mission | PR manager | Q3 2024 | $40,000 | Blogger agencies, social media managers | Reach, engagement, brand awareness | | Reduce or eliminate weaknesses & threats | Lower prices by sourcing raw materials from local and organic suppliers | Operations manager | Q4 2024 | $30,000 | Procurement team, logistics team, quality control team | Cost, margin, customer satisfaction | | Reduce or eliminate weaknesses & threats | Increase online presence and traffic by investing in SEO and PPC campaigns | Digital marketing manager | Q1 2025 | $50,000 | SEO agency, PPC agency, content writers | Traffic, ranking, clicks | | Reduce or eliminate weaknesses & threats | Improve cybersecurity and data privacy by following best practices and standards | IT manager | Q2 2025 | $25,000 | IT team, security consultants, legal advisors | Compliance, security, trust | | Maintain or protect market position | Maintain healthy and delicious ingredients by conducting regular audits and tests | Quality manager | Q3 2025 | $15,000 | Quality team, lab technicians, certification bodies | Quality, safety, certification | | Maintain or protect market position | Maintain high customer loyalty and referrals by engaging with customers on social media and email newsletters | Marketing manager | Q4 2025 | TBD | Marketing team, content creators, community managers | Engagement, loyalty, referrals | --- ## Download the State of SWOT Report We had far more questions about SWOT analysis for our survey-takers. 🎯 Which **SWOT applications** offer the best ROI? 👍 How do you measure the **success or failure** of a SWOT analysis? 🔮 What does the future hold for SWOT analysis? And how do you overcome its **inherent challenges**? Want to dig deeper into the reasons why modern attitudes towards SWOT are the way they are? Want to read the real comments and opinions of practitioners to learn how to improve your own application of strategic frameworks in your business? Grab **your no-cost copy** of the report today and upgrade your competitive intelligence toolkit. 🧰 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ### Competitive intelligence salary report 2023 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-salary-report-2023-blog/ Last updated: 2024-07-18T14:49:09.000Z An industry report on global competitive intelligence salaries, examining correlations and discrepancies between pay and factors like gender, seniority, and certifications: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/09/CIA_Salary_Survey_Report_2023_Mockup_.png) Compensation unmasked. **Stop wondering if your earnings are in line with your workload. Find out exactly how much people like you are paid.** This report – packed with primary research, data, and insights from competitive intelligence pros worldwide, lifts the veil on compensation in CI. Download yours now and negotiate your next raise from a position of strength. 💰 Download the report --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/09/CIA_Salary_Survey_Report_2023_Website_Assets_2.png) Competitive intelligence salary report 2023 🤔 Are you being **under-compensated** for your work? 💰 Are other competitive intelligence professionals **earning more than you** in other cities, states, or countries? 🚚 Could you **boost your earnings** just by moving to do CI at a bigger company? Or in a different industry? **We’ve got the answers.** We're proud to present the 2023 Competitive Intelligence Salary Report. A digital doc with all the answers you need to: - Negotiate your next pay rise. - Ensure you’re properly compensated for your hard work. - Keep your pay in line with the weight of your responsibilities. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/09/CIA_Salary_Survey_Report_2023_Website_Assets_.png) Want answers to these questions? 💸 Which industries pay their CI pros eye-watering sums? And which are stingy?💡 How much more can you expect to get paid when you’re promoted to senior?❓ How much can you expect to earn with five years of CI experience?🏳️‍🌈 Are gender, race, or disability correlated with higher or lower pay in CI? Give me my copy --- ## Grab your no-cost copy 👇 ### How to do a SWOT analysis of a product: A comprehensive guide for strategy professionals URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/ Last updated: 2025-04-02T09:33:29.000Z 🌞 The door slams shut behind you. You turn the key. Alone, you cinch your laces tighter. A short, sharp breath later, and you’re ready. You start to run. The sun stalks across the sky, a bright blister in the unending blue. Already, you’re in the zone. Earbuds in, the song of the summer dances in your ears. You smile. You pick up the pace. It’s the hottest day of the year, and soon you’re bathed in sweat. It runs down your face, cooling you even as it pools in your ears.****Wait.**The music buzzes. You rip out your phone and glance at it. Nothing wrong there. The headphones? Pulling them out of your ears, they’re soaked in sweat. Wipe. Replace. No dice. **Every day,** some variation of the above scenario plays out. All kinds of products, hastily chosen, and ill-suited to the needs of a given customer, fail to deliver. Scenarios like this, driven by mismatched product positioning, or a hardware failure, or a missing feature, can constitute opportunities or threats, depending which side of the battle you’re on. Figuring out the probabilities of success for your own product lines, and how to improve those probabilities, comes down to being clear on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats surrounding a given product. **Want to discover how to do a SWOT analysis of a product? If so, this article is for you.** We’ll teach you *everything* you need to know about conducting SWOT analysis on your products. We’ll explain: - What a SWOT analysis is. - How to perform a SWOT analysis on one of your products. - Why SWOT analysis is important for strategy professionals. - An example of a product SWOT analysis. We’ll even throw in some tips and best practices along the way. ## What is a SWOT analysis of a product? Product [SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/) that helps you evaluate the internal and external factors affecting the success of a product. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. - **Strengths** are the positive attributes of your product that give it an advantage over others. These strengths are the reasons why customers pick your product [over those of your competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/). - **Weaknesses** are the negative aspects of your product that limit its effectiveness or appeal. These are the reasons why customers might dislike your product or choose to switch to an alternative. - **Opportunities** are the external factors that create favorable conditions for your product’s growth or success. Take advantage of them to increase your product’s value or market share. - **Threats** are the external factors that pose challenges or risks for your product’s survival or profitability. Overcome these risks, or mitigate them, to maintain your product’s position or performance. | Strengths | Weaknesses | Opportunities | Threats | | ---------- | ---------- | ------------- | -------- | | Strength 1 | Weakness 1 | Opportunity 1 | Threat 1 | | Strength 2 | Weakness 2 | Opportunity 2 | Threat 2 | | Strength 3 | Weakness 3 | Opportunity 3 | Threat 3 | ## How do you perform SWOT analysis on a product? ### Here is a SWOT matrix example: Before you get started, you might be wondering how you’re supposed to organize your findings. You can use a SWOT matrix to organize and visualize each factor in a table format. Here’s a sample SWOT analysis template to show you how that might look: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/09/Untitled-drawing--2-.jpg) Right, let’s get to it. To perform a SWOT analysis on one of your products, follow these five simple steps: ### 1\. Define your product and its objectives. **First**, you need to get clear on what your product is, and the problems it aims to solve for your customers. Don’t just focus on features. What are its benefits to members of your target market? Who makes up that target market? Without getting very clear on these fundamentals, it’ll be impossible to continue with the SWOT analysis. So take the time here to establish the goalposts. What would success look like for this product? With that done, you’ll be able to recognize factors supporting (or standing in the way of) that success. ### 2\. Identify your product’s strengths **Next**, you’ll start working your way through each component of the SWOT acronym. As we’ll discuss, you don’t have to start with the strengths. At least not every time. But it’s a sensible starting point nonetheless. To identify your strengths, ask what makes your product unique or superior. First of all, what’s your product’s unique selling proposition (USP)? What are its competitive advantages? Customer feedback and field intelligence are invaluable sources of intelligence at this stage. They offer you a more objective view of what your product does well than you’ll be able to get from talking to your colleagues inside the business. 💡 Unlock expert templates, frameworks, and insider content from industry giants like Google and Amazon, right at your fingertips. [Become an Insider member today. ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/) ### 3\. Identify your product’s weaknesses **Next**, of course, you’ll want to think about weaknesses. What are the drawbacks or limitations of your product? What are its competitive disadvantages? Win/loss data is great here. Start by speaking to your sales and customer service reps. They’re on the front lines speaking to customers every day, so should have some idea of the common reasons people leave. Consider speaking to recently churned customers yourself, too, to uncover the reasons why they were tempted away. If it comes down to a missing feature, or a user experience issues, you’re likely to find out. 💬 ****Top tip:** consider outsourcing this work to a third party. Customers are often more candid with third parties than they would be speaking to the product’s manufacturer. When they’re not afraid they’ll hurt feelings, they’ll give more honest (and useful) feedback. Not got any win/loss data to work with? Look to your negative reviews. While it’s difficult, try to appraise these reviews honestly. If you can, put yourself in the shoes of the customer. Even if they’re a rarity, do bad experiences happen enough to hurt your brand’s reputation? What could you do about this? This data-driven approach helps keep you objective and focused on the needs of your customers. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_Blog_-4.png) #### State of SWOT Report ****Download your copy** to learn... - The five top ****challenges** you face performing SWOT, and how to solve them. - The best ways to measure ****success or failure** post-SWOT. - Whether SWOT is ****falling out of favor** in modern businesses. - The best ****alternative frameworks** and how they compare with SWOT. - The ****future of SWOT** analysis. [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ### 4\. Identify market opportunities for your product **Next**, you’ll turn to the opportunities in the market that offer your product lines a chance to shine. Look for emerging trends, developments, and changes. Here are some example questions to ask to get yourself started: - Have any gaps opened up in the market recently? - Are there any unmet customer needs you’re well-placed to meet with a bit of work? - Are there any new customer segments or niches in the customer pool your product or service could target? Opportunities can present themselves for all sorts of reasons, so it pays to perform regular market research to stay on top of the latest developments. --- [5 SWOT Analysis Benefits (and 4 Limitations)The SWOT analysis framework has its benefits, but it also has its fair share of detractors and limitations. Here they are according to our experts.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/08/carlos-alberto-gomez-iniguez-jqiAU_JQGyk-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/) --- ### 5\. Identify threats to your product’s success **Finally**, take a look at the threats or challenges your product faces. As external factors (and as we’ll suggest in a little bit), enumerating threats lends itself well to the use of another strategic framework. A Porter’s Five Forces analysis would serve you particularly well. Generally, you’ll want to ask yourself about competitors, or alternative or substitute products that could undermine the perceived value of your own. You’ll also look at things like new laws or regulations, or other barriers that hinder your product. **Porter’s Five Forces** encapsulate such concerns, the five forces being: 1. Threat of industry competition. 2. Threat of new entrants. 3. Power of suppliers. 4. Power of customers. 5. Threat of substitute products. But you don’t have to use another formal framework. Simple methods, like brainstorming, surveys, interviews, and focus groups within the business, but also with your customers or other groups, can help you identify these factors. ### 6\. Look for relationships You might be done collecting factors for each component of the SWOT, but the work's not done yet. It's time to look for relationships between the factors. This step is key. Simply listing out factors doesn’t achieve much. Instead, look for ways to exploit market opportunities with your product’s existing strengths. What threats in the marketplace might you nullify if you were to eliminate one or more of your product’s weaknesses with some strategic investment? Teasing out such relationships is how you move from performing SWOT analysis as a mere intellectual exercise, to something that can help you construct a meaningful strategic plan for your product. ### 7\. Look for alternative perspectives SWOT analysis is a helpful tool, but it’s not perfect. It’s easy to develop blind spots, or lean too heavily on existing biases, while you’re performing it. For these reasons, once you’re done with your SWOT analysis, actively look for other perspectives. Where might you be wrong? What might you have missed? A simple, easy way to get started is to do a TOWS analysis. This is exactly the same as a SWOT analysis, but you’ll start with threats and work backwards towards your strengths. Beginning with the external factors of the analysis, rather than the internal strengths and weaknesses, can help you uncover relationships between factors you might have missed the first time around. Other frameworks you can use for even more perspective include: - VRIO analysis. - Porter’s five forces analysis. - PESTLE analysis. ## Example SWOT analysis of a product To illustrate how to do a SWOT analysis of a product, let’s use an example of an online course as our product. Our online course is called “How to Write Engaging Content for Your Website”. It’s a self-paced course that teaches people how to write content that attracts and converts visitors into customers. Here is an example SWOT analysis for our online course product: | Strengths | Weaknesses | | ------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------- | | High-quality and practical content | High price and limited access | | Experienced and qualified instructors | Low interaction and feedback | | Flexible and convenient format | Technical and compatibility issues | | Opportunities | Threats | | ------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | | Growing demand for online learning | High competition from other online courses | | Increasing importance of content marketing | Changing trends and standards in content writing | | Potential partnerships with other websites or platforms | Piracy or plagiarism of course content | ## Why is SWOT analysis of products important for strategy professionals? SWOT analysis of products is important for strategy professionals because it helps them: 🤝 • Understand their product’s competitive position and performance in the market.• Identify their product’s strengths and weaknesses and how to leverage or improve them.• Discover the external opportunities and threats for their product, and how to exploit or avoid them.• Develop a product strategy, and other action plans based on the results of their product SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis helps strategy professionals answer questions like: 🤔 • What are the best things about your product?• What are the worst things about your product?• What are the best things that could happen to your product?• What are the worst things that could happen to your product?• How can you make your product better, bigger, or more profitable?• How can you beat your competitors, win new customers, or enter new markets? ## Is a SWOT analysis for a business or for a product? A SWOT analysis can be done for either a business, or a product. (In fact, you can even [apply SWOT analysis to your projects](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-in-project-management/), or to yourself as an individual.) However, there are some differences between how you’d implement the analysis. ### Differences between SWOT analysis for a business and a product **A SWOT analysis for a business** focuses on the overall organization and its goals, vision, mission, values, culture, resources, capabilities, and processes. **A SWOT analysis for a product** focuses on a specific product offering, and looks at its features, benefits, customers, competitors, and market. So why, and when, might you choose a SWOT analysis of a product as opposed to a SWOT analysis of your business? ### When to choose SWOT for a business vs. for a product **A SWOT analysis for a business** can help you evaluate your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in relation to its environment and stakeholders. If you’re looking to put together a strategic plan for the future of your business as a whole, you’ll want to perform a SWOT analysis on the business itself. **A SWOT analysis for a product** can help you evaluate your offering’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in relation to its market and customers. When you’re looking to strengthen the competitive advantage of a particular product, you’ll want to perform a SWOT analysis on that product itself. ## TL;DR There you have it. That wraps all you need to know about conducting a SWOT analysis of a product. Here’s a quick summary of what we’ve learned: Follow these steps to perform a SWOT analysis on a product: 1. Define what success looks like for your product. 2. Identify your product’s strengths. 3. Identify your product’s weaknesses. 4. Identify your product’s opportunities. 5. Identify your product’s threats. - Don’t forget to actively seek new perspectives, and to tease out relationships between factors. - Organize and visualize your factors in a table format using a SWOT matrix. - Use this information to create a strategic plan for improving your product’s success in your competitive environment. --- ## Download the State of SWOT Report We had far more questions about SWOT analysis for our survey-takers. 🎯 Which **SWOT applications** offer the best ROI? 👍 How do you measure the **success or failure** of a SWOT analysis? 🔮 What does the future hold for SWOT analysis? And how do you overcome its **inherent challenges**? Want to dig deeper into the reasons why modern attitudes towards SWOT are the way they are? Want to read the real comments and opinions of practitioners to learn how to improve your own application of strategic frameworks in your business? Grab **your no-cost copy** of the report today and upgrade your competitive intelligence toolkit. 🧰 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ### 9 practical tips to master SWOT analysis for strategic planning [with example] URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/ Last updated: 2024-07-22T15:09:56.000Z Fail to plan, plan to fail. 😤 Words we’ve all heard, but how often do we wing it as strategy professionals when we know we should have a concrete plan? It doesn’t need to take weeks to build out a solid strategic plan for your leadership team. SWOT analysis is a simple, familiar tool you can use today to: - Grab a quick, comprehensive overview of your competitive landscape. - Get up to speed quickly with new and emerging competitors. - Figure out the factors impacting the future of your business. - Identify where to invest time and resources to maximize your ability to reach your org’s targets and goals. In this article, we discuss how to build a solid strategic plan using SWOT analysis. Here’s what we cover: - [What is SWOT analysis in strategic planning?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/#what-is-swot-analysis-in-strategic-planning) - [Why is SWOT analysis important when building a business strategy?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/#why-is-swot-analysis-important-in-strategic-planning) - [What are the benefits of SWOT analysis for strategy planning?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/#what-are-the-benefits-of-swot-analysis-for-your-business-plans) - [How to perform a SWOT analysis to build a strategy.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/#how-to-perform-a-swot-analysis-for-solid-strategic-planning) - [Example of using SWOT to plan and strategize.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/#swot-analysis-strategic-planning-examples) - [9 practical tips for SWOT.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-strategic-planning/#9-practical-tips-for-conducting-a-swot-analysis-on-your-business) Let’s go. 🏃‍♂️ ## What is SWOT analysis in strategic planning? 💬 SWOT analysis in strategic planning is the practice of applying the SWOT framework of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, to a business or product to critically evaluate where it sits in the competitive landscape. You’ll use that information to construct a strategic plan to improve your competitiveness over time. Let’s break that down a bit. First, the SWOT analysis framework itself. We’ve explained what SWOT analysis is a number of times. Nothing too difficult to get a handle on here. SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A pair of internal factors (strengths and weaknesses), and a pair of external factors (opportunities and threats). (Explore [the four elements of SWOT analysis in detail](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/).) Second, SWOT specifically applied to strategic planning. While you can apply the SWOT framework to almost anything (including yourself, or your projects), you’ll most often perform a SWOT analysis on your business, or on one of your products. You’ll do this to figure out a strategy for improving performance. ## Why is SWOT analysis important in strategic planning? 💬 SWOT analysis is important in strategic planning because it quickly grants you a high-level overview of your own business (or product) and the competitive landscape in which it exists. This is key, because any good strategic plan will give details on: 1. Where you are now. 2. Where you want to be. 3. How you’ll get there. A SWOT analysis helps you answer these questions. **First, where you are now.** SWOT analysis helps you figure this out by calling you to examine your own strengths and weaknesses as they are right now. Some things you’ll do well. Others less so. You’ll also take stock of opportunities and threats. These two external factors force you to look outside of yourself at the wider market. New market trends might present opportunities for new business. Competitor developments might constitute threats. **The second question, where you want to be,** comes down to your own ambitions as a business. But the **third, how you’ll get there,** you’ll be able to answer in light of what you’ve learned from your understanding of where you are now. If you want to expand your market share by 30% in the next three to five years, you might need to eliminate some existing weaknesses and take action to defend against certain threats. You’ll want to make the most of your strengths and build on them as you move to take advantage of opportunities in the market. In other words, by answering the three questions outlined above, of where you are now, where you want to be, and how you’ll get there, you’ve actually already begun creating your strategic plan. And you use the knowledge gained from an initial SWOT analysis to do that. ## What are the benefits of SWOT analysis for your business plans? Ok, so why the big fuss? Surely you can do all this without a SWOT analysis? While you might be able to avoid doing a SWOT analysis in the formal sense, no matter which approach you use, you’ll end up having to consider some variation on the old SWOT theme. There’s no avoiding it. You need to understand the market, and the factors within it that can help or hurt you. That includes your competitors. In fact, conducting a competitor SWOT analysis on your primary competitors is often a good call. You also need an objective understanding of what your business, and its products, does well and poorly. Without such an understanding, you won’t know what needs promoting versus what needs improving. [SWOT analysis has a number of key benefits](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/), but here are some specific to strategy building: • Gives a more comprehensive understanding of the competitive landscape. • Helps you avoid strategic blind spots. • Makes sell cycle issues more visible. • Informs [brand positioning strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-strategy-examples/). • Can bring you up to speed with markets and competitors quickly. • It’s diverse, and can be applied to strategic plans for go-to-market, marketing, or broader business strategies. ## How to perform a SWOT analysis for solid strategic planning 💬 When strategy building for your business, its products, or for yourself on a personal level, start by considering all possible internal and external forces. ### Step one: Identify internal and external factors Internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) are within your direct control. External factors (opportunities and threats) are beyond your control and will come and go, but you can control your responses to them. The classic 2x2 SWOT matrix is a good tool to use here. It’ll help you bucket each factor according to it’s role as something inside or outside your scope of control, as well as whether it’s something positive or negative. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/08/Untitled-drawing--2--2.png) ### Step two: Prioritize identified factors If you’re a competitive intelligence professional, you’ll already be familiar with the fact there are too many competitors out there for you to possibly keep close tabs on them all. That’s why you prioritize your competitors, tiering them according to the business value of winning against each one. It’s the same with SWOT. When you do a thorough job, you’ll start uncovering all kinds of factors affecting the trajectory of your business. If you want to figure out how exactly to move forward, you’ll have to prioritize the most important factors. To prioritize effectively, reacquaint yourself with your company vision. Where do your leaders want to be in a year, or three, or five? What are your business’ OKRs (objectives and key results?) Some of the factors you’ve uncovered will lend themselves more strongly to helping your business achieve these goals. These are the ones you should prioritize. Again, if you want to increase your market share by 30%, but your product line has a pressing weakness, it’d make sense to fix that weakness as a priority. Especially if, for example, market research shows this feature is of increasing importance to customers, or you suspect some recently churned accounts left because of this weakness. ### Step three: Putting it all together SWOT analysis can encourage you to look at each factor in isolation. You separate threats from weaknesses, and strengths from opportunities. But, when it comes to strategic planning, you need to consider the relationships between positive and negative factors, as well as internal and external factors, to arrive at the strongest business strategy possible. For that reason, it always pays to spend quality time thinking through how each factor relates to and feeds into every other factor. This is time-consuming, but it’s perhaps the most enlightening part of the entire process. Consider our earlier example. Your product line has a pressing weakness, and that weakness is found in a feature that’s more and more important to customers. The fact that customers value something you don’t do well is a potential threat. If you address your product line’s weakness, though, you can potentially mitigate this threat quickly. ### The end goal So what’s the end goal of all this? What are you trying to do? According to respondents from our [2023 State of SWOT Survey](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-swot-report-2023/), there’s not really one single most important metric to use when measuring SWOT’s success. Instead, it’s about identifying whether you’ve managed to successfully convert the findings from your SWOT analysis into a set of recommendations that are then followed up on and actioned. That’s the end goal of a SWOT analysis. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_Blog_-4.png) #### State of SWOT Report ****Download your copy** to learn... - The five top ****challenges** you face performing SWOT, and how to solve them. - The best ways to measure ****success or failure** post-SWOT. - Whether SWOT is ****falling out of favor** in modern businesses. - The best ****alternative frameworks** and how they compare with SWOT. - The ****future of SWOT** analysis. [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ## SWOT analysis strategic planning examples Here’s an example of how to build a strategic plan via SWOT analysis. Let’s say you work for a business that manufactures security cameras. You want to figure out a vision for the company’s future, so you perform a SWOT analysis. **Strengths:** - Reliable hardware with the lowest failure rate in the industry. - Excellent picture quality. - Loyal customer base. **Weaknesses:** - Slow growth in recent years. - No longer an innovator. **Opportunities:** - The customer experience is difficult and unintuitive across the industry. If you can fix this, you may win market share. - Your size and available capital puts you in a position to acquire smaller firms going through tough times in the present recession. **Threats:** - Lack of innovation puts you at risk of disruption from competitors or alternatives. ### The strategic plan At present, very few manufacturers have figured out how to develop camera management and recording software that rivals third party developers. As a result, customers have to source the hardware and the software separately. You believe there’s an opportunity in the market for a provider who can figure out both, improving the buyer experience while giving you the opportunity to bundle multiple products together. You don’t have the in-house expertise to do this from scratch yourself, but a small software business, failing due to lack of outside investment, has just become available for purchase. Your size and available capital puts you in a position to acquire them, shortening the time to market for a software solution while adopting their in-house expertise for yourself. ****If you were to make this move, you could:** • Position yourself as an innovator again by succeeding where so many others have failed. • Offer a key additional USP other competitors may struggle to match, fixing your biggest present threat. • Eliminate your biggest existing weaknesses. • Take advantage of your strengths as a trusted brand with a trusted product to branch out into a new line of camera management software. • License or white label your software to competitors for even greater profit potential. The above business strategy takes advantage of two approaches to SWOT analysis called **matching and converting**. Matching has you match opportunities with strengths, and threats with weaknesses, to identify a competitive advantage (or competitive disadvantage). Converting has you brainstorm ways of turning threats into opportunities, and weaknesses into strengths. ## 9 practical tips for conducting a SWOT analysis on your business When we surveyed our community for their opinions on SWOT analysis for the [2023 State of SWOT Report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-swot-report-2023/), we found that people consider one of SWOT’s biggest limitations to be its vulnerability to blind spots. So when it comes to performing a SWOT analysis for strategic planning in practice, it’s important to guard against SWOT’s limitations while getting the most out of its strengths. If you're [facilitating a strategic planning session](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-facilitate-a-strategic-planning-session/) that includes a SWOT analysis, it becomes even more crucial to be aware of these limitations. 💬 ****Here are nine practical tips** for getting the most out of your SWOT analyses: ****1.** Perform SWOT analysis at least semi-frequently to be sure you’re not losing touch with your competitive environment. 44.5% of all respondents to the 2023 State of SWOT survey had performed at least one SWOT within two months of taking the survey. ****2\.** SWOT is especially useful for understanding how you’re positioned against your competitors. Doing some competitive positioning? Incorporate a SWOT analysis. ****3\.** Don’t just perform a SWOT analysis on your own business. Conduct a SWOT on your primary competitors for an even more comprehensive overview of the competitive landscape. ****4.** SWOT is a very recognizable framework. So use it not just to make sense of findings yourself, but also to communicate those findings to others. ****5.** SWOT can be a time-consuming exercise. Make the results go further by [converting your SWOT findings into enablement assets like battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-swot-analysis-to-build-your-battlecards/). ****6.** Don’t take this all on yourself. Involve others from around the business, but don’t be surprised if your findings differ depending on which groups (leadership, middle management, etc) you involve. ****7.** SWOT shouldn’t be an empty intellectual exercise. The whole point is to create a set of recommendations that are then actioned. To measure how successful your SWOT analysis has been, measure how thoroughly its recommendations are actioned. ****8.** It’s simple, but inverting the acronym order and conducting a “TOWS analysis” where you focus on external forces first can give you a fresh perspective. ****9.** SWOT is a diverse tool, and can be applied to almost anything. [Apply SWOT analysis to your products](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/), to yourself, even to your projects. For even more practical tips, check out this [guide to SWOT analysis for project management.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-in-project-management/#5-practical-tips-for-performing-a-swot-analysis-in-project-management) > “The great thing about SWOT is that everybody knows it. It’s very big in business and MBA courses. And so I think it’s a really great, really powerful tool, as this is something many people in the organization know about. It’s also very visual. Very quickly, you can communicate a holistic view of a company or competitor.” \~ Pat Wall, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Imperva One final piece of advice: even once you've built an informed strategic plan with SWOT analysis, it still makes sense to pressure test that plan against various scenarios. [Business wargaming](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/business-wargaming/) can help you here, as you bring together reps from across the business to role play scenarios that can uncover weaknesses in your strategy. --- ## Download the State of SWOT Report We had far more questions about SWOT analysis for our survey-takers. 🎯 Which **SWOT applications** offer the best ROI? 👍 How do you measure the **success or failure** of a SWOT analysis? 🔮 What does the future hold for SWOT analysis? And how do you overcome its **inherent challenges**? Want to dig deeper into the reasons why modern attitudes towards SWOT are the way they are? Want to read the real comments and opinions of practitioners to learn how to improve your own application of strategic frameworks in your business? Grab **your no-cost copy** of the report today and upgrade your competitive intelligence toolkit. 🧰 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ### How this solo CI practitioner succeeds in an organization of thousands | Jayde Phillips URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-012-jayde-phillips/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:52:40.000Z Jayde Phillips is Senior Strategy and Market Intelligence Manager at Egencia, part of American Express Global Business Travel. With eight solid years of experience in product marketing, CI and strategy behind her, Jayde is well-placed to lead the competitive intelligence function as a solo practitioner in a business with a headcount in the thousands. Jayde joins us on the show to chat insights, past wins, and best practices. [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast: How a solo CI practitioner succeeds in an organization of thousands | Jayde Phillips on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Compete Clarity Podcast, Ep How a solo CI practitioner succeeds in an organization of thousands | Jayde Phillips - Aug 23, 2023![](https://t2.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-a-solo-ci-practitioner-succeeds-in-an/id1678079061?i=1000625375551&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/9d/0c/36/9d0c3698-c69a-ff19-f51f-f7371cd41832/mza_2588363255601066954.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-a-solo-ci-practitioner-succeeds-in-an/id1678079061?i=1000625375551) ## Key talking points: - The practical differences between competitive and market intelligence. - The easy, quick way to identify your top three threats amongst your primary competitors. - How to use a win/loss initiative to drive win rates higher, and how Jayde implements this herself. --- ## **Want to be a guest on the podcast?** We're looking for guests! If you consider yourself (or anyone you know does!) something of a thought leader in competitive intelligence, drop us a line at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io. We can't wait to host you! [ Register your interest ](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### A full guide to SWOT analysis in project management URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-in-project-management/ Last updated: 2024-05-28T07:44:10.000Z If you’re one of those folks who hear about SWOT analysis and roll their eyes, you’re not alone. Many think [SWOT analysis might be outdated](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/is-swot-analysis-outdated/) entirely. But the truth is, when you’re assessing the fitness of any project, product, service, business plan, or competitor, you can’t escape following the SWOT analysis framework. Even if you try. Stay tuned, and we’ll discuss: - **What** a SWOT analysis for project management actually is. - **The benefits** of performing a SWOT analysis for your projects. - **How to conduct** a SWOT analysis for your projects. - Whether you can use SWOT to **identify new projects.** - **Tips** for doing your own SWOT analysis. - **Examples** of SWOT analysis. 🤫 Towards the end, we even include a handy SWOT analysis template. ## What is a SWOT analysis in project management? Put simply, SWOT analysis in project management is the application of SWOT analysis, as a method, to your projects. You’ll assess the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats associated with your project. What’s the point? When it comes to managing your projects, a SWOT analysis completed early on will alert you to issues that threaten your project’s success later on. It’ll also give you an overview of the project, and anything you might need to change, before you invest time and resources putting it into action. 🏎️ Need a more detailed rundown of the basics of SWOT analysis? Here are [the four major elements of SWOT analysis you need to know](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/) before going further. Earlier, we mentioned that it’s impossible to avoid doing SWOT analysis when doing comprehensive analysis. Bold statement, right? Just try it. Any detailed, comprehensive analysis of a project’s fitness will include: - A summary of how the project (or product, or competitor’s service, etc.) could be **improved**. (Weaknesses.) - A list of things you’d want to **preserve** about the project (or product, etc.) if it were to undergo any changes. (Strengths.) - An outline of the primary **objectives** for the project, and what you’ll get out of it if you pursue it successfully. (Opportunities.) - An outline of what might **stand in the way** of those project objectives. In other words, things that might derail the project. (Threats.) And just like that, you’ve covered the elements of SWOT. But, although it might be obvious why you'd want to perform a [competitor SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/), why would you want to use a SWOT analysis when it comes to your projects? ## What are the benefits of performing a SWOT analysis? A [SWOT analysis will benefit you](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/) and your projects by: - Exposing **potential difficulties** and other factors that could derail the project, allowing you to control for them ahead of time. - Getting **stakeholders involved** from the start – something CI experts say is crucial for stakeholder buy-in. - Getting everyone clear on the **primary objectives** of the project, while giving others a chance to chip in with their own thoughts. This gives you the best possible iteration of the project. - Giving you a concrete framework through which to **objectively assess** and sense-check each aspect of your project. - Giving you more **confidence in the final plan**. - **Raising awareness** of the project with other teams, alerting them of their future involvement, and what is likely to be required of them. ## How do you conduct a SWOT analysis in project management? To perform a SWOT analysis on one of your projects, the simple SWOT framework itself is all you need to get started. While you could just list all the information beneath four headers, one for each element (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats), the traditional method is to break those elements down into a 2x2 matrix, or grid. Here’s a sample SWOT analysis template: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/08/Untitled-drawing--2--1.png) But you don’t need anything as formal or fancy as a SWOT matrix to get started. You can just list everything that comes up in your discussion below a corresponding title. The above 2x2 grid exposes another element of SWOT analysis, though: internal and external factors. Opportunities and threats tend to factor in from outside the project itself. Strengths and weaknesses, on the other hand, tend to be related to the nature of the project. Change the project itself to change its strengths and weaknesses. External factors, like threats, need to be brought to light and controlled for separately. ## Can a SWOT analysis be used to help identify potential projects? ### Choosing between projects So let’s say you’ve got a list of potential projects. Could you use SWOT analysis to choose which is the best strategic fit for your organization? You certainly could. Running a SWOT analysis on each project will show you: - Which projects you stand most to gain by pursuing. - The projects most at risk of getting derailed by factors you may or may not be able to control for ahead of time. - Which projects are plagued by weaknesses, and which are bolstered by many strengths. ### Improving recurring projects You could also run a SWOT analysis on past projects or marketing campaigns to get a sense of what worked well, and what could be improved going into a new project with similar objectives. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ### Identifying new projects But what if you’re stuck for ideas, or are presented with a less-than-inspiring list of projects you’re not convinced will move the needle? A SWOT analysis could help here, too. In this instance, though, you’d want to run your [SWOT analysis on a particular product](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/) or service you feel could do with some improvements. This will give you specific insights into which products need an update, and what exactly those improvements might look like. With those insights collected, you’ll be well-placed to put together an improvement roadmap for that product. Just remember to run a SWOT analysis on the project itself before rolling it out. ## 5 practical tips for performing a SWOT analysis in project management Think this all sounds a little too theoretical? Here are some practical tips to see you through your next SWOT analysis: 1. **Don’t go it alone.** Any project worth the time you’ll be putting into it will consist of many moving parts. For best results, you’ll need to involve others. Choose representatives from each stakeholder group, and don’t be afraid to make changes to your task force along the way as objectives become clearer. 2. **Meet frequently with your task force.** The success of any project depends on how bought in each member is. If you fail to bring people on board early, they’ll be less enthusiastic about the project when you eventually do call them in. Give people a chance to pitch in while the project is still in its formative stages for best results. 3. **Establish space before reflecting on criticisms.** While facilitating meetings, make it clear that criticism is welcome. Once you have that criticism, it’s often helpful to leave things for a period of time before trying to brainstorm solutions. This removes the sting from any criticism, giving you the clarity of mind to make effective changes. 4. **Don’t ignore weaknesses or threats.** Do your best to control for your own cognitive biases, too. If you’re tempted to dismiss a raised weakness or threat, ask yourself if you’re looking at your own work through rose-tinted glasses. 5. **Keep your people informed.** If you’re touching base with your task force regularly, this should take care of itself. But you’ll need to make an effort to keep folks updated on what has changed and what progress has been made on the project. Encourage them to do the same. This way, everyone will feel the momentum building, and be spurred to push through the inevitable bumps in the road. ## SWOT analysis examples Here’s an example of a simple project SWOT analysis: 🎮 An indie **video game** **company**, which we’ll call Orion Games, wants to decide between three different **methods of launching a new game** to audiences. The company has a **small budget**, but they suspect their newest game will be a hit with those who’ve purchased games they’ve developed in the past. First, they want to determine whether they should repeat the same process they used to launch their previous game, where they paid a hefty fee to distribute via a widely-used digital video game distribution service, which we’ll call DistDigital. ### Strengths - The last game Orion Games launched through DistDigital is the most-downloaded game in the developers’ catalog. - DistDigital makes recommendations to players based on their previous purchases, their play time and ratings for each past purchase. This uses a recommendation algorithm Orion Games wouldn’t have the resources to build on their own. - DistDigital is very well regarded. In many ways, it would be seen as odd if Orion didn’t list their newest game on there. ### Weaknesses - DistDigital’s initial fee is expensive. They’d also take a cut of each purchase through their platform, eating into already slim profit margins for Orion Games. - Orion Games has built a sizeable mailing list and existing audience from past games. It’s possible they’d reach comparable download numbers to previous launches even without DistDigital. ### Opportunities - DistDigital has a huge existing user base. Many new players could discover Orion Digital as a studio, as well as their newest game. - Distribution can be a multi-faceted headache. Distributing via DistDigital would solve all those problems in a single move. This would free up time and resources to invest on other aspects of the launch. - Using DistDigital could form part of a successful long-term strategy that foregoes higher profits on this launch in favor of growing a larger player audience. ### Threats - Distributing via DistDigital could tie the developers into a contract that forbids them from distributing via other channels, limiting profit potential even further. - There’s no guarantee DistDigital will promote the game. Especially if it gets off to a slow start with downloads. - Similar games already on the distribution platform are likely to compete with Orion Games’ latest launch, potentially limiting downloads. If you’ve performed a preliminary SWOT analysis like this, a project’s kickoff meeting is the perfect time to run through it. You’ll get the chance to sound out your teammates for their input. If you’ve missed anything, they’ll let you know, and you’ll still be involving them right from the start of the project. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ### How to work smarter, not harder: DevOps TDM with Clint Sprauve | CI-by-Industry Series 5/5 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/devops-test-data-management-clint-sprauve/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:53:33.000Z Work smarter. Not harder. We've all heard the phrase, but what does this actually involve? Clint Sprauve, Director of Product Marketing at [Delphix](https://www.delphix.com/), might have the answer. In competitive intelligence, where small teams and smaller budgets are the norm, making the most of what you've got, and maximizing the return on every minute invested in a project, or in producing a deliverable, is a must. Clinton Sprauve is Director of Product Marketing at Delphix. A business offering solutions in data governance, including DevOps test data management (TDM), application recovery, and analytics. His is a small team, but Clint's approach is all about making the most of the limited resources he has, and making every minute invested in a project count. Join us for the fifth and final episode in this CI-by-Industry mini-series to learn how Clint does more with less. [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast: How to work smarter, not harder: DevOps TDM with Clint Sprauve | CI-by-Industry Series 5/5 on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Compete Clarity Podcast, Ep How to work smarter, not harder: DevOps TDM with Clint Sprauve | CI-by-Industry Series 5/5 - Aug 9, 2023![](https://t3.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-work-smarter-not-harder-devops-tdm-with-clint/id1678079061?i=1000623910349&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/9d/0c/36/9d0c3698-c69a-ff19-f51f-f7371cd41832/mza_2588363255601066954.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-work-smarter-not-harder-devops-tdm-with-clint/id1678079061?i=1000623910349) ## Key talking points - How to make the most of limited resources as part of a small team. - The special process Clint uses to deliver value to stakeholders FAST. - Why being a perfectionist hurts you more than it helps you in CI. - Why you don’t need a huge budget, or a lot of tools, to do a tremendous job with competitive intelligence. --- ## **Want to be a guest on the podcast?** We're looking for guests! If you consider yourself (or anyone you know does!) something of a thought leader in competitive intelligence, drop us a line at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io. We can't wait to host you! [ Register your interest ](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### Competitive Intelligence Trends 2023 - Take the survey URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-trends-2023-take-the-survey/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:06:36.000Z Preparation for the Competitive Intelligence Trends Report is underway! 🎉 But it wouldn’t be a world-class report without a sprinkling of wisdom from you, the experts! The latest edition of our annual CI deep-dive (shared this year with our sister community, Product Marketing Alliance), will focus on the intricacies of how competitive intelligence and product marketing go hand-in-hand. [**Complete the survey**](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-trends-23) and help us switch our attention to key topics of discussion, including: ❓ Who’s responsible for competitive intelligence 🤔 How competitive intelligence is executed 💰 How much is spent annually on competitive intelligence 🤝 How competitive intelligence is shared across internal teams 💡 Invaluable tips and tools to streamline your approach Plus much more… This report will give you all the information you need to modernize every aspect of your existing programs and understand your market rivals in greater detail.Take a stride towards surpassing your competitors. [ Complete the survey ](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/ci-trends-23) ### Passive vs active marketing: The right approach for your business URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/passive-vs-active-marketing-the-right-approach-for-your-business/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T10:26:59.000Z Everybody wants their marketing to be as effective as possible, and when presented with the notion that all marketing is either passive or active, it’s natural to assume active marketing is best. If only it were that easy. Let’s begin with a simple question: what’s the point of marketing? The accepted wisdom is along the lines of, “To create awareness, attract and retain customers, build a strong brand, differentiate from competitors, and ultimately drive business growth and profitability.” Of course, not all of the above is true for every type of business, but we can simplify the point of marketing to ‘attract new customers’. Attracting new customers sounds simple enough, but it requires marketing to be really effective, which means it has to create a reaction followed by a positive response. And a positive response means prospects are sufficiently affected by what they’ve seen to be compelled to do something about it, like contact you. Do you think only active marketing has the power to invoke such a response? > “You can’t expect to just write and have visitors come to you – that’s too passive.” \~ Anita Campbell ## Passive or active – which is which, and why should you care? Passive marketing involves creating circumstances where potential customers are naturally drawn to the business. It focuses on building brand visibility and credibility over time through methods such as search engine optimization (SEO), [content marketing](https://themarketingalliance.co.uk/marketing-insight/a-guide-to-content-distribution/), public relations, and social media engagement. The goal is to attract customers organically, without direct outreach or aggressive promotion. Passive marketing strategies are typically less expensive in the short term and prioritize long-term gains, resulting in a stable and sustainable flow of leads. In contrast, active marketing is more aggressive and direct. It attempts to boldly grab the attention of potential customers in a far more direct and to-the-point way, typically by actively reaching out to them through methods like cold calling, direct email marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, or event sponsorships. Active marketing gives marketers a high degree of control, allowing them to target specific audiences and tailor their messaging accordingly. While this often requires a significant upfront investment, it can yield immediate returns if effectively implemented. Put another way, passive marketing waits for people to respond in their own time, while active marketing invites a conversation. ## What does marketing look like? If we think about the mechanics of marketing, i.e. what marketing actually looks like in physical terms, we think mainly about advertising in its many forms, promotions and offers, TV and radio, email newsletters, direct mail, and so on. But are these passive or active? The majority would probably say that anything static is likely to be passive, and anything that’s live and dynamic is likely to be active, but it’s not quite as obvious as that. The huge roadside billboards we see are mainly used by retail giants whose deep pockets allow them to indulge in costly brand awareness campaigns. Who remembers the ‘A Mars a day, helps you work, rest and play’ ads? No drama, no call to action, just a reminder that Mars bars exist – a subconscious nugget that might make you buy one next time you fancy something sweet. A long-term view, but designed to stop you from forgetting about them. You may also think about the multitude of car manufacturers using billboards or full-page newspaper and glossy magazine ads to remind us of their brand and products, with slick photos of cars taken at night with a slow shutter speed to reveal trails of white and red lights as it winds through city streets, all designed to play to our emotions and desire that we might possibly respond to some time in the future. However, if a seemingly passive medium conveys a shocking or controversial message that forces people to react, is that still passive marketing? ### Controversial billboards In 2022, the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department in Texas, USA, commissioned a series of static billboards with a message that shocked its residents and caused widespread outrage. The billboard’s message was, “PAYING FOR SEX? Get tested for syphilis.” Controversial maybe, but it created a hugely positive reaction. Appointments at the Health Department increased by 40% – 50%, and cases of syphilis were reduced by 12.5% over the year. You can see the news report in the video below. Another highly emotive example was Protein World’s ‘Beach Body’ campaign in 2015, which it used to promote its weight loss products. You may have seen the posters in London Underground stations. The campaign billboards asked the question, “Are you beach body ready?” And if the question itself wasn’t controversial enough, the poster was mainly a photo of bikini-clad Australian model Renee Sommerfield, sporting what they considered a ‘beach body’. Not surprisingly, the campaign caused a lot of negative reactions – see some of the reactions from a US news channel in the video below. And whilst 19th-century circus owner Phineas T. Barnum’s assertion that “All publicity is good publicity” is not always true, the above examples highlight that whether marketing is passive or active lies not in the medium but in the messaging. ## Getting the most bang for your buck One of the challenges in understanding passive marketing vs active marketing is our perception of it because it depends on who you’re talking to. For example, SEO might be considered active marketing because it delivers results in the form of content on a website that is directly related to the search terms and phrases entered in a search engine. But is that really active? What if nobody searches for a given phrase, and therefore no content is delivered? Granted, this is about the mechanism, not the message itself, but if the mechanism isn’t even presenting the opportunity for the message to be delivered, how can it be active marketing? What about pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, e.g. Google Ads? Is it passive or active? Well, arguably, it’s passive because, again, if a search isn’t performed, the content will never be seen. But that’s not always the case because Google’s algorithm likes to show ads that are close enough to the search terms, not always specific to them. PPC is more active than passive in delivery, but could be passive or active in its messaging – and that’s up to you (or your PPC consultant) in terms of how you write the content for the ads. > “As you’ve noticed, people don’t want to be sold. What people do want is news and information about the things they care about.” \~ Larry Weber ## Passive or active messaging? Not every message you put out there needs to be intentionally active. Ideally, you want your messaging to create a response, and you want that response to be to contact you. That is, after all, the point of your marketing campaign. However, without being controversial, objectionable, or politically incorrect, your messaging will have to be compelling in some other way in order to drive people to respond. And the reality is that’s not always possible (nor practical) because we tire very quickly of adverts that are pushing an agenda rather than being creative and engaging with their messaging. A simple demonstration of the difference between passive and active marketing is in how you craft the messaging: --- 💄 ****Beauty products – passive wording:**“We have a range of premium skincare products. Our gentle formulas are designed to nourish and rejuvenate your skin, providing a luxurious and indulgent experience.” 💄 ****Beauty products – active wording:**“Unlock radiant and youthful-looking skin with our unique skincare products that are scientifically proven to deliver visible results. Take charge of your skincare journey now.” --- 🏎️ ****Cars – passive wording:**“Our latest family saloon is luxurious and elegant with its sleek design, advanced features, and superior comfort created with exceptional craftsmanship. It’s a driving experience like no other.” 🏎️ ****Cars – active wording:**“Feel the adrenaline rush with our new, high-performance sports saloon powered by cutting-edge engine technology. Get behind the wheel and experience precision and unmatched driving dynamics with the thrill of pure performance – book a test drive now.” --- > “I am all for conversations, but you need to have a message” \~ Renee Blodgett ## A step-by-step guide to creating active marketing content If you’re in unfamiliar territory, how do you know if you want to create active marketing content, and if you do, how do you go about doing so? ### Step one: Define your objective Clearly define the objective of your marketing content. Are you aiming to generate leads, drive sales, increase brand awareness, or promote a specific product/service? Clarifying this objective will guide your content creation process. ### Step two: Identify your target audience Identify and understand your target audience. Determine their demographics, interests, pain points, and motivations. This will help you tailor your content to resonate with them effectively. ### Step three: Craft a compelling message Create a compelling message that directly addresses your target audience’s needs and desires. Highlight the unique value proposition of your product or service, and clearly communicate how it solves their problems or fulfills their desires. ### Step four: Use active language and a call-to-action Use active language in your content to create a sense of urgency and engagement. Use action verbs and persuasive phrases that inspire readers to take action. Incorporate a strong and clear call-to-action (CTA) that tells readers exactly what they need to do next, such as “Sign up now,” “Buy today,” or “Call for a free consultation.” Above all, don’t be afraid to ask. ### Step five: Choose the right content format Select the content format or delivery mechanism that aligns with your objective and resonates with your target audience. It could be a well-crafted sales letter, a persuasive video script, an attention-grabbing social media post, or an impactful email campaign. ### Step six: Highlight benefits and unique selling points Emphasize the benefits and unique selling points of your product or service. Clearly communicate how it can solve problems, improve lives, or fulfill specific desires. Use compelling storytelling techniques to illustrate real-life scenarios and demonstrate the value your offering brings. For the storytelling technique, I’ve included a section below on the StoryBrand® framework, developed by Donald Miller. ### Step seven: Implement emotional appeal Incorporate emotional appeal in your content to connect with your audience on a deeper level. Tap into their aspirations, fears, desires, or dreams to create an emotional resonance that motivates action. Use storytelling, testimonials, or relatable scenarios to evoke emotions and build trust. ### Step eight: Incorporate social proof Include social proof elements in your content to establish credibility and trust. This can be in the form of customer testimonials, case studies, industry awards, or influencer endorsements. Social proof helps reassure potential customers that your product or service delivers on its promises. ### Step nine: Test and refine Launch your active marketing content and track its performance. Monitor key metrics such as click-through, conversion, and engagement levels. Analyze the results and identify areas for improvement. Refine your content and messaging based on data-driven insights to optimize your future marketing efforts. ## Testing your marketing campaign against a rubric | **Clarity of Objective**Does the content clearly align with the defined objective? | **Target Audience Relevance**Does the content resonate with the identified target audience? | **Active Language and call-to-action**Does the content use active language and incorporate a strong and clear call-to-action? | **Communication**Are the benefits and unique selling points effectively communicated? | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Emotional Appeal**Will the content evoke emotions and connect with the audience on an emotional level? | **Social Proof Integration**Are social proof elements effectively incorporated to establish credibility? | **Overall Effectiveness**How well does the content drive desired actions and achieve the defined objective? | **Engagement Metrics**Once your content has had time to generate results, question if the key engagement metrics (click-through rates, conversion rates, etc.) are meeting your expectations. | Regularly assessing your content against this rubric will help refine your active marketing efforts and optimize your content creation process over time. > “Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.” \~ Seth Godin ## Making use of the StoryBrand® Framework Developed by Donald Miller (storybrand.com), Storybrand® provides an approach to storytelling specifically tailored for businesses and their marketing efforts, and it centers around clarifying the messaging to effectively engage and connect with the target audience. Here are some key elements of the StoryBrand® framework: - **The character:** In StoryBrand®, the customer is the hero, not the brand. The brand plays the role of the guide or mentor who helps the hero achieve their goals or overcome their challenges. - **The problem:** Clearly identify the problem or challenge that the hero (customer) is facing. This problem should resonate with the audience and create a sense of urgency. - **The guide:** Your [brand positioning strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-strategy-examples/) frames you as the knowledgeable and trustworthy guide who can provide a solution to the hero’s problem. The guide offers a clear plan or framework to help the hero achieve success. - **The plan:** Outline a simple, step-by-step plan the hero can follow to overcome the problem. This plan should be easy to understand and actionable. - **The call-to-action:** Clearly communicate the next steps the hero should take to engage with the brand and benefit from the offered solution. This call to action should be specific and easy to follow. - **The success story:** Provide examples of how the brand’s solution has transformed the lives of previous customers. Share success stories and testimonials to build trust and credibility. - **The brand’s identity:** Clarify the brand’s identity, values, and unique selling proposition. [Differentiate the brand from competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/when-does-a-low-cost-provider-strategy-beat-a-differentiation-strategy/) and highlight why the hero should choose your brand over others. The StoryBrand® framework aims to simplify and clarify messaging, making it easy for customers to understand and engage with. It focuses on positioning the company as the guide that helps customers overcome their challenges and achieve success. > “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” \~ Dr. Seuss --- [Competitive Positioning: What It Is and Why It’s ImportantCompetitive positioning is the most effective type of positioning strategy in marketing. That’s because it takes the competitive environment, and the spaces your product is best placed to compete for within it, into full account.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/kevin-mueller-Q-fL04RhuMg-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) --- ## Creating a marketing campaign: Passive and active The approach you choose doesn’t have to be set in stone. It’s perfectly acceptable to mix and match passive and active content and styles throughout your campaign, but it would be wise to increase your results tracking to see over time which style works best for your particular business. However, to give you a feel for what’s involved in building a passive or active marketing campaign, here’s a quick reminder of the difference and the high-level steps to carry out: ### Passive marketing campaign This strategy focuses on creating brand visibility and credibility over time. 1. **Content strategy development:** Create a comprehensive content strategy that aligns with the target audience’s interests and pain points. 2. **Content creation:** Produce high-quality and engaging content such as blog posts, articles, videos, or infographics that provide value and establish credibility. 3. **Search engine optimization (SEO):** Optimize the content for search engines to improve organic visibility and attract relevant traffic to the website. 4. **Social media engagement:** Establish an active presence on social media platforms, sharing valuable content, responding to comments, and engaging with the audience. 5. **Thought leadership and guest blogging:** Position the business as a thought leader by contributing insightful articles or guest blogging on reputable platforms within the industry. 6. **Public relations and media coverage:** Leverage public relations strategies to secure media coverage, press releases, or feature stories that enhance brand reputation and reach a wider audience. 7. **Email marketing and lead capture:** Implement lead capture mechanisms, such as offering gated content or newsletters, to build an email subscriber list for ongoing engagement. 8. **Analytics and performance tracking:** Use analytics tools to monitor website traffic, engagement metrics, and conversions, allowing for data-driven optimization and continuous improvement. --- [Positioning Statements: All You Need to Know (With Examples)Your brand positioning statement is a single sentence that sums up your competitive position - it’s your elevator pitch. If you were to describe to a new hire (or anyone else in the business) how you want people to see your product, your positioning statement would fill that role.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/pexels-alfred-gf-198265263-11521138.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/) --- Activities might include: **Search engine optimization (SEO):** This involves optimizing your website and content to rank higher in search engine results. This can help attract more organic traffic to your site. **Content marketing:** Creating and sharing online material (like blog posts, videos, or social media posts) intended to stimulate interest in your products or services without directly promoting a brand. **Public relations (PR):** This includes activities to improve your company’s image and build relationships with the media. It may involve press releases, feature stories, or managing online reviews. **Social media engagement:** Instead of using social media for direct promotion, many companies use it to engage with their audience, answer questions, and build a community. This can indirectly lead to increased brand awareness and customer loyalty. **Search engine marketing (SEM):** While SEM can involve paid advertising (active), it can also involve activities aimed at increasing visibility through search engines more passively, like SEO. ### Active marketing campaign This strategy involves proactive outreach and direct communication with your target audience. 1. **Goal setting:** Clearly define the campaign’s objectives, such as increasing sales by a certain percentage or generating leads. 2. **Target audience identification:** Identify the specific demographic or target audience for the campaign, ensuring a focused approach. 3. **Message development:** Craft a compelling and persuasive message that resonates with the target audience, highlighting the unique selling points of the product or service. 4. **Channel selection:** Determine the most effective channels to reach the target audience, such as social media platforms, email marketing, or paid advertising. 5. **Campaign execution:** Implement the campaign by deploying tactics like direct email marketing, social media advertising, or targeted online ads. 6. **Monitoring and optimization:** Continuously track the campaign’s performance, monitor key metrics, and make necessary adjustments to optimize results. 7. **Lead nurturing and conversion:** Follow up with generated leads promptly, providing additional information, personalized communication, and incentives to encourage conversion. 8. **Evaluation and analysis:** Assess the overall effectiveness of the active marketing campaign, analyzing key performance indicators and identifying areas for improvement. Activities might include: **Direct sales:** Direct outreach to potential customers through cold calling, in-person meetings, or direct mail. **Paid advertising:** This includes pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, display ads, sponsored posts, and direct advertisements on social media platforms. **Telemarketing:** Similar to direct sales, telemarketing involves contacting potential customers through phone calls. **Email marketing:** This usually involves sending promotional emails to a list of people who have shown interest in your products or services. **Trade shows and events:** Participating in industry events, exhibitions, or hosting events can provide direct interaction with potential customers. The distinction between active and passive marketing isn’t always clear-cut. For instance, a company might use social media platforms for active (paid ads) and passive (community building) marketing. The best marketing strategies often involve active and passive tactics tailored to the company’s specific objectives and target audience. ## Passive and active marketing vs outbound and inbound marketing If we accept that passive marketing is putting content out there and hoping for a response, and active marketing prompts a response and invites a conversation, you may feel this isn’t dissimilar to the terms Outbound Marketing and Inbound Marketing. They’re often compared with active and passive marketing, and although they don’t align perfectly, it’s worth having a reasonable understanding of both. **Inbound marketing** is a term that HubSpot CEO and co-founder Brian Halligan coined in the early/mid-2000s, and it refers to attracting customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to their needs. It’s about ‘pulling’ customers in by providing value and building relationships. Inbound marketing methods include content marketing, blogs, events, SEO, and social media. This approach aligns closely (though not perfectly) with passive marketing strategies. **Outbound marketing** is the more traditional form where a company initiates the conversation and sends its message to an audience. It’s about ‘pushing’ products or services onto customers through direct advertising, telemarketing, direct mail, and trade shows. This approach aligns more with active marketing strategies, with the key distinction that outbound marketing can often be more interruptive, while active marketing strategies can be both interruptive and permission-based (like email marketing to a subscribed audience). ## In summary Passive and active marketing campaigns offer quite different approaches to engaging with your target audience and achieving your marketing goals. By carefully considering your objectives, target audience, and available resources, you can design and implement a marketing campaign that combines the strengths of both approaches whilst remaining completely flexible. --- **Love this article as much as we did?** Check out more of Clive's work on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/clivetwilson/recent-activity/articles/)! --- ## Put yourself in first place 🥇 Differentiation is critical. In today's job market, interview processes have four, five or even more stages. Competition is fierce, and proving your worth is getting harder. How valuable would it be to you to be able to bypass all that in the eyes of the recruiter, because they’re already familiar with your work? We're offering you the means to do just that. We’ll work with you to quickly adapt your work into SEO-optimized articles, ghostwritten guides, and podcast episodes. It’s never been easier to differentiate yourself, so why not start today? Sound interesting? [Send us a message](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io to discuss next steps. 🤝 --- ### Your competitive intelligence is useless... Until you use it URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-is-useless-until-you-use-it/ Last updated: 2023-09-01T15:45:09.000Z In the middle of September 1944, the Allies planned and executed the largest aerial invasion in history to capture a series of bridges in Nazi-occupied Holland, hoping to end the war by Christmas. If you know your WW2 history, "Operation Market Garden" was generally considered a failure, as the Allies suffered HEAVY losses and could not capture and hold their final and most important objective, the bridge over the Rhine in Arnhem. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/ww2.png) The main reason for the failure was that the Allies ignored critical intelligence collected from aerial reconnaissance, Ultra intercepts, and the Dutch resistance indicating the presence of multiple armored Panzer divisions in the region. While valiant, the lightly armed and ill-supplied paratroopers that landed in Arnhem were no match for tanks! With more and more organizations investing heavily in competitive intelligence teams and analysis, you'd think they would be eager to act on the analysis those teams provide. But like the Allies during Operation Market Garden, this intelligence is often collected, assessed at great expense, and then ultimately ignored. Operation Market Garden serves as a case study for organizations about the importance of not just gathering accurate intelligence, but actually using it to [enable your customer facing teams](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/), and to inform strategic decision making. Let's explore some of the reasons why intelligence is often ignored and what we can do to change it. ## Lack of trust Decision-makers within organizations may lack trust in the accuracy or relevance of the intelligence gathered or even in the people creating and delivering it. They may have received misleading or unreliable information in the past, leading to skepticism and hesitation to act based on intelligence. Also, even though they invest heavily in [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#sources-of-competitive-intelligence-methodologies-and-strategies), business leaders may only want information that confirms pre-existing beliefs and strategies. ### Solution - Establish a track record of delivering accurate and actionable intelligence by ensuring rigorous data collection and analysis processes. - Foster open and transparent communication between the intelligence team and decision-makers to build trust and credibility. - Provide concrete examples of how intelligence has positively influenced strategic decisions and outcomes in the past, even when it challenged accepted thinking. ## Overconfidence Overconfidence is like a blindfold that keeps you from seeing the next disruptor of your business. Remember Blockbuster? While they were focused on Hollywood video eating away at their market share, Netflix and other streaming platforms came along and totally disrupted their business model. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/darts.png) David G. Klein ### Solution - Humble thyself! Previous success does not guarantee future success. - Run through a Porter's 5 Forces analysis of your respective market at least once a year. This will force you to consider the strength of threats like new entrants and replacements. - Gain a new competitive perspective by asking, "[What is your competition most afraid of you doing?](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/up-your-competitive-game-what-competition-afraid-you-doing-calvet/?trackingId=UEllRXAaSVuezj%2Fs%2Bn8sQg%3D%3D)" ## Organizational culture Certain organizational cultures may discourage proactive decision-making or discourage challenging the status quo. This can create a reluctance to act on intelligence that may contradict established beliefs or disrupt existing processes. ### Solution - Foster a culture of curiosity, adaptability, and openness to new ideas and insights. - Encourage cross-functional collaboration and interdisciplinary discussions to challenge existing assumptions and promote a culture of informed decision-making. - Recognize and reward individuals and teams that demonstrate the value of acting on intelligence. ## Inadequate communication Effective communication channels and processes are essential for disseminating intelligence throughout an organization. But like the telephone game, if the intelligence is not effectively communicated to the relevant decision-makers or if the value and implications of the intelligence are not effectively conveyed, it can lead to inaction. ### Solution - [Competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#sources-of-competitive-intelligence-methodologies-and-strategies) should ALWAYS be interactive! Set up channels for sharing intelligence updates and encourage feedback and discussion. - Develop clear and concise intelligence reports that highlight key findings, implications, and recommendations. - Tailor communication to the specific needs and preferences of decision-makers, using visualizations and storytelling techniques to convey insights effectively. ## Inertia and risk aversion ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/ballz.jpeg) Just like people, organizations and businesses may be resistant to change and reluctant to take risks. Acting on intelligence often involves making strategic decisions that have potential risks and uncertainties. Fear of failure or negative consequences can lead to a preference for maintaining the status quo rather than acting on intelligence-driven insights. ### Solution - Invoke the "fear" motivator by educating decision-makers about the potential risks of inaction and the missed opportunities associated with not acting on intelligence. - Promote wisdom and pragmatism by adopting a mindset that embraces calculated risks and experimentation, emphasizing the potential rewards of seizing strategic opportunities. - Provide decision-making frameworks and tools that help evaluate and mitigate risks associated with intelligence-driven decisions. Some examples are scenario analysis, SWOT analysis, risk heat maps, competitor profiling, and war gaming. ## Resource constraints Acting on intelligence may require additional resources, whether financial, human, or technological. Organizations with limited resources may struggle to allocate the necessary resources to act on intelligence, especially if the perceived benefits or urgency of the intelligence is not fully understood or compelling enough. ### Solution - Prioritize and allocate resources based on the strategic importance and potential impact of intelligence. - You can explore partnerships or collaborations with external intelligence providers to add more internal capabilities. - Invest in technology solutions that automate data collection and analysis processes, freeing up resources for decision-making and action. To close, I can't stress enough how important it is to remember that competitive intelligence is only as valuable as the actions it inspires. Businesses must not only invest in gathering and analyzing intelligence but also in creating an environment where it can be effectively used to inform strategic decisions. --- ## Put yourself in first place 🥇 Differentiation is critical. In today's job market, interview processes have four, five or even more stages. Competition is fierce, and proving your worth is getting harder. How valuable would it be to you to be able to bypass all that in the eyes of the recruiter, because they’re already familiar with your work? We're offering you the means to do just that. We’ll work with you to quickly adapt your work into SEO-optimized articles, ghostwritten guides, and podcast episodes. It’s never been easier to differentiate yourself, so why not start today? Sound interesting? [Send us a message](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io to discuss next steps. 🤝 --- ### 7 ways competitive analysis can help you start a business URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-analysis-starting-a-business/ Last updated: 2025-05-14T11:51:53.000Z Starting a business involves numerous challenges, and understanding the competitive landscape is crucial for success. Competitive analysis provides valuable insights into market dynamics, customer preferences, and strategic opportunities. By studying competitors, entrepreneurs can make informed decisions that make their market positioning more effective and increase their chances of long-term success. In this article, I look at the importance of competitive analysis in starting a business and seven ways it can improve your strategic decision-making when doing so. ## 1) Identifying market opportunities [Competitive landscape analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/) helps entrepreneurs identify untapped market opportunities. By examining existing competitors and their offerings, you can find gaps, or underserved areas, in the market. This knowledge allows you to develop innovative solutions or target specific customer segments not adequately addressed by your competitors. Understanding the market landscape helps you shape your business ideas and create unique value propositions that resonate with customers. ## 2) Understanding customer needs and preferences Studying competitors provides valuable insights into customer needs and preferences. When you analyze your competitors’ products, services, and customer experiences, you can gain a deeper understanding of what customers want and expect. Such knowledge helps you tailor your products and services to better meet those customer expectations, and deliver a better customer experience. By aligning their business strategy with customer preferences, entrepreneurs build stronger customer relationships, enhancing their competitive edge. ## 3) Benchmarking offerings Competitive analysis allows entrepreneurs to benchmark their offerings against competitors. By evaluating factors such as product features, pricing, quality, customer service, and marketing strategies, entrepreneurs can identify areas where they can differentiate themselves. This analysis helps entrepreneurs identify their unique selling points and make necessary improvements to outperform competitors. By continuously monitoring the competition, entrepreneurs can stay ahead of market trends and consistently refine their offerings. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/08/touch.png) ## 4) Pricing and positioning Examining competitors' pricing strategies helps entrepreneurs determine the optimal pricing for their own products or services. By analyzing how competitors price themselves in the market, entrepreneurs can identify areas where they can stand out by offering more value. Differentiating with pricing or [brand positioning strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-strategy-examples/) allows entrepreneurs to attract customers who perceive greater value in their offerings. Understanding the competitive pricing landscape helps entrepreneurs make informed decisions about pricing strategies that are competitive yet profitable. ## 5) Identifying industry trends and best practices When you perform competitive analysis regularly, you stay up to date with industry trends and best practices. By monitoring competitors' activities and strategies, you’ll identify trends as they’re emerging, and you’ll discover innovative approaches and successful tactics. Such knowledge is invaluable when it comes to creating business strategies, implementing new technology, or exploring alternative marketing channels. Staying up-to-date with industry trends ensures entrepreneurs remain relevant and can proactively respond to market changes. ## 6) Anticipating challenges and threats Competitive analysis enables entrepreneurs to anticipate potential challenges and threats in the market. By identifying the [strengths and weaknesses of competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/), entrepreneurs can proactively address potential threats to their business. Furthermore, they can capitalize on their competitors' weaknesses by offering superior products, services, or customer experiences. Anticipating challenges allows entrepreneurs to devise contingency plans and maintain a [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/). ## 7) Strategic decision-making Competitive analysis also provides entrepreneurs with the necessary information for strategic decision-making. A deeper understanding of the competitive landscape helps entrepreneurs make more informed choices regarding market positioning, target markets, product development, and marketing strategies. The insights gained from competitive analysis serve as a foundation for well-informed decisions that drive business growth and profitability. Competitive analysis is a critical component of starting a business. By examining competitors, entrepreneurs can gain valuable insights into market opportunities, customer preferences, and industry trends. This knowledge allows them to differentiate their offerings, make informed pricing decisions, and proactively address potential challenges. Competitive analysis also provides the information necessary for entrepreneurs to make solid strategicdecisions, increasing the likelihood of long-term success. Entrepreneurs should view competitive analysis as an ongoing process and continually monitor the data. ## Books to help you raise your competitive game 1. **Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors** by Michael Porter 2. **Blue Ocean Strategy, Expanded Edition: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant** by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne 3. **Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works** by A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin 4. **Successful Business Intelligence: Unlock the Value of BI & Big Data** by Cindi Howsen 5. **Business and Competitive Analysis: Effective Application of New and Classic Methods** by Craig Fleisher and Babette Bensoussan 6. **Sun Tzu and the Art of Business: Six Strategic Principles for Managers** by Mark McNeilly --- ## Put yourself in first place 🥇 Differentiation is critical. In today's job market, interview processes have four, five or even more stages. Competition is fierce, and proving your worth is getting harder. How valuable would it be to you to be able to bypass all that in the eyes of the recruiter, because they’re already familiar with your work? We're offering you the means to do just that. We’ll work with you to quickly adapt your work into SEO-optimized articles, ghostwritten guides, and podcast episodes. It’s never been easier to differentiate yourself, so why not start today? Sound interesting? [Send us a message](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io to discuss next steps. 🤝 --- ### How to tackle a technical product line: Cloud computing with Mimi An | CI-by-Industry Series URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/cloud-computing-mimi-an/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:51:23.000Z Ever wonder if your colleagues are too smart for their own good? When you’re a tech company like Akamai, with tech talent coming out of your ears, it’s easy to let your messaging creep into ever more technical territory. Eventually, of course, your prospects, and even your salespeople, struggle to understand what they’re buying and selling. That’s a challenge Mimi An, Director of Competitive Intelligence at [Akamai](https://www.akamai.com/), a tech business with a product line spanning CDNs (content delivery networks), cloud computing, and security, took on and won. She joins us on the show today for the penultimate episode in our CI-by-Industry series to share how she solved this problem at Akamai, as well as how she scaled hers into the largest competitive intelligence team of any business represented on the show so far. [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast: How to tackle a technical product line: Cloud computing with Mimi An | CI-by-Industry Series 4/5 on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Compete Clarity Podcast, Ep How to tackle a technical product line: Cloud computing with Mimi An | CI-by-Industry Series 4/5 - Jul 26, 2023![](https://t2.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-tackle-a-technical-product-line-cloud/id1678079061?i=1000622385614&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/9d/0c/36/9d0c3698-c69a-ff19-f51f-f7371cd41832/mza_2588363255601066954.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-tackle-a-technical-product-line-cloud/id1678079061?i=1000622385614) ## Key talking points • How to make a technical product line comprehensible to your salespeople (and their prospects). • How to build a business case for scaling your CI team (where to start, what to focus on, and how to earn your seat at the table). • Mimi's unique method for figuring out your priorities and critical goals, even if you're brand new to the business. --- ## **Want to be a guest on the podcast?** We're looking for guests! If you consider yourself (or anyone you know does!) something of a thought leader in competitive intelligence, drop us a line at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io. We can't wait to host you! [ Register your interest ](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### Three brand positioning strategy examples (from three different industries) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-strategy-examples/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T10:27:40.000Z Brand positioning, eh? It’s critical to get right if you want to give your customers solid reasons to choose you over the competition. That means reasons more solid than, “More features!”, “Better value!”, “Best in class!” 🤮 And if you want to learn how, there’s no better way than with a case study. Strap in, folks. We’re about to take a look at a few examples of brand positioning strategy in the wild, and the lessons you can take from them. Here are the positioning strategy examples we’ll cover: 1. **Pipedrive vs. HubSpot** (B2B) 2. **Oatly vs. the Dairy Industry** (B2C) 3. **Threads vs. Twitter** (because how could we not?) ## B2B: Pipedrive’s brand positioning strategy vs. HubSpot You've probably heard of these two. HubSpot and Pipedrive are popular CRMs. Handily for us, each business has a comparison page dedicated to the other: - [Here’s Pipedrive’s comparison page.](https://www.pipedrive.com/en/crm-comparison/hubspot-alternative) - [And here’s HubSpot’s.](https://www.hubspot.com/comparisons/pipedrive-vs-hubspot) Let’s focus on how Pipedrive plays on market perceptions of HubSpot to position itself as the ideal solution for a couple specific sets of prospects. Namely, those who’ve tried HubSpot and grown frustrated with it, and those who know they want something simple and sales-oriented. ### Cost-effective and simple to use Let’s start with some background. At its core, HubSpot is a “famously free” CRM. On top of that free CRM, you'll add one or more paid “Hubs”. There’s one for Marketing, one for Sales, one for Service, and one for CMS. If you wanted all those Hubs, you’d end up with a pricey solution. But a comprehensive one. Pipedrive, though, is a sales CRM. Plain and simple. It’s “created by salespeople, for salespeople.” This is the first angle of attack Pipedrive takes with its brand positioning strategy against HubSpot. Their emphasis is on their product’s simplicity. Check out their messaging's emphasis on HubSpot's complexity, vs. the language they use to convey ease of use for their own platform: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/pvh.png) Pipedrive references “HubSpot's steep learning curve, complex user experience, and the baffling array of unnecessary features.” By contrast, they say their platform has an “elegant, super-simple interface with straightforward key features and effortless setup.” Here’s the message: Pipedrive is a focused, precise product. There are no bells and whistles you won’t need. Work in sales? These folks understand you and your needs. And they'll deliver them better than any alternative. Including Hubspot, which they say, is “designed for small teams and doesn't include some of the most important features.” ### Don’t just take our word for it The eagle-eyed among you might be wondering… haven’t Pipedrive committed a cardinal sin here? They’re disparaging their competitor! Well… not quite. Pipedrive’s isn’t pulling its comments about HubSpot out of thin air. In fact, they’re not even Pipedrive’s comments. [They’re their customers.](https://www.pipedrive.com/en/crm-comparison/hubspot-alternative) To put this page together, Pipedrive spoke to their customers. They canvassed them (sure, perhaps a little selectively) to find those with experience about HubSpot, and willing to go on the record to say what they didn’t enjoy about their experience. If Pipedrive was making these comments itself, the claims wouldn’t be too appealing. By having customers voice their opinions about HubSpot, however, and simply parroting those negatives and positioning itself as the solution, Pipedrive manages to position itself very effectively. But (and this is crucial) without disqualifying itself in the process. ### The personal approach Pipedrive’s brand positioning strategy rests upon visitors identifying with the customer experience described by the two in the testimonial video. If visitors are in need of a similar solution, if the pain points and needs they specify in the video resonate, visitors are likely to think of Pipedrive as their best choice. But Pipedrive goes further. They include an [in-depth case study](https://www.pipedrive.com/en/case-studies/visionair-media-case-study) on why a different organization became frustrated with HubSpot and decided to move over to Pipedrive: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/case_study.png) There’s more, too, on Pipedrive’s comparison page we could talk about: - A “5 reasons why you should buy” section. - Additional in-depth case studies. - A “what the users have to say” by-the-numbers-style section. But in the main, Pipedrive strives to position itself as a more cost-effective, user-friendly solution to HubSpot. They claim to scale better and offer better customer support. For some of this information, you have to dig a little bit. Into those in-depth case studies we mentioned, for example. But as a visitor, you feel rewarded for discovering, in customers’ own words, why Pipedrive works as a solution. And that’s the crux of marketing strategies like Pipedrive’s. They’ve chosen to let their customers do the talking. Through both the testimonial videos and the in-depth case studies, Pipedrive wants to make very clear all the reasons why a particular kind of customer might *not* enjoy an experience with HubSpot. They’ve clearly done some customer research to figure out why and how they win vs. HubSpot. And they’re using that customer research to full effect, adapting it into testimonial videos and case studies that put visitors closer to happy users. This helps those visitors see themselves as happy Pipedrive users in the near future. So, how might Pipedrive’s strategy be improved? ### Improving Pipedrive’s brand positioning strategy #### More congruent messaging But… is it all roses? Is Pipedrive’s [messaging and positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/) consistent across mediums? Perhaps not… ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/pipedrive_ad.png) Pipedrive's own Google Ads messaging (see above), brands HubSpot as having “Feature Limits”. The point about being relatively high-cost is the same, but there's no mention of Pipedrive being a more streamlined solution that's easier to use. This language could be confusing for someone who had previously landed on Pipedrive's comparison page. The page talks about how HubSpot has many needless features customers don't use. Not that it’s *limited* in its number of features. Pipedrive’s comparison page also mentions how it does away with many of HubSpot's less useful features for a simpler user experience. In this Google Ad, the focus seems to be the other way around, with value being the only takeaway message: “Get more unlimited features.” Interestingly, some of HubSpot's own messaging, from its own comparison page, casts itself in a similar light. “When to choose HubSpot: You want to achieve more with fewer tools”. Taking the same positioning angle as a competitor doesn’t do much to differentiate you. The lesson here? Make sure your positioning strategy is clearly understood by *all* your teams. It should shine through with congruent messaging, no matter what stage in the customer journey someone comes across you. #### A more balanced representation of the competitor The criticism we entertained earlier is a valid one. Pipedrive spends no time at all talking about the positive aspects of its competitor’s product. Prospects aren’t stupid. Especially with a name as large as HubSpot. HubSpot is an industry leader, and has been going for almost 20 years. You don’t build a reputation like HubSpot’s with a terrible product. So why not acknowledge that? When you acknowledge your competitor’s strengths, you actually improve your own position. In fact, until you do, those strengths do you a disservice, floating around like so many buoyant elephants in the room. Muddying your prospect’s perception. HubSpot actually does a great job of this. Check out this assessment of Pipedrive from HubSpot’s comparison page: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-15.05.55.png) “Pipedrive is laser-focused on sales teams. As their website shares, it's "designed to keep you selling." And this is what it does – very well.” Here’s another point: you don’t know how intimately your prospect understands that competitor product or service. They might have used it in a previous role, where it was the perfect solution. But now they’re trying to implement it in a new role, and they’re disappointed that it’s not the right fit. In such a situation, acknowledging the strengths of that competitor product might go a long way towards winning over your prospect. And if you make claims they know first-hand aren’t accurate (or simply don’t line up with their own biases), you’ll struggle to convince them any further than that. ### Key takeaways So what can we learn from Pipedrive? 1. **It pays to let your customers do the talking.** Especially when referencing competitor weaknesses. If all you do is disparage your competitors, you just end up discrediting yourself. 2. **You can make your proof go further** by repurposing customer research into different forms. Video testimonials go a long way, but they go even further when combined with in-depth, written case studies. 3. **Your messaging should be congruent** across all stages of the customer journey. If it isn’t, you risk confusing your prospects and limiting the efficacy of your unique brand positioning strategy. 4. **Acknowledging competitor strengths** makes you appear stronger. Refusing to do so when they have obvious advantages over you does the opposite. ## B2C: [**Oatly**](https://www.oatly.com/en-gb/things-we-do/brainwashing)’s brand positioning strategy vs. the Dairy Industry Not familiar with Oatly? You've heard of soya milk. Make way for oat milk. Oatly is a Swedish dairy alternative. You might think that means their competitors are other brands of dairy alternatives, like brands of soya, rice, and almond milks. But Oatly decided the only competitor worth worrying about was the dairy industry itself. If that doesn't sound like a scary prospect, it should. According to the IDFA's (International Dairy Foods Association) [2021 Economic Impact Study](https://www.idfa.org/news/u-s-dairy-industrys-economic-impact-totals-753-billion), the impact of the dairy industry in the USA amounted to almost $755 billion. Oof! Those are big numbers. But Oatly showed no lack of heart in going up against an entire industry. In fact, quite the opposite. They might actually have been \*too\* daring. ### Oatly's branding and positioning strategy Oatly doesn't do things the ‘normal’ way. That's good if you're a small disruptor. Doing things the same as everyone else isn’t a recipe for [competitive differentiation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/). No risk, no reward, as they say. But betting big on a contrarian play can pay off. If you get it right… Here are some of the ways Oatly disrupts and differentiates with its brand strategy: #### Tongue in cheek messaging On its website, Oatly refers to its promotional marketing efforts as… “brainwashing”. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/oatly_brainwashing.png) They take it further. The banner that asks you to sign up to their newsletter reads, “Spam by Oatly”. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/spam_by_oatly.png) This deserves a pause to think about. Why the tongue-in-cheek messaging? Perhaps Oatly is poking fun at its detractors. The people who reckon plant-based is all a load of hype. But is that the whole story? Oatly frames the dairy industry as having something to hide (as we’ll discuss in a bit). Taking this tongue-in-cheek, almost ‘hyper-honest’ approach positions them as the polar opposite. Hate receiving junk mail from brands that don’t get you? Oatly does too! They get it! And they’ll let you know by directly referencing it. [via GIPHY](https://giphy.com/gifs/moodman-Rh4vxHtcmVyHUyugXP) #### Clearly stating brand values Oatly makes it clear it cares about climate change and the eco impact of its products. On the front of each carton (only in Europe, though), you'll see how many kilograms of CO2e per kilogram of product the manufacturing process created. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/co2e_oatly.png) The Oatly website is plastered with banners like the one below, too. It reads, “The Oatly sustainability update 2022”. They talk about this stuff. Regularly. They're activists, and they want you to know about it. It's a big part of why they make the products they do, and they've made it a part of their branding, and their [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/sustain_oatly.png) From this quick perusal of Oatly's advertising techniques, we start to get a sense of their target audience. Their audience is those out there who already have strong views in favor of alternative and plant-based products. All they need to do is remind these folks they’re on their side. ### Oatly's messaging in ad campaigns Oatly has produced some interesting ad campaigns over the last few years. They were banned from comparing their product to cow’s milk, after making statements like, “It’s like milk, but made for humans.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/oatly_ad.jpg) A risky statement to make. It's not hard to see the implication: cow's milk isn't made for humans. So it might not even be fit for human consumption. That's not a claim they're making outright, but it doesn’t matter. Oatly is committing a competitive faux pas here. They're disparaging their competitor. And, unlike Pipedrive, it’s not their customers saying it. Oatly spun up an interesting response campaign after being banned from making statements about milk. Here’s what they did: #### The “Google milk” campaign Oatly created [a campaign called “Google milk”](https://www.oatly.com/things-we-do/brainwashing/google-milk), based around “letting people find out the truth for themselves.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-25-at-15.20.33.png) This is pretty interesting. Actually Googling “milk” (at least in the UK) brings back uniformly positive results (see the screenshot below). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/milk_results.png) So… what are they playing at? Here’s one possibility: Oatly’s “Google milk” campaign is less about getting people to Google milk, and more about implying the dairy industry has something to hide by banning them from talking about milk. Oatly’s campaign implies there’s something hiding in plain sight that you’ll find if you just search for it. It sows seeds of doubt. Considering Oatly’s likely target market, which we defined earlier as “those who already have strong views in favor of alternative and plant-based products,” Oatly is perhaps trying to preach to the converted. It’s trying to reinforce pre-existing beliefs (and biases) against cow’s milk, rather than change minds. ### How it turned out for Oatly Let’s revisit an earlier question. Why didn’t Oatly position itself against its real competitors? Other dairy alternatives? Like brands of soya, rice, and almond milks? It’s a guess, but from their activist stance, perhaps Oatly saw other dairy alternatives as standing for the same things they did. Rather than compete in a marketplace for profits, they’re trying to convert the masses to a plant-based lifestyle. They see the dairy industry as their enemy, and aren’t willing to position themselves against alternatives that hold the same values they do. So... how is the business doing? Is this approach working for Oatly? Oatly IPO'd in May 2021\. Trading under the 'OTLY' ticker, the company priced itself at $17 per share. Here's how things have gone since then: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/oatly_stock.png) You're seeing that right. As of today, in July 2023, Oatly’s share price sits at $1.93 per share. Oatly has lost almost 90% of its value in the last two years. Sorry Oatly, but we'll score this one a winner for regular ol' milk. ### Key takeaways Oatly’s share price might have plummeted, but that’s not to say there’s nothing we can learn from their brand positioning strategy. First, their campaigns *did* resonate with their target audience. In fact, massively so. Comments on YouTube uploads of their ads are overwhelmingly positive. And here’s something undeniable: they make you stop and look. Half of the battle in advertising is getting people’s attention. There’s simply so much noise. When you position yourself as an unruly upstart going up against a Dairy Goliath, people can’t help wanting to root for David. 1. If you want to get noticed, don’t be afraid to be a bit controversial and contrarian. 2. To appeal most strongly to your target audience, shout loudly about your brand values. 3. If you want to be around (and profitable) in 20 years, try not to be so disparaging of competitors that you give them a way to effectively silence you with a court order. ## Twitter vs. Threads Because how could we not talk about it? We mentioned this [last time we discussed social media](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-social-media-to-create-a-competitive-advantage/), but today the lines between a company brand and the personal brands of the members of its C-suite are blurred. Twitter is not a business that has, historically, had to do much marketing. And today, the brand positioning strategy of both Twitter (or X?) and Threads is more or less a meme-ified battle between each company's billionaire CEO. ### Musk vs. Zuckerberg Since Elon Musk’s takeover, Twitter has had a shaky run. Free speech is worth fighting for (if that’s really where Musk’s interests lie), but there’s no denying the billionaire’s methods have set the platform at odds with users and investors. Not the best recipe for a positive business outlook. Now, Meta stands ringside as cornerman for its newest prospect: Threads. Uniquely well-placed to capitalize on Instagram’s existing user-base, the platform grabbed more than 30 million sign-ups on launch day alone. Mark Zuckerberg made comments that made Threads’ positioning clear from the beginning. Threads is to be a more “friendly” alternative to Twitter. In a Thread responding to Mark Cuban on Threads’ launch day: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/zuck-1.jpg) “The goal is to keep Threads friendly as it expands. I think it’s possible and will ultimately be the key to its success. That’s one reason why Twitter never succeeded as much as I think it should have, and we want to do it differently.” This sets up an interesting dichotomy. Historically, Twitter has been a battleground. Somewhere you’d regularly see people warring in comments threads, abrasive comments flying. Efforts to clean up the app began to blur into censorship. And, if you believe the evidence from the [Twitter Files case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter%5FFiles), even information manipulation. Something Musk supposedly disagreed with strongly enough to buy the app in a move to reestablish free speech (despite evidence that censorship is still going on). Musk infamously reinstated the Twitter accounts of various controversial figures as well. Something many weren't too happy about. Combine that with the subsequent mass layoffs, and it's no wonder the dark cloud that's formed over Twitter HQ seems reluctant to shift. In light of all that, a “more friendly” Twitter alternative could be just what the world needs. It’s too early to tell who might come out on top (it seems like it might be [decided by a cage match](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/22/mark-zuckerberg-elon-musk-cage-match) at this rate). But if the overwhelming Threads sign-up numbers can be trusted, then the world seems to agree. ## TL;DR - Letting your customers do the talking is a powerful way of going head-to-head with your competitors without disparaging them. - Acknowledge your competitors’ strengths to make yourself seem even stronger. - Make sure your messaging is congruent across platforms, at all stages of the customer journey. - To position your brand most effectively, state clearly what you stand for. - Getting attention is half the battle, and everyone loves a David and Goliath story. - Got an existing customer base for another product? Use this user base when launching new products into new markets to position your launch as an even stronger success. --- ## Learn more about competitive intelligence across different industries Check out the CI-by-Industry eBook. 👇 [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-14-at-11.07.24.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-by-industry-ebook/) --- ### How to deliver competitive intelligence to leadership | Stakeholders series URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-leadership/ Last updated: 2024-09-03T12:06:25.000Z As markets grow ever more competitive, keeping a close eye on your competition is no longer a luxury – it's a necessity. While your sales teams are likely already equipped with [competitive battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/), there's a group that can make even greater use of competitive insights: the C-suite. According to the [Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2022](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/competitive-intelligence-trends-report-2022/), while a whopping 92.6% of respondents reported sharing competitive intelligence (CI) with sales teams, only 73.5% did the same with their executives or leadership. Meanwhile, the [State of Competitive Enablement Report 2022](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-competitive-enablement-2022-blog/) reveals that for a mere 2.2% of CI pros, C-suite executives are primary users of the intel they gather – surprising when you consider the impact CI could have on strategic decisions and long-term growth. Yet, delivering CI to the C-suite can create the most long-term value. Andy Vale, Product Marketing Manager at Infinity, observes: > “More recently, \[CI\] has been looked at more from a strategic level nearer the top of the business. This level can overestimate the importance of certain trends or features, but is the area I feel competitive intelligence would be most useful in the long term.” The icing on the cake? If you can successfully demonstrate the value of CI to those holding the company’s purse strings, you might just find it easier to secure more resources, budget, and tooling. So, let’s delve into some best practices for sharing CI with the C-suite. We’ll also uncover the art of crafting a competitive intelligence report, common pitfalls you should avoid when delivering CI to leadership, and other tips and tricks that'll help you unlock the strategic potential of CI. ## Best practices for sharing CI with leadership Navigating the busy schedules of C-suite executives can often feel like a high-stakes game of Tetris. Yet, the importance of delivering effective competitive intelligence to this strategic powerhouse cannot be overstated. So, how can you ensure your intel lands not just in their inbox, but also on their action list? 1. **Keep your briefs brief:** Execs are elite multi-taskers, juggling dozens of demands every day. So, your CI briefs should be just that – brief. Aim for a succinct summary that gets straight to the heart of the matter. 2. **Align with their goals:** Want your competitive intel to pack a punch? Tailor it to your executives’ goals and priorities. Don't just throw in every piece of intel you have. Sift through the data and focus on those insights that could potentially move the needle on their strategic objectives. 3. **Timing is of the essence:** In the ever-changing business landscape, information grows stale faster than you can say “competitive intelligence.” If you're reporting on a development that unfolded weeks ago, chances are your execs have either already caught wind of it, or the window of opportunity has closed. Make it your mission to provide timely, relevant intel that facilitates swift and strategic decision-making. 4. **Don't just deliver data – offer insight:** Raw data might be a [competitive intelligence analyst's](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-analyst/) best friend, but for busy executives, it's about as helpful as a traffic jam on the way to a crucial meeting. They don't just need data; they need insights. Transform the raw information into clear and actionable recommendations that help your executives respond effectively to competitive developments. 5. **Embrace open dialogue:** The best CI brief is a living document – one that sparks conversation, facilitates decision-making, and evolves with your business. Encourage your execs to provide feedback on your briefings, and ensure there's a quick and easy way for them to comment or respond to your insights. This ongoing dialogue will not only improve your CI delivery but also help you build trust and rapport with the C-suite. By adhering to these best practices, you can ensure that your competitive intelligence not only reaches the executive suite but also helps drive strategic decision-making. After all, CI isn't just about knowing your competition; it's about leveraging that knowledge to stay ahead of the pack. --- 🧐 ****Need help delivering CI to other teams? Check out the other installments in our Stakeholders Series:** • [How to deliver competitive intelligence to sales and customer success](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/) • [How to deliver competitive intelligence to your marketing teams](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-marketing/) • [How to deliver competitive intelligence to your product, design, and engineering teams](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-product-teams/) --- ## How to write a competitive briefing your execs will actually read Distilling complex data into a digestible, actionable briefing for your executives is an art form in itself. Let’s take a look at how to get it done right, plus a simple template to help you hit the ground running. First things first, your point of view should sit loud and proud at the very top of your document. Don't bury it under heaps of data or preamble. Rather, capture it succinctly in your headline. For instance, you might say, “We regard Company X as a tech partner and an indirect competitor” – straightforward and to the point. Next, delve into the rationale. Here's where you provide the ‘why’ behind your point of view. Let's say your data shows that when customers invest in Company X’s product, they tend to spend more time on its interface than yours. That's important intel, so share it. You might also note, “Even with increased usage of XYZ's interface, customers still lean on our product as the ultimate source of truth. There's been no significant customer revenue churn due to Customer X’s presence in their account.” Be clear, be concise, but most importantly, be relevant. Your executives will want to understand the competitive landscape too. So, if the competitor's product and user interface closely mirror yours, share this insight. Highlight key differences: “Yes, customers could perceive us as direct rivals. Yet, they fall short in resolving these three critical issues.” A comparison of this nature is invaluable in helping the executive team see where you stand. Always remember, though, it's not just about drawing comparisons. It's about carving a path forward. So, in your report, suggest potential responses to customer queries about the competitor. For instance, “If a customer brings up XYZ, we can acknowledge them as a tech partner but also highlight that we provide most of their offerings. They might have a few extra bells and whistles, but our core services align.” Here's a handy template you can use to structure your report: - **Headline:** We regard \[company\] as a tech partner / indirect competitor / direct competitor / aspirational competitor / replacement competitor\*. - **Rationale:** Key data points that back up your headline. - **Comparison:** How the competitor compares with your company or product. - **Implications:** How the competitor's actions could potentially impact your business. - **Recommendations:** Concrete actions that your company should consider in response. \* *Psst! Want to know more about the different types of competitors? Check out* [*Head-to-Head: The Competitive Intelligence Playbook*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/head-to-head-playbook/). Consider this your roadmap to a progressively detailed viewpoint about a potential competitor. It's all about serving up the most valuable, actionable insights in a package that respects your executive's time and attention. --- ## Looking for next steps? **Competitive intelligence is a powerful growth lever for any organization... if done right.** There are many concepts to master if you're to satisfy your customers, motivate your team, and optimize your workflows. Enter our Competitive Intelligence Framework. 🏁 It covers everything you need to know to navigate the competitive intelligence cycle, from start to finish. [The Competitive Intelligence FrameworkCompetitive intelligence done right is a powerful growth lever for any organization. But getting it right? That’s the hard part. There are many concepts to master if you’re to satisfy your customers, motivate your team, and optimize your workflows. Enter our Competitive Intelligence Framework.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/06/CIA-Framework-Wheel_Meta.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-framework/) --- ## Common pitfalls of delivering CI to the C-suite Let's delve into the common pitfalls of delivering [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) to your leadership team and, more importantly, how we can sidestep these obstacles. ### Pitfall #1: Time constraints We’ve already alluded to this, but it bears repeating: executives are perpetually caught in a time crunch. They’re racing against the clock to meet deadlines, attend meetings, and drive strategic initiatives. Your in-depth, painstakingly researched CI report? It's competing with a lot of other priorities. **Solution:** Keep it concise. Deliver a succinct summary with your key points and recommendations right at the top. This allows them to get the gist at a glance, and delve deeper if time permits. ### Pitfall #2: Bias Sometimes, the hardest part isn't delivering the information – it's overcoming preconceived notions or biases. An executive might be inclined to ignore or discount insights that contradict their beliefs about their company’s standing in the market. **Solution:** Present a fair and balanced view, with data-driven arguments to back up your claims. Be prepared for a healthy debate, and remember, it's not about proving who's right – it's about finding the truth. ### Pitfall #3: Getting them to read it You can draft the most insightful, data-rich report, but if they don’t read it, it might as well not exist. **Solution:** Meet them where they are. If they live on Slack, deliver your insights on Slack. If they're email aficionados, craft a compelling email. If they're dashboard devotees, create a live dashboard they can access as and when they need to. ### Pitfall #4: Information overload With a sea of information at their fingertips, executives can easily become overwhelmed. This information overload can lead to analysis paralysis, where making decisions becomes difficult. **Solution:** Curate carefully. Instead of throwing everything you have at your leaders, be judicious about the insights you share. Highlight the most critical data points that tie into their strategic goals. ### Pitfall #5: Disconnected data CI reports often present data in silos, without demonstrating how different elements interconnect or influence one another. This could lead to a fragmented understanding of the competitive landscape. **Solution:** Connect the dots. Show the bigger picture and how different data points relate to each other. By providing a comprehensive view of the situation, you’ll aid better decision-making. In short, delivering competitive intelligence to your leaders in the C-suite is all about respect – respect for their time, their current workflows, and their need for concise, connected, unbiased information. Dodge these common pitfalls and your competitive intelligence will become an indispensable tool for your executives. ## Key takeaways Delivering competitive intelligence to busy executives can seem daunting, but with a pinch of empathy, a splash of strategy, and a healthy dollop of clarity, it's entirely achievable. Remember, the goal is to arm your C-suite with the insights they need to steer your company toward success, not overwhelm them with raw data. Now, let's roll out those takeaways: 🎯 **Focus on what matters:** Understand your executives' goals and priorities. Deliver CI that moves the needle on those. 🕑 **Timing is everything:** Keep your intel fresh. If it's old news, it's no news. 🗂️ **Give actionable insights:** Don't dump raw data. Present clear, actionable recommendations. 📬 **Meet them where they are:** If they live on Slack, deliver there. Email fans? Use mail. Dashboard devotees? Create a live dashboard. 👥 **Encourage dialogue**: Foster open conversations and ask for feedback to improve your delivery. 🎯 **Aim for brevity:** Execs are busy – keep your briefs brief! So, there you have it! Implement these best practices and your CI reports are sure to become the C-suite's strategic secret weapon. [](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ## Give yourself an unfair advantage Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence. **You can expect:** - A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can **stop worrying and start winning.** - Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you **an unfair advantage.** - 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that **make analysis a cinch.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/02/core2-1.png) #### Competitive Intelligence: Core We'll show you how to: - 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important ****competitive positioning**. - 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most ****powerful research techniques**. - 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to ****skyrocket win rates** and turn down churn. - 🧠 Offer leaders ****critical intel** that informs their decision-making and strategy. - 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure ****career progression**. [Learn more](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/competitive-intelligence-certified-core?hss%5Fchannel=lcp-86278162) --- ### Stand out in a crowded market: a practical guide to product positioning URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/stand-out-in-a-crowded-market-product-positioning/ Last updated: 2025-06-11T14:52:15.000Z Product marketing and competitive intelligence professionals, are you ready to unlock the secrets to effective product positioning and differentiate yourself in a saturated market? Look no further! In this comprehensive blog post, I'll walk you through actionable frameworks and strategies that will elevate your product positioning game to new heights. ## 1️⃣ The competitive landscape assessment Understanding the competitive landscape is a critical step in effective product positioning. It involves conducting a comprehensive analysis of your competitors to gain insights into their strategies, strengths, weaknesses, and unique value propositions. By understanding the competitive landscape, you can identify opportunities to differentiate your product and position it in a way that highlights its distinct advantages. Here are some key aspects to consider when analyzing the competitive landscape: 1. **Competitor identification:** Begin by identifying [your direct and indirect competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-tackle-different-forms-of-competition/). Direct competitors offer similar products or services that target the same customer segment, while indirect competitors may provide alternative solutions to the same customer needs. Identify both established players and emerging startups within your industry. 2. **Competitor offerings**: Analyze the products or services offered by your competitors. Understand their features, functionalities, pricing models, packaging, and any unique selling points they emphasize. This analysis helps you identify areas where you can differentiate your product to stand out in the market. 3. **Market share and positioning:** Evaluate the market share and positioning of your competitors. Determine which competitors dominate the market and how they position themselves. Are they focusing on specific customer segments, industry verticals, or use cases? This information will help you identify positioning gaps and opportunities to capture market share. 4. **Strengths and weaknesses:** Assess the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. Identify what they do exceptionally well and where they fall short. Look for gaps or underserved areas in the market that you can exploit by positioning your product as the superior solution. 5. **Customer perception and reviews:** Explore customer reviews, feedback, and sentiments about your competitors' products. Understand what customers love about their offerings and where they find them lacking. This information can guide your positioning strategy to address pain points and deliver enhanced value to your target audience. 💡 Psst... want to learn more about the differences between brand positioning and product positioning strategies? Check out these three [brand positioning examples](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-strategy-examples/), and what you can learn from them, or discover how to craft the perfect [positioning statement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/). ## 2️⃣ Define your target audience This step involves identifying the specific group of individuals or businesses who are most likely to benefit from and engage with your product. By understanding your target audience's demographics, preferences, pain points, and motivations, you can tailor your positioning strategy to resonate with their needs effectively. Some key considerations when defining your target audience into [market segments](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-get-started-with-market-segmentation/): 1. **Demographics:** Start by analyzing the demographic characteristics of your potential customers. This includes factors such as age, gender, location, income level, education level, and occupation. Understanding these demographics helps you create a more accurate picture of who your target audience is and how to reach them. 2. **Psychographics:** Dive deeper into the psychographic aspects of your target audience. Explore their values, interests, attitudes, and lifestyle choices. This information helps you understand their motivations, aspirations, and behaviors, which in turn enables you to position your product in a way that aligns with their desires and resonates with their worldview. 3. **Needs and pain points:** Identify the specific needs, challenges, and pain points your target audience experiences. What problems are they trying to solve? What frustrations do they encounter? By understanding their pain points, you can position your product as the ideal solution that addresses their specific challenges and provides meaningful value. 4. **Motivations and goals:** Gain insights into the motivations and goals of your target audience. What drives them? What are they looking to achieve? By understanding their desires and aspirations, you can position your product as the catalyst that helps them accomplish their goals and fulfill their aspirations. 5. **Behavioral patterns:** Analyze the behavioral patterns of your target audience. How do they research and make purchase decisions? Where do they spend their time online and offline? Understanding their behavior helps you identify the most effective channels and touchpoints to reach and engage with them. 6. **Customer segmentation:** Consider segmenting your target audience into distinct groups based on shared characteristics or needs. This allows you to create more [focused positioning strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/when-does-a-low-cost-provider-strategy-beat-a-differentiation-strategy/#broad-and-focused-competitive-strategies) for each segment, ensuring your messaging and value proposition resonate more strongly with specific subsets of your audience. --- [Avoid These 10 Common Market Segmentation ErrorsWe’ve collated a list of the ten most common market segmentation errors you’ll need to avoid if you want to create relevant, useful segments that inform your marketing strategy and drive revenue.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/sigmund-By-tZImt0Ms-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/common-market-segmentation-errors/) --- ## 3️⃣ Uncover your unique value proposition (UVP) Your unique value proposition (UVP) represents the distinct benefits and value your product offers to your target audience, setting you apart from competitors and capturing the attention of potential customers. Your UVP should clearly communicate why your product is the best choice and how it solves your audience's pain points uniquely and compellingly. Some key elements to consider when uncovering your UVP: 1. **Identify your competitive advantage:** Analyze your product's features, functionalities, and benefits to identify what sets it apart from competing offerings. Determine the specific advantages or unique qualities that give your product an edge in the market. This could include superior performance, innovative technology, cost-effectiveness, convenience, sustainability, or exceptional customer support. 2. **Solve a specific problem:** Pinpoint the specific problem or pain point that your product addresses for your target audience. Understand the challenges they face and how your product provides a solution that is more effective, efficient, or reliable than existing alternatives. Clearly articulate how your product resolves their pain points and makes their lives better or easier. 3. **Quantify tangible benefits:** Highlight the tangible benefits that customers can expect from using your product. This could include time or cost savings, increased productivity, improved efficiency, higher quality, greater convenience, enhanced performance, or better outcomes. Quantify these benefits whenever possible to make them more tangible and compelling. 4. **Emphasize unique features or innovations:** If your product includes unique features, functionalities, or innovations that differentiate it from competitors, showcase them in your UVP. Highlight how these features solve problems or deliver benefits in a way that no other product can. This helps create a perception of exclusivity and positions your product as a superior choice. 5. **Address emotional needs:** Consider the emotional needs and aspirations of your target audience. What emotional triggers or desires does your product fulfill? Whether it's providing peace of mind, boosting confidence, enabling self-expression, fostering a sense of belonging, or fulfilling a sense of adventure, incorporate these emotional benefits into your UVP. Emotionally resonating with your audience can make your product more compelling and memorable. 6. **Keep it clear and concise:** Craft your UVP in a clear, concise, and easily understandable manner. Avoid jargon or technical language that may confuse or alienate your audience. Use simple, straightforward language that clearly communicates the value and benefits of your product. 7. **Test and refine:** Once you've developed your initial UVP, test it with your target audience to ensure it resonates with them. Collect feedback, conduct surveys, and analyze customer responses to refine and optimize your UVP. Iterate based on the insights gained, ensuring your UVP effectively captures the attention and interest of your target audience. ## 4️⃣ Positioning frameworks Explore effective frameworks to shape your product positioning strategy: **a) The value matrix:** The value matrix is a positioning framework that helps you map your product against key attributes and compare it to your competitors. By visualizing your product's position in the matrix, you can identify areas where you excel and create a positioning statement that highlights your strengths. This framework allows you to showcase your unique advantages and differentiate your product in the market. Here's how the value matrix works: 1. **Identify key attributes**: Start by identifying the key attributes or factors that are important to your target audience when considering a product in your industry. These attributes could include price, quality, performance, features, ease of use, customer support, or any other factors that drive purchase decisions. 2. **Map your product and competitors**: Create [a positioning matrix](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/) with the identified attributes as axes. Place your product and your competitors' products in the matrix based on their performance in each attribute. Consider customer perceptions, market research, and objective data to make accurate assessments. 3. **Assess your position:** Analyze where your product is positioned in the matrix. Identify the attributes where your product excels compared to competitors. These attributes represent your strengths and unique selling points that differentiate you from the competition. b) **The perceptual map:** Visualize your product's positioning in relation to competitors based on key dimensions. Adjust your messaging and positioning to occupy a unique and desirable space in the market. c) **The Jobs-to-be-Done Framework:** Focus on understanding the underlying motivations and “jobs” your customers are trying to accomplish. Position your product as the solution that best fulfills those jobs and addresses their pain points. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/jobs.png) A quick run-down of the Jobs to be Done framework. --- [B2B Market Segmentation Guide: How to Succeed in B2B in 2023Not all segmentation methods work for all businesses. If your customers are other businesses, rather than consumers, there are several key need-to-knows that’ll help you avoid pitfalls, create more actionable segments, and boost the results of your campaigns.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/03/mike-petrucci-c9FQyqIECds-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/b2b-market-segmentation-guide/) --- ## 5️⃣ Crafting compelling messaging Crafting compelling messaging involves creating persuasive and engaging messages that effectively communicate the value, benefits, and unique selling points of your product to your target audience. Compelling messaging helps capture attention, generate interest, and motivate potential customers to take action. Some key considerations when crafting compelling messaging: 1. **Know your audience:** Gain a deep understanding of your target audience, including their demographics, needs, pain points, and aspirations. Tailor your messaging to resonate with their specific desires and challenges. Use language, tone, and messaging styles that align with their preferences and communication style. 2. **Highlight key benefits:** Clearly articulate the primary benefits and value your product offers. Focus on how your product solves specific problems, improves outcomes, saves time or money, enhances productivity, or delivers unique advantages. Highlight the tangible and emotional benefits that your audience can expect by using your product. 3. [**Competitive differentiation**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/)**:** Showcase what sets your product apart from the competition. Emphasize your unique selling points, such as superior features, innovative technology, exceptional quality, industry expertise, or outstanding customer support. Clearly communicate why your product is the best choice compared to alternatives in the market. 4. **Use strong and clear language:** Choose words and phrases that are powerful, concise, and easy to understand. Use action verbs and descriptive adjectives that create vivid imagery and convey the value and benefits of your product. Avoid jargon or technical language that may confuse or alienate your audience. 5. **Create a compelling value proposition:** Craft a strong and memorable value proposition that encapsulates the core benefits and differentiators of your product. This should be a concise statement that clearly communicates what makes your product unique and why it is valuable to your target audience. Keep it simple, impactful, and easily memorable. 6. **Tell a story:** Use storytelling techniques to engage your audience emotionally and make your messaging more relatable and memorable. Share customer success stories, case studies, or examples that illustrate how your product has made a positive impact. Connect with your audience on a human level and evoke emotions that resonate with their desires and challenges. 7. **Test and refine:** Continuously test and refine your messaging to ensure its effectiveness. Gather feedback from your target audience, conduct A/B testing, and analyze data to determine which messages resonate best. Iterate and optimize your messaging based on the insights gained to continuously improve its impact. 8. **Consistency across channels:** Ensure consistency in messaging across all communication channels, including your website, social media, advertising, sales materials, and customer support. Consistent messaging builds brand recognition and reinforces your product's positioning in the minds of your audience. ## 6️⃣ Test and iterate Validate your positioning by gathering feedback from customers and prospects. Conduct surveys, interviews, and A/B testing to assess its effectiveness. Iterate based on the insights gained to continuously refine and optimize your product positioning strategy. Remember, effective product positioning is the cornerstone of successful marketing. It allows you to connect with your target audience on a deeper level and establish a strong, [sustained competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). Implement these actionable frameworks and strategies to position your product for success in a crowded market. Elevate your product marketing game and drive meaningful results! --- ## Competitive positioning secrets 🤫 Want your positioning to net you even better results? In the Competitive Intelligence Playbook, we sit down with five industry experts and grill them for their proven positioning processes. Inside, discover: - How to copy the process the experts use to position (and win) in competitive markets. - Why pitch-perfect positioning isn't the goal, and what you should aim for instead. - The quickest, easiest way to fix things when your positioning isn't working. ... and loads more. Check it out. 👇 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/blog_meta.png) #### No product is created in a vacuum The Competitive Positioning Playbook teaches you... 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a ****rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you ****must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom ****tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s ****revenue** ceiling. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ### The CI-by-Industry eBook URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ci-by-industry-ebook-blog/ Last updated: 2024-07-19T10:41:36.000Z **A short eBook containing competitive intelligence lessons and processes from experts in five different industries:** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/07/CIA_CI-by-industry-playbook_Blog_-1.png) Your competitive questions, answered **Stop scratching your head over competitive intelligence. Start performing, analyzing, and delivering like a CI veteran.** This eBook – packed with clear, specific details on each step of the proven processes five industry experts use to do CI – will teach you how to gather intel and deliver to stakeholders in a form that works. 🚀 Download the playbook --- ## Meet your experts **5 experts. 5 different industries. 5 case studies. Almost 50 years' combined experience. Uncover their tried and tested methods for success.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/nadav-2.jpg) **Mobile gaming** Nadav Moshes, Senior Competitive Intelligence Manager at **Playtika** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/mindy-2.jpg) **eCommerce** Mindy Regnell, Principal Market & Competitive Intelligence at **Postscript** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/chris_link-2.jpg) **Healthcare technology** Chris Link, Research & Insights Manager at **Interlace Health** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/mimi_an-2.jpg) **Cloud computing** Mimi An, Director of Competitive Intelligence at **Akamai** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/clint_sprauve-2.jpg) **DevOps test data management** Clint Sprauve, Director of Product Marketing at **Delphix** --- ## CI-by-Industry eBook ## 1 eBook. 5 industry experts. Dozens of actionable insights. Here's a sample of what you'll discover inside this eBook: 🍔 The unique **“hamburger method”** that immediately tells you if you’re delivering too much information to stakeholders. (Page 18) 👾 **This one KPI** from the mobile gaming industry holds the secret to approaching CI the right way. (Page 13) 🙅‍♂️ Why you should think twice before having reps from **this team** on a win/loss call. (Page 24) 🧹 The quickest, **easiest way** to stay up to date with competitors if you work in SaaS. (Page 23) 😰 Why field intelligence can be dangerous, and how to use it **the right way**. (Page 24) 🎯 This surprising method ensures the intel you deliver to stakeholders is accurate. Are you following it? (Page 62) 💔 **The one source** of competitive intelligence that will never give you a competitive advantage. And what to do about it. (Page 46) 🏆 What you can do to make up for a lack of competitor data and win your niche. (Page 35) 🥂 Over-communicators are a pain, right? Wrong. Discover why over-communicating with stakeholders sparks joy for them **on page 18**. 🫢 The truth about **analysis frameworks**, and exactly how to approach analysis to succeed. (Page 52) 🤖 The truth about automation, and how much time tools can really save you. (Page 22) 🤯 The **surprising key skill** every one of our industry experts said was crucial for CI success. (Page 66) ⌛ What to do to win, even if you’re short on time and resources. (Page 59) 🤫 The **unique, light-lift deliverable** that helps you scale CI across your org with little effort. (Page 42) 🦄 How to use the intel inside your org to discover unique competitive opportunities. Even in difficult industries. Simply use **this technique**. (Page 13) [Get your copy](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1M68YJi-dQdeU2vEjt68oGg2b1vun) --- ## Download the CI-by-Industry eBook **Stop scratching your head over competitive intelligence. Start performing, analyzing, and delivering like a CI veteran.** Grab your copy. 👇 ### This light-lift deliverable could save you hours: Healthcare Technology with Christopher Link | CI-by-Industry Series URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/healthcare-technology-christopher-link/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:54:43.000Z The Compete Clarity podcast’s CI-by-Industry mini-series is back. 🙌 This is the series where we speak to experts across industries to find out how the competitive intelligence pros handle their industry’s unique quirks and challenges. In our third installment, representing the Healthcare Technology industry, is Christopher Link, Research & Insights Manager at [Interlace Health](https://interlacehealth.com/). Interlace Health completely replaces paper with digital in healthcare, and was a pioneer of digital forms and e-signatures. 🧑‍💻 [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast: Data packs: a scalable, light-lift deliverable that’ll save you hours: Healthcare Technology with Christopher Link | CI-by-Industry Series on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Compete Clarity Podcast, Ep Data packs: a scalable, light-lift deliverable that’ll save you hours: Healthcare Technology with Christopher Link | CI-by-Industry Series - Jul 12, 2023![](https://t0.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/data-packs-a-scalable-light-lift-deliverable-thatll/id1678079061?i=1000620878838&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/9d/0c/36/9d0c3698-c69a-ff19-f51f-f7371cd41832/mza_2588363255601066954.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/data-packs-a-scalable-light-lift-deliverable-thatll/id1678079061?i=1000620878838) ## **Key talking points** - How Chris uses what he calls “data packs” to deliver a one-stop resource for anyone looking to bring themselves up to speed on a competitor. - Why it’s critical to test your deliverables at different screen resolutions, particularly for sales. - Why manually sifting through a lot of data can be the best thing you can do for your success in CI. --- ## **Want to be a guest on the podcast?** We're looking for guests! If you consider yourself (or anyone you know does!) something of a thought leader in competitive intelligence, drop us a line at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io. We can't wait to host you! [ Register your interest ](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### How to use social media to create a competitive advantage (7 ways) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-social-media-to-create-a-competitive-advantage/ Last updated: 2023-11-01T17:11:54.000Z As far back as 2011, Jive Social Business Index conducted [a study surveying over 900 US-based businesses,](https://sciresol.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/IJST/Articles/2015/Issue-Supplementary-4/Article17.pdf) and discovered that “62% of executives believe they can achieve ‘better customer loyalty and service levels’ by having a social media strategy.” 12 years on, that number is probably even higher. Social media is today’s Roman forum. Its village square. And, if the recent noise around “Threads versus Twitter” is anything to go by, that ain’t changing anytime soon. So how can you make use of all those eyeballs, those collected brains, to get ahead in your competitive intelligence and strategy work? To put it another way, how do companies use social media to create a competitive advantage? As a source of intel itself, social media’s advantages are pretty clear. But as a source of competitive advantage? Perhaps less so. Here’s how companies are using social media as a competitive advantage: 1. **Perform market research.** 2. **Inform product strategy.** 3. **Solve customer problems.** 4. **Engage with existing customers.** 5. **Build personal brands.** 6. **Solidify congruence.** 7. **Promote your products and content.** 8. **(Bonus) Promote your company culture.** Read on as we unpack each one. 👇 ## 1) Perform market research Social media is versatile. It’s somewhere you can go to get eyeballs on your products, on your content, and on the problems your org’s doing a great job of solving. It’s somewhere you can go to build a personal brand or bolster your company brand. Or even to shoot the breeze with folks who could be just days and a download away from buying from you for the first time. Six years ago, Forbes wrote about this topic and quoted [then-Crimson Hexagon CTO Chris Bingham](https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-bingham-a0452/) (now at Brandwatch). He said social media “is like the world’s largest focus group. You can tap into what people have said in the past rather than just what they’re saying now.” There’s a lot you can learn from your customers on social networks. They’ll talk amongst themselves, and when they talk about your products or industry, you learn how they’re thinking and feeling. As a gauge of market sentiment, towards you or something going on in your industry, there are few better sources. Certainly, none that are free. For you competitive intelligence pros, this should be familiar territory. You might even be doing this already if you’re following the processes we laid out in [the competitive positioning playbook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/). Open forums like Twitter, and even LinkedIn, encourage people to share their thoughts and opinions about the products and services they use. When your brand, or your product, is mentioned, you should know about it. ## 2) Inform product strategy If the aforementioned… mentions (sorry) contain good feedback, log them. When you know what customers appreciate about you, you can use the info to [inform your competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/). If the feedback is bad, still log them. Then you’ll know what might you need to change. Sure, this in isolation won’t win you any awards for the most sophisticated customer research program. But it’s a sharp way of getting started. It nets you valuable data from a source you probably spend a good deal of time in anyway. And for small teams short on resources (all of you?), it’s key to get the greatest possible impact for the lowest possible cost to your time. Social media can fit the bill here. And here’s the best part: you don’t have to sit around idly waiting for people to mention you. Sure, you can pay for a tool to track mentions, or fiddle around with something open source for hours until it’s *still* not set up how you want it… *Or*, you can just invite feedback by asking for it. Which brings us to our next point: ## 3) Solve customer problems Social media lurker? Watch out. There’s a competitor brand engaging with *your* target audience. And if your customers are voicing concerns or problems, your competitor could be the one to save the day and offer them a solution. It should go without saying, but if your customers are voicing problems or concerns on social media, it pays for *you* to be the ones seen to address and solve them. Social platforms offer you a chance to solve customer problems in real time. While offering customer service exclusively via social media isn’t a good idea, it makes a great impression when the vendor swings in and saves the day. As part of your social media marketing strategy, solving customer problems pays off in the long run. Check out this example from a disgruntled AT&T customer on Twitter, and what rival Comcast did to steal the spotlight: ![Screenshot of a Tweet where Comcast stepped in to provide wifi and cable to a customer when AT&T couldn't prove helpful fast enough.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/comcast.jpg) If you don't help... someone will. > "Over a month later we finally have wifi/cable. THANK YOU @comcast for making it so easy, don't know why we wasted time on @ATT to begin with" \~ @emlyherrngdne, Twitter --- [Comparative vs Competitive Advantage: What’s the Difference?Comparative and competitive advantages are economic terms that, when applied to a business, refer to a business’ ability to produce goods and services and to win against competitors over time.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/anastasiya-romanova-vGY31qO4518-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) --- ## 4) Engage with customers There are valuable insights to be found in listening to your customers when they’re talking amongst themselves. Even when they’re offering unsolicited feedback. But when you ask for that feedback in real time, you get more than just information. You get an opportunity to engage with your audience. There’s evidence that social media algorithms reward this kind of behavior, too. On social media, engagement begets engagement. [Richard van der Blom](https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardvanderblom/), a social selling trainer with almost 15 years of experience nailing the LinkedIn algorithm, did some of his own research. When it comes to pleasing the LinkedIn algorithm, comments are more valuable than simple likes. And comments with a response from the author (one of your colleagues) are more valuable still*.* ![A relative scale of different types of LinkedIn post engagement and their impact on post performance.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-05-at-17.37.56.png) A relative scale of different types of LinkedIn post engagement and their impact on post performance. Let that sink in. Then mull this over: When you invite comments in a post, you sow the seeds for a dialogue. When you respond to the comments you get, you actively engage with and nurture that dialogue. This encourages more comments (and future comments on future posts, when customers see there’s a good chance you’ll reply to them on any given post). Which boosts performance. Which means more people seeing your posts. Which means more people commenting. Which means… Of course, this is how posts go viral. But even on small scales, better-performing social posts means more eyeballs on your brand, greater awareness, and more folks entering the top of your sales funnel. As a long-term customer acquisition play, then, it’s clear how social media can help you build a competitive advantage. You might not be the one posting, but as a competitive play, it makes sense to encourage your teams to engage with their own posts. ## 5) Build personal brands Check out this conversation I saw between two SEO/content wizards on LinkedIn just recently: ![A conversation between Ben Goodey and Tim Hanson on LinkedIn about how businesses doing well right now have a C-Suite that posts on social media daily to build their personal brands.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/07/tim_hanson_ss.png) Don't just take it from us. Experts have observed the same thing: winning businesses today have a C-Suite that's bought into building their personal brands. > “The companies I see killing it right now have a CxO lineup who are posting daily and building their own brands. It’s a huge part of the puzzle these days.” \~ [Tim Hanson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tihanson/), founder of fivethreeoh. Social media isn’t just for figuring stuff out about your competitors. It’s for building personal brands. I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not talking about those who brag about their quasi-accomplishments every chance they get. Take a look at your own social media feeds. Who do you have notifications turned on for? And what can you do to help multiple members of your C-Suite get on that list for your org’s target audience? Those in your C-suite are the faces of your business. And the lines between their personal brands and your business’ brand are, today, as blurred as it gets. If you’re a Head Of, or a Director, and have some pull over the C-Suite, see if you can’t get a member or two posting regularly. All in the name of brand awareness. ## 6) Solidify congruence Congruence is an essential part of your marketing strategy. When your messaging isn’t consistent across platforms, it’s a problem. But it’s such a common one that it’s easy for your org to stand out if you can get it right. Here’s the secret: you’ll get it right if you communicate. Most businesses don’t do this properly. As they scale, they fail to instill the brand identity that brought them early success into each new hire. That makes your competitors’ hasty onboarding processes your best friend. When your tone of voice and messaging are consistent, even in your replies to comments on social media platforms, you display competitive differentiation without even trying. The real difference is this makes your brand seem incredibly authentic. And incredibly trustworthy. This is the classic “length implies strength heuristic”. When you see a bunch of testimonials on a landing page, you think, “That many people can’t be wrong.” When you see a bunch of people communicating congruently about their products and services, you think, “that many people can’t be wrong.” In other words, there’s no way they could all be faking it. And you’ve found a brand you can trust. --- [The VRIO Framework (What it is and How to Use it)The VRIO framework is a strategic analysis tool focused on helping a business find potential sources of competitive advantage. VRIO looks at a firm’s internal capabilities and resources, so differs from other strategic analysis frameworks like PESTLE analysis that examine external market factors.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/joey-graham-rHP-c0r_Uso-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/) --- ## 7) Promote your products and content This one’s hard to miss. Head over to any business’ Twitter or LinkedIn feed and prepare to see a long line of promotional posts shouting about their latest blog post or product update. If any of your competitors fall into this category, it’s a great source of intel for you to learn more about what they’re up to straight from the source. (One more way to strengthen your competitive advantage, or to turn a [temporary competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/) into a sustained one.) Unfortunately, it’s often an ineffective strategy. In recent years, it has become clear that giving value up front works*.* Needlessly hiding key points in the depths of a blog post, one that’s a few thousand words long, that a follower has to click through to even view, does not work anymore. Instead, it’s best to post those takeaways right in the promotional post itself. Then, those that want the extra detail, the how and the why, will click through and read the article. By providing value up front, you’ve separated yourself from the crowd by giving people what they want and asking nothing in return. In a time of short attention spans, paired with ever-increasing distraction, you can’t afford to lose the one chance you’ve got to make a positive impression. This way, even those that don’t click will associate a little bump of joy with your brand. Again, social media offers you a way to do things differently. If you succeed in implementing this [differentiation strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/when-does-a-low-cost-provider-strategy-beat-a-differentiation-strategy/), you’ll create a competitive advantage by offering more value to your prospects and consumers than anyone else. --- [Competitive Strategies for Each Stage of the Company LifecycleIf you’re looking for the right competitive strategy for where your business is at, you’re probably in either the startup, growth, or maturity phase. This article takes a look at which types of competitive strategies you should adopt at each stage of the cycle.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/wolfgang-hasselmann-WoOMLfUa43A-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-strategy-for-business-lifecycle/) --- ## (Bonus) Promote your company culture I once had a boss tell me, “I don’t run the business. I don’t have time. It’s the staff that run the business.”. It’s no secret that as you scale and bring in new people, it’s the quality of those people that determines whether a company will ultimately be successful. For that reason, being one of those few businesses everyone wants to work for is a huge competitive advantage. If all the best staff want to work for you, who will be in charge of making your competitors successful? *Less talented staff.* When you get your company culture right, you don’t even need to ask for reviews on Glassdoor. Your staff will leave glowing testimonials across social media. They might not *look* like testimonials, but think back to the last time you considered moving to a company. It makes a difference if everyone seems cheery and upbeat, doesn’t it? When people are energetic and enthusiastic, it’s because they’re engaged with their work. It means they’re \*allowed\* to have fun at work. It means they’re probably getting pretty good results in their work, too. But people needn’t guess, since social media gives you a chance to shout about your wins as a company. And who doesn’t want to be part of a winning culture? --- ## What next? Now you know some of the ways businesses can use social media to generate a competitive advantage. But how about an **actual process** for doing competitive intelligence on social media? We’ve got you covered. Check out our handy guide to [**Social media competitive intelligence: what it is and how to do it**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/)**:** [Social Media Competitive Intelligence: What It Is, How to Do ItSocial media is an incredibly powerful tool for gathering information on competing businesses. Done intentionally, you can follow and filter information according to your favorite strategic framework.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/alexander-shatov-CTZhGbSxWLI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) --- ### The dangers of outsourcing SaaS development vs keeping it in-house URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-dangers-of-outsourcing-saas-development-vs-keeping-it-in-house/ Last updated: 2023-11-23T11:00:41.000Z Okay, so you’ve got a really great idea for a SaaS product; now it’s decision time, do you focus on building your solution in-house, spending money and resources on building out teams for each function, or do you instead outsource your product development to agencies? The answer depends largely on the type of product you’re offering. We can’t give you a definitive answer either way, but we can guide you to the solution that might be right for you. So, without further ado, let’s give you the low-down on outsourcing vs in-house development. ## **What is outsourcing vs in-agency development?** When it comes to deciding between hiring an agency or keeping things in-house for your development needs, there are some key differences to consider—like cost, timelines, flexibility, and dedication. Now, if you decide to go with a software development agency, you can save some cash, get your product launched faster, and have more time to focus on other important aspects of your business. But here's the catch: if you want to make changes or pivot down the line, it might be a bit trickier with a fixed scope, and the agency might not be as invested in your project as an in-house team would be. So, you need to make sure that your vision is clearly articulated to agencies. On the flip side, going with an in-house development department gives you more freedom to tweak things on the go, more control over the process, and a team that's fully dedicated to your product and the problem you're tackling. But keep in mind that it might take a bit more money and time to get your product off the ground using this approach. ## **The benefits of outsourcing** ### **Focus on core offerings** When it comes to your SaaS product, outsourcing it to a software development agency can be a game-changer, especially if you don't have the right team in-house. But here's the thing—even if you do have a super slick [UI/UX ](https://www.futureofsaas.io/why-user-experience-is-so-important-for-your-saas-company/)and development department, outsourcing smaller projects can still be a smart move. It helps your team stay focused on core offerings and more pressing matters. ### **More cost-effective solution** Outsourcing is often a more cost-effective option. You don't have to worry about hiring expensive freelancers or setting up a whole in-house team. That means more savings for your business. On average, this approach can slash your costs by up to 50% while still delivering top-notch SaaS products faster than the [competition.](https://www.futureofsaas.io/competitive-differentiation-strategy-how-to-win-in-a-hyper-competitive-saas-market/) ### **Free up your time** But that's not all. By outsourcing the development of your SaaS product, you can free up your time to tackle other critical tasks before the big launch—no need to go through the hassle of hiring, [onboarding,](https://www.futureofsaas.io/customer-onboarding-101/) and managing the project yourself. Instead, you can rely on a trusted partner to handle all the development work. This way, you can invest your valuable time in marketing, business development, and legal matters to ensure a successful and smooth [launch.](https://www.futureofsaas.io/launch-a-showstopping-saas-with-these-6-examples-of-a-minimum-viable-product/) ## **Benefits of in-house** ### **Greater commitment to your product** Having a team of employees who live and breathe your product can work wonders. They're going to have that special spark of passion for your company and what it's all about. Plus, they're bound to be more in tune with your customers' [pain points](https://www.futureofsaas.io/building-profitable-products-with-customers/), which means they can tackle those challenges head-on. They’re willing to go above and beyond for your project because they're totally committed to your company. ### **You have more control over your product** When you keep the development of your SaaS product in-house, you're the captain of the ship, calling the shots and steering the course. Having a dedicated team on board means you have the freedom to smoothly sail through changes, introduce fresh designs, and expand the development as your product evolves. Having an in-house team proves to be a real game-changer when you need to make a quick pivot with your product. They're right by your side, ready to adapt and make those necessary moves like a pro. So, by keeping it in-house, you're not only taking control of your SaaS destiny but also setting yourself up for success in the ever-changing tech world. ## **The dangers of outsourcing** Let's talk about the downsides of outsourcing the development of your SaaS product. Before you make a decision between hiring an agency or building an in-house team, it's crucial to understand the risks involved. ### **Harder to implement changes** First off, outsourcing can make it trickier to implement significant changes when the need arises. One of the risks is that agencies usually provide proposals with fixed deliverables, timelines, and budgets. So, if your product needs to pivot, you might find yourself in a situation where you have to renegotiate the terms of the contract with the agency to redefine the project scope. This shift can impact the timeline and budget, causing potential complications. ### **Possible lack of commitment from an agency** Another thing to keep in mind is that an agency team operates differently from an in-house team. While a development firm's team can certainly be passionate about your project, it's unlikely to match the same level of commitment and interest as an in-house department. Agency teams often juggle multiple projects simultaneously, which brings diversity in experience. However, having an in-house team has the advantage of undivided focus solely on your project, ensuring a dedicated approach. So, before you dive into outsourcing, make sure you weigh these factors and consider the pros and cons carefully. It's all about finding the right fit for your unique needs and goals. ## **The dangers of in-house development** ### **It’s far more costly** First things first, let's talk about the costs. Developing your SaaS product in-house can quickly rack up overhead expenses that surpass the fees charged by an agency. Payroll costs for UI/UX designers and software engineers can really add up, and let's not forget that these costs come with a long-term commitment of several months. For a startup launching a new SaaS product, this can be a major financial burden and a risky move. Even hiring contractors can prove to be quite costly in the long run. ### **It takes a lot longer** But wait, there's more. Developing in-house also tends to take longer. If your company finds itself in the position of needing to recruit talent internally, you'll have to invest time in the hiring and onboarding process. And let's face it, that's time you could have otherwise spent on actually developing the product itself. On top of that, managing the product internally means you'll be more involved in decision-making, task management, and other aspects of project management. This opportunity cost can have some adverse effects, as it may result in neglecting other crucial areas of your business, such as marketing and business development. And believe me, that can have a negative impact on your product launch. Developing in-house can come with some hefty costs and time considerations that shouldn't be taken lightly. Be sure to assess the risks and potential trade-offs before making your decision. ## **Tl;DR** ### **Pros of outsourcing** - It’s more cost-effective - It allows you to focus more on your core offerings - It frees up your time and resources, especially when it comes to training and onboarding staff ### **Pros of in-house development** - A more passionate team that really cares about your product and the growth of your organization - More control over your product - Far greater control of your product so that you can supervise development every step of the way. - More freedom to implement changes to the product along the way In short, there is no right answer, but be sure to weigh up the pros and cons and find the path that suits your product. --- [![Become an executive powerhouse with the C-Suite Masterclass](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2023/07/C-Suite_Ghost_Banner_Assets_--1-.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) While you're here, check out the all-new ****C-Suite Masterclass**! With the help of leading experts, plus access to our Alliance frameworks and case studies, you'll get all the strategies, insights, and skills you need to thrive in the upper echelons of business. [Find out more now](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) ### Examine the difference between strategic and tactical marketing URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/examine-the-difference-between-strategic-and-tactical-marketing/ Last updated: 2023-11-23T11:04:34.000Z In the dynamic landscape of marketing, two essential components play a critical role in achieving business objectives: strategic marketing and tactical marketing. While both approaches are distinct in their focus and scope, they are intricately connected and work together to drive success. This article aims to examine and highlight the key differences between strategic and tactical marketing, covering: - The definition of strategic and tactical marketing, - The key differences between these strategies, - How these strategies can work together. ## **Understanding strategic marketing** ### **Definition and purpose of strategic marketing** Strategic marketing is the kind of plan that prioritizes its focus on achieving **long-term business objectives**. This type of marketing, due to its focus on the long term, creates sustainable work practices in a way that builds a strong foundation for your company within the market. This type of marketing will prioritize things like market and customer research, rather than one-off events. The aim is to be calculated and specific rather than reactionary. Strategic marketing is continuous in its monitoring and analysis of marketing performance, allowing for adjustments and refinements to the marketing strategy as needed. ### **How customer marketers might use strategic marketing** Now we’ll go through an example of how customer marketers might use strategic marketing. Let’s say this particular marketer works at an e-commerce company that specializes in selling fashion accessories online. With a growing customer base, they recognize the need to deepen customer relationships and increase repeat purchases. **Strategy:** The customer marketer might employ a strategic marketing approach centered around personalized recommendations with the goal to provide a tailored shopping experience for each customer based on their preferences and purchase history. **Implementation:** 1. **Data collection and analysis:** The customer marketer will begin with the company's customer database to collect data on individual customer preferences, purchase history, and browsing behavior. This data will be used to identify patterns and trends. 2. **Segmentation:** Based on the data analysis, they’ll then segment the customer base into distinct groups with similar preferences and purchasing patterns. This’ll allow for more targeted and relevant marketing strategies. 3. **Recommendation engine integration:** Next they’ll integrate a recommendation engine into the company's website and marketing platforms. This engine will use customer segmentation data to generate personalized product recommendations for each individual customer. 4. **Personalized email campaigns:** Leveraging customer data, the customer marketer will also design personalized email campaigns. These campaigns will feature recommended products based on each customer's unique preferences and past purchases. The emails can also include exclusive offers and discounts to incentivize repeat purchases. **Results:** The personalized email campaign would result in a significant increase in customer engagement which would lead to higher conversion rates. Customers responding positively to the tailored product suggestions would result in increased purchases and higher average order values. As an added bonus, customers would see the personalized shopping experience as the company’s investment in their interests. This, in turn, would lead to improved customer loyalty, with a higher rate of repeat purchases and a lower rate of customer churn. ## **Exploring tactical marketing** ### **Definition and purpose of tactical marketing** Tactical marketing approaches its marketing activities and campaigns with **short-term goals and objectives** in mind. As such the marketing goal is to have your objectives focus on the immediate actions and tactics of your marketing plan. Tactical marketing focuses on the day-to-day activities that help in promoting products or services with components such as advertising, public relations, direct marketing, social media marketing, content creation, event planning, and more. These initiatives aim at reaching your target audience and influencing their purchasing decisions. Tactical marketing requires careful coordination of resources, budget allocation, and effective utilization of various marketing channels and tools. ### **An example of tactical marketing tactics** For this example, let's say that this customer marketer works for a company that is an online electronics retailer, that wants to boost sales during a typically slower sales period. Using a tactical marketing approach would be suitable in this case as this strategy can create urgency and entice customers to make immediate purchases. **Strategy:** The customer marketer can devise a limited-time offer campaign centered around a significant discount on a popular electronic gadget. The goal is to produce a sense of urgency and exclusivity to drive sales within a short timeframe. **Implementation:** 1. **Promotional messaging:** The customer marketer crafted compelling promotional messaging that emphasized the limited-time nature of the offer. Clear and concise messaging was used across various marketing channels to communicate the urgency and value of the discount. 2. **Email marketing:** The customer marketer sent targeted emails to the company's subscriber base, announcing the limited-time offer. The emails featured captivating subject lines and persuasive content highlighting the benefits of the product and the time-sensitive nature of the discount. 3. **Social media promotion:** The customer marketer utilized the company's social media channels to amplify the limited-time offer. Engaging posts, eye-catching visuals, and countdown timers were used to create excitement and encourage sharing among followers. 4. **Website banner and pop-ups:** The customer marketer strategically placed banners and pop-up messages on the company's website to ensure maximum visibility of the limited-time offer. These eye-catching elements directed visitors to the product page, providing easy access to the discounted item. **Results:** Such a strategy will increase website traffic due to the limited-time offer, as customers are motivated to take advantage of the discount before the promotion ends. This can result in an overall increase in brand exposure and product visibility. This campaign can successfully drive immediate sales for the discounted product which’ll have a notable increase in sales volume to help meet the goal of exceeding sales projections. This type of category can also attract new customers enticed by the discounted price. As such this strategy can also expand a customer base and provide an opportunity for future engagement and repeat purchases. ## **Key differences between strategic and tactical marketing** You may have already picked up on a few points on where tactical and strategic marketing differ, but let's delve a little bit deeper. ### **Timeframe: Short-term vs. long-term perspective** **Tactical marketing** works within a relatively short timeframe, focusing on immediate results. It’s usually initiated to achieve a specific goal within a few weeks or months. **Strategic marketing** is long-term in its aims and focuses on the big picture. It involves planning and implementing strategies that may take months or even years to achieve its intended results these campaigns are about the sustainability of your marketing strategies, rather than just short-term results. ### **Scope: Holistic approach vs. focused implementation** **Tactical marketing** is much more narrow in scope, concentrating on specific marketing moments, most often in reaction to new information from market research or competitive intelligence. It also tends to be executed within a specific area or channel. **Strategic marketing** takes a more holistic approach, considering the broader context of the organization's marketing efforts. It encompasses multiple elements, including market research, competitive analysis, target audience identification, branding, and distribution channels. All of these are made to support your marketing plan over the long term. ### **Planning: Big-picture strategy vs. immediate action plans** **Tactical marketing** is immediate in creating action plans. The planning process involves detailed planning for the execution of tactics, that are both efficient and effective. **Strategic marketing** emphasizes big-picture strategy. This plan will prioritize setting itself against the overall marketing direction in a strategic manner that guides tactical implementation. [How to Facilitate a Strategic Planning Session (9 Steps)Strategic planning is the process of figuring out (i) where you want to go as an org, and (ii) how to get there. All while fielding the challenges and obstacles that could prevent you from getting to your destination.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/nick-fewings-HI7l1up-590-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/9568a1d9-e63c-463b-ac70-a2556df73d43/) ### **Flexibility: Adaptable strategies vs. fixed tactics** **Tactical marketing** often relies on fixed tactics and predefined plans. While adjustments may be made to optimize performance, the overall approach remains relatively fixed to achieve short-term objectives efficiently. **Strategic marketing** strategies can be adjusted and refined based on changing market conditions, customer feedback, or performance metrics. Strategic marketing recognizes the need for agility and the ability to pivot when necessary to align with evolving business goals or external factors. ### **Measurement: Long-term impact vs. short-term results** As we’ve established, **tactical marketing** primarily focuses on measuring short-term results and immediate impact. Metrics may include things such as sales volume, conversion rates, click-through rates, or engagement levels during specific campaigns or initiatives. **Strategic marketing** is more focused on long-term impact. Metrics may be more broad like customer lifetime value, market share, brand perception, or overall business growth. ## **The synergy between strategic and tactical marketing** Strategic and tactical marketing work best once you recognize that they perform best when they’re produced to interact and collaborate with each other. Strategic marketing provides the overarching direction and long-term vision, while tactical marketing implements specific actions to achieve more strategic goals. It’s essential to understand that these two facets of marketing work hand in hand, complementing and reinforcing each other for optimal results. Tactical marketing plays a vital role in supporting and aligning with strategic marketing goals. It ensures that the day-to-day activities and campaigns are aligned with the broader marketing strategy and that the tactics employed are consistent with the [brand positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-strategy-examples/), target audience, and overall marketing objectives. By monitoring and analyzing the performance of tactical initiatives, marketers can gather data and feedback that inform strategic decision-making. This process allows for continuous improvement and refinement of the overall marketing strategy. --- [![Become an executive powerhouse with the C-Suite Masterclass](https://www.customermarketingalliance.com/content/images/2023/06/C-Suite_Ghost_Banner_Assets_--1--1.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) Keen to learn more about how to implement strategies that will drive your company forward? Check out the [C-Suite Masterclass](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content). Over six weeks, you'll learn from experts who've been there and done it and expedite your path to the top. Limited seats available, so [secure your spot today](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content). ### What are the best practices and challenges when hiring internally for developer marketing roles? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-are-the-best-practices-and-challenges-when-hiring-internally-for-developer-marketing-roles/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T14:34:56.000Z Innovation is key in the rapidly evolving tech landscape, as it helps you capture market share and drive product adoption. [Developer marketing](https://www.developermarketing.io/your-guide-to-developer-marketing/) has emerged as a crucial discipline that bridges the gap between technical products and their technical audience – developers. Hiring internally is a great strategy to help orgs succeed, since they’re making the most of their most valuable resources. Tapping into your existing talent means that, not only are you providing a platform for employees to learn and develop, but you also get benefits that external hiring may not provide. So, whether you’re hiring a developer marketer or advertising for [developer relations jobs](https://www.developermarketing.io/how-to-get-a-developer-relations-job/), let’s take a look at the best practices you should follow, as well as the challenges you can expect to face. 👇 - The benefits of hiring internally - Best practices when hiring internally for developer marketing roles - Challenges of recruiting developer marketers ## **The benefits of hiring internally** > *“Acquiring the right talent is the most important key to growth. Hiring was – and still is – the most important thing we do.” – *Marc Bennioff, CEO at Salesforce** Developer marketers are versatile, as they possess a unique blend of technical expertise and marketing know-how, which allows them to more easily communicate with developers. When trying to hire for these roles, you may be faced with a crucial decision: should you hire externally or look within your own talent pool? While there’s no denying that external hiring has a lot of merits, there’s a lot to be said about promoting internally – so, here are the **reasons why recruiting internally can be a game-changer**: ### **Familiarity with your company** Internal candidates already have a deep understanding of your org’s culture, values, products, and audience, as well as your mission and vision. They can hit the ground running a lot faster than an external hire. ### **Product and technical knowledge** Developer marketers need to have a strong understanding of the products they’re marketing, as well as the technical elements behind them. Your existing employees often have a solid grasp of this and can leverage their existing knowledge to create more accurate and compelling marketing messages. ### **Existing relationships** Internal candidates will have established relationships within your company, and may already have connections with your target audience too – this makes for smoother collaboration and communication and can lead to better integration between the teams. ### **Faster onboarding** Existing employees will require less time to get up to speed with the org’s processes, tools, and systems. They’re already familiar with the internal structure, which reduces the learning curve associated with an external hire. This allows them to start contributing to marketing efforts quickly. ### **Increased staff morale** Promoting internally can boost your employee’s morale and motivation, since it shows you value internal talent, encourage career growth, and provide opportunities for advancement. This can lead to higher job satisfaction and increased loyalty among existing employees. ### **Most cost-effective** Recruiting externally tends to involve significant costs, such as advertising, recruiting agencies, and onboarding. You save on these expenses when you look internally. ## **Best practices when hiring internally for developer marketing roles** When identifying best practices for hiring developer marketers or DevRel pros, consider the following: ### **Clearly define the role** I.e., consider what makes a good developer marketer. It’s crucial you start by defining the responsibilities, skills, and qualifications required for the developer marketing role. This includes understanding the specific needs of the position, such as technical knowledge, marketing expertise, and familiarity with [developer communities](https://www.developermarketing.io/everything-you-need-to-know-about-developer-communities/). There are many skills you can consider when hiring for a developer marketing role, such as: - Technical skills - Communication skills - Independence and initiative - Customer acquisition skills - Resilience - Adept at analyzing and using data - Storytelling abilities - Business acumen - Content creation skills - Project management skills - Creativity - Marketing skills - Understanding of API design and development - Leadership skills - Sales - Community-building skills - Problem-solving - Analytical skills - Strategic thinking **There are many different types of roles involved in marketing to developers**, so you should have a clear idea of what’s really needed at your company. For example, you can hire someone who will focus on marketing strategy, on implementing a developer relations program, on community management, on product evangelism, on subject matter expertise, and so much more. **A well-defined job description allows you to effectively communicate the expectations to internal candidates and hiring managers alike**. ### **Promote internal applications** Communicate the availability of the developer marketing role to existing employees through internal channels like email, company newsletters, or intranet. Make sure you’re providing a detailed job description and specifying any necessary qualifications or experience. ### **Establish a fair selection process** It’s paramount to treat internal candidates with the same level of fairness and impartiality as external candidates. Create a selection process that ensures consistency and objectivity. Develop a set of criteria against which all applicants will be evaluated, and utilize skills assessments, interviews, and relevant exercises to assess their suitability for the developer marketing role. It’s crucial to avoid any bias or favoritism when making the hiring decision, and ensure equal opportunities for all internal candidates. ### **Leverage existing performance data** One of the advantages of internal hiring is the ability to access past performance data of your current employees. Review their performance evaluations, feedback from managers or colleagues, and any relevant metrics that can shed light on their capabilities, work ethic, and alignment with company values. You should also consider the candidates' track records, their ability to work in cross-functional teams, their communication skills, and their overall performance within the organization. This information provides valuable insights into their potential fit for the developer marketing role. ### **Development opportunities** You can also provide training and development opportunities for internal candidates who may have the necessary technical skills but lack marketing expertise, for example. This can include workshops, courses, or mentoring programs to help them acquire the required knowledge for the developer marketing role. ### **Consider people’s career aspirations** Understand the career goals and aspirations of internal candidates. Determine how the developer marketing role aligns with their long-term objectives and consider the potential for growth within the position. ### **Conduct structured interviews** During the interview process, use a structured format that includes standardized questions. Ask candidates about their experiences in working with developers, their understanding of [developer pain points](https://www.developermarketing.io/how-to-nail-pain-points-for-your-target-developers/) and needs, and their strategies for creating effective technical content. Assess their ability to communicate complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences and gauge their creativity in developing developer-focused marketing campaigns. A structured interview format helps ensure consistency in evaluation and enables a fair comparison among candidates. **Examples of interview questions** you can ask when recruiting internally are: - How has your current role at the company prepared you for this position? - In your opinion, what makes our products or services unique? How would you communicate these unique features to our technical audience? - How would you apply your current understanding of our company culture and objectives to this new role? - Can you share an instance where you worked with our development and marketing teams? What was the project, and what was your role? - Given your understanding of our current developer community, what improvements or changes would you suggest in our marketing strategies? - If you were to pitch our products/services to a developer right now, how would you do it? - How would you handle a situation where there is a disagreement between the marketing team and the developer team regarding the product? - Can you describe an instance where you had to explain a technical concept to non-technical colleagues? How did you approach this situation? - Given your existing relationships within the company, how would you leverage those to make this role successful? - Based on your understanding of our product roadmap, how would you align the marketing plan to it? - Can you describe a situation in your current role where you were able to successfully incorporate feedback from the developer community? - Considering your existing workload, how would you prioritize and manage your responsibilities in this new role? - How would you improve communication between the marketing and development teams? - From your perspective, what challenges might you face in this role, and how do you plan to overcome them? - Why are you interested in transitioning into this developer marketer role, and how do you see it aligning with your career progression? ### **Feedback and communication** Throughout the hiring process, maintain open and transparent communication with internal candidates. Keep them informed about the stages of the process, the expected timelines, and any updates or changes. This transparency helps create a positive candidate experience and reinforces trust within the organization. Also, whether an internal candidate is selected or not, provide constructive [feedback](https://www.developermarketing.io/how-to-get-developers-to-test-out-your-product/) on their performance and areas for improvement. Encourage them to apply for future opportunities and offer resources or development programs that can support their growth. ### **Support the transition process** Once an internal candidate is selected for the developer marketing role, it’s important to provide them with the necessary support for a smooth transition. Offer training programs that focus on developer marketing strategies, [developer persona](https://www.developermarketing.io/the-complete-guide-to-developer-personas/) development, content creation, and campaign management. Assign a mentor or coach to guide the internal hire through the early stages of their new role, helping them understand the nuances of developer-focused marketing and integrating them into relevant teams and projects. This support ensures a successful transition and sets the internal hire up for long-term success. ## **Challenges of recruiting developer marketers** When recruiting for a developer marketing role, whether internally or externally, you may face several challenges, including: - **Technical expertise**: it can be tough to find the right candidate who has a strong understanding of software development, programming languages, and technical concepts, along with marketing skills. - **Niche marketing understanding**: developer marketing requires a deep understanding of the developer community, their needs, preferences, and challenges. This can make it hard to find the right person for the job, as it’s a specialized niche within the broader marketing field. - **Limited talent pool**: there may be fewer experienced developer marketers when compared to other marketing roles. The demand for skilled developer marketers may exceed the available supply, which leads to increased competition among employers for qualified candidates. - **Evolving landscape**: because the developer marketing landscape is constantly evolving, with new technologies, tools, and platforms emerging regularly, candidates must be adaptable and quick learners to keep up with these changes. Finding individuals who are up-to-date with the latest trends and can leverage emerging technologies can be a challenge. - **Cultural fit**: another thing to consider is that developer marketing often involves working closely with engineering teams and developers. It’s important you find candidates who can seamlessly integrate into a technical environment, understand the developer mindset, and effectively collaborate with technical teams, though this can be tough sometimes. ## **To conclude** Hiring internally for a developer marketing role can be a strategic move that offers many benefits to your company. It can help to enhance collaboration and communication between the marketing and development teams, as employees shifting roles internally are already well-acquainted with the company's values, culture, and products. Given their unique understanding of the org, internal candidates can often identify opportunities for innovation and improvement that an external candidate may overlook. Their familiarity with the product and the development process also makes them more effective at communicating the value proposition of your offering to both technical and non-technical audiences. However, successful internal hiring requires a careful approach. It's important to be transparent about the expectations of the new role, and to provide support to the candidate during their transition. Ask pointed and relevant questions during the interview to gauge the individual's readiness for the role and to understand how they plan to apply their existing knowledge to their new responsibilities. Lastly, remember that even though the candidate is already part of the team, they will still need some time to adjust to their new position. A thoughtful onboarding process can be incredibly beneficial in this regard, even for internal hires. In the end, the decision to hire internally should be driven by the candidate's potential to grow within the role and contribute to the success of your company. --- *Looking to climb the ladder all the way to the top? Learn from the best in the business with our* [*C-Suite Masterclass*](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) *cohort and boost your leadership skills!* [![Become an executive powerhouse with the C-Suite Masterclass](https://www.developermarketing.io/content/images/size/w1000/2023/05/C-Suite_Ghost_Banner_Assets_.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) ### Making enablement work in remote settings URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/making-enablement-work-in-remote-settings/ Last updated: 2023-07-05T09:56:44.000Z Whether your teams are working in an office, taking a hybrid approach, or fully remote, the ability to drive outcomes for Go-to-Market (GTM) teams across all of these environments is a key skill set for enablement professionals in today’s world. Each setting poses ****unique challenges** and requires ****distinct approaches** to be successful. Regardless of the approach your team has taken, the ability to enable teams remotely is an ever present need with the distributed nature of today’s global workforce. Below are areas to consider when setting up your remote teams for success: - [Get the right digital tools and solutions](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/making-enablement-work-in-remote-settings/#ensure-you-have-the-right-digital-tools-and-solutions-in-place) - [Create a culture of sharing](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/making-enablement-work-in-remote-settings/#foster-a-culture-of-sharing) - [Use a variety of mediums](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/making-enablement-work-in-remote-settings/#provide-a-mix-of-live-virtual-training-e-learning-video-and-practice-sessions) - [Make live virtual sessions engaging](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/making-enablement-work-in-remote-settings/#conduct-engaging-live-virtual-learning) - [Establish a check-in cadence](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/making-enablement-work-in-remote-settings/#set-up-operating-rhythms-to-support-feedback-and-ongoing-practice) 👇 ## **Ensure you have the right digital tools and solutions in place** Ease of enablement in a remote environment ****depends** ****heavily** ****on the strength of your tech stack and ability to leverage it** in your enablement programs. When building out your tech stack, you'll want: - A centralized location for your customer data. - A shared place to meet, communicate, and collaborate remotely. - A consolidated hub to create and distribute Enablement content. - A way to record and store customer-facing and internal calls. - A space to build and facilitate live virtual learning and e-learning programs. - A system of action to streamline your sales processes and ensure remote teams are able to work efficiently. - A tool to track and analyze performance, as well as monitor and report on key metrics. Once you have your tech stack in place, it’s important that you document and share with your GTM teams *how* they should be interacting with these tools to minimize confusion. --- [![C-Suite Masterclass live and online from August 28, 2023](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/content/images/2023/04/C-Suite_Masterclass_Email_Banner_.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) --- ## **Foster a culture of sharing** An emphasis on learning *together and from one another* is key to any GTM team’s culture, and enablement professionals are often asked to be culture creators within their organizations. > *To do this remotely, enablement teams must find ways to encourage knowledge sharing across teams, to celebrate wins, and to document best practices.* While there are many sales readiness platforms that can aid in this area, there are also ways to do this in an instant messaging platform. For example, create a dedicated channel in your instant messaging platform and encourage teams to share their wins, best practices, *and* their failures and learnings with the broader team. Consider boosting interaction by offering incentives for those who share often, offer great insights, or engage in productive exchanges with their peers. Ensure leadership and frontline managers are ****also engaged** in the channel, while monitoring the space for any negative contributions that put the culture building objective at risk. ## **Provide a mix of live virtual training, e-learning, video, and practice sessions** Mixing up learning modalities to provide an engaging Enablement experience is as important in a remote world as it is in an office setting. Consider building programs that offer a mix of the modalities. For example: - Start with a live virtual training to introduce a new topic - Create an e-learning to reinforce what the teams heard during the live virtual training - Share short videos of best practices from the field week over week to keep the information top of mind - Provide managers with resources to conduct practice sessions within their teams to help reps apply what they have learned and receive coaching on an ongoing basis. ## **Conduct engaging live virtual learning** Teams do not have to be in person to experience fun and competitive engagement with enablement programs. Breakout rooms during live virtual training can provide an avenue for [role plays](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/using-chatgpt-for-sales-and-why-you-need-it-in-your-sales-enablement-toolkit/), experimentation, and collaboration. Bringing in examples from the field is also a great way to make live virtual learning more engaging. Even though enablement professionals are often great facilitators, GTM teams also like to hear from those who have ****hands-on experience** with the different topics. > *Additionally, creating challenges and awarding prizes during live virtual sessions can boost the willingness of reps to engage.* For example, say you are training your teams on how to engage with a particular buyer persona: - Provide your teams with a template and have them complete an individual deal strategy activity before dividing into breakout groups to discuss their plans and receive feedback from their peers and managers. - Then consider having a few reps prepped to “stand and deliver” their plans back with the broader group and receive feedback from leaders to align the group around the attributes of a strong plan. Be sure to highlight both the wins and areas of opportunity. - Prepare a few reps who have had success in the past engaging with this persona to share their experience with the group. Ask them to share context for their deal, what they did, what the outcome was, and what they learned about how to engage with the persona based on their experience. - Share a recorded call in a live virtual training of a great conversation a rep had with the focus persona. Be sure to highlight what it was specifically that the rep did in the call to engage the persona effectively. ## **Set up operating rhythms to support feedback and ongoing practice** Feedback and insight into what is happening out in the field may be captured in different ways in a remote world than it is in an office setting. Consider establishing a check-in cadence with a group of GTM reps or front line managers to get a sense of how your different initiatives are landing in the field. Then, leverage this input to inform your reinforcement plans or ****adapt your approach** in the future. > *Additionally, consistent practice and coaching likely needs to be set into an operating rhythm to remain top of mind for teams.* Therefore, determine a frequency that makes sense for your organization and add either manager- or enablement-led practice opportunities, where reps can try out new skills and receive coaching. Having a ****standardized cadence will increase traction** for your programs and offer insight into how reps are retaining the information they have received. ## **The path forward** By implementing the above tactics, you will be on the path to helping GTM teams thrive in a remote environment. To get started on this path, ensure you have the ****right tools** in place as a strong foundation. Then, build on your foundation by offering ****avenues for sharing**, creating ****engaging training** in a variety of forms, setting up ****practice opportunities**, and supporting strong ****feedback loops** to iterate over time. --- *[Katie](https://www.linkedin.com/in/katievanhoomissen/?ref=salesenablementcollective.com) is Senior Revenue Enablement Manager at Outreach, and a [Sales Enablement Collective Ambassador](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/meet-the-ambassadors/).* --- [![C-Suite Masterclass](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/content/images/2023/04/C-Suite_Masterclass_Email_Banner_2.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) ****Carve your path to the C-Suite with our expert-led masterclass. Over six weeks, learn from experts who've been there and done it and expedite your path to the top.** ****Limited seats available, so secure your spot [today](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content).** ### What burnout is and how you can prevent it URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-burnout-is-and-how-you-can-prevent-it/ Last updated: 2023-07-18T11:17:38.000Z In any role, at any company, it’s normal to feel a certain level of stress or anxiety about the work you’re doing from time to time. What’s not normal, though, is feeling intensely overwhelmed with this type of stress for an extended period of time. After a while, this level of overwhelm can develop into ****burnout**, a state of physical and emotional exhaustion that not only affects work but our personal lives and general mental health. Burnout can be a *significant issue* that comes about as a result of chronic workplace stress. It’s important for *any worker* to understand what burnout is, recognize the signs, and avoid getting to a place where it becomes unbearable. Without this, it can lead to a major decrease in our ability to do any work at all and can have a negative impact that lasts for months, if not years. It’s particularly necessary, though, for those operating at the C-suite level or in senior management roles to be able to spot the signs and know how to tackle burnout, for their own sake as well as that of the workforce that they lead. If those at the top of the business are unable to mitigate the risk of burnout or act accordingly when it seems to be having an impact, not only can it negatively affect the business objectives but it can be detrimental to the mental health of a number of their employees. In order to do our best work possible and support the productivity of others, we need to prioritize good mental health and take workplace stress seriously. No job is worth sacrificing your mental health for. In this article, we’re going to explore: - [What is burnout?](https://www.communityledgrowth.com/what-is-burnout-and-how-you-can-prevent-it/#what-is-burnout) - [The symptoms of burnout](https://www.communityledgrowth.com/what-is-burnout-and-how-you-can-prevent-it/#so-what-are-the-symptoms-of-burnout) - [What causes burnout?](https://www.communityledgrowth.com/what-is-burnout-and-how-you-can-prevent-it/#what-causes-burnout) - [Burnout risk factors](https://www.communityledgrowth.com/what-is-burnout-and-how-you-can-prevent-it/#risk-factors-for-burnout) - [How to stop feeling so burned out](https://www.communityledgrowth.com/what-is-burnout-and-how-you-can-prevent-it/#how-to-stop-feeling-burned-out) It’s time to kick burnout to the curb, so let’s dive in. ⏬ ## **What is burnout?** Burnout is a state of chronic physical and emotional exhaustion that occurs as a result of long-term stress in a job, or from working in an emotionally or physically demanding role for an extended period of time. What is key is that this comes about as a result of unsuccessful management of this stress or failure to intervene at the first signs of burning out. The [World Health Organization](https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases?ref=communityledgrowth.com) (WHO) characterizes the main three features of burnout as follows: - "Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; - Increased mental distance from one’s job, feelings of negativism and/or cynicism related to one's job; and - Reduced professional efficacy." Burnout itself is not a medical diagnosis, however, it *can* negatively impact one’s health, relationships, work performance, and overall quality of life. It stretches beyond just affecting our work, which is why it’s important to be able to recognize the signs and intervene early when work-related stress becomes more significant. ## **So, what are the symptoms of burnout?** The most common symptoms of burnout can appear much like clinical depression in that it presents an overarching feeling of defeatedness, hopelessness, and lethargy. Common symptoms can be broken down into physical, emotional, and behavioral - as follows: ### **Physical symptoms** - Feeling tired and drained most of the time. - Lowered immunity, frequent illnesses. - Frequent headaches, muscle pain, or aches. - Changes in appetite or sleep habits. ### **Emotional symptoms** - Sense of failure and self-doubt. - Feeling helpless, trapped, and defeated. - Detachment, feeling alone in the world. - Loss of motivation. - Increasingly cynical and negative outlook. - Decreased satisfaction and sense of accomplishment. ### **Behavioral Symptoms** - Withdrawing from responsibilities. - Isolating from others. - Procrastinating, taking longer to get things done. - Using food, drugs, or alcohol to cope. - Taking out your frustrations on others. If any of these sound or feel familiar to you or any colleagues or employees, you or they may be experiencing burnout and it’s vital that steps are taken to mitigate the stress. ## **What causes burnout?** Burnout can come around as a result of numerous factors, including but not limited to the following: ### **Lack of control** At work, if we feel unable to take some ownership or shape certain aspects of our job, such as a schedule, projects, or workload, it can lead to burnout. For example, if you find yourself in a position where you are being told to produce a lot of work or need to be involved in a number of projects, while not actually having the time or capacity to complete them, this can be the start of a dangerous workload. This can then be impacted by an expectation that you have to get all of it done, and an inability to deprioritize anything. ### **Unclear job expectations** In order to work successfully, we need to have a clear understanding of what is expected of us. This can be illustrated through Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that define deliverables on a regular basis, or any goal-setting exercises with your team or management. Not having access to this understanding can make working life uncomfortable, uncertain, and difficult, because it’s impossible to tell if we’re doing our job correctly or heading in the wrong direction without this knowledge. ### **Dysfunctional workplace dynamics** In every aspect of life, we are bound to clash with certain personalities or find ourselves in chaotic situations. This becomes a problem when it’s someone you have to be around significantly more, or when they have the power to influence your working life. This could look like an office bully, colleagues who undermine what you do, or a boss who micromanages your work. All of these examples can compound your feeling of not being good enough at work or increase your stress levels about the work you’re doing. ### **Extremes of activity** When a job feels monotonous or chaotic, you’ll need to keep up a constant level of energy in order to keep up and remain focused. This can lead to a feeling of fatigue or anxiety. For example, if you find yourself constantly worrying that something unexpected is going to happen, or you don’t know what may come up for you next, work can become a source of constant stress. ### **Lack of social support** Loneliness, in any part of our lives, [is bad for our health](https://time.com/6183058/loneliness-health-effects-what-to-do/?ref=communityledgrowth.com). Having friends at work can help to boost our job satisfaction and performance because it gives us a sense of belonging and provides an outlet for us to speak about anything work-related with someone else who *gets it*. This isn’t limited to complaining to a work friend over drinks either. It can look like a friend taking over on a task for you if they know you’re busy or overwhelmed, a manager giving you a shoutout in your team meeting when you’ve been performing well, or a colleague offering some guidance on how to approach a project. A lack of these support sources at work, and outside of it, can make you feel isolated and alone - all of which can increase the chance of burning out. ### **Lack of work/life balance** It’s not uncommon to have a couple of days, here and there, where you spend a little longer than usual working. Or you may need to step in to take over from a colleague and have a somewhat larger workload than normal for a few days. However, when it becomes the norm, and you are consistently working longer hours than you are meant to be, then this will quickly become a problem. So if you find yourself spending the majority of your time working, and sacrificing your personal life or time with family and friends to continue your work - burning out becomes a lot more probable. ## **Risk factors for burnout** In order to ****beat burnout to the punch**, you should look out for the following risk factors in your role: - Heavy workload - Regularly working very long hours - A struggle with work/life balance - A lack of control over your work If you are in a situation where you recognize any of these risks in your role, you should be mindful and keep track of those feelings or situations, so you can know if things need to change from early on - rather than after you find yourself burning out. ## **How to stop feeling burned out** ### **Self-care** The first step when it comes to stopping feeling burned out, is to prioritize self-care. Self-care can manifest itself in a variety of ways but ultimately it boils down to making sure you’re looking after yourself as best you can. This could include making sure you eat a balanced diet, exercising regularly, getting enough sleep, and doing things you enjoy or that help you relax and stay grounded. ### **Boundary-setting** Setting boundaries at work and establishing a clear split between your personal and work life is a key way to stop burnout. It could look like setting yourself specific work hours and making sure to stick with them, not having your emails or work communications on your personal phone (and not checking these outside of your work hours), or making sure you take regular breaks from work throughout the day. Boundary-setting can also mean having conversations with colleagues or management to say, “Hey, I can’t prioritize this project right now - let’s work together to find a time when I can.” or “Going forward, I need 5 working days’ notice in order to complete these tasks”. It’s not just about creating a work-life balance, but also letting others know that your time is valuable and you can only do so much in a day. ### **Seek support** Don’t be afraid to reach out for support when you need it. This can be to friends and family, but it can also be to colleagues and management and in some cases, a mental health professional. While our managers are there to oversee our work and guide us professionally, they also have a duty to help us manage our workload and stress levels - so it can be incredibly useful to reach out and alert them that you are beginning to see signs of burnout. As for friends, family, and colleagues - they can offer a listening ear, advice, and guidance on how to manage your stress. ### **Mindfulness** In a broad sense, mindfulness is a process in which you focus on being acutely aware of experiences occurring in the present moment, and the feelings those experiences create - without interpretation or judgment. Benefits of mindfulness include improved focus and concentration, reduced stress, enhanced self-awareness, increased patience, and better emotional control. A way to use mindfulness at work could be to pay attention to the first feelings of heightened anxiety and step away from what you’re doing to conduct a breathing exercise. What you want to avoid doing is ignoring the feeling of anxiety, but instead try to acknowledge it without interrogating yourself about the feeling. Imagine that feeling of anxiety as a cloud of smoke in your mind, and use the breathing exercise to gently waft it away and clear the air before you step back into working. ### **Take time off** If you’re able to, taking time off from work can be very beneficial. This doesn’t have to mean you’re taking a vacation - it could be as simple as taking a day or two and just allowing yourself to spend that time doing the things you love. If your burnout is at a point where it’s becoming impossible to deal with work and it’s causing physical or mental health conditions, it may be a good idea to talk to a medical professional and enquire about stress leave. Mental health is just as important as your physical health, so taking time off for sickness or stress is absolutely okay and can help you to take that much-needed time to recover. ### **Re-evaluate your priorities** If you’re feeling burned out, it can feel incredibly overwhelming to think proactively about what needs to change in order to feel better - after all, it comes with a real sense of defeatedness. Despite this, taking a step back to really consider what’s important to you can be a great way to start understanding what steps you need to take in order to get rid of burnout. ****Identify what matters to you** most, whether it’s advancing in your career, spending time with your family, developing a certain skill or focusing on your health. Then, ****look at your current situation** and assess what you’re spending most of your time on. Next, compare your ideal situation to your current one. Are you spending your time on the things that matter most to you? Does your current situation look like the ideal situation? If you answer no to both of these questions, then you can start to identify what may be contributing to those feelings of burnout. With this re-evaluation, you can start to make changes that will bring your current situation closer to the ideal situation. This could involve delegating tasks, saying no more often, or reorganizing your schedule to better reflect your personal and professional priorities. ### **Seek professional help** If feelings of burnout persist, consider seeking the help of a mental health professional. They can provide strategies and techniques to help you cope with burnout and manage stress. They can also help to unpack deeper-rooted issues that you may not have been entirely aware of, which can be contributing factors to your burnout. ## **Let’s sum up** Burnout is a serious issue that can result from chronic workplace stress. It's not just a state of physical exhaustion but also a state of emotional exhaustion that can significantly impact our personal lives, work performance, mental health, and overall quality of life. To ensure we’re at our best, we must understand and recognize burnout, and take proactive steps to prevent it. Fortunately, burnout can be prevented and mitigated through various strategies. Prioritizing self-care, setting boundaries, seeking support, practicing mindfulness, taking time off when needed, and re-evaluating priorities can significantly help in managing and reducing burnout. In severe cases, professional help might be necessary to effectively address the problem. Remember, no job is worth sacrificing your mental health for. Prioritize your well-being, and do not hesitate to seek help when you need it. By understanding and acknowledging burnout, we can all contribute to a healthier and more balanced work environment. --- Understanding and knowing how to tackle burnout is just one of the many abilities any C-suite executive or senior leader should possess. That’s why we explore it in our [C-Suite Masterclass](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content). If you’re a Director or VP-level professional who wishes to or is expecting to transition into a C-suite leadership role, this course is for you. But, if you’re a newly appointed C-suiter who’s keen to explore how other like-minded professionals have led teams or sustained organizational performance levels, then you’ll thrive in this program, too. From developing your leadership abilities to understanding the unique challenges faced by C-level executives, gain the comprehensive understanding you need to drive results, inspire teams, and achieve your career aspirations - all in this industry-leading course. [![Become an executive powerhouse with the C-Suite Masterclass](https://www.communityledgrowth.com/content/images/2023/05/C-Suite_Ghost_Banner_Assets_.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) ### The importance of building a creative culture as a CMO URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-importance-of-building-a-creative-culture-as-a-cmo/ Last updated: 2023-07-18T11:16:16.000Z Despite all the new tech presenting AI and data-driven insights and ideas, there remains one important trait that needs to be in every marketer's toolkit: creativity. And one of the chief responsibilities of marketing leaders, particularly the ones in the C-suite, is being able to build and maintain a culture that allows your team to get the creative juices flowing. You have to be able to build a culture of creativity. I’m Will, content lead for the CMO Alliance, and host of our podcast, [CMO Convo](https://www.cmoalliance.com/cmo-convo-podcast/). In my role, I’ve interviewed well over a hundred business and marketing leaders, and many of them have shared their insights with me on fostering creativity in their teams. Plus, I actually wrote my master’s dissertation on how best to drive creativity in advertising and marketing circles, so it’s a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. Some of the most effective and beloved advertising and marketing is when it’s at its most creative. And with more and more noise on just about every channel, it’s an imperative now to be able to differentiate yourself with creative ideas. Even when you're speaking to your existing customers, the expectations are for experiences that are [innovative and driven by exciting, creative ideas](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/leveraging-innovative-and-disruptive-practices-to-create-positive-customer-experiences/?ref=cmoalliance.com). But it also can help with other elements. A creative culture isn’t just important for getting the best work out of your team. It can be essential for attracting and retaining talent. Creative thinkers will always be drawn to places where their ideas are valued and rewarded, and they’re given the space to develop them. In this article, I’m going over the best insights from my interviews with CMOs and marketing leaders on creative cultures, along with some of my findings from my own research. ## **Creative culture vs creative environments** A lot of the language around marketing these days doesn’t seem to lend itself to creativity. “We need to make data-driven decisions”, “AI can produce ideas for us”, all that stuff. But saying that “data” or “AI” is going to make all of the creative decisions is like saying that the paint made all the decisions when Michaelangelo was creating the Sistine Chapel. Data and AI simply provide the tools for your marketing team to use. Creativity is what allows marketers to turn those tools into effective campaigns and strategies. In the past, when talking about business practices, we’d probably use phrases like “creative environment”, and there are heaps of examples of offices that have been set up to produce a “creative environment”. You know the ones: pinball machine, pool- and/or foosball table, mini fridge of over-priced craft beers. The classic bro-tastic start-up vibe that’s supposed to say “have fun, let the creative juices flow”, but more likely than not it's just clutter in the office as teams chase deadlines. The concept of a creative environment isn’t a bad one, and the types of things done in this “bro-tastic” model do make sense, as they’re rooted in the idea that being able to have fun fuels creativity. If you think about the time in our lives when we’re probably at our most creative in raw terms, it’s when we’re young children, when we have the most opportunities to play and have fun. But these kinds of environments are only as good as their accessibility. If your team isn’t able to find the time for “fun” with all these activities you’re presenting to them, it’s just clutter in the office while they try and hit deadlines. The various Google campuses around the world are often held up as an example of these kinds of “creative environments”. However, Google goes further than bean bag chairs and slides. They have a “20% rule” where every Google employee is expected to spend at least 20% of their time on side projects, many of which are fun ones that utilize the environment available to them. For example, a team of Google engineers developed “the perfect pizza box” for their cafeteria in their 20%. This is the distinction between a “creative environment” and a “creative culture”. A creative environment is just set dressing. A creative culture is the actions you’re taking to foster and develop creativity in your organization. This difference is even more important in a world of hybrid and remote work. What are you gonna do, give every employee a pinball machine and ship them a case of beer each month (actually, that’s not a bad idea. If my boss is reading this: yes, yes you should do that…)? It’s clearly not practical, and more than a little intrusive to try and control your remote employees’ environments like that. Furthermore, these kinds of environments only really speak to certain kinds of creativity. Not all creatives desire that kind of stimulation, and having it enforced on them is likely to do more harm than good. That’s why a culture of creativity is important, one that gives people the space to develop creative ideas and develop them in a way that suits them best, not just throw lots of distractions at them. ## **Being able to explore creative ideas** In my marketing dissertation, I interviewed several UK marketing leaders on how they encourage creativity. There were two pieces of advice in particular that have shaped my approach to creativity and how I judge the level of support an organization offers the creative process from the late, great Peter Holden, founder of the Holden & Sons’ agency: 1. “You can’t squeeze blood from a stone. If there’s a creative block, people need the room to step away and come back to it.” (Actually, Peter’s first advice was to go to the pub, but he admitted that wasn’t necessarily appropriate in modern business). 2. “Marketers need to be like culture sponges, you never know what kind of reference will be useful.” Providing space for both is key to an effective creative culture. You need to both give people the space on project timelines to allow for overcoming creative blocks and encourage a diverse array of interests and backgrounds across your team, to allow them to bring as many experiences and ideas as possible to the table. Gastón Tourn, CMO of Curio, follows a similar philosophy when it comes to how he leads his team and teaches them to develop creative ideas. For Gastón, the heart of marketing is storytelling, and the way he approaches it is rooted in the lessons he’s learned from his background in literary studies and creative writing, lessons that he shares with his team. When it comes to marketing storytelling, Gastón encourages his team to think about them not just in marketing terms, but how to tell the stories using classic literary and storytelling techniques. In our [CMO Convo: Story Masters](https://www.cmoalliance.com/cmo-convo-podcast/?wchannelid=vmp1p6vrw9&wmediaid=1mo12xaqkx) podcast mini-series, Gastón explains how he advises his team to explore new, fresh ideas when it comes to storytelling, with the goal of engaging the audience by presenting ideas to them in fresh, exciting ways. > [****Gastón Tourn**](https://www.cmoalliance.com/story-masters-1-the-goal-of-brand-storytelling/) Gastón encourages his team to explore new forms of storytelling across different genres of literature, film, television, and just about every genre and medium. He even goes so far as to advise his team *not* to read marketing advice books, but rather advice on literary criticism and storytelling techniques from authors in order to develop their skills. In this way, Gastón encourages his team to take more time over building creative and engaging stories. > “It goes back a lot to the quote I always mention from John le Carré: “‘The cat sat on the mat’ is not a story, but ‘the cat sat on the dog's mat’ is a story.” I love it because I think it's very simple, but it kind of tells you why the antagonist in particular is so important. It's crucial, particularly in brand storytelling, to ask yourself who the dog is. > [****Gastón Tourn**](https://www.cmoalliance.com/story-masters-3-the-characters-in-your-brand-stories/) ## **Creative cultures allow for risks and experimentation** A creative culture doesn’t just encourage your team to be more creative with what’s in front of them. In the ever-rapidly-changing world of marketing and business, with new technologies and channels appearing all the time and macroeconomic impacts changing the landscape, your team needs to be able to try new ideas and experiment with new approaches. For Austin Beveridge, Head of Growth at Arc Technologies, a strong culture of experimentation was what allowed him in a previous role at Bolt to grow the company to a $12 billion valuation. > [****Austin Beveridge**](https://www.cmoalliance.com/5-lessons-on-growth-culture-from-building-a-decacorn/) Austin raises a good point on “psychological safety”. One of the most important aspects of a creative culture is giving your team the freedom and confidence to try things that might not work. That’s not to say they should be able to dive in and break things without worrying about consequences. Experienced CMO, Christy Raedeke, makes it clear that although she is a big fan of taking creative risks with marketing, they need to be calculated and considered risks. > “I think the most important thing is to start at the top and to get buy-in and to really explain what you're doing, I never want to do something just for a stunt. We don't want to do things that feel like they aren't authentic to the brand, all of the risks I've taken have been in service to the brand. > [****Christy Raedeke**](https://www.cmoalliance.com/redefining-risk-how-to-make-bold-moves-as-a-cmo/) It’s clear that a creative culture doesn’t equal an unstructured culture. The whole concept of “experimentation” requires documenting what’s been tried, and keeping track of the results. Marketing Consultant Tim Parkin recommends having formal documentation of all experiments and creative ideas so that each time something new is tried, it can benefit the organization whether it pays off or not. > "This is what I call the book of knowledge. It's basically an internal wiki, a document, that houses everything about your marketing team. > “You want to include your reports, updates, changes, and campaign performance. You want to be able to see what's worked, what hasn't worked, what we can do differently going forward, and how we can improve our operations and optimization – the two areas that really matter – to get better results from the marketing we're doing. > “That book of knowledge grows and grows over time to become a truly valuable resource that people can reference and see what’s already been tried and what hasn’t been tried yet. And have an idea log to show what we need to do in the future. It becomes an invaluable resource, as your team keeps adding to it and maintaining it. > “As a marketing team, there are so many demands on us that we forget the great ideas that we have. We’ll figure out a change we need to make and then get distracted by something else. Having that documented is so important and so valuable. > [****Tim Parkin**](https://www.cmoalliance.com/marketing-inside-out-put-your-team-first/) With this approach, you can ensure creative thinking is shown to be valuable to your team, while also making sure that new ideas and approaches are built on prior experiences. ## **The way forward** In an era of rapid business evolution, the willingness to take risks is more vital than ever for CMOs. However, risk-taking should never be an act of recklessness. Instead, it should be strategic and calculated, backed by research, and aligned with the company's goals. When embraced, even failure becomes a stepping stone to learning and improvement. By fostering a culture that values storytelling, creativity, open communication, learning from failures, and calculated risk-taking, CMOs can position their organizations to stay ahead of the competition and achieve their goals. This approach ultimately helps to build deeper connections with customers, which is the ultimate goal of any successful marketing endeavor. Finally, I should make it clear that although I’ve written this article from the perspective of CMOs and C-suite marketers, the lessons are applicable [across other departments](https://www.productledalliance.com/5-ways-product-leaders-can-create-a-culture-of-innovation/?ref=cmoalliance.com). Creativity is a benefit to almost every aspect of a business, and it's the duty of all C-suite leaders to help foster it. ### **Golden rules for building a creative culture** - Give people the time to be creative. Constant, back-to-back deadlines won’t allow people the time to overcome blocks and will lead them to just pumping out work that’s the bare minimum. - Build diverse teams. Diverse interests and backgrounds will bring more ideas to the table, and when they mix together, that’s the perfect chemistry for creativity. - Support your team in trying new ideas. Experimentation always comes with a risk, but you won’t know what works and what doesn’t unless you try. - Keep records of your creativity, whether it was successful or not, so you can build on it. While it might sound counterintuitive, this kind of structure allows you to keep building on the work that’s been done. --- [![Become an executive powerhouse with the C-Suite Masterclass](https://www.gotomarketalliance.com/content/images/2023/07/C-Suite_Ghost_Banner_Assets_--1--2.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) ****The most successful businesses are the ones with the most creative cultures. And the leaders who succeed in them are the ones who can best build and maintain that culture effectively. The Alliance’s C-suite Masterclass Course is the perfect resource to build those skills so you can really make your mark in the C-Suite.** [Discover how the course can make you a C-suite master](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) ### Empower your employees by building a culture that values every customer interaction URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/empower-your-employees-by-building-a-culture-that-values-every-customer-interaction/ Last updated: 2025-02-26T17:08:50.000Z The overarching goal of any [customer success](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/what-is-customer-success) function is to provide your customers with the best possible experience that’ll help them realize your product or service’s value, and reach their desired outcomes with said product or service. Sure, it sounds simple enough, but the only way for this ethos to be reflected in every customer interaction is if it’s a part of your company’s culture. This is where first-rate leadership comes into play. As a [customer success leader](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/8-winning-tips-for-stellar-customer-success-leadership/), there’s a responsibility to set the standard through your actions. A junior member of staff can try to impact or change their company’s culture, but fundamentally, any big change needs to come from the top. To ensure each customer interaction counts and your *whole* company recognizes and values each customer interaction, this needs to come from the C-suite. In this article, we’re going to cover: - [What work culture is, and why it’s important,](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/empower-your-employees-by-building-a-culture-that-values-every-customer-interaction/#what-is-a-%E2%80%9Cwork-culture%E2%80%9D-and-what-is-customer-centricity) - [The importance of every customer interaction,](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/empower-your-employees-by-building-a-culture-that-values-every-customer-interaction/#the-importance-of-every-customer-interaction) - [Ways to build a customer-centric culture,](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/empower-your-employees-by-building-a-culture-that-values-every-customer-interaction/#four-ways-you-can-build-a-customer-centric-culture) - [How to empower your employees and set them up for success, and](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/empower-your-employees-by-building-a-culture-that-values-every-customer-interaction/#empowering-employees-to-embody-customer-centric-values) - [How to measure success and continued improvement.](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/empower-your-employees-by-building-a-culture-that-values-every-customer-interaction/customersuccesscollective.com/empower-your-employees-by-building-a-culture-that-values-every-customer-interaction/#measuring-success-and-continuous-improvement) Now, let’s get down to business. ## **What is a “work culture” and what is customer-centricity?** To kick things off, it’d serve this article best if we first explained the importance of a positive, encouraging work culture. But what do we mean when we refer to a “culture”? Work culture is the type of environment that exists *within* an organization, usually reflective of shared values, and beliefs that shape the normal run of things in a company. Here are some examples of work cultures: - Positive, friendly, and dynamic work cultures. These promote innovation, well-being, collaboration and retention. - “Fast-paced” work cultures tend to cultivate agility and adaptability, resilience, collaboration and continuous learning. - Work cultures fostered around [diversity, equity and inclusion](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/how-to-know-if-your-company-is-inclusive/) (DE&I) signal to employees that a company values equal opportunities and creates a workforce that reflects the broader society of different backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and identities. - In toxic work cultures, where employees feel the pressure to over-perform, there are cases of micromanagement, lack of recognition, and bullying. It’s up to the senior leadership team or the [C-suite](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/why-should-customer-success-be-represented-at-c-suite-level/) to set a healthy, supportive, and positive work culture in order to get the best work out of staff. But why are we talking about work culture in an article related to [customer-centric strategies](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/5-steps-to-building-a-customer-centric-culture/)? As a customer success leader, you not only have influence over the day-to-day work culture that affects your employees – that's a given. You’re in a unique position to be able to impact the lives of your customers too – whether that figure's in the thousands, millions, or billions. ### **Why is a customer-centric work culture important?** As a customer success professional, your natural propensity is to focus on the customers themselves. But not every function within your business will necessarily be constantly thinking of the customer. In some companies, the big drive is the product itself, or perhaps the number of sales made. A company could be [community-led](https://www.communityledgrowth.com/what-is-community-led-growth/?ref=customersuccesscollective.com) (much like a little-known [customer success communit](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/customer-success-community/)y 👀). When you put your customer at the forefront of every business decision, in every department – regardless of [KPIs and responsibilities](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/measuring-customer-success/) – then the customer's own eventual success becomes an increasingly realistic prospect. If you can make [customer-centricity](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/5-steps-to-building-a-customer-centric-culture/) and [empathy](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/busting-the-myths-of-empathy-and-accessibility-niina-majaniemi-microsoft/) an integral part of your company’s culture, it can really give your organization an edge in terms of customer conversion and retention. ## **The importance of every customer interaction** Customer interactions play a pivotal role in delivering exceptional service and [building strong relationships with your customers](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/make-em-stick-6-ways-to-build-long-lasting-customer-relationships/). Each interaction provides an opportunity to create a positive impression, address customer needs, and exceed their expectations. When your employees understand the significance of these interactions and are empowered to provide outstanding service, it can have a profound impact on overall customer satisfaction and loyalty. Senior customer success leaders have a crucial role to play in building a customer-centric culture that emphasizes the importance of each customer interaction. How? By setting the right example and establishing clear expectations, they can inspire their teams to prioritize customer satisfaction and go above and beyond to meet customer needs. ### **Understanding the value of each customer interaction** It might sound trite, but it's worth noting for clarity: > Every customer interaction holds value and can influence the customer's perception of your organization. Most companies will agree with this, but whether its culture reflects the gravitas of this realization is another matter entirely. Whether it's a simple inquiry, a support request, or a strategic conversation, there’s no escaping from the fact that every single touchpoint contributes to the overall customer experience. Recognizing the impact of these interactions is essential for cultivating a culture that values [customer-centricity](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/become-a-top-customer-centric-brand-by-mapping-out-your-customer-journey/). By understanding the value of each interaction, you can emphasize the importance of delivering exceptional service at every opportunity. This mindset should permeate throughout the entire organization, from the leadership team to frontline employees. ### **Identifying touchpoints throughout the customer journey and their significance** To truly build a customer-centric culture, it's important to identify the key touchpoints throughout the [customer journey](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/re-examining-the-customer-journey-to-enhance-the-customers-experience-and-add-value/) and understand their magnitude. From the first point of contact to post-purchase support, each one of these touchpoints presents a unique opportunity to engage with the customer and deliver the value that was promised pre-conversion. When you pinpoint these critical touchpoints, your employees will be made aware of the moments that matter most to customers. This knowledge enables you to tailor your interactions, provide personalized experiences, and demonstrate a deeper understanding of your customers’ needs. ### **Utilizing data and analytics to measure and evaluate the quality of customer interactions** Your customers won’t realize value and your department won’t be a revenue driver without marrying the [two pillars of customer success](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/the-balance-between-tech-and-human-touch-during-onboarding/). Just like PB and J are a match made in sandwich heaven, so are empathy and data to customer success. No matter how you cut it, [data and analytics](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/how-to-build-a-proactive-customer-success-function-with-data/) play a *huge* role in building a customer-centric culture. By leveraging your customers’ data, you can gain insights into the quality of interactions, identify areas for improvement and feed this information back to your product development team. There are some key metrics you can start adopting, such as customer satisfaction scores, response times, and resolution rates, which can provide invaluable [feedback](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/your-go-to-guide-on-how-to-obtain-customer-feedback/) on the effectiveness of customer interactions. It’s worth pausing here to note that while having this data is just one part of the game – acting on it via analysis is the most important part. When you analyze this data, it allows you to measure the success of your customer-centric initiatives and make data-driven decisions to enhance the customer experience. Regular evaluation of customer interactions enables you to identify patterns, trends, and areas of excellence, which can be used to shape training programs, refine processes, and continuously improve service delivery. ## **Four ways you can build a customer-centric culture** ### **1\. Define a clear vision and mission centered around customer satisfaction** To build a customer-centric culture, it’s essential to define a clear vision and mission that revolves around customer satisfaction. This vision should be communicated throughout the organization, emphasizing the importance of putting the customer at the forefront of every decision and action. A customer-centric vision provides a shared purpose and direction, aligning employees around a common goal. It sets the tone for the organization's culture and serves as a guiding principle for decision-making at all levels. ### **2\. Communicate the importance of customer-centricity to the entire organization** This one will never get old: [effective communication](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/drive-customer-engagement-through-effective-communications/) is key to fostering a customer-centric culture. It’s *essential* to clearly articulate the importance of customer-centricity to every member of the organization. This communication should emphasize how each employee contributes to the customer experience and how their efforts directly impact customer satisfaction and loyalty. Leaders should regularly communicate the organization's commitment to customer-centricity, share success stories, and highlight the positive outcomes that result from prioritizing the customer. This constant reinforcement helps create a shared understanding and reinforces the significance of customer interactions. ### **3\. Encouraging cross-functional collaboration and knowledge sharing** Michael Jordan once famously noted that "Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." And he’s not wrong. 🏀 [Collaboration](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/why-collaboration-will-transform-your-customer-experiences/) and teamwork are an organization’s magic formula for success. When departments work together, share knowledge and break away from the silos that can unfortunately start to form, they can provide a seamless and consistent experience for customers. Your best jumping-off point to get your employees to fully grasp the significance of customer-centricity is by showing the value of what each other department does. This way, they’ll have a well-formed understanding of each customer interaction your company has. When pooling together insights, statistics and notes, employees can leverage their collective expertise and insights to better understand customer needs and address challenges effectively. ### **4\. Aligning internal processes to support a customer-focused approach** This one might be best addressed to your [operations team](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/customer-success-operations/), but building a customer-centric culture requires aligning internal processes and policies to support a customer-focused approach. This can seem mundane, but it’s integral to long-lasting, systemic change. It can involve reviewing existing practices and identifying areas where changes can be made to enhance the customer experience. By streamlining your internal processes and removing unnecessary archaic barriers, you improve service delivery and set your employees up to make decisions that’ll benefit the customer tenfold. ## **Empowering employees to embody customer-centric values** The term “empower” gets thrown around a lot these days, but what does it really mean? We’re of the belief that empowerment means providing someone with the confidence and authority to carry out a task. If you’re in the business to make your company customer-centric, you won’t stand a chance if your employees aren’t onboard and, perhaps more pressingly, have the right infrastructure to enact this ethos. Empowering employees starts with hiring and training individuals who align with the organization's customer-centric values. During the hiring process, look for candidates who demonstrate empathy, excellent communication skills, and a genuine passion for delivering exceptional service. Once hired, provide comprehensive training programs that focus not only on product knowledge but also on vital skills, such as active listening, problem-solving, and empathy. This investment in employee development sets the foundation for a customer-centric culture. ### **Providing ongoing training and professional development opportunities** Empowerment is an ongoing process that requires continuous learning and development. Provide employees with **regular training sessions** and **professional development opportunities** to enhance their skills and keep them updated on industry trends and best practices. Encourage employees to seek feedback, participate in workshops and conferences, and pursue relevant certifications. By investing in their growth, you empower them to provide exceptional service and develop as customer success professionals. 🎪 Leadership is the cornerstone of success in the C-suite. Are **you* ready to take your executive skills to the next level? Enter ****the** [****C-Suite Masterclass certification**](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content). From developing your leadership abilities to understanding the unique challenges faced by C-level executives, you'll gain the knowledge you need to drive results, inspire teams, and achieve your career aspirations. [Learn today. Lead tomorrow](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) ### **Encouraging autonomy and decision-making authority at all levels** Empowering employees means granting them the autonomy and decision-making authority to serve customers effectively. Trust your employees to make decisions aligned with the organization's values and provide them with the necessary support and resources to do so. By empowering employees to take ownership of customer interactions and make decisions that benefit the customer, you foster a sense of ownership and accountability. This autonomy leads to increased employee satisfaction and enables them to deliver personalized and impactful experiences. ### **Recognizing and rewarding exceptional customer service efforts** Recognition and rewards are powerful tools for reinforcing a customer-centric culture. When you acknowledge and celebrate employees who consistently go above and beyond to deliver exceptional service and are responsible for outstanding customer interactions, you foster a culture of excellence that inspires others to follow suit. Whether this is through peer nominations, customer feedback, or performance metrics, a great way to empower your employees is by publicly recognizing these employees and rewarding their efforts. ### **Creating the right systems** Implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) system to track interactions To effectively manage and track customer interactions, implement a robust CRM system and you’ll be laughing your way down Retention Road (population: your CS team 😉). You’ll know that a CRM provides a centralized platform to record and analyze customer interactions, ensuring that no valuable information slips through the cracks. But a powerful CRM system that works with your business model and size will allow your employees to access customer data, history, and preferences, and provide them with the ability to personalize all customer interactions and provide proactive support. It also facilitates collaboration among teams, allowing for a seamless handoff of information and ensuring continuity in the customer experience. ### **Utilizing technology for customer feedback and sentiment analysis** Technology can play a significant role in gathering customer feedback and sentiment analysis. Implement tools and platforms that enable customers to provide feedback easily, such as surveys, online reviews, and social media listening. Leverage sentiment analysis tools to monitor customer sentiment and identify areas where improvements can be made. These insights help you understand customer perceptions and make data-driven decisions to enhance the customer experience. ### **Providing employees with access to relevant customer information and insights** Empower your employees with access to relevant customer information and insights. This can include data on customer preferences, previous interactions, and any specific needs or challenges they may have encountered. By equipping employees with this information, you enable them to provide personalized and proactive support, anticipating customer needs and exceeding expectations. Access to customer insights empowers employees to deliver tailored solutions that drive customer success. ## **Measuring success and continuous improvement** ### **Establish KPIs to measure customer satisfaction and service quality** Measuring success in a customer-centric culture requires establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) that focus on customer satisfaction and service quality. These KPIs can include metrics such as customer satisfaction scores, [net promoter score](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/how-to-leverage-nps-data-to-make-decisions/) (NPS), customer retention rate, and customer lifetime value. Regularly monitor and evaluate these metrics to assess the impact of customer interactions and the effectiveness of your customer-centric initiatives. Use the data to identify areas for improvement and set goals to drive continuous enhancement of the customer experience. ### **Gathering customer feedback** Direct customer feedback is invaluable for understanding their needs, preferences, and satisfaction levels. Implement surveys, conduct interviews, and leverage social listening tools to gather feedback from your customers. Encourage customers to share their thoughts and suggestions, and actively listen to their feedback. Analyze the feedback to identify trends, pain points, and areas of improvement. This customer-centric approach ensures that you are continuously aligned with their needs and expectations. Analyzing customer data, feedback and customer interactions via metrics will identify areas for improvement, allow you to implement necessary changes and gain insights into the customer experience. What’s more, you’ll ensure your organization is consistently evolving to meet customer needs. ## **Overcoming challenges and roadblocks** When you’re beginning to implement a customer-centric culture, you may face resistance from employees who’ve become accustomed to existing practices or are perhaps reluctant to change. This is natural, and a very common theme in [change management](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/adoption-and-change-management-in-customer-success/). You can overcome this resistance by fostering a customer-centric mindset through communication, training, and leading by example. When you’ve got employees who are taking more persuading to come round to these new systems, try to emphasize the benefits of a customer-centric approach, such as improved customer satisfaction, increased loyalty, and business growth. You can support these employees by offering resources to help them adapt to new ways of working and create a supportive environment that encourages experimentation and learning. ### **Resource constraints and budget limitations** Unfortunately, like many other aspects of life, lack of money can be a real blocker for realizing your goals. And in businesses, resource constraints and budget limitations can present challenges in building the customer-centric culture of your dreams. But it’s not all doom and gloom! You can harness creativity and prioritization to overcome these pesky financial obstacles. One way to get around a less-than-ideal budget is to proactively identify cost-effective initiatives that’ll have a significant impact on the customer experience. After all, *you*, the CS leader, are most in-tune with the customer’s thoughts and desires. *You* know what they’re after. Let the rest of the C-suite know that. You can focus on training and development programs that empower employees to provide exceptional service without requiring substantial financial investments. Seek opportunities to leverage technology and automation to streamline processes and maximize efficiency. ## **Okay, let’s wrap things up** Delivering exceptional service through every single customer interaction is a central tenet of any successful business. But building a customer-centric culture can only be achieved if your whole company is behind this ethos. By recognizing the value of each customer interaction, identifying key touchpoints, and leveraging data and analytics, organizations can continuously improve the quality of customer interactions. As a CS leader, you have your ear to the ground of every post-sales interaction. You live and breathe helping your customers, by understanding their feedback and walking them through your product’s uses. It’s therefore integral that customer success leaders can define a clear vision and mission centered around customer satisfaction, aligning internal processes and policies, and empowering employees through hiring, training, autonomy, and recognition. By utilizing the right systems and measuring success, organizations can overcome challenges, continuously improve, and provide exceptional service that drives customer success. We’ve said it once, but we’ll say it again. We’ll say it until the cows come home: > **Through customer-centricity, organizations can foster strong relationships, inspire customer loyalty, and differentiate themselves in today's competitive landscape. Empower your employees and they’ll take care of your customers.** [![Become an executive powerhouse with the C-Suite Masterclass](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/content/images/size/w1000/2023/06/q-ybL2TK.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?ref=customersuccesscollective.com) ## **Secure your seat at the big table.** So much of your time is spent grafting to [make your customers realize value](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/customer-value-realization-if-you-build-it-they-will-come/), why not invest the same in yourself? Whether you’re a Director or VP of Customer Success, the **C-suite Masterclass** is your answer to professional progression. If you’re serious about taking your career to lofty heights, this certification will certainly help expedite your career by offering you strategies, insights, and skills necessary to take a seat at the big table. [Join the C-suite at your company](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) ### Visualizing success: How effective data visualizations can drive action URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/visualizing-success-how-effective-data-visualizations-can-drive-action/ Last updated: 2023-07-03T18:35:28.000Z Attention all revenue operations professionals! Is your data not engaging your team or shareholders? Is it swamping your ability to deliver valuable insights? Look no further than ****the power of effective data visualizations**. In today's fast-paced business world, where ****data is king** and **RevOps is the future**, raw numbers alone won't cut it, this is where data visualization comes in. Not only can it transform your complex data sets into clear and concise visuals, but it can also tell a compelling story that drives action. In this article, we'll cover everything you need to know about data visualization, from why it's important to how to build effective visuals, and how to persuade your team and management to take action. Don't miss out on this opportunity for innovation and ****to elevate your revenue operations game**. Read on and visualize your success today! Here’s how we’ll break it down: - [What is data visualization and why is it important?](https://www.revenueoperationsalliance.com/p/bcdd6232-d556-4b2a-ad7e-4775c1ccbca0/#what-is-data-visualization-and-why-is-it-important) - [How to build effective data visualizations](https://www.revenueoperationsalliance.com/p/bcdd6232-d556-4b2a-ad7e-4775c1ccbca0/#how-to-build-effective-data-visualizations) - [Telling compelling stories with visualizations](https://www.revenueoperationsalliance.com/p/bcdd6232-d556-4b2a-ad7e-4775c1ccbca0/#telling-compelling-stories-with-visualizations) - [Final thoughts‌‌](https://www.revenueoperationsalliance.com/p/bcdd6232-d556-4b2a-ad7e-4775c1ccbca0/#final-thoughts) ## ****What is data visualization and why is it important?** ‌‌Simply, data visualization refers to the graphical representation of data and information. In revenue operations, data visualization is used to present complex data in a more intuitive and understandable format. This enables RevOps professionals to easily identify trends, patterns, and outliers that may be difficult to spot in raw data. Businesses that implement revenue operations see [19% faster growth and 15% more profits](https://www.forrester.com/blogs/how-to-align-revenue-engine/?ref=revenueoperationsalliance.com#:~:text=Our%20research%20on%20the%20economics,operational%20mindset%20called%20revenue%20operations.) than those that don’t, and ****data is the fuel** for this, so harnessing it effectively is crucial. Compelling data visualization is key to helping RevOps professionals make better, objective, data-driven decisions. But if it isn’t presented clearly and visually, it ****can be impossible to understand**, especially in the world of RevOps which deals with multiple teams and datasets at the same time. Along the same lines, when dealing with a vast range of data sets and metrics across departments, data visualization can aid revenue operations by identifying patterns and trends, helping to guide the direction of growth tactics. > ***Seeing what is working well and what isn’t can also benefit future forecasting.*** When the data is clearly laid out and you have identified patterns, you can use this framework for analyzing previous years, building a bigger picture, and helping to focus on goals. Another hugely important use of data visualization in RevOps is its ability to make data accessible. Communication is an essential part of the RevOps function and so data should be able to clearly share insights and key information to all departments, shareholders, and directors. ****With better communication, understanding, and alignment comes better results and growth.** ## ****How to build effective data visualizations** So how can you actually build effective revenue operations data visualizations? Consider the following steps: 1. ****Determine the purpose and audience**: Before creating any data visualization, it’s important to determine the purpose of the visualization and the intended audience. This will help guide decisions about which data to include, the type of visualization to use, and how to present the information. 2. ****Choose the right type of visualization**: There are many types of data visualizations, including charts, graphs, infographics, and dashboards. Choose the type that works best with your industry and the type of data you’re presenting, making it easier for your audience to understand the information. 3. ****Simplify the data**: Complex data can be difficult to interpret, so it’s important to simplify the data before creating a visualization. Remove any unnecessary data points, and use labels and annotations to highlight any key parts. 4. ****Use appropriate colors and fonts**: Choose colors and fonts that are easy to read and that make the data clear. Avoid using too many different colors or fonts, as this can make the visualization confusing, and always aim to keep color themes professional. 5. ****Test the visualization**: Before presenting the visualization to your team or your board of directors, test it to ensure that it accurately represents the data and that it effectively communicates the message or information you want to show.‌‌ If you can nail all of these steps, communicating complex key information in a way that is easy to understand, your data visualizations are on track to boost your revenue operations function and drive overall growth.‌‌ ## ****Telling compelling stories with visualizations** Data visualization bridges data analysis with compelling storytelling. We’ve looked at how it can help with analysis, and now let’s look at how it can boost your narrative message. Presenting your data in a way that tells a clear and engaging story is ****crucial for persuading your audience to take action** and further highlight key points. Here are some tips: You should ****start with a clear message**, before even creating a data visualization, you need to determine the key message behind the data you want to convey. > *By doing this you can guide your decisions for selecting the right data and the right way to present it to make it most effective.* Try to ****use a narrative structure**, to make your data visualization more engaging, build a story, set the scene, present the data, and conclude by summarizing your key message. Make an attempt to include ****visual cues**, like color or size for example that will draw your audience's attention to the parts you want them to see, or even ****annotations**. --- [![The Alliance C-Suite Masterclass](https://www.revenueoperationsalliance.com/content/images/2023/05/C-Suite_Masterclass_Email_Banner_2.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) --- Highlight your most important data points strategically in this way, to engage and help your audience understand whilst trying not to overwhelm. ****Providing context** is also important to help your audience understand the full picture of the data, you can do this by including benchmarks or historical data. This can then highlight the DNA of the data for your audience and show patterns of improvement or decline. Boost your storytelling with your data visualizations, and ****use real-world examples** or case studies to illustrate the impact of the data on the business. Cementing all these steps with a final ****call to action** will really encourage your audience, whether that’s your team, shareholders, or board of directors, to take action. This could range from anything to implementing a new strategy, increasing resources, or changing a process. Regardless, by using data visualizations in revenue operations to show data in a way that is easy to understand and by illustrating the potential impact of taking action, you can persuade your audience to make informed decisions that drive business success. ## ****Final thoughts** Data lies at the heart of revenue operations and any business growth, so harnessing it effectively is hugely important to secure success. Therefore effective data visualization is a crucial tool for any revenue operations professional and by transforming datasets into actionable, clear, and concise visuals, trends, patterns, and outliers can be quickly identified. For a function so focused on alignment and streamlining, compelling data visualizations only act to boost RevOps, helping you to make better, objective, data-driven decisions. By following the steps outlined in this article, and even using the help of data visualization software like Tableau, you can build effective data visualizations that tell a clear and engaging story and persuade your audience to take action based on the valuable data insights. This stands only to secure better outcomes, drive business and optimize revenue growth. ****RevOps success is yours for the taking!** --- Most newcomers to the C-suite don't feel prepared. That's because they don't know how to: - ****Steer their psychology** to take care of their mental health, eliminate imposter syndrome, and finally achieve work-life balance. - Quickly ****establish a company-wide vision** and framework for developing and implementing a winning strategy. - Deftly ****handle cultural differences** to maximize team togetherness. The C-Suite Masterclass will teach you to do all this, plus a *load* more. Click the banner below for more info. [![Become an executive powerhouse with the C-Suite Masterclass](https://www.gotomarketalliance.com/content/images/2023/07/C-Suite_Ghost_Banner_Assets_--1--1.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) ### How to build a culture that values customer interaction in product-led growth URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-build-a-culture-that-values-customer-interaction-in-product-led-growth/ Last updated: 2023-07-18T10:57:36.000Z In product-led growth, giving your customers value is the number one driver of growth. It all comes down to your business’s perception, and by building a solid relationship with users, you’re creating brand trust. Customers who trust a business are more likely to stick around and become long-term subscribers. So how do you prioritize customer satisfaction, and how does that relate to product experience? A large part of it comes down to your organization's culture. When you empower your employees, you give them a sense of authority and autonomy to make the customer experience the best it can be. Think of it as giving your employees the right tools to handle customer interactions quickly and smoothly. Now you have the building blocks of positive customer service. But, what are the specific ingredients to create a work culture that embraces positive customer interactions? Read on ahead, you customer guru. ## **Have clear expectations and outcomes** You want to make sure everyone in your company understands the value of good customer service. If people aren’t on the same page, goals can’t be aligned, and direction is immediately lost. You want to ensure you’ve effectively stated the company vision with measurable goals and KPIs focusing on customer satisfaction. It’s important to lay out what you expect from your employees from the beginning. Changing desired outcomes often can give employees whiplash and make them feel directionless. Consistency creates boundaries people know to stay within, so be clear and stick to them. ## **Hire the right people** If you want employees who’ll [treat your customers right](https://www.productledalliance.com/instilling-a-customer-first-approach-in-all-you-do/), you need to find ones who align with your values. When interviewing, you want to scout for passionate, empathetic, and emotionally intelligent people. These are the people who will foster and embrace a customer-centric culture. Ideally, you need the right temperament and communication style to handle customer interactions. These people should be able to take constructive criticism well and adapt to situations quickly, as you never know how customers will react. But don’t forget to nurture these people. Handling different personalities all day can be exhausting, and if you want your employees to thrive, you need to take care of them. That means providing them with the right environment to succeed, where their emotional needs are being addressed. ## **Train and empower employees** The best employees are the ones who are given the proper tools to handle any situation. You want to empower your people with the proper training and resources to deal with adversity should it come their way. Think proactivity. By empowering, you’re giving employees the ownership to make decisions based on their training that benefits the customer. Autonomy to act means employees don’t always have to escalate issues to higher management. They have the knowledge to deal with and satisfy customers or have the tools available if needed. Highly trained employees are also less likely to feel overwhelmed and will feel backed by their company. You’re investing in them and their continued development, which will, in turn, make them feel more supported, motivated, and valued. And that will increase happiness, which will then be passed on to the customer. When employees are empowered with knowledge, they can pass that along to the customers. It’s a trickle-down effect and gives customers a sense of ease, knowing they’ll get the information they need. This fosters a positive relationship with the company, as the customer feels confident that, when they have a problem, they know who they can turn to for help. ## **Foster a customer-centric culture** If you want the best customer service experience, you must make sure your business has the fundamental shift to approach it. This goes beyond metrics and policies and taps into the company's ethos as a whole. Everyone needs to understand customers are priority number one. Without them, there is no audience to sell the product to, after all. Customer satisfaction drives business growth. So, how do you create that culture? A few ways. You can reward those who prioritize customer satisfaction either through bonuses or acknowledgment. It gives people a solid goal to strive towards. You can also celebrate customer success throughout the company, which creates a positive work environment. And you can focus on customer satisfaction metrics over others to drive your company’s compass in that direction. The name of the game is all about reinforcing customer value. So, find what works best for you and go for it! ## **Continuously improve** [Customers need change](https://www.productledalliance.com/navigating-constantly-changing-customer-needs-2/), and you need to be on top of that. Employees are your first point of contact with the customer, so listen when employees share their feedback on improving things. The best way to do this is by personalization. Your goal is to adapt the customer experience based on customer preferences. Know how and when to engage with them and what they want. What are some ways to personalize? - Use customer surveys to get their opinion - Use past purchases to see their wants and needs - Make recommendations based on user profiles - Use customer journey mapping to understand issues and opportunities As your business grows, you might be able to identify new methods of offering customer service, as well as optimize wait times and responses to queries. You want to make your customers feel like they’re getting VIP treatment, which means constantly trying new things when the opportunity presents itself. Just keep a close look at the data to make sure something new is working for you and not against you. ## **Lead by example** Your employees look up to you, so set the right tone as the leader. Your actions towards customers should inspire as you lead by example. A great way to do this is for leaders to be accessible to customers. They want to know everyone in the business is working for their satisfaction. When leaders take accountability for customer issues, it's vital for employees to watch how they handle it. You’re responsible for making positive customer interactions a priority. Don’t let it slip. ## **Use data to drive decisions** Metrics are a great way to keep your company focused on the customer journey. Not only does it allow you to understand customer behavior, how to fix their pain points, and what they like, it shows you how to [improve your customer experience](https://www.productledalliance.com/speed-and-scale-to-support-consumer-brands/) if something is lacking. We’re all about continued improvement here. So, what are some great [KPIs to measure customer success](https://www.productledalliance.com/10-best-customer-retention-metrics-for-product-managers/)? Here are a few you should always be checking on. ****Customer retention rate (CRR)** CRR is a crucial metric for gauging loyalty and the effectiveness of your business strategy. CRR is the number of customers who continue to do business with you over time. Retaining existing customers is more cost-effective than acquiring new ones, and a 5% increase in CRR can lead to an ROI increase of 25% or more. And, since happy customers are more likely to refer your services to others, you’re essentially getting free marketing for your business. ****Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)** CSAT measures overall customer satisfaction through surveys or feedback, often using a scale of 1-10 or emojis. CSAT provides quantitative data for qualitative feedback and can help identify areas for improvement. Surveys can be delivered through websites, email campaigns, or in-store kiosks, but timing is crucial to avoid oversaturating customers and to ensure their voices are heard. ****Net Promoter Score (NPS)** NPS measures customer loyalty and satisfaction through surveys asking how likely a customer is to recommend a product, usually on a scale of 1-10\. Specific follow-up questions about demographics and product quality can provide tailored data to improve your NPS. A high NPS can predict company growth through positive word-of-mouth advertising, and calculating NPS only requires survey software, well-crafted questions, and an irresistible product. ## Conclusion Customer interactions should be a positive experience that employees are well equipped to handle. It’s a top-down approach, where leadership offers the goals, mindsets, and training for employees to thrive in customer service. So, once you’ve made sure you’ve hired the right people and you’ve given them the space to flourish, keep nourishing that culture. It’ll only continue to pay off. [![Become an executive powerhouse with the C-Suite Masterclass](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2023/07/C-Suite_Ghost_Banner_Assets_--1-.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=banner&utm%5Fcampaign=content) While you're here, check out the all-new ****C-Suite Masterclass**! With the help of leading experts, plus access to our Alliance frameworks and case studies, you'll get all the strategies, insights, and skills you need to thrive in the upper echelons of business. ### Seven key takeaways from the Competitive Intelligence Summit URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seven-key-takeaways-from-the-competitive-intelligence-summit/ Last updated: 2025-10-28T10:36:36.000Z The Competitive Intelligence Summit has officially drawn to a close, and wow, did it deliver! We're still buzzing from the wealth of insight. 🎉 While we can't package all that greatness into one article, we're about to dish up a tantalizing taster menu of the top takeaways. Get ready for a recap of the juicy bits you might've missed or just need to relive! 🚀 ## Takeaway #1: Perception is everything *Nate Bagley, Head of Content at Clozd* Perception truly is everything. It's not your perception of your company’s strengths and weaknesses that matters; what matters is your buyers’ perspective on how you stack up in the marketplace. Let's take one of our clients, Acquia, as an example. We recently spoke with one of their leaders, Deanna, who shared a story about the typical infighting that occurs in a technology company. The sales team was frustrated, claiming they were losing deals because the product wasn't up to par. The product team, on the other hand, was adamant that their product was fine, suggesting the sales team just wasn't good at selling. This difference of opinions led them to hire us to conduct win-loss analysis interviews with their buyers. What we found is that the number one reason they were losing deals was a perceived lack of key integrations in their product. Deanna was taken aback. They had a lot of these integrations, so why was there a perception that they didn't? Turns out the problem was multi-faceted, implicating not only sales and product, but potentially marketing as well in the failure to close deals. In response, the organization took a unified approach. Deanna worked with the product team to build out the missing integrations. The marketing team started highlighting these integrations more prominently on their website, so their buyers knew they existed. Lastly, the sales team enhanced the sales process, ensuring these integrations were mentioned earlier. Within a year, integrations went from being the number one reason they were losing deals to the number one reason they were *winning* them. Essentially, all they did was work to change their buyers’ perceptions. But they couldn't have made these changes without first understanding how they were originally perceived. They could have continued the endless finger-pointing: "It's the sales team's fault," "No, it's the product team's fault," "No, it's marketing's fault," like that famous Spider-Man meme. Instead, they went and found the truth and changed their approach accordingly. ## Takeaway #2: The four archetypes of differentiation *Alex McDonnell, Market and Competitive Intelligence Lead at Airtable* When we’re serving up CI to product teams, we're looking for opportunities to differentiate and critical gaps to close. Those opportunities to differentiate come in many shapes and sizes, but they typically match one of these archetypes: - **The specialist:** Let’s say your target persona needs four capabilities to complete their workflow, and maybe there are some products out there that do all four, but they don't do any of them particularly well. The specialist would take one of those capabilities and refine that experience to the point where it's worth paying for. It’s about being the best-of-breed tool on top of – or even instead of – the one that tries to do it all. - **The aggregator:** Perhaps you’re part of a fragmented market landscape where customers have to piece together their workflows with a bunch of different tools. The aggregator spots the opportunity to put all of those workflows into one tool or platform. - **The innovator:** Let’s continue with the idea of those four capabilities that your target customer needs. The innovator takes one of those capabilities and does it in a fundamentally different way to make it their signature differentiator. They’re part of the same market category, but they highlight this star capability. - **The simplifier:** This last one is a really underrated approach to differentiation. It’s about having the confidence to acknowledge that you have the same or even fewer capabilities than the other tools out there. But you've created such a simplified user experience that your tool is much easier to use. I’d recommend thinking about these archetypes for differentiation in any competitive analysis you do for your product team or even for your executive team. They’re great ways to differentiate and stand out in a crowded marketplace. ## Takeaway #3: A battlecard is not a confessional *Jay Nakagawa, Director of Competitive Intelligence at Dell* For most companies, sales enablement means battlecards. The problem with many battlecards is they try to convey too much information. This unfortunate phenomenon has been repeatedly documented and attested to by CI professionals and sales-makers alike. As CI practitioners, we often feel compelled to give the poor salesperson a dissertation on War and Peace on an eight-and-a-half by 11-inch piece of paper. We also put the information in a sub-microscopic font that requires a huge magnifying glass to read. Clearly, this is not helpful. Keep in mind that a battlecard is not a confessional. The poor salesperson does not want to know everything you know about the competitor. What they're looking for is an answer to these questions: - What do I need to know about the competitor and their product, services, or offerings to move the sales process forward? - What are their weaknesses? (So I can emphasize my product services or portfolio strengths). - What are the frequently asked questions? - What are the product differentiations and customer references, etc? - How competitive is their pricing? Keep in mind the KISS principle: “Keep it simple, stupid!” This means giving sales advice they can consume easily, making sure they’re able to convey this information to customers in a manner that is easily understood. This is one of the keys to success. ## Takeaway #4: The incredible value of competitive intel from customer-facing employees *Tammy Savage, CEO of Groopit* The 2023 State of Competitive Intelligence Report, found that a staggering 63% of people believe that competitive intelligence from employees is extremely valuable; another 29% deemed it valuable. Let that sink in for a second. Our own employees are ranked as the number one most valuable source of competitive intelligence. That's right – the people who work alongside us every day hold the key to unlocking competitive advantage. But here's the catch: gathering this intelligence has always been a challenge. It's hard for employees because they're busy, they forget, or they simply resist sharing their knowledge. Meanwhile, for CI professionals, it's a laborious manual effort. Piecing together these fragments of information from surveys, conversations, channels, and emails to form a coherent picture of the competitive landscape is a lot of work. Scaling this process is an uphill battle. Let's be real: it's almost impossible. It would take an army of competitive intelligence professionals. And companies? They keep their investments very lean. So, where does that leave us? Companies without a strategy for tapping into this competitive intel from employees are falling behind – often without even realizing it. Behind closed doors, they struggle with longer sales cycles, lost deals, and lower win rates. And that gap – the gap between companies that harness employee-driven competitive intel and those that don't – is widening, and it's impacting the bottom line of corporations. But fear not! There is a solution. Let's take a peek into seven strategies that will remove friction for employees and competitive intel professionals alike: 1. **Define it:** Lay out the types of intel you need employees to share. 2. **Score it:** Turn anecdotes into quantifiable data. 3. **Time it:** Streamline sharing to a few taps that take less than a minute. 4. **Connect it:** Integrate systems so employees can share intel from the platforms they use every day. 5. **Share it:** Make sharing automatic and data easily consumable so everyone can use it in real time. 6. **Recognize it:** Celebrate wins and highlight the competitive advantage you’re all building together. 7. **Model it:** Enlist competitive intelligence champions to engage their teams and model quality contributions. ## Takeaway #5: Don’t rely on your CRM for win-loss data *Andrew Peterson, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Clozd* Win-loss analysis is the process of analyzing the outcomes of each of your sales opportunities to explain why that outcome happened. You then aggregate that feedback over time to paint an overarching picture of why you're winning and losing deals, giving direction to your company as to what you can change to win more deals in the future. To find out why a deal was won or lost, a common strategy is to ask sales reps to report the reason for the outcome in the CRM. On the surface, this seems like a sensible approach – until you realize how unreliable it is. We know how unreliable CRM data can be because we've had the opportunity to scrutinize it firsthand. With the platform we offer and the services we provide, we can access our customers' pipeline and CRM data. We're then able to compare this information with direct feedback from buyers, post-decision, about why they made the decision they made. Incredibly, when we’ve done this type of analysis, the results have been more skewed than we anticipated. A staggering 85% of the time, sales reps are wrong about the reason a deal is won or lost. We’ve compared the single reason provided by a sales rep to four or five reasons given by a buyer about what drove their decision, and they didn’t map. 85% of the time, not a single one of the reasons given by reps matched those provided by the customer. In short, you can't fully rely on your CRM to tell you why you're winning and losing deals. ## Takeaway #6: The benefits of presenting competitive intelligence to your stakeholders *Susan Sutherland-Wilmshurst, Director of Competitive Intelligence at JLL Technologies* Presenting research and competitive intelligence well has multiple benefits for the competitive intelligence function, the organization, and your stakeholders: 1. **It builds your skills and makes your job more fun:** Rather than churning through the research, you're thinking about how to convey information. You're thinking about creative ways to visualize data and concepts. This is more interesting than just cranking through the work. 2. **Greater retention and engagement from your audience:** Your CEO or stakeholder, is going to remember a well-structured presentation better than a simple document. They're going to engage more, they're going to retain the information more, and that information is going to have more impact. 3. **It enables faster decision-making:** Taking in clear, concise insights will enable better and faster decision-making for your organization. 4. **It enhances your value-add and the perception of CI in your organization:** Communicating clearly and succinctly goes a long way towards how people view you. They'll see that you're adding a lot to what they're doing, allowing you to play a bigger role in the organization. And in this day and age, when all of us are a bit vulnerable because of the external environment, showing your value is all the more important. ## Takeaway #7: The advantages of strategic alignment *Sam Rinaldo, Senior Competitive Intelligence Analyst at Lucid Software* Competitive and corporate strategy really should be the same thing. And so, competitive strategy should be driven by the same individual that’s driving corporate strategy, and no corporate strategy should be created without the input of competitive intelligence. Singularly aligning on a strategy has a lot of benefits, but there are a few I especially want to highlight here: ### 1\. Avoid messaging whiplash Messaging whiplash happens when you, as the analyst, seize on some available advantage and incorporate it into your competitive approach without considering the long-term sustainability of that value proposition in your company strategy. If the business moves away from that advantage – for example, you start charging premiums for features that were once included in bundled packages – you can end up making dramatic pivots from one value prop to the next, with no clear connection between them. This results in more work as well as a lot of confusion for your stakeholders and the market. ### 2\. Reduce internal friction If the corporate strategy simply ignores competitive disadvantages or misses them during the planning process, there's only so much you can do to talk your way out of it on the sales and marketing side of the house. You're putting them into a bad situation with no long-term value props. ### 3\. Measure twice, cut once Perhaps the biggest impact of aligning on strategy is the positive impact on productivity that comes from not having to go back and revise things all the time. You won't have to go back and fix things that are no longer working if you're able to address the root cause at the strategic level from the get-go. --- That’s a wrap, folks! The curtains may have closed on this Competitive Intelligence Summit, but there’s sure to be an encore. To hear about all of our upcoming events and rub virtual shoulders with your fellow CI pros, [follow us on LinkedIn today](https://www.linkedin.com/company/competitive-intelligence-alliance/)! ### Why we need to amplify diverse voices in marketing and related functions URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/why-we-need-to-amplify-diverse-voices-in-marketing/ Last updated: 2023-06-29T11:01:39.000Z *This article is adapted from Patrick's appearance on sister community CMO Alliance's flagship podcast, CMO Convo, "*[*It's a diverse world. Marketing should be too.*](https://www.cmoalliance.com/cmo-convo-its-a-diverse-world-marketing-should-be-too-patrick-reynolds-jade-warne/)*"* I’m Patrick Reynolds, and I’m the CMO of a company called BlueConic, which is a technology company in the customer data platform space. BlueConic is a portfolio company of Vista, which is the largest technology investor in the world. I’ve always been an observer of people in life, which is an expression that I learned quite early on. I try to be a cultural anthropologist of humans in the wild, as it were. So on the subway, in the park, when they don't know that you're observing, you're observing (in a non-creepy-weird way). I always keep an ear open and my eyes open to how people look, behave, and interact. And I think that's always been really core to me. I take a journalistic perspective on how to do marketing, I guess. It's important to talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from a marketing perspective and make sure that we’re building the kinds of organizations that represent us as people and our businesses well. I’d also like to speak secondarily as a human who recognizes the dramatic and desperate need for a more inclusive, multicultural, multi-palleted world. And then I’d also like to speak to you as a cisgender, middle-aged white guy, because I think that persona is critical to making everything else work better, faster. --- [CMO Convo | It’s a diverse world. Marketing should be too.Across almost any industry, the audiences you’re marketing to are likely becoming more and more diverse. Does your marketing team reflect that?![](https://www.cmoalliance.com/content/images/size/w256h256/2021/02/CMO_Alliance-Colour-Logomark_tiny.png)CMO AllianceWill Whitham![](https://www.cmoalliance.com/content/images/2023/06/3.png)](https://www.cmoalliance.com/cmo-convo-its-a-diverse-world-marketing-should-be-too-patrick-reynolds-jade-warne/) --- ## Defining diversity, equity, and inclusion To me, DEI is about creating a space where everyone is welcome. And a different way to say that is that I want to create an environment that broadly looks like the world we live in. Up until quite recently, the business world was a little cocoon nested within this increasingly diverse world, but immune to it. It was a little white bastion in the middle of a very multicolored ocean or constellation. But that dog won't hunt anymore. So we need to figure out a way to make what happens inside the four walls of the business more closely mirror what happens outside of them. ## Business is integral to a better society > *“Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance. And belonging is dancing like no one’s watching.”* It's important to be fluent in all of the idioms of the audience that you’re candidly marketing to or selling to. So, even though we're selling enterprise-level software, we're seeing the buyers of that kind of product change. Ten years ago, they looked a lot like me. And that's still the case in certain places. Now, though, we're finding people who are younger, more diverse, and have a different background. And if I come at them with a series of Seinfeld references, dad jokes, and baseball terms, it's probably not going to land. So it's enlightened self-interest for me to have people who can make us fluent in the language of our customers. If you want to be purely financially motivated, that's one way to look at it. The other way is that we need to create a better society, and business is integral to creating a better society for better or worse. We can't fix the fact that business has a large outsized presence because it does. So let's capitalize on it and try to advance the ball as much as we can. So there's both a financial and business motive. I also believe that a more diverse set of marketers is preferable and better over time than a less diverse set of marketers for business results. I’d also like to create a world that I'd like to work and live in, and that's one that welcomes and celebrates the diversity of everyone. Another thing that's really interesting is that younger people are currently making very interesting employment decisions. You read a lot of things that’ll say a lot of people are opting to work less or more remotely, or they'll take less money for more latitude of schedule. I believe that a lot of that has to do with the fact that the business doesn’t map to their values, and they almost want to limit their exposure to something that's contrary to their values. If your work life is just too different from your life-life, you're going to want to shrink it so that you can have your life-life. So if we can make work life a little more like the outside world, then maybe we can have a more harmonious relationship between work and personal life. ## Establishing authentic DEI in marketing When it comes to DEI, companies have been talking the talk for a long time, but it’s only recently that they're beginning to walk the walk. Optics have always been essential. You needed to look suitable for a company. So people would make great efforts in their advertising campaigns to show a vast array of people. But behind the scenes, the people making those things were typically much more like me than what the company was portraying. Now, I think that’s starting to change. I think it’s changed dramatically in the case of women, but I don't think it's changed as much as it frankly needs to in the case of people of color. I think that it’s happening, but it's just not happening at the rate and pace that I think anyone would be comfortable with. It's very ironic because marketing is typically the canary in the coal mine. It'll put it out there that this is where we need to be. But then if you actually pull back the covers on the people making the marketing, they're talking the talk but not walking the walk. It's a lot of white people making commercials about how important diversity is. Now that’s changing, and I think that's critically important. But that's another irony that sticks in my craw a little bit. A lot of the startups I've been a part of are very clubby. You have a small number of people in the venture capital community giving money to a small number of people that they can rely on. And it perpetuates this handing off the baton within a circle so it really just goes around. Most of these people are really good people, in my experience. But again, it's a very small circle. When I worked for MasterCard, which is obviously a large, publicly traded global company, diversity was real there. I’d literally be the token straight white guy in the room, and I’d be amongst all of God's creatures. It was fantastic; the ability to harmonize that energy and get that thinking together and all those broad perspectives. We also have a terrible fault in the US of thinking in red, white, and blue terms and thinking of a very US-centric world, which is becoming less the case all the time as well. So for all those reasons, just hearing people, hearing how they talked, hearing their stories, hearing about their families, seeing their pictures and all that, it was an awakening, and it made us better at what we did. --- [How to Deliver Competitive Intelligence to Marketing TeamsBy working closely with your marketing teams, you can weave your competitive positioning into your prospects’ buying process from the outset. That way, you’ll be the obvious choice when it’s time to buy.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/campaign-creators-yktK2qaiVHI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-marketing/) --- ## DEI initiatives and their impact on customers If we look at some examples of DEI initiatives from other brands and how those initiatives have affected customers, I guess we'd be remiss to not talk about the Bud Light fiasco. Just because you say it, doesn't mean it’s so. I’d just file that under that heading. I think that there was absolutely nothing wrong with what Bud Light did. In fact, I could find a lot of things that are admirable about it, providing it was coming from a genuine place and it wasn’t something they did so that they could get a good DEI grade in their board meeting. I don't know if the average consumer, much less Kid Rock, has privy into what they're talking about when they're creating that kind of campaign. So I think it's a little self-serving for the haters as well. But it just goes back to the idea that you’ll make things that work for your audience, provided you know those inputs. I can market to a diverse array of customers better if I have a diverse array of people helping me market. You can also think about cosmetic companies like Fenty Beauty, who came in with a wide collection of makeup that suits all skin tones. And now this is the norm in the cosmetic industry. I don't think the initial people who created these kinds of cosmetic products and marketing campaigns were doing it from a place of exclusion. I think they just didn't know. They're more like sins of omission than commission. I don't think anyone ever intended to make makeup that wouldn’t work for people of color. I think it just never occurred to them that it wouldn't work for those people because they look like me. If it's all super single-threaded, elitist, white, or American. We're not doing it from a bad place. It's just the language that we speak and the culture that we grew up in. But it doesn't work anymore. So you need to bring other people into the room and they can sanity check your stuff. How is it plausible that you can ask a very small group of people who aren’t what you want them to be, to be more like what you want them to be? Imagine I'm going to tell a room of 10 people who are all white, six went to Stanford, and four went to Harvard, “I want you to now be of the people and go out and cast a big net for the people in Hoboken, New Jersey, and Brixton, London.” How is that going to ever work? It won’t. So the question is, do you actually want that? Or do you want to look like you want that? If you actually want that, you need to bring in people who have some understanding of those places. ## Twitter’s role in DEI discourse Twitter has recently been going through a bit of a chaotic time under Elon Musk's management. Personally, I view the platform as a vast wasteland that I’ll occasionally glimpse into on my own time just to see how crazy the world is. And then I quickly slam it shut and run away. I think that Elon Musk is trying to make the argument that it's plumbing. He’s saying, “Put whatever you want on there. We're not here to sanction it. We're not a publisher.” And yet on the 2nd of June, the second day of Pride, he was actively promoting anti-trans rhetoric. Twitter wants us to think that it's not a publisher, like the New York Times, promoting hate and filth and exclusivity and all these other things. It's a forum, it's a message board, and people put what they want on it. I don't think that’s going to hold true anymore, especially if you're going to charge people to put things on there and you're profiting from that, and you have the owner of the company actively amplifying toxic and harmful rhetoric. It's pretty transparent. It's also not a place where I think serious business should be done. I'm not sure anything should be done on it. If wishes were fishes, I’d rather it didn't exist. But it’s drawn into a stark conversation about how powerful a weapon Twitter can be. A weapon is a word that I use intentionally. Words can be weaponized to turn people from pretty sane, normal people into pretty fringy people, just through a constant stream of misinformation and bad information. And it's great that Twitter throws its hands up and says, "We're not posting anything, we're just passing it along," but they're making money from it. That's what's so bothersome about it. People should just use Twitter very seldom, and never for serious business. In other words, I don't think running B2B software marketing campaigns on Twitter is time well spent. "Do I need software, let me see what Twitter thinks?" It’d just never occur to me as a buyer. There are LinkedIn, forums, B2B review sites, Gartner, and Forrester. I’d go to those places to do my research. There are other kinds of forums that are specific to the topic. I wouldn’t go to Twitter to do serious business myself. It's going to be an incredibly wild political season here in the US. With Trump now being reapproved to be back on Twitter, it's just going to be a mudslinging mess for several months. And all of this will initially harm DEI as a concept because anybody who's for those ideals, these loudmouths, will be against them and they'll denigrate them. Then they'll bring in all their sheep behind them to put more wood on that fire. I think long term, it's good because I’m an optimist. I believe that with all of this hate, for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. I think in time, there’ll be a cry to put down these people. But I think that fire’s going to have to burn out first. I actually think it’ll advance the case for a more tolerant, diverse, inclusive world. It's just going to take a minute. What's really frightening though is when you think about what’ll happen with the proliferation of AI. You now have big machines that can smell the soft spots, can see where the demographics are, and can see in real-time or near real-time where an election is trending. For example, "We're losing in the state of Louisiana, let's now gin up some message that we know will resonate with voters because we're damn near omniscient. And then let's just put it into everyone's feed down there unsolicited, and try to turn these outcomes." It's literally Mary Shelley's monster come to life, but the monster is now running the experiment. And it's crazy and vaguely terrifying and horrible all at the same time. ## Upholding DEI values beyond financial gain At BlueConic, we have really, really tight alignment amongst the leadership team and amongst Vista around our values. I think our values and values alignment was one of the big reasons that Vista was attracted to BlueConic and BlueConic to Vista. We’ve celebrated Mental Health Month, Women's Month, and Native Indigenous Peoples Month. We’re really into that, not because it helps us sell any software (it doesn't do a single thing for software), but because it sends out a beacon to the world that these are our values. And if your values map to our values, if you want to talk, cool, and if you don't, that's cool, too. Doing the right thing when there's no financial gain is something that’s really, really important to us. It's not lost on me that BlueConic is interesting in many different ways, but we have a young female CEO, a female CRO, and a female Chief People Officer. We also have high-ranking women in product, in engineering, in everything. First of all, I don't think it’s by design. But secondarily, it prevents us from going into some of these dark corners that maybe some of our competitors go into. We stick to the sunny side of the street at BlueConic. ## Overcoming DEI obstacles: Strategic approaches for marketing teams When looking to overcome some of the obstacles of implementing DEI, you just have to work backward from, "What do you want?" Let’s say you’d like to have an inclusive team that’s representative of the audience that you’re marketing to. Okay, so how do you do that? Let's just say in this case, "I need to find more people of color than we have presently in the company". How do you do that? The first thing is you’ll recruit in places where people of color actually go to school. And it might not just be Stanford and Harvard. It might be state schools or tech schools. It might be all kinds of different places that are non-traditionally recruited from. How do we make sure that diverse candidates get into those schools? You have to have community outreach programs, you have to do days of charitable work, and you have to talk about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). When you're doing your community days, make sure that it's not just for the suburban kids, that it's also for the kids right smack-dab in the middle of the city. It's root and branch, all the links of the chain have to connect in order to get the outcome you want. So that's something that we're hard at work on, there's tonnes of work to be done. The other thing is that you have to KPI it. It's an objective of mine. It's not like, "Hey, if you find somebody that's diverse, that'd be cool". It's, "You're being evaluated on your ability to cast a broad slate and bring in the kinds of people that we want to bolster up." Just like I am for pipeline creation, bookings, revenue, cash, all of those things. DEI is also part of that letter set. --- [Further together - building a diverse marketing teamMaya Grossman, VP of Marketing at Canvas discusses building an effective marketing team with diversity in mind, the value diversity brings to organizations, and more.![](https://www.cmoalliance.com/content/images/size/w256h256/2021/02/CMO_Alliance-Colour-Logomark_tiny.png)CMO AllianceCMO Alliance![](https://www.cmoalliance.com/content/images/2021/08/diverse-team.jpg)](https://www.cmoalliance.com/further-together-building-a-diverse-marketing-team/) --- ## The power of diversity in self-enlightenment In my view, there’s a very small fringe component of the world that wantonly and knowingly does the wrong thing. If you talk to 80% of the world and ask, "Should workplaces be diverse? Should they be inclusive? Should they be equitable?" They go, “Of course!" Most people aren’t actively unfair. And most people think that they manifest DEI in their private life and their work life. It's only when you’re exposed to someone not like you, who gives you the eyeball when you say something or you overhear a conversation. You don't know what you don't know until you know. And you'll never know if you don't bring people into your circle who force expose you to it. My children are an amazing foil for me. I think I’m a liberal, enlightened, progressive, wonderful human being. But not a day will go by that I won’t get called to account for something I’ve said. At the time, it hasn’t even occurred to me that what I’ve said might be offensive to anybody. It could be something around pronouns or expressions that I learned from TV as a kid that now makes my kids’ heads explode. Until somebody is different than you and you hear how they do it, or they call you out on how you do it, you just don't know. And when you do know, you go, "That makes so much sense." And you actually do move closer to enlightenment. You’ve still got a long way to go, but you’ll move closer to it. But you'll never ever read about that. You can't search websites or attend conferences about it. Your circle must be inclusive of people who are very different from you, or you're just never going to get it, in my view. And that's why it's so important to hire people who are broadly representative of the world so that you go, "I’m learning so much every day, and I was supposed to be the teacher". I learn 10x what I teach because I'm surrounded by people that I’ve not been around before, and I'm so much better for it. --- **Diversity is essential for marketing. What role are you taking as a marketing leader to champion it? Do you need help finding the way forward? Share your story with a global network of competitive intelligence and marketing leaders on the [Competitive Intelligence Alliance Community Slack](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) channel.** [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/CIA_Website_Banners_2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### How to deliver competitive intelligence to your product, design, and engineering teams | Stakeholders series URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-product-teams/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T10:21:53.000Z Product, design, and engineering might not be the first teams that spring to mind when you’re thinking about who can benefit from a competitive intelligence (CI) program. But if you overlook your techie colleagues, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to make a real impact in your company. Here’s how competitive intelligence can benefit your product, design, and engineering teams: - **Identifying the smartest investment opportunities:** You can use your CI program to uncover things about your product line your customers dislike, then use this knowledge to invest in developing new products. - **Better products:** By casting a critical eye on your own product and the broader market, you can learn what’s working and what’s not and optimize your existing product accordingly. - **Happier customers:** Product managers, designers, and engineers pour their hearts and souls into developing great products. But it doesn’t matter how great they think their products are. What matters is what the customers think, and if your product doesn’t stack up against its competitors, your customers are bound to be disappointed. ## When to deliver CI to your product, design, and engineering teams There are two main ways to deliver [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) to your technical teams. The first opportunity comes when your teams approach you with a vaguely defined problem they want help with, but they need some help understanding how your competitors are addressing it. The second opportunity is one you seize for yourself. Perhaps you’ve been doing some win-loss research or other [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) scanning, and you’ve realized there's an opportunity for differentiation, a threat, or a crucial gap in your product’s features that needs to be addressed. ### Scenario #1: They come to you Let’s start with the first scenario: a technical team needs help investigating competitors’ activities in a problem space they want to play in. Your mission here is pretty simple: you have to help them define the opportunity for the area of investment they're considering. To kick things off, all you need is the idea they're bouncing around – whether that’s an early product initiative or simply the problem they’re thinking about solving for users. For instance, they might say, “Hey, we're thinking about improving our product's analytics because it doesn’t give a complete picture of all the user activity.” Great! They don't have to come to you with all the details ironed out – in fact, it’s best if they don’t. This way, you’ll have more room to be part of the creative process. Now, what you’re looking for is a product investment area that really matters to your customers – and where there's either a lack of existing solutions customers actually like using. That's your secret sauce for spotting opportunities: zeroing in on areas customers care about, where they’re not too happy with what's already out there. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/2x2.png) A 2x2 matrix examining market saturation vs business value for the proposed problem space. This neat little 2x2 analysis works wonders at any level. You could be making big-picture decisions about which new markets to step into, or narrowing down which product features should be the star of the show for the biggest competitive impact. So, how do you get the ball rolling? Start by asking your team to brainstorm a dozen or so ideas for how to solve this problem for customers. Then it’s time to put on your detective hat and start investigating what your competitors are up to in this problem space. You’ll want to check out your win-loss research archives for any juicy tidbits, and dive into all kinds of online resources, including: - Your competitors’ websites. - Industry analyst reports. - Review sites. The next thing on your checklist is figuring out what's really important to your customers and how satisfied they are. At this point, it’s a great idea to bring in some other types of user or persona research to get a grip on how much each potential investment will matter to them. All this research is going to lead you to a hypothesis, which might sound something like this: “We believe that by investing in \[product capability\], we’ll allow our customers to achieve \[desired outcome\]. This isn’t possible with the products currently on the market because of \[limitation\].” This hypothesis should tie back to the core [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) guiding your whole competitive strategy. As you’re pulling together this hypothesis, just remember: some product investments are more about setting the stage for the star features of the product to shine – and that’s fine. Not every part of the product needs to be a standout in its own right. ### Scenario #2: You go to them Alright, let's switch gears and think about scenario number two, in which you, the CI pro, reach out to the product, design, or engineering team. This will most likely come about when you spot a competitive weakness or risk that has slipped under their radar. Now remember, these teams are typically swamped with a ton of feature requests, sales feedback, executive feedback, and suggestions about what they should be working on. Be patient, be empathetic, and make sure you respect their time. Approach the product manager, designer, or engineer and ask if they can spare 30 minutes for a chat. You don’t want to come in hot and start throwing demands around; instead, frame it as a question: “We've found a potential competitive weakness here. Is there anything in our current plans that might help us tackle it? If not, can we brainstorm some solutions?” You’ll probably find they have some valuable insights on temporary workarounds or tweaks to the product. They may even suggest roping in partners to help until they can build a long-term solution. --- [How to Deliver Competitive Intelligence to Marketing TeamsBy working closely with your marketing teams, you can weave your competitive positioning into your prospects’ buying process from the outset. That way, you’ll be the obvious choice when it’s time to buy.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/campaign-creators-yktK2qaiVHI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-marketing/) --- ## How to consistently enable your teams with the intel they need So far so good, right? Either your product manager comes to you because they need help assessing a problem space, or you go to them because you’ve spotted a competitive weakness. Well, it’s a good start, but there’s just one problem: both are reactive. If you want to drive consistent value for your design, engineering, and product colleagues and have an ongoing influence on your product roadmap, you need to *proactively* provide them with competitive enablement materials – just like you would with your sales teams. Now, with all the research you’re doing, you could easily deliver page upon page of competitive intel, breaking down each individual feature your competitors offer. Sadly, the response you’d get on handing over your lovingly collated reams would likely be a weary “So what?” You can make everyone’s lives easier by sharing concise actionable insights and suggestions and cutting straight to the “So what? This is where your secret weapon comes in: the battlecard. Let’s take a look at how to build it. ## Your battlecard template for product, design, and engineering teams **Competitor name** **Overview:** A brief introduction to the competitor. **Product** - **Product description:** Overview of the competitor's product. - **Unique selling proposition:** What makes the competitor's product stand out? - **Pricing:** How much does the competitor's product cost? Break the pricing down by plan level if applicable. Use [competitive pricing intelligence techniques](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) to collect this data. **Customers** - Break down the competitor's typical customers by segment. - What pain points do they use this product to solve? - Key customer names (if publicly available). **Market perception** - Summarize how the competitor is viewed in the market. Include notable positive and negative feedback. - What do reviews on platforms like G2 or Capterra say? **SWOT analysis** - **Strengths:** What does the competitor do well? - **Weaknesses:** Where does the competitor fall short? - **Opportunities:** What market trends or changes could the competitor take advantage of? - **Threats:** What could potentially harm the competitor's success or growth? **Response strategy (The most important bit)** - **Lessons learned:** What can we learn from the competitor's product? Are there features or designs that they've implemented well that we can take inspiration from or improve upon in our own way? - **Opportunities for differentiation:** Where does our product excel compared to this competitor? What unique features or designs does our product have that provide a better solution for customers? - **Competitor feature gaps:** Where does the competitor's product fall short? How can we fill these gaps in our own product, or make our solution more appealing in these areas? - **Addressing weaknesses:** How can we improve upon areas where our own product is currently being outperformed? What adjustments or additions need to be prioritized in our product roadmap? - **Future developments:** Given the competitor's product trajectory, what can we anticipate for the future? How should our product strategy evolve to stay competitive? 💡 Keep in mind that battlecards should be updated regularly to ensure the information stays accurate and relevant. This is not a one-and-done task! --- [How to Deliver CI to Sales and Customer SuccessSales and customer success teams need to be able to handle prospects’ objections and speak confidently about competitors. Here’s how your CI helps them do that.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/mika-baumeister-WOn90Iui_08-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/) --- ## Common challenges when working with product, design, and engineering teams Your product managers, designers, and engineers are playing a whole different ball game compared to your usual consumers of competitive intel – sales teams. Sure, the information you share might be similar, but their needs, mindsets, and how they use CI are not. This can present some challenges. It's like trying to play chess after mastering checkers – the setup looks familiar, but the strategies and end goals can differ quite a bit. So, let's dive into some common challenges you might encounter when delivering competitive intel to these teams, and more importantly, let's explore some practical solutions. ### Challenge #1: Convincing teams of the importance of competitive intel Sometimes, these teams can be so engrossed in their own tasks and deliverables that they overlook the value of competitive intel. They might question why they need to care about what the “other guys” are doing. **Solution:** You’ll need to demonstrate how competitive information directly benefits their work. Show how it can inspire new ideas, help them dodge potential pitfalls, and inform strategic decisions. Explain that understanding the competition isn't about copying them, but about staying a step ahead and carving out your own unique place in the market. If you can share a real-life win, all the better. ### Challenge #2: Maintaining ethical and compliant practices It might be tempting to delve too deep into a competitor's product, but there's a fine line between comprehensive research and corporate espionage. This is a tightrope to walk, but it's absolutely crucial to maintain ethical and compliant practices. **Solution:** First and foremost, when you’re interacting with competitors or signing up for their products, make sure you’re transparent about it and always use your real name and official company email. Secondly, respect the terms of service. Some companies might have restrictions on what types of analysis you can perform, who can perform it, and what you can do with the results – make sure you respect those restrictions. Furthermore, you should steer clear of gathering intel on your competitors with the sole intention of dragging their names through the mud. Instead, use what you learn as a springboard for improving your own offering. Finally, don’t encourage your product development teams to copy or reverse engineer your competitors’ features. Not only might this be illegal, but it also fails to foster innovation. Instead, work to understand the concept and build on it to make it better. By maintaining these ethical and compliant practices, you're not only preserving your organization's reputation but also promoting a fair and healthy competitive environment. ### Challenge #3: Integration into existing workflows Another challenge is seamlessly integrating competitive intelligence into the existing workflows of product, design, and engineering teams. They're already juggling a ton of demands, and we don't want to make things even more complicated. **Solution:** This is where technology can be your best friend. With tools that these teams already use (like Jira, Slack, or Trello), you can share competitive insights in a non-disruptive way. This might mean creating a dedicated Slack channel for competitive updates or attaching relevant intel to Jira tickets. ### Challenge #4: Timeliness and relevance of intel It's not just about having competitive intel; it's about having timely and relevant intel. Outdated information or data unrelated to the teams' current projects isn't going to win you any fans. **Solution:** Regularly update your competitive intel and always show how the information is relevant to stakeholders’ ongoing projects. Keep the teams involved in the process by asking for their input on what kind of competitive information would be most useful to them. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/blog_meta.png) #### No product is created in a vacuum The Competitive Positioning Playbook teaches you... 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a ****rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you ****must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom ****tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s ****revenue** ceiling. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ## Key takeaways Phew, we've covered quite a bit of ground here. Let's quickly recap some of the most important nuggets we've dug up: 💡 Competitive intelligence (CI) isn't just for the sales teams, it's a game changer for product, design, and engineering teams too. Don't miss out on the chance to equip your entire organization with actionable competitive insights! 🎁 By delivering CI, you can help these teams identify golden investment opportunities, build better products, and keep your customers grinning from ear to ear. 🔍 When these teams come to you with a problem area they want to explore, your goal is to help them find a clear opportunity. Take their early ideas and dive into research to better understand customer needs and competitor offerings. 💬 When you find a competitive weakness, don't just drop the bombshell. Frame it as a question and engage your teams in the process of finding a solution. 🎯 Competitive battlecards are a great tool for keeping these teams in the loop about what’s going on in the market, so they can make more informed decisions. 🚀 Product, design, and engineering teams have different needs and uses for competitive intel compared to sales teams. Tailoring your approach to each team and providing actionable insights will make your intel more impactful. 😇 Staying ethical and compliant is key, even when the competitive landscape heats up. Remember, honesty and respect for terms of service are non-negotiable. 🎩 Persuading these teams of the value of competitive intel can sometimes be challenging. Make your case by demonstrating how it can help them better understand the market and stay ahead of the game. 🤝 Empathy and respect go a long way when collaborating with these teams. Their job is complex, and your understanding and support can foster stronger working relationships. Remember, your goal in delivering CI is not just to inform but also to inspire and facilitate better decision-making among your teams. So take these takeaways, sprinkle in some of your own style, and get out there and make an impact! 🎉 --- ## Need help with competitive intelligence? Does your competitive intelligence program leave something to be desired? Imagine if you could: - Set up your listening stack to gather competitive intel with **ruthless efficiency**, giving you more time to analyze, enable, inform, and become your business’s champion. 💪 - Set up win/loss interviews to unveil the **powerful reasons** why customers aren’t choosing you, even if you’ve got no time or resources. 🔎 - Deliver a competitive news briefing that **gets people talking**, no matter which set of stakeholders you serve. 📣 We’ve got a brand new course that covers every aspect of competitive intelligence, and what it takes to be successful. Interested? Click below right now to check it out. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/CIA_CI_Masters_Social_Sharing_Assets_3-1.png)](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### Data-driven delusion: How blind trust in numbers can lead us astray URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-blind-trust-in-numbers-can-lead-us-astray/ Last updated: 2023-06-22T16:46:59.000Z > The pitfalls of being data-driven without context Data is king – or so we’re told. In today’s hyper-connected world, where every click, like, and share is meticulously tracked and analyzed, being data-driven has become the gold standard for businesses. It has also become the go-to line that PMs and strategists use when describing their work style. After all, what could be more reliable than hard numbers? But what if I told you this fixation on data, without understanding the stories behind these numbers, is more of a cop-out than a strategy? Many SaaS companies, despite being data-driven, end up failing because they overlook critical qualitative aspects of their business. They put too much faith in their numbers and ignore the human side of their operations. An example of this is seen in the common failure of SaaS start-ups to meet the right product-market fit. Around [42% of SaaS start-ups cease operations](https://www.smartkarrot.com/resources/blog/start-up-failure/) because they fail to build a product that fits market needs, often due to a lack of qualitative insights into what their customers actually value. ## The data trap: A false sense of security Data in itself is not bad. However, its interpretation can be misleading without proper context. For instance, consider a product feature that is used less frequently according to your analytics. The immediate data-driven decision might be to scrap the feature, considering it unsuccessful. But what if the real issue was that users were unaware of it, or found it hard to use due to poor design? Without qualitative insights, such as user interviews or surveys, the true value of the feature could be completely overlooked. Data does not, and should not, exist in a silo. A single metric, no matter how impressive or compelling it might seem, can never provide the full picture. It’s akin to looking at a single piece of a jigsaw puzzle and trying to understand the entire image. To truly gain insights from data, we need to look at a series of metrics in tandem, forming a funnel that provides a comprehensive view of our situation. Imagine trying to evaluate your health based on a single metric from a blood test. If your cholesterol level is perfect, does that mean you’re the epitome of health? Not necessarily. To gain a comprehensive understanding of your health, doctors look at a variety of metrics such as blood pressure, sugar levels, heart rate, and many more. Even then, these quantitative metrics are supplemented with qualitative information like your lifestyle, diet, and stress levels. Similarly, in the business world, you need a combination of metrics to draw meaningful insights. For instance, high traffic on your website is a positive sign, but without knowing the conversion rate or the bounce rate, you can’t truly assess the effectiveness of your site. Are visitors actually engaging with your content, or are they leaving within seconds of arrival? Are they going through the purchase journey, or are they dropping off at a particular step? A singular focus on one metric could lead to a distorted perception of success and may result in misguided decisions. --- [From Data to Actionable Insights: How to Build a CI ProgramPurpose, Priorities, Productivity. Let’s see how you can apply this sequence to move from data to action as you build your CI program.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceFouad Benyoub![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/dennis-kummer-52gEprMkp7M-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/from-data-to-actionable-insights/) --- ## Vanity numbers and illusions Numbers don’t lie, right? Wrong. Data can be manipulated or used selectively to support pre-existing beliefs or ideas. This is especially dangerous when data-driven decisions are used to avoid accountability. “The data made us do it” becomes an easy excuse for controversial decisions, conveniently ignoring other factors at play. For some people, there is a temptation to dazzle stakeholders, particularly investors, with impressive-sounding metrics. These so-called “vanity metrics” often look good on paper but don’t necessarily reflect the true health or potential of a business. They might show off high numbers, but they don’t contribute to understanding the business’s value proposition or [strategic direction.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-strategy-for-business-lifecycle/) For instance, a company might boast about having millions of downloads for its app. However, if the majority of those users don’t actively use the app, or if they uninstall it soon after downloading, that high download number becomes meaningless. It’s a shiny facade that, once scratched, reveals a less impressive reality. Using vanity metrics to impress or mislead investors is not just unethical, but it’s also short-sighted. Yes, you might win over some people in the short term, but what happens when they start expecting results based on those metrics? When the reality can’t match the illusion you’ve created, it can lead to lost trust, damaged relationships, and potential legal issues. If we truly want to be data-driven, we need to be transparent, honest, and comprehensive in our use of data. We need to translate the entire product into actionable input and output KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). These KPIs should provide insights into all aspects of the business, from product usage and customer satisfaction to financial performance and [competitive positioning.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) They should enable us to understand our weaknesses, leverage our strengths, and make informed decisions that drive sustainable growth. Remember, being data-driven isn’t about presenting the prettiest picture; it’s about understanding the true state of things, warts and all. Only then can we identify the best path forward, creating real value for customers, employees, and investors alike. --- [The 5 Metrics to Track to Measure Sales Enablement ROIWith the rise of sales enablement platforms and Big Data, it has actually never been easier to prove the ROI of your enablement charter. You just have to know which metrics to track and how to track them.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/luke-chesser-JKUTrJ4vK00-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measure-sales-enablement-roi/) --- ## The power of qualitative data So, should we abandon measuring metrics and KPIs altogether? Absolutely not. The key is to combine quantitative data with qualitative insights. Qualitative data, like user interviews, surveys, and direct feedback, provides the context that numbers often lack. It brings the human element back into the equation, helping us understand not just the “what,” but the “why” behind the data. A great example of this is how the streaming service Spotify continually evolves its algorithm. Rather than relying purely on play counts and skips, they actively seek user feedback and use this qualitative data to improve their recommendations, creating a more personalized experience for their listeners. No amount of data or advanced analytics can fully replace the invaluable insights gained from one-on-one conversations with customers. As a matter of fact, some of the most critical business decisions are informed by these direct interactions. It’s only through these conversations that we can understand our customers’ experiences, needs, pain points, and their desires. Many organizations have fallen into the trap of believing that customer behavior can be fully predicted or understood through data alone. However, data can only tell us what is happening, not why it’s happening. Numbers give us facts, but not context or emotion. They can’t explain why a customer suddenly stopped using a product or why they prefer one feature over another. They can’t tell us about the small frustrations that don’t lead to a customer service call but do lead to diminished satisfaction over time. On the other hand, a simple conversation with a customer can reveal insights no amount of quantitative data could. Speaking directly to customers allows us to ask why, to dig deeper, and to learn the motivations and emotions behind their actions. It allows us to empathize with their experiences and to see our products and services from their perspective. Moreover, these interactions can lead to moments of “customer delight” – those unexpected positive experiences that can turn a satisfied customer into a loyal advocate for your brand. Whether it’s resolving a problem swiftly and effectively, going above and beyond to meet a customer’s needs, or simply showing genuine appreciation for their business, these moments can’t be quantified, but they can be incredibly powerful. ## Conclusion 💡 Rather than being data-driven, we should aim to be data-informed and value-driven. Being data-driven is not inherently wrong, but it becomes a problem when data is seen as the ultimate truth without considering the nuances and complexities of real-life situations. Rather than being data-driven, we should aim to be data-informed and value-driven, where data is one of many tools in our decision-making toolkit, complemented by qualitative insights, domain expertise, and an understanding of the broader context. So the next time you hear about the wonders of being data-driven, remember that data is only as good as the insights derived from it. And these insights can only be truly valuable when they’re informed by a deep understanding of the human experiences, needs, and contexts that lie beyond the numbers. --- ## Put yourself in first place 🥇 Differentiation is critical. In today's job market, interview processes have four, five or even more stages. Competition is fierce, and proving your worth is getting harder. How valuable would it be to you to be able to bypass all that in the eyes of the recruiter, because they’re already familiar with your work? We're offering you the means to do just that. We’ll work with you to quickly adapt your work into SEO-optimized articles, ghostwritten guides, and podcast episodes. It’s never been easier to differentiate yourself, so why not start today? Sound interesting? [Send us a message](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io to discuss next steps. 🤝 --- ### The periodic table of competitive intelligence elements URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-periodic-table/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T10:22:43.000Z What does it take to achieve *true impact* with your competitive intelligence program? That’s what we asked ourselves when we put together our periodic table of competitive intelligence elements. Curated from the thoughts, quotes, opinions, and contributions of the dozens of CI thought leaders we’ve worked with since the Competitive Intelligence Alliance launched one year ago, we built this table to give you a 10,000-foot view of the role. So if you want to be the best competitive intelligence professional you can be, check out our periodic table of competitive intelligence elements. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/CIA_Periodic_Table_Colour_meta-1.jpg) We unpack: - Data types - Data sources - Specific data to gather - Deliverables - Metrics to track - Strategies and marketing activities to contribute to - Analysis frameworks … plus a bonus section on the common character traits we’ve observed in our CI leaders. Fancy a copy of the table to keep by your desk? Grab it in A3 size and create a hi-res poster: [Get the table in A3 size](https://product-marketing.docsend.com/view/zxegpp3esg2v3bn2) [Download the table in 24" x 18" size](https://product-marketing.docsend.com/view/4gfq9dpxve5z6cwk) ## **Become familiar with key data types** Use our periodic table of competitive intelligence elements to identify which types of data you might be neglecting. On [the Compete Clarity podcast](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-podcast/), we’ve spoken with competitive intelligence professionals who’ve been in the game for years, yet only recently realized they were missing one or more of these key data types. Here are some of the key data types you’ll find listed in the periodic table: - [Competitive pricing intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) - Product data - Feature data - Win/loss data - Customer data ☝️ To get this right from the start: bookmark this page to quickly reference all the data types that can help you in competitive intelligence. ## **Track new data using these competitive intelligence sources** The periodic table of competitive intelligence elements walks you through the entire competitive intelligence process. Once you’re familiar with the types of data you can collect, you need to know which methods to use to start collecting them. We’ve split these sources into three camps: - Internal - External - Software ### **Internal sources of intel include:** - Subject matter experts (SMEs) - Customer success and sales reps - Product developers - Leadership Your internal data sources are some of the most cost-effective and readily available. Your sales and customer success reps are on the front lines against your competitors every day. If anyone were to hear about new competitor updates and developments in customer interests, it’d be them. In a similar vein, your leadership executives are likely to stay awake at night thinking about market trends and macroeconomic factors. Eventually, you’ll be the one keeping them updated. But in the beginning, your leadership team can bring you up to speed quickly. Speak to these groups at regular intervals to make sure you’re on top of new and crucial information. ### **External sources of intel include:** - Customer interviews & surveys - Competitor websites - Press releases - [Social media competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) As great as internal sources of intel are, they have a big flaw: they’re one step removed from the true source of the information. In other words, what you hear from your colleagues might be wrong. Without knowing, they might have filtered the information they’re telling you. They could be misremembering, or they could have misheard the information in the first place. Use external sources to corroborate information you get from internal sources wherever possible. External sources are also great for catching information as early as possible, so competitor developments don’t catch you off guard. ### **Competitive intelligence tools include:** - RSS - Industry, market, and [competitive intelligence platforms and software](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-report-2023/) - CRM - Social listening tools - Workspace and collaboration software (for delivering and sharing insights) Across [our podcast](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-podcast/), [industry reports](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-competitive-intelligence-reports/), and [practical playbooks](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-competitive-intelligence-ebooks/), we’ve spoken to a lot of competitive intelligence professionals. All of them have a data collection process that’s at least semi-automated. Even the simplest of free tools, like RSS feeds and Google Alerts, can pull news of competitor developments right to your inbox. And if you find this overwhelming at first, don’t worry. You’ll get better at scanning through for what’s relevant and what’s not. According to Mindy Regnell, Principal Market Intelligence at Postscript: > I use Google Alerts for \[tracking trends\], which is kind of like drinking out of a fire hydrant the first time you do it. So it takes a little bit of time to get used to it. > > I always tell people, ‘Don’t start with five Google Alerts. Start with one or two…’ > > Honestly, it took me like six months to feel like I was really fast and efficient with Google Alerts and that’s probably because I started with five. And now I’ve got like 25 Google Alerts turned on, and it doesn’t faze me at all. Other tools help you not only gather and collect information but also help you deliver it to stakeholders. These don’t need to be paid competitive intelligence tools, either. Workspace software like Slack is perfect for sharing information (via a dedicated [competitive intelligence Slack channel](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/)), as well as for keeping people updated. You can pull RSS and Google Alerts updates directly into a Slack channel, or create a channel for updates when you create a new resource. Chris Link, Research and Insights Manager at Interlace Health, produces what he calls “data packs”. These self-serve resources are available 24/7 for anyone who wants insights into a competitor to access and read. Produce something similar and you can publish updates and new releases directly to Slack to keep people in the loop. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/CIA_Tools_of_Choice_2023_CTA_Banner_.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-report-2023/) --- ## **Brush up on the data to uncover** So what are you trying to uncover with these data types and data sources? ### **From your customers:** From your customers, you want to learn: - What their unmet needs are. - The strengths and weaknesses of your product. - The strengths and weaknesses of competing products. When it comes to your customers, you primarily want to uncover what needs they have that the market isn’t yet meeting. You also want to uncover (from both existing and potential customers) what your product is good and bad at. Finally, if you can, you should find out the same thing about your key competitors. What do their existing customers like about them? What do they not do so well? ### **About your competitors:** You also want to learn the following key things about your competition: - Alternative solutions - Emerging competitors Primarily, you should aim to understand how the players in the game change over time. You’re probably already aware of who your competition is, but you need to know when new disruptors enter the industry. That’s true even for alternative solutions and very indirect competitors. If a trend begins to emerge that customers are shifting away from solutions like yours in favor of something new, it pays to know! ### **About your market and industry:** Finally, you need to know the following about your market and the industry you’re a part of: - Industry trends - Supply and demand - Market sentiment - Other macro-economic factors This isn’t an exhaustive list. Check out the periodic table of competitive intelligence elements for the full picture. [Get the table in A3 size](https://product-marketing.docsend.com/view/zxegpp3esg2v3bn2) [Download the table in 24" x 18" size](https://product-marketing.docsend.com/view/4gfq9dpxve5z6cwk) ## **Think about deliverables, and the stakeholders they enable** [Competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/#sources-of-competitive-intelligence-methodologies-and-strategies) doesn’t begin and end with data. It begins and ends with your stakeholders. Which stakeholder groups do you serve most of the time? What intel do they want, and in what form do they want it? The answers to these questions will determine the types of intel you care about most, and the sources you’ll come to rely on most heavily. If you’re [working closely with sales and customer success](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/), enabling them to compete against competitors for deals will form a big part of what you do. For this, the battlecard is the go-to deliverable for most companies. But you’ll also find yourself holding and facilitating training sessions on the material. Leadership often demands very specific types of reports. BLUF-style (bottom line up front) reports, with a very high-level overview, followed by much more detail, are often what this stakeholder group is looking for. The periodic table lists many more possible deliverables, including competitive briefings and competitive newsletters. --- [How to Deliver Competitive Intelligence to Marketing TeamsBy working closely with your marketing teams, you can weave your competitive positioning into your prospects’ buying process from the outset. That way, you’ll be the obvious choice when it’s time to buy.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/campaign-creators-yktK2qaiVHI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-marketing/) --- ## **Track these metrics to prove the value of your competitive program** Proving the value of what you do is critical for any competitive intelligence professional when they first join an organization. Proving ROI quickly is the key to unlocking further investment, buy-in, and generally boosting your chances of continued success. But what metrics should you track to do this? Here are some options: - Net promotor score (NPS) - Sales confidence score - Length of sales cycle - Cost per acquisition - Number of competitive content pieces published - Content adoption rates You can gather net promoter score (NPS) in a couple of different ways. The first is to track what your customers think of you and your products. This falls firmly under the “customer research” category. When your customer NPS improves, it’s usually because you’re listening to them and meeting their needs better. When this is driven by your research and intelligence informing product teams, that’s a great thing. The second way is to gather your sales team’s NPS of your enablement content. How many of them would advocate for it to their colleagues? How many use it actively? This ties in with content adoption rates, but ultimately measures satisfaction with the content you’re giving them. When this improves, you know these teams are very confident in your material, and believe it helps them close more deals. This second “sales NPS” ties in with the sales confidence score and cost per acquisition. Sales confidence score is more specific to certain competitors, while cost per acquisition improves slowly as your team becomes more efficient. Some of these metrics have longer time horizons for improvement than others. Refer to the table of competitive intelligence elements for a full list. ## **Consider which strategic and marketing activities you’ll contribute to** Secondary to your primary deliverables, most [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-intelligence/) pros end up helping strategic and marketing teams decide their focus. That means you could help inform: - Competitive positioning. - SEO strategy. - [Pricing strategy.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/) - Product development roadmap. If you’re tracking competitor SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) data to identify where your rivals are investing their content marketing and paid search resources, you quickly learn their priorities. Depending on how much of this work your content and marketing teams are doing already, they may even rely on you to help them figure out which keywords and search terms to track. Especially given what you know of your competitors’ behavior and possible content gaps in the market. ## **Use these analysis frameworks to move from raw data to real insights** Strategic frameworks can help you go from raw data to real insights. Here are a few to consider: - PESTLE - [SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/) - Porter’s Five Forces - [Landscape analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/) - [Competitive gap analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/) People tend to have their favorites, but using a framework you’ve not considered before can get you thinking about raw data in creative new ways. This can be the catalyst you need to break out of a rut in your strategic thinking, allowing you to see exploitable gaps in the market you missed. Our periodic table of competitive intelligence elements lists 15 different frameworks. There’s bound to be one in the list you’ve not used yet. Why not give it a try? ## **Wish you could review the elements of CI at a glance?** “The greater part of instruction is being reminded of things you already know.” - Plato Seasoned CI veterans might not need to learn much that’s new. But you’re likely to benefit from having a quick list of go-tos you can review at a glance to be sure there’s nothing you’ve missed. That’s why we put together the periodic table of competitive intelligence elements. 110 elements you can check out today to be sure you never leave a stone unturned. [Get the table in A3 size](https://product-marketing.docsend.com/view/zxegpp3esg2v3bn2) [Download the table in 24" x 18" size](https://product-marketing.docsend.com/view/4gfq9dpxve5z6cwk) ![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Tf9zgrBiuuph1ubkbgVtzuAbS9YhTYaS1T8AdGCDewpo_iGoR5RFvRLHtZBlrExCIijww2YWAJPWUGcLKSoWYstUKpfGc_lNmLd3sw5vPrXUP_VGdSonZP-JKEjIpRxv7F_03jag1Q9PObaduaYTh1g) ### The Secret Source of Intel You've Been Missing: eCommerce with Mindy Regnell | CI-by-Industry Series URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ecommerce-mindy-regnell/ Last updated: 2023-06-16T14:26:09.000Z Welcome back to another episode of the Compete Clarity podcast. 🎧 This is the second episode of our CI-by-industry mini-series, where we speak to experts across industries to find out how the competitive intelligence pros handle their industry’s unique quirks and challenges. Today’s guest, representing the eCommerce industry, is Mindy Regnell. Mindy heads up Market & Competitive Intelligence at Postscript, an SMS marketing company that’s tightly integrated into the Shopify ecosystem. [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast: The Secret Source of Intel You’ve Been Missing: eCommerce with Mindy Regnell | CI-by-Industry Series on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Compete Clarity Podcast, Ep The Secret Source of Intel You’ve Been Missing: eCommerce with Mindy Regnell | CI-by-Industry Series - Jun 16, 2023![](https://t0.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-secret-source-of-intel-youve-been-missing/id1678079061?i=1000617267820&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts116/v4/ff/52/20/ff5220b4-877f-5c1a-30eb-b90888ff592c/mza_5176247546700168844.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-secret-source-of-intel-youve-been-missing/id1678079061?i=1000617267820) On today's episode we discuss Mindy’s 15 years of experience working in eCommerce, and how it informs her work today. We also find out Mindy’s favorite source of competitive intelligence, how to seize the opportunities that competitive shakeups provide, and why it’s important to consider the believability of your sources. ## Key talking points - Mindy’s process for going from reams of raw data to concentrated insights. - Why competitive shakeups make great opportunities for the adequately prepared. - The entire process of how competitive intelligence works in the eCommerce industry. Take a listen. 👇 [Listen now](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-podcast/?wchannelid=skfjh5zgjz&wmediaid=g9iwzphegc) --- ## Want to be a guest on the podcast? We're looking for guests! If you consider yourself (or anyone you know does!) something of a thought leader in competitive intelligence , drop us a line at [contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io). We can't wait to host you! [Register your interest](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### FOMO – Fear Of Marketing Overload URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/fomo-fear-of-marketing-overload/ Last updated: 2023-08-16T09:46:47.000Z Marketing is not a recent concept, nor is it fundamentally complex. The term dates back some 500 years, referring to buying and selling cattle at a market. Only in the late 19th century did the emphasis change to what we now know as promotion, advertising, and sales generation. But the rise of the World Wide Web, together with all the opportunities it brings, has undoubtedly made marketing more complex than ever. As a result, there’s an air of mystery surrounding marketing, but it stems only from a lack of knowledge and understanding, much like the way many of us feel about hedge funds, cryptocurrency, or quantum mechanics. It has been explained to us more than once, but we still don’t really understand the ‘what’, let alone the ‘how’. > “Ignoring online marketing is like opening a business but not telling anyone.” - KB Marketing The ‘how to’ of marketing isn’t particularly easy to master because effectively executing the ‘how’ requires considerable practical experience. However, there are few barriers for anyone with the time, dedication, and discipline to get involved and learn. By contrast, the ‘what to do’ in marketing is far simpler. Nothing about that is shrouded in mystery because everything you ever wanted to know is out there for everyone to find, learn, and implement, and largely for free, thanks again to the internet. ## Where should you begin? The key areas anyone interested in marketing their own business needs to have at least some knowledge of, albeit more in some areas than others, are: - Marketing strategy - Market research - Brand positioning, values, and messaging - Advertising - Public relations - CRM systems, - Graphics, photo manipulation, design, and layout - Copywriting, content generation, and content marketing - SEO - Direct marketing - B2B marketing - Consumer and retail marketing - Oh, and a reasonably good understanding of the inner workings and cultural positioning of half a dozen social media channels. The list is pretty daunting and always begs the question, **“Where do I begin?”** Today, the internet empowers us to feel we’re capable of learning anything and achieving everything. But when a single search for, “How do I create a marketing plan,” returns 1.1 billion results (and even narrowing the search to include ‘UK’ produces a mere half a billion results), it’s more than a little confusing. And if that weren’t enough to make your brain hurt, the search results include paid (sponsored) ads for products and services, FAQs, how-to videos, and an endless list of websites promising the ‘truth’. What do you believe, and where do you begin? The answer depends on your starting point. Whoever is responsible in your organization for marketing has three main options: do it yourself, build an internal marketing team, or outsource to a trusted, expert provider. ### Do it yourself If you have no or only basic knowledge of marketing, consider signing up for Google’s brilliant Digital Garage (about 62 hours of free training). Alternatively, there are plenty of online resources, from how-to guides to mini-courses all the way up to free university-level MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) from edX [https://www.edx.org](https://www.edx.org/). And if you’re a business owner with experience in marketing, well, what are you waiting for? Oh, aside from running your business at the same time, of course. You’re already stretched thin managing the company’s day-to-day operations and ensuring it remains profitable. Adding marketing to the list when you lack expertise, resources, or time to create and execute a successful marketing strategy is often a non-starter. Doing it yourself means literally getting stuck in and figuring out what to do and how to do it. It’s very cost-effective because only your time is required, and that, of course, has no value – you can burn the candle at both ends and work weekends at no monetary cost to you. Your health, well-being, family, and friends might suffer as a result, but you can always make up for that later. Sort of. Eventually. --- [A Practitioner’s Complete Guide to Competitive IntelligenceCompetitive intelligence is your tool for knowing your competitors’ strategies, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses. Armed with this information, you can fine-tune your product strategy and marketing initiatives to win.In other words, competitive intelligence is your ticket to the top.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/CIA_Meta_-intelligence.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) --- ### Build an internal marketing team This option is by far the most challenging. Unless you’re in a position to pay high-level, experienced individuals, you’ll need to truly understand what your business does and what you *actually* sell or provide. You’ll need to understand who your customers are and what they need from you, the organization’s identity, your brand values, your position in the market, your competitors, and your voice (how you communicate with them). All of this is critical because you’ll need to be able to give your new, perhaps less-experienced, marketing person/team clear guidance on how to market your business and not waste money in the process. ### Outsource to a third-party provider For some business owners, outsourcing their marketing feels like losing control. For some, there’s the risk that communication will be challenging; others may feel there could be confidentiality issues. However, all of the above depends entirely on who you engage and the length and breadth of their experience. Your key consideration should be expertise – not personality, not process, and not price. There’s a distinct gap between experience and expertise. The latter is crucial because it defines ability at a higher level. And for you to hand over control of marketing to grow your business the right way, you need to be supremely confident so that you can get on with running your business while they get on with marketing it. Highly effective marketing – that is, marketing that works for your business and is not simply the mindless posting of content and spending money on paid advertising – is challenging and constantly evolving, with new technologies and trends emerging all the time. Keeping up with the latest developments can be tough, but outsourcing your marketing to experienced and highly competent specialists means you don’t have to concern yourself directly with this. > “When you say you’re great, it’s marketing. When your customers say you’re great, it’s magic." - Brittany Hodak. Award-winning entrepreneur --- [How to Deliver Competitive Intelligence to Marketing TeamsBy working closely with your marketing teams, you can weave your competitive positioning into your prospects’ buying process from the outset. That way, you’ll be the obvious choice when it’s time to buy.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAmelia Wilson![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/campaign-creators-yktK2qaiVHI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-marketing/) --- ## The fear of marketing Some business owners aren’t fully engaged in marketing, and others haven’t yet begun. For some, this will be because of a lack of funds or resources, but for many, it’s deeper than that. It’s fear. Fear of failure, fear of wasting money, fear of negative feedback, fear of not being able to keep up or scale. Let’s dig into each of these fears: - [Fear of failure](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/7073c3c2-91e4-4186-9890-ac7bdc92c1c7/#fear-of-failure) - [Fear of wasting money](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/7073c3c2-91e4-4186-9890-ac7bdc92c1c7/#fear-of-wasting-money) - [Fear of negative feedback](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/7073c3c2-91e4-4186-9890-ac7bdc92c1c7/#fear-of-negative-feedback) - [Fear of losing control](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/7073c3c2-91e4-4186-9890-ac7bdc92c1c7/#fear-of-losing-control) - [Fear of scale](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/7073c3c2-91e4-4186-9890-ac7bdc92c1c7/#fear-of-scale) ### Fear of failure This is the fear that your marketing efforts won’t be effective, won’t resonate with your target audience, or won’t generate the desired results. Marketing is risky because even the most well-thought-out campaigns can sometimes fail to resonate fully with the target audience. Business owners who are too risk-averse may miss opportunities to connect with people and generate new inquiries. ### Fear of wasting money The first rule of marketing: commit to a [budget](https://themarketingalliance.co.uk/marketing-insight/the-economy-isnt-killing-your-business-your-lack-of-marketing-budget-is/). The second rule of marketing: see the budget as an investment, not an expense. Of course, your marketing spend needs to be affordable, but it is an investment in the future of your business, so if you only ever see it as an expense, you’ll constantly be focusing on the wrong things. Business owners who are too focused on the cost of marketing will often fail to invest in effective strategies that could generate significant returns, ultimately missing out on valuable opportunities to grow the business and increase profitable revenue. ### Fear of negative feedback While negative feedback can be difficult to hear, it also provides an opportunity to improve and grow. Business owners who are afraid of negative feedback may be less likely to engage with their customers to ask for feedback at all, fearing that negative reviews or criticism of their marketing campaigns may cause reputational damage to their business. ### Fear of losing control While growth can be exciting, it can also be daunting for business owners who may feel they’re losing control of their business. They might, therefore, hesitate to invest in marketing strategies that will help build the business. It feels counterintuitive, but only some businesses want to continue growing. Others are satisfied with their status, their position in the community, and the income they generate. The desire to grow brings with it a level of unanticipated commitment. ### Fear of scale Business owners might doubt their ability to keep up with the demands of a successful marketing campaign. They may fear an inability to maintain the quality of their products or services as demand grows, leading to negative customer experiences and hurting the reputation of the business. --- [Competitive Positioning: What It Is and Why It’s ImportantCompetitive positioning is the most effective type of positioning strategy in marketing. That’s because it takes the competitive environment, and the spaces your product is best placed to compete for within it, into full account.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/kevin-mueller-Q-fL04RhuMg-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) --- ## Positive solutions to the fears associated with marketing The above are real fears that can be both debilitating and restrictive, even if they’re largely unfounded. Some say the word ‘fear’ is an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real, which may be true in certain settings. This is not to belittle in any way the fears business owners experience at various stages, but to stress that fear in the context of marketing is more likely to stem from a lack of knowledge and understanding. Unless you happen to sell a product that’s naturally in high demand, or you’re a high street shop positioned in a location with high foot traffic, allowing yourself to be controlled by these fears could eventually kill your business. On the other hand, being open to new ideas and taking calculated risks means business owners can find success with marketing that may ultimately lead to growth and success, thus allaying the fears and concerns that might otherwise have prevented them from doing so. > “Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.” - Seth Godin Taking a step toward strategic and effective marketing can and will feel like a daunting prospect, as it requires significant time, effort, and resources. Less so when working with a highly experienced and successful marketing partner, but there’s no getting away from the need to be involved. It is, after all, your business, and with careful planning and execution, marketing campaigns will help your business grow and thrive in today’s competitive marketplace – whatever sector you’re in. Below are some positive spins on the fears some business owners may experience when thinking about marketing. ### Fear of failure The antidote to the fear of failure is to approach marketing with a growth mindset, seeing marketing as an opportunity to learn and grow, even if initial efforts do not yield the desired results. By trying new marketing strategies and tracking the results, you’ll gain valuable insight into what works and what doesn’t. Celebrating successes along the way, even if they’re small, is also important to help build confidence and momentum. ### Fear of wasting money Addressing the fear of wasting money with a data-driven mindset, where the budget is allocated according to specific, predetermined goals, is important. But you need to be pragmatic with this approach. The saying, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it,” presumes that seeing higher engagement figures justifies an increase in investment too. But what if your engagement figures on Instagram are nonexistent, and your ideal client happens to see one of your posts. Instead of clicking the trackable link to your website, they call you two weeks later, having made a note of your number? Should you stop spending money on creating new posts for Instagram? Have respect for data, and use it as a high-level guide, but don’t allow it to give you tunnel vision. To paraphrase a quote from a previous article, “Business owners should use data the way a drunk uses a lamp post; for support, not illumination.” ### Fear of negative feedback You can’t please all the people all of the time, but you can’t ignore feedback either. Regardless of whether it’s positive or negative. Negative feedback is tough to see, especially when it’s plainly inaccurate or untrue. Rise above the negativity and see it as an opportunity to improve your business. By engaging with customers and soliciting feedback, business owners can gain valuable insights into what customers want and how to improve their products or services as a result. It’s essential to view negative feedback as constructive criticism and use it as a learning opportunity to make meaningful changes to the business. ### Fear of losing control The solution to the fear of losing control is to plan for growth and anticipate the challenges it brings. By building a solid team and developing processes and systems that can scale with the business, you’ll feel more confident in their ability to manage growth. It is also important to seek outside help, such as working with a marketing and/or business development consultant, to ensure the business is well-positioned to handle change and growth. ### Fear of not being able to keep up Focus on building a solid foundation for your future business. This includes investing in the right technology and infrastructure to support growth, hiring the right team members to manage increased demand, and developing scalable processes and systems that can handle the increased volume. It’s also important to plan for growth and anticipate potential challenges, such as supply chain issues or staffing shortages, to ensure that the business is well-prepared to handle increased demand. > “There isn’t a person anywhere who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can.” - Henry Ford --- [Undifferentiated Marketing Strategy: Pros, Cons, When to Use One.With an undifferentiated marketing strategy, rather than splitting the audience up, you’ll be marketing to the masses.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/erol-ahmed-leOh1CzRZVQ-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/undifferentiated-marketing-strategy/) --- ## The business marketing journey Marketing is not a destination. It’s a journey that typically begins with a marketing strategy, the ultimate goal of which is to build brand awareness, increase sales, and establish a long-term relationship with customers. Let’s explore some key steps on your business marketing journey. - **The marketing strategy:** A marketing strategy can be complex, but for micro-businesses (turnover up to £2m) and SMEs (turnover £2m – £10m), a marketing strategy is an essential step. It encompasses purpose, meaning, tactics, and expected outcomes of every step along your journey. It involves identifying the target market, researching competitors, defining unique selling points, setting marketing objectives, and creating tactics to achieve those objectives. - **Market research and analysis:** Understanding your target audience, their needs, preferences, and pain points. Analyzing your competitors. Finding their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis).Identifying trends, opportunities, and challenges in the market. - **Defining marketing goals and objectives:** This is a crucial step in developing an effective marketing strategy. Marketing goals refer to the overall outcomes that a company wants to achieve through its marketing efforts, while marketing objectives are specific, measurable, and time-bound actions that a company takes to achieve those goals. - **Brand development:** Establishing your brand positioning, messaging, and unique value proposition. Designing a logo that reflects your brand’s personality and visual identity (colors, typography, imagery, etc.). Creating a document outlining the proper use of your logo, colors, fonts, and other brand elements across all your marketing activities. - **Website development:** Planning the website structure, including the layout, user experience, and content. Incorporating your brand identity and ensuring it is responsive and search engine friendly. Testing to ensure it meets user needs, functions seamlessly, and supports your marketing goals. - **Content strategy and creation:** Developing a content plan for your website, blog, social media, and email marketing. Creating high-quality, engaging, and valuable content tailored to your target audience’s needs and preferences. - **Paid advertising:** Identifying appropriate channels (e.g., Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads) based on your target audience and marketing goals. Creating ad campaigns, including targeting, ad creatives, and budget allocation. Monitoring and optimizing the performance of your ads to achieve the maximum return on investment. - **Email marketing:** Building one or more email lists by encouraging website visitors to subscribe. Developing email marketing campaigns to engage subscribers, promote content, and drive conversions. Segmenting your lists and personalizing email content to improve engagement and results. - **Social media marketing:** Choosing the right social media platforms for your target audience and marketing goals. Developing a social media strategy, including content planning, posting frequency, and engagement tactics. Monitoring and engaging with your audience, responding to comments, and addressing customer issues. - **Analytics and performance measurement:** Setting up tools to track and analyze your marketing efforts (e.g., Google Analytics, social media analytics, email marketing metrics). Monitoring and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate the success of your marketing plan. Adjusting and refining your marketing strategies based on data-driven insights. - **Continuous improvement:** Keeping up with industry trends, emerging platforms, and new marketing techniques. Regularly reviewing and updating your marketing plan to ensure it remains relevant and effective. Iterating and optimizing your marketing efforts to achieve better results over time. > “How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?” - Seth Godin --- [Avoid These 10 Common Market Segmentation ErrorsWe’ve collated a list of the ten most common market segmentation errors you’ll need to avoid if you want to create relevant, useful segments that inform your marketing strategy and drive revenue.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/sigmund-By-tZImt0Ms-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/common-market-segmentation-errors/) --- ## A FUN WAY TO EXPLAIN MARKETING CONCEPTS You’re at a party, holding a sign above your head that reads, “I’m very rich, will you marry me?” **That’s advertising.** You’re at a party, and you give a friend five pounds to approach a beautiful person, point at you, and say, “They’re very rich, will you marry them?” **That’s paid advertising.** You see a beautiful person at a party. You go up to them and say, “I’m very rich, will you marry me?” **That’s direct marketing.** You see a beautiful person at a party. You go up to them, but before you say anything, another person comes over to the beautiful person and says, “I’m very rich; will you marry me?” The beautiful person goes off with them. **That’s the competition eating into your market share.** You see a beautiful person at a party, you get their telephone number, and you call them the following day and say, “Hi, I’m very rich, will you marry me?” **That’s telemarketing.** You’re at a party and see a beautiful person. You get up and straighten your tie, walk over, and pour them a drink. You open the door for them, pick up their coat, offer them a lift home, and then say, “By the way, I’m very rich, will you marry me?” **That’s public relations.** You approach a beautiful person at a party and say, “I’m very rich, will you marry me?” They slap you hard around the face. **That’s customer feedback.** At a party, a beautiful person walks up to you and says, “I know you’re very rich.” **That’s brand recognition.** You’re at a party, and you approach a beautiful person and say, “I’m very rich; will you marry me?” They turn and introduce you to their partner. **That’s the demand-supply gap.** ## In summary Marketing is not fundamentally complex, especially if each stage is taken one step at a time. However, it’s staggering how many companies still either don’t understand it or don’t get involved because they’re simply too busy or hampered by fear of the unknown. Technology has made marketing far more accessible, but it’s also responsible for a lot of confusion. This makes it a potentially serious distraction for business owners to consider taking on marketing alone or, in some cases, even consider building an internal marketing team. Whatever your starting point, if you feel your marketing journey would benefit from engaging a third-party marketing consultant, remember that your key consideration should only be expertise – not personality, not process, and not price. Make the leap. You never know; it might just transform your business. --- **Enjoy this post as much as we did?** Check out more of Clive's articles on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/clivetwilson/recent-activity/articles/)! --- ## Put yourself in first place 🥇 Differentiation is critical. In today's job market, interview processes have four, five or even more stages. Competition is fierce, and proving your worth is getting harder. How valuable would it be to you to be able to bypass all that in the eyes of the recruiter, because they’re already familiar with your work? We're offering you the means to do just that. We’ll work with you to quickly adapt your work into SEO-optimized articles, ghostwritten guides, and podcast episodes. It’s never been easier to differentiate yourself, so why not start today? Sound interesting? [Send us a message](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io to discuss next steps. 🤝 --- ### How to deliver competitive intelligence to your marketing teams | Stakeholders series URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-for-marketing/ Last updated: 2023-06-12T16:35:28.000Z Picture this: a marketplace buzzing with competitors vying for the attention of customers. Sounds familiar, right? In such a fiercely competitive environment, how can your business rise above the rest? The answer lies in harnessing [the power of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) for your marketing strategy. By working closely with your marketing teams, you can weave your [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) into your prospects’ buying process from the outset. That way, you’ll be the obvious choice when it’s time to buy. The goal is to have potential customers see and define their problem in the same way you do – even before they engage with a sales executive. If you can pull this off, your product’s unique differentiators will be seen as must-haves rather than nice-to-haves in the eyes of the customer. Let’s dive into how you can make this happen. ## Your key deliverable: The competitive positioning document For your competitive differentiation to shine through your marketing, you’ll need to equip your marketers with the right tools. These should come in the form of a living document that supports everyone from your content marketers to your events folks **with clear competitive positioning**. That way, whenever you're asked to provide input on new landing pages, product launches, or content campaigns, you’ll be able to refer your teams back to this key document. Wondering what you should include in your competitive positioning document? Keep reading to find out. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/blog_meta.png) #### No product is created in a vacuum The Competitive Positioning Playbook teaches you... 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a **rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you **must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom **tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s **revenue** ceiling. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ### Your overall competitive position You’ll want to start by outlining the alternative products available to customers and how they address the problem at hand. It’s important to acknowledge the strengths of these alternatives. From there, you can reframe those strengths to present a fresh perspective on the issue. Let’s say your product is a project management tool targeted at small and medium businesses, (SMBs) and your biggest competitor’s solution is more tailored to enterprises. This is your opportunity to highlight the features that make your platform more suitable for this segment. Maybe it’s cheaper. Maybe it’s faster and easier to implement. Whatever your key differentiator, make sure your marketing teams know about it. ### Education for the market It’s also a great idea to equip your marketing teams with topics that, if better understood by the market, could [enhance your competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). Coming back to the project management platform example, you might want to ask yourself, “If more people knew about Agile methodologies, how would that impact our ability to compete?” To make sure you’re focusing on the right topics, you’ll need to draw from your [win-loss analyses](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/#win-loss-interviews). Look out for the differentiators that customers failed to appreciate or didn’t understand, then share these findings with your marketing teams so they can develop educational content on these topics. The aim here is not just to promote your product, but to provide valuable information on industry trends or relevant skills. By raising interest and understanding of these topics within the market, you’ll ultimately be better able to sell your unique differentiators. A platform that’s *killing* it on this front is Monday.com. Their blog is full of guides to Gantt charts, Agile project management, and no-code applications. These guides are not only informative, but they prime readers to understand and care about the features Monday.com offers. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/monday.png) Screenshot from Monday.com’s blog ### Intel on competitors’ approaches It’s also essential for your marketing team to stay informed about how competitors are addressing those educational topics we’ve just looked at. A competitive intelligence tracking platform is really going to help you here. A quick search is going to bring up competitor blogs, webinars, and documentation related to the topics you’re going after. You’re going to want to dig into this content and figure out how to make sure you don’t sound like everybody else who’s talking about this topic – that’s what’ll make you stand out. ### Keywords for SEO If you want to compete in the digital world, you've got to give your digital marketing and SEO teams clear direction about which keywords to focus on. By identifying the keywords that align with your competitive position, you’ll enable your teams to optimize content, improve search rankings, and drive targeted traffic to your brand. Remember, a shared understanding of these keywords is essential for cohesive and impactful marketing efforts. ### Strategic language choices Beyond keywords, it's vital to equip your marketers with specific language that emphasizes key product moments and the defining features that set your brand apart. Just as important as the language to include is the language to avoid. Your market research may have uncovered certain product categories or terms that don't mesh well with your brand – perhaps they’re a little dated or too strongly associated with a legacy product. By clearly stating which terms to stay away from, you can make sure your marketing team stays on brand and conveys your unique value proposition in the right way. ## Three bonus ways to enable your marketing teams with CI Now that we’ve covered what you’ll need to include in your competitive positioning document, let’s dive into three more ways you can empower your marketing teams with competitive intel. ### Tactic #1: Tracking competitor strategies As well as nailing down the keywords you want to go after, it’s a smart idea to work with your SEO and digital marketing teams to track the keywords your competitors are going after. This is going to give you valuable insights into their strategies and maybe even help you anticipate their next moves. If a competitor is focusing their search engine marketing (SEM) efforts and a keyword that doesn’t line up with their current product offering, they may be laying the groundwork for an upcoming launch. Getting ahead of that launch could give you a make-or-break advantage. [Learn how to carry out a competitive SEO analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/#how-to-conduct-a-competitive-seo-analysis)[.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/#how-to-conduct-a-competitive-seo-analysis) --- [How to Perform an SEO SWOT AnalysisSWOT is as crucial for SEO as for any other area of your organization. Whether you’re just getting started with SEO or want to take a comprehensive look at past efforts, a SWOT analysis will be an invaluable planning tool.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceNilesh Parashar![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/03/merakist-l5if0iQfV4c-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-perform-seo-swot-analysis/) --- ### Tactic #2: Building competitor comparison pages You can also collaborate with your marketing teams on landing pages designed to compete for comparative search terms, terms like “\[your product\] vs \[competitor’s product\]” or “alternatives to \[your product\]”. These pages should be concise, focused, and transparent. Don’t try to mislead people by pretending to be an unbiased third party. Instead, cut to the chase and show where your product outshines its competitors. Remember, these are pretty high-intent search terms, so readers aren’t going to want to waste their time on fluff. While it can be tempting to use these pages to trash-talk your competitors, that’s never a good idea. It’s a cheap move your prospects will see right through. Keep the comparison as objective as you can and guide your customers to the right choice for them. Acknowledging your competitor's strengths before you get into the features that set your product apart is going to make you appear way more unbiased and trustworthy, ultimately resulting in more conversions. Asana, another project management tool, has nailed the art of the comparative landing page. Searching “Trello vs Asana” takes you to a clean and simple landing page with a chart laying out all the features Asana offers that its competitor does not. Competitive intelligence pros, take note! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/asana.png) Screenshot of Asana’s competitive landing page ### Tactic #3: Optimizing new user onboarding If your marketing team oversees new user onboarding, use this as an opportunity to emphasize the most distinctive aspects of your product. During the trial phase, there’s a good chance your users are exploring several options at once, only spending a little time with each solution before moving on to the next. That means you don’t have much time to create a lasting impression; use what little time you have to highlight the features that make your product stand out. Of course, your differentiated features may only show up in more advanced use cases for your product. If you bring these features into the onboarding journey too soon, you risk overwhelming your users. Keep that in mind, and focus on showcasing differentiators that resonate with users’ immediate needs as soon as you can. --- [How to Roll Out a Strategic Plan (To Guarantee Success)Building a strategic plan takes a lot of work. So when it comes time to put it into action, you want to get it right. But the truth is, an effective rollout starts during the planning process. Want to learn why? Stay tuned.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/andy-hermawan-O1jUvZX9DOA-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-roll-out-a-strategic-plan/) --- ## TL;DR Phew! That was a lot! Let’s recap the key takeaways: - **Develop a living competitive positioning document** that supports your marketing teams with clear competitive positioning, ensuring cohesive and impactful marketing efforts. - **Outline alternative products**, acknowledge their strengths, and reframe them to present a fresh perspective that highlights your unique features. - **Provide educational content** to enhance your competitive advantage and raise interest and understanding within the market. - **Help your marketing teams to stay informed about your competitors' approaches** through competitive intelligence tracking platforms and differentiate your messaging to stand out. - **Guide your digital marketing and SEO teams on the keywords to focus on** for improved search rankings and targeted traffic. - **Equip your marketers with strategic language choices** that emphasize key product moments and differentiators, while avoiding language that doesn't align with your brand. - **Build comparative landing pages** that highlight where your product slays the competition. - **Optimize new user onboarding** to showcase your product's key differentiators. Competitive intelligence is about so much more than just churning out battlecards. It’s on you to harness the full potential of CI for all your teams – marketing included. --- ## Want to learn how to deliver competitive intelligence to other stakeholder groups? Our Competitive Intelligence Certified: Masters qualification teaches you everything you need to know to effectively: - Deliver intel that **gets people talking**, no matter which set of stakeholders you serve. 📣 - Set up your listening stack to gather competitive intel with **ruthless efficiency**, giving you more time to analyze, enable, inform, and become your business’s champion. 💪 - Set up win/loss interviews to unveil the **powerful reasons** why customers aren’t choosing you, even if you’ve got no time or resources. 🔎 This brand new course that covers every aspect of competitive intelligence, and what it takes to be successful. Interested? Click below right now to check it out. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/CIA_CI_Masters_Social_Sharing_Assets_3-1.png) --- ### How to use ChatGPT as your low-cost competitive intelligence assistant (7 ways) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-chatgpt-for-competitive-intelligence-assistant/ Last updated: 2023-10-27T12:19:51.000Z Competitive intelligence teams are always small. Teams of one are the norm. And in many businesses, that one person performs competitive intelligence alongside a bunch of other responsibilities. When a team of two is a luxury, how great would it be to have an assistant take care of menial tasks for you? Enter ChatGPT. For a low-cost tool (or a free one, depending on which version you’re using), ChatGPT is extraordinarily capable. Sure, it’s not perfect, but what human assistant is perfect? In this article, we’ll walk you through seven of the best ways you can use ChatGPT right now to help lighten the competitive intelligence load. We’ll also walk you through how to improve ChatGPT’s responses if it’s proving tricky to get what you need with your use case. Let’s get cracking. 👏 ## What is ChatGPT? ChatGPT is a generative AI language model (the “GPT” stands for “generative pre-trained transformer”.) Through natural language processing (NLP) it can process and interpret written text. Machine learning AI models like ChatGPT are trained on large sets of data. With large enough data sets, they’re able to draw out more and more accurate patterns between variables, and “learn” a lot about the interplay between those variables. What makes ChatGPT stand out (especially its newest GPT4 iteration) is (i) the sheer size of the data set OpenAI trained it on, and (ii) its chatbot interface. You just ask it questions, or tell it to do something, and it responds with (usually) accurate, competent answers that’d rival those a human expert could give. This has democratized access to a highly competent machine learning model with countless practical applications. ## Ways to use ChatGPT to save time and resources in competitive intelligence So… how would you use ChatGPT in [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/)? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/gpt4.png) Not sure how to use ChatGPT? It’ll even give you directions on the info it needs to help you more appropriately. There are some restrictions and pitfalls to be aware of, which we’ll discuss later. For now, here are seven ways you can use ChatGPT to help with your competitive intelligence duties. ### 1 - Creating survey questions You may or may not want to assign ChatGPT any heavy-duty analysis. Instead, give it your menial tasks. Need to spin up some survey questions for a new bout of customer research? Have ChatGPT help. Having trouble with your current win/loss surveys? Enlist ChatGPT to give them a refresh. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/Screenshot-2023-06-07-at-17.22.57.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/Screenshot-2023-06-07-at-17.22.53.png) ChatGPT can craft survey questions, deliverables, and more. 💡 **Tip:** Have ChatGPT generate its response multiple times for the same prompt. You’ll get different responses and will be able to keep the best questions and discard the rest. ### 2 - Summarizing reams of written intel When there’s a competitive development, and you want to get up to speed quickly, ChatGPT can help. Here are some awesome sources of competitive intelligence: - Help documents. - Marketing material. - Blog posts. - Google Alerts. - Social media posts. But imagine having to sift through new entries to each of those categories every day. Talk about overwhelming. And that’s only a very small list of possible sources. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/Screenshot-2023-06-02-at-11.34.27-1.png) ChatGPT can summarize your intel for you. Now that ChatGPT is connected to the internet, it can even browse and summarize web links directly. ChatGPT can just summarize this information for you. Paste the information from multiple sources across multiple prompts, and ask ChatGPT to summarize the lot. 💡 **Note**: ChatGPT isn’t perfect at this multiple prompt stuff yet. If you’re having trouble, have it summarize each piece individually. Then feed it back each summary in a single prompt, and ask it to summarize the summaries. This way you’re sure to get an accurate representation of the key points. ### 3 - Identifying trends and common themes in written and numeric data You might think that, because ChatGPT is a language model, it can only interpret written data. Not so fast! ChatGPT can also interpret code, and respond with code snippets. This means it can use its understanding of a wide range of programming languages to interpret tabular data too. That includes numeric data. If you’re skilled with Excel or Google Sheets, or even with Python’s data analysis libraries like Pandas, ChatGPT won’t be able to do anything you can’t do yourself. But it might save you some time and mental bandwidth that’d be better used on another pressing task. Maybe you’ve got transcripts of interviews with your internal subject-matter experts, or qualitative data from customer interviews. Perhaps you’ve got some [competitor pricing data](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) or the projected value of upcoming deals (both numeric). ChatGPT can interpret this data and draw out its hidden trends and common themes for you. --- [ChatGPT: How to lose your job and gain a colleague | by Charlotte PARIS | MediumIf you’ve read “The Future of the Professions” by Richard and Daniel Susskind, you’re already familiar with the fragility of your expertise: give it enough time and most of us will be out of a job…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCharlotte Paris![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/possessed-photography-U3sOwViXhkY-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/chatgpt-how-to-lose-your-job-and-gain-a-colleague/) --- ### 4 - As a sense checker for your own reasoning and conclusions This use case might be the most important in this list. **Use ChatGPT to search for flaws in your reasoning. Use it to sense check your analysis.** [In his book, Principles](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Principles-Life-Work-Ray-Dalio-ebook/dp/B071RBPKGR/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=1K0IPASAKBI0D&keywords=principles+ray+dalio&qid=1686219148&sprefix=principles+ray+dalio%2Caps%2C74&sr=8-1), billionaire investor Ray Dalio talks about creating algorithms to run your decision-making process alongside you. When you reach what you deem a sensible conclusion, you check the algorithm’s conclusion against your own. If they match, great. If not, maybe there’s a flaw in your reasoning. ChatGPT saves you from having to be a programming wizard (or having one work for you). And, rather than handing the reigns of responsibility over to an AI, this approach has it work alongside you to catch your mistakes and **lift the overall quality of your decision-making.** Even better, if you’re having trouble with a problem, talk through it step by step with ChatGPT and ask it to look for logical flaws in your reasoning. Or to suggest solutions you might not have thought of. 💡 **Tip:** You can do the same thing in reverse. Whenever you’re asking ChatGPT to give you a suggestion or solution, ask it to outline how it reached that conclusion step-by-step. The “let’s think step by step” prompt is an easy way to do this with some interesting results. Ask ChatGPT to identify flaws in its own reasoning too if what it’s recommending is critical, or if its answer seems off somehow. ### 5 - Strategic suggestions Data is great, but it’s the reasoning you do as the analyst that makes it useful and valuable to your organization. Since that analysis is so valuable, why do it all by yourself? If ChatGPT can draw out trends and common themes across data, it can also advise you on the best strategic next steps to take in light of what you’ve learned from that data. The key here, as with everywhere else, is ChatGPT can only advise. It doesn’t have all the background on the business you do, no matter how much information you provide in your prompts. To help get the creative juices flowing, though, there are few easier ways to start a brainstorming session than asking ChatGPT for its thoughts. ### 6 - To draft deliverables A lot of working with stakeholders comes down to taking information in one form and transforming it into another form. A form you’ve agreed upon with the stakeholder group. This could be battlecards for your sales and customer success teams. Or competitive news briefings to keep the whole business up to date. Whichever it is, you’ve done the hard part in getting the information you want. The time-consuming part is converting the info into these different forms. Just like ChatGPT can draft articles, survey questions, or presentation slides, it can also draft your deliverables for you. You can even give it the template you use, and the information, and it’ll draw you up a solid draft in seconds. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/draft_a_battlecard.png) "Act as" prompts, where you instruct ChatGPT to fill a particular role, are especially effective. ### 7 - To reduce context-switching There’ll always be more work to do than you could possibly ever actually get done. But an AI assistant that can perform tasks for you allows you to retain your focus where it’s most needed. And therein lies the beauty of ChatGPT. By taking care of more menial tasks, you retain focus. You can batch these tasks together and have ChatGPT perform all of them. Rather than draining your mental resources, you use ChatGPT’s. This leaves more fuel in your tank for those deep work tasks that *really* matter. When you’re confident you can deal with these small tasks in batches and on time, you’re more confident in soldiering on with those important tasks when you’re focused. This’ll reduce context-switching and make you more effective, productive, and impactful in your role. --- 📘 Suggested reading • **[How to deliver competitive intelligence to sales and customer success](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/)** • **[Competitive intelligence tips you can implement today... even if you've got no experience](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-tips-to-use-today/)** • [**The 6 key goals of competitive intelligence**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/goals-of-competitive-intelligence/) --- ## Things to be wary of ### ChatGPT won’t list its sources. ChatGPT won’t list its sources because it’s not pulling from a single source. It’s not even pulling from five, or even 10 or 20 sources. ChatGPT has been trained on a massive data set, and the amalgamation of that vast number of sources forms the single “source” for each of its answers. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/sources.png) If critically examining the quality of each data source is an essential element in competitive analysis, then simply asking ChatGPT for a direct answer can never be the way forward. Instead, give ChatGPT specific tasks. Instead of treating it like an oracle with the answers to everything, treat it like a capable, but inexperienced assistant. ### ChatGPT is not a competitive advantage Using ChatGPT doesn’t constitute a competitive advantage. (Although refusing to use it at all might constitute a competitive *disadvantage*.) Why is that? Establishing a competitive advantage boils down, more often than not, to being willing to do what others are not. Longer, more arduous training sessions hone athletes beyond the level of their more laid back teammates. When all the top athletes in a sport are using performance enhancing drugs, you’d have to use them too to level the playing field. But it’ll always be what you do differently that determines whether you stand a chance of winning. Similarly, when it comes to competitive strategy, using ChatGPT might level the playing field for you and stop you falling behind. Even then, you’ll still need to work smarter and harder than the rest to come out on top. ## FAQs #### Will ChatGPT make competitive intelligence a redundant discipline? No. The value of competitive intelligence as a role is not in simply collecting data. It’s in having a deep understanding of both the business you work in and the industry and its competitive landscape. From there, you must ask the right questions to uncover meaningful analysis. You must also work to enable and support diverse sets of stakeholders. #### How do I know ChatGPT’s answers are accurate? You don’t. Always assume that ChatGPT could be wrong. Sense check all of its answers, and use it as one more input in your process. #### Do I need to pay to use ChatGPT for competitive intelligence? ChatGPT’s latest and greatest iteration, GPT4, is still only available to paid users at the time of writing. The slightly older (but still very capable) iteration, GPT3.5, is available for free users. #### What competitive intelligence tasks can ChatGPT do? ChatGPT can help you draft survey questions for data collection, deliverables for your stakeholders, and can even summarize your intel once you’ve collected it. It can also identify trends and themes within your data, and help you sense check your reasoning and analysis. --- ## Need help with competitive intelligence? Does your competitive intelligence program leave something to be desired? Imagine if you could: - Set up your listening stack to gather competitive intel with **ruthless efficiency**, giving you more time to analyze, enable, inform, and become your business’s champion. 💪 - Set up win/loss interviews to unveil the **powerful reasons** why customers aren’t choosing you, even if you’ve got no time or resources. 🔎 - Deliver a competitive news briefing that **gets people talking**, no matter which set of stakeholders you serve. 📣 We’ve got a brand new course that covers every aspect of competitive intelligence, and what it takes to be successful. Interested? Click below right now to check it out. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/CIA_CI_Masters_Social_Sharing_Assets_3.png)](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters) --- ### The best competitive strategy for each stage in the business lifecycle URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-competitive-strategy-for-business-lifecycle/ Last updated: 2025-02-05T14:49:34.000Z The first three stages of the business lifecycle go something like this: - Startup - Growth - Maturity From that point on, things get a little shaky. The business can begin to **decline** as other, more agile competitors step up to the plate. Or, it can keep innovating. This **rebirth** stage sees the business transition to keep up with the changing market. There’s one other possible ending, though: **acquisition**. The business owner can cash out of the business, rather than stick around to see it through its next phase. If you’re looking for the right competitive strategy for where your business is at, you’re probably in one of those first phases. Those are the ones almost every emerging business finds itself in. Let’s take a look at which types of competitive strategies you should adopt at each stage of the cycle. - [How businesses win](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/22935e17-608a-4245-a962-57b63469e5bb/#how-businesses-win) - [But what about..?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/22935e17-608a-4245-a962-57b63469e5bb/#but-what-about) - [Porter's generic strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/22935e17-608a-4245-a962-57b63469e5bb/#porter%E2%80%99s-generic-strategies) - [The company lifecycle (revisited)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/22935e17-608a-4245-a962-57b63469e5bb/#the-company-lifecycle-revisited) - [TL;DR](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/22935e17-608a-4245-a962-57b63469e5bb/#tldr) ## How businesses win But first (!), let’s take a look at the different ways a business can become successful. First, it wins more **market share**, and sells a larger number of units to a greater number of people across the total available market. Second, rather than sell more units, it increases its profit margins per unit sold, while selling the same number of units. There are typically two ways it can do this: 1. **Cut costs** and sell at the same price. 2. **Improve the product** and charge a higher price. Costs remain constant. All of these generate more profit for the company, which can then reinvest that capital. All other things being equal, a business that’s more profitable will win over the competition. Let’s examine each option in a bit more detail. --- [When Does a Low Cost Strategy Beat Differentiation?Low cost and differentiation are both competitive strategies for growth. They’re attempts at establishing competitive advantages. A low cost provider strategy has you aim to beat the competition on costs. A differentiation strategy has you aim to boost profits by offering more value.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/icon/android-chrome-192x192.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/thumbnail/tom-wilson-Em2hPK55o8g-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/when-does-a-low-cost-provider-strategy-beat-a-differentiation-strategy/) --- #### Win more market share Businesses that want to win more market share need products or services with broad market appeal. This doesn’t have to mean “appealing to the masses”, although it might. A single product that appeals to everybody is great. But different products for [different market segments](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/four-types-of-market-segmentation/) might work even better. Of course, it’s hard to create a single successful product. Creating multiple successful products demands more staff and more money. Businesses in the startup stage are usually wiser to stick with a single product. #### Cut costs A business that cuts its costs without negatively affecting the product makes more money from each unit it sells. It costs less to produce each unit (or to fulfill a service once). Less money out, same money in, more profit! A business can cut its costs by switching, or negotiating better deals with, its suppliers or manufacturers. It can also cut its costs by becoming more efficient, or by employing economies of scale. #### Improve the product A business might not reduce its costs by working to offer a better product or service, but it will almost certainly be able to charge more. When you offer a great deal more value, customers will be willing to pay a great deal more. Same money out, more money in, more profit! Even existing customers will be happy to pay more if you make it clear to them how much more value they’re getting from their product now than when they first came on board. ### What to notice about all of these methods All of the above methods flow into each other. Make more profit with any of the above methods, and you’ll be able to reinvest that profit into any of the others. If you’re able to cut costs, you can reinvest your profits in improving your product, researching your market, and [identifying competitor weaknesses](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/). In turn, you’ll win more deals, start stealing market share from your competitors, and make even more money. In turn, by winning more customers, you’ll learn more about what held them back from choosing you before. You’ll also learn what the final straw was that made them look to leave your competitor. All this helps inform your product development, and tells you where to direct your newfound capital. In other words, there’s a positive feedback loop at play here. Just make *some* progress early, and you’ll find your business accelerating into the growth stage in no time. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/C-Suite_Masterclass_Email_Banner_--1-.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass) --- ## But what about..? By now, you should have questions. Because all that sounds neat and tidy, and you know nothing’s ever that easy. When it comes to ways a business can generate more profit, we’re leaving out other things that matter too. Things like the quality of the business’ leadership, the quality of its strategic decision-making, and its ability to close deals. But with the right people, such things should take care of themselves. And a business with more money can afford to hire better, more qualified people. So it should, in theory, win there too. Ok. But what about winning market share? When do you ever get a bunch of “unclaimed” market share just sitting around, waiting for you to come along and win them? You’ll have to win market share from the competition if you’re to win them at all. So, how do you get ahead enough to start generating more profit? For that, [you’ll need a competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/). That’s where frameworks like [the VRIO framework](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/), or Porter’s generic strategies come in. ## Porter’s generic strategies First, a primer on Porter’s generic strategies. Michael Porter proposed three distinct competitive strategies: - Cost leadership. - Differentiation leadership. - Focus leadership. Let’s examine those more closely. ### Porter’s generic strategies explained #### Cost leadership A business that cuts costs while keeping prices the same can make more profit. It can then reinvest that profit into its products, people, and processes. This creates a positive feedback loop that accelerates the business’ growth, widening the gap between it and its closest competitors. Or, a business can look to pass its cost savings on to its customers, lowering its prices. Competing on price is rarely the best strategy for a business, as prices can only drop so close to zero before you’re out of business. While you might attract more people with your lower prices, there are some things to consider: 1. Does your product or service have **broad enough appeal** to actually attract more customers even if the price is lower?s 2. Is your price a **real reason** you’re losing deals? 3. Will the uplift in customer numbers **offset the drop** in prices? 4. Are the customers you’d attract with lower prices **the kind you’d want?** Remember, there’s no limit to how much you can increase your prices. You can offer ever-increasing value to your customers and continue charging more for it. In this direction, you’re limited only by your creativity and willingness to provide value. Try to win by being the cheapest, and you cheapen your product too. For some businesses this is the right strategy. For most, it’s not. --- [Comparative vs Competitive Advantage: What’s the Difference?Comparative and competitive advantages are economic terms that, when applied to a business, refer to a business’ ability to produce goods and services and to win against competitors over time.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/anastasiya-romanova-vGY31qO4518-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) --- ### Differentiation leadership Differentiation leadership is where your product or service does a few select things *very* well. Much better than your competitors. You’ve looked at similar products, uncovered where your product is strongest, and doubled down on those strengths. You’ve figured out how to make your product *different*, so it can stand on its own amongst other high value products. By doing a few things very well, your product becomes very good at solving very particular customer needs. The customers who want these needs met more than any others *will* favor your product over your competitors. Some of those competitors might even have you beat in other areas. But for your select cohort, your product solves their unique problems the best. So long as that doesn’t change, you’ll always be their first choice. ### Focus leadership Focus leadership comes down to focusing on one, small niche of customers to create what's called a [niche competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-competitive-advantage/). A lot of research will likely have gone into finding and defining this customer segment. From the ground up, you’re able to build a product or service that caters to every need of this small niche. You understand them, and your product caters to them, better than any of your competitors. By virtue of being a small niche, broad market appeal is not what you’re aiming for. Everything from your pricing, to your feature set, and your brand messaging, all of these are geared towards selling your target market on your product. You might think this sounds quite a lot like differentiation. The difference between this and differentiation is that it can apply to both cost *and* differentiation. If price is a core need for your customers, you’ll have to incorporate that into your product or service. In fact, Porter's *differentiation focus strategy* is the same thing as a [niche differentiation strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-differentiation-strategy/). 👆 Note: In Porter’s original framework, these three actually formed a quadrant, with Cost and Differentiation leadership as the two core options, both existing on a scale of focused-to-broad in how niche or broad your target market is. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/C-Suite_Masterclass_Email_Banner_--1--1.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass) --- ## The company lifecycle (revisited) So (big drum roll) what does any of this have to do with the company lifecycle? At different stages of the lifecycle, a business has different challenges and circumstances. It has more or less cash readily available to reinvest. It has a greater or lesser number of talented staff on hand to push smart new ideas. And, most importantly, businesses at different stages of the company lifecycle can have more or less success with each of the competitive strategies we outlined above. That’s thanks to the unique things about those strategies. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/cycle.jpg) ### The best competitive strategy for a startup Here are some of the hallmarks of a **startup** 🌳. - Hasn’t been in business long (months to years). - Low sales. - Negative profit (operating at a loss). - Low efficiency (relatively unable to generate sales with its available capital). The business is at its most *fragile*during the startup stage. Most businesses don’t survive! Product market fit does not yet exist, and there’s not much cash since you’re not yet profitable. Running at a loss, startups are at risk of losing the key people they’ve invested so much of their scarce capital in. Your employees will learn lots quickly, and you’ll have to underpay them. Your best employees are the ones you’ll rely on most for growth, but they’re also the ones most likely to leave in search of higher paying opportunities once they’ve learned enough to move on. However, a business is also at its most *agile* during this stage. Risk is inherent, so startups have little to lose, and benefit from a “move fast and break things” mentality. Risk is high anyway, so there’s little downside to trying bold new things and learning from the outcomes. So what should your priority be as a startup? And what strategy is best to pursue at this stage? 🌳 ****• Suggested focus:** product-market fit. • ****Suggested strategy:** Niche competitive advantage (focus OR differentiation). Finding your product-market fit should be your priority. That includes establishing a customer base. When you do, you’ll start generating enough cash to reward your staff and attract strong new talent. This sows the seeds of true growth, as you’ll have more money and more staff around. You can use both to further develop your products and grow your business. As for strategies, a focused approach works best in the beginning for most. This can’t be a blanket recommendation, as there are always exceptions in the messy world of business. But as a rule, it holds. Most startups barely have enough cash to keep going. So it makes sense to nail a single product or service first. Make it the best it can possibly be for a small group of people (making it the best it can possibly be for everyone is beyond your scope at this point). By making it so good for a select group, it’s likely very valuable to them. This is good, as it means they’ll pay top dollar to use it. *That’s* good, because it means you’ll start generating serious cash once your product starts to sell. ### The best competitive strategy for a growth-stage company Here are some of the hallmarks of a **growth-stage** company 📈: - Usually been in business for at least a year. - Higher sales. - Higher profits, positive turnover. - Greater efficiency (better able to convert available capital into more sales). By the time you’ve reached the growth phase, you’ve found your product-market fit. There is demand for what you do. At this point, you’re operating at a profit. This is the time to strategically reinvest every bit of profit you make back into the business, so it can scale. So what should your priority and strategy be as a growth-stage company? 📈 • ****Suggested focus**: competitive positioning. • ****Suggested competitive strategy**: Niche competitive advantage (focus AND differentiation). You have more money at your disposal at this stage, so investing in new, skilled people is key. Sure, continue investing in product development and better tools and software. But a full marketing team is a must at this stage. A skilled marketing team can handle your key focus for the growth-stage: [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/). As you near the end of the growth stage, growth will slow as you step up to the plate against key competitors. Knowing these competitors and how you’ll position yourself to beat them is key. As for your competitive strategy, it’s important to keep focusing on the niche target market you’re already winning over. Continued investment in your product helps keep existing customers around, while improved positioning and marketing puts you in the best position to win new customers. ### The best competitive strategy for a business at maturity Here are some key markers of a business that has reached **maturity** 👨‍🦳**:** - Usually been in business for at least five years. - Growth has begun to slow. - Costs have begun to fall. - Has been profitable, year after year, for a while. - Even greater efficiency versus the growth stage (even better able to convert available capital into more sales). A business that has reached maturity has a key, new advantage. It’s large enough that it is able to begin employing economies of scale. Fulfilling services on a larger scale, putting in orders for manufactured materials at bulk sizes, being able to commit to longer term deals with suppliers … all of these things help a business cut costs. And with lower costs, you can begin pursuing the elusive cost leadership strategy. 👵 • ****Suggested focus**: long-term competitive advantage. • ****Suggested competitive advantage**: cost advantage. Broader focus possible. For most businesses that reach maturity, the next stage is decline. To guard against that, you’ll need to stay on top of market trends and be very aware of changing customer needs. For that reason, your suggested focus at this stage is on establishing yourself for the long term. How can you make sure you’re still *the* in-demand product in five or ten years? How is the market shifting, and how might this affect the ways you offer and deliver your products and services to make sure you remain competitive? These are the kinds of questions you’ll need answers to if you want a sustained competitive advantage instead of a [temporary competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/). Thankfully, your strategic horizons have broadened. You’re now large enough to lower your costs, so you can begin using these cost savings strategically. You can pass them on to your customers by charging lower prices. Or, you can charge the same prices and reinvest the additional profit. One smart way of investing this additional profit would be in advisors and experts who can help you navigate the business environment. They’ll be expensive, but if they keep you in business, they’re worth every cent. Now is also a good time to start diversifying. If you’ve been nailing a particular niche market segment for a while, you can start to develop a broader focus, aiming to serve a greater total number of customers. ## TL;DR - Businesses win by either appealing to a greater number of customers with the same products, or by increasing profit margins while selling to the same number of customers (or both). 📈 - Porter’s Generic Strategies (cost leadership, differentiation leadership, and focus leadership), roughly describe ways businesses can succeed. ♟️ - Businesses at each of the first stages of the company lifecycle (startup, growth, maturity), have different circumstances and opportunities. 👪 - Startups should focus on achieving product market fit quickly, while focusing on a niche market. 🤏 - Businesses in the growth phase should focus on beginning to position themselves competitively in the marketplace, learning how to differentiate their product effectively. 🌳 - Businesses that reach maturity should start securing themselves for the long-term, and can begin employing economies of scale to achieve cost leadership in their industry. They can then reinvest in diversifying their product portfolio and hedging risk. 👨‍🦳 --- ## New or budding C-suite member who needs strategy training? [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/Alliance_C-Suite_Meta_Assets_.jpg)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass) Most newcomers to the C-suite don't feel prepared. That's because they don't know how to: - **Steer their psychology** to take care of their mental health, eliminate imposter syndrome, and finally achieve work-life balance. - Quickly **establish a company-wide vision** and framework for developing and implementing a winning strategy. - Deftly **handle cultural differences** to maximize team togetherness. The C-Suite Masterclass will teach you to do all this, plus a *load* more. Click the banner below for more info. See you inside. 🫡 [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/06/C-Suite_Ghost_Banner_Assets_.png)](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass) --- ### CI-by-Industry Series: Mobile Gaming with Nadav Moshes URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/mobile-gaming-with-nadav-moshes/ Last updated: 2023-06-02T10:01:50.000Z Here it is, a brand new episode of the Compete Clarity podcast. This is the first episode of our new CI-by-industry mini-series. We speak to experts across industries to uncover the similarities and differences between processes based on the unique challenges of performing competitive intelligence in different industries. Representing the Mobile Gaming industry is Nadav Moshes, Market & Competitive Intelligence Manager at Playtika, a producer and developer of over a dozen mobile games. A lot of products means a lot of challenges, challenges Nadav has managed to overcome and then some. [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast on Apple Podcasts‎Business · 2023![](https://t1.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-compete-clarity-podcast/id1678079061&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts116/v4/ff/52/20/ff5220b4-877f-5c1a-30eb-b90888ff592c/mza_5176247546700168844.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-compete-clarity-podcast/id1678079061) In today's episode, we discuss all aspects of the competitive intelligence process in mobile gaming, from data collection and analysis, to delivering that analysis to stakeholders. ## Key talking points • Nadav's favored intelligence sources in an industry where competitor data is scarce. • The unique challenges of working with many stakeholders, and why it's crucial to get the right balance between “push” and “pull” when serving them. • What the “hamburger” approach is, and how to use it to transform the way you see working with stakeholders. Sound interesting? Take a listen. 👇 [Listen now](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-podcast/?wchannelid=skfjh5zgjz&wmediaid=ts0r2fuq2d) --- ## Want to be a guest on the podcast? We're looking for guests! If you consider yourself (or anyone you know does!) something of a thought leader in competitive intelligence , drop us a line at [contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io). We can't wait to host you! [Register your interest](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### How to deliver competitive intelligence to sales and customer success | Stakeholders series URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-sales-customer-success/ Last updated: 2024-05-30T14:19:23.000Z *This article was adapted from select material from our CI: Masters certification program, presented by Alex McDonnell.* If you’re in an organization with customer-facing teams, then sales and [customer success (CS)](https://www.customersuccesscollective.com/what-is-customer-success/) are two of the most important groups you’ll spend time with. What’s so great about working with these groups? The incredibly short feedback loop, for one. A rep might message you in the morning for help with a competitor they don’t know. By lunchtime, you can draft a quick doc for them. By the end of the day, they’ll have put your pointers to the test and you’ll know if your messaging is working. With that said, let’s explore how you can equip your sales and CS teams with [competitive intelligence (CI)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/). Here’s a quick peek at what we’ll cover: - [VARS: Your conversational framework for competitive positioning.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/79473f74-8ea3-49e7-8291-8e92b6321fdc/#vars-your-conversational-framework-for-competitive-positioning) - [Battlecards: The key deliverable for sales and customer success.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/79473f74-8ea3-49e7-8291-8e92b6321fdc/#battlecards-the-key-deliverable-for-sales-and-customer-success) - [Common pitfalls in battlecards.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/79473f74-8ea3-49e7-8291-8e92b6321fdc/#battlecards-the-key-deliverable-for-sales-and-customer-success) - [Your battlecard template.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/79473f74-8ea3-49e7-8291-8e92b6321fdc/#your-battlecard-template) - [Training your customer-facing teams in competitive intelligence.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/79473f74-8ea3-49e7-8291-8e92b6321fdc/#training-your-customer-facing-teams-in-competitive-intelligence) - [Your competitive enablement lesson plan.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/79473f74-8ea3-49e7-8291-8e92b6321fdc/#your-competitive-enablement-lesson-plan) Let’s dive in, shall we? ## VARS: Your conversational framework for competitive positioning Before we get into battlecards, let’s look at how to coach teams to deliver [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) to customers. We’ll use a simple conversational framework, called the VARS framework. It goes like this: - Validate - Acknowledge - Reframe - Specify … and in a little more detail: **Validate:** When a customer asks how you compare to a competitor, don’t launch into a monologue about the 19 points that make your product better. Instead, learn more about what’s on the customer’s mind before you address the competitor directly. This will give you a sense of how seriously they’re considering the competition. **Acknowledge:** If you don’t acknowledge a competitor's strengths, you might find customers digging in their heels. They can get defensive if they’ve been using a competing product for years and you don’t give credit where it’s due. Sales reps can also get defensive about why their product is better. Acknowledging the competitor’s strengths takes the defensiveness out of the conversation by showing you understand the competition objectively. **Reframe:** Once you’ve validated and acknowledged competitors' strengths, it’s time to offer the customer a different view on the problem – one that the competitor is just not in a position to solve. You want to convey a specific but fundamental difference between your offering and theirs. It’s not about feature comparisons yet; it's about honing in on the right problems to solve. **Specify:** To exit the competitive conversation, get specific about something in your product story. Bonus points if you can pull up a demo and show your product’s differentiation – that will really help your competitive positioning to stick. This is also a good time to include social proof and maybe name-drop a few customers or their stories to add weight to your competitive differentiation. You want to show that this is not just an abstract idea – it’s something that's making a big difference for real customers. --- [When Does a Low Cost Strategy Beat Differentiation?Low cost and differentiation are both competitive strategies for growth. They’re attempts at establishing competitive advantages. A low cost provider strategy has you aim to beat the competition on costs. A differentiation strategy has you aim to boost profits by offering more value.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/tom-wilson-Em2hPK55o8g-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/when-does-a-low-cost-provider-strategy-beat-a-differentiation-strategy/) --- ## Battlecards: The key deliverable for sales and customer success Battlecards are the go-to resource for equipping your customer-facing teams with clear competitive positioning – things they can actually say when speaking with customers. The single job of the [competitive battlecard](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) is to help a rep understand how to talk about the competition when talking with their customers. Don't try to make your battlecards do everything for everybody, or you're going to end up doing nothing well; instead, focus on this one job. ## Common pitfalls in battlecards There are two common mistakes people tend to make with battlecards: 1. **They’re cluttered:** You’re probably super proud of all the research you’ve done and the intel you’ve gathered, so you want to pack it all into the document, just in case! This is a mistake. A rep might have only a couple of minutes to review the battlecard before a customer interaction, so focus on what matters most. 2. **They’re not written in customer-friendly language:** Often in battlecards, the language doesn’t reflect anything you would ever say to a customer. That creates extra work for your customer-facing rep since they now have to translate it into something usable. --- [How to Use SWOT Analysis to Build Your BattlecardsBattlecards are a key competitive enablement asset. But how do you build them? SWOT analysis can serve as the perfect springboard if you’re stuck.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AlliancePatrick Wall![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/nik-shuliahin-JOzv_pAkcMk-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-swot-analysis-to-build-your-battlecards/) --- ## Your battlecard template With the VARS framework and common battlecard pitfalls in mind, let's check out how to build a battlecard. When designing one, you want to use natural cutoffs to improve “scannability” and reveal more detail only as needed. Remember: you’re optimizing for a sales representative who has only a couple of minutes to prepare for a call. They might even be on the call right now! They need to know what to say to talk about your competitors condidently. ### Section one: The basics The very first section of your battlecard should be a one-line description of the competitor and their product, plus the top three to five need-to-know bullet points. No more than 10 words each on these. It’s not yet time for the full scaffolding of the VARS framework, just a few points that can be understood at a glance. It should be customer-friendly and free from internal jargon. This part of the battlecard should pass the "billboard test" – if this information were on a billboard, would you be able to take it in as you drove past it on a highway? ### Section two: How we position Once you’ve covered the essentials, it’s time to introduce a more extensive section addressing the competition. This is where you’ll fully implement the VARS framework – all four parts. It’s also a good idea to include coaching notes in this section. These notes explain to the sales rep the reasoning behind positioning choices or the acknowledgment of a competitor's strengths. This part might be a little jargony, so to make sure your reps can stick to using customer-friendly language, you’ll want to make these notes visually distinct from everything else. ### Section three: High-level comparison After the VARS framework, offer more detail by providing a comparison at the "jobs to be done" level. This helps reps understand where there’s overlap in your offerings, where your product excels, and where the competitor is stronger. Everything you share here should be validated through win-loss analysis. While some battlecards have separate sections for [objection handling](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/how-to-handle-the-4-most-common-sales-objections/) and competitor strengths, it can be useful to share them side by side. That way, your reps can see how to handle each competitor-related objection as it arises. After addressing competitor strengths, it’s time to elaborate on your own strengths, tying them to the reasons your customers buy. ### Section four: The nitty gritty Your battlecard’s final section should include [competitor pricing information](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/), commercial details, and technical aspects, like the performance or scalability of the product. If these factors are a key part of a competitor's strengths or your own, they’ll go in the previous section of your battlecard. But, if they're just “good to know” or only relevant to your technical sellers, save them for the end. ### Pro tip! People are often unsure where their battlecards should be stored. Ideally, they should live as close as possible to where your teams are when they need them. In some companies, that means in your CRM when sales teams leave notes on an opportunity. In other companies, you might use a specialized sales note-taking app. Whichever platform you use, you want to get as close to the moment as you possibly can. 💡 Remember: you should aim to ****deliver your competitive intel just in time, not just in case**. In other words, make sure you deliver the right amount of relevant information when it’s needed, rather than sharing every single scrap of competitive intel just in case someone needs it. --- ## Quick recap Let's recap what we've learned so far: - Use the VARS framework to provide a conversational structure your reps can rely on in the heat of the moment. - The single job of the battlecard is to help customer-facing reps know what to say, so they can confidently, calmly, and consistently address competition during conversations with customers. - Use customer-friendly language in your battlecards. - Push all the technical details and comparisons as far down the battlecard as possible. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/CIA_CI_Masters_Social_Sharing_Assets_3.png) #### Is your competitive program effective enough? Imagine if you could: - Set up your listening stack to gather competitive intel with ****ruthless efficiency**, giving you more time to analyze, enable, inform, and become your business’s champion. 💪 - Set up win/loss interviews to unveil the ****powerful reasons** why customers aren’t choosing you, even if you’ve got no time or resources. 🔎 - Deliver a competitive news briefing that ****gets people talking**, no matter which set of stakeholders you serve. 📣 We’ve got a brand new course that covers every aspect of competitive intelligence, and what it takes to be successful. Interested? Click the button right now to check it out. [Give me more info!](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters) --- ## Training your customer-facing teams in competitive intelligence Now you’ve delivered battlecards, you've taken a crucial step in [building the fundamentals of your CI program](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/). However, just shipping internal content is not enough to fully enable your customer-facing teams – you’ll also need to invest some time and energy in training workshops. Remember, competitive positioning is a skill, and with any new skill, practice is essential. Unfortunately, many sales training sessions consist of subject matter experts presenting slides for 45 minutes, with no engagement whatsoever from the audience. This is where partnering with [your sales enablement function](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) can help. Together, you can figure out how this competitive training fits with other planned training initiatives for the team. It’s worth running through a simple exercise to put the battlecards into practice. Yes, this will involve some sales roleplay, which can feel a bit awkward. But consider this: would you rather practice with your colleagues for half an hour in a low-stakes setting and get great feedback, or practice on your $200,000 ARR account? Hopefully, that’s not a difficult choice. ## Your competitive enablement lesson plan All right, let's get into your lesson plan. This works best with a group of about six to 12 people. ### Step one: Tee up a customer situation If you've done a win-loss analysis, you should be able to base your roleplay scenario on an actual customer situation. You might tell your reps, “You're talking to a Head of Procurement. Currently, their company is using tool X, but there’s some urgency to invest in a more scalable tool because of the company’s changing priorities. We're now a part of their evaluation and trying to help them understand what their buying criteria should be.” ### Step two: Let your teams prepare for the call Next, you're going to ask everyone to take five minutes or so alone to check out the battlecards and prepare for the customer call. You want to give them a chance to think for themselves about how to approach this. Feel free to play background music to create some ambiance. ### Step three: Encourage participation with a “popcorn-style” exercise Once everyone’s had five minutes or so to prepare, it’s time for a popcorn-style exercise to get everyone participating. You, as the facilitator, will play the role of the customer. You'll just ask for one idea, insight, or question from one person at a time, responding before the next person pops in. You want to set the expectation that everyone should participate at least once. This way, you don't have to get one volunteer to deliver the whole roleplay. It also keeps everybody on their toes as they may have to adapt what they were planning to say based on what the person ahead of them contributes. You might want to have another facilitator with you to take notes. It’s a good idea for them to have a blank slide with just the four stages of the VARS framework down the side. That way, they can loosely map the responses they hear against that framework. ### Step four: Reflect When you break character, have the team reflect on how the exercise went. Pull up the slide with all the notes on what they said and think it through as a group. Did they acknowledge the competitor's strengths? Did they spend enough or too much time on validation questions? Did they get too specific too quickly? Have your reps assess all that for themselves, coming back to the VARS framework as a handy scaffold for delivering competitive positioning to customers. Before you wrap up your training session, ask your teams for feedback on the battlecards. Remember: your reps are the end users of this informational product, so their opinions matter. Maybe going through this exercise has given them a fresh perspective on the battlecards, so take that on board and keep the learning machine running. ## Key takeaways Now let’s get into our final key takeaways on sales and customer success enablement: - To truly develop their skills, reps need opportunities to practice and get feedback, not just sit in on a lecture. - Use popcorn-style activities to get a full group involved in the roleplay. - Embrace the awkwardness of that roleplay then offer up the VARS framework as a way to find structure in these difficult moments with customers. --- ## Need help with competitive intelligence? Does your competitive intelligence program leave something to be desired? Imagine if you could: - Set up your listening stack to gather competitive intel with **ruthless efficiency**, giving you more time to analyze, enable, inform, and become your business’s champion. 💪 - Set up win/loss interviews to unveil the **powerful reasons** why customers aren’t choosing you, even if you’ve got no time or resources. 🔎 - Deliver a competitive news briefing that **gets people talking**, no matter which set of stakeholders you serve. 📣 We’ve got a brand new course that covers every aspect of competitive intelligence, and what it takes to be successful. Interested? Click below right now to check it out. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/CIA_CI_Masters_Promotional_Assets_3-1.png)](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### Steps to mastery eBook: First steps in mastering competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/steps-to-mastery-ebook-first-steps-in-mastering-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2026-07-08T12:00:40.000Z Want the definitive playbook on the competitive intelligence function? Want tried and true methods, templates, and frameworks you can apply to your role today*?* You’ve come to the right place. We decided to bring you select lessons from our Competitive Intelligence Certified: Masters course at no cost, so you can get a taste of what it’s like to be CI Certified. ## **Skills and frameworks for confident, impactful compete programs.** Ever feel like your work in competitive intel is harder than it needs to be? Like it lacks a certain *something*? Ever thought there must be a better way to do it? We’re here to tell you there is. If you want to take your compete program from chaotic to supersonic, start by grabbing a free copy of this eBook. **Inside we cover:** - How to set up your listening stack to gather competitive intel with **ruthless efficiency**, giving you more time to analyze, enable, inform, and become the champion of the business. 💪 - How to set up win/loss interviews to unveil the **powerful reasons** why customers aren’t choosing you, even if you’ve got no time or resources. 🔎 - How to deliver a competitive news briefing that **gets people talking**, no matter which set of stakeholders you serve. 📣 Did we mention this eBook costs you nothing? What are you waiting for? Click the button below to grab your copy now. 👇 Give me my copy! ### Data isn’t ‘the new oil’ – it’s way more valuable than that URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/data-isnt-the-new-oil-its-way-more-valuable/ Last updated: 2023-05-30T11:58:36.000Z **The data economy is changing. Here’s how brands need to adapt to keep up.** When British mathematician Clive Humby declared in 2006 that “data is the new oil,” he meant that data, like oil, isn’t useful in its raw state. It needs to be refined, processed, and turned into something useful; its value lies in its potential. But over the past 16 years, Humby’s insight has devolved into a cliché, losing much of its meaning. Many businesses learned the wrong lesson, viewing data as inherently valuable – something to be simply extracted, amassed, and used or abused. Regulators have responded in kind, viewing data – like oil – as a disaster waiting to happen, and themselves as the thin red line standing in the way of catastrophe. The result: a race to the bottom, with brands vying to maximize data collection, regulators seeking to make examples of bad actors, and consumers caught in the crossfire. As we look to the evolving data economy, we need a new guiding metaphor: a way of thinking about data that focuses less on exploiting a resource and more on building equitable and sustainable relationships with consumers, customers, guests, visitors – ultimately people. The reality is that data isn’t a resource to be passively extracted from consumers – it’s more like a currency that consumers actively invest in to unlock specific benefits and experiences. The past three decades of data-management innovation have focused on amassing data, but now the focus has shifted to unlocking mutual value for companies and customers. As marketers, we’re uniquely positioned to lead that charge because building exceptional experiences and enabling responsible, mutually beneficial data use starts with listening to and empowering the people that buy our products and services. --- [How to Roll Out a Strategic Plan (To Guarantee Success)Building a strategic plan takes a lot of work. So when it comes time to put it into action, you want to get it right. But the truth is, an effective rollout starts during the planning process. Want to learn why? Stay tuned.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/andy-hermawan-O1jUvZX9DOA-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-roll-out-a-strategic-plan/) --- ## Consumers are leading the way That might sound odd: we’re used to thinking of consumers as relatively naive when it comes to data. But research shows that consumers have a more sophisticated understanding of the data economy than brands or regulators typically give them credit for. If Cambridge Analytica was a wake-up call, alerting consumers to how their data was being collected and used, subsequent scandals have given consumers a much broader awareness of just how much is at stake. In a post-Dobbs world, the true power of everything from geolocation data to health data from period-tracking apps is now starkly apparent to consumers. That doesn’t mean people understand the mechanics of data collection and processing or the small print of privacy regulations. Some haven’t heard of the GDPR or California’s new privacy laws; of those who have, it’s unlikely that all but a few can explain how modern privacy legislation works in practice. What most people do understand, though, is that their data is valuable because it is potent – and can be used both for good and for ill. According to media investment consulting firm Magna Global research, [three-quarters of consumers care deeply about their data privacy](https://content.ketch.com/consumer-privacy-perspectives). That’s fairly remarkable, considering only about half of consumers feel so strongly about sustainability or diversity, according to that same research. Magna Global also found that more than four-fifths worry about how companies use their data, but 83% are nonetheless willing to share data to access benefits such as discounted or personalized services. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/graphic1.png) Magna Global + Ketch research found 83% of people see the value in sharing their data with brands Magna Global + Ketch research found 83% of people see the value in sharing their data with brands In other words, while brands are stuck in an extractive mindset, consumers increasingly view data-sharing as a negotiated exchange of value. They tend to understand the risks involved and are unlikely to give their data away for no reason. But when companies earn their trust and offer meaningful value in return, they’ll be more willing to share their data on mutually beneficial terms. ## Marketers need to step up In recent years, companies have refined their messaging and taken concrete actions to align with customers’ values in sustainability and inclusion. Now it’s time for a similar revolution in the way we think, talk and act about data. Consumers are telling us loudly and clearly that they will no longer accept a passive role in the data economy, with companies extracting and exploiting their data. Instead, consumers want agency over how their data is used – real, ongoing control over a transparent exchange of value, rather than superficial one-time “consent” used as a figleaf for extractive data policies. This isn’t a passing trend. Research has suggested that the younger a consumer is, the more likely they are to share data with brands – not because they are naive, but because they are more attuned to the exchange of value that’s taking place. Gen Z consumers seem to be especially likely to configure data preferences when interacting with brands or to file data deletion requests – a clear sign of the direction in which consumer expectations are moving. For younger consumers, data sharing is a reality – but so is data control. It is imperative that brands keep pace by embracing responsible data practices and implementing the controls that consumers are increasingly demanding. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/graphic2.png) Brands must embrace responsible data practices and implement the controls that consumers are increasingly demanding Brands must embrace responsible data practices and implement the controls that consumers are increasingly demanding That starts with delivering meaningful end-to-end control over how data is collected, stored, and used. One-time consent banners and incomprehensible copy about privacy policies won’t cut it: we need intelligent whole-lifecycle controls that let consumers decide exactly how their data can be used, with rigorous enforcement across the entire data ecosystem. Permission-based infrastructure must permeate the tech stack, ensuring that data is only ever used in ways that consumers have explicitly approved. Brands will need to leverage these capabilities to realign with consumer values. Instead of narrow, legalistic compliance with whatever new regulations are implemented, organizations need to be more proactive – by empowering consumers, meeting and exceeding their expectations, and cementing their position as trusted partners in an ongoing exchange of value. --- [From Data to Actionable Insights: How to Build a CI ProgramPurpose, Priorities, Productivity. Let’s see how you can apply this sequence to move from data to action as you build your CI program.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceFouad Benyoub![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/dennis-kummer-52gEprMkp7M-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/from-data-to-actionable-insights/) --- ## What comes next? Brands that stick to extractive models will keep clashing with regulators, degrading the consumer experience and eroding their credibility, reputations, and commercial success. Over time, their data sources will dry up, and consumers will simply no longer be willing to engage with them. On the other hand, companies that invest in data infrastructure grounded in trust and respect will be rewarded. Research shows that both purchase intent and brand loyalty increase when companies use responsible data practices, and that consumers are also far more willing to entrust their data to responsible companies. In other words, the more we approach data collection as a mutual exchange of value, rather than a one-way extractive process, the more consumers will willingly entrust us with the high-quality data we need to grow our businesses. Brands that lean into this transformation have an unprecedented opportunity to forge lasting alignment with customers – and unlock the full potential of the new data economy. --- ## Put yourself in first place 🥇 Differentiation is critical. In today's job market, interview processes have four, five or even more stages. Competition is fierce, and proving your worth is getting harder. How valuable would it be to you to be able to bypass all that in the eyes of the recruiter, because they’re already familiar with your work? We're offering you the means to do just that. We’ll work with you to quickly adapt your work into SEO-optimized articles, ghostwritten guides, and podcast episodes. It’s never been easier to differentiate yourself, so why not start today? Sound interesting? [Send us a message](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io to discuss next steps. 🤝 ### How to use SWOT analysis to build your battlecards URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-swot-analysis-to-build-your-battlecards/ Last updated: 2024-07-22T15:17:37.000Z SWOT analysis gives you everything you need to build a great battlecard. Battlecards are all about helping your sales reps position you against competitors. Doing so in a way that closes the deal requires a strong understanding of your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as your own. In this article, I’ll walk you through how you can use your findings from SWOT analysis to enable sales and impact revenue by building great battlecards. I’ll even walk you through the format I use for my own battlecards. Before we get started, if you need to brush up on SWOT analysis itself, what it is, and how to perform it, you can read more at the links below: 📘 ****Suggested reading:**• [****The four major elements of SWOT analysis you need to know**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/)• [****How to do a competitor SWOT analysis in 5 easy steps**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/)• [****Full guide to competitive intelligence for project management**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-in-project-management/) ## Why SWOT analysis is great for building battlecards SWOT analysis is such a powerful tool because almost **everyone already knows what it is**, and those that don’t can be brought up to speed in a matter of minutes. Not only does [SWOT analysis benefit you](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/) by giving you a filter for your data and intel, helping you pull more meaning out of it. It also gives you a framework for sharing that meaning with other folks around the company. SWOT also gives you a **kick-off point** for how you’ll handle a competitor. I’ll often turn to one when a new competitor enters the market, because there’s so much you need to learn right away. You take those findings and build them into your messaging and into your battlecards to position yourself in the strongest possible light for customers. If you’ve ever looked at a battlecard, you know there’s usually a section on your competitor’s strengths (or at least what we consider the competitor’s strengths to be). There’ll be a weaknesses part, too. We call these “kill points”, or “quick dismisses”, but this is intel that comes from the SWOT analysis as well. All of this **informs your strategy** around enabling sales to speak about your competitor in a way that **maximizes deal-close potential**. Perhaps you want to include points on your own strengths in the battlecard, because it’s not intuitively obvious how they counter your competitor’s strengths, or capitalize on their weaknesses. Again, your findings from the SWOT analysis will reveal this. ## Pre-SWOT prep work Before the SWOT analysis itself, there’s some prep work to do. Most important is to build out a company profile on the competitor you’re dealing with. Include as much detail as you like, but you’ll find this invaluable for building into the SWOT analysis later. You’ll also save time by educating people on the competitor as you talk to them for your SWOT analysis. If *you’re* not up-to-speed with a competitor, it’s unlikely many of your colleagues are either. This helps you in your duty to educate others in your org about the competitive landscape and its players. --- [State of SWOT Report | Competitive Intelligence AllianceSWOT analysis divides opinion, but has sat atop its semaphoric tower, guiding strategic marketers to better business decisions, for decades. Download the report to learn SWOT best practices, future forecasts, and more.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_Blog_-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-swot-report-2023/) --- ## How to build and format your battlecard step-by-step Let’s dive into the anatomy of a battlecard. This’ll give you an idea of what the finished product looks like, and a sense of what you’re working towards. We present our battlecards to sales through our competitive intelligence platform, but these could just as easily sit in a CRM, or even a slide deck. Here’s the format I like to see: - [Competitor overview](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/13d1025f-93b7-4499-a241-df2828516749/#competitor-overview) - [Quick dismisses](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/13d1025f-93b7-4499-a241-df2828516749/#quick-dismisses) - [Strengths](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/13d1025f-93b7-4499-a241-df2828516749/#strengths) - [Pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/13d1025f-93b7-4499-a241-df2828516749/#pricing) - [Landmines](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/13d1025f-93b7-4499-a241-df2828516749/#landmines) - [Objection handling](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/13d1025f-93b7-4499-a241-df2828516749/#objection-handling) Let's break these down step-by-step. ### 1) Competitor overview First, you want to give your reps a quick overview of the competitor. Some high-level background information on them and what they do that brings people on board with a glance is what you’re aiming for. The goal for this section is to give the rep just enough information to remind them who the competitor is, or to give them points to bring up in conversation, so they can speak knowledgeably about them. This should sit right at the top of the page. Always remember that the info you present must be highly useful and relevant for those trying to close a deal right now. There’s no telling what direction a call will go, so your reps will be pulling up battlecards on the fly. If they can’t digest the information on them at a glance, they won’t use them at all. Keep the info concise, and keep it relevant! ### 2) Quick dismisses Next up are your “quick dismisses”. This is where you start bringing in competitor weaknesses you uncovered during the SWOT analysis. The point of the quick dismiss is to draw the prospect’s attention to your competitor’s weaknesses. Especially ones they weren’t aware of. If the prospect brings the competitor up in conversation, or if your rep starts thinking they’re entertaining them as a viable option, the quick dismisses in this section can neutralize that threat without painting your competitor in a negative light. ☝️ Remember: badmouthing your competitors never goes well. It sounds defensive and negative, doing more to hurt your position than help it.Your quick dismisses should be entirely framed around what the customer needs, and why it’s obvious this competitor isn’t the best choice for them ### 3) Strengths As you work down the battlecard, you’ll be offering your rep more information on how you stack up versus your competitor. Hopefully the quick dismiss is all they need, but if not, they can work down each of the following stages as the call goes on. Here’s where the “battle” in the prospect’s mind is more pronounced. The jump to this section might trigger once the customer starts arguing with your rep about the quick dismisses. They might be making statements like, “But Competitor X has this really great feature, and that’s just what we’re looking for.” Once this happens, it’s clear your prospect thinks of this competitor as a serious option. That’s why bringing your own strengths to light, and how they compare to your competitors, is a good idea at this stage of the battlecard. (Of course, you’ll have uncovered what you consider your competitor’s strengths to be during your SWOT analysis.) ☝️ It’s super important to follow best practices during your analysis. Don't cut corners!If you do things by the book and collect customer research, you won’t have to guess where the market thinks your competitor is strong and what they like about them. You’ll already know, objectively, through that research. ### 4) Pricing Pricing and [competitive positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) go hand-in-hand. Having a section on pricing in your battle card will help further support your messaging and how you’re best positioned to fulfill this customer’s specific need, as well as why/how your competitor is not. Plus, if your competitor is out of budget for your prospect, but they didn’t have detailed quotes on pricing, you can let them know your competitor is out of their price range. This isn’t necessarily information reps should *always* use or include, but it’s easy to digest at a glance while they’re on the call, and can be helpful for further framing you as their best option. ### 5) Landmines Trap-setting questions are staggeringly effective when used correctly. But they have to be used in the right way, and that can only happen with a strong understanding of your competitor’s weaknesses in relation to your strengths and, most importantly, what the customer wants. When your rep is good at fishing for information from the prospect about what they’re looking for, they can use your competitor’s (very real) weaknesses to make the prospect second-guess their viability as an option. Here’s an example. A prospect might call us and let on that they use a bunch of different applications and software products in their tech stack. We might know the competitor they keep mentioning doesn’t integrate well. That’s a big issue, and a likely deal-breaker for the competitor. When your reps don’t yet know what the customer needs, they can ask how important integration (in this example) is to them. What makes this so powerful is your rep doesn’t even need to mention the competitor if they know they’re not going to close the prospect then and there. They can educate the customer about how strongly they need integration due to the setup of their current tech stack, and the customer can discover the competitor’s weak integration in their own research. Since the prospect has figured this out “entirely” on their own, it’s incredibly persuasive. ### 6) Objection handling SWOT isn’t just useful when performed on competitors. You should also regularly do SWOT analysis on yourself. This will help you anticipate which of your weaknesses prospects are likely to bring up, and why they think Competitor X is a better option. Such intel is perfect for an objection handling section in your battlecard, which helps sales reps with common, recurring objections. Prepping reps for objection handling has a number of benefits, including shortening the time-to-revenue for many reps (and time-to-first-close for new reps), since they’ll be armed with what they need to close simpler deals from the get-go. ☝️ It’s important to be honest about these weaknesses! No product is a perfect fit for everyone out there. When you’re honest about the kinds of people for whom your product just isn’t the right fit, it actually boosts trust in your brand and your product. ## Conclusion SWOT analysis is the perfect battlecard building tool. What you learn has implications for so many of the very real and practical sections your battlecards need to enable sales reps to close more deals. When there’s a new competitor on the block, a SWOT analysis will bring you up to speed quickly, give you a recognizable framework for communicating your findings, and help you build an effective battlecard in no time. Include a quick overview of the competitor at the top of the battlecard, followed by a section on their weaknesses, another on where they’re strong (and how your own strengths compete), plus sections on pricing, trap-setting questions, and objection handling. SWOT informs all these sections by giving you an understanding of where your competitor is positioned in the market, and where and how to go head-to-head with them to win the deal. --- ## The State of SWOT report **Hungry to learn** how pros are using SWOT analysis in 2023? Our latest report covers everything from: - The five top **challenges** you face performing SWOT, and how to solve them. - The best ways to measure **success or failure** post-SWOT. - Whether SWOT is **falling out of favor** in modern businesses. - The best **alternative frameworks** and how they compare with SWOT. - The **future of SWOT** analysis. Ready to learn more? Click the banner below to grab your copy. 👇 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ### ChatGPT: How to lose your job and gain a colleague URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/chatgpt-how-to-lose-your-job-and-gain-a-colleague/ Last updated: 2023-05-15T09:01:04.000Z If you’ve read “The Future of the Professions” by Richard and Daniel Susskind, you’re already familiar with the fragility of your expertise: give it enough time and most of us will be out of a job, or at least out of ‘this’ job, whatever job it is you currently do. However, up until recently, it felt like the transition to systems taking over our jobs was still distant. Yes, automation is nothing new and no one is safe from the inevitable march of history, yes, digital assistants are semi-useful, and software development has made it easier to skip the middleman for things such as taxes or survey building… But up to now the reality on the ground felt mostly like business as usual. In the field of market research, I’ve worked with countless solutions that promise to do your job for you by analyzing people’s opinions and feedback, creating charts, or generating sharable reports – all logical and helpful places to innovate. Despite the efforts of many talented people, it’s been hard to feel threatened by these tools. They undoubtedly help reduce human error or sieve through large amounts of data, but it’s unclear whether they’re really saving time, and they almost never provide insightful results on their own. At no point does it ever truly feel like you’re dealing with a tool that is smarter than you. Consequently, I was skeptical about the immediate impact of automation in my field, but that’s mainly because I wasn’t looking in the right place. In recent weeks, it has become clear that work has changed forever. I am, of course (along with everybody else), talking about ChatGPT, the chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/CIA_Website_Banners_2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ## Interacting with ChatGPT When you play with ChatGPT it’s impossible not to be impressed with its capabilities. As human nature dictates, I was eager to test the limits of the system. My exploration started with basic questions, similar to those asked of Alexa or Google Home, but quickly became more complex and human-like. After exhausting various versions of the trolley problem, I settled on assessing how the tool would help me in my job – maybe I could write a blog on that, or maybe it could do it for me? So in an unequivocally meta move, I asked ChatGPT how it could impact market research and to please make its answer a blog. As you’ll now see, it’s going to be difficult not to rely on this heavily for future content creation. It even gets the structure right. ## ChatGPT’s response > Market research is a crucial aspect of any business as it helps companies understand their target audience, identify market trends, and make informed decisions about product development and marketing strategies. With the advancements in artificial intelligence and natural language processing, chatbots like ChatGPT are becoming increasingly popular as a tool to assist with market research. > Here are five ways in which ChatGPT can help with market research: > Data Collection: ChatGPT can automate the process of collecting data from various sources such as websites, databases, and social media platforms. This can save time and increase the accuracy of the data collected. > Sentiment Analysis: ChatGPT can perform sentiment analysis on large volumes of customer feedback, reviews, and social media posts to provide valuable insights into customer opinions and preferences. This information can help companies understand what customers like and dislike about their products and services, allowing them to make improvements. > Text Summarization: ChatGPT can be used to summarize market research reports, industry articles, and other long-form text to provide an overview of key findings and insights. This can be especially helpful for busy professionals who need to quickly understand the key points of a large body of information. > Predictive Analysis: By leveraging its machine learning capabilities, ChatGPT can analyze market data and provide predictions about future trends and customer behaviors. This can help companies make informed decisions about product development, marketing strategies, and other key business decisions. > Customer Service: ChatGPT can be used to interact with customers and gather information about their needs, preferences, and experiences. This information can be used to inform market research and product development decisions. By providing customers with a convenient and efficient way to share their feedback, companies can gain valuable insights into their target audience and make improvements to their products and services. > In conclusion, ChatGPT has the potential to revolutionize the way companies approach market research. With its ability to automate data collection, perform sentiment analysis, summarize information, provide predictive insights, and interact with customers, ChatGPT can provide valuable insights and save time and resources. Whether you are a small business owner or a market research professional, ChatGPT is worth exploring as a tool to assist with your research needs. --- [The 6 Key Goals of Competitive IntelligenceThis article will help you realign with the key goals of competitive intelligence. Once you do, it’ll be crystal clear which priorities you’re neglecting, and which avenues to success you’re avoiding.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/03/alex-braga-fgqKuD20A_A-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/goals-of-competitive-intelligence/) --- ## Beyond ChatGPT’s response ChatGPT’s points are valid and promising. I would add to this that it will likely drastically change the way we do due diligence or secondary research, but I’m quite certain I’m yet to fully appreciate its power and reach. The funny thing is that’s not what I am using it for, really. More than anything, I find it a fantastic tool to help me think — not *do* but *think*. Here are some of my latest queries by way of examples: - How can the Jobs to be Done theory apply to visiting museums? - What cognitive biases can be exacerbated when using a digital product? I’m not looking for practical answers here, not in the way I shamelessly had ChatGPT effectively write half of this blog. These are questions I would typically jot down on the corner of a notebook for future consideration, but why not open the debate to an AI? ChatGPT has provided insightful responses and suggested useful references. ## Wrap up This use of the technology may not be specific to market research, but it is fundamental to the work we do in market research. I truly didn’t expect the next ‘tool’ to improve critical analysis, and that’s what has me so excited at the prospect of working with it. In a way, using ChatGPT brings back memories of getting my driving license or accessing the Internet for the first time back in the late 90s. A mix of “I can’t believe they’re letting me do this” and “Oh my God I can go anywhere”. The vast potential of this technology is exhilarating, and I’m excited that we now all get to explore it. Let’s see where it brings us, for better or worse. For now, I just love its ability to stimulate thought and act as a smart colleague… Maybe I’ll call him Hal. --- ## Put yourself in first place 🥇 Differentiation is critical. In today's job market, interview processes have four, five or even more stages. Competition is fierce, and proving your worth is getting harder. How valuable would it be to you to be able to bypass all that in the eyes of the recruiter, because they’re already familiar with your work? We're offering you the means to do just that. We’ll work with you to quickly adapt your work into SEO-optimized articles, ghostwritten guides, and podcast episodes. It’s never been easier to differentiate yourself, so why not start today? Sound interesting? [Send us a message](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io to discuss next steps. 🤝 --- ### Competitive Intelligence Summit | Online | June 8 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-summit-june-virtual/ Last updated: 2023-05-11T11:16:01.000Z 🗓️ ****Date:** June 8, 2023 📍 ****Venue:** Virtual ### **What is Competitive Intelligence Summit? 🤔** Great ideas don't happen in a vacuum! Our summit invites you to step out of your daily job and spark your inspiration. With curated discussion panels and actionable keynotes, you're sure to return with a fresh perspective to establish yourself as a market leader. ### **Why attend the Competitive Intelligence Summit?** 🤝 Find your community amongst a global network of competitive intelligence professionals. 🔥 Get answers to your burning questions from the expert speakers through interactive Q&A during the sessions. 👀 Stay on top of industry trends and get ahead of your competition. 📈 Gain instantly actionable advice from industry leaders to start increasing your market share immediately. 🔋 Reach your full potential and supercharge your career in the space of a single day. [👉 GRAB YOUR TICKET👈](https://summit23.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/checkout/select-tickets/?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=cta&utm%5Fcampaign=event-ci-summit-virtual-june23) ### **Speakers Highlights. 🧠** **Unlocking growth: strategies for maturing your competitive intelligence program** Cristina is a Market and Competitive Intelligence Manager at Microsoft Latin America. She has been working at Microsoft for the last four years, and focuses on landing insights and data models to leadership and strategy teams. Cristina is responsible for monitoring and analyzing market trends, and identifying opportunities across the cloud and software businesses in Latin America. She works closely with data scientists and researchers to gather and analyze market data, and with the go-to-market teams to develop and implement strategies. Cristina received her Bachelor's degree in Economics with a minor in Entrepreneurial Leadership from Tufts University. **The future of competitive intelligence: Trends and predictions** Ben is a solutions and service-oriented professional with deep experience in competitive intelligence, account management, market research, customer success, product marketing, program management, strategy, sales enablement, and cross-functional project management. His experience has centered around the enterprise software industry. In this sphere, he has worked on the agency side (IDC, C Space) as a trusted advisor to key clients (Hearst Media, The Atlanta Falcons, Tennis.com, Teleflora, LendingTree). He's also worked on the vendor side (Pegasystems, UiPath, Datto, and now Adobe), where Ben consulted internal teams on competitive and market intelligence, sales enablement, and positioning and messaging. **Enabling more effective sales through competitive intelligence** Jay Nakagawa has been the Director of Competitive Intelligence for Dell Technologies for over 10 years and has developed successful competitive strategies for over 25 years as a product manager. Jay is an keynote speaker at industry and analyst events around the globe. Having held positions in sales, business development, marketing, and product management, domestically and abroad, he is well versed in insights across multi-disciplinary functions. Jay has worked for enterprise companies, high-growth, and startups in his career and is the former Chairman of the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) association and is a faculty member of the Academy of Competitive Intelligence (ACI). Jay holds a B.S. in Information Systems from the University of Colorado Boulder and a M.B.A. in International Business from Regis University. ### Agenda highlights. 🔥 In one jam-packed day you’ll hear about: ✍️ Starting a competitive program from scratch 💰 Achieving buy-in and engaging your key stakeholders 🏆 Hiring and retaining the best talent in competitive intelligence 🚀 Looking forward to the future of competitive intelligence [🗓 FULL AGENDA🗓](https://summit23.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/schedule/?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=cta&utm%5Fcampaign=event-ci-summit-virtual-june23) **Ready to learn from the best?** [👉 GET INVOLVED 👈](https://summit23.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/?utm%5Fsource=ghost&utm%5Fmedium=cta&utm%5Fcampaign=event-ci-summit-virtual-june23) ### Competitive intelligence tips you can implement today... even if you've got no experience URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-tips-to-use-today/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:53:00.000Z ☝️ **This article was adapted from Mayur Palta’s insightful interview on The Compete Clarity Podcast.* Throughout my decade of hands-on experience in competitive intelligence (CI) at industry-leading companies such as Oracle, Dell, AWS, and now Databricks, I've seen firsthand the transformative power of a well-crafted CI program. In this article, I'll share my insights on designing and executing an effective CI strategy, centralizing information to create a single source of truth, and overcoming the challenges of limited resources. We'll also explore how to measure the success of your CI program and the potential role of AI in the future of competitive intelligence. Dive in and discover how you can start building a CI program that will ensure your organization's success in today's fiercely competitive business landscape. We'll walk through... - [How to set up a brand-new CI program.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/36a3db2e-65f1-4afe-8b2d-ea9803f79777/#how-to-set-up-a-brand-new-ci-program) - [The things I wish I'd known when I started my CI career.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/36a3db2e-65f1-4afe-8b2d-ea9803f79777/#what-i-wish-i%E2%80%99d-known-when-i-built-my-first-ci-program) - [How to scale your CI program's impact.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/36a3db2e-65f1-4afe-8b2d-ea9803f79777/#how-to-scale-the-impact-of-your-ci-program) - [How to run a CI program with limited resources.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/36a3db2e-65f1-4afe-8b2d-ea9803f79777/#how-to-run-a-ci-program-with-limited-resources) - [How to measure the success of your competitive intel program.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/36a3db2e-65f1-4afe-8b2d-ea9803f79777/#how-to-measure-the-success-of-your-ci-program) ## How to set up a brand-new CI program Setting up a brand-new CI program when you join a company can be challenging. Where should you begin? That depends on the following three things you can scope out right now: 1. The culture of the organization. 2. The market or the space you play in. 3. Where competitive intelligence sits within the organization. Let’s take a closer look. ### One: Your organization’s culture We’ll start with the culture of the organization. Try to get a sense of how people view your competitors. Does competing come naturally as a core part of doing business, or is it perceived as something you do once in a while as needed? Try to get a sense of the CEO's mindset, too. Do they talk openly about competitive strategy, or is it kept secret? I'll give you a couple of examples. I used to work for Oracle where the CEO, the famous Larry Ellison, is known to be very competitive. He's one of the most competitive CEOs in the tech industry. That competitive DNA trickled down through the entire organization and was a key part of Oracle’s culture. That’s in contrast to another company I’ve worked with, AWS – Amazon’s cloud business. They have a clear leadership principle: customer obsession. That means that, yes, leaders pay attention to competitors, but they choose to *obsess* over customers. AWS and Oracle are two extremes. I’d recommend drawing a line between them and seeing where your company culture falls on the competitive spectrum. That’s the culture piece. ### Two: Your market The second piece is the market you play in. Is it a very crowded space, or still emerging? Are you trying to define a new category of your own, like AWS defined the cloud, or are you challenging an established leader in the category? Maybe you’re in SaaS, AI, or cybersecurity. Perhaps you’re one of the thousands of cryptocurrencies out there. It doesn't matter which space you’re playing in; what matters is whether you’re trying to differentiate yourself in a very crowded space where everyone looks and sounds the same, or whether you’re the one defining the category. That's going to impact how you approach CI. 💡 Are you trying to differentiate in a very crowded space where everyone looks the same? Or are you the one defining the category? That’s going to impact how you approach CI. ### Three: Where CI sits in your org The third piece is where CI sits in the organization. Is it a centralized corporate function, or does it sit in one of the lines of business? That's important because it shapes where you get started, the direction you take, the span of influence you have, and consequently the impact you can make on the organization. To give you an example, if CI sits within marketing, your area of influence will fall towards competitive positioning. Whereas, CI sits under product, you may spend more time identifying product gaps. And if you're part of corporate, you're defining the strategy of how to execute in the field, in the product, and in the market. What’s often overlooked is you can essentially compete on anything. You can compete based on the paper you print on. There’s the classic example of Aldi, which is so cost-conscious that its CEO once stopped a meeting and said, “The paper you gave me this report on is too thick! We should cut costs here.” **In short,** you want to keep these three factors in mind as you start building your CI program: 1. The culture, 2. The market you're playing in, 3. …and where CI sits in the org structure. [A Practitioner’s Complete Guide to Competitive IntelligenceCompetitive intelligence is your tool for knowing your competitors’ strategies, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses. Armed with this information, you can fine-tune your product strategy and marketing initiatives to win. In other words, competitive intelligence is your ticket to the top.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/CIA_Meta_-intelligence.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) ## What I wish I’d known when I built my first CI program I’ve learned a lot of lessons the hard way throughout my career. The biggest is perhaps how you think about the role. Some folks over-invest in one part of the business – whether that's [competitive enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) for the field, competitive messaging, or using CI to guide product roadmap. That’s not a great approach. You have to be a jack of all trades *and* the master of your function. It's not either/or. 💡 You have to be a jack of all trades **and* the master of your function. It's not either/or. Remember, too, that competing is a team sport. No matter how good you are or what you deliver to the business, you need to bring the team together, because they are your voice. Plus, competition is so cutthroat in the tech industry – you need all hands on deck! CI should trickle down into every part of your organization and guide everything you do, from customer advocacy to developer relations, and from marketing to conferences. If you can get your entire company to speak the language of differentiation, your job is pretty much done. You can make that happen by finding like-minded people who share your passion for competing and winning. [How Competitive Pricing Intelligence Boosts Your Bottom Line.A solid competitive pricing strategy positions you to capture as much market share as possible, maximizing growth potential by working smarter.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/henry-co-SDR3oDS4mOc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) ## How to scale the impact of your CI program CI teams tend to be small but mighty, so you need to find ways to scale the impact you have. I like to think of it as a game of soccer. There are two ways to play it. One is to be chasing the ball constantly; the other is to learn how to pass the ball and trust others to score the goals. That’s the smarter way, but to make it work you have to create a competitive intelligence flywheel, bringing in different functions and roles with specific responsibilities and inputs. Think of this like a RACI chart – in some cases, an individual is accountable for delivering something; in some cases, they're consulted or just informed. As long as they’re in the know and contributing to some part of that flywheel, it all comes together. > The challenge is getting every part of the business aligned. Everybody thinks they’re the expert in their field, everybody has their own way of thinking about the competition, and everybody has their own priorities. Once you’ve identified your stakeholders and defined their roles and responsibilities in your CI program, it’s time to start making conscious choices about what to prioritize. And remember: rather than assuming you know what you need to prioritize, it's wise to ask people upfront and work backwards from there. It’s like Stephen Covey said: “Begin with the end in mind.” Working backwards, who are the stakeholders who can make you successful, and what inputs do you need and when? Start by doing just a few things really well, and get all your stakeholders bought in. The challenge is getting every part of the business aligned. Everybody thinks they’re the expert in their field, everybody has their own way of thinking about the competition, and everybody has their own priorities. If you can have a conversation upfront and get everybody on the same page about what your CI program is going to prioritize and do really well, although it will slow you down in the beginning, the flywheel will take off in the long run. [Social Media Competitive Intelligence: What It Is, How to Do ItSocial media is an incredibly powerful tool for gathering information on competing businesses. Done intentionally, you can follow and filter information according to your favorite strategic framework.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/alexander-shatov-CTZhGbSxWLI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) ## How to build a single source of truth for your CI program When you join an organization, they’ll likely have some competitive intelligence already – some data in a Google Doc over here, some facts in someone’s head over there. The challenge is centralizing all that intelligence so you have an up-to-date single source of truth everyone can access. You want to train everybody to use that source of truth every time they need some competitive intel. The most challenging part is weeding out misinformation. If you’ve got ungoverned, unmanaged stuff that lives in a silo but is still searchable and findable, that can be more harmful than not having any intel at all. If someone finds obsolete (or just plain wrong) information and runs with it, they can land themselves in a very sticky situation with a customer. That means, in addition to finding and building content, it’s smart to have regular clean-ups. > If you’ve got ungoverned, unmanaged stuff that lives in a silo but is still searchable and findable, that can be more harmful than not having any intel at all. In a few of the places I’ve worked, I’ve hosted CI clean-up happy hours. We’d have a couple of adult beverages and go through all our old intel. When we found something that was inaccurate or out of date, we’d remove it and add a note redirecting people to the right information. You’ll also want to build an army of CI champions and get them to contribute to the central information source. What's in it for them? Well, you’ll be able to amplify their knowledge across the entire organization, rather than it staying within their defined limited scope. If you’re inclusive and you give people a platform where their voices will be heard, they’ll come and contribute, and you’ll be able to harness the wisdom of the crowd. ## How to run a CI program with limited resources A common challenge with competitive intelligence functions is that they tend to not be well-funded, often having smaller teams. Surveys by various organizations show that the average CI team size in a given company is between two and four people. This lack of resources can actually act as a forcing function to make teams think more creatively. It should be taken as a challenge rather than a reason to whine about the lack of resources. We often hear, “If we had this, we could do that,” but in the end, it all comes down to prioritization. 💡 In a lean team, rather than relying on human intervention for meetings, you may want to create self-service solutions As a CI function, your job consists of **three main objectives**: 1. You need to ensure the company knows how to differentiate itself from the competition. 2. You should make sense of the changing competitive landscape. 3. You need to stay close to the voice of the customer because that’s going to help you understand why you win or lose. Balancing your time between these three objectives and different stakeholders can be difficult. You’re going to feel like you’re being pulled in all directions, so learn how to pick your battles. In some cases, you might have a 60/40 split in time spent with the sales reps and product, while in others, it could be a 70/20/10 split with sales, product, and executives. The key is to find the right mix and consistently re-prioritize based on what will move the needle. In a lean team, rather than relying on human intervention for meetings, you may want to create self-service solutions and aim to triage issues in a scalable way. I have a friend in a different company who sees the CI function as a data librarian, helping the organization find the right information. Another approach is to align more closely with the core strategy of the business and focus, for example, on making new products successful. In short, **to make your CI program successful** even with limited resources, you need to do the following: 1. Focus on KPIs 2. Prioritize ruthlessly when allocating time between CI’s three main objectives and all your stakeholders 3. Use the limited resources as a forcing function to be more creative and find innovative ways to accomplish tasks [Social Media Competitive Intelligence: What It Is, How to Do ItSocial media is an incredibly powerful tool for gathering information on competing businesses. Done intentionally, you can follow and filter information according to your favorite strategic framework.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/alexander-shatov-CTZhGbSxWLI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/social-media-competitive-intelligence/) ## How to measure the success of your CI program Measuring the impact of competitive intelligence can be challenging. Should you focus on how many assets you’ve produced (an input goal)? Should you look at your impact on win rates (an output goal)? Most CI organizations over-index on the input. That’s not to say you shouldn’t track the amount of content you’re creating or how many people are using it, but you have to make sure you have output goals too Maybe you're aiming to help grow the pipeline. Maybe you want to increase your average deal size. Maybe you’re looking to reduce the length of your sales cycle. Maybe you’re trying to boost the win rate. For me, win rates are the ultimate measure, followed by direct or indirect impact on revenue, then the number of competitive assets used. Whichever metrics you focus on, you need a way to measure them in your CRM. You may also want to use softer metrics, such as the competitive readiness of the field. Tracking this involves both qualitative and quantitative measures. You can run surveys assessing how prepared your sales reps feel at a given point in time, and quantify that impact by comparing two snapshots – one of the baseline and the other taken after a defined period. Another way to gauge the effectiveness of competitive intelligence is to assess its impact on the product. Examine how many gaps in product features that were previously causing you to lose business to competitors have been identified and prioritized for development. How many roadblocks to customers adopting your platform have you been able to remove? In a nutshell, you’ll want to consider **a variety of metrics** for measuring the impact of your competitive intelligence program, including: - Win rates, - Revenue impact, - Competitive assets, - Competitive awareness in the field, - and product improvement. It’s up to you to pick the metrics that best align with your organization’s goals and ensure the data is both reliable and measurable. ## AI’s role in the future of competitive intelligence Today we’re seeing more and more discussion about the role that AI could play in the future of competitive intelligence. Some fear AI could replace human CI practitioners. However, I don’t see humans vs. AI as an either-or situation; instead, I believe we’ll move towards combining AI’s data-gathering powers with human sense-making and intuition. Certain aspects of competitive intelligence, such as market intelligence, are very data-heavy. In recent years, there’s been exponential growth in the amount of data you can generate and gather, but there’s no way for a human to consume or make sense of all the available information. AI can play a valuable role in synthesizing information, determining what is relevant, and distinguishing the signal from the noise. That can then be augmented with human sense-making and intuition. That’s where AI is likely to have the most significant impact – in data gathering for market intelligence. We typically view CI through the rearview mirror by analyzing competitor announcements and changes, then determining how to respond. At that point, the damage is often already done. To be more effective, we need to be able to respond to events in real time. By leveraging AI, we may be able to lean towards the future and build probabilistic models to proactively get ahead of the competition's next moves. As exciting as these developments are, human sense-making will never be obsolete. I have yet to see a single CI platform or intelligence-gathering tool that can replace the human element entirely. The future is humans *and* AI, not humans *or* AI. --- ## Get the playbook on competitive positioning No product is created in a vacuum. It’s how you position yourself relative to the competition that truly matters. If you’re to carve out your own competitive niche and defend it, you’ll need to scout the environment, pick an advantageous position, and make sure the market knows that spot belongs to *you*. In the Competitive Positioning Playbook, **we show you how**. **Click the banner below to download yours.** 👇 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/01/cta_banner_blogs_inline.png) --- ### Use THIS secret tool to DESTROY internal bias in your competitive analysis | Gal Toren URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-006-gal-toren/ Last updated: 2023-10-27T12:20:39.000Z The Compete Clarity Podcast is back. 🕺🎧 We all know it. Junk data = junk analysis. And if you can't successfully guard against bias when gathering competitive intelligence and performing your analysis, you'll draw bad conclusions every time. Gal Toren joins us on the show today to share her practical, go-to tool for guarding against internal bias and making your competitive analysis as quantifiable and objective as possible. [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast: Use THIS secret tool to destroy internal bias in your competitive analysis | Gal Toren on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Compete Clarity Podcast, Ep Use THIS secret tool to destroy internal bias in your competitive analysis | Gal Toren - May 10, 2023![](https://t0.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/use-this-secret-tool-to-destroy-internal-bias-in-your/id1678079061?i=1000612466028&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts116/v4/ff/52/20/ff5220b4-877f-5c1a-30eb-b90888ff592c/mza_5176247546700168844.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/use-this-secret-tool-to-destroy-internal-bias-in-your/id1678079061?i=1000612466028) ## About Gal Toren ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/gal_toren.jpg) #### Gal Toren Competitive Intelligence Team Lead, JFrog [Find Gal on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gal-toren/) Gal Toren is JFrog's competitive intelligence team lead. She has a background in academic and think tank research, and has spent the last eight years tackling competitive intelligence hands on. Across tech, from cybersecurity to devops, Gal has made her mark on CI and joins us on the show today to share her knowledge. ## Key talking points In today's episode, we discuss: - The one thing you should make your biggest priority when you start a new CI role. - How the way you manage your time should change as your CI team grows. - The secret tool that'll guard against internal bias in your competitive analysis. Sound interesting? Take a listen. 👇 [Listen now](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-podcast/?wchannelid=skfjh5zgjz&wmediaid=pxftxtc948) --- ## Want to be a guest on the podcast? We're looking for guests! If you consider yourself (or anyone you know does!) something of a thought leader in competitive intelligence , drop us a line at [contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io). We can't wait to host you! [Register your interest](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) ### Unlocking the power of customer reviews for a magnetic brand URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/unlocking-the-power-of-customer-reviews-for-a-magnetic-brand/ Last updated: 2024-06-08T10:29:44.000Z Customer reviews are extremely important when it comes to building a brand, yet so many businesses don't realize how many opportunities they're missing. In this post, I'll break down five customer review strategies you can use right away to build your brand and strengthen your brand positioning. ## Strategy one: Maximizing positive customer reviews When it comes to your brand, positive reviews are a clear sign of the things you're doing well and what your customers want more of. When you position your brand in the market, you want to make sure you win customers over by fulfilling their **unmet needs**. If you're only meeting needs your competitors are already meeting, then your brand doesn't have a reason to exist (unless you're delivering that same need in a unique way). Although it’s these unmet needs that will differentiate you from your competitors, you still need to deliver on your customers’ core needs. Despite the fact your competitors are already meeting them. Positive reviews teach you exactly what those core needs are. Research your competitors’ social and business profiles to find out what they're doing well. This could include… - Product features - Packaging - Customer service - Shipping - Discounts and offers - Advertising - Messaging … and many other things. Glassdoor and Facebook will show you how strong a competitor’s company culture is, and how happy their team is. Usually, a happy staff results in happy customers, and vice versa. So, look at your own positive reviews to give your existing customers more of what they want, and look at the positive reviews of your competitors to learn how you can serve them even better and steal them away. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/1-1.png) Zolt has an entire page dedicated specifically to reviews, offering social proof to new customers and demonstrating Zolt’s passion for its customers. Image via [https://heyzolt.com](https://heyzolt.com/) ## Strategy two: Capitalizing on negative customer reviews I recommend using all the strategies on this list to really boost your brand growth, but **if you were to only take one strategy, you should make sure it’s this one.** It's by far the most powerful. Your negative reviews tell you where you're falling short and what customers need more of. They **must** be addressed quickly and thoroughly. If they're not, your competitors will be waiting like a pack of hyenas to steal your market share, and any [temporary competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/) you might have established will quickly decay. But you can do the same to your competitors. By going through your competitors’ negative reviews, you can see exactly where THEY are falling short and upsetting their customers. From there, all you have to do is do it better. There could be a whole host of problems customers are struggling with. Here are a few to consider: - The product isn't delivering on its promises. - It takes too long to ship. - The customer service team is rude or hard to get hold of. - Customers don't value the product because of constant sales and discounts. Or maybe it's something internal such as: - Staff aren't paid well. - Company culture is poor. - Morale is low. These internal weaknesses ultimately reflect on the customers and their experience. Staff that aren't motivated or excited deliver an experience to your customers that lacks motivation and excitement. Acknowledge your weaknesses, then nip them in the bud. You should also identify your competitors’ weaknesses and capitalize on the gaps they're leaving for you to build your brand and grow your market share. > “If you don’t appreciate your customers, someone else will.” — Jason Langella ‍ ## Strategy three: Using customer reviews in your marketing plan Despite reviews being extremely powerful in the consumer buying cycle, brands rarely say *“Leave us a review on…”* or *“Check out our reviews on…”* as a call to action in their marketing campaigns. They're so focused on, *“Buy this!”* and, *“Follow that!”* that they forget one important truth: social proof really works! Neglect it, and you’re leaving big money on the table. Social proof is great for breaking through the skeptical, logical mind and accessing the hopeful, emotional mind. When potential customers see others have made the buying decision before and not regretted it, it gives them the permission they're looking for to buy. Asking customers to leave reviews is not only a great way of building relationships with them, it also increases trust with new customers. It makes buying decisions easier by adding reassurance and reducing friction. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/2-1.png) Reviews are always front and center on Amazon because they know how much they contribute to the consumer's buying decision. There are plenty of channels you can use to ask for reviews. You can use CTAs in your marketing campaigns, you can email customers, you can text customers, you can give them a phone call, you can use ad retargeting… The choice is endless. As long as you’ve delivered on your promise to your customer, they’ll gladly take the time to leave a review. So, start asking for reviews and rewarding customers as part of your marketing strategy. ## Strategy four: Interacting directly with your customers “Interact with your customers!” Sounds obvious, right? But so many brands either do it wrong or don't do it at all. You need to create a two-way conversation between you and your customers, so you can really understand their pain points and how you can help them. One great way of doing this is to set up what I call a “mystery customer”. Once a month, schedule an interview with a random customer and listen to what they have to say. This is a great opportunity to get a wide range of feedback, both positive and negative, and will give you the most realistic view of your customers' satisfaction. If you only listen to your loyal customers, you'll get stuck in an echo chamber that reinforces your existing ideas, rather than the ideas you need to hear to improve your product, your service, and your brand. [More on brand echo chambers here](https://www.venturagency.com/post/is-your-brand-stuck-in-an-echo-chamber). > “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” - Bill Gates The “mystery customer” method is also a great way to build even more personal relationships with your audience. They will really appreciate the 1-to-1 human interaction and will reward you with reviews and referrals. This leads to brand advocacy where your customers essentially do your marketing for you… for free! Lastly, make sure you're responding to reviews your customers have written online. This is a great way to show your appreciation to happy customers while addressing any issues. It's also a clear sign for any new prospects that you genuinely care, and might just be the last piece of the puzzle they need to make a purchase. --- [Positioning Statements: All You Need to Know (With Examples)Your brand positioning statement is a single sentence that sums up your competitive position - it’s your elevator pitch. If you were to describe to a new hire (or anyone else in the business) how you want people to see your product, your positioning statement would fill that role.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/06/pexels-alfred-gf-198265263-11521138.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-positioning-statement/) --- ## Strategy five: Brand positioning using customer reviews Last on our list is brand positioning. Brand positioning is all about where your brand sits in the market, how consumers see your brand compared to your competitors, and what they remember you for. By reading between the lines of your reviews, you can see if your customers see you the way you intended. For example, everyone thinks their company is “innovative”, but do your reviews back up that claim? Do your customers agree you're doing something they've never seen before? You can talk a good game internally, but you have to actually deliver on your promises and customers have to agree with you. Ultimately, it’s customer opinions that decide your positioning, not your own. You can impact their opinions, but only by listening to them and changing your behavior based on their feedback. Take Amazon, for example. They want to be positioned as the most customer-centric company on Earth with the biggest and most accessible range of products online. Are they delivering on that [brand positioning strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-strategy-examples/)? I'd say so, and I think most consumers would agree. Make sure you're listening to your customers. If they don't see your brand the way you intended, you have [a brand gap you need to fix](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/3-1.png) Brand gaps negatively impact your brand positioning and need to be addressed. ## From reviews to results As you can tell, customer reviews are an incredibly powerful tool for building a brand. By analyzing both positive and negative reviews, you can identify unmet needs and capitalize on the gaps left by your competitors. Integrating reviews into your marketing strategy and interacting directly with your customers will lead to stronger relationships and ultimately brand advocacy. Reviews can also help solidify your brand positioning and connect with your customers on a deeper level. Brands that leverage customer reviews effectively will ultimately be the ones who win in today's highly competitive market. [The 6 Key Goals of Competitive IntelligenceThis article will help you realign with the key goals of competitive intelligence. Once you do, it’ll be crystal clear which priorities you’re neglecting, and which avenues to success you’re avoiding.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/03/alex-braga-fgqKuD20A_A-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/goals-of-competitive-intelligence/) --- Enjoy this article as much as we did? Check out more of Kaine’s work [here](https://www.venturagency.com/stories). If you too have a story you’d love to share, [get in touch](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/guest-post/)! We’d love to hear from you. --- ### The McKinsey Horizon Model URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/mckinsey-horizon-model/ Last updated: 2023-11-23T11:06:57.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/05/mckinsey.png) The McKinsey Horizon Model and its horizons The **McKinsey Horizon Model**, also known as the **Three Horizons Model**, is a strategic framework used to identify and manage innovation within an organization. The model was developed by McKinsey & Company in the 1990s and has since become widely used in the business world. The framework consists of three horizons, each representing a different time frame and level of innovation: 1. **Horizon one:** This represents the core business activities of an organization. These are the activities that generate the majority of the organization's revenue and profit. Horizon one activities typically have a short-term focus and are characterized by incremental improvements to existing products or services. 2. **Horizon two:** This represents emerging business opportunities that have the potential to become significant revenue generators in the medium term. These opportunities typically involve some degree of innovation and experimentation and may require investment in new technologies or business models. 3. **Horizon three:** This represents the long-term future of the organization. Horizon three activities involve exploring new business opportunities that may not yet be fully understood or developed. High levels of uncertainty and risk characterize these activities. The McKinsey Horizon Model is useful for organizations looking to manage their innovation portfolio and balance short-term priorities with longer-term strategic goals. By identifying and investing in opportunities across all three horizons, organizations can ensure that they’re not neglecting their core business while also positioning themselves for future growth and success. Such an approach is especially useful when [facilitating strategic planning sessions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-facilitate-a-strategic-planning-session/), or when building a longer-term strategic plan. ☝️ To apply the McKinsey Horizon Model, organizations should start by assessing their current innovation portfolio and identifying activities that fall into each of the three horizons. # Allocation of resources across the three horizons Allocating resources to the different horizons of the McKinsey Horizon Model involves a strategic process that takes into consideration the level of risk, uncertainty, and potential impact of each opportunity. Here are some general steps to follow when allocating resources: 1. **Identify and prioritize opportunities:** Start by identifying and prioritizing opportunities that fall into each of the three horizons. This may involve conducting market research, analyzing industry trends, and assessing the organization's capabilities and resources. 2. **Develop strategies:** Develop strategies for each horizon based on the level of risk, uncertainty, and potential impact. For Horizon one, the focus may be on optimizing existing products or services, improving operational efficiency, and maintaining market position. For Horizon two, the focus may be on exploring emerging opportunities and investing in new technologies or business models. For Horizon three, the focus may be on exploring entirely new business opportunities that may disrupt the industry. 3. **Allocate resources:** Allocate resources based on the strategies developed for each horizon. This may involve investing a larger percentage of resources in Horizon one activities to maintain the core business while allocating smaller portions of resources to Horizon two and Horizon three activities. However, the allocation of resources should be flexible and adjusted over time based on changing business needs and market conditions. 4. **Monitor and measure progress:** Monitor and measure progress across all three horizons to ensure that resources are being allocated effectively. This may involve setting key performance indicators (KPIs) for each horizon, tracking progress against these KPIs, and making adjustments as needed. Overall, allocating resources to the different horizons of the McKinsey Horizon Model involves a strategic and flexible approach that takes into consideration the organization's priorities, capabilities, and the changing business environment. 📘 ****Suggested reading...** • [From data to actionable insights: how to build a CI program](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/from-data-to-actionable-insights/) • [How to do a competitor SWOT analysis in 5 easy steps](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/) • [Competitive Intelligence Alliance's State of SWOT Report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-swot-report-2023/) # The McKinsey Horizon Model in action: a real-life case study Amazon’s innovation strategy is a real-life example of the McKinsey Horizon Model in action. Amazon's Horizon one activities include its core business of selling books, electronics, and other products online. Amazon continues to invest in improving its customer experience, expanding its product offering, and optimizing its supply chain to maintain its market position and generate revenue. In Horizon two, Amazon is exploring new business opportunities such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud computing platform that provides a range of services to businesses. AWS has become a significant revenue generator for Amazon and has helped the company expand beyond its traditional retail business. Finally, in Horizon three, Amazon is investing in emerging technologies such as drones and autonomous delivery vehicles. These technologies have the potential to disrupt the traditional retail industry and create new opportunities for Amazon in the future. By investing in activities across all three horizons, Amazon has been able to balance short-term priorities with longer-term strategic goals. The company has maintained its position as a leader in online retail while also expanding into new areas and exploring potentially disruptive technologies. # Conclusion Overall, the McKinsey Horizon Model is a powerful tool for organizations looking to manage innovation and balance short-term priorities with long-term strategic goals. By adopting a structured approach to innovation management and investing across all three horizons, organizations can position themselves for success in an ever-changing business landscape. --- ## Put yourself in first place 🥇 Differentiation is critical. In today's job market, interview processes have four, five or even more stages. Competition is fierce, and proving your worth is getting harder. How valuable would it be to you to be able to bypass all that in the eyes of the recruiter, because they’re already familiar with your work? We're offering you the means to do just that. We’ll work with you to quickly adapt your work into SEO-optimized articles, ghostwritten guides, and podcast episodes. It’s never been easier to differentiate yourself, so why not start today? Sound interesting? [Send us a message](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io to discuss next steps. 🤝 --- ### Is SWOT analysis outdated? We did our own research to find out. URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/is-swot-analysis-outdated/ Last updated: 2024-07-22T15:15:39.000Z Remember SWOT analysis? The framework that focuses on a business’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats has been the darling of business school textbooks the world over for some time. But not everyone’s so positive about it. In our research for [the State of SWOT Report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-swot-report-2023/), we found people who disliked almost *every* aspect of SWOT analysis. These folks consider SWOT a “waste of time”, only turning to it (with an accompanying eye roll 🙄) when it’s requested from a more senior member of the team. So does that mean SWOT analysis is outdated? A relic of the past, unsuitable for use in “modern” businesses? Our findings suggest quite the opposite. Download the report ## Modern attitudes towards SWOT analysis So, how do our findings suggest SWOT’s relevance today? ### Most still appreciate SWOT **1\. Many practitioners perform SWOT frequently:** Almost 50% of all respondents to our State of SWOT survey had performed at least one SWOT analysis in the last two months. This suggests that SWOT is, at the very least, being performed semi-regularly by many practitioners. **2\. The majority of SWOT analyses are considered more successful than not:** 58.3% of respondents voted the success of their most recent SWOT analysis as at least a three on a scale from zero to five, indicating that the majority of SWOT analyses performed were more successful than not. **3\. Half of all respondents consider SWOT “very important” in achieving longer-term business goals.** Exactly 50% of all respondents judged SWOT as being at least a four out of five in terms of its ability to contribute towards the success of their org’s longer-term goals, with an overwhelming 78.6% of respondents judging SWOT at at least a three out of five for the same metric. Download the report ### Surprise: not everyone loves SWOT analysis Numbers don’t lie. But the numbers above don’t mean we saw a landslide vote in favor of SWOT analysis. Our survey-takers’ comments suggested much more mixed sentiment towards SWOT analysis. When asked what they predicted for the future of SWOT analysis, opposing points of view were clear. Comments that SWOT, **“will not be used by future generations,”** were followed immediately by **“\[SWOT\] will survive further work generations.”** One respondent’s judgment that **“\[SWOT is\] an obsolete model,”** was followed not too long afterward by an opinion that SWOT **“will always be helpful for analysis of markets and competitors.”** Some reported doubts about “a coming increase in adoption,” while others expressed wishes that “hopefully it stays the same!” And more practical comments around SWOT’s use ranged from appreciative, “\[SWOT\] should be a foundational asset that is updated routinely and part of the PMM foundational knowledge hub,” to derisive, “It's not going to be used in serious settings…” While comments were mixed, the numbers still suggest most voted in favor of SWOT analysis, its usefulness in business today, and its importance in helping businesses reach their longer-term goals. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_Blog_-4.png) #### State of SWOT Report ****Download your copy** to learn... - The five top ****challenges** you face performing SWOT, and how to solve them. - The best ways to measure ****success or failure** post-SWOT. - Whether SWOT is ****falling out of favor** in modern businesses. - The best ****alternative frameworks** and how they compare with SWOT. - The ****future of SWOT** analysis. [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ## What are the criticisms of SWOT analysis? SWOT analysis isn’t without its criticisms. Our research found a few recurring criticisms of SWOT analysis as a framework. 1. SWOT tends to **oversimplify complex use cases**. 2. SWOT is **insufficient in isolation**, and needs further work, or to be combined with other frameworks, to uncover strategic actions and next steps. 3. SWOT seems to be prone to **internal bias** and **blind spots**. 4. SWOT is **time-consuming** enough to be of dubious return on investment for practitioners in rapidly changing industries. So SWOT isn’t perfect. But does that mean it’s outdated, and should be cast out? Competitive Intelligence Consultant, Nishant John, argues that it shouldn’t. He accepts SWOT’s utility, as well as its limitations, combining it with other frameworks to get the best of both worlds: 💡 “When I'm supporting strategic teams, very rarely would SWOT be the framework we’d use to offer recommendations. It will be further refined. We’ll do a SOAR, for instance. It's similar to a SWOT, but we just take the strengths (S) and opportunities (O). Then “A” stands for ‘Aspirations’, and the “R” for ‘Response’. So it morphs SWOT into a framework that’s more actionable.”****\- Nishant John, Competitive Intelligence Consultant and Certified Strategist** 📘 ****Suggested reading**• [5 SWOT analysis benefits (and 4 limitations) from the experts](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/)• [A full guide to SWOT analysis in project management](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-in-project-management/)• [How to do a SWOT analysis of a product: a full guide for strategy professionals](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/) ## Is SOAR better than SWOT? As noted above, SWOT isn’t enough on its own. This was a recurring criticism, so we asked survey-takers which alternative analysis frameworks they found most useful – either as straight replacements for SWOT analysis, or in conjunction with it to cover some of its shortcomings. SOAR was mentioned multiple times, so we were curious as to why. In case you’re unfamiliar, SOAR analysis takes the Strengths and Opportunities from SWOT and adds two other points of consideration: **Aspirations** and **Responses**. **The first,** “Aspirations”, draws your attention to your org’s goals. Where does your leadership team want the business to be in a year, three years, or five years? These aspirations will guide you in prioritizing the market opportunities open to you. **The second,** “Responses”, directly addresses another of SWOT’s key criticisms: that it doesn’t directly lead to actionable outcomes. By forcing you to figure out what actions you’re going to take as a result of your analysis, SOAR is arguably more practical than SWOT analysis. But can it directly replace it? 🤔 Few of our respondents thought *any* framework could ever entirely replace SWOT analysis – just **13.4%**, while 76.4% of survey-takers disagreed, saying instead that no framework could replace SWOT. Perhaps SWOT analysis is too foundational to be replaced. Deep consideration of your strengths and weaknesses, those of competitors, and resulting opportunities and threats, is a core part of any business strategy. Whether you call it SWOT analysis, competitive opportunity analysis, or something else, is up to you. But [the four key elements of SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/) remain essential. ## Has anything replaced SWOT analysis? For practical reasons, it’s clear practitioners don’t like to use SWOT analysis alone when they build a strategic plan. Solid plans involve other frameworks, or at the very least go further than SWOT analysis allows by default. The frameworks respondents had the best success with were: 1. **Porter’s Five Forces** 2. **PESTLE Analysis** 3. **Win/Loss Analysis** The vast majority of survey-takers reported using *at least* one other framework alongside SWOT analysis. Interestingly, the three most-voted frameworks listed above all focus heavily on *external* factors: the market, customers, and even technological and environmental factors. This makes sense, given how many criticize SWOT for its susceptibility to internal bias, since frameworks focusing on external factors expose and compensate for internal biases and blind spots. ## TL;DR ☝️ Our research revealed that practitioners have mixed feelings about SWOT analysis. It’s foundational – many consider it common sense, and fewer than 15% of our survey-takers believed any framework could ever replace SWOT.SWOT has its shortcomings, but smart practitioners consider SWOT as just a first step when creating a strategic plan. They go further, combining SWOT with other frameworks, like SOAR analysis, or Porter’s Five Forces, to get to an actionable outcome while controlling for biases and blind spots. Psst – want the full story? **Download the full report** below. 👇 --- ## Download the State of SWOT Report We had far more questions about SWOT analysis for our survey-takers. 🎯 Which **SWOT applications** offer the best ROI? 👍 How do you measure the **success or failure** of a SWOT analysis? 🔮 What does the future hold for SWOT analysis? And how do you overcome its **inherent challenges**? Want to dig deeper into the reasons why modern attitudes towards SWOT are the way they are? Want to read the real comments and opinions of practitioners to learn how to improve your own application of strategic frameworks in your business? Grab **your no-cost copy** of the report today and upgrade your competitive intelligence toolkit. 🧰 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ### State of SWOT Report URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-swot-report-blog/ Last updated: 2024-07-19T10:55:32.000Z **Frameworks**. In times of uncertainty, they offer us stability. In times of trouble, they offer us safety. But *analytical* frameworks? These are the ones you turn to when a new competitor enters the fray. The ones you look to when markets shift and call for a change. When the landscape tilts, uncertainty reigns, and the bold look for opportunities as the wise defend competitive advantages. 🤺 Of these analytical frameworks, one has reigned supreme. **SWOT.** Loved and loathed in equal measure, SWOT analysis divides opinion, but has sat atop its semaphoric tower, guiding strategic marketers to better business decisions, for decades. But we’ve got *burning* questions. Questions like: 🔥 Is it time to turn the crown over to a **new framework**? ☄️ Where is SWOT best applied for **maximum ROI**? ❤️‍🔥 Do professional marketers even **still use* *SWOT analysis**? We’re surveyed you, the community, to find out. [Download the report](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1ulWChzqtQHeN9fGEYLCJMA2b1vun) **Download the report** to reveal how practitioners are using SWOT analysis in 2023\. This report covers everything from: - The five top **challenges** you face performing SWOT, and how to solve them. - The best ways to measure **success or failure** post-SWOT. - Whether SWOT is **falling out of favor** in modern businesses. - The best **alternative frameworks** and how they compare with SWOT. - The **future of SWOT** analysis. Ready to learn more? [Go ahead. Get your free copy.](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1ulWChzqtQHeN9fGEYLCJMA2b1vun) ### Customer-centric competitive intelligence and the CI lifecycle | Kait Smith URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-005-kait-smith/ Last updated: 2023-04-26T10:13:45.000Z Another episode of the Compete Clarity podcast is served! 🎙️ The ability to take fuzzy, low-resolution data, and turn it into actionable insights is one that lies at the core of competitive intelligence. And when you're performing competitive intel as just a part of your role, juggling that responsibility with many others makes other abilities, like prioritization and time management, absolute musts. On today's episode, Kait shares how she does it, and how the "CI lifecycle" helps her frame her work and responsibilities. Get ready for a masterclass in efficiency, cross-collaboration, and customer-centric CI. [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast: Getting ahead, or falling behind? How to thrive with competitive intelligence | Nishant John on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Compete Clarity Podcast, Ep Getting ahead, or falling behind? How to thrive with competitive intelligence | Nishant John - Apr 12, 2023![](https://t1.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/getting-ahead-or-falling-behind-how-to-thrive-with/id1678079061?i=1000608588591&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts116/v4/ff/52/20/ff5220b4-877f-5c1a-30eb-b90888ff592c/mza_5176247546700168844.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/getting-ahead-or-falling-behind-how-to-thrive-with/id1678079061?i=1000608588591) ## A bit about Kait ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/kait.jpg) #### Kait Smith Product Marketing Manager, Intellum [Find Kait on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaitlynmayasmith/) Kait Smith is Product Marketing Manager at Intellum. Before taking on her current role, Kait covered almost every aspect of the competitive intelligence spectrum. She spent time as a sales development representative, social media marketer, and business strategist. As someone performing CI as just a part of her role, time management and prioritization are even more critical to meeting her responsibilities effectively. Kait joins us today to share how she does it. ## Key talking points 🎧 Kait’s product marketing perspective on CI informed our conversation, leading us through a number of key talking points, including: • How to make your competitive intelligence program less reactive. • Why sometimes strategically matching your competitors, instead of differentiating from them, is the right move. • The three things you absolutely must be doing if you want to perform CI as efficiently as possible. [Listen now](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-podcast/?wchannelid=skfjh5zgjz&wmediaid=l3z2fud90m) ### Getting ahead, or falling behind? How to thrive with competitive intelligence | Nishant John URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-004-nishant-john/ Last updated: 2023-04-17T08:40:52.000Z A new episode of [the Compete Clarity podcast](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-podcast/) is live! 🎙️ We all know competitive intelligence can be overwhelming. If you've no formal background in CI, and are struggling to identify best practices, it can be easy to feel like you're falling behind. Nishant John joins us on the podcast today to offer advice for those that feel they're struggling to keep up with competitors. Here's how you can pull ahead and develop a compete program that puts you firmly ahead of the competition. [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast: Getting ahead, or falling behind? How to thrive with competitive intelligence | Nishant John on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Compete Clarity Podcast, Ep Getting ahead, or falling behind? How to thrive with competitive intelligence | Nishant John - Apr 12, 2023![](https://t2.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/getting-ahead-or-falling-behind-how-to-thrive-with/id1678079061?i=1000608588591&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts116/v4/ff/52/20/ff5220b4-877f-5c1a-30eb-b90888ff592c/mza_5176247546700168844.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/getting-ahead-or-falling-behind-how-to-thrive-with/id1678079061?i=1000608588591) ## A bit about Nishant Nishant John has over a decade of experience in competitive intelligence, including work in B2B SaaS and digital banking. His depth of experience really shines through on today's episode, which offers practical advice for CI pros with limited resources. ## Key talking points 🎧 Nishant’s impressive depth of experience guided our conversation through a number of discussion points, including: • How frequently to track industry data to successfully get ahead of new market trends. • When and how to keep stakeholders informed and up to date with industry developments. • How to walk the fine line between getting a hold of the data you need, and doing so ethically. [Listen now](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-podcast/?wchannelid=skfjh5zgjz&wmediaid=1g66td65aq) ### Analysis to action with the five dimensions of strategic intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/five-dimensions-of-strategic-intelligence/ Last updated: 2023-11-23T11:08:24.000Z Research is at the core of every successful business: - If you don't know **what your customers and employees want**, how can you give it to them? - If you don't know **who your competitors** are and what they're doing, how can you compete with them? - And if you don't **understand the market** in which your company operates, how can you succeed? In a world of opportunity, research is vital in aligning stakeholders and focusing priorities. It’s therefore imperative when you’re developing strategy, navigating challenges, or making any critical executive decision. We’ve used the term research so far, but before we go any further, that needs clarification. Research is a means to an end, which begs the question – what is the end that research is a means to? ## What’s your hypothesis? Research itself holds no inherent value – it’s the insight it generates that determines whether or not it’s useful. > “There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. At Ne-Lo Group, we refer to this as **strategic intelligence**. The critical first step to high-value research is clearly defining your hypothesis or research question. This is the fundamental starting point of any academic research but is often overlooked in the corporate world. So, ask yourself questions like: - What is the key strategic challenge we’re facing? - What discussion points do we have conflicting perspectives on? - What assumption(s) are we working with that we really should test? What known unknowns exist? Better still, engage your board, executive team, employees, and other key stakeholders around these questions. With clarity around these critical questions, you can design, develop, and conduct targeted research using the most appropriate methodologies for the specific questions or hypotheses developed. That is the difference between research that produces another 150-page report that tells you everything and nothing at the same time and high-value research that builds alignment, confidence, and focused action. Through our work, we’ve found the most successful businesses conduct high-value research to develop strategic intelligence across five key dimensions. --- [Competitive Positioning: What It Is and Why It’s ImportantCompetitive positioning is the most effective type of positioning strategy in marketing. That’s because it takes the competitive environment, and the spaces your product is best placed to compete for within it, into full account.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/kevin-mueller-Q-fL04RhuMg-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) --- ## The five dimensions of strategic intelligence ### Purpose intelligence Understanding the following provides a critical objective and pragmatic lens for strategic decision-making: - Why you do what you do, - What your business aspires to do or be, - How it intends to get where it’s going, - And how everyone in the business agrees to conduct themselves along the way. These elements all come together in what, at Ne-Lo, we call a Purpose Framework. The shared belief, vision, mission, and values of your organization. This appears in our model for effective research because, from a strategic perspective, a company's purpose is next to useless if it has been created without input from across the organization. Our advice is always to seek to clarify rather than create purpose. Give everyone in your organization the opportunity to contribute via a method appropriate for your company’s size and scale. Then use your preferred combination of purpose, vision, mission, and values to turn those insights into a pragmatic strategic tool. You can find out more about [Ne-Lo’s Purpose Framework here.](https://www.ne-lo.com/resources/the-purpose-driven-organisation-model) ### Customer intelligence In order to effectively focus strategy on what matters most to those who matter most to your company, you need to understand two fundamental things: - Who matters most to your company (i.e. who is your core target customer)? - What matters most to them? It sounds patently apparent, but crystal clarity on those two things is exceedingly rare. As Steve Jobs said, > “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.” – Steve Jobs Given the amount of money, resources, time, and attention companies invest in the development and innovation of products, services, and customer experience, as well as communicating the value of these to their target audience, knowing where to focus is critical. Clarity on what matters most to customers allows for clear direction and alignment of organizational activity leading to a direct and significant impact on the bottom line. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/01/cta_banner_blogs_inline.png) --- ### Employee intelligence Employee research is one of the most frequently overlooked opportunities when it comes to strategic focus. Sure, it’s common to have employee engagement and culture surveys, but these mostly fill a retrospective and/or tracking role when it comes to executive conversations, i.e., how well are your cultural initiatives performing? There are enormous opportunities for organizations that more actively engage employees in strategic conversations, both in terms of the quality and focus of the strategy itself and the culture of engagement across the organization. Giving employees the ability to influence their environment, performance, and the future direction of the business will do far more than any fruit bowls or free yoga classes. 🗞️ Employees who feel their voice is heard are 4.6 times more likely to perform at their best. – Salesforce, 2017 And in terms of informing strategic focus, who knows the inner workings of your company better than those who live and breathe it, day in, day out? The very people on the front line, listening to customers, working with your systems, handling your product? A note of caution; engaging employees in this way requires both the channels and the environment for them to have their say. It can often take a little time and nurturing, but once people across your organization feel safe to share their candid feedback and half-baked ideas, that’s when the magic really happens (thank you, [Adam Grant](https://www.linkedin.com/in/adammgrant?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs%5FminiProfile%3AACoAAAQglKkB6T3kzNMNB3hWpxGVWJbLYXNBM%5FI)). If you'll be [facilitating a strategic planning meeting](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-facilitate-a-strategic-planning-session/) in the near future, do your best to start gathering employee intelligence ahead of time, either through interviews or surveys. ### Market intelligence While Customer intelligence is about generating clear perspectives from your target audience on specific strategic questions or hypotheses (micro-view), Market Intelligence is about understanding macro trends and perspectives in the entire market towards your brand, your competitors, and the sector in general. Given your market exists in the context of broader cultural trends, Market Intelligence often includes understanding these too. Ultimately, over time your organization should develop intelligence across both the micro view of your specific customer and the macro view of the broader markets and culture you operate in to focus strategy effectively. --- [Rapidly Operationalize Any Strategic Plan in 5 Simple StepsIn this article we take you through the six steps to operationalize a strategic plan, including how to make the plan actionable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/soro-6-F4Trc09WlWw-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-operationalize-strategic-plan/) --- ### Competitor intelligence While we’ve covered intelligence about the market overall, it’s also vital to have up-to-date intelligence on how your competition responds to market shifts and trends. Firstly, you need to know who your competitors are. Again, it sounds simple, but in a landscape where tech is enabling more competition than ever while blurring the lines between industries, taking your eye off the ball could mean you miss a serious threat coming from where you least expect it. When we know who they are, we want to know their strengths and weaknesses and how they relate to our own. Coupled with our customer and market knowledge, this will give us a clear view of where opportunities and threats lie – the good old SWOT analysis. Finally, we want to develop a deeper understanding of our most immediate threats. Know their target audience as well as you know yours, including any overlap between their audience and yours. Know their marketing strategies, pricing strategies, distribution channels, and market share; dig deep and discover their strategies and tactics, so you can develop yours accordingly. --- 📘 ****Recommended reading** • [When does a low cost provider strategy beat a differentiation strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/when-does-a-low-cost-provider-strategy-beat-a-differentiation-strategy/) • [Competitive pricing intelligence can boost your bottom line. Here’s how.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) --- ## Blended intelligence Hopefully, as you read our article, it became obvious that an aligned and focused strategy requires a constant blend of the five dimensions of intelligence. The depth and sophistication of research in each area can be developed over time. Still, we would encourage you to have some insight across all five dimensions before making your next key strategic decisions, even if it’s just based on desktop research. ## In summary Research is vital, but how we define it is critical to maximizing value. Think about conducting research for intelligence rather than for the volume of data by being very clear on the question or hypotheses for each project. Over time, growing and maintaining the five dimensions of strategic intelligence will enable confident, aligned strategic decision-making that keeps you focused on what matters most to those who matter most to your company. A sure-fire way to stand out in your industry as the place people want to buy from and work for. --- ## **Looking for a soapbox? You've found it. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to **get in touch**. Don't want to write? There are other ways you can get your voice heard and build your personal brand. From podcasts to ghostwriters, we've got the avenue for you. 💯 [Give me a voice!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io?ref=competitive-intelligence-alliance) --- ### Competitive Intelligence Certified: Skills and frameworks for confident, impactful compete programs. URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-certified-blog/ Last updated: 2025-05-30T12:29:39.000Z Get certified and unlock the ultimate self-paced pathway to taming your data, mapping your landscape, and crisping up your competitive positioning. [Get certified](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters) 👩**🏼‍🏫 10 chapters 👨🏼‍💻 100% self-paced ✅ Confidence-building exam questions 📝 9 frameworks and templates ⏰ 4+ hours of content 🔖 Official certification** [Download the brochure](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/to/Kp06Dsr0?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) ### Course overview Do your team conversations about competitors swing between ignorance and panic? Usually, there’s no middle ground. It’s heads in the sand, or it’s falling skies. If you struggle to respond confidently when asked about the competition, relying on scattered links and incomplete information, then worry no more. Whether you're a seasoned CI savant or a competitive novice, this course will equip you with the fundamental frameworks and tools to refine your competitive edge. From mapping the market to uncovering the real reasons you’re winning or losing deals. From crafting untouchable positioning, to nailing cross-functional collaboration. This course gives you what you need to build a compete program with *impact*. Don't let your competitors get the upper hand. Sign up to become **Competitive Intelligence Certified** and give your org the advantage. ### By the end of this course, you’ll be able to: 🪛 Build a **tech stack** for competitive intel. 🏆 Conduct **win/loss** and primary research. 🌎 Visualize your **competitive position** with a market map. 💰 Enable sales and customer success to deliver crisp **competitive positioning.** ♟️ Bring CI to the table for **strategy** and product decisions. [Get certified](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters) ### Introducing your competitive expert… Alex McDonnell is Competitive Intelligence and Product Marketing Lead at Airtable. A self-professed qualitative research nerd, with a penchant for win-loss interviews, his research methods bias towards qualitative conversations over more rigid methods. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/alex-mcdonnell.jpeg) At Airtable, Alex builds customer-obsessed, competitor-alert intelligence programs that help sales, customer success, and marketing cut through the competitive noise with clear positioning. He’s also on-hand with his expertise to help product and strategy teams decide what to build next. For Alex, the deliverable is not just the research data, but a clear point-of-view *based* on that data. Join us inside the course to learn how to emulate his winning approach. ### All this is waiting for you: 📝 10 chapters covering every corner of the **competitive intelligence process**. 🧠 **Expert insights** direct from one of CI’s foremost thought leaders. 🧱 The play-by-play on building a **strong culture** of competitive intelligence. 🥇 Vetted processes for developing and refining your **competitive positioning.** 📒 Nine **tried-and-tested** competitive intelligence templates. ##### "This course is amazing! I feel I've unlocked the next level on competitive intelligence. This course looks at CI as a wholesome, standalone role within product marketing and offers a full-cycle framework feeding into all areas." \- Silvia Kiely Frucci, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Castor #### Don't worry, we do team rates, too. If you're looking to certify a team of three or more, speak to Tom at [t.madden@competitiveintelligencealliance.io](mailto:tommadden@pmmalliance.com) for bespoke team rates. P.S. Need help convincing your boss? [We've done the hard part for you.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/16RyWji9NZ0PkXrtq-gHOZ1tQsmh8T%5FDwIM8zgTk5rBM/edit?usp=sharing) ### FAQs **Q: Is this course right for me?** **A:** Are you a Competitive Intelligence Lead looking to cement your skills and knowledge? Or are you a PMM performing competitive intelligence as a part of your role? A Director of Product Marketing looking to enable sales, and align cross-functional teams on brand and product positioning? If any of these sound like you, this course is right up your alley. **Q: Is there a time limit on completing the course?** **A:** The course is 100% on-demand and self-paced. Once you enroll, you’ll work through the chapters in chronological order. At the end of each module, it’ll be time to test your knowledge with our confidence-building exam questions. Once you pass all these, you’ll be Competitive Intelligence Certified! **Q: How long does the course take to finish?** **A:** Smart cookies can complete the base course in about 1.5 hours. The bonus material, discussion panels, and fireside chats will take an additional 3+ hours to complete. **Q: What do I do if I don’t pass the exams?** **A:** If you fail the first time around, you'll be given the option to retake the exam. If you fail the second attempt, unfortunately, it means you won’t get the certificate. But all is not lost! You’ll still have learned LOTS, and you’ll have lifetime access to the course materials. **Q: How long will I have access to the course content?** **A:** Course takers get lifetime access! A single, one-off payment gives you unlimited reign of all the course content. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/04/CIA_Copetitive_Intelligence_Masters_Badge_2.png)](https://certified.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/competitive-intelligence-certified-masters) ### From data to actionable insights: How to build a competitive intelligence program URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/from-data-to-actionable-insights/ Last updated: 2023-10-09T10:14:05.000Z *This article was adapted from Fouad Benyoub’s outstanding appearance on* [*The Compete Clarity Podcast*](http://competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-podcast/?wchannelid=skfjh5zgjz&wmediaid=d12sun7ov0)*.* People who work with me know how much I love competitive intelligence (CI). And it’s about more than just intelligence, by the way – it's about competitive strategy. It's about how we can leverage what we know about our competitors – their strengths, their weaknesses, and beyond – to shape our own strategies and succeed in our markets. With that in mind, in this article, I’m going to show you how to build your CI program to deliver actionable insights that’ll set your organization up for success. I’ll cover: - [A step-by-step guide to building your CI program.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/f653ef71-5b5f-4fa8-a9c3-59bbd3b67ea9/#a-step-by-step-guide-to-building-a-ci-program) - [How to centralize your CI data](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/f653ef71-5b5f-4fa8-a9c3-59bbd3b67ea9/#how-to-centralize-your-ci-data) - [How to measure and demonstrate your program’s value](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/f653ef71-5b5f-4fa8-a9c3-59bbd3b67ea9/#how-to-measure-and-demonstrate-the-success-of-your-ci-program) [‎The Compete Clarity Podcast: Competitive zero to hero: where to start, and how to move forward | Fouad Benyoub on Apple Podcasts‎Show The Compete Clarity Podcast, Ep Competitive zero to hero: where to start, and how to move forward | Fouad Benyoub - Mar 30, 2023![](https://t3.gstatic.com/faviconV2?client=SOCIAL&type=FAVICON&fallback_opts=TYPE,SIZE,URL&url=https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/competitive-zero-to-hero-where-to-start-and-how-to/id1678079061?i=1000604976537&size=128)Apple Podcasts![](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts116/v4/ff/52/20/ff5220b4-877f-5c1a-30eb-b90888ff592c/mza_5176247546700168844.png/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/competitive-zero-to-hero-where-to-start-and-how-to/id1678079061?i=1000604976537) ## A step-by-step guide to building a CI program There’s a sequence I always apply when I’m building a new program or project: 1. [Purpose](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/f653ef71-5b5f-4fa8-a9c3-59bbd3b67ea9/#step-one-establish-your-purpose) 2. [Priorities](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/f653ef71-5b5f-4fa8-a9c3-59bbd3b67ea9/#step-two-figure-out-your-priorities) 3. [Productivity](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/f653ef71-5b5f-4fa8-a9c3-59bbd3b67ea9/#step-three-show-value-in-the-first-100-days) Let’s take a closer look at how you can apply this as you set up your CI program. ### Step one: Establish your purpose We’ll start with your purpose. Why are you here? What is the vision for your competitive intelligence program? Set a BHAG – a big, hairy, audacious goal – to make your organization an intelligence-driven one. That might sound bold, but it’s what CI teams are here for. 💁‍♂️ I say intelligence-driven rather than data-driven because data alone is useless. Without processing and analysis, it’s meaningless – especially if you have too many data points to follow. The real value of a CI team or person is to make sense of all those data points and transform them into intelligence, insights, and, most importantly, recommendations for the organization. ### Step two: Figure out your priorities Sadly, you probably won’t have all the budget and resources you’d like, so from day one you’ll have to prioritize certain tasks. So start talking to your managers, peers, teams, and key stakeholders to understand their reality and ask them what exactly is missing in terms of intelligence when you're fighting against competitors. When you start your CI program, you can find yourself feeling overwhelmed. Particularly if you have some success early on, people will come to you with more and more requests. If you take on everything people ask of you, you’re done – you’ll never see the light of day again, so you have to prioritize and learn to say no. ### Step three: Be productive - show value in the first 100 days! You have to have your program up and running in less than 100 days. Why? Because you’ll have to show value very quickly. Not to show off, but to prove what your program can do for your organization. I’d recommend starting small, for instance with a competitive brief that you put out on a biweekly, weekly, or monthly basis, depending on the pace of your organization. It’s important to start where you are. Look at your bandwidth, your team, and the resources available to you, then start with one deliverable, deliver it, iterate, and add another deliverable. Perhaps your stakeholders will tell you what you’re delivering is too detailed and not what they’re looking for – great! Take that feedback and optimize your program. That’s going to help you develop relationships and trust with your stakeholders. 🤝 You’ll want to give yourself a year to gather meaningful results and feedback on the program. By this time, you should have identified your most valuable sources of intelligence, implemented some intelligence-gathering tools, and started to deliver on those outputs. ## How to centralize your CI data The wonderful thing about working in the world of CI today is the vast wealth of data available to us. The downside is the sheer volume of data can easily overwhelm you, so make sure you organize and centralize it all. There are some [great tools out there to gather intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-report-2023/). Whether you choose an RSS, a more specialized platform, or just pay attention to social media will depend on your organization’s focus. 🔍 ### Where’s the data? First, you have to identify those tools, set them up, and define your sources. This gets you started receiving news and data about a competitor’s website, their product, their [pricing information](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/), their overall go-to-market strategy (GTM), and so on. But these tools aren’t your only data sources. You also have a huge amount of data available internally and coming in from the field. You just have to know where to find it. All being well, that data will be documented in your CRM. If it’s not, you’ll need to work with your colleagues to make that happen. This data might include conversations that your customer-facing teams are having with customers about what your competitors are up to. 🗣️ You may also have access to win/loss data. That might already be available in your CRM or through the colleagues looking after the win/loss program. By the way, the CI team can own that program – that’s been the case in a few places I’ve worked for in the past. ### Working internally While it's fairly easy to just set up your intelligence tools and do some competitor research online, it's both more complicated and more important to have intelligence from the field. That means you have to develop relationships with salespeople, account managers, marketers, and product marketers. They’re perfectly placed to bring you nuggets of information from your customers. Once you’ve identified the internal teams that can play a part in your program, you can start to identify your CI champions. Find the people who are excited about your program and are already sharing competitive intelligence without you asking them to. They are going to be invaluable in helping your program to succeed. ### The end goal The goal is to federate all that intelligence energy inside the organization – from sales, from product management, from engineering, from everywhere – and make sure you’re in the loop. You want to capture and centralize all those data points on each competitor. 🪝 How you do that will depend on your system. Some companies use platforms like Confluence while others use CI platforms to consolidate everything. Use whatever works for you – just make sure your data points are documented. Then you can map those data points and use them to build an intelligence-driven organization. [A Practitioner’s Complete Guide to Competitive IntelligenceCompetitive intelligence is your tool for knowing your competitors’ strategies, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses. Armed with this information, you can fine-tune your product strategy and marketing initiatives to win.In other words, competitive intelligence is your ticket to the top.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/CIA_Meta_-intelligence.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) ## How to measure and demonstrate the success of your CI program While competitive intelligence programs are often based on qualitative insights, you have to be able to measure the impact of what you're doing. ### Objectives and key results (OKRs) To do this, I like to use objectives and key results (OKRs). In case you’re not familiar with this framework, the objective is where you want to go, and the key results are how you get there. I set objectives for the year and key results for each quarter and every month. 🗓️ Let's say your objective is to enhance the awareness of stakeholders inside the company about Competitor X. To know you’re getting there, you’ll need to track deliverables that get you closer to achieving that goal. For example, presenting 24 briefs to relevant stakeholders. ### Choosing OKRs There are so many OKRs to choose from – you might aim to send a certain number of competitive alerts to your stakeholders via Slack, achieve a certain NPS for your competitive briefs, conduct a certain number of win/loss interviews, or influence a certain amount of revenue through your [competitive battle cards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/). Whatever you choose, you have to make it as measurable as possible. 📈 More important than the volume of briefs, alerts, and reports is the value they bring. You want to increase the value of your output by focusing on what is strategic, not just dumping any old news into your reports to make up your numbers. ### Aligning OKRs with organization-wide goals Your goals and key results need to be aligned with the organization's goals and key results – they can’t be set in a vacuum. Look at what the company is trying to do, and define your own goals from there. It’s not a case of “information in, analysis out.” Your output has to be tied to the product strategy, GTM strategy, and s[ales objectives](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/). This is how you’ll achieve alignment with the organization overall. ## Key takeaways 1. Competitive intelligence is not just about gathering information, it's about using that knowledge to shape your strategies and beat the competition. 🥇 2. To build an effective competitive intelligence program, you need to start by establishing your purpose, figuring out your priorities, and focusing on productivity. 🐎 3. Work closely with internal teams and stakeholders and identify those who are keen to contribute valuable insights. 🧭 4. It’s vital that you centralize your CI data to avoid being overwhelmed. 📁 5. Make sure you measure your success with OKRs that align with the overall goals of your organization. 🌎 --- ## Looking to differentiate? 🥇 In today’s job market, differentiation is critical. Interview processes today have four, five or even more stages, and proving your worth is getting harder all the time. How valuable would it be to you to be able to bypass all of that in the eyes of the recruiter, because they’re already familiar with your work? We want to help you by offering you the means to do just that. We’ll work with you to quickly adapt your work into SEO-optimized articles, ghostwritten guides, and podcast episodes. It’s never been easier to differentiate yourself, so why not start today? Sound interesting? [Send us a message](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io?ref=competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io to discuss next steps. 🤝 --- ### 🚀 Introducing the C-Suite masterclass: your ticket to executive success 🚀 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/c-suite-masterclass-course/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:50:09.000Z Calling all future leaders! Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the seemingly endless challenges and uncertainties that come with being part of the C-Suite? Have you ever wished you could just dive into the minds of industry-leading CEOs and CMOs to understand how they navigate those turbulent waters? If that sounds familiar, then buckle up because we've got the perfect course lined up for you! Introducing the C-Suite Masterclass, a four-month long interactive program designed to help you fast-track your way into a C-suite role and thrive in today's competitive landscape. This masterclass will provide you with both the theoretical knowledge and the practical skills needed to make smart decisions, even when the future seems unpredictable. [Enroll now](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass) ## 🎓 Who is this course for? 🎓 The C-Suite Masterclass is perfect for ambitious professionals from all areas (CI, marketing, PMMs, sales, etc.) who are looking to level up their leadership and decision-making abilities. Whether you're an aspiring CEO or an experienced executive looking to brush up on your skills, this course is the perfect way to learn from industry leaders and build valuable relationships with key stakeholders. ## 📅 When does it start? 📅 The course kicks off in late August 2023, with the final assignments and presentations scheduled for December 2023. ## 📚 What can you expect from the C-Suite Masterclass? 📚 This comprehensive program offers: 1. 6 x 90-minute master-class sessions with industry leaders, featuring live presentations, panel talks, and Q&A sessions. 2. 7 x 1-hour facilitated discussion sessions to encourage open debate and networking among participants. 3. Bonus footage, including fireside chats and exclusive interviews with experts. 4. A guided reflective journal to help you track your progress and growth. 5. A senior leaders behavior framework for evaluating your competencies before, during, and after the program. … and a whole lot more besides. To successfully complete the program, participants will be asked to take a short exam, complete two practical tasks, and submit a written assignment on a chosen topic. The final step will involve presenting your findings to a panel of experts in December 2023 or January 2024. [Enroll now](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass) ## 💡 Learning Outcomes 💡 By the end of the C-Suite Masterclass, here’s just a taster of what you’ll be able to do: 1. Maximize employee engagement and adoption of change to reach business goals. 2. Identify the success factors of disruptive leadership and change management, and learn how to innovate your organization's products, services, and processes. 3. Establish a company-wide vision and framework for developing and implementing a winning strategy. 4. Deepen your knowledge of the typical company lifecycle and learn how to choose the optimal competitive strategy. 5. Identify how organizations achieve remarkable results in uncertain and volatile times, using sensitivity analysis, decision tree, and Monte Carlo simulations. 6. Build effective data visualizations and tell compelling stories that convince and persuade your employees or board of Directors to act. And the cherry on top? Our course is up to $36,000 cheaper than equivalent courses, making it an incredible value for the wealth of knowledge and skills you'll gain.C ## 🎁 Exclusive Alumni Perks 🎁 Upon completing the C-Suite Masterclass, alumni will gain lifetime access to: 🗣️ A private community of fellow students for ongoing networking and support. 📕 Program content and presentations. 🏦 A bank of templates and frameworks. 🖥️ A library of ready-made Excel analyses that can be applied to your own work. For more information and to secure your spot, [**check out the course landing page**](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass). So, what are you waiting for? It's time to take your career to new heights with the C-Suite Masterclass. [**Enroll today**](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass) and prepare to make your mark in the world of executive leadership. 🌟 [Sign me up!](https://certified.thealliance.io/course/c-suite-masterclass) ### How to do a competitor SWOT analysis in 5 easy steps URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/ Last updated: 2024-07-22T15:16:09.000Z Let’s start with the basics. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. 💁‍♂️ When you conduct a SWOT analysis, you’re performing a competitive analysis through the lens of these four criteria. This lens gives you context from the start, helping you identify relevant data as you collect it, which makes the data collection process faster and more efficient. A competitor SWOT analysis is all about understanding your competitor. But how do you conduct one to help you identify opportunities in the market, raise awareness of potential threats, and construct a solid strategic plan? In this article, we show you how, covering everything from: - [The best times to use SWOT analysis.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/#when-should-you-use-swot-analysis) - [The five steps to completing a great SWOT.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/#5-steps-to-completing-your-best-ever-competitive-swot-analysis) - [Some common pitfalls to watch out for.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/#what-to-watch-out-for-while-performing-your-swot-analysis) - [What to do with your final analysis.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5b70a138-c1b1-41af-9932-b0a1573623b0/#what-to-do-with-your-swot-results) ## When should you use SWOT analysis? In our upcoming **State of SWOT report**, we identified the key factors that motivate practitioners to turn to SWOT analysis. The three most common factors were: - To understand **new** and **emerging** competitors. - To get to grips with a **new market** before launch. - As part of a **competitive landscape** analysis or **opportunity** analysis. If a new competitor has come on the scene, a SWOT analysis will unveil where they might pose a threat (or even an opportunity) to you as a result of their strengths and weaknesses. If your leadership team is considering a foray into a new market, SWOT can help you determine how your own strengths and weaknesses set you up for success or failure in that market. And general analyses of the competitive landscape and its opportunities lend themselves well to SWOT analysis for the same reasons. --- [The Four Major Elements of SWOT Analysis You Need to KnowSWOT is a framework for identifying and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of any competitive entity. That goes for organizations, products, and individuals.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/ewan-robertson-4hH8MJBQYYE-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/) --- ## 5 steps to completing your best ever competitive SWOT analysis SWOT’s all about understanding the interplay between the external and internal factors that can affect success. Typically, SWOT is focused on the entire market landscape and every competitor within it. When you pare things down to a single competitor, things get easier, since you reduce the number of players involved. Here’s the five-step process to completing a successful SWOT analysis. 1. [**Identify** your target competitor](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5b70a138-c1b1-41af-9932-b0a1573623b0/#step-one-%E2%80%93-identify-your-target-competitor) 2. [**Collate** **information** about them *from them.*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5b70a138-c1b1-41af-9932-b0a1573623b0/#step-two-%E2%80%93-gather-information-from-the-competitor-itself) 3. [**Gather external data** information about how the market sees you *and* your competitor](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5b70a138-c1b1-41af-9932-b0a1573623b0/#step-three-%E2%80%93-collate-data-about-how-the-market-sees-you-and-your-competitor) (preferably with some direct comparison thrown in). 4. [**Analyze and structure** this data using the four SWOT quadrants.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5b70a138-c1b1-41af-9932-b0a1573623b0/#step-four-%E2%80%93-analyze-and-structure-this-data-using-the-four-swot-quadrants) 5. [**Identify** **next steps** and action points.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5b70a138-c1b1-41af-9932-b0a1573623b0/#step-five-%E2%80%93-identify-next-steps-and-action-points) As you can see, not much of the process involves staring at a worksheet with S-W-O-T splayed across it. It’s much more about gathering the most objective data possible about both yourself and your target competitor – in the eyes of your target audience. ### Step one – Identify your target competitor This step almost goes without saying, but you need to consider carefully which competitor(s) you’re going to examine. Thorough SWOT analysis is time-consuming, so you have to make sure it’ll be worth your time. Pick the competitor which makes most sense to study. Perhaps winning market share from them would convey more value to your business than winning market share from other competitors. ### Step two – Gather information from the competitor itself Once you’ve picked ‘em, it’s time to learn all you can about your target competitor. We recommend starting with their own material: - Read their **blog**, and perform an [SEO competitive analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/), - Read their **product manuals**, - Read their **social media posts**, - Read their **press announcements**… When you do this, you learn a lot about how your competitor sees themselves, and how they want the market to see them. This information on their intended positioning is crucial, as it’ll help guide your research in the next step to determine how successful they are at getting the market to see them how they want. Don’t just gather information about your competitor as a *company*, though. Collect as much info as you can on the product or service itself. Even if you feel you know much of this already, it pays to take the time to sense check what you already know. You’ll feel more confident in your data as a starting point, and you’ll learn even more along the way. ### Step three – Collate data about how the market sees you and your competitor Now it’s all about performing market research. But remember the elements of the framework you’re collecting this data for. Internal strengths and weaknesses are great, but it’s super helpful to collect information on your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses too. By pitting your strengths and weaknesses against your competitor’s, opportunities and threats make themselves much more clear. 💁‍♂️ This info can (and should) be gathered both internally and externally. If you don’t have the resources for it, you don’t necessarily have to conduct a whole new batch of customer research, either. You can always just pull whatever you have on file (so long as it was collected within a reasonable time frame, perhaps the last six or 12 months). This will save you time but still give you a great sense of what the market objectively thinks your product does well, and what it does poorly. ### Step four – Analyze and structure this data using the four SWOT quadrants Collected a bunch of data? Good. Time to make order out of chaos. 🧹 Begin with the strengths and weaknesses. Both your own and your competitor’s. This should make it clear where your competitor has you beat. It doesn’t make sense to compete with them where they’re strong and you’re weak. This should also make it clear where you’re the victor. With enough thought, opportunities and threats should begin making themselves apparent. Bear in mind, though, that the strengths and weaknesses you’ve uncovered are static. Opportunities and threats, on the other hand, are transient and situational. 🍃 For example, you might get the sense your competitive advantage is under threat. There’s a growing trend of your competitor rolling out and updating new features more frequently than you, and adoption is starting to edge in their favor. If your feature set is your advantage, your competitor will be able to close the gap rapidly. ### Step five – Identify next steps and action points SWOT isn’t actionable by itself. It leaves you with a bunch of opportunities and threats, but no guidance on what to do. You’ll need to use your critical thinking skills one last time to get to a set of actionable next steps. Don’t neglect this step – it’s critical. If you leave things as they are, nothing will get done. You might have learned a lot, but by next week you’ll be swept up in the next big task and all those insights will be lost. --- [5 SWOT Analysis Benefits (and 4 Limitations)The SWOT analysis framework has its benefits, but it also has its fair share of detractors and limitations. Here they are according to our experts.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/08/carlos-alberto-gomez-iniguez-jqiAU_JQGyk-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/#porter%E2%80%99s-five-forces) --- ## What to watch out for while performing your SWOT analysis SWOT isn’t a perfect framework. It’s simple and effective, especially for getting to grips with new and emerging competitors, but it has its disadvantages. Here are the ones to watch out for: ### Problems and disadvantages with SWOT analysis **1 – Internal bias** SWOT analysis is *often* biased. Especially if you don’t use enough external data from customer research. If you [do a SWOT analysis on a product](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/) and only collect internal opinions, you’re bound to overstate the strengths of the product. Another very real danger is being biased *against* competing solutions. If by the end of your SWOT you’re looking at your competitor and laughing that they pose absolutely no threat to you, you either chose the wrong competitor to study or you’re blinded by bias. This is especially true if the market clearly values your competitor as a solution to their problems. But internal bias can infiltrate your SWOT analysis in another way, too. People are prone to believing the work they’ve invested the most time and energy into is the stuff that’s objectively the best. In this case, the features or products your teams have toiled on most are what they’re likely to believe the market values the most. This may not be the case! Again, external data and objective opinions from buyers are crucial for sidestepping the danger here. Buyers can help set you straight about the things they really value, and you might be surprised. 😯 You could, for example, find a surprising percentage of customers choose you over a competitor due to a throwaway feature you spun up in an afternoon. Don’t be tempted to dismiss this because someone tells you “it doesn’t make sense”. The data is the data. If you collected it honestly, and you’ve enough of it for it to be statistically significant, you should trust it and use it to form your conclusions. Surprises are exciting, because they’re opportunities to learn more about something you might have missed. They’re not always evidence your data is inaccurate. **2 – Limited information and blind spots** Don’t be fooled into thinking that all the information you’ve collected is all the information there is. 🙅‍♂️ Survivorship bias rears its ugly head here, since people won’t want to give you honest feedback if they think it’ll hurt your feelings. Often, only the most mild criticisms make it to the other side of the ‘good manners’ filter, when what you really need to move forward is the brutal truth. Win/loss analysis is prone to this problem if you’re conducting the interviews yourself. People might not feel comfortable telling you the harsh truth of why they didn’t pick your product. This is why so many choose to use third-party services for their win/loss programs. Lost prospects don’t feel as bad being brutally honest with people they know had nothing to do with the creation of the product. That means more truthful feedback which, while more difficult to hear, tells you exactly what’s broken. ### Solutions So what can you do to avoid these SWOT analysis pitfalls? 🕳️ **First**, make the most of your external data. Do your utmost to get data that’s as accurate and objective as possible. If that means interviewing customers and lost prospects through a third party, do that. If it means investing in training courses for internal staff conducting the interviews, do that. It’s worth your time to get accurate data that’s free from bias. **Second**, you can combine SWOT with other frameworks and analysis techniques that focus specifically on external factors and data sources to balance out any internal bias. The aforementioned win/loss analysis, as well as other frameworks like PESTLE, and Porter’s Five Forces, were the three most popular among respondents of our State of SWOT report. These ensure you’re collecting a range of data, which can offset the potential for skewed final results. --- [A Full Guide to SWOT Analysis in Project ManagementYou can use SWOT analysis in project management to increase buy-in and improve project outcomes. How? Here’s a handy, comprehensive guide.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/08/eden-constantino-OXmym9cuaEY-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-in-project-management/) --- ## What to do with your SWOT results So you’ve completed your SWOT analysis. What now? We’re going to reiterate the final step of the SWOT process: make it actionable. But what does it look like to take your SWOT analysis further? Try pulling your findings into a battle card to enable sales and impact revenue. Or pivot into another framework, like SOAR (strengths, opportunities, aspirations, response), that helps align your found opportunities with the overarching goals of your organization, before directing you to figure out a “response”, or set of next steps. Neglect this step, and you’ll have invested a lot of time and energy for nothing. Successfully translate your findings into an action plan, though, and you’ll understand why SWOT has had a place in business textbooks since the 1960s. 🤝 ## TL;DR 🏃 In a hurry? Need a quick summary of what we’ve learned? Here are the key takeaways from this article: - Use a SWOT analysis when you want to get to grips with an emerging competitor or unknown market. - Gather data on your competitor *and* yourself from both internal and external sources. - Watch out for biases and blind spots. Guard against them by making the most of external data sources. - Use additional frameworks, like SOAR or PESTLE, to help incorporate an external focus, and to pivot into action once your SWOT’s complete. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ### The 6 key goals of competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/goals-of-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2024-07-22T15:25:17.000Z When you’re doing competitive intelligence day in, day out, it’s easy to lose the forest for the trees. We’re here to show you the forest again. 🌲 This article will help you realign with the key goals of competitive intelligence. Once you do, it’ll be crystal clear which priorities you’re neglecting, and which avenues to success you’re avoiding. We take you through the six key goals of competitive intelligence, including: - [Enabling your sales team to win more deals.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/goals-of-competitive-intelligence/#1-%E2%80%93-enable-sales-to-win-more-deals) - [Informing the direction of product development.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/goals-of-competitive-intelligence/#2-%E2%80%93-inform-product-development) - [Creating a sustainable competitive advantage.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/goals-of-competitive-intelligence/#3-%E2%80%93-create-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage) - [Contributing to core business and marketing strategies.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/goals-of-competitive-intelligence/#4-%E2%80%93-aid-in-developing-marketing-messaging-and-positioning) --- --- ## 1 – Enable sales to win more deals “Competitive enablement,” as it's known, is perhaps the single biggest goal for competitive intelligence. Why, you ask? 🤔 Because the return on investment is huge. And since so many competitive intelligence teams are small (typically just one or two people), it makes sense to prioritize the business activity with the biggest impact on revenue: sales. What might surprise you, though, is that enabling sales is actually a *secondary* effect of CI. Here’s why. The best CI programs are customer-driven. They’re obsessed with finding out what makes customers buy (or not), and with driving product positioning and development into a state that gets more buyers saying ‘yes’. The ability to create effective competitive battle cards is *secondary* to knowing what buyers want to hear. What turns a buyer off a competitor while turning them onto you? As the competitive intel professional in the business, it’s your job to know and to communicate that information to sales. 🤝 --- [5 Competitive Enablement Best Practices to Skyrocket Win RatesHere are 5 competitive enablement best practices to get your enablement program off to a flying start.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/isaac-smith-AT77Q0Njnt0-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-enablement-best-practices/) --- ## 2 – Inform product development Competitive intelligence is about finding out what the market wants. You study your customers and competitors to find that out, then enable teams to give it to your audience. When it comes to the product itself, that sometimes means checking boxes on features your competitors have that you don’t – yet. When customers repeatedly choose competing products over yours because you lack a feature, filling that gap is a fast way to win back market share. Competitive intelligence can also inform your product development by urging it in new directions. [Competitive landscape analysis,](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/) [gap analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/), even SWOT analysis, can uncover a market opportunity or unmet buyer need for you. Take this information to your product team and show them what problems your product needs to be solving. ## 3 – Create a sustainable competitive advantage To stay ahead of the competition, there are a few things you must do: - Understand what makes you better (and where your competition has you beat) in the eyes of buyers. - Understand how that constitutes a competitive advantage for you. - Know whether that advantage is growing or shrinking with time. - Know the variables contributing to that growth/shrink. - Know how to eliminate shrink-contributing variables and how to pump the gas on the growth-contributing variables. --- [Sustained Competitive Advantage: 10 Superhero StrategiesThat advantage you’ve worked so hard to create? Your competitors are working day and night to replicate it, beat it, and take those hard-won customers right out of your hands. 😤 So how do you stop your competitors cloning your strategy? How do you make your competitive advantage sustainable?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/den-harrson-m-HZ2aex1so-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/) --- For example, maybe you sell **project management software** to businesses. First, you have to know who your competition is. You have to know where they’re strong and where they’re weak. You also need to know those things about yourself. Importantly, though, you need to know these things from the customer’s point of view. You might know that **Competitor X offers a Kanban board** view and the market loves that. You don’t yet, but your **integrations with third-party apps** work flawlessly, and this is more important to your target audience than the kanban board view. 🤔 Of course, this is a simplified example, there are likely to be **many* more moving parts to a competitive advantage than this. But once you’re good at competitive intelligence, you’ll be well aware of these moving parts. You might also know from buzz on social media and various press releases that Competitor X is overhauling their third-party app integrations and is set to launch the update in a couple of months. Development for your Kanban board feature, meanwhile, only kicked off last week. Your competitive advantage is under threat, and the gap could close soon. One of your Shrink-contributing Variables™ could be the speed of your development cycle (or lack of it). If you can demonstrate to leadership that your competitive advantage is under serious threat because competitors are rolling out updates and features faster than you, you might just convince them to hire more developers. Or to overhaul the structure of that team to make it more agile. Meanwhile, you could double down on your pre-existing relationships with third-party developers to mitigate your development speed problem and come up with more ways of wowing the market with how well-integrated your product is. ## 4 – Aid in developing marketing messaging and positioning Messaging and positioning are, of course, critical to the success of any marketing strategy. They’re foundational, and the success or failure of so much else can be traced back to these two pillars. But how do you position yourself in a market you don’t understand? Among other players you aren’t aware of? And how do you cobble together a messaging strategy for a set of customers you don’t understand either? While often lumped into the various “product marketing” responsibilities dedicated competitive intelligence pros don’t touch, competitive intel goes so far into informing every aspect of messaging and positioning that it’s unavoidable. We have to get our hands dirty. CI gathers data on the state of the market and the factors affecting it. It uncovers invaluable details about competitors’ strengths and strategies. It also teaches you what buyers in the market think of your product, and why they buy when they do. Market intelligence informs market positioning, and helps your messaging speak directly to those buyers. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/01/cta_banner_blogs_inline.png) --- ## 5 – Bring alignment to the business on the state of the competitive landscape Reactions to competitor developments at most businesses fall into one of two camps. 1. Immediate dismissal. “They’re not really a competitor. We have no competitors. Don’t forget that we’re *unique*, and our product is *best-in-class*.” 👼 2. Skies fall. “Not again. Our biggest competitor just launched a *better* version of what we’ve been working on for the last *nine months*. What’s the point? We’re finished.” 😵 Neither of these approaches is gonna do it. A solid competitive intelligence program will teach your colleagues that a happy medium exists. One where they’re informed. Aware of competitor developments, but not intimidated. Respectful of the real threats posed by market movements, but not overwhelmed. For the most part, all this needs is a bit of context and the promise their respected, capable competitive intelligence team is on the case. The promise of a detailed brief by end-of-week is usually more than enough to stop the hallway whispers from rising again. 🧟‍♂️ By the same token, informed data in the forms of customer feedback and deal win rates are irrefutable evidence that competitors *can* and *will* snap up your market share if leadership is hubristic enough to suggest they’re untouchable. --- [How Competitive Pricing Intelligence Boosts Your Bottom Line.A solid competitive pricing strategy positions you to capture as much market share as possible, maximizing growth potential by working smarter.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/henry-co-SDR3oDS4mOc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) --- ## 6 – Develop a culture of competitive intelligence in your organization Any competitive intelligence practitioner who’s been in the game for a while knows it’s a losing battle trying to master the market single-handed. Almost every team in your org has a vested interest in performing competitive intelligence of their own at some level. Whether it’s the sales rep doing all he can to hit targets on time, or the marketing executive doing her best to understand what’s driving buying decisions. Either way, knowing how to frame your brand and your products for best results always starts with orientation. Answering questions like: - Why do customers buy? - What makes Competitor X so successful? - How can we win more deals? …requires deep understanding of your customers, your competitors, and macroeconomic conditions. Competitive intelligence sits at the intersection of all those factors. So to answer them, your colleagues *will* have done a little digging. The most effective CI teams *encourage* such independent work actively, and create channels of communication that facilitate the free flow of competitive information. When everyone’s thinking about CI, you have that many more ears to the ground, ready to inform you of the latest rumblings in competitor developments. ## TL;DR Competitive intelligence is an exciting, growing discipline. Leaders can’t obsess over competitors all day, but they can’t forget about them either. The same goes for other departments. That’s where the value of a dedicated CI team makes itself obvious. Competitive intelligence is focused on understanding the market, your place within it, and your other competitors. All with a view to drive revenue by: - Enabling sales to win more deals. 🤑 - Informing product teams to develop in the right direction. 🫡 - Creating a sustainable competitive advantage. 🏆 - Aid in the creation of core strategies like positioning and messaging. ✍️ - Cultivating healthy internal responses to competitor developments. 🤝 - Creating a culture where CI stays top of mind. 🧠 --- ## Plug the holes in your tech stack. 🚰 **Competitive intelligence** sits at the intersection of marketing and revenue enablement. With high stakes, disparate data sources, and a mandate to leave no stone unturned, CI pros face an organizational nightmare. 🤯 So what's the answer? **Tools**. We surveyed the community and the time has come for us to **uncover these tools** and deliver them, in a beautiful, **downloadable directory**, to the screens and minds of CI practitioners of all shapes, sizes, and experience levels. 🪛 Grab your copy today. 👇 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/01/CIA_Tools_of_Choice_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ### The Compete Clarity podcast: your audio guide to competitive intel URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-podcast-launch/ Last updated: 2023-03-30T10:38:52.000Z ## Level up your compete program with insider tips from industry pros! Hey there, compete pros and newbies! 👋 Are you on a mission to create a lean, mean compete program that enables sales, informs leaders, and drives revenue? Or are you just stepping into the world of competitive intelligence and need a helping hand to make your program shine? Look no further! We're super excited to introduce the Compete Clarity podcast. 🥳 --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/03/Complete_Clarity_Podcast_CTA_Banner.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-podcast/) --- Compete Clarity is a show tailor-made **for folks like you** who want expert advice, whether you're a rookie or just working with limited resources. We've got in-depth chats with the brightest minds in the biz to help you navigate the wild world of competitive intelligence. 🧭 The first three episodes are **live right now.** Tune in and you'll get to hear from some seriously smart people: 1. 🚀 Fouad Benyoub, **Director of Competitive Strategy at Everbridge**, spills the beans on how to give your organization a strategic edge even as a lean CI team. 2. 📊 Mayur Palta, Senior Solution Architect and **Competitive Intelligence Lead at Databricks**, shares how to harness data-driven insights to supercharge your compete program and boost business growth. 3. 💡 Pat Wall, **Head of Competitive Intelligence at Imperva**, dives into the nitty-gritty of making the most of your internal resources to stay efficient, stay ahead, and sustain your competitive advantage. Take this journey with us and unlock the expert knowledge and practical strategies you need to build a winning competitive intelligence program. Keep an ear out for more episodes with top-notch industry pros, as we continue to explore the world of compete programs and help you stay ahead of the curve. 😎 Ready to join us? Find the Compete Clarity podcast **wherever you get your podcasts**, or click the link to listen right **from your browser**. 🎧 --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/03/Complete_Clarity_Podcast_CTA_Banner.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/compete-clarity-podcast/) --- ## P.S. – Looking to differentiate? 🥇 In today’s job market, differentiation is critical. Interview processes today have four, five or even more stages, and proving your worth is getting harder all the time. How valuable would it be to you to be able to bypass all of that in the eyes of the recruiter, because they’re already familiar with your work? We want to help you by offering you the means to do just that. We’ll work with you to quickly adapt your work into SEO-optimized articles, ghostwritten guides, and podcast episodes. It’s never been easier to differentiate yourself, so why not start today? Sound interesting? [Send us a message](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) at contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io to discuss next steps. 🤝 --- ### How modern sales organizations are approaching sales enablement to drive results URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-modern-sales-organizations-are-approaching-sales-enablement-to-drive-results/ Last updated: 2023-03-24T19:03:49.000Z Today, even the most seasoned sales reps are facing some serious hurdles. Budgets are shrinking. Markets and products are ever-changing. Competition is fierce. Yet, in the midst of these challenges, buyer expectations are at an all-time high. And oftentimes, sales reps aren’t meeting them. It’s really no wonder why missed quotas have become the norm. In fact, research tells us a mere **26%** of organizations indicate that **90%** or more of their reps achieved quota last year. A growing number of organizations are investing in sales enablement teams, tools, and technology to help overcome these challenges and get more reps ready to sell. This isn’t surprising, as sales enablement – when it’s done well – is proven to have a large impact on key business outcomes including win rates, quota attainment, and both buyer and seller engagement. But how exactly are organizations approaching sales enablement? Recently,[Mindtickle surveyed more than 500 sales leaders, sellers, and sales adjacent professionals](https://campaigns.mindtickle.com/sales-enablement-outlook/?utm%5Fsource=Sales-Enablement-Collective&utm%5Fmedium=blog&utm%5Fcampaign=Sales-Enablement-Outlook&utm%5Fcontent=&utm%5Fterm=) to shed light on how they’re structuring their sales enablement programs and measuring success – and how that may (or may not) change with an upcoming recession on the horizon. Read on for our four key findings. ## Key finding #1: The definition of sales enablement varies Today, many organizations claim to have a [sales enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) practice. But the reality is, the phrase “sales enablement” means different things at different organizations. So, what typically falls under the scope of sales enablement? Here’s a look at the top five activities owned by sales enablement teams: - Ongoing training: **51%** - Sales onboarding: **47%** - Sales kickoffs: **38%** - Creating a coaching culture: **36%** - Sales certifications: **35%** It’s easy to assume sales enablement teams also contribute to enabling their organization’s chosen [sales methodology](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/what-is-a-sales-methodology/). That’s true, to some degree. At organizations with an institutionalized sales methodology, **72%** of respondents indicate they’re part of enabling it. Yet, a mere **43%** have institutionalized such a methodology. Sales enablement scope varies widely. It’s important to clearly establish what is (and isn’t) in scope for your sales enablement team – and ensure this information is socialized to stakeholders. In addition, remember that all sales enablement activity should be tied back to the skills and behaviors you’re aiming to develop in your sellers. --- [Your Go-to Guide to Competitive Sales EnablementIn this guide to using competitive intelligence to power your sales enablement program, we cover everything you need to know about the discipline.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/CIA_Meta_sales_enablement.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) --- ## Key finding #2: Organizations have large enablement tech stacks – but they’re often underused More often than not, sales enablement teams have a dedicated budget for software tools to engage and train teams; **67%** say this is the case. And oftentimes, their budgets are quite large. More than half (**55%**) of those who have dedicated sales enablement budgets indicate they’re $100K or more. Oftentimes, budgets are spent on myriad solutions that each promise to address a single sales enablement challenge. The result? Large tech stacks. Just under a third (**32%**) of organizations indicate they have 10 or more tools to support their sales tech stack. But purchasing a tool doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be widely adopted. Just over a quarter (**28%**) of those we surveyed said their teams use 10 or more tools on a daily basis; **53%** use five or more. When it comes to sales enablement tools, more isn’t necessarily more. It’s critical to holistically reevaluate the tech stack on an ongoing basis to identify opportunities for consolidation. Doing so is an important way to improve adoption and efficiency – and maximize budgets. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/01/CIA_Tools_of_Choice_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ## Key finding #3: When it comes to measurement, adoption metrics aren’t enough > “You can’t improve what you don’t measure.” It might seem cliche. But it’s very true – especially for sales enablement professionals. Without continuous measurement, it’s impossible to determine what (if any) impact your sales enablement program is having on key business outcomes – and where there are opportunities for optimization. In the recent past, many organizations didn’t measure sales enablement success at all. Those that did focus primarily on adoption or completion metrics. In other words, an organization might track sellers’ completion of training modules or the percentage of reps regularly logging in to the sales enablement platform. Even today, a good portion of organizations – **36%** – measure the success of sales enablement by tracking training materials and module completion. However, many organizations are starting to realize these metrics only tell part of the story. After all, a rep’s completion of all assigned training materials certainly doesn’t guarantee success in the field. As such, more sales enablement leaders are starting to track metrics that prove the impact of sales enablement on key business outcomes. Our research found that nearly six in 10 (**58%**) of organizations measure sales enablement impact using business metrics. Such metrics might include the percentage of reps attaining quota or the time it takes for a new rep to reach a milestone such as their first deal or achieving quota. Without regular measurement, it’s impossible to prove the impact of sales enablement. This is a problem, especially at a time when budgets are under more scrutiny. If you’re not able to prove value, it’ll be impossible to secure additional resources – or retain the resources you have. At the end of the day, the goal of sales enablement is to drive sales. So now, more than ever, it’s essential to [regularly measure the impact of sales enablement](https://readinessresources.mindtickle.com/reports-guides/the-definitive-guide-to-measuring-sales-readiness?ref=salesenablementcollective.com) on key business outcomes – including the percentage of reps hitting quota and rep retention. However, it’s also critical to track leading indicators of success, such as key skills and behaviors. By doing so, you can understand true impact and identify opportunities for improvement. --- [Sales enablement manager guide: salary, key skills | CIASales enablement sits right next to revenue. With so much opportunity to impact the bottom line, there’s some eyebrow-raising compensation attached to successful sales enablement positions, with the average sales enablement manager earning $120,000.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/chris-hardy-jMILWeXY0fM-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-manager/) --- ## Key finding #4: sales enablement investments will grow News headlines are filled with talks of inflation, an economic downturn, and a potential recession on the horizon. It’s not surprising many organizations are going over their budgets with a fine-tooth comb to look for opportunities to cut costs. However, if sales enablement teams are able to prove their value, their budget is likely to remain untouched. In fact, their budget is likely to grow. 74% of organizations plan to dedicate more resources towards sales training and enablement in an effort to get more reps to hit quota in the midst of a potential recession. This number is even higher **(87%**) when looking solely at responses from sales leaders. Why the planned increase in spending in the midst of a downturn? Clearly, organizations understand the potential impact of sales enablement. Instead of hiring more sellers to hit their goals, many plan to focus on boosting the performance of the reps they already have. But where exactly do sales leaders plan to allocate those increased sales enablement resources? Here are their five top sales enablement focus areas for 2023: - Improving the strategic importance of the enablement function within the sales organization: **49%** - Measuring ROI or business impact of enablement: **45%** - Improving sales coaching efforts among frontline managers: **40%** - Driving higher adoption and completion rates of existing programs: **30%** - Creating more seller engagement via gamification, leaders, etc.: 30% ## Start getting more ROI from competitive enablement Today, most sales organizations understand the value of sales enablement. Even in the midst of an economic downturn, enablement can be a powerful, effective way to get more reps ready to sell. However, not all sales enablement programs are created equal. In fact, as our survey results prove, many lack foundational components, including an optimized tech stack and a plan for measuring success. Being a seller is only getting more challenging. Now’s the time to ensure your competitive enablement program is optimized to yield maximum ROI. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/02/CIA_Website_Banners_3.png) --- ### How to perform an SEO SWOT analysis URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-perform-seo-swot-analysis/ Last updated: 2024-07-22T15:17:08.000Z While a SWOT analysis may seem dated, it can be a useful tool for organizing your online strategy, and an SEO SWOT exercise is no exception. The SWOT method is as crucial for SEO as it is for any other area of your organization. No matter whether you’re just getting started with SEO or want to take a comprehensive look at your past efforts, a SWOT analysis will be an invaluable planning tool. First, let’s review what SWOT truly implies. It’s an acronym of the following: 1. **Strengths** 2. **Weaknesses** 3. **Opportunities** 4. **Threats** Internal elements make up strengths and weaknesses, while external ones make up opportunities and dangers. In a similar vein, although advantages and prospects may be beneficial, dangers and flaws can be detrimental. In what ways does this affect your website’s SEO? When it comes to search engine optimization, there is no such thing as a final goal. Websites competing for the same keywords will never stop appearing, and neither will algorithm modifications that shift the emphasis of SEO work. Perform SEO SWOT analysis on a regular basis to determine your current position and future course of action. You may learn what works and what doesn’t about your website’s procedures by doing an analysis every six months to a year. --- [The Four Major Elements of SWOT Analysis You Need to KnowSWOT is a framework for identifying and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of any competitive entity. That goes for organizations, products, and individuals.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/ewan-robertson-4hH8MJBQYYE-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/) \\ --- ## What’s the process for completing an SEO SWOT analysis? The technique of an SEO SWOT analysis is pretty simple. It’s smart to dedicate time and effort to planning a project for it. Although the questions and results are pretty basic, bringing the data together requires time and talent. We’ll address who should be on the team a bit later. You’ll need to ask yourself questions regarding each of the four parts of your analysis. Here are some SEO SWOT sample questions. Bear in mind, you might need to alter these based on your strategic objectives and website ambitions. ### SEO strengths 1. Which search terms do you have high page ranks for? 2. What specific parts of your content attract readers and improve search engine rankings? 3. What do you think is your site’s strongest point? 4. To what extent do you stand out from the competition? 5. Where can people find you online without you having to promote? 6. Which aspects of page speed do you excel at? 7. How can you know which channels are successful in generating interest and clicks? ### SEO weaknesses 1. Which areas of your site do you think most need maintenance? 2. What advantages do your rivals have? 3. Can you identify which specific parts of your content are underperforming or failing to meet your expectations? 4. Tell me about the times you tried to upload something, but it didn’t work. 5. Does your company have the resources necessary to do SEO work? 6. Is your budget large enough to accomplish what you want? 7. Does your website load swiftly and efficiently? 8. What are your social channel metrics? ### SEO opportunities 1. What kind of material can you create that will have a significant effect on your target market? 2. Where can you improve your website’s loading times the most? 3. Could your strengths be developed further? 4. Are there easy victories sitting in your weaknesses? 5. In what places might you find fresh backlink possibilities to pursue? 6. How many of these avenues have you yet to investigate? ### SEO threats 1. Who are your rivals, and what makes them tick? 2. Where are new competitors experiencing good SEO results? 3. How much of a lead do you now have over your rivals, and is that lead widening or narrowing? 4. Is there a possibility of future market or regulatory shifts? 5. What kind of changes can you expect if the algorithms are modified? By answering these questions, you’ll have a solid foundation on which to build your SEO SWOT analysis. The answers to these questions are only a jumping-off point; use them as a guide rather than a rule book. --- [A Full Guide to SWOT Analysis in Project ManagementYou can use SWOT analysis in project management to increase buy-in and improve project outcomes. How? Here’s a handy, comprehensive guide.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/08/eden-constantino-OXmym9cuaEY-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-in-project-management/) --- ## Where can I find relevant data for my SEO SWOT analysis? When it comes to search engine optimization, you may use any number of different tools to evaluate your site. But in the end, the process constitutes what's known as a [competitive SEO analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/). Focusing on the metrics that matter to you, such as domain authority (DA) or where you stand in search engine results pages (SERPs), is essential. The ultimate objective is to see those clicks translate into actual purchases and a rise in revenue. Use Google Search Console to investigate your website’s keyword rankings, the origins of your organic search and overall traffic, the standings of individual pages on Google, and more. For backend analysis of how quickly your website loads and how it compares to Google’s expectations, you can utilize Google Pagespeed Insights. ## Who should be on my SEO SWOT analysis project team? SEO covers a number of business procedures. It’s not a strategy focused on content creation or optimization of the backend alone. You need to focus on all aspects of search engine optimization if you want your website to start attracting quality visitors. Include the following members in your SEO SWOT analysis project team: 1. **Marketers:** They’re the ones who will use the data to build a strategy; with their help, you can research the market and the competition. 2. **Website builders:** Your site’s load times are managed by this team, so they are aware of where you are and what you can do. 3. **Copywriters:** While this may be considered marketing, a copywriter’s experience with keyword use in context will be invaluable. 4. **HR:** Having HR involved can be beneficial if there are talent shortages or places where employees need to be reassigned. ## What should I do with the info gleaned from my SEO SWOT analysis? Among the many components of an SEO strategy is a SWOT analysis. Targets for your plan might include: 1. Focusing on what you’re good at and continuing to do that 2. Improving your lackluster areas to see positive changes in your performance 3. Making the most of the circumstances you’re in 4. Taking measures to prevent harm before it happens Every step of your SEO campaign should address a weakness or opportunity identified in your SEO SWOT analysis. Key performance indicator (KPI) design and tracking are additional uses for your study. Make use of the findings to establish targets for the next three, six, or twelve months. Once the next SWOT project is over, you’ll be able to evaluate whether the weaknesses have been eliminated or transformed into strengths, and whether your intended opportunities have been fully exploited. --- ## Download the State of SWOT Report We had far more questions about SWOT analysis for our survey-takers. 🎯 Which **SWOT applications** offer the best ROI? 👍 How do you measure the **success or failure** of a SWOT analysis? 🔮 What does the future hold for SWOT analysis? And how do you overcome its **inherent challenges**? Want to dig deeper into the reasons why modern attitudes towards SWOT are the way they are? Want to read the real comments and opinions of practitioners to learn how to improve your own application of strategic frameworks in your business? Grab **your no-cost copy** of the report today and upgrade your competitive intelligence toolkit. 🧰 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- --- ### How to use competitor scorecards to quantify your competitive analysis URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-use-competitor-scorecards/ Last updated: 2023-03-14T11:12:46.000Z A lot of the time, competitive intelligence professionals deal with qualitative insights. Why you lose, how you win, what type of threat a competitor poses, is the threat growing or decreasing – questions like these are all incredibly important to track and react to. However, when you’re asked to justify your decisions and explain what’s behind them, you need to show that they’re based on more than just your gut feeling. Sometimes you need to make these insights quantifiable as actual, number-based data. When you’re in this situation, creating a weighted competitor scorecard framework can really help. Weighted scorecards are a project management tool commonly used for prioritizing decisions or actions. 🗒️ **Make a copy of our** [**competitor scorecard template here**](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kakV8REBw9JhRCqYKuQKCgfoUENWNFmKlgzXBFJhz5o/edit?usp=sharing)**.** ## Use cases for a competitor scorecard - You’re establishing a new CI function and need to understand the threat landscape and prioritize efforts accordingly to create a competitive advantage. - You’re managing an existing CI function and need to keep track of the market landscape and evaluate competitors’ rankings periodically and/or over time. - A new competitor comes up and you need to rank it against others. - You need to report your top competitors to company executives. ## Benefits of the competitor scorecard - Assigns quantitative value to your qualitative insights. - Assists in prioritizing CI efforts and resources. - Helps you provide visibility to executives and other stakeholders regarding the competitive landscape. - Enables you to observe trends over time (and determine whether the threat is growing/decreasing). --- [Use a Competitive Gap Analysis to Blast Past CompetitorsA competitive gap analysis compares the results you’re actually getting with the results you expected to get, taking into account the overall competitive landscape.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/absolutvision-uCMKx2H1Y38-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/) --- ## How to create a competitive scorecard Here’s a step-by-step guide to building your own competitive analysis framework using scorecards. ### Step 1: List your competitors The first thing to do is to make a list of the competitors you want to evaluate and create a competitor profile for each of them. ### Step 2: Select relevant criteria for evaluation Select five to seven criteria that say something about the impact of threat your competitors pose to your organization. This will be the basis for the scoring system. These can be things like: - Overlap of features between your product and your competitors. - Each competitor’s maturity as a company (their resources and financial strength). - Position in analyst reports (Gartner, Forrester). - Amount of wins and losses... …and many more. Make sure you limit your criteria to seven or eight at a maximum so you have flexibility in assigning weight values according to importance, and so the weights have significance in the total score. ### Step 3: Break down each criterion and assign a numerical value of 1 to 5 to qualitative insights Each criterion needs to be assigned values for the scoring system, but how do you score a company’s maturity or their position in analyst reports? You will first have to “translate” the qualitative insights into numerical values to get a unified scoring system. Break down each criterion into 6 scenarios, representing scores from 0 to 5, and decide on the score for each scenario. For instance, in order to translate a competitor’s position in analyst reports: - If the competitor didn’t get a mention in analyst reports = 0. - If the competitor was positioned as **Niche** \= 1. - If the competitor was positioned as **Visionary** \= 2. - If the competitor was positioned as **Challenger** \= 3. - If the competitor was positioned as **Leader** \= 4. - If the competitor is a **consecutive Leader** in these reports = 5. Wins and losses are a bit easier if you’re looking at the number of opportunities you won or lost. This is a straightforward example, but you might want to consider adjusting the scale according to your sales volume. - If you won/lost to the competitor **0 times** in the past 30 days = 0. - If you won/lost to the competitor **1 time** in the past 30 days = 1. - If you won/lost to the competitor **2 times** in the past 30 days = 2. - If you won/lost to the competitor **3 times** in the past 30 days = 3. - If you won/lost to the competitor **4 times** in the past 30 days = 4. - If you won/lost to the competitor **5 times** in the past 30 days = 5. ### Step 4: Assign weight values to your criteria Not all the criteria you selected carry the same importance in the overall threat score. For instance, it’s more significant when you lose an actual opportunity to a competitor than when a competitor is mentioned in the news. If the total score is 100%, you need to decide how much each of the criteria is worth in terms of importance out of the entire score, or what its weight is in the total score. For example: - Feature overlap: 10%. - Position in analyst reports: 15%. - Wins: 25% (Note: Wins need to be given a negative value in the table, because they benefit your organization and have a negative impact on the threat level – meaning, they reduce the threat). - Losses: 40%. - Company maturity: 10%. ### Step 5: Create your spreadsheet and calculate the scores 🗒️ **Don’t want to build one of these yourself? Make a copy of our** [**competitor scorecard template here**](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kakV8REBw9JhRCqYKuQKCgfoUENWNFmKlgzXBFJhz5o/edit?usp=sharing)**.** Score each criterion with a value of 1 to 5, according to the breakdown you decided on in Step 3. | | **Feature overlap** | **Analyst reports** | **Wins** | **Losses** | **Company maturity** | | ---------------- | ------------------- | ------------------- | -------- | ---------- | -------------------- | | **Weight** | 0.1 | 0.15 | 0.25 | 0.4 | 0.1 | | **Competitor 1** | 1 | 5 | \-4 | 3 | 4 | | **Competitor 2** | 4 | 4 | \-1 | 5 | 3 | | **Competitor 3** | 4 | 2 | \-3 | 4 | 5 | | **Competitor 4** | 3 | 1 | \-3 | 3 | 2 | Now that you’ve scored each competitor, you’ll want to multiply each score by the weight, and then calculate the total score average for each competitor, like this: | | **Feature overlap** | **Analyst reports** | **Wins** | **Losses** | **Company maturity** | **Total score** **(Average \* 100)** | | ---------------- | ------------------- | -------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------ | -------------------- | ------------------------------------ | | **Weight** | 0.1 | 0.15 | 0.25 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 1 | | **Competitor 1** | 1 \* 0.1 = **0.1** | 5 \* 0.15 = **0.75** | \-4 \* 0.25 = **\-1** | 3 \* 0.4 = **1.2** | 4 \* 0.1 = **0.4** | 0.29 \* 100 = **29** | | **Competitor 2** | 4 \* 0.1 = **0.4** | 4 \* 0.15 = **0.6** | \-1 \* 0.25 = **\-0.25** | 5 \* 0.4 = **2** | 3 \* 0.1 = **0.3** | 0.61 \* 100 = **61** | | **Competitor 3** | 4 \* 0.1 = **0.4** | 2 \* 0.15 = **0.3** | \-3 \* 0.25 = **\-0.75** | 4 \* 0.4 = **1.6** | 5 \* 0.1 = **0.5** | 0.41 \* 100 = **41** | | **Competitor 4** | 3 \* 0.1 = **0.3** | 1 \* 0.15 = **0.15** | \-3 \* 0.25 = **\-0.75** | 3 \* 0.4 = **1.2** | 2 \* 0.1 = **0.2** | 0.22 \* 100 = **22** | After you’ve completed the calculations, you’ll be able to see the ranking of competitors. In this case, Competitor 3 got the highest score, therefore it is the top competitor. The ranking would be: 1. Competitor 2 - biggest threat. 2. Competitor 3. 3. Competitor 1. 4. Competitor 4. What’s great about these scorecards is the numbers-based methodology for ranking and analyzing your competitors, rather than relying on verbal insights or your gut. Now you can put any new competitor into this framework and rank their threat level against others’. Do this evaluation once a month for a recurring snapshot and trend over time, and keep track of the trailing 12-month score for a more complete picture. Good luck! 🗒️ **Get a copy of our** [**competitor scorecard template here**](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kakV8REBw9JhRCqYKuQKCgfoUENWNFmKlgzXBFJhz5o/edit?usp=sharing)**.** --- ## Plug the holes in your tech stack. 🚰 **Competitive intelligence** sits at the intersection of marketing and revenue enablement. With high stakes, disparate data sources, and a mandate to leave no stone unturned, CI pros face an organizational nightmare. 🤯 So what's the answer? **Tools**. We surveyed the community and the time has come for us to **uncover these tools** and deliver them, in a beautiful, **downloadable directory**, to the screens and minds of CI practitioners of all shapes, sizes, and experience levels. 🪛 Grab your copy today. 👇 [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/CIA_Tools_of_Choice_2023_CTA_Banner_.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-report-2023/) --- ### "I highly appreciate the content and the helpful community." - Nico Trofim-Bancila, Spryker URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/community-case-study-nico-trofim-bancila/ Last updated: 2023-03-03T10:05:34.000Z Nico Trofim-Bancila is Product Marketing Manager at Spryker, and has almost a decade of experience managing various marketing functions. Since joining the Competitive Intelligence Alliance community, Nico has engaged, offered helpful insights, and promoted thought-provoking discussions. We sat down with her to discuss her experience as a [Competitive Intelligence Alliance Slack community member](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/), including: - Her motivations for joining the Competitive Intelligence Alliance. - What Nico has found most valuable about engaging with the community. - The aspects of Competitive Intelligence Alliance she would most strongly recommend to friends and colleagues. ## Nico's motivations for joining the community, and how being a member has helped her in her career. **Q: What were your motivations for joining the CIA community?** A: I wanted to receive and share more in-depth information around CI and competitive enablement. **Q: How has being a member of the CIA community helped you in your career aspirations or goals? For example, has it given you a platform to share knowledge and/or to learn?** A: Precisely this. Facilitated the exchange of information. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/03/CIA_Website_Banners_2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ## What Nico has found most valuable about being a part of the community **Q: What have you found most valuable about engaging with the community, and which aspects would you recommend most strongly to a friend or colleague?** A: I highly appreciate the content, the helpful community, and for the US I suppose it's really nice to have access to jobs in the field. Especially in these times. I'd recommend both the content and the community and, depending on experience, the dedicated CI course or sales enablement course. **Q: Anything else you’d like to share about your experiences?** A: You are wonderful, keeping the engagement alive, and CIA is a wonderful space for resources. --- Our **competitive intelligence community on Slack** gives you the opportunity to interact with other CI practitioners. Join today to ask questions, share resources, and network with the best. [Join the Slack Community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### 5 ways to increase revenue with marketing automation URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/ways-to-increase-revenue-marketing-automation/ Last updated: 2025-06-02T08:55:13.000Z Marketing automation is the process of leveraging technology to automate marketing tasks and workflows. This can include email campaigns, social media campaigns, website tracking, etc. It’s a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes that allows them to automate their marketing processes, which results in increased revenue and improved ROI. Automation can help marketers focus on the most effective strategies and tactics, this allows them to be more productive and efficient in their campaigns. Additionally, automation can help marketers better understand customer behavior and preferences, allowing them to create more targeted messaging that will drive higher conversions and revenue. With the right MarTech stack, businesses can use marketing automation to maximize their revenue potential. Here are just some of the ways you can leverage marketing automation to increase revenue. - [Establish clear goals and objectives for automated campaigns](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5ebe7a00-6028-4488-b080-aa719726bd93/#1-establish-clear-goals-and-objectives-for-automated-campaigns) - [Invest in high-quality content](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5ebe7a00-6028-4488-b080-aa719726bd93/#2-invest-in-high-quality-content) - [Shorten the sales cycle](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5ebe7a00-6028-4488-b080-aa719726bd93/#3-shorten-the-sales-cycle) - [Maximize the customer lifecycle](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5ebe7a00-6028-4488-b080-aa719726bd93/#4-maximize-the-customer-lifecycle) - [Multichannel campaign automation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5ebe7a00-6028-4488-b080-aa719726bd93/#5-multichannel-campaign-automation) ## 1\. Establish clear goals and objectives for automated campaigns Automated campaigns are an effective way to reach your target audience and achieve your desired results. However, it’s important to establish clear goals and objectives before launching any automated campaigns. This will help ensure the campaign is successful in achieving its desired outcome. It will also help you measure the campaign’s effectiveness, so you can make adjustments as needed. Establishing clear goals and objectives for your automated campaigns will allow you to get the most out of them and maximize their potential for success. When setting these goals, consider factors such as customer segmentation, customer lifetime value (CLV), cost per acquisition (CPA), and return on investment (ROI). By setting goals that match your overall marketing strategy, and how you can achieve the right outcome, you can ensure that your automation efforts are optimized for maximum ROI. --- [Rapidly Operationalize Any Strategic Plan in 5 Simple StepsIn this article we take you through the six steps to operationalize a strategic plan, including how to make the plan actionable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/soro-6-F4Trc09WlWw-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-operationalize-strategic-plan/) --- ## 2\. Invest in high-quality content Quality content creation is essential for any business that wants to be successful online. Investing in quality content creation can help you reach your target audience, build trust with them, and increase conversions. Generating the right kind of content involves extensive research into keywords, creating engaging copy that resonates with the user, and optimizing it for search engine rankings. Content creation also requires an understanding of how people use the internet and what kind of content they’re looking for. Video, for example, is by far the most popular type of content, with online videos having an audience reach of[ 92% among internet users worldwide](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1254810/top-video-content-type-by-global-reach/). However, not all business models will be well suited to video content. But alongside the classic blog article and other written formats like reports and white papers, there are also audio formats, such as podcasts, or even visual mediums like infographics. So, where can automation come in? Not all content is for all people. No matter how well-written an article is, there are some people who just won’t sit down to read it, but they may watch a video instead. This is where segmentation and automation go hand in hand. Rather than manually sending out your content to your user base, automation software can do that for you. And when combined with AI technology, it can even determine who among your audience responds most positively to certain types of content, and automatically send them more of that content type in the future. We all know audiences want[ more personalization from companies](https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/spotlight-marketing-personalization). So, by utilizing automated content distribution and AI software, you’ll be providing your audience with only the content they’re interested in, which in turn keeps them interested and less likely to unsubscribe from your messaging. ## 3\. Shorten the sales cycle Automation is the key to shortening the sales cycle and increasing revenue. Marketers can save time and money by automating processes like email marketing, content creation, lead nurturing, customer segmentation, and more. By leveraging automation, marketers can focus on activities that directly drive revenue. Automation can help nurture leads from the top of the funnel down to the bottom. It can: - Identify the activities of each lead on a company’s website, - Track their engagement with email campaigns, - Look at all their social media interactions with the brand, ... and then compile all this information to ensure the most relevant messaging is pushed to them via the right channel at the right time. With all this data to hand, marketing automation can speed up the process it takes for an individual to go from prospect to buyer. This frees up both marketers and the sales team to focus on even more leads, allowing them to drive more revenue. --- [Your Go-to Guide to Competitive Sales EnablementIn this guide to using competitive intelligence to power your sales enablement program, we cover everything you need to know about the discipline.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/CIA_Meta_sales_enablement.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) --- ## 4\. Maximize the customer lifecycle With an automated system, your power to analyze customer data increases exponentially. With automatically generated, detailed reports, you can more easily identify patterns within your user base, so you can maximize the customer lifecycle with up-selling and cross-selling. Thanks to the comprehensive dashboard provided by your automated system, you’ll have a complete overview of a lead’s behavior, purchase history, and post-purchase activity. All this information is not only invaluable for the sales team, who can push the most relevant products and services. Marketing can also use this info to better understand customers and determine the materials that'll influence future purchasing decisions. When you get the most from each customer, you can generate more revenue and a higher ROI for your marketing efforts. ## 5\. Multichannel campaign automation It’s not enough for a marketing campaign to be limited to just one channel. Campaigns need to be launched across multiple channels and platforms. While a large audience base can be found on any platform, you significantly increase your reach by casting your net wider across the web. Thanks to marketing automation, this is no longer such a monumental task. With targeting and segmentation, you can coordinate your campaigns across multiple channels and send highly relevant product recommendations to the right people through targeted ads, push notifications, social messaging, and more. By automating some or all of these processes, you can better monitor and track your campaigns across many platforms, and evaluate how they’re performing. It takes care of some of the more time-consuming aspects of marketing and provides prospects with a better experience. ## Final thoughts Marketing automation can be a fantastic investment for businesses of all sizes. When executed effectively, it allows companies to achieve their marketing goals and boost revenue, while freeing up marketers and the sales team to focus on those more creative tasks that can’t be automated. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/02/CIA_Website_Banners_3.png) ### What is a sales enablement maturity model? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-sales-enablement-maturity-model/ Last updated: 2023-02-23T12:50:28.000Z Sales enablement is undeniably a fast-growing discipline. A decade ago, if you had mentioned sales enablement, most people would have given you a puzzled look. Now? It’s a need-to-have in ambitious organizations wanting to drive their sales teams to greater success. Our [Sales Enablement Landscape Report 2022](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-landscape-vol-2/) found that 60.9% of our respondents’ enablement teams were established less than three years ago. That surge in popularity and recognition has resulted in a wave of conversation about sales enablement maturity and how one should measure the stage at which their sales enablement function is at. The issue with that is that sales enablement can vary greatly in roles and responsibilities across different sales organizations. Across the web, you’ll find maturity models with four stages, five stages, and even six stages – and often the stages will be named slightly differently. In this article, we’re going to look at: - [What is a sales enablement maturity model?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/e6efb7f3-aa0f-451f-a08a-ee23b326b818/#what-is-a-sales-enablement-maturity-model) - [Why a maturity model can help your sales enablement team](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/e6efb7f3-aa0f-451f-a08a-ee23b326b818/#how-can-a-maturity-model-help-your-sales-enablement-team) - [The maturity stages](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/e6efb7f3-aa0f-451f-a08a-ee23b326b818/#sales-enablement-maturity-stages) - [Cheat sheet](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/e6efb7f3-aa0f-451f-a08a-ee23b326b818/#cheat-sheet) While no model is perfect – everyone has differing views and opinions on enablement’s maturity – this article broadly outlines the key stages and what separates them from each other. Let’s examine it in more detail. 👇 ## What is a sales enablement maturity model? As we stated earlier, different sales organizations will be at various stages of their sales enablement journey. An enablement function that’s been around for more than 7 years (9.5% of our [aforementioned report’s](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-landscape-vol-2/) respondents) is much more likely to be an established, strategic part of the organization than a brand-new, one-person team. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/1-1.png) **This graph shows how long the report's respondents' organizations have had an enablement function.** A maturity model or framework gives you the opportunity to look at your sales enablement team in the big picture. It outlines what sales enablement looks like at each stage of maturity, and how it interacts with the rest of the business as it matures. ## How can a maturity model help your sales enablement team? What makes a maturity model useful is that you can use it to plot where you are on your enablement journey, and use it to guide a long-term vision for your team. As your enablement team matures, your interactions with marketing, sales, sales operations, and senior leaders in your organization will change and evolve. Having a maturity model helps you evolve in the right direction. The ultimate goal for a sales enablement team is usually to become a strategic function in the organization, moving from ad-hoc fire-fighting or tactical pieces of training to creating data-driven, strategic initiatives to back up business objectives. This can’t happen overnight, so it’s important to have a maturity model or framework to help you track your progress and set goals. --- [Your Go-to Guide to Competitive Sales EnablementIn this guide to using competitive intelligence to power your sales enablement program, we cover everything you need to know about the discipline.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/CIA_Meta_sales_enablement.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) --- ## Sales enablement maturity stages Now, we’ll look into the stages – remembering that the names and definitions aren’t set in stone and can vary depending on whom you ask. ### Stage 1: Ad-hoc/undefined ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/2.jpg) Often, you’ll see ad-hoc and undefined maturity stages listed separately, as stage one and two. For this model, we’ll combine them, as they’re quite similar. At this early stage of maturity, often seen in high-growth startups, enablement doesn’t have truly defined roles or responsibilities and often won’t have its own dedicated team. The goal is to try to support the sales team, but the structures aren't in place to do that effectively. Training is done on a case-by-case basis, with little proactive effort – not necessarily out of neglect, but because the time and resources aren’t there to implement solid enablement processes. Cross-functional collaboration is critical to successful enablement but, at this stage of maturity, there’s no clear path to working with marketing, sales ops, and other stakeholders. Regarding the tech stack, there isn’t much in place at this point. A customer relationship management system (CRM) might be in place, but it’s not properly aligned to the organization’s sales process or to maximize reps’ sales performance. ### Stage 2: Tactical/reactive ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/3.jpg) At this stage, we start to see a better-supported sales team, but there’s still a lot of room to grow. Sales leaders and the organization as a whole should have a somewhat decent understanding of what enablement is and what it brings to the table. There will more than likely be a dedicated enablement team, even if it only consists of one person. Training might have some structure, such as being periodic, but it’s not supported by data or individualized to sellers’ strengths and weaknesses. Sales content and collateral exists, but is probably disorganized and accessing it is not as efficient as it should be – meaning less time spent selling. Onboarding processes are formally set up, but again, are lacking efficiency. The tech stack will start to come together at this point, with the CRM having a good level of attainment among reps. A basic level of metrics-tracking will take place too; however, it’s likely with an aim of proving the value of enablement more than truly understanding rep issues. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/01/cta_banner_blogs_inline.png) --- ### Stage 3: Progressive/integrated ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/4.jpg) This stage is when we see sales enablement really come into its own. When enablement reaches a progressive stage, it starts truly driving reps towards their sales objectives and making a claim for a seat at the table with the organization’s leaders. Collaboration with other functions, such as marketing and product marketing, should be happening (on the creation of up-to-date content, for example) and silos should be limited – with other departments understanding of enablement’s value and willing to support. **Enablement is a partner to these departments.** Training starts to look beyond just reactive and routine pieces, and pilot initiatives should be explored and backed by data. Repetitive processes like onboarding and SKOs should be continuously iterated upon and improved based on data and feedback in order to drive improved sales performance. When it comes to tech stack, the CRM should be integrated with your sales methodology, and the stack can start to expand into content management systems (CMS), learning management systems (LMS), conversational intelligence (CI) tools, and more. Processes, automations, and integrations should be clear to team members. ### Stage 4: Strategic/mature ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/5.jpg) This fourth and final stage of maturity is the ideal state for an enablement team to be in. Sales enablement is an established and trusted consultant to the organization that acts strategically to align with the business’s objectives in the long-term. Sales enablement not only has a seat at the table, but is a major player – in some cases directly reporting to the C-Suite (to a Chief Revenue Officer, for example). Beyond just being considered a partner to other functions, sales enablement is seen as a critical driver of business success and revenue growth. Onboarding and continuous development are seamlessly linked, with data-driven insights allowing for specialized group and individual coaching. Content is organized and easily accessible in order to increase rep selling time. All of this is tied into a proactive, long-term sales enablement strategy. The tech stack should be fully integrated, with a CRM at the heart of it and data reporting available from a single source of truth. Other sales enablement tools such as CMS, LMS, CI, and artificial intelligence and automation tools should all be focused on maximizing rep selling time. They should also put your team in an ideal position to *develop* its selling skills. ## Cheat sheet Here, you’ll find a quick visual guide with the key points to remember when it comes to sales enablement maturity stages. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/6.jpg) ## Summary Wrapping up, we can see that a sales enablement maturity model is useful as it allows you to track your team’s sales enablement journey – and the progress you’ve made in growing, maturing, and developing. From stage one, where your enablement is very ad-hoc and might not even have a dedicated team, to stage four (or five, depending on who you ask!), a mature, strategic enablement team that has a seat at the table and is a major player in your organization. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/CIA_Website_Banners_2-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) **Join hundreds of your competitive enablement peers in our ever-growing Slack community. Network, idea-share, and learn from the community today.** --- ### Retail competitive intelligence: What is it, and what can you do with it? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/retail-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2023-10-09T10:14:57.000Z Here at Competitive Intelligence Alliance, we often speak about CI for businesses operating in the online B2B space. The many perks of competitive intelligence, though, are available to any type of organization. That includes retailers. Whether you’re an online retailer or a brick and mortar chain, competitive intelligence can help you stay ahead of the curve, reverse engineer your rivals’ competitive advantages, and win new market share. In this article, we’ll cover: - [What we mean by retail competitive intelligence.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/443509ab-ef15-44aa-9b35-0abfa19ff826/#what-do-we-mean-by-retail-competitive-intelligence) - [Why competitive data is crucial for retailers.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/443509ab-ef15-44aa-9b35-0abfa19ff826/#why-competitive-intelligence-is-crucial-for-retailers) - [What you can use retail competitive data for.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/443509ab-ef15-44aa-9b35-0abfa19ff826/#what-can-you-use-competitive-intelligence-for-in-retail) ## What do we mean by retail competitive intelligence? Let’s break it down. Competitive intelligence refers to either: 1. The practice of collecting and analyzing data on industry competitors and alternatives. 2. The actual data itself that you have on your competitors. Applied to retail, then, competitive intelligence is just that: data retail businesses collect and analyze on their competitors. But why do businesses do this? In short, businesses like competitive intelligence data because it helps them create a [competitive advantage they can sustain over time.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/) When you gather this data efficiently, you can analyze it and use your conclusions to inform strategic business decisions. This is true for both brick and mortar chains and online stores, which segues handily into the next section. 🍃 ## Why competitive intelligence is crucial for retailers. ### Retail has its own challenges While the core processes of competitive intelligence apply across the board, performing competitive intelligence in retail has its own set of challenges. Your rivals might not have much of a presence online, giving you fewer sources of accurate information. That’s a shame, as without a dedicated data collection process in place, you’re left to hear about competitive developments third-hand. Often, these come far too late for you to do anything about them, are riddled with errors, and spread undue fear through your org. In short, a lack of data makes you reactive, while an abundance of good data empowers you to be proactive and strategic. ### Internal data isn’t enough Your internal data isn’t enough. You might know which of your locations are seeing the most sales and which products are selling best. You might even be able to forecast and make decisions based on this data. But it’s only half the story. When you have data on your competitors, you can let them take on the risk of developing new products for you. Then, you can analyze market appetite for those products. You can even do customer research on those products to learn what customers like and dislike about the competitor’s offering, so you can improve upon it. Intelligence on competitors helps you see market trends coming. What’s more, it gives you the data to analyze those market trends, and use your findings to reduce risk and mitigate competitor advantages. ### Data offers freedom Many retail businesses are forced to compete on price when they lack data. When sales drop, they lower their prices to encourage consumers to buy. Without a firm understanding of where the sales you lose are going and why, and of the state of the competitive environment, your business decisions are anything but strategic. You’re forced to guess what to do. When you have more data, not only can you be more strategic, but you have more room for error. You’re less anxious, because nothing takes you by surprise. You’re less stressed, because you know what you have to do before it comes time to do it. [A Practitioner’s Complete Guide to Competitive IntelligenceCompetitive intelligence is your tool for knowing your competitors’ strategies, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses. Armed with this information, you can fine-tune your product strategy and marketing initiatives to win.In other words, competitive intelligence is your ticket to the top.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/CIA_Meta_-intelligence.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) ## What counts as retail competitive intelligence data? So competitive intelligence is important, even in retail marketing. But what kinds of data constitute CI for retailers? Here are some of the most relevant: 1. [Competitor pricing intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/). 2. Competitor conversion data. 3. Competitor product data. 4. Human mobility data. 5. Foot traffic data. **Competitor pricing data** is data on how your competitors are pricing their products; this includes data on discounts and promotions. Pricing data is incredibly valuable, but can be difficult to get hold of, especially if you want to [ethically gather competitor data](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-ethics/) of this kind. **Competitor conversion data** is information about how many visitors (online or in-store) your competitors are able to convert into paying customers or qualified leads. Knowing this data can give you a benchmark against which to measure your own business, opening the door to a [competitive gap analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/) if you find yourself falling behind. **Competitor product data** tells you everything you need to know about the features and flaws of your competitors’ products. When you have this data, you can reverse engineer their successes and stamp any flaws out of your own products to learn from them as if you were taking on that risk yourself. **Human mobility data** is information about migratory trends. If lots of people are moving out of one area and into another, this can and should inform decisions about which locations you expand into next. When you have data on the physical locations of competitors’ stores, you can analyze them with human mobility data to see what you can learn about their growth strategy. **Foot traffic data** helps you decide where in town to open your next brick and mortar store. More foot traffic means a more desirable, more profitable (but also more expensive) location. Comparing foot traffic data with other competitor data helps you find the best deals for your business. When a competitor has a location with more foot traffic than yours, you can make more informed decisions about their sales figures in relation to your own. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/01/CIA_Tools_of_Choice_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) ## What can you use competitive intelligence for in retail? Here are some of the ways you can use competitive intelligence in your retail business: ### Understanding the draw of a competitor What makes customers want to buy from your competitors? If you can understand the factors that go into customers’ purchasing decisions, then you can reverse engineer (and improve upon) a rival’s competitive advantage. Customers might like the consistency of your competitor’s buyer experience in every store. They might love the social status conferred by being seen to own a product from a reputable brand. Or, it might be that their products have particular features. When you combine customer perspectives like these with competitive pricing data, or even product and conversion data, you get a much more complete picture of why your competitors might be winning. Crucially, this helps you identify what you need to do to win back some of that lost ground. ### Analyzing competitor pricing Even if you’re not interested in competing on price and commoditizing your product, it’s useful to know [where key competitors position themselves](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) with their pricing strategies. This can also give you insights into other aspects of competitors’ marketing strategies. These include the sizes of discounts, and what’s included in special offers and promotions. [How Competitive Pricing Intelligence Boosts Your Bottom Line.A solid competitive pricing strategy positions you to capture as much market share as possible, maximizing growth potential by working smarter.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/henry-co-SDR3oDS4mOc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) ### Gaining a deeper understanding of the competitive environment When you understand your competitors’ positioning, pricing, and products, you understand the competitive environment itself. This empowers you to make strategic decisions about your own positioning, pricing, and products to help you identify new market opportunities and grab them. This is true whether your business model has you operating online, on the high street, or both. In fact, competitor data can be even more readily available for online businesses, thanks to competitive intelligence solutions and software, which make it easier to get up to speed with competitor developments. ## TL;DR Let’s summarize what we’ve learned. - Retail competitive intelligence is just that: CI applied to retail businesses. It comes with its own set of challenges, as online sources of data may be harder to come by. - Retail businesses need CI data because internal data isn’t enough to sustain a competitive advantage in the modern market. - Competitor pricing, product, and conversion data are super helpful, but other metrics like foot traffic can be just as important while being unique to retail. - Use CI to understand where and why your competitors beat you. Get to know the competitive environment, then seize the opportunities available to you. --- ## After more actionable advice? We wrote the Competitive Positioning Playbook to walk you through the **best practices** and processes to gather data, **identify market opportunities**, and position yourself to **capitalize on them**. All with the help of competitor data and customer research. Download your copy today, free of charge, no strings attached. Download the playbook! --- ### Why pricing based on value is better than pricing on cost URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/why-pricing-based-on-value-is-better-than-pricing-on-cost/ Last updated: 2024-01-26T11:02:03.000Z Simple question: is your business making enough money? No? Are your margins disappearing as inflation bites? Maybe it’s time to look at the way you price. When we start working with them, most clients are pricing on cost. They calculate inputs and add what they think is a reasonable margin. Too often, they have no real idea of what their competitors charge and whether their pricing is competitive in their market. Even worse, there’s no handle on which customers are the most profitable and where they should focus on growing their business. As a result, they struggle. Everyone’s working flat out, but profitability is dropping like a stone. And it’s particularly tough now with inflation at a record high. We suggest they start thinking differently about pricing. Instead of looking through a cost lens, we encourage them to shift their mindset to the value they’re offering. This can yield incredible results. # Clarity on proposition Before you start thinking about pricing, you need to be clear on your proposition. [Who is your core customer?](https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com/blog/how-to-get-total-clarity-on-the-identity-of-your-core-customer/) What problem do they have? How can your product or service solve this? Whilst this sounds great in theory, it can be challenging in practice. That’s why we use a tool called [‘attribution mapping’.](https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com/blog/struggling-to-nail-your-strategy-you-need-an-attribution-map/) This will give you a full picture of your market position and a practical roadmap of activity for the next three years. The aim is to get you to a place where your company isn’t competing with any other. That way, you won’t come under price pressure, and customers will be happy to pay based on your value. # Cultivate expertise A great starting place if you’re interested in value-based pricing is to read *The Win Without Pitching Manifesto*. Here’s an insightful quote from its author, Blair Inns: > *“Expertise is the only valid basis for differentiating ourselves from the competition. Not personality. Not process. Not price. When the client has few alternatives to our expertise, we can dictate pricing, set the terms of the engagement, and take control.”* That is really good advice. Your customer has a problem, and you need to position yourself as the only expert that can help them. There is value in solving their problem, and you need to quantify this value. For example, a CEO will call me and ask for my help. Before we get into any detail, I ask them what it’s worth to them to solve this. I like to think they’ll get a 10x return from my fee. If they find this, my price becomes an investment, not a cost. I price by working back from the value I offer. # Be the most expensive in your market Another good read is Andrew Griffiths’ book, *Someone Has To Be The Most Expensive – Why Not Make It You?* I agree with his sentiment. If you can cultivate expertise and a differentiated strategy, you can charge more than your competitors. This will also force you to obsess about creating enough value. I spoke to [Hermann Simon for our Melting Pot podcast](https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com/podcast/how-to-become-a-hidden-champion-with-hermann-simon/) a while back. A well-known author and speaker, he’s just published an updated version of his book ‘Hidden Champions’. In it, he profiles 3000 highly successful businesses that are market leaders in what they do. They have a 15% higher sale price which translates into three times the profitability of their competitors. [And this is all down to their expertise and focus.](https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com/blog/why-your-growth-strategy-needs-focus-and-depth-on-attributes/) # Adjust your business model You may need to change your business model to move towards a value-based pricing method. If you’re selling a commoditized product, there will be a price for that in the market. This may go against you if you’re trying to switch to value. If your customer sees you as a vendor, they’ll have a price assumption. Many of our clients have products that are similar to others. They’re engaging customers too late – when they’ve gone to market to look for a solution. If they were to sell their expertise further upstream, they could target these customers before they go to market. When you help customers understand their internal problems sooner, they gain an opportunity to demonstrate their expertise *and* charge more based on their value to the customer. Not only this, they have more control over lining up core customers – the ones for whom their products are an ideal match. # Price differently depending on the customer You get on a flight and start chatting with the person next to you. You discover they paid £200 less than you. Does that bother you? Probably not, because you know you booked late. Airlines are open and honest about this. The CEO of Delta Airlines once said if two passengers on the same flight are charged the same, then Delta is not optimizing its pricing strategy. You know that prices vary according to where you buy them, the times of the year, and even your profile. But the input costs haven’t changed. Why do so many businesses charge all their customers the same if this is a fact? When all your customers pay the same price, you leave so much money on the table. You’ll also find that profitability by customer varies hugely. Most of our clients have an element of service wrapped around products, and customers will consume this service differently. Some will need loads of support. You make little to no money from them. Do you know which of your customers are the most profitable? Yes, you’re making money, but from where? And which parts of your products or service do customers value? Are any parts of your offering costing you more, and would it make little difference if you removed them? Don’t give your customers one price and one option. If you went to a restaurant, would you expect to see one option for wine? No. There will be different wines at different prices for different occasions. --- [Loss Leader Pricing Strategy: Definition and Examples“Loss leader” refers to products sold (or manufactured)\* at a loss in the short-term to turn greater profits in the long-term.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2024/01/charles-chen-w2ZFjDnUL3w-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/loss-leader-definition/) --- # Give customers a choice Every moment of every day, we’re presented with things that give us choices. So consider introducing different pricing options. Some customers may say they want X. Give them a price for that but also for Y and Z. They may come back or spend more. Value-based pricing assumes that some customers will be prepared to pay more for the same thing as a different customer. Like buying a car with a different set of options, offer them the opportunity to pay more. Using options will ensure that customers compare one of your prices against another, rather than something external. My suggestion is to use three options – high, medium, and low. Most will pick the middle option; some will choose the most expensive. The perception tends to be that the best value is in the middle, and you can manipulate this to increase your profits. # Use psychology There’s a great deal of psychology involved in purchase decisions. You can use this knowledge to your advantage. Let’s say you’re negotiating a new contract. You know your customer will want to feel they’ve done a deal. So give them that opportunity. Consider some outrageous terms and conditions. Something startling that takes people’s breath away. Maybe an automatic 10% uplift every year. You know they’ll likely single this out, and you’re happy to remove it for them. This all distracts from any negotiation over the price you’ve quoted. So they call you to say, “I’m not happy with this uplift.” You say, “No problem, let’s take that away. Which option do you want to go for? Number two? Great! We’ll start in two weeks!” Bam! Sale agreed at a price you’re happy with. And you maintain your profitability. --- ## **Looking for a soapbox? You've found it. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to **get in touch**. Don't want to write? There are other ways you can get your voice heard and build your personal brand. From podcasts to ghostwriters, we've got the avenue for you. 💯 [Give me a voice!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- *Written by business growth coach Dominic Monkhouse. Find out more about his work* [*here*](https://www.monkhouseandcompany.com/about-dominic-monkhouse/)*. Read his book, ‘F\*\*k Plan B’* [*here*](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Plan-technology-business-faster-achieve-ebook/dp/B089T7G9K7/ref=sr%5F1%5F2?dchild=1&keywords=f%2A%2Ak+plan+b&qid=1591793311&quartzVehicle=694-1832&replacementKeywords=f%2A%2Ak+plan&sr=8-2)*.* ### How to use a competitive gap analysis to blast past your competitors URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-gap-analysis/ Last updated: 2025-02-05T15:01:34.000Z 👃Ahh! The smell of unmet expectations. Acrid, strident, stinging. No one likes to feel let down, so when high hopes for promising products, after months of toil, are disappointed, there’s only one appropriate response. Rage. Ok, we’re joking, but if you can conjure your inner alchemist and turn despondency into curiosity, you can begin determining who and what is responsible for the shortfall. We’ve got a tool to help you. 🧺 It’s called competitive gap analysis, and you’re about to learn all about it. In this article, we cover: - [What a competitive gap analysis is.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/38877c1d-4b18-44b0-a70c-c7ce7e99429a/#what-is-a-competitive-gap-analysis) - [How it differs from a standard gap analysis.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/38877c1d-4b18-44b0-a70c-c7ce7e99429a/#different-types-of-competitive-gap-analysis) - [How to perform a competitive gap analysis.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/38877c1d-4b18-44b0-a70c-c7ce7e99429a/#how-to-perform-a-competitive-gap-analysis) - [The ideal gap analysis deliverable.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/38877c1d-4b18-44b0-a70c-c7ce7e99429a/#the-ideal-competitive-gap-analysis-deliverable) Get to the end, and you’ll even find **four handy frameworks** to help you take the results of your gap analysis even further. Ready? 🤨 ## What is a competitive gap analysis? A *standard* gap analysis compares the results you’re actually getting with the results you expected to get. As a result, you **uncover weaknesses** in your strategies and **identify opportunities** for improvement. A *competitive* gap analysis does this while taking into account your competitors’ brands and products, their strengths and weaknesses, and an understanding of the overall competitive landscape. In other words, a competitive gap analysis aims to help you **close the gap** between your own products and competitor products, ultimately making yours the **most compelling offering** on the market. Do this, and you'll [establish a competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/). ### Competitive gap analysis example Here’s an example: let’s say you launched a new product last year. You did plenty of strategic planning and sales forecasting, but the product’s performance has been… underwhelming. 🫤 A competitive gap analysis helps you figure out why. The gap you’re analyzing is the one between how you expected your product to perform and how it actually has performed. The ultimate aim, again, is to make your product more compelling than competitor offerings. For that reason, you’d take competitor activity into account during your analysis, looking at new products, or product updates, your competitors launched around a similar time, for example. ## Different flavors of gap analysis 🍨 Product gap analysis, content gap analysis, competitive gap analysis… what sets these types of gap analysis apart? Let’s examine a couple of different kinds. 🔎 ### Product-focused gap analysis 🍓 So, as we’ve seen, a standard gap analysis assesses the current performance of some aspect of your business in relation to expected, or desired, performance. The aim of the analysis itself is to find out how you can close the gap and get your business performing better. Each variant of gap analysis applies this same concept to a different aspect of your business. A product gap analysis, for example, does this with one or more of your products. You’d look at an underperforming product, measure the gap between how it’s actually doing right now and where you’d expect, or like, it to be performing. You’d determine the factors impacting its success, then you’d figure out ways of closing the gap. ### Content gap analysis 🍍 You can also run a content-focused gap analysis. Here, you’d look at the state of your business’ content, rather than its products. The rest of the process is much the same: compare expected performance with actual performance, and figure out how to close the gap. ![Screenshot of SEMrush's competitive keyword gap SEO tool](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/Screenshot-2023-02-03-at-11.33.23.png) **Content- and SEO-based competitive research tools like SEMrush are a great help in content-focused gap analyses* ## Different types of competitive gap analysis A competitor gap analysis is broader in scope than a standard gap analysis. You’ll be looking outside your business at the overall market. That includes your competitors, of course. With a bit of creativity, you can apply this principle to a gap analysis of almost any aspect of your business. ### Competitive content gap analysis For example, you can perform a competitive content gap analysis to inform your own measures of content success, and to identify opportunities for improvement, by examining content from your [direct and indirect competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/). As part of this competitive content gap analysis, you might ask yourself some of the following questions: - Which keywords do competitors’ articles and landing pages dominate the SERPs for? - Do you rank for all of these keywords and, if not, why not? - Which keywords could you win fairly easily that you don’t have any viable pages for? Figure out answers to these questions with a thorough [competitor SEO analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/), and you’ll find the opportunities that offer the greatest return on your investment. ### Competitive product gap analysis By the same token, you can apply competitive gap analysis principles to a product-focused gap analysis. Rather than look only at internally-derived measures of success for your products, you can use competitor products as benchmarks. You might compare product features, and speak to customers about their opinions of your products in relation to those of your competitors. This will give you a better understanding of what you could improve to increase performance. 💡 **Speaking to customers will always give the clearest insights into how and where your competitors have you beat.* ## How to perform a competitive gap analysis Cool, so we’re all square on what a competitive gap analysis is. Here’s how you get one done. ### Start with the customer Like most strategic marketing frameworks, competitive gap analyses start with your customers’ needs. That’s because, to understand what’s more compelling about competitor offerings than your own, you need to understand the people *being compelled.* This makes sense too, since it’s your ability to serve customers better than anyone else that drives your business’ revenue. When you can identify strong customer needs, underserved by existing solutions on the market, you simultaneously identify opportunities for growth. These opportunities can inform your product development strategy and tell you which direction you should take the business next. 💡 **Remember: you must identify unserved customer needs by talking to customers directly. Not be simply observing what competitors are offering and brainstorming new things your product could do that theirs do not.* This might seem obvious, but it’s tempting to blindly grow your product in the direction you’re already moving. The territory of your industry can change rapidly. Keep an objective finger on the pulse by checking in with market participants regularly. ### Gather intel on competitors After the customer, it’s time to gather intel about your competitors. Products, pricing, offers, customers, market share, strengths, weaknesses, etc. It’s all important. While you can gain a *lot* of insight from your customers, you and your colleagues can bring a unique perspective too. Take a look at your competitors’ products through this lens, but be as objective as possible. Seeking out advice from customers first helps with this, because it gives you a categorical view of what the market wants, so you can’t fool yourself into dismissing a competitor’s innovation. ### Consider your own position Lastly, you must consider how feasible it is for your business to do the work. That means considering factors like: - Available budget. - Team workloads. - Existing priorities. - Potential profitability of the work. … and any other factors affecting your capacity to do the work, firstly, and the likelihood of the work paying off, second. After all, even if there’s a customer need for what you’re building, there’s a chance it’ll be so costly to the business that you never turn a profit on the work done. In circumstances like this, it rarely (if ever) makes sense to move ahead with the project. ## The ideal competitive gap analysis deliverable That’s a broad overview of what it looks like to perform a gap analysis. But what do we want to get out of this exercise? The ideal deliverable for a content gap analysis is a prioritized list of the **highest ROI quick-wins** you can action right now to quickly improve your position. Usually, this involves the areas **under-exploited by competitors** and open to you, that line up with customer needs that overlap with your business’ own strengths. Here’s a process you might follow: ### Get your customers to do the work for you … Or at least some of the work. While you’re interviewing customers about their wants, needs, and interests, get them to rank each factor in order of importance to them. This might require a bit of cajoling, a bit of back and forth while you confirm that what you’ve got from them is a shortlist that truly reflects their point of view. When you’re agreed on what their unmet needs are, though, get them to rank them. 😀 Frame it like a wishlist. They should enjoy doing this; it’ll make them feel special (and they are - they’re the customer!). ### Why this works Getting customers to rank their lists of desires is powerful. **First**, you’re able to gather more data, and **more meaningful data**. When you shine a light on customer desires and work with them to clarify them, you bring them into higher resolution. Understanding these desires better helps you to shape them into categories as you go, meaning your data is structured from the start. **Second,** when you have structured categories of customer-ranked desires, you can easily aggregate scores from each customer, client, or focus group. From there, you can cross-reference this information with your competitive intelligence data and, finally, the state of your business. In other words, how feasible it is for you and your team to fulfil each of these desires. This creates a kind of super list. 🦸 This super list is a set of the most actionable, achievable, highly valued customer desires that competitors have left a gap in the market for. You now have an ordered list of high-ROI business priorities, giving clear direction for the future. Congratulations! You’ve got a clear way out of conceptual strategizing and towards tangible results. 🎉 ## 4 frameworks to help you perform your competitive gap analysis A competitive gap analysis is a daunting task if you don’t know where to start. Thankfully, there are many other strategic frameworks that can help you lay the groundwork by guiding you as to (i) what data to gather, and (ii) how to bucket that data into a useful form. Use them wisely, and you’ll be able to take your competitive gap analysis even further, meaning deeper, more unique insights, better business decisions, and more powerful strategic plans. We covered many of these frameworks in our article on [how to perform a competitive landscape analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/), too, so head on over to that article if you’d like more info. 💁 ### SWOT analysis Everyone’s familiar with SWOT analysis. The acronym stands for [its four elements: “strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats”](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/). It’s a classic strategic planning tool, and a framework that can help you lay the groundwork for an impressive gap analysis. SWOT won’t get you all the way there, though. It’s been described as the framework that’s “a mile wide and an inch deep”, because it helps you gather an incredible breadth of information, but doesn’t make that data actionable. To get to something you can put to work right away, you might need to apply your findings to another of the frameworks below. 👇 ### Porter’s five forces [Porter’s five forces](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-run-a-porters-five-forces-analysis-session/) is a favorite of many strategy and marketing professionals because it delves into more sophisticated factors than SWOT. It forces you to take a look at the risk presented by subtle powers like the threat of substitute products, or the risk posed by suppliers when their bargaining power becomes too great. Like SWOT, though, this framework gives you a set of buckets to pool the data you gather into. This gives you (i) an idea of how to structure your data gathering process from the start, and (ii) confidence you’re covering many of the key factors for a solid analysis. ### Growth-share matrix The growth-share matrix is just that—a matrix. In other words, a set of axes split into quarters, or ‘quadrants’. ‘Growth’ is set on one axis, with ‘market share’ on the other. That’s what makes it a ‘growth-share’ matrix. Simple, really! Investors like to use this matrix because it makes for an easy visual representation of what constitutes a good or bad investment. High-growth companies (or products, or competitors) sit further to the right. Low-growth products (or competitors) further to the left. Those that have a lot of the market share sit further to the top of the matrix. Those with less towards the bottom. A handy thing about the growth-share matrix: it makes it easy to make decisions about the various products (or whatever else) you’re comparing. You can just classify each one depending on which quadrant it falls into. High-growth, high-share products have a lot of future potential, and are the ones that are a shoo-in for further investment. When it comes to your competitive gap analysis, the four quadrants can give you firm directives as to how to view each entrant. For more on matrices, see our [beginner’s guide to the market positioning matrix](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/). ### Perceptual mapping Perceptual mapping, just like a growth-share matrix, is a handy, visual tool. Rather than focusing so much on rate of growth and current market share, though, perceptual mapping gives you the flexibility to focus on whichever factors you want. A perceptual map isn’t too dissimilar to a positioning matrix. However, while a positioning matrix is focused primarily on how brands attempt to position *themselves*, perceptual maps are more focused on how the market perceives those brands, independent of attempts by those brands to shape that market perception. ## TL;DR Phew! We covered a lot - here are the key takeaways: 🏎️ A competitive gap analysis aims to uncover ways you can close the gap between your performance and that of competitors. 🗂️ You can apply the principles of competitive gap analysis to different aspects of your business. 🛍️ Like many strategic marketing frameworks, competitive gap analysis is best begun by looking at the unmet needs of your target market. ✅ Ideally, at the end of the process you'll have a short-list of actionable items. 🏃‍♀️ You can use various other strategic planning frameworks to help take your gap analysis even further. --- ## Plug the holes in your tech stack. 🚰 **Competitive intelligence** sits at the intersection of marketing and revenue enablement. With high stakes, disparate data sources, and a mandate to leave no stone unturned, CI pros face an organizational nightmare. 🤯 So what's the answer? **Tools**. We surveyed the community and the time has come for us to **uncover these tools** and deliver them, in a beautiful, **downloadable directory**, to the screens and minds of CI practitioners of all shapes, sizes, and experience levels. 🪛 Grab your copy today. 👇 [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/02/CIA_Tools_of_Choice_2023_CTA_Banner_.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-report-2023/) --- ### Competitive Intelligence Tools of Choice 2023 report URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-report-2023-blog/ Last updated: 2025-09-12T08:52:09.000Z **Competitive intelligence** sits at the intersection of marketing and revenue enablement. With high stakes, disparate data sources, and a mandate to leave no stone unturned, CI pros face an organizational nightmare. 🤯 So what's the answer? **Tools**. We surveyed the community and the time has come for us to **uncover these tools** and deliver them, in a beautiful, **downloadable directory**, to the screens and minds of CI practitioners of all shapes, sizes, and experience levels. 🪛 ## What you get: 📖 A downloadable, **comprehensive directory** of the most kickass CI tech stack money can buy. 🪛 The **powerful tools** CI pros use every day to create massive value in their organizations. 💡 The **must-have categories** you need to build your ultimate CI tech stack. 👀 The eye-opening ‘alternative’ tools your teams can use to **become unbeatable**. Established stalwarts. Unsung heroes. **Who came out on top?** 👇 [Download the report](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1O2R2vGXkSEqdtF-JIG2rDA2b1vun) ## Download this report and learn: 🏆 The one tool a **staggering 78%** of category adopters use. ✅ The three categories we think are **essential for your tech-stack.** 🕵️‍♀️ The **under-utilized tools** that could give your business a competitive edge. 🥲 The software type with an **eye-watering 85% adoption rate** amongst respondents. Don't wait. Grab your copy now to discover the go-to tools for the brightest minds in CI. The ones they reach for first. The ones they’d never go into battle without. This time tomorrow, they could be fuelled up and ready to go in your quick-launch bar. 🚀 [Get your free copy](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1O2R2vGXkSEqdtF-JIG2rDA2b1vun) ### Building a competitive intelligence flywheel using data and artificial intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-a-competitive-intelligence-flywheel-using-data-and-artificial-intelligence/ Last updated: 2023-01-27T15:21:23.000Z Innovation often comes from the convergence of two industry trends into one category, making a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. That’s what Databricks did – converged all of its data, analytics, and artificial intelligence experiences into one platform, creating a well-differentiated Lakehouse category that has since been enthusiastically taken up by the market. As a result, our competition is spread across a number of diverse solutions. These include: - Databases. - Data Engineering. - Streaming. - Data Warehousing. - Data Governance. - Data Science and Machine Learning. This diverse spread of competition is why our competitive intelligence stands out from most companies in the technology industry. Competitive intelligence at Databricks is unique because of: - **A unique culture of innovation** where customer obsession means enabling data teams to solve the world’s toughest problems in a simple, open, and multi-cloud way. - **People** who, irrespective of their smarts and accomplishments, believe that “teamwork makes the dream work”. This enables us to be data-driven truth seekers who stick to the facts, no matter how entertaining opinions may be. - **Lakehouse,** which offers one platform to break barriers between data and the people who use it. The way we do [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) is unique in that it isn’t focused on any one competitor. Our customers have several options when it comes to choosing and building an open data platform to support their competitive intelligence efforts: - Do nothing. - Do it yourself. - Do it the data platform vendor way. - Choose vendors that call their data pattern a data lake, a data mesh, a data cloud, or a data lakehouse – depending on what the customer is asking for. [Competitive Positioning: What It Is and Why It’s ImportantCompetitive positioning is the most effective type of positioning strategy in marketing. That’s because it takes the competitive environment, and the spaces your product is best placed to compete for within it, into full account.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/kevin-mueller-Q-fL04RhuMg-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/) The majority of business leaders realize that investing in competitive intelligence is critical, irrespective of the industry they operate in, especially when industry lines are blurring as companies expand into new categories. Today, a perfect storm is emerging in the form of a convergence of trends: 1. The amount of information readily available (44 zettabytes on the internet in 2020) to be consumed far exceeds the processing capacity of the conscious human mind (estimated at 120 bits per second or 9.88 gigabytes per day). 2. Business leaders are under immense pressure to execute flawlessly during today’s macroeconomic and geopolitical instability, compounded by dynamically evolving competition. 3. About 70% of small businesses fail within the first 10 years and 20 percent fail within the first year (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, as reported by [Fundera](https://www.fundera.com/blog/what-percentage-of-small-businesses-fail?irclickid=22FxctThsxyIUNU0SK3z5SESUkGV1bwntXybxs0&utm%5Fcampaign=Skimbit%20Ltd.%5F10078&utm%5Fsource=Impact&utm%5Fcontent=Online%20Tracking%20Link&utm%5Fmedium=affiliate&irgwc=1)). A CBInsights [analysis](https://fortune.com/2014/09/25/why-startups-fail-according-to-their-founders/) of 101 startups polled founders on the reasons why their businesses failed. It found that, even if these startups got some things right (like the market fit, stable cash flow, and the team), 19% of them still were out-competed. This perfect storm yields one question: > *“What can companies and business leaders do differently to keep up with the exponential growth in information, make sense of the world during uncertain times, and compete in the industry they operate in?”* The answer lies not only in the strength of their products or brands, but also their ability to continuously pay attention to the [evolving competitive landscape](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/). How? Competitive intelligence. To raise our understanding, let’s get to grips with what competitive intelligence is and why data-driven companies build competitive intelligence flywheels. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/CIA_Website_Banners_2-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ## What is competitive intelligence? Competitive intelligence enables organizations to **reduce strategic risk** and **increase revenue opportunities** by having a deep understanding of what has happened, what is happening, and what may happen in their operating environment. While most companies get good at tracking what their competitors *have* been up to, not many can keep track of what they’re doing right now. What’s more, only a select few data-driven companies can accurately predict what may happen in the future. That’s why a platform that can only see what has happened in the past (like a data warehouse) may not be capable of tracking what is happening (streaming) or predicting what will happen in the future (data science machine learning). ## Why do data-driven companies build competitive intelligence flywheels? Data-driven companies are able to exploit market trends with reinforcing competitive intelligence feedback loops that [give them a competitive advantage over time](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). To predict the future, data-driven companies leverage their strengths like access to competitive data, access to the right data platforms, and access to data talent. Consider the power of competitive data networks. The more competitive insights you have, the better you can deliver on products and services. The better the customer experiences you offer, the more customers you will attract. The more customers you have, the more competitive insights you get. This type of competitive intelligence flywheel makes a company attractive to customers and strengthens the company’s ability to compete effectively as the flywheel gains momentum. [Rapidly Operationalize Any Strategic Plan in 5 Simple StepsIn this article we take you through the six steps to operationalize a strategic plan, including how to make the plan actionable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/soro-6-F4Trc09WlWw-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-operationalize-strategic-plan/) ## Why choose a Lakehouse platform to build your competitive intelligence flywheel? Lakehouse architecture is increasingly being embraced as the data architecture for the future. [Amazon Web Services](https://aws.amazon.com/big-data/datalakes-and-analytics/data-lake-house/), [Microsoft Azure](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-synapse-analytics-blog/the-data-lakehouse-the-data-warehouse-and-a-modern-data-platform/ba-p/2792337), [Google Cloud Platform](https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/data-analytics/open-data-lakehouse-on-google-cloud), Starburst, Dremio, and Snowflake talk about building a modern data architecture leveraging lakehouse. Here are the top five reasons why: ### 1\. Simplified data ingestion at scale The key to building competitive intelligence pipelines is the ability to extract data from multiple sources. This helps companies get good at tracking what has happened, but most data teams get bogged down by the complexities of ingesting, processing, and maintaining data and its dependencies. A Lakehouse platform provides an end-to-end data engineering solution that makes it easy to build and manage reliable data pipelines that deliver high-quality data with declarative pipeline development, automatic data testing, and deep visibility for monitoring and recovery. ### 2\. Full support for analytics and machine learning (ml) on streaming data The competitive intelligence data companies find challenging to understand tends to be streaming data. Imagine the tens of thousands, if not millions, of news feeds, social media posts, and videos a company has to scan through to track what’s happening right now, and to predict what may happen next. A Lakehouse platform supports the most demanding workloads, including low latency and analytics and ML on streaming data, with all data types. ### 3\. Full support for unstructured data Tapping into unstructured datasets is critical for today’s machine learning and advanced analytics use cases across industries. According to multiple analyst estimates, 80–90% of company data is unstructured. Firms that figure out how to tap into the power of unstructured data gain competitive advantages over those who do not. ### 4\. Enhance enterprise security and governance capabilities for data lakes and data warehouses Competitive intelligence insights, by their very nature, tend to be sensitive. As a result, it is of paramount importance to protect and govern this data across all your competitive data assets. **In summary,** the data platform you choose has a major impact on your future. Building a competitive intelligence flywheel serves as one of the many ways to become a data-driven enterprise. It helps you gain competitive advantage through the power of competitive intelligence and by combining the best of both worlds. That is, the world of what *has* happened, and the world of what *is* happening or is *about to* happen in your business. *Any opinions expressed in this post are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.* --- Learn more about building a CI flywheel in Mayur's Udemy course: 👉 [Getting Started with Competitor Intelligence](https://www.udemy.com/course/the-art-science-of-competitive-intelligence/?referralCode=58C4788A0E90291C9870) Subscribe to Mayur's newsletter: 👉[Compete using Data+AI+Cloud](https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7002797882344964096/?displayConfirmation=true) --- ## ****Looking for a soapbox? You've found it. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to ****get in touch**. Don't want to write? There are other ways you can get your voice heard and build your personal brand. From podcasts to ghostwriters, we've got the avenue for you. 💯 [Give me a voice!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### The four major elements of SWOT analysis you need to know URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/ Last updated: 2024-07-22T15:11:21.000Z Ever heard of SWOT analysis? 🤨 Businesses of all sizes can use this strategic planning tool to figure out their strengths and weaknesses. But that’s not all, because this analytical framework will also help uncover opportunities and threats in your industry. All-in-all, it's a great way to get a better understanding of the internal and external factors that can impact your org. Trust me, whether you're a small business owner or a big-time manager, understanding SWOT can be a game-changer for achieving your goals and growing your bottom line. 💰 In this article, we'll be breaking down: - [What SWOT analysis is.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/#what-is-a-swot-analysis) - [The goals of SWOT analysis.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/#the-goals-of-swot-analysis) - [How to perform a SWOT analysis.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/major-elements-of-swot-analysis/#how-to-perform-a-swot-analysis) - [The challenges and shortcomings of SWOT.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/15521d2d-391c-4052-afc6-7cda59a6b498/#challenges-of-swot-analysis) Let’s go. 🕶️ ## What is a SWOT analysis? The four major elements of a SWOT analysis are easy to remember, since each is a part of the SWOT acronym: - Strengths - Weaknesses - Opportunities - Threats SWOT is a framework for identifying and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of any competitive entity. That goes for organizations, products, and individuals. Wait… individuals?! 🤯 Yep, you can run a SWOT analysis on yourself to understand and shape where your career is headed. Very handy for staying a few steps ahead of other candidates during your next job search. ## The goals of SWOT analysis There are a ton of [benefits to performing a SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-benefits/). Most often, though, the SWOT framework is used by businesses when they want to better **understand how strong their position is** in the competitive landscape. Regularly [performing a competitive SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-swot-analysis/) and taking stock of where your business (or product) is strong or weak versus competitors keeps you in tune with the wants and needs of the market. That means it’s harder to drift off course and start selling stuff no one really wants. 😮‍💨 Being aware of opportunities and threats, too, sets you up to make better strategic business decisions down the line. You’ll be well-prepared next time you perform a market opportunity analysis and, whether it’s your marketing strategy or your product development roadmap, you’ll know how to move defensively or offensively as best befits your business. ## How to perform a SWOT analysis The primary goal of any SWOT analysis, then, is to **take stock of your position** in the marketplace**,** and to **inform business strategies**. SWOT analysis does this by drawing out the internal and external factors that can influence success or failure in your business. Do this, and you’ll have yourself a successful SWOT analysis. ### Internal and external factors Standard practice groups your strengths and weaknesses as internal factors, while the external elements of SWOT analysis are the opportunities and threats. You’re over here, they’re over there. That means, while you’re doing your SWOT analysis, you look at [the strengths and weaknesses of your *own* products](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-of-a-product/) and processes. Opportunities and threats arise from the industry and are apart from your business. More important than this black and white divide, though, is that you have useful data at the end of the process. This means doing a thorough analysis that covers all bases. We’ll get to that in a minute. ⏱️ --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_Blog_-4.png) #### State of SWOT Report ****Download your copy** to learn... - The five top ****challenges** you face performing SWOT, and how to solve them. - The best ways to measure ****success or failure** post-SWOT. - Whether SWOT is ****falling out of favor** in modern businesses. - The best ****alternative frameworks** and how they compare with SWOT. - The ****future of SWOT** analysis. [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ### SWOT vs TOWS TOWS (threats, opportunities, weaknesses, strengths) analysis has you perform the SWOT “steps” in reverse. By focusing on the external environment, and its opportunities and threats first, you gain a different perspective on the market and your place in it, which means more informed business decisions. But why not just consider every aspect from every angle the first time you conduct the analysis? **Here’s what we suggest:** 1️⃣ Consider the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors (external), *as well as* of your own business or product (internal). 2️⃣ Consider the opportunities and threats that exist *within* your own business (internal), *as well as* from externals that you have no control over (external). Being thorough, rather than adhering to strict rules about the “right” and “wrong” ways of doing the analysis, will net you the best results. ## The SWOT analysis process 💡 **Remember: there’s a supposed divide between internal and external factors, but a comprehensive analysis will consider all angles.* Here’s how it’s done. You’ll learn all about strengths and weaknesses, both internal and external, from **conversations with customers**, as well as from the candid opinions of your colleagues. You’ll begin taking action around *internal* opportunities and threats by speaking with people inside your business. External opportunities and threats are seized or remedied by dealing with those *outside* your business. Here are some example questions to help you fill each quadrant in your SWOT analysis template: ### Strengths **Internal (your strengths)** - What does your product do better than anyone else’s? - Where are you outperforming your competitors? - What features do you have that competitors lack? **External (the strengths of others)** - What do customers prefer about competitor products? - What area is your biggest competitor strongest in? - What features have competitors implemented better than you? ### Weaknesses **Internal (your weaknesses)** - Where could your internal processes improve? - Are there places you’re falling behind the competition? - What do customers dislike about your product or service? - Do you have a problem with churn? **External (the weaknesses of others)** - From your conversations with customers, where do they think competitors let themselves down? - Do key competitors have any particularly weak features? - Do they fail to offer a quality experience for their customers? ### Opportunities **Internal opportunities** - What unfilled customer needs could your product begin to fill with a low-investment tweak or update? - Are you making the most of internal ideas, opinions, experience, and talent? - Do incentive structures adequately reflect the few core goals of the business and effectively drive growth in those areas? **External opportunities** - Are there gaps in the market you’re in a good position to fill? - Could you move part of your operation overseas where rates, terms, or taxes are more favorable? - Can you forge contracts with suppliers to create more favorable terms if none exist already? ### Threats **Internal threats** - Are your internal processes efficient enough? - Do staff members lack the necessary time to perform key duties? - Are you exposed to ‘person-risk’? ✏️ **Person risk: If one or two key people left the business, would you still function just fine? Could someone else take over? Are this person’s skills vetted on a regular basis?* **External threats** - Has a new competitor just entered the market? - Is growth in your industry slowing or declining? - Does the socio-economic situation have negative implications? - Do consumer trends imply weakening demand for solutions like yours? ### PEST analysis When it comes to market factors that could affect your business, the PEST analysis framework is a useful tool for identifying such external opportunities and threats. PEST stands for political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological factors. There are variations on the PEST framework, each with increasingly odd names (PESTLE, STEEPLE, LONGPESTLE). But the standard PEST analysis will get you thinking along the right lines all on its own. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_Blog_-4.png) #### State of SWOT Report ****Download your copy** to learn... - The five top ****challenges** you face performing SWOT, and how to solve them. - The best ways to measure ****success or failure** post-SWOT. - Whether SWOT is ****falling out of favor** in modern businesses. - The best ****alternative frameworks** and how they compare with SWOT. - The ****future of SWOT** analysis. [Grab your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/state-swot-23?utm%5Fsource=xxxxx&utm%5Fmedium=xxxxx&utm%5Fcampaign=xxxxx&utm%5Fterm=xxxxx&utm%5Fcontent=xxxxx) --- ## Challenges of SWOT analysis SWOT analysis is a great tool, but it’s not perfect. Perhaps that’s why it’s so divisive? 🤔 Here’s a shortlist of some of SWOT’s key challenges. ### SWOT analyses use a lot of resources Since the conclusions from a good SWOT analysis will go on to influence the future of the business thanks to the strategic decisions they’ll inform, it’s important to get it right. ❗️ That means **you can’t rush**. A thorough SWOT analysis, performed well, can take a long time to complete. Especially if your business is large. It’s critical to pull **input from all corners** of the business to ensure no stone is left unturned. While people are sat in a meeting room contributing to the SWOT analysis, though, they’re not getting on with other work that needs doing. In other words, there’s a resource-cost to performing the analysis. One that’ll touch every department by the time you’re done. ### Successful SWOT analysis needs the right company culture If your company culture isn’t right, people won’t feel comfortable being **candid with their opinions**. Even once you’ve got them away from their desks and into the meeting room where they can contribute. Want your SWOT analysis to be successful? Then your people *need* to feel comfortable sharing their opinions on the **weaknesses of your business** and products. Tough to swallow? Bad news - you’ll need to hear their opinions on what competitors are doing well (threats), too. So they’ll need to feel comfortable sharing *those*. #### Radical Transparency This is what [Ray Dalio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray%5FDalio) calls “radical transparency”. In his book “Principles”, he talks about how important it is that everyone be “radically transparent about everything, including mistakes and weaknesses” since this “helps create the understanding that leads to improvements”. It’s not always easy to be honest. Actually, it’s pretty difficult. But being honest and open, rather than dishonestly mute, puts the demons in the firing line. Those demons that sit in the shadows, that everyone knows are there, just waiting to cause the destruction of your business, but are too scary for most to turn and look at directly. With the right culture, you can tear down those hidden harbingers of destruction, but it takes an understanding that honesty isn’t personal. That it comes from a mutual place of wanting *the business to be better* for *everyone’s* benefit*.* ### SWOT is time-consuming Going from the ‘data-gathering’ stage, where you’re collecting opinions and insights, through the implementation stage, to actually seeing results, can take a long time. Even once all the work is done, communicating back to initial stakeholders how the project played out, what the results were, and how it paid dividends on their initial time investment is important. That’s super challenging for time-starved project leaders and members of the C-suite, though. What’s more, since the SWOT process *does* take time to play out, the competitive **landscape may have shifted** significantly by the time your strategic planning has borne fruit. 📁 Wondering how to apply [SWOT analysis in project management](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/swot-analysis-in-project-management/)? Check out our comprehensive guide. 👆 ### SWOT is hard to make truly objective The best SWOT analyses don’t just consider the strengths and weaknesses of their own brand and products. They consider the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, too. But they also recognize the danger of bias. ☝️ Businesses can become echo chambers for their own ideas and opinions. Especially if no one’s doing the work to make sure the culture supports radical transparency and that it stays that way. That’s why it’s important to speak directly to *the market itself*. Yup, we’re talking about your customers and wider target audience. **Talk to your customers.** There’s no substitute for speaking directly to customers and getting them to tell you *exactly* what it is they love about a competing product, or exactly why they churned, or what attracted them to you in the first place. It gives you a rock solid understanding of where you’re strong, where you could do better, and what needs they have that no vendor has been able to meet for them yet (hint: these are golden opportunities). The issue, of course, is that SWOT is already all too easy to turn into a resource hog. Now, we’re suggesting you expend even more resources on it. **How to move forward.** That’s why, if we’ve one tip for conducting *successful* SWOT analyses, it’s to define a **hard budget and timeline** for them at the start, and to be aggressive. Then cut both by 20%. If you end up shooting slightly over, you’ll have worked in some buffer in terms of both time and cost. Therefore, you won’t have to abandon the project as a sunk cost and write SWOT off as a complete waste of time and money. Get SWOT right, see it through to the end, and you’ll uncover golden insights that’ll inform near on every strategic aspect of your role. --- ## Download the State of SWOT Report We had far more questions about SWOT analysis for our survey-takers. 🎯 Which **SWOT applications** offer the best ROI? 👍 How do you measure the **success or failure** of a SWOT analysis? 🔮 What does the future hold for SWOT analysis? And how do you overcome its **inherent challenges**? Want to dig deeper into the reasons why modern attitudes towards SWOT are the way they are? Want to read the real comments and opinions of practitioners to learn how to improve your own application of strategic frameworks in your business? Grab **your no-cost copy** of the report today and upgrade your competitive intelligence toolkit. 🧰 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1000/2023/04/CIA_State_of_SWOT_2023_CTA_Banner_.png) --- ### Competitive positioning: what it is and why it's important URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-positioning/ Last updated: 2024-08-02T14:22:55.000Z Positioning is one of those foundational marketing activities that *you need to get right*. 😬 The consequences, positive or negative, flow downstream and **impact everything** from your sales reps' win rates to your development roadmap. So how do you go about *getting it right?* For starters, you need to ensure you're positioning competitively**.** In this article, we'll discuss: - [What competitive positioning is.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/27417a2e-4ab4-46af-be54-01e3a8619c52/#what-is-competitive-positioning) - [Why it's important.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/27417a2e-4ab4-46af-be54-01e3a8619c52/#why-is-competitive-positioning-important) - [How to create a competitive positioning strategy.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/27417a2e-4ab4-46af-be54-01e3a8619c52/#how-to-create-a-competitive-positioning-strategy) - [The "value zones" of competitive positioning.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/27417a2e-4ab4-46af-be54-01e3a8619c52/#the-competitive-positioning-%E2%80%9Cvalue-zone%E2%80%9D) - [Some strong real-world examples.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/27417a2e-4ab4-46af-be54-01e3a8619c52/#examples-of-strong-competitive-positioning) Let's get to it. 🤿 ## What is competitive positioning? Competitive positioning is *the* most effective type of positioning strategy in marketing. That’s because it takes the competitive environment, and the spaces your product is best placed to compete for within it, into full account. > **“There is no positioning without competitive positioning.”** **\~ Alex McDonnell, Competitive Intel and Product Marketing Lead at Airtable.** No product is sold in a vacuum, and it’s impossible to effectively market your product without taking into account what your customers respect, like, and dislike about competing products. When you position competitively, you stake a claim for a spot in the marketplace that’s informed by competitive intelligence on your rivals. Armed with such intel, you can maximize your own strengths in the market, while exploiting competitor weaknesses, and speaking directly to the unmet, urgent needs of your target market. ## Why is competitive positioning important? ### You can't avoid competition Competitive positioning is so important because it communicates to your customers the reasons they should choose you over your competitors, while showing an understanding of their problems and unmet needs. It’s said that nothing exists except by comparison, and (we’ll say it again) **no product is sold in a vacuum**. No matter how unique you think your product or service is, your prospects *will* find something to compare you with. It’s up to you to take charge of the outcome of this inevitable comparison (competition) ahead of time, so it comes out in your favor. Competitive positioning sets you up to do that. You have to make it clear to prospects where your product’s value is and why they can’t get similar [features or benefits](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/) from competitor products. This makes it clear why your product is the best choice. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/mcdonnell.png) ### Ignoring competition is dangerous But it’s not just that you stand to gain by incorporating competitive positioning into your marketing strategy. You also stand to *lose* if you don’t. Hear us out. When you fail to position competitively, you risk misunderstanding your own product’s strengths in your unique competitive environment, and setting your strong product up to fail. We’ve all seen those vendors that claim to be “market leaders”, with a product that’s “best in class”. Cookie cutter claims are never backed by evidence. Gathering evidence of your product’s strengths would entail learning something concrete *about* those strengths, which you’d incorporate into your marketing messaging. When you position competitively, you **take charge of the narrative**. The process gives you an understanding of the competitive landscape, of your own strengths and weaknesses in the eyes of your customers, and the routes to greater success that are open to you. ## How to create a competitive positioning strategy Now you know what competitive positioning is and why it’s important. How do you implement it? Positioning competitively requires reconnaissance up front. You’ll need to develop a solid understanding of the **market**, your **audience**, your **competitors**, and your own **product**, as well as how all of these intersect. ### 1 - Your market If you haven’t already, you’ll need to perform preliminary duties like market segmentation, creating ideal customer personas (ICPs), and getting clear on who your target audience is. Even if yours is an established brand and product, having a single source of truth on *exactly* who you’re targeting puts everyone on the same page. When you get new leads and prospects, your team will know exactly how to move forward. They’ll know what keeps new adopters up at night, and what they’re looking to get out of your product. In turn, that means a more streamlined onboarding process, a more cohesive customer experience, and potentially lower churn rates as a result. ### 2 - Your audience Now it’s time to get more specific. Any solid [brand positioning strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-strategy-examples/) is built on a foundation of truth. That means learning—objectively—what your customers and prospects think about your brand, your product, and your competitors. There’s no substitute for speaking with these groups directly. In-depth, primary research is the name of the game here. Hold focus groups, customer interviews, and win/loss interviews with recent prospects on both sides of the finish line. You’re looking to understand **what these groups think** about: - What competing products do well. - Where competing products are dropping the ball. - Where your product shines. - Where your product could improve. - The needs they have that aren’t being met by existing solutions. This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything you can learn from these immensely valuable groups, but it’s a great place to get started. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/cta_banner_blogs_inline.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) ### 3 - Get to grips with competitor products Ideally, you’d perform this step alongside step two but, since the customer comes first, and competitors sometimes get things wrong, we’ve placed this step third. If you haven’t already, you’ll want to identify your core competitors at this point. A near-exhaustive list is helpful, but you’ll need to spend some time tiering out these competitors so you can prioritize your efforts. ☝️ ***Note:** *this list should include* [**indirect competitors and alternatives*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/) *customers use to get the job done. Even if the product looks nothing like yours, you’ll learn something by studying it.* At this stage, though, you should be looking to deliver more than a tiered list of competitors and alternatives. You also need to learn all you can about competitor products. Deploy every [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) trick in the book to get your hands on as much data as you can, setting yourself up for quality analysis. Relate your findings back to what you learned in step two, the customer research phase, for a solid understanding of: - Where competitor products are weak or strong. - Where they might be outperforming your own. - Any popular features they have in the market that you do not. - Where your own implementation of certain features is strong or inventive. ### 4 - Conduct a SWOT analysis Some people roll their eyes at the thought of a SWOT analysis, so let’s put it this way: In light of your findings so far, **which of your prospects’ strongest needs are you most uniquely positioned to fill?** To answer that question, start by asking yourself: 🤔 Where are you strong where competitors are weak? 🙋‍♂️ Where do you shine in the eyes of your customers, where competitors struggle? 🧐 Which upcoming features do you have, or simple tweaks to your product can you make, that would increase your lead over these competitors? 🙅 Which competitors or alternatives are blocking certain avenues for you? When you have answers to these questions, you’ll be able to identify a vacant position in the market offering massive ROI if you can fill it successfully. In other words, you’ll have uncovered the *most competitive position* you can fill in the marketplace to maximize your revenue and growth potential. 💡 ***Tip:** **If you need to compare yourself and your core competitors more closely across two metrics, a useful tool is the positioning map, also known as a* [**positioning matrix*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/)**.* From there, you’ll need to work on defending that spot. Winning such a unique position in the competitive landscape, and then defending it, comes down to creating a [sustainable competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). ## How to defend a winning position Don’t mix up competitive positioning with the various strategies for winning a competitive advantage. Competitive positioning is the actionable process of positioning yourself in a contested marketplace and, as a process, can uncover the strategic position it makes most sense for you to try to occupy. To actually get there, and hold that spot, you’ll have to use one of the strategies outlined below 👇 (or ones like them) to beat out lower level competition and put your name on the map. Four well-known competitive strategies are: - **Product leadership:** Product leadership strategies entail focusing resources on developing a better product than your rivals. - **Cost leadership:** Cost leadership strategies entail driving down costs, and passing those savings onto customers, to sustainably, profitably attract customers with lower prices. - [**Niche market advantage:**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-competitive-advantage/) Niche market strategies involve meeting the very specific needs of a small subset of one market segment better than anyone else can. - **Operational excellence:** Strategies of operational excellence involve surpassing customer expectations. Usually by offering better service and experiences than competitors. This drives customer loyalty, brand trust, and advocacy among users. [Comparative vs Competitive Advantage: What’s the Difference?Comparative and competitive advantages are economic terms that, when applied to a business, refer to a business’ ability to produce goods and services and to win against competitors over time.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/anastasiya-romanova-vGY31qO4518-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) ## The competitive positioning “value zone” ![Venn diagram infographic with three intersecting circles. One containing the text "what customers want", another the text "what your competitors do best", the last, "what you do best".](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/CIA_Infographics_Positioning_Strategy_.png) Let’s dig into the above infographic a little more to drive home how competitive positioning works one last time. Once you’re done with the steps in the positioning process we outlined above, you’ll have identified a high-value position for your brand to occupy. This position should sit at the intersection of **what you do best**, with **what your customers want**, preferably while avoiding the things **your competitors do well**. In short, you want to occupy a position that sits within either the mid-value or high-value zones in our diagram. ### i) The high-value zone There’s often a temptation to assume you’re playing in the high-value zone by default. Especially if others in the organization are dismissive of your competitors. But there’s no excuse for assuming you’re strong, or that your competitors are weak, in any given area. You need to hear it from your customers. When your research and analysis says you can position yourself in the high-value zone, do so. And make the most of it. The high-value zone necessarily **shrinks as competitors imitate** you. No competitive edge can stay large for long. At least not without understanding your competitive advantage extremely well and defending it against imitation by cutting off your competitor’s avenues of attack. That means **patenting** or **trademarking** your intellectual property, or negotiating **exclusive contracts** with suppliers, for example. ### ii) The mid-value zone Mid-value zones are like **swing states**. A few votes in either direction can mean the difference between winning and losing the deal. These are massively leveraged opportunities to impact revenue, where a few persuasive points in your favor could help you win a lot of mid-value deals or a few high-value deals. It pays to invest here, but **the fight will be constant** as you and your competitors race to create the best solution and convince prospects. ### iii) The low- and no-value zones These are the zones where you’re competing with very strong alternatives where your own offering is weak, or you’re competing with a strong competitor for something the market isn’t interested in. Obviously, you shouldn’t aim to position yourself in either the low-value or no-value zones, but don’t forget about them altogether. Audit your positioning at intervals to make sure you’re not in danger of drifting into one of these zones as the competitive landscape shifts and new competitors enter the fold. [How to Perform a Competitive Landscape Analysis: 5 StepsA competitive landscape analysis analyzes your entire competitive environment to give you a comprehensive overview of your industry.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/daniela-cuevas-t7YycgAoVSw-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/) ## Examples of strong competitive positioning ### The Gym Group ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/gymface.jpg) UK-based company The Gym Group understands the gym can be an intimidating place, especially for newcomers. Their new ‘gym face’ campaign says that, no matter how experienced a gym-goer you are, you’ll still pull a ridiculous face while you’re exerting yourself. And that’s ok. The campaign communicates inclusive values and a desire to make their gyms an accessible place for everyone: “from gym experts to gym novices, everyone’s got a gym face”. The Gym Group has set out to make its welcoming atmosphere a [key factor in its competitive differentiation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/). Feeling intimidated in the gym, and feeling small on your way out the door, are two strong reasons for a canceled membership. With a business model based on low prices and recurring, subscription-based revenue, The Gym Group is smart to boost the confidence of its bashful customers. ### Sabian Cymbals ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-11-at-16.17.41.png) Sabian, one of two Turkish manufacturers (along with Zildjian) that kickstarted modern cymbal design, leans on themes of craftsmanship and innovation tailored to the player in its positioning. This approach makes the most of Sabian’s pedigree, while speaking to the desire of every musician: one of finding their unique, creative voice. The tagline, “Your sound, your cymbals”, puts this personal approach front and center, showing a deep understanding of the musicians who make up their target audience. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/cymbals.jpg) \[Photo courtesy of Chicago Music Exchange\] ### Nextiva ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-11-at-16.18.44.png) Nextiva knows that pulling together every customer touchpoint is a difficult task, but the strength of its product lies in its user experience and ability to simplify what *could* be a very complex experience. Nextiva puts that experience front and center on its home page, with images of happy faces, happy customers, and a promise that its product will “simplify your business”. Some of Nextiva’s (well-known) competitors offer products with notoriously difficult set-up and poor onboarding experiences. As a result, this promise of simplification will speak loudly to visitors who’ve dealt with these competitors before. This is, at its heart, what competitive positioning is about. --- ## **Get The Competitive Positioning Playbook** Competitive insights can inform business strategy across all four corners of business. But when it comes to positioning your brand in a competitive market, there are pitfalls to sidestep, and best practices and processes to implement. Inside the **Competitive Positioning Playbook**, we give you best practices and processes, covering: ⏰ How not to waste your internal resources and data sources to **save yourself hours** of time. 🧘 What “minimum viable positioning” is, and why it’s a **key milestone** early in the process. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you **must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. These aren't just our opinions - we consulted with some of the best in the industry to put together these insights. (Oh, and it won't cost you anything). Intrigued? Grab your copy today. 👇 [Download the playbook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) [![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Gg4zMKtcuMeOq4bQkXjUjH-UFPjKTvFlBO9KLTFss6MhpKnLDnou74cxSOV4BYnk-hDNJ1Y1SmogNhwRJVQU0aZZ3qpL3NDH95SWwWW4y4JgcabV-v9nnGm_cJ--JJxLpKASdCTsrUFtjFNW2bbSk6bVNSH-9gBFtVnOe_gJLlfedi7SbfJPjqufKarkOw)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ### Why bother with brand building? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/why-bother-with-brand-building/ Last updated: 2022-12-28T11:52:22.000Z For B2B, just like B2C, investing in both brand and short-term tactical activity is a more effective strategy than the too-familiar narrow investment in performance marketing. Yet it seems to be getting harder to secure budget for brand building that delivers long-term growth. In this article, guest author Ian Bamford asks: - [Why is brand building such a challenge?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/e45e156a-063f-4ad7-bdce-fae230c5588f/#why-is-brand-building-such-a-challenge) - [Why is brand important?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/e45e156a-063f-4ad7-bdce-fae230c5588f/#why-is-brand-important) - [What is a brand?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/e45e156a-063f-4ad7-bdce-fae230c5588f/#what-is-a-brand) - [How do you build a distinct brand identity?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/e45e156a-063f-4ad7-bdce-fae230c5588f/#build-a-distinctive-brand-identity) - [What can a strong brand achieve?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/e45e156a-063f-4ad7-bdce-fae230c5588f/#what-can-a-strong-brand-achieve) ## Why is brand building such a challenge? Brand building is often seen as a cost rather than an investment. So it’s easy to cut when budgets are under pressure, but it takes investment over time to deliver long-term goals. Against the pressure to deliver short-term sales and meet lead generation targets, it’s hard to stand up and make a business case for brand building. One that convinces sales-led management they should reallocate resources towards brand building, and creating distinctive brand assets that make you more salient, memorable, and consistent. Instead, marketing focuses more and more on short-term tactics and channel efficiency. The explosion of data, proliferation of martech, and obsession with ROI further magnify the focus on ‘performance marketing’ and dashboards. This creates a situation where our understanding of how audiences perceive brands, and how their attitudes to brands change over time, becomes neglected. ## Why is brand important? Despite all this, successful brands create successful businesses. As the following stats show, successful brands positively impact the bottom line, generating more revenue, profit, and growth: - Brand value represents **20% of a business's market capitalization**, on average. (1) - Strong brands deliver far greater shareholder growth than the average company. Kantar Millward Brown’s [Brand Z](https://www.kantar.com/campaigns/brandz) portfolio **increased 124.9% between 2006 & 2017** compared with the S&P 500 (at +82.1%), and the World Index (at +34.9%). (2) - Strong brands build price elasticity. High-strength brands command a price premium **13% higher than low-strength brands**, and 6% higher than average-strength brands. (3) - To maximize effectiveness, brands should spend **60% of their budget** on brand building and 40% on activation. Too little brand activity and the equity needed to drive future revenue won’t accumulate. (4) - Of the total **commercial impact** marcomms make, 58% will be seen in the long-term (6+ months) and 42% in the short-term (up to 6 months). (5) For a business to grow successfully, addressing the situation to achieve a better balance between performance, activation, and brand building has to move up the agenda. ## What is a brand? > **A brand is the intangible emotional relationship between an individual and a product or service, built from the sum of all expectations, experiences, and feelings at every touchpoint.** *\~ Ian Bamford* Firstly, every business has a brand, whether conscious of it or not. And as we’ve just seen, it directly affects how successful they are. But a brand is far more than a logo. A brand is the intangible emotional relationship between an individual and a product or service, built from the sum of all expectations, experiences, and feelings at every touchpoint. Successful brands exceed their audiences’ expectations by consistently delivering positive experiences to **build trust and advocacy**. As a result, successful brands make for more successful businesses. Their behavior builds **price elasticity** and delivers more revenue, profit, and growth. Internally, too, a strong brand **provides clarity**. Everyone understands what the business is trying to achieve, where it sits in the market, how it behaves, and how it adds value. When everyone knows where the business is going, they’re motivated, pulling in the same direction to achieve the same goals. It becomes the framework that guides behavior and shapes decision-making, allowing a business to move forward. When viewed in this context, brands are integral to long-term success, and the need for a brand platform with a clear value proposition, positioning, and identity becomes more compelling. [Building Business Strategies Using Market Trend AnalysisTrends are everywhere and constantly changing. They’re incredibly valuable tools for your product marketers because they allow you to follow new opportunities, consistently change and improve your product, and maintain both your product and your brand as something fresh and exciting.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceCharley Gale![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/Strategy.jpeg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-trend-analysis/) ## Build a distinctive brand identity To be successful, you have to convince your audience that you answer their challenges and meet their needs better than your competitors. To establish a strong brand, you need to know why you exist and how that’s invaluable for your audience. Ask yourself: - **What impact does your business deliver?** - **Why should your audience care about you?** - **What value do you offer them?** Answering these questions gives you your reason *why*. Once you know your *why*, you can define your value proposition and develop a brand identity that brings your proposition to life. How you look – your fonts, **color palette**, visual style – and your **tone of voice**, the language you use, and your **messaging** should be developed with the singular purpose of creating a distinctive, differentiated brand that engages people. **Decision-makers are still emotional beings.** They still form emotive responses to what they see and hear. A distinctive style incorporating design cues that carry through all your communications creates a visual shorthand for your audience that builds recognition and familiarity. This is vital because there’s one thing marketers tend to forget: your audience isn’t always in the market when you spend your budget, so you may not see results from your brand-building activities right away. Once your audience is back on the market for a solution, you need them to remember you. Likewise, your message should be **compelling and motivating**. It’s not about selling how great you are. Connecting with your audience and building relationships is about having a clear point of view. One that says who you are, conveys emotional intelligence and empathy, and builds a narrative that communicates solutions based on recognizable truths. ### Be consistent To build trust, generate loyalty and ultimately make your audience buy into you, it’s not only a distinct identity and your message that matter. Consistent delivery is vital. For people to connect with your brand, they have to experience the **same emotional reaction** every time they interact with you. Being consistent in how you present your brand and how you speak aids recognition, maintains the quality and integrity of your brand’s image, and increases its perceived value. Without a strong, consistent identity, the result is a series of disjointed messages with no shared thread. This creates uncertainty in the minds of your audience. They become confused about what they’ll get out of any relationship with you, and you fail to connect. ### Be creative As much as we’d like to think they do, people don’t consume marketing materials. They’re busy; they only consume what interests them. To stimulate their interest, brands have to deliver marketing that’s memorable, motivating, and truthful. Before you develop a marketing plan, you need to define a powerful point of view. One you can communicate consistently in a distinct brand framework people recognize, identify with, and trust. Marketing that stands out from the competition by bringing a brand to life in a bold and confident way makes people stop in their tracks. The key is to find those business truths your audience identifies with. Learn why your product or service is the one that’ll help people thrive, and deliver a strong, differentiated brand that everyone within the organization understands and everyone outside the organization recognizes. ## What can a strong brand achieve? Because a strong brand has the power to influence individuals, create preference, and spur behavioral change, brand building brings many benefits to an organization. Let's finish with a reminder of what a strong brand delivers. - **Short-term sales:** Would you buy now from a brand you know or a brand you don’t? - **Long-term sales:** Many more customers are ‘out of market’ than ‘in market’ at any one time. You need mental availability for when those ‘out of market’ become ‘in market’. - **Price elasticity:** Strong brands command a price premium, and increasing price by 1% has a greater impact on profit than increasing sales by 1% - **Protection:** Product features & benefits can be copied. Sales activation tactics can be copied. Your brand allows you to create a distinctive proposition that sets you apart. - **Greater talent:** It’s easier to attract talent if you’re a well-known brand than if you aren’t. - **Category change:** A strong brand allows you to move into new, relevant categories when old ones shrink. *Liked this article? Read* [*more of Ian’s work here*](https://www.foundry12.co.uk/blog/)*.* --- ### References (1) Analysis of data from annual brand value league tables published by Brand Finance, Eurobrand, Interbrand and Millward Brown for the 6 years 2010 to 2015. (2) Kantar Millward Brown, BrandZ, 2017. (3) The Meaningfully Different Framework, Millward Brown, 2013. (4) ‘The Long and the Short of it’, 2013, Binet & Field, [The IPA](https://ipa.co.uk/). (5) Thinkbox, Ebiquity, Gain Theory, ‘Profit Ability: The business case for advertising’ --- ## ****Looking for a soapbox? You've found it. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to ****get in touch**. Don't want to write? There are other ways you can get your voice heard and build your personal brand. From podcasts to ghostwriters, we've got the avenue for you. 💯 [Give me a voice!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### The most valuable data for your business URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/most-valuable-data-for-your-business/ Last updated: 2023-01-18T10:12:37.000Z Data is now the most valuable resource in the world. It's true. However, it’s valuable to your business only if you have identified ways to benefit from it. If you’ve adopted a business intelligence strategy, then you’re well on your way to squeezing as much value as possible from your data. ## Real-time reports beat static reports To get the most from your data, it needs to be accurate. This means that you shouldn’t be relying on static reports. They’re out of date as soon as you send them. If this is you, you need to put in place a business intelligence strategy that includes dashboards. Dashboards automate the creation of these static reports. Imagine having up-to-the-minute data! ## Actionable data is a gold mine Most companies use data to measure various things related to their business. Leads, sales, or revenue, for example. The way to really generate value from your data is to use it to improve your results. What we’ve done for pool builders and other contractors is develop a business intelligence approach to their marketing. The data generated is actionable - we can use it to help these contractors gain insights, and it allows us to help them: 1. Generate leads. 2. Improve the quality of their leads. 3. Reduce or eliminate their reliance on PPC ads. 4. Increase their sales. 5. Increase their revenue per sale. What differentiates us is we create a dashboard for each of our clients. Here’s some data from one of our clients to illustrate how it has helped them. ## Increased lead quality, sales, and revenue per sale ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/jim1.jpeg) This screenshot from our client dashboard shows the average revenue per sale for a pool builder. Notice their average revenue per sale has increased. We break their sales data into two categories: Web and Non-web. Non-web includes referrals, sales from builders, and other sales which are not directly attributable to their web marketing. Web includes all online marketing from SEO, a Google Business Profile, and other sources. It’s completely organic as they spend nothing on ads. ## Actionable data to target consumers One contractor we worked with wanted to generate higher revenue per sale from their projects. This was especially important as they had a backlog of work. So how do we use data to give them what they want? ### Generating higher-quality leads The answer: generate higher quality leads. If you want to generate leads that result in more revenue per sale, then you need to increase the quality of the leads you’re generating. Here is the approach that we used. Our goal was to target people organically – those with the intent to hire a pool builder. We did this by focusing on the most valuable searches for their business, not by focusing on search volume alone. This involves extensive research, which we include in a dashboard. Doing this lets your clients see how they’re ranking for searches vs their competitors. As we make improvements they can see these changes. We use the data to focus, systematically, on the searches that matter most to them. Here are some of the data: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/jim2.jpeg) The line highlighted in green is our client. The other nine lines are their competitors. **Avg Rank** – Our goal is to get as close as possible to 1\. You can see our client has the lowest Avg Rank of 3.57. **% Covered** – This is the percentage of searches we’re tracking each company shows up for. Our client is the only company to show up for 100% of the searches. **Covered Searches** – This is the number of searches each company shows up for organically. In this instance, we are tracking 44 different searches and our client shows up for 44. **Suggested Reading 📘** • [Track these 5 things in a competitor PPC analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-to-track-in-competitor-ppc-analysis/) • [How to conduct a killer market opportunity analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-opportunity-analysis/) • [Competitive insight: You need it, your competitors have it](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-insight/) ### And now the actionable data ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/12/jim3.jpeg) This section of the dashboard shows each search term we’re targeting. It shows our client's rank and the rank of each of their competitors that rank for each search. This is actionable data you can use to make improvements to client rankings. An added benefit to dominating the most valuable searches is the ability to reduce or eliminate the need for PPC ads. This client used to spend $7,000 per month on PPC ads. Now they spend nothing. **They've saved over $700,000 while improving their revenue per sale.** *This article was originally published* [*on Jim’s LinkedIn*](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/most-valuable-data-your-business-jim-oborny/)*.* --- ## ****Looking for a soapbox? You've found it. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to ****get in touch**. Don't want to write? There are other ways you can get your voice heard and build your personal brand. From podcasts to ghostwriters, we've got the avenue for you. 💯 [Give me a voice!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### How to perform a competitive landscape analysis in 5 easy steps URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-landscape-analysis/ Last updated: 2024-08-06T17:22:56.000Z ## What is competitive landscape analysis? A competitive landscape analysis analyzes your entire competitive environment to give you a comprehensive overview of your industry. That means getting to grips with all your competitors, and discovering: - Who your competitors are. 🧐 - Where your competitors position themselves. ⛰️ - The strengths and weaknesses of competing products. ✅ Competitive landscape analysis also involves becoming familiar with the **trends and developments** in your industry. By the end, you’ll understand your own place in the landscape, buyer perceptions of you and your competitors, and what your industry might look like in the future. --- ## Why is competitive landscape analysis important? So far, so simple. But why should you perform a competitive landscape analysis in the first place? Here are a few reasons why: - [Industries are becoming more competitive and disruptive.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/18eb7603-309a-4d2e-86d9-c646a1bf105c/#industries-are-becoming-more-competitive-and-disruptive) - [You need to understand your differentiators.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/18eb7603-309a-4d2e-86d9-c646a1bf105c/#you-need-to-understand-your-differentiators) - [Analysis helps you make informed business decisions.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/18eb7603-309a-4d2e-86d9-c646a1bf105c/#analysis-empowers-you-to-make-informed-business-decisions) ### Industries are becoming more competitive and disruptive In the [2022 State of Competitive Enablement Report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-competitive-enablement-2022/), we found that 100% of participants believed their industries had either increased or sustained their levels of competition. In such competitive markets, being aware of your competitors, their strengths, and their strategies, is more critical than ever. **That’s where competitive landscape analysis comes in.** Landscape analysis gives you **insight into competitor strategies**, empowering you to anticipate their movements and develop counter-strategies of your own. Today’s markets also change quickly. Technology is driving change faster than ever before, and established models for success can become obsolete quickly (remember Blockbuster?). Performing a competitive landscape analysis puts your finger on the pulse of your target market. When you know what the industry trends are, you’re in a better position to **anticipate disruption**. ### You need to understand your differentiators It’s easy to *think* you’ve got a handle on what makes your product or service stand out above the rest, but what does the market think? An analysis of your competitive landscape puts you in touch with the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors’ products and how those compare to your own. This in turn makes clear **what makes buyers choose *you*** over any competitor. This not only tells you what your differentiators are in the eyes of your customers, it helps you further differentiate your business. By doing the hard work and research others aren’t willing to do, or don’t know how to do, all plays into acquiring and [sustaining your competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). ### Analysis empowers you to make informed business decisions No product, or business, exists in a vacuum. When you [position yourself competitively](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/), you need benchmarks and yardsticks with which to measure your progress and performance. You need to know where your competitors stand, and how they perform, to determine what your own place is within the landscape. Are you a major or minor player? How can you grow? Where are you strong, and where are you weak? In the course of conducting a competitive landscape analysis, you’ll answer all these questions and more. --- ## Even more value this way 👇 We want to offer you even *more* value. Network, knowledge share, or land your next role in competitive intelligence. Just click below to sign up to our competitive intelligence community on Slack. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/CIA_Website_Banners_2-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ## How to do a competitive landscape analysis in 5 easy steps So how do you go about performing an analysis of your competitive landscape? Our favored approach is to break the process down into five simple steps. Each revolves around a question you want to answer. 1. [What does your target market want?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/18eb7603-309a-4d2e-86d9-c646a1bf105c/#1what-do-customers-want) 2. [Who are your competitors?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/18eb7603-309a-4d2e-86d9-c646a1bf105c/#2who-are-your-competitors) 3. [What do your competitors offer?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/18eb7603-309a-4d2e-86d9-c646a1bf105c/#3what-do-your-competitors-offer) 4. [How well do these alternatives meet customer needs?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/18eb7603-309a-4d2e-86d9-c646a1bf105c/#4how-well-do-they-meet-customer-needs) 5. [In light of all this, what’s your place in the market?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/18eb7603-309a-4d2e-86d9-c646a1bf105c/#5relate-this-back-to-your-business) ### 1 - What do customers want? The ultimate goal of competitive intelligence is to help you serve your customers better. By understanding what the market likes about your competitors, or about your own business, you learn what your customers value from a product and which problems they want solving most. For those reasons, it pays to start your landscape analysis by refreshing your knowledge of *what the market wants*. That means performing your own **customer research**. By performing your own primary, qualitative research via customer surveys, focus groups, and customer interviews, you can find out exactly what your customers and prospects would like to see from solutions on the market. This lays the groundwork for the rest of your analysis. At every other stage of the process, you’ll tie your findings back to what you’ve learned here. ### 2 - Who are your competitors? Time to identify your competitors. A simple list won’t quite cut it, though. Make sure to split your competitors into tiers. Most practitioners we’ve spoken to like three tiers: primary, secondary, and tertiary competitors. Competitors might be categorized into one tier or another according to their **threat level** as a competitor, or the **business value** of winning deals from them, for example. You can also split your competitors out into direct and indirect competitors, with ‘alternative solutions’ as your third tier. It’s important to be aware of these alternatives, even though they might be products that look very different from your own. If customers are using them to solve the same problem your product solves, then they’re stealing market share from you. In that sense, they’re just as credible a threat as an imitator or direct competitor. To conduct this and the next stage of the analysis, you’ll want to **gather competitive intelligence.** Read our practitioner’s complete guide to competitive intelligence for more info. 👇 [A Practitioner’s Complete Guide to Competitive IntelligenceCompetitive intelligence is your tool for knowing your competitors’ strategies, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses. Armed with this information, you can fine-tune your product strategy and marketing initiatives to win. In other words, competitive intelligence is your ticket to the top.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/ariel-HkN64BISuQA-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) ### 3 - What do your competitors offer? This is where you delve into the features and benefits of competing products, and sees you collecting a bit more competitor intel while beginning to analyze what you’ve gathered. Understanding each competitor’s positioning is key to understanding their product offerings. Each competitor will position itself slightly differently. Everyone wants to be unique and occupy their own space in the market. Even if they’re positioning themselves as the ‘antidote’ to another key player, that’s valuable information about: - How the competitor sees their own product. - What the competitor thinks its product’s strengths are. - The problems this competitor thinks it’s a priority to solve for the market. Bear in mind that some competitors’ positioning strategies will be ineffective. While they see themselves one way, the market sees them another. Make sure to understand both perspectives by checking back in with your findings from the customer research phase. There are other elements of competitor strategy you can analyze for deeper insights into their market offering. **Pricing** strategy, for example, is highly useful. Where a competitor prices itself tells you a lot about its target audience, as well as how it’d like the market to perceive its products. In this stage, analyze: - Competitor pricing strategies. - Competitor marketing strategies. - Competitor positioning and messaging. - Product features and benefits. To do this, it’s helpful to audit competitor content. Dig through their social media accounts for announcements, and search online for press releases and news coverage. Website content, whether it’s an article, product demo, or a user manual, will help you learn more about a competitor’s marketing strategy too, while a [competitive SEO analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) lets you dig even further. ### 4 - How well do they meet customer needs? At this stage of the process, it’s helpful to circle back around and touch base again with your interviewees and survey participants from the customer research phase. This allows you to ask more detailed questions about competitors, knowing much more about their products and positioning. Even if you don’t have the resources to do this, cross-referencing your findings from the first phase is still important. You want to determine how well each competitor is meeting customer needs, with the ultimate goal of learning where [opportunities and gaps exist in the market](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-opportunity-analysis/) for you to exploit. ### 5 - Relate this back to your business As the final stage in the process, you’ll want to relate all this back to your business. If a particular competitor has an offering that’s similar to yours, with some additional features thrown in that the market loves, you’ll want to use this information to inform your strategy going forward. You might ask yourself questions like: - Does it make sense for us to add these features to our own product? - Do we have the budget to do so? - Would that fit our existing UX and positioning? - Could we improve upon those features to further differentiate? To help you with this, we’ve pulled together a list of some handy competitive analysis frameworks. 👇 ## Competitive landscape analysis frameworks Competitive analysis frameworks are tried and trusted methods of tying your competitive intelligence findings back to your business, and determining your next strategic step. Here’s a list of six of the best: 1. [SWOT analysis.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/18eb7603-309a-4d2e-86d9-c646a1bf105c/#1swot-analysis) 2. [PEST analysis.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/18eb7603-309a-4d2e-86d9-c646a1bf105c/#2pest-analysis) 3. [Porter’s five forces.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/18eb7603-309a-4d2e-86d9-c646a1bf105c/#3porter%E2%80%99s-five-forces) 4. [Strategic group analysis.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/18eb7603-309a-4d2e-86d9-c646a1bf105c/#4strategic-group-analysis) 5. [The growth-share matrix.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/18eb7603-309a-4d2e-86d9-c646a1bf105c/#5growth-share-matrix) ### 1 - SWOT analysis SWOT analysis has you look at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats posed by one market participant to another. That means the strengths and weaknesses of one of your competitors, the threats they pose, and the opportunities for growth afforded by the gaps between *their* strengths and weaknesses and your own. Such gaps put you in a great position to win some of their market share. ### 2 - PEST analysis The PEST competitive analysis framework has you look at macro market factors and evaluate how they might impact you and your competitors in the longer term. PEST stands for political, economic, social, and technological factors. Practitioners sometimes also incorporate legal and environmental factors. PEST lends itself extremely well to analysis of the market as a whole, independent of any competitor. When you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, and where they’ve positioned themselves, though, PEST analysis becomes even *more* useful. That’s because, by understanding how the current political and economic climate is impacting your industry right now, you’ll get a sense of how the industry might begin to change over time. You’ll also better understand which competitors might be in a tight situation. Let’s take the current economic crisis as an example. If the cost of living is rising and people are cutting costs, a budget solution might be poised to steal a ton of market share. This will be increasingly likely if its budget status is driven by the creative use of technology and code to scale cheaply. ### 3 - Porter’s five forces Michael E. Porter proposed in *Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors,* that five competitive forces interoperate to “determine the attractiveness of an industry”, going into detail as to “how these forces change over time and can be influenced through strategy”. These forces are: 1. The entry of new competitors. 2. The threat of substitutes. 3. The bargaining power of buyers. 4. The bargaining power of suppliers. 5. The rivalry among existing competitors. Since the competitive landscape is a kind of lens through which you view the chessboard of your industry, the five forces that determine, in Porter’s words, “industry attractiveness” are key. After all, if you’re to create a sustained competitive advantage for yourself, it’d help immensely if you could sway these forces in your favor. This is what Porter calls the “ultimate aim of competitive strategy”. ### 4 - Strategic group analysis Strategic group analysis is a kind of *competitor segmentation framework* that batches competitors with similar strategies and other shared characteristics into groups. This helps you uncover gaps and opportunities in the market. For example, a few of your competitors might be priced similarly on the lower end of the scale, and have messaging that makes it clear they’re targeting smaller businesses that want a simple, no-fuss solution. This would constitute one strategic group. Another set of competitors might have a more complex solution with multiple products. Their positioning makes it clear they’re targeting enterprise customers with budget and time to spare. These customers are looking for a long-term contract with a provider they trust. This would be another group. A strategic group analysis like this would help you identify a gap in the market for late-stage scale-ups that are no longer ‘small’ businesses. They don’t need a complex solution, but they’re looking to spend a bit more for better customer service, platform stability, and peace of mind. If this lines up with your offering, you’d be well-positioned to target this strategic group. ### 5 - Growth-share matrix The growth-share matrix is a comparison matrix that investors use all the time. They plot their potential and existing investments on a map with ‘growth’ on one axis and ‘market share’ on the other. Businesses can use the growth-share matrix when they have multiple products and want to make strategic decisions as to which deserve further investment and which should be phased out. The growth-share matrix uses some interesting names for its quadrants: 1. Cash cows 2. Stars 3. Question marks 4. Pets **Cash cows: low-growth, high-share** These are the steady, reliable products that bring in cash every quarter. They’ve a dedicated, loyal user base, but they don’t see much growth. These are often trusted solutions that have been around for a long time. They don’t tend to require much new investment, and can be ‘milked’ for cash to reinvest in other products. **Stars: high-growth, high-share** These are the products that are growing rapidly, bringing in more and more revenue every quarter, and show no signs of slowing down. They’ve a lot of future potential and are the opportunities you’ll want to invest in heavily. **Question markets: high-growth, low-share** These products are growing quickly, but have a low market share. You’ll need to make a judgment call on whether to cut them or invest in them more, depending on their chances to grab more market share. **Pets: low-growth, low-share** Products or businesses that fall into the ‘pets’ quadrant tend to only be in the portfolio because the person with the cash has a soft spot for them. The business advice for these products is to liquidate, divest, or reposition them. In your competitor analysis, you can use the growth-share matrix to figure out which products, out of your own and your competitors’, are performing the best. Seeing all available products through an investor’s eyes can help you better understand where you sit in the market. ## TL;DR Here’s what we’ve learned: 🧠 A competitive landscape analysis gives you a comprehensive understanding of your industry and its players. 🧐 Landscape analyses are important because markets are more competitive than ever, and they help you make more informed decisions. 🛍️ To perform the analysis, first orient yourself toward what the market wants. 🤺 Second, ask who your competitors are, and how well their products deliver what the market needs. 🧮 To tie all this back to your own business, competitive analysis frameworks like Porter’s Five Forces, are super useful. --- ## **Get the playbook on positioning your brand** Competitive insights can inform business strategy across all four corners of business. But when it comes to [positioning your brand](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-strategy-examples/) in a competitive market, there are pitfalls to sidestep, and best practices and processes to implement. Inside the **Competitive Positioning Playbook**, we give you best practices and processes, covering: ⏰ How not to waste your internal resources and data sources to **save yourself hours** of time. 🧘 What “minimum viable positioning” is, and why it’s a **key milestone** early in the process. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you **must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. These aren't just our opinions - we consulted with some of the best in the industry to put together these insights. (Oh, and it won't cost you anything). Intrigued? Grab your copy today. 👇 [Download your playbook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) [![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Gg4zMKtcuMeOq4bQkXjUjH-UFPjKTvFlBO9KLTFss6MhpKnLDnou74cxSOV4BYnk-hDNJ1Y1SmogNhwRJVQU0aZZ3qpL3NDH95SWwWW4y4JgcabV-v9nnGm_cJ--JJxLpKASdCTsrUFtjFNW2bbSk6bVNSH-9gBFtVnOe_gJLlfedi7SbfJPjqufKarkOw)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ### The CI feedback loop: Building collaborative competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-a-collaborative-competitive-intelligence-program/ Last updated: 2022-12-12T10:58:09.000Z My name is Erik Mansur. I'm VP of Product Marketing at Crayon and the host of [Into the Fray](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/into-the-fray-competitive-intelligence-podcast/), the Product Marketing Alliance’s podcast dedicated to all things competitive intelligence. Now, I don't know about you, but I can't seem to do anything without feedback. That's not to say I'm besieged by impostor syndrome, or I'm wracked with insecurity—I'm not. Or at least, I don't think I am. The point I'm getting at is all **good collaborative processes are built upon values** of transparency and cross-functionality, and a competitive intelligence program is no different. My guest today is **Aaron Stillman**. He's the VP of Product Marketing and Education at AB Tasty. Aaron cut his teeth in the competitive intelligence discipline back when he was the Director of Product Marketing at Healthx, and now he's running the whole show at AB Tasty, a maker of software that optimizes the customer experience. Today's talking points: - [How to ask for stakeholder feedback.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/4f252dbc-a3d2-4c2b-b9a4-46083bb88b61/#how-to-ask-for-stakeholder-feedback-on-your-ci-findings) - [Making connections across your org.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/4f252dbc-a3d2-4c2b-b9a4-46083bb88b61/#making-connections-across-the-organization) - [Separating signal from noise in CI data.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/4f252dbc-a3d2-4c2b-b9a4-46083bb88b61/#separating-the-signals-from-the-noise-in-ci-data-and-feedback) - [Building a *remarkable* CI program.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/4f252dbc-a3d2-4c2b-b9a4-46083bb88b61/#building-a-remarkable-ci-program) ## How to ask for stakeholder feedback on your CI findings **🗣️ Erik Mansur** A CI program cannot be created in a vacuum, and Aaron has four-plus years of experience making sure everyone's on board by letting their true feelings be known about the process he's building. Every feedback loop begins with an inciting incident, which is often a discussion with a key stakeholder. But how does that discussion even start? What is the first thing that Aaron says to his counterpart across the table? Just how does he bring up the notion of competitive intelligence? [‎Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast: Creating a CI feedback loop: Building a competitive intelligence program that’s collaborative and connected to what your users really need | Aaron Stillman, AB Tasty on Apple Podcasts‎Show Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast, Ep Creating a CI feedback loop: Building a competitive intelligence program that’s collaborative and connected to what your users really need | Aaron Stillman, AB Tasty - 29 Sept 2022![](https://podcasts.apple.com/favicon.ico)Apple Podcasts![](https://is3-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/51/5b/40/515b40ba-64b2-2038-6313-725348fa697c/mza_6590695369496601757.jpg/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/creating-a-ci-feedback-loop-building-a/id1609944641?i=1000581055934) **👨‍💼 Aaron Stillman** One of the best approaches I've taken is to **be humble**. When I start the conversation, I say, “Listen, everything is changing rapidly and regularly, and I'm not always going to have the most up-to-date, accurate information. The only way I can succeed in helping you succeed, is if you look at what I'm doing, and say, ‘That's not true! That's wrong! I heard about something different that works.’” I think that breaks down any defense mechanisms and gives a clear signal **I'm not successful if they're not successful**, I'm not going to take offense to what they tell me. I want my stakeholders to give me critical feedback. They’re on the front lines, and I rely on them as subject-matter experts. > **Over the years, I’ve just gotten used to having to prove that taking the time to do this will deliver results, and it’s grown from there.** *\~ Aaron Stillman* One of the things I love about competitive intelligence is it has the potential to be so broad. At AB Tasty, I made a conscious decision to call it market intelligence instead of competitive intelligence. I want it to be understood that what we do is broader than just looking at companies who are competing with us on certain features. That gave me an opportunity to look at how we can help our talent acquisition team within the HR department when it comes to competitors that are hiring with certain perks. I can help out with acquisitions too and show whether they make sense. It opens doors to departments other than just sales. While a huge part of my work is helping sales win deals, that’s just one piece of the pie. ## Making connections across the organization > **I won't ask any questions. I'll go and work on something, show up with it, and say, “I don't know if this helps you or not, but I did this for you. What do you think? Let's talk about what I could do differently.”** *\~ Aaron Stillman* **🗣️ Erik Mansur** It's interesting you brought up HR and acquisitions. You’re helping to bring in the best talent and partner with the right other companies in order to be more successful. That seems like a broader approach that requires you to get in touch with the right people. How did you find the right people within the organization to have those conversations with? Did you go to your boss, check out the org chart, or just shoot emails around? **👨‍💼 Aaron Stillman** Part of it is that by nature, I'm very much looking to engage and talk with folks, even if we're not working together on something, so I just get to know everybody. Then, in parallel, I hear either directly or indirectly about pain points, initiatives, and things that groups are working on. From there, I'll look to whoever's in a position of power, and that's not always the manager or the VP; it’s whoever's got boots on the ground trying to execute. My next step is to **deliver value**. I won't ask any questions. I'll go and work on something, show up with it, and say, “I don't know if this helps you or not, but I did this for you. What do you think? Let's talk about what I could do differently.” I actually used Crayon as a tool for this very purpose with our talent acquisition team to build out a board with searches specific to talent. I came to our talent acquisition lead like, “Here's a board with a bunch of data we've collected for you.” That opened up the conversation, and we've been tweaking it ever since. **🗣️ Erik Mansur** Some collaborators almost need validation their feedback is being heard, right? They want to know what it is they've told you is being taken into account. It seems to me you're proactively coming to them with that proof. In your example, you've gone to an HR person having already put something together and asked what they would change about it, then you've made the changes and gone back to them, and that's how you’ve continued the conversation. **👨‍💼 Aaron Stillman** 100%. I think part of that is muscle memory built up over time by working with sales, where it’s like, “What's in it for me? Why should I fill out Salesforce?” Over the years, I’ve just gotten used to having to prove that taking the time to do this will deliver results, and it’s grown from there. [Your Go-to Guide to Competitive Sales EnablementIn this guide to using competitive intelligence to power your sales enablement program, we cover everything you need to know about the discipline.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/clark-tibbs-oqStl2L5oxI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) --- ## Even more value this way 👇 We want to offer you even *more* value. Network, knowledge share, or land your next role in competitive intelligence. Just click below to sign up to our competitive intelligence community on Slack. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/CIA_Website_Banners_2-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ## Making collaboration effortless > **I'm all about teaching people to fish and letting the data speak for itself.** *\~ Aaron Stillman* **🗣️ Erik Mansur** Is that sort of instant validation your preferred way to stay in the game, or are there some people that bristle at that? Do you have to modulate your interactions a bit depending on who you're interacting with? **👨‍💼 Aaron Stillman** Yeah, 100%, and what I love about working for a global organization is the cultural human element of engaging someone in the US versus engaging someone in France or in Germany. You can look at countries like Germany, the UK, and the US that are very “law and order;” those are the kinds of places where people are happy to queue. Then you look at Italy and France, and they're a little more loosey-goosey. My French mother-in-law laughed when she saw a line of people waiting for the bus! **🗣️ Erik Mansur** We’re going to get so many emails about this conversation, I can't even tell you, but you're making a great point about how certain countries are like, “We don't need such strict process; we’ll get to our eventual destination without lining up where the door is going to be when the bus arrives,” right? **👨‍💼 Aaron Stillman** 100%. And there's this element of feeding someone versus teaching them to fish. I'm all about teaching people to fish and letting the data speak for itself. If someone doesn't want to engage, that's their decision, but I also try to make it as easy as possible to collaborate. If someone wants to send me field intel in a Slack message, a call, or smoke signals, that’s great. **Every possible option is open**; we’ll handle it on the back end. Also, for people who don't want too much process, they can just forward an email, and they’re done. They don't have to do anything else. **Suggested reading 📘** • [How to conduct a killer market opportunity analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-opportunity-analysis/) • [Niche competitive advantage: everything you need to know](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-competitive-advantage/) **🗣️ Erik Mansur** Do those people who keep it loosey-goosey know what kind of outcomes they can achieve from competitive intelligence? How many of those initial conversations come with a teaching moment about what CI can help them to achieve? **👨‍💼 Aaron Stillman** To pull people into collaboration, we have to show our program’s output, so we've established a quarterly win-loss analysis based on our competitors. We're bringing visibility to the utilization of our CI assets, and how that's tied to win-loss. People can draw their own conclusions, but it just so happens that certain folks who leverage certain assets seem to do a little better than others. That's where – without having to point fingers or call any names out and just letting the data speak for itself – people start to think that maybe they should check our CI assets out. 💡 *Tip: When running a CI Slack channel for updates, continue making all your updates in real time, but aggregate them, too.* *Send out periodic 'newsletter' style updates to keep the less engaged abreast of new developments.* On top of that, at my company, we're big into Slack. There are actually way more Slack channels than I'd like to admit. There’s an info competitor Slack channel that's always quite animated by people either delivering info or asking questions, plus us pushing lots of updates and information and trying to group it all together. One of the pieces of feedback we got on that Slack channel was that there are a lot of updates, but people didn’t always know when those updates are happening and when they should go and look. It would have been easy for me to just bullishly say that they should look all the time, before every opportunity and every deal, but they just don’t have time for that. And they don’t want to hear it, so that wouldn’t help anyone meet their objectives. What we did instead was to continue making all these updates in real time, but aggregate them. Now we put out a regular announcement about all the different updates that happened. We’re also letting the data drive our next steps for how we collaborate with different regions and all that good stuff. ## Separating the signals from the noise in CI data and feedback > **If you looked at the number of opportunities, we were competing against them all the time, but when you looked at the revenue associated with those opportunities, it became clear there was no point spending any time on them.** *\~ Aaron Stillman* **🗣️ Erik Mansur** What has been the most valuable feedback you've received about your CI program? Is there anything that has inspired you to take a left when you were originally going to take a right? **👨‍💼 Aaron Stillman** There was a moment in my career when I got pushed by a mentor deeper into a **data-driven approach.** Based on conversations with customers, prospects, and sales reps, I felt like I knew what I was doing; plus, I had tons of data, and I had done some CRM reporting and other surface-level kinds of things, but he really pushed me, and I took a deep dive at that point. That changed everything for me. I realized at that moment a couple of **competitors I thought were tier one were only superficial threats**. The difference was in looking at revenue versus looking at the number of opportunities. If you looked at the number of opportunities, we were competing against them all the time, but when you looked at the revenue associated with those opportunities, it became clear there was no point spending any time on them. That was a moment where I pivoted and realized what was just noise and what was worth focusing on. This happened years ago, and it impacted me for the rest of my career. That moment was such an eye-opener, and it was all because of collaboration and constructive feedback. **🗣️ Erik Mansur** How do you separate signal from noise with feedback? You're going to have outliers and naysayers that are never satisfied, so how do you make your feedback inclusive while eliminating distractions and criticism for criticism's sake? **👨‍💼 Aaron Stillman** It's not easy. We're all just human, so when you're putting your blood, sweat, and tears into something every day, and then some criticism comes in, you have a natural reaction to that. It takes a level of like experience and maturity and perhaps a certain personality type to deal with that. When I hear these things and I can feel my heart starting to beat and feel myself starting to react a certain way, I put that to the side. I'll just think about what's being said to me and whether it has any relevance to the company’s vision, strategy, or goals. If the answer is yes, I'll dig a bit more. If the answer is no, it's noise and I move on. [Competitive Insight: You Need It, Your Competitors Have ItWorking to gain competitive insight keeps you ahead of the competition, enabling you to defend and sustain your competitive advantage.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/petri-heiskanen-vqO_1fUCNxg-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-insight/) ## Building a remarkable CI program > **I want us to do such good work and engage everyone and deliver so much value that people are buzzing...** *\~ Aaron Stillman* **🗣️ Erik Mansur** Let's say you go to 10 people for feedback – how many of them would say that they’re totally connected to what your program is doing? **👨‍💼 Aaron Stillman** I’d say 80% feel connected. They're proactively reaching out, giving field intelligence, and engaging with the assets. Now, getting everything? 0%. I don't think I've ever had a salesperson say, “I’m good. I don't need anything else from you. I’ve got 100% of what I need,” so I don't ever feel like the job is done. **🗣️ Erik Mansur** 80% is a great benchmark. Like you said, not everybody will always have everything they require, and there's no such thing as a perfect CI program, but at the very least they know what's going on, and they feel they're part of the process. Are you optimizing for the 20%, or are you comfortable having a few naysayers who’ll come on board eventually? **👨‍💼 Aaron Stillman** We're optimizing, and we're finding innovative ways of doing it. For example, we use Gong. I love Gong as a tool within the CI program – it's not just for sales. We take snippets from Gong and put them into our CI assets so people don't have to take my word for everything. If they don't think this objection handling is good, they can hear it in action. I wish I could credit the person who said this, but I can’t remember who it was. Somebody said the mantra for their department was “be remarkable.’ It wasn't “be great” or “be awesome.” It was **“be remarkable”** because they wanted others to remark about the group. It resonated, and I've picked that up and that's what I want. I want us to do such good work and engage everyone and deliver so much value that people are buzzing like, “Did you check out that battle card? Did you see what Margaret did?” or “We won the deal! Thanks, sales, marketing, pre-sales, and competitive intelligence!” I want those remarks out there and for people to be talking about us. --- ## Got insights? Reckon you've got what it takes to be a **podcast guest,** **article contributor**, or **guest speaker** at one of [our prestigious events](https://events.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/)? We'd love to hear from you. 💙 Click the button below, tell us how much or how little you'd like to be involved, and just like that you've opened the door to a ton of new and **exciting opportunities**. [Unlock New CI Opportunities](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### How to conduct a killer market opportunity analysis URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-opportunity-analysis/ Last updated: 2024-06-19T17:26:49.000Z Chasing after every ‘next big idea’ that comes along isn’t smart. But you know what is? Staying aware of the market opportunities that are ripe for plucking. 🍒 To do that, you’ll need to routinely conduct a **market opportunity analysis**. This *can* be one of those tricky tasks you perform just often enough to need some direction on, but not so often enough to feel compelled to establish a process for. That’s where we come in. We’re here to answer: - [What a market opportunity analysis is.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d30b0093-468a-49d5-a2d1-82d4b7c0a90e/#what-is-a-market-opportunity-analysis) - [Why it’s important to conduct one periodically.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d30b0093-468a-49d5-a2d1-82d4b7c0a90e/#why-is-market-opportunity-analysis-important) - [Who should perform your opportunity analysis.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d30b0093-468a-49d5-a2d1-82d4b7c0a90e/#who-should-conduct-a-market-opportunity-analysis) - [What the process looks like.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d30b0093-468a-49d5-a2d1-82d4b7c0a90e/#the-five-stages-of-opportunity-analysis) ## What is a market opportunity analysis? A market opportunity analysis is a process for **evaluating the potential of a new market**, as well as for identifying opportunities in markets you’re already a part of. These could include reaching more customers and growing your market share. Or moving into a completely new market. As part of the process, you’ll figure out **who your competition is**, learn all about your customers and their **needs and wants**, and tie this back to **your business’ current position**. That last part’s important because it’ll allow you to evaluate the size of the growth opportunity you’re looking at. There are similarities with [SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-run-swot-analysis/) (strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats), in that you’ll be getting the lay of the competitive landscape and looking for threats to your business hidden within the opportunities you uncover. At the end, you’ll be in a great position to prioritize business ideas and make more informed strategic decisions. [How to Prioritize Your Competitors in Crowded IndustriesHow do you decide which competitors to prioritize in a crowded industry? That’s what Erik Mansur discusses with Matt Tyrer, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Commvault, on this episode of Into the Fray.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/into_the_fray-3.jpeg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-prioritize-your-competitors/) ## Why is market opportunity analysis (MOA) important? Conducting market opportunity analyses at frequent intervals helps you keep your finger on the pulse of your relevant market. When new opportunities arise, you’ll have a process for becoming aware of them quickly, analyzing them, and deciding whether to pursue them or not. ### 1) It identifies new markets and their profit potential Even if you’re dominating your market, other opportunities out there can take your growth to the next level. Capitalizing on these provides much-needed cushioning in times of uncertainty. Fortune favors the bold, as they say, and those that push even harder when the going’s good are often the ones that survive the following downturn. Your market analysis will uncover these opportunities and help you **quantify their value** to your business, so you can prioritize which you pursue first to offer even more value to your customers, building trust and brand loyalty. ### 2) MOA reduces risk and uncertainty What you don’t know can’t hurt you. At least … that’s what we’d like to believe. In truth, what you don’t know constitutes uncertainty and risk. All else being equal, more informed decisions are better decisions, so it pays to make yourself as informed as you can. Your market opportunity analysis does more than just uncovering opportunities. It makes you aware of the opportunities that exist for your competitors, too. It can teach you the wants and needs of your customers, as well as how good of a job you’re doing at meeting those needs at present. All of this is valuable information that reduces uncertainty. Where there’s less uncertainty, there’s a **higher probability of success** and, as a result, there’s less risk. ### 3) It leads to better strategic business decisions When you analyze a market for opportunities, you come away with a stronger understanding of the market factors affecting your business growth. You’ll have identified industry and market trends, know which are winding down and which are ripe for further growth. You’ll even know how you can capitalize on these to **maximize your competitive advantage**. All this makes you more informed about the state of your business and your market. That means more informed, better business decisions, allowing you and your executive teams to get ahead of shifts in the market. Whether consumer needs are changing, or competitors are pulling ahead by offering a feature you’re missing, you’ll become aware of these developments as they happen. As a result, you’ll be able to create a structured plan for mitigating threats and capitalizing on opportunities, ensuring a more secure future for you, your staff, and your stakeholders. [Comparative vs Competitive Advantage: What’s the Difference?Comparative and competitive advantages are economic terms that, when applied to a business, refer to a business’ ability to produce goods and services and to win against competitors over time.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/anastasiya-romanova-vGY31qO4518-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) ### 4) It alerts you to possible threats Even if you don’t pursue a market opportunity, it’s better if that’s a conscious decision borne out of strategic necessity, rather than out of ignorance the opportunity exists. Once you’re aware the opportunity is there, you know it also represents an **opportunity for your competitors** and, therefore, a threat to you. This lets you know to keep an eye on your competitors and any moves they might make to pursue a given opportunity. It gives you a sense of the possible consequences to your own business and market share if they were to make it a success too. ## Who should conduct a market opportunity analysis? Given the various steps involved in a market opportunity analysis, it’s impossible to conduct one start to finish without involving multiple arms of the business. For that reason, it’s a collaborative effort involving a **cross-functional team**, but it’s very much possible for you to do the majority of the market research alone. You’ll just have to consult with members of other departments toward the end of the process. Their input on the ramifications of pursuing the opportunity will be important to hear, as will their feedback on what the implementation process will look like. When it comes to this cross-functional team, you’ll want to involve: - **Executives**, for input on their overall vision for the business, and how this new market opportunity might align (or not) with their goals and objectives. - **Accounting and finance**, for their knowledge of cash flow, available budget for the new opportunity, and possible financial impacts on other pursuits. - **Product**, for input on how the opportunity can be built into existing product development roadmaps, how fast you can bring the product to market, and on the opportunity cost to other features, products, and services. - **Marketing**, for feedback on the knock-on effects for marketing strategy. As well as how messaging and positioning need to change, both for the new product and for the brand as a whole. - **Content**, for insight into how you’ll educate customers about your new product's [features and benefits](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/). ## The five stages of opportunity analysis The stages of a market opportunity analysis can be broken down into five stages. 1. [Perform detailed market research.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d30b0093-468a-49d5-a2d1-82d4b7c0a90e/#1perform-detailed-market-research) 2. [Investigate your competitive landscape.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d30b0093-468a-49d5-a2d1-82d4b7c0a90e/#2investigate-your-competitive-landscape) 3. [Identify industry trends.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d30b0093-468a-49d5-a2d1-82d4b7c0a90e/#3identify-industry-trends) 4. [Tie your findings back to your current business position.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d30b0093-468a-49d5-a2d1-82d4b7c0a90e/#4tie-this-back-to-your-current-business-position) 5. [Scrutinize your shortlist of opportunities to prioritize them by business value.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d30b0093-468a-49d5-a2d1-82d4b7c0a90e/#5examine-the-business-opportunities) ### 1 - Perform detailed market research **The first step is to uncover *what the market wants.*** That means talking with members of your target market. When identifying new business opportunities, it all comes back to the customer. Even your competitors (your second-most important set of players) are just trying to deliver to the market what it wants. Ask: How have things developed since you last checked in with your customers? Are your target audience’s unmet needs and pain points the same as when you last put together a product development plan? Is the customer base for this new opportunity even the same as the one you’re currently serving? Primary research (that is, going direct to the source, engaging with customers via surveys and interviews) is the best place to start. But secondary research, like market reports, can help you gain a broader overview more quickly. 💡 Our advice: ****do both**.The better you understand the wants and needs of your chosen market, the better a position you’ll be in to determine which of their unmet needs you’re in a position to pivot and fill. ### 2 - Investigate your competitive landscape Once you know what the market wants, your **second order of business is to determine whether there’s *space for you on the playing field.*** Whether you’re looking to fill a newly developed need for your existing buyer personas, or whether you’re looking to serve a new base entirely, you’ll want to know how well existing products meet their needs. If it’s an unmet need, chances are they’re not doing such a great job. But there are likely to be surprising alternatives at play already filling a similar function to some degree. Uncover these to get a sense of how well-served the market is at present. While underserved markets often represent great opportunities (think “Blue Ocean Strategy”), you still want a good idea of why no one else has stepped up to fill that space. 🗣️ Are you really the first onto the field? Or has everyone else seen your opportunity and sidestepped it as a high-probability failure? When there *are* existing alternatives and competitors to examine, tie this back in with your customer research. What do customers like about their offering? Where does it fall short of the mark? Are there any surprising, alternative ways customers are ‘getting by’ you could learn something from? What do your [competitors' pricing strategies](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/) look like? When you step onto the field, each of these competitors will represent a threat to your success. Knowing where the pitfalls are will be key to your success. ### 3 - Identify industry trends Third, it’s time to **determine *the opportunity’s longevity.*** When you perform your customer research and competitor analysis, what you’re seeing is a snapshot in time. The strength of the opportunity right now may have no bearing on its strength in 12 months or 12 years from now. That’s why it’s important to gather wider market intelligence and learn all about the current industry trends. This is where you can start to think about **growth potential**. Stepping into a market with a ton of growth potential is a good idea. Stepping into one that’s already in its decline is not - unless you have a very good reason to believe this decline will soon halt or even reverse into more growth. Making calls like this accurately requires a lot of time, a lot of experience, and a lot of data. Calling on industry analysts and advisors for help is a very smart move that can save you a lot of money. ### 4 - Tie this back to your current business position Now you’ve got a great sense of what the market wants, the alternatives that exist, and whether the market is trending for growth. It’s time to **relate this back to your current position to assess the value of the opportunity for *your business.*** How much work would it be to pivot and take advantage of the new market? A lot? Or a little? Would you need only to adapt existing products? Or do you need to create entirely new products? Beware of **shiny object syndrome**. It’s one thing to pivot and target a better opportunity than you were focused on before. It’s another to force your product into an exciting, high-growth market it doesn’t belong in. Consider the threats to your success if you were to pursue the opportunity too. What’s the opportunity cost? Of course, there are costs, downsides, and potential dangers to *not* taking action, too. Consider these with equal weight before deciding whether to shortlist the opportunity. [The Positioning Matrix: A Beginner’s Guide | CIAEver wondered where your product sits in the competitive landscape? Enter the positioning matrix – a tool for visualizing just that.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/sigmund-B-x4VaIriRc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/) ### 5 - Examine the business opportunities Working through the above process should give you a list of opportunities that seem valuable to your business. So, do you pursue one or all of them? Or none at all? You can prioritize these opportunities by examining each one more closely. **i) The market:** You know there’s an unmet need in the market. But what’s the *size* of that market? And is that market likely to get bigger or smaller with time? You know there’s a market out there, but *who are they?* Build out detailed buyer personas for each segment of your customer base - what are their hopes and fears? What do they value? And, most importantly, does your brand have a shot at winning these people over? 🗣️ Judging by the market alone, which opportunity currently seems strongest? **ii) The competitors:** Who will you be competing with? Are they strong where you’re weak? What angle of attack can you take with them to steal some of their market share? Or, is the market large enough that there’s plenty of room for both of you? How similar will your solution look to ones already out there? What benefits will your solution bring to customers that competitors’ solutions currently don’t? And how easy do you think it’ll be for competitors to copy and improve upon your key differentiators? A great opportunity won’t stay that way for long if you bring a great new idea to market, only for the existing ruler of the space to quickly bring out their own version that’s bigger and better. In short, make sure you have a clear path to establishing a [sustainable competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). 🗣️ In light of the competitive landscape **and* the market itself, does a single market opportunity stand out above the rest? **iii) Your own position:** Ask yourself this: is pursuing this new thing *really* going to be more profitable for you in the long run than just doubling down on what you already do well? A market opportunity analysis is beneficial for a ton of reasons. But the most exciting opportunities aren’t always the best ones. Sometimes, it’s the small pearls of wisdom you pick up along the way - from talking to your customers, examining industry trends, and scrutinizing competitors - that have the most business value. When you learn that, actually, the market consensus is that yours is the most innovative solution, but lacks a bit of UX polish, you’ve uncovered a quick win that could win you many new customers while costing very little. At least compared to pivoting into an entirely new space. ⚠️ Examine your shortlist in light of your business position. Do you have to reposition your brand to capture it? This'd be a hard sell. ## Where do you go from here? By now, you have a shortlist of business opportunities, ordered by profit potential, business value, and the lengths you’ll have to go to capture them. Now it’s time to: 🔁 Hold a sync meeting to get everyone on the same page. 🗣️ Schedule in time individually to give interested parties opportunities to voice concerns, feedback, and opinions. 🚀 Create and implement a Go-to-Market strategy. Once these plans are in place, you can set about launching your new product, capturing new market share, and profiting from the new opportunities you’re pursuing. --- ## **Get the playbook on positioning your brand** Competitive insights can inform business strategy across all four corners of business. But when it comes to positioning your brand in a competitive market, there are pitfalls to sidestep, and best practices and processes to implement. Inside the **Competitive Positioning Playbook**, we give you best practices and processes, covering: ⏰ How not to waste your internal resources and data sources to **save yourself hours** of time. 🧘 What “minimum viable positioning” is, and why it’s a **key milestone** early in the process. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you **must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. These aren't just our opinions - we consulted with some of the best in the industry to put together these insights. (Oh, and it won't cost you anything). Intrigued? Grab your copy today. 👇 [Download your playbook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) [![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Gg4zMKtcuMeOq4bQkXjUjH-UFPjKTvFlBO9KLTFss6MhpKnLDnou74cxSOV4BYnk-hDNJ1Y1SmogNhwRJVQU0aZZ3qpL3NDH95SWwWW4y4JgcabV-v9nnGm_cJ--JJxLpKASdCTsrUFtjFNW2bbSk6bVNSH-9gBFtVnOe_gJLlfedi7SbfJPjqufKarkOw)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ### How to become more product-led URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-become-more-product-led/ Last updated: 2022-12-05T10:22:03.000Z “How can I make my organization more product-led?” 🤔 I’ve been asked this a few times by product people who feel they are focusing on the wrong problems, or perhaps solving them in the wrong way and don’t know how to get **buy-in and autonomy** to change. I’ve lived through this pain and had plenty of conversations with those still living through it. I’ve also softened my original position, which was evangelical about being product-led. Books like *Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love* by Marty Cagan helped shine a light on how SaaS products could be built. But he also takes a very fire and brimstone approach. You’re either doing product, or you’re a feature factory – black and white. In reality, **there’s a lot of gray**, and you can carve out parts of your business to be more product-led than others. In this article I’m going to: - [Define what I mean by product-led.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/6201df22-1568-40e6-b3bb-3fed33bf1534/#why-do-you-want-to-be-product-led) - [Talk through possible solutions to common blockers.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/6201df22-1568-40e6-b3bb-3fed33bf1534/#the-blockers-to-becoming-product-led-and-how-to-overcome-them) Read on. 👇 ## Why do you want to be product-led? First, what do people mean when they say they want to become more product-led?” I asked ten product marketers and they said: **1) Making product the growth engine,** or “Product-led growth”, meaning acquisition, retention, and monetization strategies that are fueled by your product. Let’s look at Slack as an example: - **Acquisition:** Inviting coworkers to your Slack channel creates user-generated growth. - **Retention:** Usage of features (Slackbot, channels, etc.) builds habits for retention. - **Monetization:** A freemium product, along with usage-based monetization and transparent self-serve plan pricing. **2) Adopt product principles** into ways of working. There were a few, but the top four themes were: - Focus on the end user first and deliver value before extracting value. - Use data to make decisions and define what success looks like. - Learn faster, build in iterative cycles, and focus on outcomes. - Give cross-functional teams the skills required to meet an outcome. **3) Both** – They want product-led principles and think PLG is the best way to get it. ### Why is this important? 1. People want more **autonomy** over the opportunities and solutions they work on. 2. They feel this is the way the industry is trending and want **product-led skills** in their career. 3. They want to work on a product that has an **“impact”** and believe this is the best way to build and scale a product. If you’ve read *Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us* by Daniel Pink, you’ll recognize the common threads of autonomy, mastery, and purpose in the sentiments above. ## The blockers to becoming product-led and how to overcome them ### Product running as an agency Product running as an agency is sometimes referred to as a feature factory. This is when product teams get feature requests from potential customers. Often these are requirements for signing a deal, sometimes even with a timeline for when it’s delivered. Many companies start this way, and pre-product market fit, it’s a great model for [understanding customer needs](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/) while generating money. But ultimately if the company doesn’t pivot from this model early it can lead to inflexible solutions. As you discover more about the problem and your customers, you’ll come up with better ways to solve the problem for a wider audience. Custom one-off solutions limit your product’s flexibility and create tech debt by forcing you to maintain several systems. Ultimately, this limits your product team’s autonomy and slows the company down. **When sales or customers ask for new features, try…** 1. **Turning calls into product discovery calls.** Use calls to understand the underlying problem. Who else has this problem? And how **else** could we solve it? For example, can you solve this with third-party product integrations? 2. **Pushing back.** You’d be surprised how many “must haves” are actually “nice to haves,” and the customer may still sign. 3. **Recognizing when you’re not a good fit for the customer**. Ask if they’d be willing to stay in touch and test prototypes when they’re ready. Then reach out when you have something and look to close them at a later date. Sales won’t like this 👆 so you need to be in a financial position to justify the decision. You’ll also need to outline the cost of this extra work – not only the costs to build, but also the opportunity cost and the cost to maintain. ❗ *Warning: If this happens too often it’s either a sales misalignment in the product positioning or you have gaps in your product-market fit – either way you need to solve this ASAP.* 4. **Last resort** – If due to financial pressure you have to sign them now, try not to be specific about the solution, just the problem that needs to be solved. Try to be date-agnostic, but if they require a delivery date, overestimate it to get as long a time horizon as possible. This will give you ultimate flexibility in how you allocate resources to solve the problem while giving you more time to talk to others with similar issues so you create a more well-rounded solution. ### The target customer wants to be “sold.” Some customers, for example, enterprise buyers, want to talk to someone before they purchase. Done well, this is a great method for getting high-value customers. However it doesn’t mean you need to become “sales-led” everywhere, it just means you have a sale-led monetization strategy for a target customer who expects that. [Check out this matrix from Elana Verna](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/elenaverna%5Fgrowth-b2b-strategy-activity-6948653926757937153-hJiU/) on examples of being product-led, sales-led, and marketing-led for each step in the acquire, retain, and monetize customer journey. The trick here is to remember you can adopt multiple strategies even when some of your customers want to be sold. **When you’re currently running sales-led everywhere, try:** 1. **Adopting a product-led sales approach**, where the product helps with adoption and retention, but uses sales for monetization. This is sometimes also referred to as “bottom-up sales” – where the end users explore and validate the product. They then become internal champions that help sell it to the budget holder within the business. Again[ Elana brings the goods with this post](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/elenaverna%5Fb2b-growth-activity-6921834807589011458-lIXr/). ### It’s technically hard to offer self-serve sign-up Being product-led is easier when you have a large customer base and a larger pool of insights to draw on. One of the lowest friction ways to get a large customer base is to let people try the product without having to talk to anyone. However, depending on how your product is built, for many B2B companies, this can be challenging. **When you can’t be product-led with acquisition, try…** 1. **Focusing on being product-led for activation.** There are always opportunities to work on building out the core habits of your product, particularly if you suffer from churn, which often comes from poor activation during onboarding. Activation is easy to measure in a leading way, which will help get you buy-in for further investment (more on data for buy-in next). 2\. **Create a secondary product that can be product-led and use it for lead generation.** [Clearbit does this very well with its tools](https://clearbit.com/resources/tools). Just make sure the value of the secondary product is aligned with your core product, to ensure leads are high quality. 3\. **Build self-serve acquisition into the product.** If the total addressable market is large enough to support the opportunity cost, bite the bullet and prioritize building self-serve acquisition into the product. Use growth modeling to justify the opportunity to external stakeholders, and make sure sales is onside by promoting the product-led sales approach mentioned above. --- ## **Even more value this way 👇** We want to offer you even *more* value. Network, knowledge share, or land your next role in competitive intelligence. Just click below to join the **competitive intelligence community** on **Slack**. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/CIA_Website_Banners_2-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### Lack of data, so the HIPPO decides If you don’t have customer data to make decisions then it’s hard to understand what’s working and what isn’t. In these situations, the HIPPO (**highest-paid person’s opinion**) makes the calls. And without data, can we blame them? Customer data is required to make **better product decisions**, measure outcomes, and ultimately **gain trust** from leadership, which enables more autonomy. Regardless of your setup, you likely have access to customer data already, but not all data is created equal. People put stock in both numbers *and* stories, so make sure to use your customer interviews and competitive intelligence. Also, hard numbers are only useful in making decisions if the metrics are leading indicators of success. For example, if you only have revenue as a data point, it can be hard to see if the activation work you’ve just released is having an impact. **When you don’t have the right data, try…** 1. **Testing your assumptions as cheaply as possible.** Get multiple people interacting with customers each week through customer interviews, prototypes, paid ads, landing pages, surveys, etc. There are a plethora of cheap and quick ways to get some qual data, and the more people involved the more they will buy into the findings (and the more you will reduce your own bias). 2. **Getting familiar with Google Analytics.** The new GA4 might need some dev work to help set up, but it’s not too hard and there’s plenty of data in there to help build a case. 3. **Using FullStory.** It’s relatively easy to implement, but if you don’t have the funds for that Microsoft Clarity is free (but much more manual to get insights out of). 4. **Manually running SQL against the database.** If you don’t have someone who knows SQL, you might have to learn it. [DataCamp](https://www.datacamp.com/) has a good free course. Half the challenge here is not just learning SQL, but learning your database structure. Often, it’s a mess, so get a dev to walk you through it, and be smart about the questions you’re asking – there’s a time cost to this process. 5. **Investing in a tool like Amplitude**. Self-serve usage analytics, coupled with split testing capabilities, give you that next level of granular detail to both identify and validate opportunities, as well as measure success. It’s a game changer and will help change opinions on the journey to being product-led. ### Lack of trust in a product-led team. Perhaps the biggest hurdle is the cultural change involved in getting stakeholders to champion being more product-led. People who are used to making decisions will now be challenged, and potential customers lost in efforts to build more scalable solutions. Ultimately this comes down to **risk mitigation** – both the risk of getting it wrong and the **opportunity cost** of what people could have done instead. **When you don’t have trust in trying product-led, first:** 1. **Share the benefits of PLG** – Identify key stakeholders and make sure they understand the potential benefits of being product-led. This is where I would focus more on PLG as opposed to product-led principles, as it’s more likely to align with the vocabulary and metrics the leader cares about. [This article summarises PLG quite well](https://openviewpartners.com/product-led-growth/) but in a nutshell PLG companies have: - Faster acquisition = more scale. - Faster adoption = more retention. - Lower customer acquisition costs. - A greater ability to attract and retain top talent. 2\. **Make their goals your goals** – Ideally company and department strategies are well communicated, but if they aren’t, you may need to start conversations and get alignment on what metrics your key decision-makers care about. [The North Star workshop](https://amplitude.com/north-star/getting-started-running-a-north-star-workshop) is a great tool to enable collaboration in these discussions. Regardless of the end goal, you need a metric that you can measure in a leading way, as well as agreement from your key stakeholders. 3\. **Make the ask small** – We all have limited resources, and the more you ask for, the more you put the project at risk of ending prematurely. Treat this like an MVP to get greater buy-in for a more holistic change. Use the above metric to pitch a project, time-box it to 6 months, and limit the team size to a product designer and two full-stack engineers, with a part-time data analyst if you can’t self-serve. 4\. **Pick the right time and people** – people who have experience in the parts of the product you’re likely to work on, and make sure they’re passionate about making it work. Sell them on the opportunity space, the new way of working, and the extra autonomy they’ll have in this project. Stealing top talent from other teams may impact those teams' deliverables, this is why it’s essential to make sure your team is small and time-boxed. If you’re struggling to get the players you want, another option is to pick a time of year when teams are less busy. For example, some devs might be willing to work over December and January while other teams are disrupted by the holidays. 5\. **Showcase success** – When you get your team, make sure you celebrate their successes early and often. Keep coming back to the predefined metrics and sharing your learnings. The more you communicate the team’s wins during this trial period, the more likely you’ll get wider buy-in when the project is over. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/unnamed.jpg) [*Image by John Cutler*](https://twitter.com/johncutlefish/status/1370298106319753219) ## Summary The **main points** to take away: 1. It’s ok to be more **product-led in some areas** while staying sales-led in others. 2. **Identify your blockers** to becoming more product-led right now, and brainstorm some ideas to overcome them. 3. Product-led growth is **a great enabler** of product-led principles. In particular, self-service acquisition coupled with product data tracking is a great recipe for teams to quickly and autonomously deliver value that’s aligned with the end user. 4. Change takes time, and a small team working on a time-boxed product-led project can be the **catalyst for broader change** in the organization. --- ## ****Looking for a soapbox? You've found it. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to ****get in touch**. Don't want to write? There are other ways you can get your voice heard and build your personal brand. From podcasts to ghostwriters, we've got the avenue for you. 💯 [Give me a voice!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### “Having other people to bounce ideas off… The Slack community is key.” - Keith Brooks, B2B Whisperer URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/keith-brooks-case-study/ Last updated: 2023-10-27T12:23:31.000Z Keith Brooks is CMO and VP of Product Marketing at B2B Whisperer, but he’s also been an active participant in the Competitive Intelligence Alliance community since day one. From helping CI newcomers in the Slack community to contributing his insights to our recent [Competitive Positioning Playbook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/), Keith continues to find new ways to share his expertise. Keith has a wealth of experience in product marketing and competitive intelligence, from his time as EMEA Regional Product Manager for IBM in the late 90s, through roles as a Data Intelligence Consultant, to his position today as CMO and VP of Product Marketing at B2B Whisperer. Together, Keith’s depth of knowledge and willingness to share make him a much-valued member of our competitive intelligence community. In this case study, he discusses: - [His motivations for joining the CIA community.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/f62c689f-49df-42bd-b4d9-cd0a617d9189/#keith%E2%80%99s-motivations-for-joining-the-cia-community) - [What Keith has found most valuable about engaging with the community.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/f62c689f-49df-42bd-b4d9-cd0a617d9189/#what-keith-has-found-most-valuable-about-engaging-with-the-community) - [The aspects of CIA he would most strongly recommend to friends and colleagues.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/f62c689f-49df-42bd-b4d9-cd0a617d9189/#the-aspects-of-the-community-keith-most-strongly-recommends) ## Keith’s motivations for joining the CIA community Q: You’ve worked in CI for a long time. What were your motivations for joining the Competitive Intelligence Alliance community? Did you have particular goals or interests in mind when you joined? A: A lack of space for CI people. We live a quiet life sometimes, and people stay away from us once they see us in action. Or, we’re unique in that we support many departments including sales, marketing, executive, and support, and need a home outside of that. ## What Keith has found most valuable about engaging with the community Q: You’ve been one of the most active contributors across the community, both in the [Slack workspace](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) and by contributing your expertise to our recent Competitive Positioning playbook. What have you found most valuable about engaging with the community in these ways? A: Having other people to bounce ideas off, or helping new people as they start their CI journey, is great. Tools, ideas, and how to pitch or approach people (and more) can be learned from the chat discussions. On one hand, I am just a solo CI practitioner so some of this is done because I have many years of experience. I’ve worked at the Enterprise B2B level down to startups and I want to share what I know and have learned with everyone. On the other hand, I’m trying to do something new with my business, so these efforts will, I hope, help me in my efforts to grow the business. I have a long history of sharing my work with business communities that comes from the collaboration space. ## The aspects of the community Keith most strongly recommends Q: Which aspects of the CIA community would you recommend most strongly to a friend or colleague? Do the products, articles, or events stand out for you? Or does the Slack community loom the largest given its frequent use? A: The Slack community is key… Without interacting with others you will not grow professionally. Our **competitive intelligence community on Slack** gives you the opportunity to do just that: interact with other CI practitioners. Join today to ask questions, share resources, and network with the best. [Join the Slack Community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ### How Notion grows URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-notion-grows/ Last updated: 2025-02-26T17:11:09.000Z 🚦 What we can learn about product-led and community-led growth strategies from a ****$10bn SaaS startup.** This post was originally published in my free newsletter, How They Grow, where every other week, I pick one company or startup you probably know and go deep on their **go-to-market strategy,** how they **acquired early customers,** and what their **current growth engine** looks like. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been going down several rabbit holes to learn as much as I can about a humble little multi-billion dollar company called [Notion](http://www.notion.so/), trying to get a solid understanding of what’s made them such a startup success story, as well as what actionable advice I can extract for us to use on growth – and there’s a lot of it! Here’s what to expect in this piece: **Introduction** - [*What Notion does, where it came from, why we should care*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/9ab51e3d-3241-43f7-a343-7390bb08b7c3/#the-great-bundling) - [*Market positioning*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/9ab51e3d-3241-43f7-a343-7390bb08b7c3/#oops-that-could-have-been-a-fail) **How they grow** - [*Product-led growth*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/9ab51e3d-3241-43f7-a343-7390bb08b7c3/#product-led-growth) - [*Community-led growth*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/9ab51e3d-3241-43f7-a343-7390bb08b7c3/#building-community) As we go, I’ll be calling out key learnings and takeaways that can help all of us build and grow better businesses, and also sound smarter in our next meeting. 😎 ## The great bundling Once upon a time, if you had an idea on how to improve your mud hut building business or a list of fruits and berries your wife told you to go gather, all you’d have to help you look after that info would be your good ol’ memory. Fast forward a couple of thousand millennia and the way we keep track of (and work with) information has progressed significantly. Today we have access to tools that make it easier to keep notes and track things in our personal and work lives We can summarize the evolution of documentation into three broad stages: 1. **Undocumented, unreliable.** This is where the things we learned were passed on purely through stories around the campfire. 2. **Documented, reliable, but fragmented.** A ton of progress happened in this evolutionary phase, starting with stone tablets, through to all the note-taking and workspace apps we see around us today. All today’s tools, by and large, 1. Serve one main function each, 2. Are unbundled, and 3. Are defined by how they’re used. In other words, we have to use many different tools to perform our various responsibilities at home and at work. 1. **Bundled, highly personalized.** This next evolutionary phase is where I’d like to introduce you to Notion. While many people are happy with phase two tools, Ivan Zhao and Simon Last have bet big on two things: 1. Many people are not, and 2. People love playing with LEGO. On the back of that thesis, they founded [Notion](http://www.notion.so/), the **“all-in-one workspace” for everything and anything**. This platform bundles all the most important tools you use for docs and productivity into one place and is super easy to customize. If you’re an individual who’s looking to take notes, make to-do lists, track habits, make life wikis, build a personal portfolio website, or – like me right now – organize your budding newsletter business everyone's subscribing to, Notion’s the tool for you. Its $10 billion-and-growing valuation comes from the fact that it’s a collaborative tool, allowing teams to build knowledge bases and wikis, share documents, take notes, manage workflows, and act as a powerful sandbox where they can build any system they need to without having to code or connect dozens of tools. That sounds like it could be hella confusing to navigate. Through excellent onboarding and their successful **templates** feature, though, they’ve not *just* made it easy for you to build your workspace. **They’ve also built an exceptionally powerful growth loop.** A lot more on this soon. With this – Ivan, Simon, and their small team of around 400 people have started a whole new phase in the evolution of productivity – **the great bundling**. But, they didn’t always have VCs frothing to get a piece of their growth. ### How Notion almost failed What many people don’t know, is that in 2015, this perfect Silicon Valley startup nearly died and joined the other 90% of startups that fail. [**Skip to the takeaways.**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/9ab51e3d-3241-43f7-a343-7390bb08b7c3/#pause-for-takeaways-%F0%9F%8D%95) So, before getting into how they grow, let’s take a step back for a moment to see **where the idea came from, why they almost failed, and importantly, what we can learn from how they got through it.** > Like many great startup ideas, the original kernel that set things in motion came from Ivan Zhao setting out to **solve a problem for himself.** After graduating college, he found himself in a close circle of fashion designers, artists, and creators – a circle who had no shame in taking his technical skills for granted and asking him to create one-page portfolio websites for them. **TL;DR**: he got over that pretty quickly and wanted to find a way to replace his new no-pay gig of churning these sites out. With his background in programming, he wanted to build a tool that would allow all these creative folks to build an expressive portfolio for themselves. [**Skip to the takeaways.**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/9ab51e3d-3241-43f7-a343-7390bb08b7c3/#pause-for-takeaways-%F0%9F%8D%95) He had the itch, so he quit his job and teamed up with Toby Schachman to scratch it. Toby had just finished his Master’s at NYU, where he published his entire thesis on **visual programming**. Visual programming posed an elegant solution to the problem, as it’s a language that allows anyone to **create apps graphically** without code. All giddy on visual programming, they set their eyes on a much more ambitious project – to empower people with a tool to create any generic web app you can use and customize without having to learn how to code. In 2013, they raised a seed round, and they brought in Simon Last, an aspiring visual programmer. The three of them began work on Concept, their aptly named prototype. **This was *all* circa 2012–2013** – and the problem they faced at that time was that their vision of democratizing programming for creative people wasn’t rooted in any immediate or frequent problem their target audience of creative non-programmers faced. Their big audacious goal had an early positioning problem, so the Trojan horse for their vision became *creating documents.* > “We focused too much on what we wanted to bring to the world. We needed to pay attention to what the world wanted from us”, *Ivan said.* And people were just not interested in a no-code programming application. [**Skip to the takeaways.**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/9ab51e3d-3241-43f7-a343-7390bb08b7c3/#pause-for-takeaways-%F0%9F%8D%95) That’s a really important takeaway **– you *need* a wedge into your market.** A specific problem and use case that’s real and relatable to the people you want using your product, one that’s simple to explain. This is how you get people to come for the fries and stay for the happy meal. More on this coming up. So, while their mission was, and still is, “**to make it possible for everyone to shape the tools that shape their lives**” by building LEGO-style software, they focused on a different approach to getting there. For two-ish years, they worked away, and now we’re back in 2015, where as I said, they almost joined the startup graveyard. **A key issue:** they had built their app on a suboptimal tech stack. It crashed constantly. Their seed cash was burning with no revenue to replenish it, and they arrived at a hard choice many founders find themselves facing – start over, or run out of cash. > “If you looked at the burn rate, we all would’ve died together,” Ivan says. “It wasn’t much of a choice.” So, Ivan and Simon set about **rebuilding the tech**. They left uber-expensive San Fransisco and went to Kyoto, Japan – where their founder-friendly diet of ramen would be cheaper, and where they could sublet their SF apartment and live off the difference between SF & Kyoto rental costs. [**Skip to the takeaways.**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/9ab51e3d-3241-43f7-a343-7390bb08b7c3/#pause-for-takeaways-%F0%9F%8D%95) They didn’t know anyone and couldn’t speak a lick of Japanese, so they spent 18 hours a day thinking, designing, programming, and creating Notion. Several months later, in 2016 – they released version 1.0 of the app. In 2018, they released version 2.0 – and that’s when things started getting serious. In short-stead; they hit **1 million users** with just their seed round of funding and only 18 people on the team, they delayed taking on VC money while Silicon Valley was knocking and their user base and devoted community exploded. They grew rapidly to their current $10 billion valuation, and through their domino approach to breaking into large companies – are now selling enterprise software through TikTok. Yup, TikTok. So, how did they do it? A little strategy, a great product that people love, and knowing how to grow. And here is where our growth analysis begins. ### Pause for takeaways 🍕 As promised, here are some high-level takeaways on the above. These ones are for founders. - **Try solving your own problems.** One of the best ways to find a startup idea is to just be aware of your own unmet needs. Solve your own problems and you’ll have a good grip on who your customer will be. - **It’s okay to copy.** Ivan Zhao said on an AMA forum, “*Our guiding light has always been history. To be honest, nothing is new in Notion. We copied everything from earlier systems*.” - **Bring in people with the right experience.** Everyone Ivan brought in to co-found his idea had a background that made sense and contributed – this creates mindshare. - **Have a big vision, but find your Trojan horse.** An inspiring vision is what gets people to quit their job, get paid nothing, and go to Kyoto with you. But sometimes that vision is hard to communicate on your homepage, and isn’t what resonates most with your new users *right now*. Find a *specific problem* that’s real and relatable to the people you want using your product, one that’s *simple* to explain. - **Be versatile.** Have strong convictions, but loosely held. Don’t be married to your ideas or plans – because in the beginning, they are sure to not go the way you think. Adapt to what people want, not what you thought they would. Pivot or rebuild if you need to. - **Make hard choices.** Letting go of friends you work with, or packing up your life to go to another country – these are not easy calls to make, but they might be necessary. - **Know when to take people's money.** This is a tricky one. If someone’s offering you money right now (i.e this down market) – take it! But there’s a lot to be said for turning down cash until you have something that’s ready to have fuel thrown onto it. - **Move to Kyoto if you need to**. Do whatever it takes to survive. Hustle, persevere, be creative, have grit. --- ## Even more value this way 👇 We want to offer you even *more* value. Network, knowledge share, or land your next role in competitive intelligence. Just click below to sign up to our competitive intelligence community on Slack. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/CIA_Website_Banners_2-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ## Breaking down Notion’s growth Notion has not followed a growth strategy like your typical B2C or B2B SaaS company. They do hardly any paid ads. A key differentiator to their strategy is how they grow horizontally by marketing to a large base of people, segmenting their audiences, and leaning heavily into their flexibility, and the power of community. Notion makes its money on the B2B side of its business, so I’m going to spend a lot of time looking at growth through this lens. But, before we get into the specifics of Notion’s growth, let’s align on a few aspects of go-to-market (G2M) motions first. B2B companies usually go to market with: 1. A **product-led or sales-led growth strategy**, and 2. **A top-down or bottom-up approach**. I’ll build on some definitions here that come from Lenny Rachitsky and Wes Bush in his book,*Product-Led Growth.* ### Product-Led vs. Sales-Led vs. Sales-Assisted Growth - **Product-led:** The product is self-serve (with a freemium or trial offering), and users become customers after using the product on their own. They also generally discover your product through SEO, ads, or referrals. Here, your product powers every stage of your funnel – from helping users onboard to discovering value, and then upgrading. It also makes it easier to reach more people and to sell your product at a more affordable price, and most cross-functional teams in the business align around product. This includes companies like **Spotify, Netlfix, Figma, Airtable, and Notion.** - **Sales-led:** The product requires someone from the company (usually a salesperson) to onboard you, and new customers generally try the product only after a salesperson reaches out. Deals take longer to close with this approach, and this cost is typically passed on to customers. This includes companies like **IBM, Oracle, Snowflake, and Salesforce.** - **Sales-assisted:** A sales team helps close and expand larger accounts that primarily come through a product-led motion (vs. outbound sales). Some mixture of sales is needed when dealing with higher account value enterprises. ### Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up vs. Community-Led - **Top-down:** You go after key decision makers (e.g. execs, VPs, heads-of) within the company, who buy and spread your product throughout the company top-down. This approach only works if you’re using a sales-led G2M strategy, since the deal value needs to be a lot higher. Benefits here include lower churn and closer relationships – but at the expense of potentially relying on a few key contracts. This includes companies like **Workday**, **Salesforce**, and **Square**. - **Bottom-up:** You target individual contributors within a company, who try the product and then spread the word for you in their teams, eventually enabling you to sell and expand the product companywide. The benefits here are fewer touches are needed by your team to sell, lower customer acquisition costs (CAC), quicker sales cycles, and more easily predicted sales figures. This includes companies like **Slack, Datadog, and GitHub**. - **Community-led.** This, unsurprisingly, is where your community does the selling for you. Here, your members become a powerful, multiplying force that help you drive growth at every stage of your funnel. They act as an outgrowth of your marketing, customer success, and sales teams. I will expand on this growth motion later. **Notion started out byusing a bottom-up and community-led approach to go after consumers (B2C) and SMBs (B2B with less than 100 employees). It got them to be customers with a product-led growth strategy.** As they’ve built and grown a huge and engaged community, Notion has continued to lean into product-led growth as their core growth strategy. But they’ve also built out a sales-assisted model for bigger enterprise clients that their community actively contributes to winning. Growth happens inside either an existing or a new market – so before looking at how Notion is growing, we first need to ask what market Notion is in, and where they fit in. ### Notion and the competitive landscape Broadly speaking, Notion is in the collaborative-workspaces market. However, the best and quickest way to introduce the competitive landscape without getting very deep here is by means of a quote from [Foundation Inc](https://foundationinc.co/lab/notion-strategy), “Notion is reinventing the spreadsheet & competing with thousands of software companies at the same time”. This Tweet by [Ross Simmonds](https://twitter.com/TheCoolestCool) helps to further sum things up: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/1-1.png) There are a ton of SaaS companies that have built businesses around [unbundling the use-cases within excel](https://foundationinc.co/lab/the-saas-opportunity-of-unbundling-excel/) – [just like people have done for Craigslist.](https://a16z.com/2019/09/11/platforms-verticals-unbundling/) > “At the end of the day, the good old-fashioned spreadsheet is still coming to eat your lunch. Using Asana to collaborate with clients? There’s a spreadsheet for that. Using Trello to track project statuses and owners? Spreadsheet for that too. Using Todoist for personal task management? Yep, Google Sheets can do that too.” – Josh Gallant, Foundation Inc But, Notion is coming for Google’s lunch. They are bundling use cases from the spreadsheet and packaging them with an easier UI and UX. Notion, along with direct competitors like Airtable and Coda, are positioning themselves as spreadsheet alternatives to directly challenge Excel and Google Sheets. This means Notion spans many audiences and markets. Not only do most SaaS companies still need to compete with the spreadsheet and each other, but they’re also competing with Notion. Notion isn’t just trying to pull users away from Airtable or Sheets. They’re trying to attract users from thousands of SaaS companies across hundreds of industries. Accounting SaaS tools, HR SaaS tools, Project management SaaS tools, Content scheduling SaaS tools – the list goes on. Okay, now that we have a decent idea of the landscape, let’s look at how Notion is growing so successfully within it. We’ll start by looking at how they’re winning product-led growth, and we’ll circle back to their community-led growth. ## Product-led growth In this go-to-market strategy, the product is the main driver throughout the user experience that encourages growth at every stage of the funnel. So, product-led growth begins with people coming in and trying your product (for free). However, Notion is a bundled tool that does a lot. And while this breadth and flexibility of their offering is how they have been able to grow horizontally and appeal to such a wide base of people, it has a drawback. **It makes it a hard-to-sell product**, meaning they have to explain exactly what the tool does. Yet, Notion is multiplying its user base year-over-year with no paid advertising. This means people are… 1. Picking up what they’re putting down 2. Signing up to give it a go, and 3. Setting their product-led flywheel in motion through referrals. So – *how do they sell a hard-to-get product so efficiently?* In researching Notion’s growth, I came across a concept by [Ali Abouelatta](https://read.first1000.co/) that I think explains this really well. He calls out two things. A *value curve*, and a *value stack*. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/2-1.png) > “*One way to maximize user commitment is by getting them to invest time and effort in learning the ins and outs of the tool at hand. Most enterprise (or even consumer) software has a learning curve. The more you learn how to use the software, the more utility you can extract out of it.* > *Notion did an excellent job here at moving people along this learning/value curve *extremely efficiently* (without the need for a large CS or sales force) and *extremely fast.** > *For the same $4, $8, $12/month, Notion is a better bargain for someone on top of the Value curve than someone just at the start, and those are the people who would be *most motivated to spread the word about the product*.*” – Ali Abouelatta So, Notion is selling a feature-packed product with many levels of utility by incrementally moving people along that value curve. This is where his concept of a value stack comes in – a layered approach to getting people to maximum product utility. - *Layer 1:* I use Notion for myself - *Layer 2:* My team and I use Notion - *Layer 3:* Notion is my company’s source of truth - *Layer 4:* Lego blocks for creating productivity apps. If a user was thrown straight into the full power of Notion right at layer four, some people would get it. Many would be lost and leave. That’s where Notion follows the “**come for X, stay for Y**” idea. They then move people *towards* Level 4. Now, let’s get into the details of how they move people along that value curve. ### Comparative positioning to the tools you know Notion calls out the competitors it’s replacing with no shame. These tools are all familiar and well-positioned in the minds of their audience of consumers and SMBs. This is a *simple* and *effective* strategy to explain your product. Your competitors have spent a ton of time and resources creating awareness for themselves and making sure end-users understand what they do. You piggyback on that to quickly help people get what *you* do, and then explain your differentiator. It’s similar (but even more useful) than the “We’re Uber for X” statement, because you’re instead saying “We’re *replacing* X.” This is a bolder statement, sure, but it’s far more useful because people don’t have to perform mental gymnastics to figure out what you do. Take a look at how they’re doing it for their three most popular use-cases for teams: *Wikis, Projects & Tasks, Notes & Docs.* For team wikis, it’s Confluence and GitHub Wiki: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/3-1.png) For project and task management, Trello, Asana, and Jira: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/4-1.png) And for notes and documents, Google Docs and Evernote: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/5-1.png) As a user scrolls through this page, it becomes very clear what they can expect Notion to do for them. One caveat here to keep in mind, which should go without saying – don’t bullshit people. Overpromising and underdelivering = unhappy users = churn and a leaky bucket. So, if this is a strategy you use, pick the tools your product ‘replaces’ with consideration. ### Removing barriers to entry through single-player mode and integrations Notion uses **comparative positioning** to help people get what they do before trying it. From here, the next step is converting those people into users and getting them into the product. To see how Notion did that in the beginning (and still does today), let’s start by taking a look at the productivity landscape back in 2018\. Specifically, at other companies selling bundled solutions. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/6.png) To summarize that in terms of use-cases: - Quip: Real-time collaboration on document + Chat - Amium: File sharing + Chat - Bear: Notes + Docs - Notion: Docs + Wiki + Tasks Notion has been the clear winner in this space. 💡 One key reason for Notion's success here is that it bundled use cases that were valuable even if you were the **only* person using it. ****This is called single-player mode** and it’s an **exceptionally* valuable strategy for subscription-based products with B2B customers. This is because a new person who joins can use it, and keep using it, without needing other people on the team for it to work. Take Slack for example. It’s an extraordinary product, but if you’re the only person on your team who’s on it and you’re hearing crickets, it’s useless. That’s because it’s purely a **multi-player product**. Multi-player products, once you get to the right threshold of people, are super powerful because they create network effects (i.e they become exponentially more valuable as more people use them). This means, once you’re in and using a multi-player product, it’s harder to switch and leave. The brilliance of Notion is that there’s a single-player *and* a multi-player mode. **This single-player strategy within a B2B product makes it much easier to follow a bottom-up approach to selling to companies.** This is because they can get people in to try it for themselves, and then upsell the value to bring in the rest of their team (only charging for the service from this point on). This single-player support for their bottom-up strategy is why they can sell to big companies through TikTok – because *technically*, they’re not. They’re selling to you and me, everyday people who work at companies, that then initiate a domino effect into the rest of the company. I can first-hand confirm the efficacy of that, because they got me, and now my team and my entire company use Notion. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/9.png) As you’ve seen – Notion can replace a lot of apps you might be using across its broad, bundled, productivity stack. But that doesn’t mean you necessarily want to be replacing your entire Google Suite. For example at my company, we still use Google Docs and Google Sheets for certain use-cases. Notion knows that. A key way that they’ve removed barriers to entry and made the decision to give Notion a go that much easier **is by making it very clear that they “play nice” with other tools via integrations.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/10.png) > “To tackle that barrier head-on, Notion lists a few of the many tools they play nice with, showing how they can fit into the workflows you’re already comfortable with. Use Slack often? Notion works well with Slack. Don’t want to ditch the Google Suite entirely? You don’t have to. Notion and Notion integrations work with Sheets, Docs, and Drive.” – Josh Gallant from Foundation Inc This is important because they remove the need to make a hard switching decision if that is a friction point, and allow you to give Notion a go while keeping your other tools. Some, actually many, of the tools Notion integrates with are not replaced by Notion. Rather, they are adjacent tools their audience is likely using to get their overall job done. Integrations then help them bring all that together into their everything workspace. ### Personalizing your product experience Okay, so Notion leaned into comparative positioning to help people know what they’re about and then got users to convert through the appeal and utility of single-player mode and easy integrations. Now we’re in the sign-up process … and to continue helping new users “get it” and not be overwhelmed by everything – **they use a personalization strategy.** This is a quick onboarding quiz users are walked through to get a sense of their goals with Notion. This, in short, ensures they send people down the most relevant and useful path within the product. It means people are seeing what they want to see. Let’s take a look. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/8.png) Each path has very **specific messaging and activation steps** – making Notion feel like it’s the right place for you.This is such an important strategy for introducing people to new information at a pace that isn’t overwhelming. Let’s look at a specific example. Say I was using Notion for my team, and I said I was on the marketing department. The final step in the registration process and onboarding quiz is their first touch-point for referrals – trying to get those dominos falling. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/7.png) Three easy ways for a user to start multiplayer mode, with a smart default choice, make this an effective referral page. Of course, if you’re not ready to invite your team yet, you don’t have to. Now you’re inside the product and they know who you are and what you’re here for. Notion’s next goal is to get you to activate and start engaging with the tool. **This activation step is where Notion’s most powerful feature comes into play – templates.** Because I joined as a marketer, I’m given a set of templates to start trying out that are most relevant to what I’m here for and hence most likely to use. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/14.png) If I’d said I was using Notion just for myself, I’d have gotten templates like Tasks, Notes, Journals, etc. Now, we’re starting to talk about templates – and this is where Notion’s powerful growth loop comes in. I’m starting to get giddy because I’ve been *dying* to talk about loops! ### The “Template” growth loop But first, let’s define what a loop is. To start very simply, a loop is not a funnel. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/12.png) Here’s [Brian Balfour](https://www.reforge.com/blog?author=528c45f9e4b06be250a9fe2e) from Reforge, explaining growth loops: > *“One of the common answers to ‘How does your product grow?’ is a picture of a funnel. The funnel AARRR framework was originally created by Dave McClure. It was a great starting point. It helped me and millions of others level up their game. But the framework is now more than 11 years old and since then we’ve learned a lot about how the fastest software products grow.* > *The biggest thing we’ve learned is that the funnel framework is too micro of a view in order to answer ‘How does your product grow?’ It helps explain a specific step within a Growth Loop, but misses the larger picture of the loop itself.”* He goes on to list various reasons why growth funnels are problematic, which I by and large agree with. It’s an [important read](https://www.reforge.com/blog/growth-loops). *So, why growth loops and not growth funnels?* - **Loops are compound interest.** With a loop, one cohort of users or one set of actions within the cycle re-invests itself at the beginning of the next cycle, and so on. - **Loops are defensible.** They bring together how your product, channel, and monetization strategies work cohesively together in a single system rather than treating them as discrete silos. This makes them more specific to you, making them harder for others to copy. - **Loops lead to holistic thinking and decision-making.** Because loops force you to see the entire system as one functioning thing vs looking just at just one level in a funnel, you approach growth and investment decisions with a better macro view. Loops are a fantastic growth framework. And Notion, **through templates and community** (which we will segue into soon), have built a mechanism that is propelling their product-led growth. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/19.png) When Notion launched, they had 30 templates that their own team produced. These templates made it easy for new users to discover Notion without having to do any work (i.e build) and learn about how it works. From here, as people played around more, they started moving along that value stack – until they reached layer 4 and started making their own. The beauty of Notion’s template strategy, beyond being an onboarding mechanism, is that they have also **open-sourced templates.** People can customize existing templates, or build their own, and then publish and share them with other people. This is brilliant, and it’s a pillar of their community. By allowing people to share their creations with the world, **Notion has created an entire marketplace outside of Notion for these templates.** Some people just share templates for free with the community on Reddit or Twitter; others have made entire businesses from it across platforms, from Gumroad stores to newsletters to YouTube channels. Take a look. **Notion stores are the most tagged in Gumroad for “Business & Money”:** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/11.png) **So many Notion videos on YouTube** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/18.png) People *love* to show people how to do things, and because you can customize Notion in so many ways – people can create many different templates for the simplest of things, like habit trackers, or reading lists. As a result there are far more templates covering way more use-cases than would have been possible if only Notion created them – building them a massive template gallery. And people love to make money and be seen adding value so they’re motivated to share them. This is free growth driven by word-of-mouth**.** As more templates are shared on Slack, Discord, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook groups, Tweets, etc, more eyeballs are seeing Notion in a relevant light. This means more people are coming in through templates, and people who already use Notion are finding new ways to add to their existing workspaces and customize further. That’s a winning growth lever across **acquisition, activation, retention and referral**. Bringing that together into a **growth loop** looks like this: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/16.png) **Let’s walk through it.** 1. You discover Notion through a neat daily journal template shared on Twitter. 2. You sign up so you can give it a try. 3. But, Notion’s learned a bit about you through the quiz, and they suggest more templates. 4. So, you try another template out – “hmm, this is cool!” 5. Suddenly, you’ve made a workspace your own with a few different templates. 6. You’re now comfortable with Notion and have even customized a template to suit you. 7. You think your template is pretty sweet – why not share it? 8. So you post on r/Notion and give it a Tweet. 9. Your mom sees it. 10. Your mom signs up. 11. And so it goes… You can see why a funnel is the wrong way to look at it. A funnel would ignore how you becoming a user leads to your mom joining. As I hope I’ve illustrated, templates are an important part of Notion’s product-led growth. But, the effectiveness of the template growth loop strategy comes from the **tight coupling with community-led growth.** (Remember how loops function as a system across other parts of the business 🤓). I think this is as good a time as any to start talking about community. But we’ve covered a lot so far, so let’s quickly… ### Pause for takeaways🍕 - **Product-led growth is a scalable G2M strategy.** With a great product that helps people throughout your funnel, you reduce the time and costs it takes to bring in customers vs using a sales team alone (bottom-up). The more you have to sell, the higher the cost will be that your customer absorbs. - **Start with a very simple value proposition that solves users’ immediate problems.** It’s okay to have a product that does more – but you need to create a wedge to help you explain your product, and then guide people towards “unlocking” more valuable use cases. Otherwise, you’re going to confuse the heck out of people and limit the top of your funnel. - **Call out your competition.** Creating a direct comparison point helps you explain your product to people much quicker. This is a handy way to help with a positioning problem. Be bold, creative, and edgy here – people love a bit of banter. - **Make it easy to try your product.** Whether you’re B2B or B2C – you need to break down any friction around trying your product. Remove risk, preempt questions, and make the decision easier for people. - **Build in a single-player mode.** By making your product valuable even if you have just one user, you set yourself up for lower churn and give yourself more time to move users along the value curve. - **Personalize your user experience.** This is what people want and expect, and it doesn’t require a whole lot of user data to do right. A simple quiz can be enough to set users down the most relevant path and help them find value. - **Think in loops, not funnels.** Growth loops lean into the most powerful force in the universe – compound interest. While funnels are not irrelevant, loops are a better framework to think about your entire growth system. Think about how one cohort of people, or one set of actions taken by users, will lead to more of the same. Find that and you have your loop. ## Building community Community is so hot right now. And it’s not just all the Web3 startups coming out of the woodwork. It’s also Web2 titans like Atlassian, Glossier, Datadog, Gitlab, Twitch, dbt, Salesforce, Peloton, and many others who have found success from earlier communities gravitating around their early products. To give you some stats – in the [2021 CMX Community Industry Report](https://cmxhub.com/the-2021-community-industry-report-the-data-you-need-to-build-thriving-communities/), 86% of companies said that “community is critical to their mission” and 69% of companies said that they “plan to increase their investment in community in the next year.” And, First Round said that, even in 2019, 80% of startups were investing in community, and 28% considered it to be “their moat and critical to their success.” Before moving into Notion specifics – let’s get an expert to define community for us. ### Defining community > “Community is more than just a feeling of belonging. In the context of business, it’s a structure for creating value. A simple way to understand it is to compare ‘community’ to an ‘audience.’ > To build an audience, you help people. > To build a community, you help people help each other. > It’s a subtle but massive difference in mindset. Traditionally, businesses create all the value for the consumer. Community-driven businesses create spaces for consumers to create value for each other.” – [David Spinks](https://twitter.com/DavidSpinks), *Building Community* Community is an **amplifying force.** It empowers members to contribute, and gives you the ability to scale value creation far beyond what your own team can manage. It’s how Duolingo is able to run [2,600 events every month](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5h79SwDcFU) with a community team of three people, and how [83% of questions](https://cmxhub.com/building-community-is-smart-business-erica-kuhl/) asked by Salesforce’s customers are answered by other customers. In a guest post on Lenny’s Newsletter, David Spinks gives a few examples of what member contribution looks like – and Notion has all of this going for it: - **Moderators:** keep content clean and organized in the community. - **Facilitators:** start conversations in the community and host discussions. - **Event organizers:** start local chapters and self-organize local or virtual events. - **Ambassadors:** advocate on behalf of the brand. - **Content contributors:** write articles, create videos, or develop other forms of content. - **Committee members:** join a customer advisory board to guide product direction. - **Power users:** achieve status by being the most active members of a platform. - **Mentors:** dedicate time to supporting other customers one on one or in small groups. And when you have these contributions going for you – here a few of the major benefits that stood out to me while researching community: - Big trust signal – people trust other people the most. - You can build better products with community feedback – great source of ideas. - An engaged community helps you acquire new users. - An engaged community helps you onboard/activate new users. - An engaged community can augment your customer success. - A community creates belonging, which creates evangelistic fans, which leads to great retention. - An engaged community takes on a life of its own and grows with little effort or cost. Okay – so we know what community is and why so many founders want one. Now let’s look at how Notion is winning at community led-growth, having built an engaged Reddit community of 226K people and a Twitter base of 303K. That’s substantial compared to its competitors and other B2B SaaS companies. ### Notion’s community-led growth flywheel Following the Product Hunt launch of Notion 2.0 in 2018 (a wild success), Notion not only saw a huge lift in traffic and in its user base – but it noticed something significant: **a few Twitter enthusiasts *loved* talking about Notion.** At the time, Camille Rickets, marketing employee #1, saw how vocal these people were being about how great Notion was. She knew this was their first community, and knew Notion needed to find a way to embrace these people and bring them in – Camille’s words, not mine. To lean into this, she hired Ben Lang directly from this naturally budding community. At the time, he was running a Notion fan site that was getting around 80,000 hits per month. Talk about nailing the *“Why do you want to work here?”* interview question. Anyway, from here they went on to build technically the first version of their ambassador program, Notion Pros, which was really just an aggregation of their top fans. In a conversation with Forget The Funnel, Camille explained how they launched the program with a simple landing page – immediately getting 400 applications. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/15.png) To keep it manageable while they figured out what the cadence of communication would be, they started with just 20 people. With these fans, they wanted to really embrace them and make them feel more connected to Notion – **making them feel like members, and *not* customers.** A large part of this was driven by both founders being extremely hands-on with them. They hosted meetups where Ivan and Simon answered questions and spoke to them as peers. They gave them access to funds if they wanted to throw events. They gave them early access to features. Some swag was in there too. And, critically, they asked for their feedback on how to build a better product, essentially creating a customer advisory board, bringing the voice of the customer deeply into Notion. This helped them improve their product more quickly, which feeds back into product-led growth, which helps them grow the community even more. I get to use another loop visual here to illustrate – yay! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/13.png) Visual Source: When you build something that people really want, people will talk about it. Notion found the people with organic enthusiasm, built relationships with them, and they became the gas for their community fire. These early ambassadors threw events, told their friends and followers of Notion’s greatness, created and shared templates, and drove conversations on Reddit. And, because of Notion’s template strategy, these community members were building businesses for themselves. And the way the community can participate has continued to evolve. People have been able to double down on making money and have started consulting businesses (which Notion gives certificates for) that plug directly into Notion’s platform. These help their enterprise clients get the most out of the tool and Notion doesn’t take a cent from that. This has made the community an extension of their customer support and sales teams. *What a beautiful ecosystem!* It’s not hard to see how **the community has become a flywheel for growth,** helping drive customer acquisition, activation, and retention. For product-led companies like Notion, community-led growth “acts as a multiplier on top of product-led growth,” says Corinne Marie Riley, an investor at Greylock. It creates a “flywheel of active members strengthening the community.” The more people feel like they belong in the Notion community, the more likely they are to tell people, to help them get started and discover value, and to contribute to creating the content that helps start the growth loop all over again. In a [Saastr podcast episode](https://www.saastr.com/how-community-led-growth-drives-product-led-growth/), Olivia Nottebohm, CRO of Notion, shared some great advice on community-led growth: > *“I would say that an amazing product is really important for product-led companies. It’s the thing that people want to use and get excited about. I would also say that you need community to win. So how do you think about building up that community and driving growth for your company?* > *\[*First*\] Remember to align your interest with the goals of your community, remember and understand what is it that they want to do and go with them on that journey and really think about, and be close to the personal goals of those early, early adopters.* > *\[*Second*\] Build in those distribution networks to drive enthusiasm and inspiration, and that community will give back as well.* > *\[*Third*\] Empower your community to serve your customers. You don’t need to monetize it if your community is being the consultant or your community is selling the template. The benefit of that far outweighs any cut that you might take as a company early on when really what matters is market share and adoption.* > *\[*Fourth*\] don’t try to own or regulate your community engagement.* > *Don’t ask people to behave in a certain way or follow strict policies. In fact, one of the things I love is that Notion lets anyone use our brand and make any swag they want. That’s wonderful. People are using all sorts of different swag all over the world that has Notion on it created by ambassadors and community groups all around the world.* > *\[*Fifth*\] is stay scrappy. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. Experiment, lean in, try things. If they don’t work, that’s okay.* > *\[*Finally*\], be grateful to the community. It’s really amazing when people spend the time to get deep into the product, to fall in love with the product and then decide to turn out to the world and tell your story for you.”* To compare Notion here to other SaaS startups for a second, two things stood out to me. First, it’s pretty typical to see B2B companies throw money into paid channels – a diminishing returns approach that burns cash. But when looking at Notion’s socials and ad channels, they’ve done hardly any of that. They simply used the traction they got from their community that already loves their product. Second, SaaS startups are usually just obsessed with numbers like churn, conversions, and sign-ups, but Notion has taken a more strategic approach to addressing this concern. They’ve developed their product and content as their community has provided them feedback. They removed the pressure to grow to a certain number and did what any growth-stage company should do – they focused on the quality of their content and **making it a platform a smaller audience loved.** As [Paul Graham told Brian Chesky](https://www.businessinsider.com/the-best-advice-airbnb-ceo-brian-chesky-ever-received-2013-1) when Airbnb was still a place to rent air mattresses in San Francisco, “**It’s better to have 100 people that love you than a million people that just sort of like you. Find 100 people that love you. People who really love a product will make it go viral**”. Notion did just that. They delayed taking on VC money, enabling them to work without insane growth goals. They focused on their users, they focused on product. And, they smashed those goals, regardless. ### Final takeaways on community 🍕 - **First, build something people want.** Community cannot be forced. It’s something that buds organically around what people value and want to talk about. If your product solves a real problem and you find the right early adopters (pre-requisites for growth) – look out for where these people are talking. - **Find where your community is, and meet them there.** Again, community isn’t forced. You need to lean into wherever they are, whether that’s a subreddit or Discord channel. - **To build a community, help people help each other.** You build an audience by helping people, but you build a community by having the right parameters to support your members to help other users. - **Community-led growth is an amplifying force to a product-led G2M strategy.** It empowers your members to contribute, and gives you the ability to scale value creation far beyond what your own team can manage. - **Talk to your potential members and identify their needs and motivations.** It’s the simplest thing you can do to start building community today. Yet, it’s something that companies skip because it means lifting your head from the code and actually speaking to people. - **Make it easy and rewarding for people to contribute.** Create opportunities for your existing customers to share the systems, processes, and workflows they’re using successfully with others in the community. If possible, do that in a way where people can make money. - **Focus on quality.** Notion focused on the quality of their content and making it a platform a smaller audience loved. While other companies were focused on hitting numbers, they took a different approach and focused on how to be clever and clear. The content reaction has been incredibly intentional, while their branding has been clever and community-forward, differentiating them from their competitors. - **Community creates a customer advisory board.** Once you have members who care about the product and feel like they belong, you’ll have direct access to talk to people for product feedback and idea validation. This is invaluable as it brings the customer voice right inside your company – and that reflects in the product. - **Amplify positive community feedback.** Notion did this by sharing a feed of *organic* tweets about their product on their homepage. This is social proof you can tap into without having to schlep and ask people for reviews. - **Take Olivia Nottebohm’s advice.** Align your interests with the communities ⇒ Build in distribution networks ⇒ Empower your community to contribute ⇒ Don’t over-regulate ⇒ Experiment ⇒ Show gratitude to the community. ## Final words Phew, that was a lot we went through there. I hope you enjoyed reading this and found it as helpful as I did researching and writing it. --- ## **Join the conversation** If you want to **learn from the best**, then you’re in luck. You get direct access to them when you join our competitive intelligence community. Rub shoulders with the brightest minds in the business. Join our competitive intelligence Slack community today. 👇 [Join the CI Slack community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/CIA_Website_Banners_2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### Your go-to guide to competitive sales enablement URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/ Last updated: 2024-06-19T14:39:42.000Z From product, to marketing, to executive teams, almost every arm of your org has a vested interest in competitive intelligence. A solid understanding of the competitive landscape means better product roadmaps, more informed strategies, and wiser business decisions. But it’s your sales team that has the most to gain from competitive intel. 💰 Armed with the right info at the right time, your sales reps’ win rates will soar. And it’s sales enablement teams that work to curate and deliver that information. Together, competitive intelligence and sales enablement pave the way for more closed deals, increased revenues, and greater market share. 📈 In this guide, we cover: - [What sales enablement is](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/082c6021-478a-4b26-b534-e5dab5bc2cac/#what-is-sales-enablement), **and** [why it’s important](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/082c6021-478a-4b26-b534-e5dab5bc2cac/#why-is-sales-enablement-important). - [The difference between sales enablement and sales operations.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/082c6021-478a-4b26-b534-e5dab5bc2cac/#what%E2%80%99s-the-difference-between-sales-enablement-and-sales-operations) - [Who’s responsible for sales enablement.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/082c6021-478a-4b26-b534-e5dab5bc2cac/#who-owns-sales-enablement) - [The deliverables competitive enablement teams create.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/082c6021-478a-4b26-b534-e5dab5bc2cac/#what-deliverables-does-sales-enablement-create) - [How to optimize your enablement content.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/082c6021-478a-4b26-b534-e5dab5bc2cac/#how-to-optimize-your-sales-content) - [How to measure the ROI of competitive enablement programs.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/082c6021-478a-4b26-b534-e5dab5bc2cac/#measuring-the-roi-of-sales-enablement) - [Sales enablement best practices.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/082c6021-478a-4b26-b534-e5dab5bc2cac/#sales-enablement-best-practices) ## What is sales enablement? Sales enablement is a business function focused on giving sales reps the **critical information**, assets, and content they need to **close more deals**. This means identifying *exactly* what information is most helpful to reps and coming up with effective ways to deliver that info at crucial moments. It means working cross-functionally to create content that makes the sales cycle more efficient. It also means working together with sales operations to ensure a tech stack is in place to deliver [enablement content](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-sales-enablement-content/) and track its adoption in line with sales performance. ## What is competitive enablement? Competitive enablement is sales enablement with a twist. It focuses specifically on enabling reps to win in *competitive* deals. That is, deals where your product is in a **close-run race** with an alternative product. Competitive enablement content focuses on **tactfully dismissing competitors** to make them appear less viable as alternatives. At the same time, this content aims to present your own product favorably. Usually, this involves recognizing the competitor’s strengths, but explaining why you think these don’t meet the customer’s needs as well as your product can. Or, why you don’t think the problems your competitor’s product solves well are the most pressing problems the market is facing. ## Why is sales enablement important? Sales is a **busy** job. It’s target-driven, and often those targets involve being on the phone for most of the day. That leaves sales reps with **little time** to become experts on new product developments, feature updates, or competitive disruptions. Sales enablement watches and analyzes sales performance, **delivering strategic direction** at key moments, ready to fuel the rep with what they need most. In short, sales enablement makes your sales teams **more effective**. This means more won deals, and **more revenue** for the business. ## What’s the difference between sales enablement and sales operations? Sales operations (sales ops) involves managing and overseeing the **day-to-day processes** that allow sales reps to do their jobs. This often involves managing the CRM (customer relationship management software), and **training** **reps** in its use. It can also involve: - Refining day-to-day sales techniques. 🔎 - Hiring and onboarding those new hires. 👩‍💻 - Tracking sales metrics and KPIs. 📈 Crucially, these all relate to your business’ ***systems* of selling**. That’s also why sales operations professionals tend to look after the sales enablement tools and software that can help automate repetitive tasks and deliver crucial information to reps at the right times. [Sales Enablement Vs Sales Operations: The Hidden DifferencesYour sales team is too busy trying to win deals to tinker with the CRM. That’s why many organizations have introduced two key roles to help your sales reps operate with killer efficiency: sales operations and sales enablement.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/claudio-schwarz-L8iPDE99z9c-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-vs-sales-operations/) ## Who owns sales enablement? Sales enablement professionals act as a **critical link** between your sales and marketing teams. The most effective sales enablement practitioners will be excellent communicators, gathering intel from both groups, and delivering useful, actionable assets to sales teams. That’s why, in smaller businesses without a dedicated sales enablement function, the responsibility is often **distributed** between the product and marketing teams. When the business is mature enough, it will formalize the sales enablement responsibility, assigning it to one or two people. These will most often be members of **product and/or marketing teams**, since they’ll be best placed to produce material that informs sales reps on the benefits of their products. ## What’s the role of a sales enablement manager? Sales enablement managers look to grow business revenue through their **enablement initiatives**. These involve creating learning **materials and resources** to help sales close more deals. The manager is often **in charge of a team** of sales enablement professionals who work on developing and delivering these materials and resources. The sales enablement manager acts as a **critical go-between** for the marketing and sales teams, gathering data and analyzing it for new opportunities to improve the sales process. They’ll design, develop, and deploy enablement programs with the help of their team, and report to the leadership team on the results of these programs. [Sales enablement manager guide: salary, key skills | CIASales enablement sits right next to revenue. With so much opportunity to impact the bottom line, there’s some eyebrow-raising compensation attached to successful sales enablement positions, with the average sales enablement manager earning $120,000.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/chris-hardy-jMILWeXY0fM-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-manager/) ## What deliverables does sales enablement create? Cast your eyes down the list of subheadings in this section. Anything seem strange to you? It might seem odd to argue that a blog post could constitute ‘enabling’ your sales reps. Especially if the sales enablement arm of the business doesn’t write that post *itself*. And after all, a blog post doesn’t directly increase your sales reps’ powers of persuasion. But that’s not the point. The point of [sales enablement content](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-sales-enablement-content/) is to create a **toolbox of assets** your reps can pull from to ease the sales process as needed. To that end, anything that helps your reps win more deals *is* “enablement content”. For example, an account manager or sales enablement lead might look to offer a steak dinner to viable new accounts. Odd? Perhaps. But if it helps reps win deals? Then it’s sales enablement. Still, of all the infinite forms sales enablement could take, there are a finite number of forms it typically *does* take. That’s because, of all these possibilities, there are certain tried and true forms of enablement collateral that do their job better than the rest. Here are some of them: - [Battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/082c6021-478a-4b26-b534-e5dab5bc2cac/#battlecards). ⚔️ - [Informational content.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/082c6021-478a-4b26-b534-e5dab5bc2cac/#informational-content) ℹ️ - [Product demos.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/082c6021-478a-4b26-b534-e5dab5bc2cac/#product-demos) 👨‍💻 - [Landmines.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/082c6021-478a-4b26-b534-e5dab5bc2cac/#landmines) 💣 - [Sales training sessions.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/082c6021-478a-4b26-b534-e5dab5bc2cac/#sales-training-sessions) 🏋️‍♂️ ### Battlecards ⚔️ Everyone loves to talk about [competitive battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/). Done right, they’re every salesperson’s best friend. At their core, battlecards are all about delivering **crucial cliff notes** on competitors. As the name implies, when the ‘battle’ is on, you best bring the heavy weaponry. In this context, that means arming your reps with the information they need to **persuade prospects** your competitors aren’t the right fit for them. Remember, the purpose of sales enablement is to win you more deals. That means giving reps the intel they need to be persuasive, especially in difficult conversations. When competitors come up (as they inevitably will), battlecards play a pivotal role in the deal’s outcome. When your rep can see, at a glance, that competitor X just launched a great new feature, they don’t have to sweat when a customer brings it up. They can more or less read the **ready-made reply** right off the battlecard. This brings us to another of the battlecard’s key strengths: they’re not just fast to digest, they’re **fast to *update*** *.* Your reps can’t know everything. As every competitive intelligence practitioner knows, staying on top of crucial competitor developments, deciding what (if anything) should be done about them, and keeping all arms of the business informed and on the same page is a full-time job. Your sales rep doesn’t have the time to do that themselves while trying to hit targets. Battlecards solve this problem. They deliver deal-winning information to the rep asynchronously for them to access when they need it most. And they’re easy to keep updated when new intel comes along. Plus, when content’s easy to update, it’s easy to stay on top of this crucial task even when resources are thin. ### Informational content ℹ️ Sales enablement pros have to work cross-functionally to identify, then deliver, informative content. Content, that is, that **informs prospective customers** about your products and services while keeping interest high and moving them along the sales funnel. As we mentioned, the content can take many different forms. It just has to help persuade the customer. Customers are more receptive to informational content at certain points in the sales cycle. If the content is long, **colder leads** might shy away from the **time commitment** required to work through it. To a warmer prospect looking to make a decision soon, a detailed **product brochure** might be a welcome aid to the decision-making process. ### Product demos 👨‍💻 Product demos, like informational content, can come in and save the day at certain points in the sales process. Whether pre-recorded video, or a live-hosted webinar, product demonstrations follow the classic **“show, don’t tell”** mantra marketers live by. Rather than telling them what your product does and why it’s great, they get a chance to see it with their own eyes. Demos enable sales teams by showing prospects what they’ll be buying, **removing risk** and uncertainty from the equation. This is persuasive in itself and can help move buyers through the funnel. ### Landmines 💣 Remember the Christopher Nolan movie, Inception? Where Leo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy and friends infiltrate people’s dreams to conduct the heist-worthy act of *planting ideas*? That’s what landmines set your reps up to do. Sometimes included in battlecards, landmines are a conversational trip hazard designed to **disqualify a competitor** before the customer begins to seriously consider their product. But they do so in such a way the prospect *feels* like they had the idea themselves. This often takes the form of a question about an area you know your competitor is weak. If you know your competitor’s video calling software is slow and stuttery, the landmine might be to ask your customer how important a stable, reliable service is to them. The value here is that, even if this competitor never comes up in conversation, your prospect has now considered how mission-critical stability is to them. Now, when they look for proof that your competitor’s service is reliable they’ll **discover for themselves** that yours is the best option for them. ### Sales training sessions 🏋️‍♂️ Sales enablement assets don’t mean a thing if your reps don’t use them. And that’s why sales training sessions, another key deliverable for the sales enablement team, are so important. Sales training sessions achieve a number of things: - They **introduce** your reps to the enablement collateral you’ve created. 💡 - They give reps a chance to offer **feedback** early while the stakes are low. 📣 - They give you a chance to demonstrate your investment in reps’ success, building **rapport**. 🤝 - They help you achieve buy-in and **increase adoption** rates for your content. 👏 There’s nothing worse than creating great collateral before a call with a big lead, assuming the content is easy to use, and watching your rep crash and burn. All because you didn’t introduce them to the content beforehand. Using enablement content might sound simple, but let’s think about what’s involved from the rep’s point of view. Your rep has to see where the conversation’s leading and spot the potential danger up ahead. Then they have to engage with a content delivery platform they might be unfamiliar with while keeping the conversation going. Then they have to find the content, read and digest its contents, and turn that into a ready response. For a rep under pressure, there’s a *lot* going on there. 😮‍💨 Conduct training sessions, and take the time to engage in some **role play**. You’ll **discover weaknesses** in your content with plenty of time to spare. ## How to optimize your sales content The best sales enablement content is: - **Informative**. - **Scannable**. - **Up to date**. If your enablement content doesn’t check all of these boxes, there’s work you can do to improve it. We know, “**informative**” sounds like an obvious one. But your content needs to tell reps the *right things*. And you can only deliver your sales reps what they need to know if you establish a good working relationship with them. That’s why getting close to your sales reps - by owning training initiatives and blocking out time to talk with them - is the first key step in optimizing your enablement content. **Understand your reps’ needs.** One such need is that your sales content be **scannable**. Reps have to be able to pull up the exact piece of content they’re looking for, then find exactly the information they need, even if they’re unfamiliar with the content itself. That means laying out your content visually in a way that makes all the contained information **digestible**. Still not sure how to proceed? Tracking content adoption helps you identify *why* certain reps aren’t engaging with your content. In turn, this can **uncover opportunities** to improve it. Block out time to speak with these individuals and identify what’s paining them. Enablement content should make it *easier* for reps to close deals, hit their targets, and make commissions. They should be *excited* to see and use the content you prepare. If they’re not, something’s wrong. Get to the bottom of what that is and you’ll know exactly what steps to take your collateral to the next level. [Use These 10 Tips to Optimize Your Sales Content | CIASales enablement is all about deal support. Sitting between sales and marketing, your sales enablement team exists to support your sales staff with key information at crucial moments. Information about competitors and about your product. All in line with your brand messaging.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/isaac-smith-6EnTPvPPL6I-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/optimize-sales-content/) ## Sales enablement technology and tools Sales enablement platforms, tools, and software are one of the most highly adopted categories of tools in the competitive intelligence tech stack, according to our upcoming Competitive Intelligence Tools of Choice Report 2023\. Amongst our respondents, sales enablement platforms had a 69% adoption rate, making this the second-most highly adopted category of the seven we surveyed for. Sales enablement platforms help CI practitioners **deliver their insights** to sales teams and [**collaborate more effectively**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/closing-the-gap-between-revenue-teams/) with enablement teams. They also give valuable feedback on which enablement content is having the most impact, as well as on adoption rates. For product marketers conducting CI as a part of their role, sales enablement platforms offer invaluable feedback on the **revenue impact** of your competitive intelligence deliverables. ## Measuring the ROI of sales enablement So how do you actually know if your sales enablement program is doing *well*? It’s easy to measure the performance of your sales team, after all. How much revenue have they generated for the company in closed deals in a given timeframe? How to measure the performance of your sales enablement team, on the other hand, might not be so obvious. 🤔 Sales enablement has four key goals. Each is able to generate ROI in its own ways, so it’s worth tracking and monitoring your enablement program’s success at meeting each goal individually. The **four goals of sales enablement** are to: 1. Accelerate revenue. 2. Cut costs. 3. Reduce risk. 4. Improve engagement. To determine your enablement program’s effectiveness in hitting each goal, you’re going to want to track a number of different *categories* of metrics: 1. Sales performance and revenue metrics. 💸 2. Onboarding metrics. 🙋‍♀️ 3. Content adoption and effectiveness metrics. ⬆️ 4. Sales enablement platform adoption and effectiveness metrics. 💻 5. Qualitative metrics. 🗣️ 💡 While you’ll want to jump straight to the sales performance and revenue metrics, these take time (read: months) to crystallize. In the meantime, you’re going to want to start with some of the other metric categories for early signs of your program’s success. 👇 What might these early signs of success look like? When you manage to bring new hires up to speed in four working days instead of five, you’ve cut onboarding time by 20%. There’s measurable ROI there. Or when enablement content adoption by your reps increases by 17%. That’s a measurable return on investment too. Either of these is an early sign that things are moving in the right direction. Stack these early wins up and the revenue metrics will follow. [The 5 Metrics to Track to Measure Sales Enablement ROIWith the rise of sales enablement platforms and Big Data, it has actually never been easier to prove the ROI of your enablement charter. You just have to know which metrics to track and how to track them.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/luke-chesser-JKUTrJ4vK00-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measure-sales-enablement-roi/) ## Sales enablement best practices With markets more competitive than ever before, organizations need to be proactive when it comes to customer acquisition. That means optimizing their sales processes and enabling reps with solid sales enablement content. But what does the **optimal implementation** of a sales enablement program look like? First, make sure the **flow of information** goes both ways. As we’ve alluded to, your reps themselves are a great resource. They’re the ones you’re looking to help via your sales enablement initiatives, so get to know where they need that support. In other words, don’t just deliver information *at* them. Get their thoughts on what they’d like to see, what would be helpful for them, and what they think of the sales enablement content you’ve produced already. Second, conduct regular **training sessions** to get feedback early in the process. You’ll learn what your reps like and don’t like, give them a chance to get used to the format of your enablement content, and earn their respect by showing you’re invested in their performance and value their opinions. Third, make sure you **refresh** your CI and enablement assets at regular intervals. If your reps get caught with outdated content, it makes the business as a whole seem out of touch with what’s happening in the market. You already know that, if your prospects are to trust your products, you need to make the most of every interaction as an opportunity to appear **sharp, confident, and aware**. That’s impossible for your reps if the content they rely on to close deals is outdated. **Want to learn more about sales enablement best practices?** Here are [5 enablement best practices to skyrocket win rates.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-enablement-best-practices/) --- ## Looking to learn even more about competitive enablement? Download the **State of Competitive Enablement Report 2022**, produced in partnership with Klue. Inside, we bring you valuable insights on: - Competitor growth. - Tips for remote workers. - Buyer education. - Enablement challenges. - Proving ROI. [State of Competitive Enablement Report 2022 | CIAAs a competitive intelligence professional, you run the gamut. You’re talking to three, four, even five departments daily. You’re fielding requests, prioritizing, informing product positioning, and benefiting your organization in all sorts of ways. 👏![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/CIA_State_of_Competitive_Enablement_Report_Meta_1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-competitive-enablement-2022/) --- ### How to train your whole company on competitive intelligence techniques URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-train-your-whole-company-on-competitive-intelligence-techniques-2/ Last updated: 2024-04-26T10:19:51.000Z **🗣️ Erik Mansur:** My name is Erik Mansur. I'm the VP of Product Marketing at Crayon and the host of [Into the Fray](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/into-the-fray-competitive-intelligence-podcast/), the Product Marketing Alliance’s podcast dedicated to all things competitive intelligence. I’ve talked a lot with my guests about getting buy-in from your key stakeholders, building credibility as the primary driver of your competitive intelligence efforts, and creating an ongoing conversation with your audience about the process in order to build a better program. 💪 However, we've never had a conversation about **training those stakeholders** or the techniques that will turn them into curators of [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/). Making other team members feel like participants in the process is immensely valuable, and this interview is all about how you do just that. [‎Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast: Teaching ’em How to Fish: How to train your whole company on Competitive Intelligence techniques on Apple Podcasts‎Show Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast, Ep Teaching ’em How to Fish: How to train your whole company on Competitive Intelligence techniques - 19 Oct 2022![](https://podcasts.apple.com/favicon.ico)Apple Podcasts![](https://is3-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/51/5b/40/515b40ba-64b2-2038-6313-725348fa697c/mza_6590695369496601757.jpg/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/teaching-em-how-to-fish-how-to-train-your-whole-company/id1609944641?i=1000583198970) Jennifer Roberts, Director of Market Strategy at ServiceTitan, is here to walk us through her process. She’s going to share her techniques on how to bring colleagues online and send them into the field with an eye toward activating and gathering competitive intelligence. First, a little about Jennifer. **👩‍💼** She's not your typical product marketer turned CI professional. She started on the **analytics** side of things, parlaying her background in **research** into gigs that allowed her to use data to make a more **measurable impact** on go-to-market strategy. In this episode: - [How to deal with bad data.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d71e8c7e-9acd-4976-b2f7-7d539fc2ecc4/#dealing-with-bad-data) - [Tips on building a strong foundation for your CI program.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d71e8c7e-9acd-4976-b2f7-7d539fc2ecc4/#dont-just-position-your-brand-position-competitively) - [Motivating teams to use your enablement content.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d71e8c7e-9acd-4976-b2f7-7d539fc2ecc4/#motivating-teams-to-use-ci-resources) - [Training teams to use your battlecards.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d71e8c7e-9acd-4976-b2f7-7d539fc2ecc4/#how-to-train-your-sales-teams-on-using-battle-cards) 🏎️ ## Dealing with bad data **🗣️ Erik Mansur:** When you're educating your team members on how to submit field intelligence, how do you train them to have a discerning eye for quality data? How do you get them to understand what's good intel and what's not so good? **👩‍💼 Jennifer Roberts:** That's a great question. You're bringing me way back to the beginning of my career. I used to do a lot of what I call “anthropological work” – literally watching the way people work and how they captured data for the product team to leverage. Frequently, **people are paralyzed by data**. There's a conversation to be had about good data and bad data, but at the end of the day, you could start with any data. You can't let yourself be paralyzed by trying to find the best and cleanest data. Even with data that's incomplete, inconsistent, or bad, inferential insights can be pulled to help drive decisions. It becomes a question of tolerance to risk. When someone's handing over something they think is a golden nugget, it's on you as the CI practitioner to validate that. If you realize it's not good data, or there's a bigger or more robust story that can be told, there’s an opportunity for you to educate and to help tell a fuller story than that isolated insight can tell. **🗣️ Erik Mansur:** That's interesting. You don't want to put the onus of figuring out what's good or bad on the deliverer of the data; you or your team will figure that out. You just want to have as open of a conduit from those team members as possible. **👩‍💼 Jennifer Roberts:** Exactly. You have to be comfortable operating in ambiguity, and that's not everybody's forte. It can be uncomfortable to be in an ambiguous space or not to have the full picture. But at the end of the day, even with good data, you're living in ambiguity. I think CI professionals know that. We could create a million [competitive battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/), enable the best, and do all the right things, but we're still making educated guesses about what our competitors are doing. Even if we know their pricing model, [how they're positioning against us](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/), and what our strengths are, we’re still taking a chance. --- ## Don't just position your brand. Position competitively. In crowded markets, your branding's at **risk** of going **unnoticed**. Of slipping quietly into the quagmire of homogeneous solutions littering the competitive landscape. To stand out from the crowd, you need to: - Understand what the market **wants**. - Know where you **deliver** it, and where you can do even better. - Know where you have your competitors **beat**. But that takes intel. It takes analysis. And it takes *guts*. We know you've got that last one covered. So we wrote the playbook that'll get you the first two. Grab your **Competitive Positioning Playbook** today **at no cost.** 👇 [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/cta_banner_blogs_inline-2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ## Building a strong foundation for your CI program **🗣️ Erik Mansur:** This notion of ambiguity is not something that a lot of data-driven businesses feel comfortable with. They want everything in black or white. Shades of gray are not something that people like to play around in. Do you have to set that expectation early on when you're bringing your program to a different team or a new company? **👩‍💼 Jennifer Roberts:** 100%. At ServiceTitan, this will be my third round of setting up a CI function, and I've learned a few things along the way. I had the great fortune in my last two roles to have CMOs who were like, “I hired you as the expert – you're the expert,” but usually, everybody has an idea of what CI is and what they want from it. Sales can be super noisy, and product can be super noisy; they have very different ideas and needs. I would love to empower everybody in this position to make it clear that they’re the experts. Now, with that expertise comes a level of expectation setting, but you have to gain credibility at the same time. You’re building while you're flying the plane. As you build credibility, you're then able to say with a little bit more confidence, “Look, we don't know everything, but here's what we know, and here's what we're going to do with it.” That’s easier once you gain that credibility and they trust you. > "I highly recommend dealing with one stakeholder at a time. This way you can tailor-make what they're looking for, but you have the same base information that all the different consumers might need." A lot of times I've walked into kind of duct-taped situations. I don't want to negate how awesome duct tape is, but when the CI function has been added in ad hoc, and it’s basically held together with tape, a lot of the ways of working might be clunky. To gain credibility, you want to **make those processes easier**. You remove a little bit of the tape and build a real foundation. Going back to the original data question, you need to ingest all the data you can early on. That’s going to help you identify the low-hanging fruit so you can quickly start to gain credibility. As an example, when I came to ServiceTitan, some key pieces of the program were already in place, but the program as a whole was much more reactive. When you come into a reactive process without a strong foundation, you have to start building it somewhere, right? You could eat the whole elephant, but you’ve got to do it one bite at a time. For me, building that foundation meant taking a deep dive into threat analysis through our Salesforce records. That quantitative data is important, but almost equally as important is the qualitative piece. Frequently, when I see a reactive program, it’s because people are not listening. You usually only have executives freaking out about the sky falling when a new competitor comes into play because they don't think we have a handle on the situation. Now, it might be that we don’t have a handle on the situation, or perhaps we just don't have an infrastructure in place that allows them to feel heard and understand how we're handling the situation. > "We are huge on pilots around here because they’re a great way to convince people that whatever you’re launching is going to help them win more deals." Here's the thing: your Salesforce data can tell you who your biggest competitor is and who's taking the most money, and that's a worthy cause. Don't ignore that. However, if there's a competitor that's not taking up much of the market share, but is giving your sales team the yips, I'd argue that they are just as important of a competitor. That's why you have to pay attention to the quantitative and the qualitative. You’ve got to listen to what your teams are looking for, then you can deliver that low-hanging fruit through your CI infrastructure and start to build some credibility. **🗣️ Erik Mansur:** Do you design your CI program with an eye towards what internal users said in those interviews you mentioned, or are you basing it purely on your expertise? At what point do you start adapting the program to the business and your stakeholders? **👩‍💼 Jennifer Roberts:** I think that the basics of expertise come in with the bill of materials. It's how you segment your top-tier, secondary, and tertiary competitors. It's how you build battle cards and orient them to sell. That's the expertise we bring. Most of us have built a million battle cards in our careers, right? When it comes to fitting that into the needs of the business, I highly recommend dealing with one stakeholder at a time. This way you can tailor-make what they're looking for, but you have the same base information that all the different consumers might need. 💡 Don't be too broad when categorizing your ****stakeholders**. Jennifer chunks it down to **SDRs, AEs, and CSMs**. When I say focus on a stakeholder, the idea of sales is even too broad. We chunk it down to SDRs, AEs, and CSMs. They all want the same basic information. The difference is in how we enable those audiences and deliver different pieces of what they need. Your SDRs team is making calls every day, and probably getting hung up on quite a lot of the time. When they get a hot minute to actually have a conversation, they just need a few quick-dismiss tidbits of differentiation that set us apart from our competitors. For our AEs, we're thinking further down the sales funnel. While they might need a quick dismiss if a competitor gets brought up, what they really need is objection handling. They need landmines to plant. They need more specifics on our positioning that will help them as the prospect evaluates. When it comes to customer success, it's all about differentiation and objection handling for when a client is at risk of churning. My point is that **there's a lot of overlap in their needs**. It's just a matter of orientation and enabling teams to use the intel you give them. There’s a big misconception that just creating the battle cards your teams are asking for is enough; I would argue that most of our teams don't even know how to use them properly. They know they're there, and they can study them, but are they using them correctly? There's a lot of education that goes into it. # Motivating teams to use CI resources **🗣️ Erik Mansur:** Before you start educating and enabling your teams on their new battle cards, do you have to take steps to motivate or interest them? Do you have to say, “Hey, we're getting our butts kicked out here, and this is the thing that's gonna solve your problems!” Or does everybody at a company like yours generally know that this is important? **👩‍💼 Jennifer Roberts:** Arguably, anybody in a seller's position wants to win. That, along with their comp structure, motivates them. To build on that motivation, when we launch new things – whether it's battle cards, one-pagers, or even new messaging – we run pilots. We are huge on pilots around here because they’re a great way to convince people that whatever you’re launching is going to help them win more deals. 💡 Jennifer uses pilots to create champions within sales peer groups. Such champions will always be more persuasive than you can be. Not only that, but who am I to tell you how to sell? I’m not a salesperson. It's better if that comes from their peers, and by piloting, we can create a few champions in their peer groups so that now, for enablement, I'm not even a part of it. I'm letting one of the pilot people come in and say, “This is how I used it. This is how it helped me.” Then I come in at the end and show the benefits that the people using these materials saw compared to everyone who wasn’t using them. Maybe the win rate was better. Maybe we got more revenue or closed faster. We look at all those facets because we’re big fans of the data-first approach, and it’s also really motivating. [Use These 10 Tips to Optimize Your Sales Content | CIASales enablement is all about deal support. Sitting between sales and marketing, your sales enablement team exists to support your sales staff with key information at crucial moments. Information about competitors and about your product. All in line with your brand messaging.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/isaac-smith-6EnTPvPPL6I-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/optimize-sales-content/) # How to train your sales teams on using battle cards **🗣️ Erik Mansur:** I want to go back to something you said before about how just handing your team battle cards is not enough and some education is needed. However, I know a lot of account executives, particularly seasoned ones, are like, “Just give me the ingredients and let me cook.” How in-depth do you get in terms of training people on how to best use these tools? **👩‍💼 Jennifer Roberts:** It's a great question. Honestly, I've been experimenting with this for a while. The answer is multifaceted. One part of it is that at our kickoff meeting every year, we run a session on how to use competitive intelligence, where I show the teams the toolkits and battle cards available to them and how to use them. I also walk them through the win-loss program, which is fundamental, in my opinion, to a robust CI program. It’s important to refresh annually. To your point about seasoned AEs, I think there's also something that needs to be acknowledged – a seasoned AE, who has been selling into this market for years probably doesn't need a battle card, to be honest with you, whereas someone new to the field is going to leverage it a lot more frequently. If the seasoned AE is killing it, why change? All I ask is that they participate in my pilot because they know how to sell, and I want to study the way that they're selling. Another thing we do is enablement calls. Anytime a new battle card is made or there's a new competitor of interest, we make sure to get a good 10 minutes with each seller. I spend about the first two-thirds of the call talking about where they can find the new battle card and how to use it; I spend the other third on the actual content. I want them to walk away with two or three tidbits that will help them win, and that will get them back into the content more generally. --- ## Got insights? Reckon you've got what it takes to be a **podcast guest,** **article contributor**, or **guest speaker** at one of [our prestigious events](https://events.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/)? We'd love to hear from you. 💙 Click the button below, tell us how much or how little you'd like to be involved, and just like that you've opened the door to a ton of new and **exciting opportunities**. [Unlock New CI Opportunities](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### Competitive insight: You need it, your competitors have it URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-insight/ Last updated: 2024-04-26T10:20:56.000Z Competitive insights?! Scoff. Who needs *those?* You have enough customers, right? Business is going well, so why worry about the other guys’ slice of the pie? 🍰 Well - the wise never wait for a rainy day to repair a roof, or so they say. 💁 If you’re not working to [sustain your competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/), you can bet your competitors are hard at work to diminish your competitive edge, steal your market share, and take the lead. By contrast, working to gain competitive insight keeps you ahead of the competition, enabling you to defend and sustain your competitive advantage. 🦾 In this article, we’ll cover: - [Why competitive insights are important.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/54190e94-74d7-4c94-914c-56098a3d72eb/#why-are-competitive-insights-important) - [How you can find actionable insights on your competitors.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/54190e94-74d7-4c94-914c-56098a3d72eb/#how-do-i-find-actionable-insights-on-my-competitors) - [How to use competitive analysis to identify market opportunities.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/54190e94-74d7-4c94-914c-56098a3d72eb/#conducting-a-competitive-analysis) ## Why are competitive insights important? Why gain insight into your competitors at all? For starters, competitive insights… - [Help you stay ahead of the competition.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/54190e94-74d7-4c94-914c-56098a3d72eb/#ignoring-competitors-is-risky) - [Help inform your product roadmaps and product development.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/54190e94-74d7-4c94-914c-56098a3d72eb/#competitive-insights-inform-product-development) - [Help you define and defend your competitive advantage.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/54190e94-74d7-4c94-914c-56098a3d72eb/#competitor-insights-help-you-define-your-competitive-advantage) ### Ignoring competitors is risky For one, ignoring what your competitors do puts you and the success of your products at risk. Especially with [businesses investing in competitive intelligence at a greater rate than ever before](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/trends-report-2021/), you can bet that your competitors are gathering insights into your own products, strategies, strengths, and weaknesses even now. And the flipside to this coin is that your **lax competitors represent an opportunity**. If your competitors are ignoring you, you have a golden opportunity to get and stay ahead of them, winning their market share as you begin to stand out in the eyes of their customers. ### Competitive insights inform product development When you know which aspects of your competitors’ products are a hit with their customers, you gain better understanding of where your product is doing well and where it’s falling short. In other words, competitive insights teach you the features and benefits **the market values most**. And by gaining insight into the aspects of competitor products the market’s not so in love with, you’ll better understand what to avoid in your own product development roadmap. Use this information to double down on those winning features your product already has, and fill in the gaps where something’s missing. Filling these feature gaps puts you on the fast track to being the best solution on the market. In this way, competitive insights inform strategic decision-making across your business. From product development to marketing and executive strategy. ### They help you define your competitive advantage 💡 Without competitive insights, you'll never be totally clear on where you've got your direct, or even [indirect, competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/) beat. A solid understanding of your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses in relation to your own, and where each sits within the overall competitive landscape, gives you a clear picture of where your product is currently winning. When you understand where and how you have your competitors beat, you can work to defend this competitive advantage against attack. For example, by protecting your intellectual property with patents, or by contractualizing agreements with suppliers to lock in a price advantage. Or, if your advantage lies in your customer service being levels above your competitors, you can continue to invest in hiring and retaining excellent members for the team. You can also work testimonials, reviews, and other social proof of your customers’ love for your support team into your marketing messaging strategy. Without competitive insights, you’ll never be totally clear on where you’ve got your competitors beat. [Comparative vs Competitive Advantage: What’s the Difference?Comparative and competitive advantages are economic terms that, when applied to a business, refer to a business’ ability to produce goods and services and to win against competitors over time.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/anastasiya-romanova-vGY31qO4518-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) ## How do I find actionable insights on my competitors? So if competitive insights are so important, how do you go about getting your hands on them? Competitive intelligence - and subsequent analysis of that intel - gives you a framework for uncovering insights on your competitors that you can incorporate into actionable strategies. ### Gathering competitive intelligence Gathering competitor intel is a huge topic. That’s why we put together [the practitioner’s complete guide to competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/). Here’re the key points: **Prioritize ruthlessly** If you let it, the task of gathering competitor intelligence grows to mammoth proportions. You need to decide upfront which competitors you’ll devote your precious time and energy to. This can change over time as you learn more about the competitive landscape, but the key is to come up with a shortlist of names. Once you have this shortlist of core competitors you can start collecting intel. **Use your internal sources** Continuing the theme of ruthless prioritization, you should focus on the ROI of your data-gathering efforts when it comes to your sources, too. The greatest ROI comes from pulling together all the intel your business has already collected. Almost every arm of the business, whether they know it or not, has some small stake in CI. The departments to start with are: - Sales. - Customer success. - Executives. Sales and customer success both have a vested interest in understanding the competitive landscape. If you’re collecting CI in a formal capacity for the first time, it pays to know that intel on your competitors will have been squirreled away by different people in these teams. After all, when you’re on the phone with prospects and customers all day, you hear things about competitors. You also hear what people like and don’t like about those competitors and their products. This is extremely useful data. In the same vein, it’s the executives’ job to steer the ship of the business through the competitive landscape, identifying and capitalizing on opportunities as they arise. Opportunities involve market demand and, naturally, your competitors. Executives can help you understand where your products are over- or underperforming versus your competitors. **Use competitive intelligence software** Once you’ve exhausted your internal sources of intel, you’ll naturally need to look elsewhere for additional information. If you’ve the budget for it, competitive intelligence software can help you gather (and also analyze and deliver) intel on competitors from across the web. Gathering new data and staying alert to developments is time-consuming, so automating this part of the process gives you back resources to focus on getting to the key insights that will drive your competitive advantage. Whether you have the budget for competitive intelligence software or not, here are [some of the best sources of competitive intel](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/). ## Conducting a competitive analysis To get to those juicy competitive insights you’ve been waiting for, you’ll need to analyze the intel you’ve gathered. For the greatest ROI, we suggest using this intel to gain a greater understanding of your place in the competitive landscape. Understanding where your competitors are winning and losing in the eyes of customers, and knowing how that relates to your own products’ strengths and weaknesses, tells you how to proceed. These insights can then inform your product development roadmaps and other strategic decisions. Think this sounds an awful lot like **SWOT analysis** (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats). That’s by design. 😉 This love-it-or-hate-it method of analysis needs to be more than just an exercise to offer value. While a SWOT analysis can be time-consuming to perform, you’ll find the intel you’ve gathered makes a lot more sense (and leads to many more actionable insights) when viewed through the SWOT lens. ## TL;DR Rushed for time? Here’s the TL;DR version: 🏃‍♀️ Competitive insights help you get, and stay, ahead of the competition. 🔎 They help you identify and defend your competitive advantage, or establish one for the first time. 🙅‍♂️ Ignoring competitors is risky, but being proactive represents a great opportunity. ☝️ To uncover competitor insights, prioritize ruthlessly and start with internal sources. ⛰️ Conduct a SWOT analysis to better understand your place in the competitive landscape. ♟️ Use your insights to inform strategic business decisions across product development, marketing, and more. --- ## Get the playbook on positioning your brand Competitive insights can inform business strategy across all four corners of business. But when it comes to positioning your brand in a competitive market, there are pitfalls to sidestep, and best practices and processes to implement. Inside the **Competitive Positioning Playbook**, we give you best practices and processes, covering: ⏰ How not to waste your internal resources and data sources to **save yourself hours** of time. 🧘 What “minimum viable positioning” is, and why it’s a **key milestone** early in the process. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you **must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. These aren't just our opinions - we consulted with some of the best in the industry to put together these insights. (Oh, and it won't cost you anything). Intrigued? Grab your copy today. 👇 [Download your playbook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) [![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Gg4zMKtcuMeOq4bQkXjUjH-UFPjKTvFlBO9KLTFss6MhpKnLDnou74cxSOV4BYnk-hDNJ1Y1SmogNhwRJVQU0aZZ3qpL3NDH95SWwWW4y4JgcabV-v9nnGm_cJ--JJxLpKASdCTsrUFtjFNW2bbSk6bVNSH-9gBFtVnOe_gJLlfedi7SbfJPjqufKarkOw)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ### CI Happy Hour Meetup | New York | December 8, 2022 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/meetup-new-york-dec/ Last updated: 2022-11-15T15:03:52.000Z [RSVP](https://ti.to/sequel-media/competitive-intelligence-summit-newyork-2022/with/meet-up-pass) Join us in-person on ****Thursday, December 8 th** at the Competitive Intelligence Summit for a ****happy hour meetup**. Come, have a taster of the Summit by joining the last session of the day for free, then have some drinks after to connect, engage, and network with fellow Competitive Intelligence professionals. 💫 ****🗓 When?** Thursday****,** December 8th, 2022 ****📍 Where?** ****[Convene One Liberty Plaza](https://convene.com/cities/new-york-city/one-liberty-plaza?type=meetingandeventspace),** One Liberty Plaza, New York ****⏰ What time?** 4:15pm EST [RSVP](https://ti.to/sequel-media/competitive-intelligence-summit-newyork-2022/with/meet-up-pass) ### 3 ways a product feedback loop can transform your product URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/3-ways-a-product-feedback-loop-can-transform-your-product/ Last updated: 2022-11-10T13:10:37.000Z Sometimes, it’s like your teams are on opposite sides of a six-foot-high cement wall. Information is trapped in their tools, no one seems to be communicating, and getting them to work together is more like a prison break than anything else. Imagine how this is affecting your product. The solution? Implementing a product feedback loop. Done right, this can turn your product into a trendsetting powerhouse. But what’s a product feedback loop? And what can it really do? In this article, we’ll be focusing on: - [What a product feedback loop is](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/3-ways-a-product-feedback-loop-can-transform-your-product/#what-is-a-product-feedback-loop). - [How a product feedback loop can benefit your product](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/3-ways-a-product-feedback-loop-can-transform-your-product/#why-is-a-product-feedback-loop-beneficial-for-your-product). - [Why you need to stay in the loop](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/3-ways-a-product-feedback-loop-can-transform-your-product/#why-staying-in-the-loop-is-important). ## ****What is a product feedback loop?** A product feedback loop is a process that sources feedback from teams across your organization and feeds it to your product team. The exact way to achieve this can vary between organizations, but the goal is to bring teams closer together and improve internal communication, to accelerate and systematize the transmission of feedback — both internally and from customers — to the people who need it most. Here are two ways you can apply the product feedback loop to your business right now: - ****The monthly feedback session:** The goal of this recurring session is to collect high-priority tickets from across the organization and turn them into actionable initiatives. You can do this in a meeting or asynchronously through a ticketing tool. However you choose to do this, it’s important to give the product team a way to ask for clarification and other teams to contribute as much (or as little) as they need to. - ****In-depth workshops:** These happen as they need to. In some phases of your[ product’s lifecycle](https://unito.io/blog/sdlc-methodology-guide/), they might happen every month or even every week. In other phases they’ll happen infrequently. Rather than gathering general feedback about every aspect of your product, you pick a specific topic and dive in. These topics can include your product’s friction points, underserved use cases, or new customer personas. Now that you know what a product feedback loop is, let’s dive into some of the ways it can completely transform your product. ## ****Why is a product feedback loop beneficial for your product?** ### ****#1: Customer-facing teams guide development efforts** One of the biggest impacts a product feedback loop can have on your product is streamlining the development process. Software teams do a ton of research before they start working on a new feature or changing an aspect of the product. But often, a bulk of that research is already done if you just know where to look. Customer-facing teams — think salespeople, customer success, and customer onboarding specialists — have an intimate understanding of [who your customers are and what customer needs are](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/). They know the friction points that keep people from buying the product, the little UI elements that frustrate your customers, and even what gets them to upgrade to your priciest plan. Traditionally, any input on these things is handled informally, through email, work management tools, or chat messages. This guarantees that game-changing input can slip through the cracks and get lost. By having a defined product feedback loop, you can make sure all that valuable feedback gets communicated, tracked, and used. ### ****#2: You can avoid costly mistakes** The Amazon Fire phone. Microsoft’s Zune. Apple’s hockey puck mouse. What do they all have in common? They were all expensive, resounding failures. Scores of developers, leaders, and researchers were convinced they were working on something that would change the world or, at the very least, capitalize on a market niche and make a ton of money. But they all failed. Now, you might not be pumping millions of dollars into massive initiatives, but spending months of development time on a feature that ends up flopping means losing resources you can’t get back. You can’t always guarantee that everything you work on will succeed, but a product feedback loop eliminates one of the main contributors to these failed initiatives: echo chambers. Echo chambers happen when all the opinions you encounter reinforce a specific theory. When brainstorming sessions, planning meetings, and more all happen within the same team, echo chambers are a lot more common. By bringing in other perspectives — and making this part of your process — you can test the validity of your initiatives and theories. If that can avoid even one expensive failed project, isn’t it worth adding a meeting to your calendar? ### ****#3: Product-market fit is guaranteed** [Product-market fit](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-product-market-fit/) might be the single most important characteristic of a successful product. That’s why so much of your resources go into research before the product work even starts. If you’re an early-stage startup, a lot of that research comes from hard-earned work experience. If you’re a larger company, you’re probably lucky enough to have a product marketing team to handle that research. But without getting people together across team boundaries, you’re not getting the full picture — and that makes it much more difficult to get product-market fit. When you’re heads-down to finish building a product — or keep improving it — it’s tough to keep an eye on the broader market. Developers and product teams have enough to do without spending hours doing extensive research, and even then their research comes from a single perspective. With a finished product, you get access to an invaluable resource: customer feedback. But unless you go out of your way to collect that feedback through user interviews and surveys, it lands in the lap of your customer-facing teams first. If you’re not fostering communication between those teams and your product team, especially in the early stages of your product, it’ll be that much more difficult to really nail product-market fit. But as soon as that feedback loop exists, you get the information you need to adjust your approach accordingly. ## ****Why staying in the loop is important** The product feedback loop isn’t standard. Too often, product teams and customer-facing teams are too distant from one another. They see what the other team’s doing, but don’t really have an impact on each other. By implementing a product feedback loop, your developers will have a better idea of what they should be working on, you’ll avoid potentially expensive failures, and you’ll have an easier time finding product-market fit. --- ## Join the conversation If you want to ****learn from the best**, then you’re in luck. You get direct access to them when you join our competitive intelligence community. Rub shoulders with the brightest minds in the business. Join our competitive intelligence Slack community today. 👇 [Join the CI Slack community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/CIA_Website_Banners_2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### The Pen is mightier: How competitive intelligence can influence a content marketing strategy URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-pen-is-mightier-how-competitive-intelligence-can-influence-a-content-marketing-strategy/ Last updated: 2022-11-23T10:26:43.000Z A great [competitive intelligence program](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/) can and should inform many aspects of your organization's marketing strategy. And that includes content. There's a great deal to learn and compete against when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) and [PPC competitor analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-to-track-in-competitor-ppc-analysis/). Search engine rankings for high-volume keywords are a finite resource in high demand. As such, they're battlegrounds for some furious competition. To help out, Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon, talks with Ryan Law, VP of Content at Animalz, in another episode of [Into the Fray: The Competitive Intelligence Podcast.](https://open.spotify.com/show/0uNZN7ugRP2sjH2VKhOjRi?si=aa135aaad19840ca) They discuss all things content marketing, and Erik grills Ryan on his experiences on the other side of the competitive intelligence transaction. Key talking points include: - [Knowing your nemeses.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/ef1cd4ac-37d2-4412-a14f-8eac8bb79df1/#knowing-your-nemeses) - [Competing as a disruptor.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/ef1cd4ac-37d2-4412-a14f-8eac8bb79df1/#competing-as-a-disruptor) - [Competing for keywords.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/ef1cd4ac-37d2-4412-a14f-8eac8bb79df1/#competing-for-keywords) - [Beating your competitors with engaging content.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/ef1cd4ac-37d2-4412-a14f-8eac8bb79df1/#beating-your-competitors-with-engaging-content) - [How to position against competitors.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/ef1cd4ac-37d2-4412-a14f-8eac8bb79df1/#how-to-position-yourself-against-your-competitors-without-being-adversarial) ## Knowing your nemeses **Erik Mansur:** My name’s Erik Mansur, and I’m the VP of Product Marketing at a company called Crayon. I am so fortunate to work with a group of incredibly talented digital creators and content marketers every single day – shout out to Sheila, Connor, Madison, Amy, and Allie, my content hive. Why am I bringing this up? Well, today's guest doesn't do product marketing for a living, he's not an expert in win-loss analysis, and [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) isn't something that he lists as a skill on his LinkedIn profile. He’s Ryan Law, and he's the VP of Content at Animalz, an authority on all things content marketing. I wanted to hear from the other side of the competitive intelligence transaction about how Ryan receives and internalizes his great insights about rival solutions and the ways he uses that data to his advantage. [‎Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast: The Pen is Mightier: How competitive intelligence can influence a content marketing strategy | Ryan Law, VP of Content at Animalz on Apple Podcasts‎Show Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast, Ep The Pen is Mightier: How competitive intelligence can influence a content marketing strategy | Ryan Law, VP of Content at Animalz - 31 Aug 2022![](https://podcasts.apple.com/favicon.ico)Apple Podcasts![](https://is3-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/51/5b/40/515b40ba-64b2-2038-6313-725348fa697c/mza_6590695369496601757.jpg/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-pen-is-mightier-how-competitive-intelligence-can/id1609944641?i=1000577932054) Animalz is a content marketing agency. They've coordinated efforts and delivered results for hundreds of companies all around the world – names like Zuora, Wistia, and Appcues, as well as some tiny little upstarts called Google and Amazon. You may have heard of them. But when Ryan thinks about rival solutions, he's usually not thinking about his own, but those of his clients. In fact, he's written about this idea using, well, comic book terminology. He says that every company needs a “nemesis” because having that villain makes you, the hero, look better. So I asked him, walking into a conversation with a new client – the hero in this analogy – does he know who those potential villains actually are? **Ryan Law:** Probably not. There are lots of different ways you can have a competitor, and making them into a nemesis is a particular flavor of that. It's a marketing strategy that companies are not always willing to do because it's slightly adversarial and doesn't always align with their brands. I do think that every company has competitors in some form or another. It's just a question of how willing those companies are to admit that and change their strategy to accommodate that or potentially use it to their advantage. **Erik Mansur:** Interesting. So when you walk into a pitch, are you putting together an initial scope of work that includes their competitors, or do you wait until a subsequent conversation to gauge their willingness to be competitive? **Ryan Law:** That’s something we’ll always evaluate before we recommend anything to a customer. To recommend a strategy that works, we need to find an area of leverage, and a potential source of leverage for some companies is competition. You get the classic 1:N products, like CRM software. They’re entering a very established market; people know what a CRM does, and they have a set of expectations. There, the idea of competition is quite well established in the company's brains. For those types of companies, competition normally comes up as a topic of discussion very, very quickly. They want to emulate what these guys are doing, beat them in a certain dimension, or go after a topic that they're going after. On the other side of the coin, some companies don't even acknowledge that they have competition. 🗣️ Even if companies feel they don't have competition, they're still competing against legacy processes, spreadsheets, and the manual processes their software automates. We have the category of zero-to-one products. They’re the ones that are ostensibly doing something new. They offer features and services that you won't find in another product. In those instances, sometimes companies feel like they don't have competition because there are no established products, but even then they’re still competing against things like legacy processes, spreadsheets, and the manual things that their software automates away from. Even in those situations, I think competition is a fruitful source of content and discussion because you're choosing to defend yourself against the status quo and what has happened in the past. ## Competing as a disruptor **Erik Mansur:** You mentioned that companies that come to you looking for content strategy think about themselves in two different ways. They're either an industry disrupter, perhaps trying to disrupt an existing manual process, or they're punching up into a market that already has an established hegemony. Do you come at them with two different competitive strategies, or do those strategies overlap? **Ryan Law:** I think they’re different. The big benefit of being a disruptor is that you can reference manual processes, stuff that people have done before, to provide an access point into what you do and make it more familiar. That way, people can begin to think about your product in a way that makes sense to them. **Erik Mansur:** It’s like, “This thing you have to do sucks. With us, you don't have to do that anymore,” and you build a content strategy around that. **Ryan Law:** Yeah, I think Airtable and Zapier are great examples because what they've done with a lot of their content is position themselves against the individual use cases they’re competing against. All of Zapier’s content is about different apps and how you can connect them, and Airtable shows thousands of different use cases you could build with a database or a spreadsheet, but the point is that you can do all of those things within this one platform. It’s competition in a different sense, but a really fruitful way of talking about it. For other companies, sometimes the idea of having a nemesis is a more interesting approach. Basecamp do this all the time – their entire marketing is them positioning against industry giants like Apple or Gmail. The whole point is that there are similarities between what the products do, but you're generating excitement and creating a narrative around the competition. You're creating this whole new surface area for marketing by saying, “These are the bad guys. We’re the good guys. Get on board with us.” It appeals to people’s ethical and emotional decision-making, rather than just highlighting the feature set, which may be quite similar in a lot of cases. ## Competing for keywords **Erik Mansur:** A lot of the companies that are going up against the giants are probably walking into Techstars or Y Combinator, looking for their initial round of funding and saying, “You know what sucks about X? We're going to do that better.” So when you have that initial conversation with them, they already have a notion of what castle they're trying to attack, right? They just want the tools by which they can bring on that attack. **Ryan Law:** Yeah, I certainly agree with that, and that can be used to influence content strategy in different ways. We've talked about positioning, which is a big part of it – a lot of these companies are [positioning themselves against competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) in terms of the feature sets they choose to promote, obfuscate, or overlook – but there's also this idea of topic competition, which is interesting. We deal a lot with search content, for example. You want to go after this set of keywords because you think that will reach the right audience and bring them to you. In a lot of cases, the other companies that are competing for those keywords will be direct product competitors. But there's this interesting situation where lots of indirect nonproduct competitors will compete with you on those terms too. Think of Wikipedia, for example. It ranks for pretty much every topic imaginable, so in some ways, your content can be competing against a company like Wikipedia. So not only do you have to think about who you’re competing with in terms of messaging and product features, but it's also about who you’re competing with on the discourse around the topics that your company is interested in. --- ## Learn to Position Your Brand Competitively No matter how competitive and crowded your market, there are best practices and processes you can follow to blend customer research and competitive intelligence for the ultimate edge. Grab the [Competitive Intelligence Playbook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) today to learn how. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/cta_banner_blogs_inline-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- **Erik Mansur:** That's interesting. If we take Airtable as an example again, they're going to be trying to rank for specific keywords related to project management software, but as a result of their content strategy and who their primary buyers are, they're also trying to rank for other parallel or even tangential keywords that appeal to a product or project manager. So what you're saying is, understand who your direct competitors are and anyone else who’s competing for the same eyeballs, and take aim for those as well. Am I reading that right? **Ryan Law:** Absolutely. Lots of like organizations have very educational content strategies, and they want to rank for keywords just to get in their audience’s headspace, even if they don't offer products that will directly benefit those people. You can have a blog, for example, with lots of product management topics. If you're trying to reach people at the awareness stage when they're just trying to solve problems, that is as much competition for your article as a direct Airtable competitor would be. So you always have to think about what you can add to the discourse, above and beyond what other companies are talking about, even when those companies are not necessarily direct product competitors. **Erik Mansur:** You said “add to the discourse,” which is a great term of art in content marketing. You mentioned that companies may try to establish a more consultative content strategy, and adding to the discourse is either zagging when everybody else is zigging or adding a layer onto something else that already exists. Are you looking at competitors' content strategies and trying to find where that zigzag moment is? And if so, how are you doing that? **Ryan Law:** We definitely do. If you take an element of what we do, SEO for example, there's a set of keywords we want to compete for because our competitors are already competing for them. It's very easy to look at the top-ranking content and create your own version of that, which basically consolidates the existing information without adding anything new. As a result, when you look at most competitive search results, the articles are pretty homogenous in terms of the information they contain and the way in which they're written. They’re very utilitarian, and quite often they read like Wikipedia pages. That’s because somebody's using their keyword research spreadsheet, finding the top-ranking articles, and saying, “They talk about these eight topics; let's talk about them as well.” > We're always trying to find not only want to outrank ... but also to leave some lingering artifact of the company and its messaging and positioning. In those situations, even if you manage to outrank that content, it's probably not going to have much of an impact on the thing that matters, which is people remembering you, trusting you, and actually buying the product. What you’ve written doesn’t matter because your audience could have read the same thing on your competitor's website. With that in mind, we're always trying to find not only ways to outrank that content, but also to leave some lingering artifact of the company and its messaging and positioning. That begins the process of building trust and differentiating your content from other articles on the topic. ## Beating your competitors with engaging content **Erik Mansur:** How challenging is it to both earn trust and differentiate yourself through content marketing? **Ryan Law:** It’s very hard. In the niche Animalz inhabits, we try to reconcile those two aims. There are still some industries where content marketing is quite nascent, so you can do very generic old-fashioned things like publishing ultimate guides and top 10 software listicles and still get good results. However, because of ever-increasing competition in every industry, that’s becoming less and less successful. Many industries are hugely saturated and contested by dozens of companies with great brand awareness, huge budgets, and incredible domain authority, so you have to be very deliberate about not only ranking, but doing so in a way that looks and feels different to what other companies are doing. That is a very hard thing to do. You talked about zigging and zagging, and I think that’s one of the natural consequences of the increasingly marginal returns of search. We're having to find new dimensions in which to compete with other companies, and I think that’s one of the reasons we're seeing this influx of media content becoming more and more important. There was a time when having the best product was the ultimate marketing differentiator. **Erik Mansur:** Sure. Just having the best thing to sell was going to help you rise above the rest, right? **Ryan Law:** Exactly, and you can still do that. You can build a better product, but that becomes much harder when 50 other products are trying to do the same thing. That’s how content marketing became the new frontier for competition. The criteria for success was not just who had the best product; it was who had the best product *and* the best content marketing. We're now at a point where even that approach has become so saturated that another dimension has come into play. It’s about who has the best product and the best content marketing and can best entertain the audience at this early stage of the process and earn that headspace before other companies do. **Erik Mansur:** What you're alluding to is the rise of companies that have their own podcasts and video channels and are on TikTok. Content has gone beyond informative blog posts that I can reference when I'm doing my job. Now it’s about X, Y, or Z personality who works at Gong or ZoomInfo, and I want to consume their content because they're an interesting person, and what they're saying appeals to me. It goes far beyond traditional content marketing and becomes more like old-school content creation, where you're the star of your own show. Am I getting that right? **Ryan Law:** Yeah, exactly that. It's the natural consequence of the incentives created by marketing. If you enter into a new marketplace, and you have the best product, why would you spend time on media content? You can just talk about how great your product is, and you'll probably generate a lot of business on the back of that. But obviously, once other companies are doing that, and the advantage has waned, you have to find more creative ways of getting into that buying process before other companies. I think that is a natural consequence of how competitive most marketplaces are today. ## How to position yourself against your competitors without being adversarial **Erik Mansur:** You wrote a blog post for Animalz two years ago that I think was really seminal. It goes against what I, as a product marketer, would normally think is the right strategy. The title of the article is, [*Yes, you should talk about your competitors*](https://www.animalz.co/blog/talk-about-your-competitors/). You make the claim – and data has backed this up – that companies who are punching up or have named competitors in the space should be creating content that provides a direct comparison between their solution and another. That’s because it's informative, and you want the consumer to be more informed of your point of view on something, but also, that in and of itself becomes a competitive content tool that's going to drive a lot of interest. There are probably some companies that bristle at that. They want to stay above the fray. They don't want to provide an “us versus them” comparison. How have you broken through those objections with your clients and persuaded them to give this strategy a shot? **Ryan Law:** I think the most important thing is distilling it back to the first principle, which is the idea that this decision-making process is happening, and you can't change that. People and companies are evaluating you against your competitors. It's a very natural inclination to not want to get messy and throw mud at other companies, but I think it behooves companies to become an active part of that decision-making process, and you can do it in a way that is not adversarial. > You don't need feature parity ... Your product doesn't have to be the best; it just has to be different. The most common objections we hear are that clients don't have feature parity, or even that they’re worse than the competition, so why would they want to bring that up? The way we always talk about that is that you don't need feature parity. You don't always need to be objectively better, as long as there are defensible reasons behind the way you've built your product. Your product doesn't have to be the best; it just has to be different. There is always some subset of the market that will value different criteria and different feature sets. Maybe they want something incredibly extensible or something with a very managed workflow. There’s no objective right or wrong there. You’re just serving different portions of the market, so I think you can talk about that. You can even have comparison tables that point out the fact that you don't have a bunch of these features. That can be a selling point because not everyone wants the broadest feature set possible. You don't have to be mean. You don't have to say that these other companies are terrible, and you should never buy from them because look at all the awful things they've done. Just lean into messaging the fact that your product is different. It's for a different type of person that values different things, and if you like how we operate, you should buy from us. If you don't, by all means, try out that other product, and we'll be here waiting for you if your desires change. --- ## Level up your positioning Inside the **Competitive Positioning Playbook**, we give you best practices and processes, covering: ⏰ How not to waste your internal resources and data sources to **save yourself hours** of time. 🧘 What “minimum viable positioning” is, and why it’s a **key milestone** early in the process. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you **must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. These aren't just our opinions - we consulted with some of the best in the industry to put together these insights. (Oh, and it won't cost you anything). Intrigued? Grab your copy today. 👇 [Download your playbook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) [![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Gg4zMKtcuMeOq4bQkXjUjH-UFPjKTvFlBO9KLTFss6MhpKnLDnou74cxSOV4BYnk-hDNJ1Y1SmogNhwRJVQU0aZZ3qpL3NDH95SWwWW4y4JgcabV-v9nnGm_cJ--JJxLpKASdCTsrUFtjFNW2bbSk6bVNSH-9gBFtVnOe_gJLlfedi7SbfJPjqufKarkOw)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ### Pros and cons of price skimming URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/pros-and-cons-of-price-skimming/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:07:30.000Z There are around seven pricing strategies that companies can use. These are [competition-based pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-do-competitive-pricing-analysis/), cost-plus pricing, dynamic pricing, value-based pricing, usage-based pricing, freemium pricing, and price skimming. Each of these strategies will have different outcomes depending on different variables like your product quality, [market segments](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-get-started-with-market-segmentation/), budget, brand reputation, and so on. So, it’s vital that you make the correct decision when choosing a pricing strategy. In this article, we’re focusing on the final pricing strategy mentioned - price skimming - and hopefully, we’ll help you decide whether this is an appropriate strategy for your company to implement. We’re going to look at: - [What is price skimming?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/47b9c86a-682f-4035-96be-ea6ab199b673/#what-is-price-skimming) - [Pros of price skimming.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/47b9c86a-682f-4035-96be-ea6ab199b673/#pros-of-price-skimming) - [Cons of price skimming.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/47b9c86a-682f-4035-96be-ea6ab199b673/#cons-of-price-skimming) ## **What is price skimming?** Price skimming is a strategy some organizations use when launching a new product. The aim is to release the product at a high price when the product doesn’t have many other competitors on the market, and gradually decrease the price over time to [maintain that competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/) once other products are introduced. The high price is typically the highest that part of their customer base is willing to pay and is then deliberately lowered to target more segments who can’t perhaps afford, or aren’t willing to pay, the highest price. A similar pricing strategy is called prestige product pricing, which maintains the high price throughout the entire product life cycle. Read all about it in our article: ### **An example of price skimming** Apple is a great and very common example of the price skimming strategy. Whenever a new iPhone or iPad is launched, it comes at a premium price. Apple builds up demand with their early adopters via events where they reveal upcoming products, and then they leverage pre-sale to allow customers to pre-order before it even hits shelves. Customers line up overnight at Apple stores before launch day, or wake up at 5 am to purchase online. But, one year after launch, that same iPhone or iPad comes down in price, and Apple is able to market to the early majority and late majority cohorts with a lower willingness to pay. This allows them to expand their market reach without sacrificing the upfront revenue from early adopters. ## **Pros of price skimming** It’s important to weigh the pros and cons of any strategy that you are considering implementing within your product marketing strategy. After all, something that may work for one brand, may not work for you. So, we’ve done the hard work for you, and have come up with the most important pros and cons for the price skimming strategy. The benefits of using this strategy are… ### **• The high price implies high quality** Of course, this isn’t always the case, but a higher-priced product will often convey the impression that it is also higher in quality. This then can make your product seem more prestigious and desirable, which can then increase your customer base and overall sales. This then ultimately… ### **• Can help your brand reputation** To quote Product Marketing Alliance's [guide to pricing](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-pricing/), > “Price skimming can also create an element of prestige surrounding your product or service; it creates the impression your offering is a must-have. Introducing high prices in the early stages attracts customers who are status-conscious, and provides you with a much-needed buffer when it comes to reducing the price in the future if needs be when rivals enter the market.” ### **• Helps to recuperate costs** Obviously, a product can cost a lot to create, develop, launch, and market. Setting your product at a higher cost - if you have an eager and willing customer base - can ultimately help you to recover or make up the costs it made to successfully bring it to market. ### **• Brings higher profitability** Fitting in with the previous point that it helps to make up costs needed to actually develop and launch the product, a higher initial [product price](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-calculate-the-perfect-product-selling-price/) can help you to generate a high profit margin for your organization. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/cta_banner_blogs_inline.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) ## **Cons of price skimming** As there are hardly ever any pros without any cons… ### **• Can’t work long term** Price skimming isn’t an effective long-term strategy because eventually, you’ll have competitors entering the market with similar, rivaling products and will put what is called “pricing pressure” on your company by introducing cheaper costs, and so on. ### **• Can backfire if customers are expecting this** If your company is well known for using the price skimming strategy, like Apple, you’ll have many customers who’ll ultimately wait to purchase your product until the price has been reduced. If you have a significant number of people waiting for this to happen, you’ll lose out on those higher priced sales and slow down the volume of demand, which will ultimately affect your overall revenue. ### **• Could damage brand reputation** Some audiences negatively perceive brands who consistently use the price skimming strategy because it can come across as though you care more about profits than your customer. So, it’s important to note that this strategy can’t be used for all brands and all products, as the goal should be towards keeping the customer happy and making them feel like they’re the priority. ### **• Might frustrate the original buyers** Price skimming can be a point of contention for early buyers of the product. Of course, you’re going to have some that won’t care, because they're focused on getting their hands on the product first and are willing to pay whatever the initial price tag is. But, for others, if you buy a product and then see that a couple of months down the line, it’s significantly cheaper… you’re may feel slightly conned. ### **• Customers may turn to competitors if the price lowers too late** What’s more to be said? If you wait too late to lower the price of your product, this can deter your customers from your product and brand and, instead, make them turn to a competitor who has come out with a similar product at a cheaper cost. ### **• Requires a lot of specific market conditions to work for your brand** As we’ve previously mentioned, this pricing strategy isn’t going to work for every single brand. So, there are a lot of specific market conditions that you’ll need to consider and ensure that your brand lines up with to know whether the strategy will work for you, or not. Here are some examples: - **High-quality product and brand image**: A consumer is not going to be willing to pay a high price for a product if the quality of the product doesn’t match. The same goes for if they do not recognize or appreciate your brand already. So, ensure that you have these factors already in place for the price skimming strategy to work for you. - **A big enough customer base willing to pay a high price**: What’s the point in putting in a high price if the majority of your target audience is looking for bargains? This will only damage your profits and overall sales. - **No competitors on the market**: Competitors must be deterred from entering the market with a similar product so it does not undercut you and your price skimming strategy. ****Further reading 📘** • [Comparative vs competitive advantage: what's the difference?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) • [10 superhero strategies to gain a sustained competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/) --- ## Want to learn more? Pricing strategy sits at the heart of your product's positioning, underpinning your competitive advantage. If you're to win and keep customers for the long term, you'll need to understand how your competitors are pricing their products and establish a pricing strategy of your own. We wrote the **Competitive Positioning Playbook** to teach you how to blend CI and customer research for an unstoppable positioning strategy. **Grab your copy to learn:** 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you **must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom **tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s **revenue** ceiling. [Download your playbook](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-competitive-positioning-playbook/) --- ### Conversation intelligence for customer experience URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/conversation-intelligence-for-customer-experience/ Last updated: 2022-11-30T11:54:02.000Z It's no secret that customer experience is important – it's one of the most common phrases in marketing today. But what do we mean by “customer experience?” You might think about the products you buy or services you use on a regular basis. Or maybe your company provides consulting services to other businesses that want to improve their own interactions with customers or clients. In short, customer experience (CX) is the sum of all interactions with a customer or client, including product, service, and business processes. So if your business depends on relationships between customers and suppliers then improving customer experience will improve its bottom line! 🗣️ Today's digital leaders are using conversation intelligence in their CX strategies Conversation intelligence improves customer experiences by harnessing digital technologies to create richer conversations with customers, stakeholders, and partners. It’s used in a variety of industries from retail to finance, healthcare, and utilities; from insurance to education; from construction to marketing. ## How does conversation intelligence work? Conversation intelligence is a strategy that, at its core, comes down to implementing an AI-powered conversation platform to improve your customer experience. Conversation intelligence is a form of machine learning computers use to learn from data to make predictions and decision-making processes more efficient. There are three main steps involved in implementing conversation intelligence: - **Data extraction:** We use our proprietary software toolkit to extract all the conversational elements within a specific topic or product area. - **Content analysis:** We identify opportunities for improvement based on these conversations. - **Recommendations:** We create recommendations based on our analysis results (e.g., recommendations for improving existing products). [Use These 10 Tips to Optimize Your Sales Content | CIASales enablement is all about deal support. Sitting between sales and marketing, your sales enablement team exists to support your sales staff with key information at crucial moments. Information about competitors and about your product. All in line with your brand messaging.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/isaac-smith-6EnTPvPPL6I-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/optimize-sales-content/) ## Programmatic analysis of customer conversations AI and machine learning are used to analyze customer conversations, which can help you identify opportunities for improvement. You can use this type of analysis in the following ways: - To detect when customers have had a positive experience with your brand or product, then use that information to improve future interactions with them. For example, if someone bought from you four times last year, but since experiencing an issue with one of your products they’ve only made two purchases, you might ask them about their experience so you can learn more about what went wrong. - To predict what people will say next based on what they've said previously. This type of analysis helps you provide better service. It also reduces costs associated with human intervention. Manual workarounds like fielding customer calls and emailing your already-busy sales representatives take time and cost money. By automating conversations, you free up yourself and your colleagues to focus on other priorities. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/4.png) ## What are the benefits of using conversation intelligence? Conversational intelligence is the ability to gather and analyze data through conversations. It allows you to improve your customer experience by identifying problems before they happen, then fixing them or preventing them from happening in the first place. Conversation intelligence can also help you increase sales by providing insight into what your customers want, need, and expect from you. This leads to more successful product development, pricing, and marketing campaigns. Addressing customers’ needs in this way won't go unnoticed by your customers and they, in turn, will become more loyal to your brand. [Closing the gap between revenue teamsLouis Jonckheere, co-founder and president of Showpad, discusses how to close the gap between revenue teams to deliver the best possible sales interactions and conversations with customers.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceLouis Jonckheere![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/kenny-eliason-8fDhgAN5zG0-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/closing-the-gap-between-revenue-teams/) ## Conversation intelligence tools can help you deliver better digital experiences. Conversation Intelligence is a powerful tool that can help you deliver better digital experiences for your customers. It's part of a customer-centric approach to marketing, using data and insights from conversations with customers to guide decisions, improve processes and create a more personalized experience for every user or prospect. The benefits of using conversation intelligence include: - Improved sales leads; - Improved customer service; - Better loyalty programs; - Higher conversion rates. ## Using conversation intelligence can help you improve your customer experience. Conversation intelligence for customer experience will help you understand your customers' needs, deliver better digital experiences, improve customer loyalty and sales, and improve brand stickiness and customer satisfaction. The ability to measure any type of content or interaction in real time is key to the successful implementation of conversational intelligence tools because it allows companies to gauge their success on a daily basis. The use of such analytics will not only provide insight into what makes certain types of interactions successful, but also help identify areas where you need to test more, or where you can make improvements. ## Conclusion In short? Conversation intelligence helps you deliver better digital experiences for your customers and prospects. Using it as a tool to identify opportunities for improvement in your customer experience will help you attract more customers and retain them longer. --- ## ****We let you do the talking. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or [competitive sales enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/)? Feel like this 🤐 and looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to ****get in touch**. It's your insights we're after, so if you're strapped for time we'll have a quick chat, then write the article for you. 💯 [Yes, give me a platform for my content!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### Brand positioning: Battling for the world's most valuable real estate URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-the-worlds-most-valuable-real-estate/ Last updated: 2023-07-25T17:26:57.000Z **A positioning framework enables you to find the right place for your brand in the marketplace, as well as in the consumer's mind. Ignore it at your peril.** When I say Porsche, you say... fast? I say VW Bug, you say... quirky? Corvette? Muscle. Toyota? Reliable. And of course, Volvo = safe. That is the power of a brand positioning framework. Thanks to positioning frameworks, any good brand steward can tell you where in a particular consumer's brain their brand – and competitor brands – have staked a claim. Yes, I'm talking about the consumer's brain like real estate because that's how brand builders see it. It's a finite, limited resource. Once someone has staked a claim in a particular part of the consumer's brain, you can't uproot them unless they do something exceedingly dumb, or you do something exceedingly brilliant. As British ad legend [John Hegarty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%5FHegarty%5F%28advertising%5Fexecutive%29) once said, > “Always remember: a great brand owns the most valuable piece of real estate in the world; a corner of someone's mind.” Why is it critical to own a piece of this extremely valuable real estate? Because if, one day down the road, the consumer in question decides they want a quirky car, the VW Bug will spring to mind. Ka-ching. ## Brand positioning strategies Creating [an effective brand positioning strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/brand-positioning-strategy-examples/) isn't simply a matter of running with what feels right. But it needn't be an ordeal, either. You can start by simply answering these four questions: 1. Who is it for? Who is the perfect buyer for your product or service? 2. What are you selling? You can start by literally defining your product or service (not as easy if it sounds – just ask any creator of complex software). But don't forget to describe the job consumers hire your product or service to do. 3. How does your product or service help? What are the benefits of using your product or service to solve the consumer's very specific problem, instead of turning to competitors? 4. How do you stand out, and above? How is your product unique, and superior? Once you've done this, you can take a stab at a brand positioning statement. That is: 💡 **For \[who is it for\], \[what you're selling\] will \[how the product helps\] because only we offer \[evidence that supports your claim of superiority\].** If this feels a bit broad, identifying the right kind of positioning for your brand will make the job easier. Here are the five main types: 1. **Quality-based positioning** – If you want to emphasize the premium nature of your product, you can demonstrate this positioning with evidence of outstanding results – optimally delivered via glowing testimonials and case studies. 2. **Price-based positioning** – This is the way to go if you want to position yourself as the most affordable brand. This is a powerful position (nobody wants to pay more than they need to) but beware: if you find success, others will begin undercutting you, and so begins the race to the bottom. 3. **Customer service positioning** – We've seen brilliant examples of this in categories where customer service seemed impossible – Zappo's making online shoe shopping a high-touch service business, for example. 4. **Convenience-based positioning** – This is one of the best strategies in a world where everything has ostensibly already been invented. With convenience-based positioning, you're seen as the brand that makes life easier. 5. **Differentiation positioning** – If your product or service is truly innovative, you can position yourself as the first, most original, breakthrough option. Careful though – to many consumers, new also means untested and risky. [The Positioning Matrix: A Beginner’s Guide | CIAEver wondered where your product sits in the competitive landscape? Enter the positioning matrix – a tool for visualizing just that.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/sigmund-B-x4VaIriRc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/) ## Visualize it A picture is worth a thousand words, and when it comes to the conceptual thinking positioning entails, visuals greatly aid the process. **The 2x2 perceptual map** – If you've ever used a 2x2 perceptual map, you know it can quickly clarify where you stand in the market in relation to your competitors. Plotting your brand on two axes based on consumer desires (quality vs price, for example) you see where the players stand. Unclaimed territory becomes obvious, as does the messy middle where most brands congregate. **The brand essence chart** – The brand essence chart may help you sort the word salad you're creating in your positioning. In a simple infographic it enables you to organize: 1. What the product does for me 2. How I would describe the product 3. How the brand makes me feel 4. How the brand makes me look to others 5. Facts and evidence about the brand 6. Brand personality 7. Brand essence Unfortunately, I can’t showcase these visual tools here. [Check them out in this blog post](https://www.marcstoiber.com/ultimate-brand-positioning-framework/#:~:text=A%20brand%20positioning%20framework%20is,now%20or%20in%20the%20future.). ## How to strength-test your brand positioning There's one simple, obvious way to test if your brand position is powerful: **do the right people remember it, and does it answer a need they feel but nobody else can remedy?** Let's break this down into a less fuzzy checklist. 1. Is your position clear? 2. Is it single-minded? 3. Does it empower your team to act in accordance with your positioning, and strive to make it true? If you're Volvo, is everyone enthusiastically working to build the world's safest car? 4. Is it focused on giving the highest value to your ideal customer? 5. Can you sustain it? 6. Can it grow and scale? 7. Does it enable you to stand apart from your competitors? [Find Marc on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcstoiber/) ## ****We let you do the talking. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive positioning? Feel like this 🤐 and looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to ****get in touch**. It's your insights we're after, so if you're strapped for time we'll have a quick chat, then write the article for you. 💯 [Yes, give me a platform for my content!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### The Competitive Positioning Playbook URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-positioning-guide-ebook/ Last updated: 2024-07-19T10:52:34.000Z No product is created in a vacuum. It’s how you position yourself relative to the competition that truly matters. If you’re to carve out your own competitive niche and defend it, you’ll need to scout the environment, pick an advantageous position, and make sure the market knows that spot belongs to *you*. In the Competitive Positioning Playbook, **we show you how**. ## How this playbook can help you Grab your playbook today to learn: 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a **rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you **must not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom **tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s **revenue** ceiling. [Download the playbook](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/11aGRKTw0QKOCs-THjYyRVA2b1vun) ## What’s inside your playbook? Want a peek behind the curtain? Here’s a look at what’s covered inside. 👀 - Why you should position competitively. - What ‘minimum viable positioning’ is and why you should work towards it. - The competitive positioning process, from foundations to deliverables. - How to reposition when things *aren’t* working. - How to get buy-in across your organization. Plus, you’ll hear from some of the best in competitive intelligence and product marketing, as they share their insights on the competitive positioning process. Our **guest experts** include: 🎓 - Alex McDonnell - Competitive Intel & Product Marketing at **Airtable**. - Keith Brooks - CMO and VP of Product Marketing at **B2B Whisperer**. - Kevin Chan - Manager, Products & Solutions Marketing at **Hootsuite**. - Matthew Tyrer - Head of Competitive Intelligence at **Commvault**. - Mitchell Comstock - Sr. Product Marketing Manager at **LeadIQ**. And many more… [Get your free copy](https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/11aGRKTw0QKOCs-THjYyRVA2b1vun) ### Redesigning WTP!: A Case Study URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/redesigning-wtp-case-study/ Last updated: 2022-10-26T10:18:06.000Z A makeover is always a challenge, but redesigning a friend’s site is a whole different type of pressure. Welcome to this case study on the redesign of [What the Pow!](https://www.whatthepow.com/) web, our client for this Ironhack UX/UI Design Bootcamp project. ![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/YD1DYUNyJ3wHudd6GsDl_oEiWiscvHJGipGOjgjQCO5ZhurrbUoMfkIgthrc7g0MJOZit_5McYGrAmLU5F76uAZw7RJ4BBvEdCr2KqkWXceWO5PXPOAkwEd6wESt2tl4rAJCZOlleiEwC3w7uQVS4sUl025apvLHv3nfboZI3ITLgemiZVBR_IlYyA) WTP! web: This is what the final high-fidelity wireframe looks like‌ ‌ ## The brief For this Ironhack Bootcamp project, we redesigned a local shop’s website and improved its online presence to increase its visibility both online and offline. The duration? Just two weeks. In the beginning, we had to decide on the client; we were torn between an online jewelry site, an architecture studio, and a winter clothing shop. All the potential clients were friends or acquaintances of our team. We went for the clothing shop: WTP! or What the Pow! “Pow” meaning powder, meaning snow. It’s a clothing company from Spain that works exclusively online, and its presence is mainly through [social media](https://www.instagram.com/whatthepow/?hl=es). Our main goal was to analyze what already exists and improve the solution. They had a website but it wasn’t what we would call “engaging”. Let’s start the analysis. ## The team We were a group of three members: Shekoofeh Shahabi, Adrián Fernández Álvarez, and I. Adrián is not only a loyal customer of WTP! but a friend of the owner, Álvaro Aldana. ![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/bt_Qkv7sLfnumL3khX9zVIUCOk-zQ9zTDtKMZm2Ess0CHtvUaAR-Q8ZrMN_J-KEtAKsknZle-oQDtEDPFyT8iUSOfTeSy3aabgWth1a69Fs7N98D7TYPTpI-IykKbRaE7t-eIzQDzyFGd278C-AzatOPtjc3xa2m5tTxLXJBHMoRBemZn5Cci7FFnQ) Team SNOPO :) ## The client: WTP! What the Pow is a company that manufactures and distributes outerwear, sportswear, and outerwear accessories. “Pow” comes from powder snow – a fun bit of wordplay Álvaro came up with when he founded the company. They were a group of friends who decided to create a logo for their YouTube channel, where they uploaded videos about their snowy weekend trips. Álvaro started making the first sweatshirts and t-shirts to hand out to friends, and when he least expected it, it turned into a business. Some of the star products are the windbreaker, sweatshirts, fleece hoodies, and t-shirts, specially made to resist low temperatures and ski trips. ## Competitive analysis To start the process of investigation we decided to go through three stages of **competitive analysis**: - Feature comparison, - Branding comparison, - And a market positioning map. [The competitive analysis stage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-prioritize-your-competitors/) started by comparing the brands that WTP! calls international and local competition. Competition at a local level would be Blue Banana; at a more international level, there’s Patagonia, The North Face, Decathlon, etc. [A Practitioner’s Complete Guide to Competitive IntelligenceCompetitive intelligence is your tool for knowing your competitors’ strategies, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses. Armed with this information, you can fine-tune your product strategy and marketing initiatives to win.In other words, competitive intelligence is your ticket to the top.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/ariel-HkN64BISuQA-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) Here in the Feature Comparison chart, we can see, at a glance, what features we needed to catch up with the competition: more payment methods, a wishlist, and a better shipping process. ![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/RNN92uCVo-xFeOavZ_c4U5TK23rCK7nkW88DL0Cw8V7EAoZ8GWhovgnCB3lavwuMzBDmf6DbOFXN5kZ7HYMaXxIiRPNTajrqRNA9jIDV_pYrDwe5ehWMTjUiKu8rYEMketyv9ExJsr_PfxwdZA3J5p0aJiMIk4tjf50ewsrCcVdeH599hl0owBtW6w) Competitive Analysis of WTP!: Feature Comparison [The brand positioning map](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/) shows us that WTP occupies a key place in the market but it is not being well exploited. It’s time to pursue new opportunities. We have to give reviews more prominence, show the product in a more interactive way, suggest other products to the customer, and generate a help channel for users. ![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/fJyxCIECUjsqkehJ3Kovi2BYFktGficJDEvy88EtdDVzK0Q5lE1U4QYM9MUV-61bilSJg6Y4x4N0xmnlHYxYuxSf-fEVl0xX28MLpYgpek7RCGov2JhbsuAaPRM5YiPB9-l_iKfDoNCxSEvYjRaGovUH93jvAMImegTEz0creNqAIwpUatDJQLjRFQ) Competitive Analysis of WTP!: Brand Positioning Map With all this information gathered we went through the next steps: getting information about the stakeholder(s), interviewing them, and finally carrying out user interviews. [5 Types of Competitive Intelligence to Impress Your BossYour competitors are trying to eke out a competitive advantage. So how do you create your own? That starts with competitive intelligence. Here are five types to get you started.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/giorgio-trovato-_XTY6lD8jgM-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/) ## Interview with the stakeholder Álvaro Aldana is the founder and owner of WTP! He is from Spain, the home of the project. Álvaro was clear about what he wanted from the website and even offered insights from his own research. So what did the founder want? To improve the website to make the user experience better. He also wished to retain users coming from Instagram, where WTP! is well-known and attracts a large number of followers. Before going ahead with the user interviews we needed to identify WTP! users and Álvaro’s idea of a dream user: “The user I have in mind will be 22–27, he or she likes open-air sports and winter – this is fundamental! This person wishes with all their might for the weekend to come at last so they can go to a cool place far from the city.” Álvaro matches the profile of the user he describes, which is an interesting concept for defining who may be your audience. That’s the magic of research: the deeper you go, the more you discover. ## User interviews The users we interviewed were four former customers aged 20–30. They were clamoring for a simpler, better design, a real homepage, better organization, PayPal enablement, filters, a wishlist facility, and a clearer check-out process with an order confirmation email. ![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/SnCc2DHHEkS6DZdTz3M_iTPuqCI1Yeoay6_gh84EdD3Je6xtBiYgv0dlkReas27xj2ngSm9pHRzPjom22j8HkNihytgR4R2dn_R31IigriXLDEj8FSdbtDOvM294rDfrIFuu-qNAR5ogWOWfR4oZ-ePaF4hbsdE5TCJSM90k_qgld7W2Vli8JC8ZnA) Affinity Diagram: WTP! Interviews With all the data collected, we were able to draft our **problem statement**: > “Sporty, adventurous adults who like to do outdoor activities need to find what they are looking for and more easily and finalize their checkout process quickly. This will help them meet their goals of using their time more efficiently and having a great shopping experience.” ## User persona and user journey I present to you the amazing Armando: ![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/aX040KJzQ-rFSfv8l3NaeS6_Z7Wq0lbOLuYXhg7Di-wLQ2RTRqE6HqPEX-rrppstUN8ATeRv2kMlJHljqCI2x51a21eGQMUWK6qbbWzQCd4yHXqGAtp_n5zowKk3dCYzCf6S6m75WAcLulYsGZ83e9UduKjYsLUHA7Rx_f5I5-8nTSVkl3YAwW-mSg) User persona He is a very active person, but he works in an office from Monday to Friday. Armando can’t stop thinking about where he is going to go with his friends at the weekend. ![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/MhnUW9Hqk8BcPjH4z2JYiltNlEdI2ZwRfnd9pZf85F-2Kigk7hIn9m9fYHaowStjze6tNXY2BOFaJzPWd8MZfYC9SuJURs3QaERwjhBCNcEF1V1eX9IzlN58FEmMhXTSZ1QtSfY48RmL8ruPYlFZVRI2_uN5k0YM322hPb4CfnhVyjnGA0U6QzyOFg) He only wants to pack his stuff and run away to a mountain and ski without being disturbed by any of the obligations of his city life. So how might we help him? ![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/DT8efCvwLLtUCguKdzsugnLTg8CMHo1F3Zz74PvjC9hLL-WPB2o-oHqw7HVH46Ei4VHui09U08UYnXHbxFbpz-4i1JU1BxZ26ZD0CYkT0IDgq_sMgt35w30GDFUxvxb-f0B-gVsuH4qNH6wJH46hTZoEe9rBOYPv41fZbfJ4YoLhZybQoL8uuLj_UA) The list of answers to these questions was long, very long. Eventually, we went for the Moscow Method to prioritize some of the features of the list. Our most direct objectives are improving the design, giving consistency to the website, adding color and size filters, building a wishlist feature, and adding more payment methods. ![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/W9fUjH2fbDB3v-NCG-Onu6GrHwDUU3UWTNex5kiVUBZyPmG0i_7YjODOyJYWk6IjghzHRn_V-dLPPjupcF-qDn3PhIhjtkBUV3faAovHNjdwAXKSwqdqLLzlLuz3rfpWszo7yk2A18z5xIzToQmNkgQl1WHWSz5nU8wqzLTmOrZJrNdCiwgQ5Crqhw) ## Sitemaps: Old and new To understand how the current web works we made a site map and redesign a possible new one. ![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/JbEyzZZT054SJtH8xI67So7Zd-lqfdqcAxiynCnaFw29Xyt1DJws_6jW4KjH6vywEAqpZDt7pqRZot7S8GXbqXpjef7aXqAzLxTchtM9iHvVlslAwDrukSu4T1O4cMA8A4CwS0umNxlAo7Q7uBfWXcxs8TQhOsNMUjSqJhFdMHcPwHfqafrEAAijrw) ## User flow: Happy path ![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/4HA2MvtD5HhtC1JdYedmRYHYc2xztX03oPD0EVqBDYBD_GCsha-5y1iSmONN8N5mI1oLYMiGEZudK2fY0qLHdbo2kQ0ldHcBQvf9vrsSuRdNnTVO8trJFK71g7p3cIn4GP588lkmNMH2nWR7rGrgpTMfpujODaNN9vtiEhw4GUaWCQtH73zCGfQ-CQ) Happy path user flow After creating the new sitemap, we created a happy path user flow. This shows the journey of a user who wants to buy a t-shirt, but as he starts exploring the web, he decides to add a mug he likes to his wishlist. Once he reaches the checkout, he decides to move the mug from the wishlist to his cart and buy both the mug and the t-shirt. He is very happy with this decision. Why? Because he’s on the happy path 😆. ## Ideation: The fun part? Thus far, while carrying out this research, I’d gone days without a good night’s sleep, and I’d had innumerable discussions with my colleagues, but finally, I had something to show for my efforts: the first round of concept testing sketches. ![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/HStC_sw2jfhhYRqBLy0tKLcjvnXFQDqRYMIB4uZmojNBavjQkUzAU-G_c9ZeXrpFkKVb8TMyawZAtEcRYKVr63xtdoo4CMBy4SPLTliZrXKnQ2FvdSHcTXWMmfu9qF5Ee57xo1AGYRfZcznOH3EOr51gAB0EaLd86zx_u0xiaxRGysrAixcSdv8uUw) Concept Sketch/Low-Fi Wireframe After a round of concept usability tests, we gathered some insights and went straight for the first mid-fidelity wireframe. ![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-BTdEh1JRE83G6vzHY48cFJFW8-Eoh9ZxXn_h4YlD9A-CeqYXsvt6DOKLzQGWtg1XH1XhAIGtLsYe-jVqLknFXeldxTNwhtKpnMaJPddp1dP7LNGRpDZ9hitn3mElL5zj69vJ3X-ZNe-N2Po9ZvJdKwRk7Ao5gVftJKato4k-zEhCLlWd1NCIb_TqQ) ![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/CMmexGze6CiPzfAhHupG5m-1VU881nhMtUVQpl12tNYH0ETabldZJDOh2NH4eDGQ28Ip81PRrO82ndEoUtgrCnnI67uMA4RInscdMapBt9VZZ9yKQbI-EXXGmtaeCTNxqG2hl35Kkxa2zd5cw67NzMeRm-p0woPq8yiIcsY4GQeXK5MaHWuCKJb3sQ) ![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/chMFQ5jwuL43_p-Kvfda4pEY0JYY9lcyACa22AeqvVwHZHIZM8-rK_Is4C7jlZI2-MLcmwgl8x7fhVYPLlb-Yz84kiMcU0qGzgQm6P_ZHFCPTly0RBSMUMN2RDvuJgFqukne7rumun54UAJQFae982nvancEuCZZFLBhsNP9gQo5IYwJHA2DENOJRg) To understand whether or not the site was usable, we conducted usability testing that came up with interesting results: - Back button needed - Wishlist screen creation needed - Checkout was easy - Menu interactions are efficient - Overall design was cohesive ## User interface: Mood board and style tile We created a mood board to validate the attributes we picked for the brand. ![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/6RcFB7lgEJhaVUUv7_UP9Kq9oCdY-_C4K7Hx3ravajsGHqI99ETmRBLb8h1rXxTIijBLwDoOSP3Waxd6MlWK7eodpvVwtFCVpF1-75fZRJRHP_MvWRN1Z2d2hBTfrUD2r_Az12W_t0q5Kd2z3FlEtjNmR7BmTwVHiiAqVkpcGSSNdzWrfTdrQpG9cg) WTP! moodboard To that end, we tested our board with 24 colleagues, who told us what adjectives or words came to their minds after seeing it. ![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/1dU8U-UJJnwW16ff1HPPBpR_FX4N1ora0etVpUCTK8GsWcMz0VUixYL2rBwCIzADYc-RMgYC5vKPSrej8rVC_vIZi_y6EM3QvLW-C9tIIhsFliWpN-O8J8ctupwKafp3UFxhkYzquEfguSy3_N1180Zd9UcEC3Rl1QZe0OasP5iiznEsZRRmalWwXA) Moodboard testing: Brand attributes(left) and results(right)‌ ‌ Through the images we wanted to evoke a particular style or concept, and we did it. The only mismatch was “young” being interpreted as “energetic”, so we changed it. After all “we artists owe ourselves to the public” – or is it the other way around? 🤔…Never mind. We decided to change it. “Energetic” is more inclusive than “young”. ![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/LM3BdwHWfW3_o9xvuzo1aimeUNU2bGIfISdDjPUUlmaznW2raKPs5cs_71PxNki_yPmsc6Uwc5eVeD9RLzjfKGrove9PKWPy-0mHcXCuh6pge9jqICfhvuDyUiHB6Pu_1U6y_puxcKMUVe43X9DrqGoega--WxcaGMJh9X6a1G-3hNMTAWCVNqUD1A) WTP! Styletile Oh colors, I almost forgot. For the colors, we took our stakeholder insights and preserved the black and white vibe but we added green and orange accent colors. Both colors are inclusive, unisex, and don’t compromise the style of the clothing. Also, green reminds us of the love for nature and the orange gives us that piece of freshness and warmth this brand wants to transmit. ## HIGH-FIDELITY, YES GURL! Day 953: we have a high-fidelity wireframe. Without further ado, here’s [how the final prototype for mobile and desktop looks](https://youtu.be/aQF8j06Ws24). [Menu screen of WTP!](https://youtube.com/shorts/Bl5jFOIS35o) *Do you like it? Would you buy clothes there? Tell me more!* ## Next steps After the prototype saw the light of day, we went for another round of testing (testing never ends). We did desirability testing to validate some of the values of the new website and get feedback before presenting the site to the client. The results were positive and consistent with our goals for the site. ![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Wn008fO-PIe7oEs3XKnOMvid8rUkPyVO54n14MFIYSdS-9v-05dPPDHzLE3cBAkbMuHqxl1O6nJGo3VM_6PaUHEtzQ3TrM2-Rom2LO04A83F_K-FQIJC0fvdvNhBJdnYgIiV8cIpdICvwIKQTG9mXgYQOdPYoPGNWH_FT7frpPc5FPOE49rmqzJCaA) Desirability testing with Google form ## Takeaways This will sound cheesy, but we started as a team and ended as a team, despite the differences, despite the lack of sleep, and despite working remotely. In the beginning, we were full of opinions and assumptions. We followed the process and slowly ended up playing different roles that were crucial to completing the project. We kept communicating and improving the whole time. Adding the UI was fun, but we shouldn’t forget that UXD is a process. Decisions on colors and typography and the placement of objects and components have to be made as a team. A little common sense helps too. Finally, feedback was crucial from the very beginning. We ran interviews, concept tests, usability tests, and desirability tests, and we improved with every test we did. **Further reading 📘** • [A beginner’s guide to the positioning matrix](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/) • [8 reasons why competitive intelligence is important](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/why-is-competitive-intelligence-important/) --- ## ****We let you do the talking. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Feel like this 🤐 and looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to ****get in touch**. It's your insights we're after, so if you're strapped for time we'll have a quick chat, then write the article for you. 💯 [Yes, give me a platform for my content!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### CIA Panel: Competitive Positioning URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/panel-competitive-positioning/ Last updated: 2022-10-26T16:17:04.000Z Is there any positioning strategy worth its salt that ignores competitors? Join the Competitive Intelligence Alliance (CIA) and three CI professionals for a live online panel on the topic of Competitive Positioning. 🔥 **Tune into our Competitive Positioning Panel on:** **🗓 November 3rd** **⏰ 15:00 EDT | 12:00 PDT | 19:00 GMT** **💻 Live - register below** ### Can’t get enough of competitive positioning? Grab the playbook. We’ve consulted with some of the brightest minds in competitive intelligence and product marketing to bring you the Competitive Positioning Playbook, available **October 28th.** Inside you’ll learn: 👷 How to blend CI and customer research for a **rock-solid** positioning strategy. 🙅‍♀️ The three steps you **must** **not skip** in crafting competitive positioning. 🪛 A top-to-bottom **tear down** of the positioning process, and how CI fits in. 🏹 How to use competitive positioning to shatter your org’s **revenue** ceiling. In the meantime, sit back and relax as we deliver you competitive insights direct from those same bright minds. ### Meet the Speakers: [**Matt Tyrer**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-tyrer/)**, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Commvault.** Matt joined Commvault in 2008\. As a Sales Engineer, he consulted on, built, and implemented Commvault solutions for a global array of customers. He then made the jump to marketing, where he wore several hats before taking on his current role as Head of Competitive Intelligence. He and his team continue to evolve their CI program, providing valuable insights to stakeholders around the company. **[David Paull](https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpaull/), Founder of Dialsmith** David Paull is Founder of Lillian Labs, a consultancy focused on buyer personas, competitive intelligence, marketing messaging, and brand storytelling. David is also Founder of Dialsmith, a technology company that develops products and services for data collection and real-time audience feedback. Outside of work, David is on the Board of TEDxPortland (the largest indoor TEDx in the world) and enjoys traveling, hiking, cooking, and photography. **[Mitch Comstock](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchell-comstock/), Sr. Product Marketing Manager at LeadIQ.** With more than five years of product marketing experience, mainly as a solo product marketer. Previous to working LeadIQ, he has worked with AkitaBox and Flexential. Mitch has a particular interest in competitive intelligence, sales enablement, and product messaging. Mitch's positioning and messaging skills have been perfected over a lifetime of explaining to people how and why he does not like chocolate and thinks it is a wildly overrated food. [Register now](https://my.demio.com/ref/Te5f6zVoUjNmT6a8) ### How to prioritize your competitors and survey your competitive landscape URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-prioritize-your-competitors/ Last updated: 2022-11-23T10:26:40.000Z Everyone's seen that image of the MarTech landscape. It looks more like a map of Middle Earth than a list of product vendors. So if yours is an industry with a similar number of competitors, how on earth do you decide who to allocate your finite resources to? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/martech_map_credit_chiefmartech.jpg) This is the MarTech landscape from back in 2020\. Today, it's even larger. *Credit: ChiefMartech* That's what Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon, speaks to today's guest about in this episode of Into the Fray: The Competitive Intelligence Podcast. Matt Tyrer, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Commvault, chats with Erik about the first steps he takes when categorizing competitors, as well as how to prioritize responsibilities to stakeholders. Key talking points: - [Deciding which competitors to focus on](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/42dc01b8-29bb-4bf7-a008-1703fb40b067/#deciding-which-competitors-to-focus-on) - [Segmenting your competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/42dc01b8-29bb-4bf7-a008-1703fb40b067/#competitor-segmentation) - [Re-prioritizing competitors and aligning with stakeholders](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/42dc01b8-29bb-4bf7-a008-1703fb40b067/#aligning-with-stakeholders-on-re-prioritizing-competitors) - [How to approach CI as a smaller player with a smaller budget](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/42dc01b8-29bb-4bf7-a008-1703fb40b067/#approaching-ci-as-a-smaller-player-in-the-space) - [Allocating competitive intelligence resources wisely](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/42dc01b8-29bb-4bf7-a008-1703fb40b067/#allocating-competitive-intelligence-resources-wisely) # Deciding which competitors to focus on **Q: Commvault is a data protection and information management solution provider. It’s in the security space, so its list of competitors must be a mile long. At some point, you had to draw boxes around those competitors, if only to give your team a way to focus on the most problematic ones. What was the first step you took when drawing those lines?** We already knew who our top five competitors were, just in terms of deal frequency and market positioning. Those were the easy ones to classify as most active and present in the market. [‎Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast: How to prioritize your competitors | Matt Tyrer, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Commvault on Apple Podcasts‎Show Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast, Ep How to prioritize your competitors | Matt Tyrer, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Commvault - Jul 29, 2022![](https://podcasts.apple.com/favicon.ico)Apple Podcasts![](https://is3-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/51/5b/40/515b40ba-64b2-2038-6313-725348fa697c/mza_6590695369496601757.jpg/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-prioritize-your-competitors-matt-tyrer-head/id1609944641?i=1000571553889) **Q: Did you get that from your CRM, or was it more anecdotal?** A little bit of everything. Some of it was coming from looking in the CRM at the known competitors we were encountering. Some of it was anecdotal, from inquiries from the field or chatter in the space. A lot of that knowledge also came from looking at industry numbers, market analysis, and stuff like that to indicate who the other major players in our space were. We were also looking out for people and brands who are considered thought leaders or market leaders. From there, we boiled it down to the top five competitors that we encounter with a good deal of frequency. Those are the ones we need to keep on top of. After establishing the top competitors, we had to segment our other ones because we don't just compete against those five. There are other players in the market that we need to keep an eye on. We looked at industry peers and people in adjacent markets that are making significant moves that might affect our market. I'll throw a couple of examples out there – Microsoft, Amazon, and Salesforce. We don't view them as competitors, but we certainly track them to see what they’re doing in the market. Where they go and where they're looking are good indicators of things that we need to be mindful of. That stuff's good to know. # Competitor segmentation **Q: So you’ve got a tier one – those are your major competitors – and you’ve got a tier two – the big players in adjacent markets. Do you have a third tier of smaller under-the-radar growth-stage companies that could one day compete with you?** The way I've segmented it – and everyone's probably got a different way of categorizing things – is we've got the tier ones, we've got the tier twos, and then I've gone into more of a use case or line of business approach for other competitors. There are certain brands we compete with for particular use cases, like, ransomware detection for example. In some cases, we've got duplication. We've got our Commvault core product, but then we also have our Metallic SaaS offering. The competitors are slightly different for that product, but there are some that overlap. I may compete with them for this, and I may compete with them over here – we play in multiple spaces. It's not a mutually exclusive categorization. You can live in several places at once. **Q: The way you've segmented your competitors is through a sort of prioritization methodology. How frequently do you re-prioritize?** I always look at all our competitive assets as living entities. They're not static - you just don't know what news is gonna break tomorrow. We always have to be able to react to those market trigger events where Competitor A releases Product B or something along those lines. When those trigger events take place, we go through and see what assets we need to adjust. Maybe we need to shuffle the deck a little bit and move some people around. That would be on top of the regular reviews that we go through anyway to make sure that everything is relevant and up to date. Maybe there’s somebody we were competing very heavily against, but we haven't been running into them much lately, so we'll consider pushing them down into a different tier. [Building a Competitive Intelligence Program | CIABuilding out your first competitive intelligence program can be a difficult process. 😮‍💨Who should be involved? Where do you start? With so many questions, so much data and so many competitors to get a handle on, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AlliancePatrick Wall![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/aedrian-w8fPD9o7NME-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/) # Aligning with stakeholders on re-prioritizing competitors **Q: What stakeholders or stakeholder groups do you bring into those prioritization conversations? Do you stay in touch with your sales leadership or a certain group of sellers that are on the frontline? Is it your corporate development team because they're the ones that are going to be putting pen to paper on acquisitions and partnerships?** I'd say it's a mix of all of the above. Sometimes it's coming from our product leadership group or engineering heads; sometimes it's coming from sales. There are various functions with a stake in our competitive intelligence, so we're always in communication with them. Similarly, input on intelligence can come from any number of sources. We maintain a kind of response team, if you will, that has key people from across all of those different groups within the corporate structure. It’s truly a cross-functional group, and we keep open communication. Really, the way we prioritize is very nebulous in the sense that it doesn't necessarily come from corporate strategy or sales leadership – it could come from any of them. We've got as wide a net as possible for where something new might come from, or where a new competitor may emerge. It could come from any of the groups that we interface with. **Q: The salespeople are often the loudest in the room because they're the ones who feel the pain if they're losing competitive opportunities. Are there stakeholders whose voices carry a bit more weight because there's a true bottom-line and revenue impact?** That's a good question. Sales obviously have their feet in the fire, if you will, because they’re always actively competing against other vendors. Let's say there was a new competitor that we hadn't really seen or heard a lot of, and sales was telling us, “We need to know what's going on with that competitor”. We’d probably take that back to that response team and say, “Hey, we're getting a lot of feedback from the field that this vendor is causing them trouble”. Oftentimes, it’s very regionalized. This new competitor might not be a global problem, but they’re challenging vendors in a particular area. And so we'll look at whether this is just a local thing or if it’s a precursor for a larger play that’s coming further on down the line. It's not a big challenge to add somebody into the mix and put them down in that lower-priority tier to keep an eye on, and we'll also proactively do some research and enablement to help vendors locally. That way, we're also setting the stage for if they do become a more serious competitor. # Approaching CI as a smaller player in the space **Q: How would you approach this if you worked for a smaller player in your space? Sometimes you’ve got to punch up. How would you do that?** I don't think my strategy would be all that different. Even on a smaller stage, you're probably still competing with big enterprise players in that space, but you might not be the enterprise yet. Maybe that's not even in your market. Maybe you're focusing on getting SMB business instead. I think you still look at it in terms of who you’re currently competing against, which is probably going to be others in a similar situation – high-velocity startups. But then, to your point, you want to look at who you’re competing against today and who you want to compete against tomorrow and track them. Now, your approach is also going to depend on how many people you're competing against; if you have a very diverse portfolio, there'll be additional segmentation in terms of total lines of business, where it's like, “This is our hardware business, so we'll compete over here. This is our software business, and we'll compete over here, and this is our SaaS business.” As with everything, it depends. So, would I still be categorizing things in a similar fashion? I think so. Now, those categories would probably be very different, but the same structure would persist. We’d have the most frequently encountered competitors that we absolutely need to be on top of because they're the ones our salespeople are competing against every day. And then I’d have those other categories of players we don't compete against all the time. [A Practitioner’s Complete Guide to Competitive IntelligenceCompetitive intelligence is your tool for knowing your competitors’ strategies, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses. Armed with this information, you can fine-tune your product strategy and marketing initiatives to win.In other words, competitive intelligence is your ticket to the top.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/ariel-HkN64BISuQA-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) # Allocating competitive intelligence resources wisely **Q: When you're doing this categorization and prioritization, you're going to end up spending more time doing competitive intelligence work on the tier-one competitors, less time on the tier twos, and even less time on the tier threes.** **What are some of the key things that fall off as you go down a tier? Let's say you do the full à la carte menu with your tier one competitors; what are some of the things you wouldn't necessarily do all the time for your tier twos and threes?** You have to focus the lion's share of the effort on who you’re competing against daily. That’s where a lot of research into the creation of assets like battle cards and sales briefs goes. That's where [a lot of your enablement efforts](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-enablement-best-practices/) are going to be too, in terms of not just creating content, but training, getting that information out there and working with enablement teams and channel teams. You have to make sure that people in the field that are competing on a daily basis a) know where that information is and b) can utilize it. That's the top priority. As you go down the tiers, you're not going to have to spend as much time training people about the tier-three players because you might not run into them more than once a year, if that. All that can change though. I can look back and see competitors that we used to actively maintain a lot of content around, and now we barely do anything with them because they've shifted market or exited completely from being an active competitor. Those things are gonna change over time as vendors move around. The difference in how you deal with the tiers is really about the general level of effort. Do I need to create battle cards specific to these vendors? Do I need to create a competitive brief on all of them? Do I need to do active enablement with the field to make sure they're up to speed with what's happening with these vendors who are on the back burner? Probably not because that's not what our customer-facing teams are most interested in learning about. They want to know what our top competitors are doing, how to compete against them, and how to beat them in every scenario. --- ## What's next? 🧐 Hungry for knowledge? 😋 What better place to learn than straight from the source? 💧 Join our competitive intelligence community on Slack for access to fellow CI practitioners and thought leaders. Ask questions, find your next new role, or stay on top of all our latest releases, events, and content. [Join the conversation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### Track these 5 things in a competitor PPC analysis URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-to-track-in-competitor-ppc-analysis/ Last updated: 2024-03-19T10:57:53.000Z Competitive analysis comes in all shapes and sizes. But there might be no faster way to understand your competitors’ priorities than PPC analysis. Why is PPC (pay-per-click) analysis so powerful? Because you learn where their money’s going. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/test.gif) At its core, a competitor PPC analysis involves identifying what your competitors are paying to own a slice of certain search queries. How much, in dollars and cents, do your competitors value literal strings of words, and their chance to appear alongside them? But you need to pay attention to the right details. Let’s discover what those are. 👇 ## What to track in your competitive PPC research We’ll start with the “five W’s” of PPC competitor analysis. This simple framework gives you a sense of where to begin with your analysis. 1. [**Who** is the competition?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d673cf57-7ca2-4022-b384-bc5a13eeff24/#one-who-are-your-competitors) 2. [**What** kind of competition are they?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d673cf57-7ca2-4022-b384-bc5a13eeff24/#two-what-kind-of-competition-do-they-constitute) 3. [**Where** are they choosing to compete?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d673cf57-7ca2-4022-b384-bc5a13eeff24/#three-where-are-they-choosing-to-compete) 4. [**Why** are they choosing to compete there?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d673cf57-7ca2-4022-b384-bc5a13eeff24/#four-why-are-they-choosing-to-compete-on-these-terms) 5. [**When** are they choosing to compete?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d673cf57-7ca2-4022-b384-bc5a13eeff24/#five-when-do-they-compete) Answer these questions, and you’ll have a strong understanding of your competitors and their paid search strategy. This, in turn, can help you devise the perfect search marketing strategy for your business. ### One: Who are your competitors? First, identify the competition. You know your own product inside out. And when it comes to running a paid search advertising campaign, there are particular search queries, or “keywords”, that people type into Google to find solutions like yours. Of course, if you can market to people already looking for a product like yours, half the job’s done already. This is why PPC advertising works so well. But no product exists in a vacuum. Competitive alternatives are out there and they’re trying to get the same sets of eyeballs on their product instead of yours. So your competition will target a similar list of keywords as you. **The (un)usual suspects** You’ll often be surprised to find who you’re competing with for high-value searches. Even if you’re familiar with your product’s core competition. There are certain tools that spring to mind when it comes to making this research and analysis process quicker and easier. You’ll probably already be using Google’s own Auction Insights tool to give you feedback on campaigns and bidding wars. SEO and PPC tools like Semrush, SpyFu and iSpionage, however, act as combination tools to offer insights into both organic and paid search strategies. ![SpyFu competitive analysis tool search bar](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/spyfu.jpg) **SpyFu and similar tools offer an easy way to investigate your competitors' organic and paid search strategies.* But at its simplest, you can find this out by searching these phrases in search engines and taking a note of who you see appearing in the advertisements. ### Two: What kind of competition do they constitute? Let’s say you sell a SaaS sales enablement tool. You might have the search query “best sales enablement tool” in mind. ![screenshot of google search results page for the term "best sales enablement tools" with the first three results highlighted](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/ss1.jpg) The first three ads in the screenshot above are from other vendors of sales enablement tools. No surprises there. These constitute your strongest competition. Now look at the final ad in the list. ![screenshot of google search results page for the term "best sales enablement tools", with the final result highlighted](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/ss2.jpg) The final ad isn’t from a vendor. It’s from Capterra, a third-party review website whose aim, according to the homepage, is to “help you find the right software for your website”. The term is clearly valuable to them since answering the query demonstrates to users the value of their service. But since they’re not a vendor, you wouldn’t consider them “direct” competition to your PPC campaign. Still, they’re bidding on a term you’re after. And if they bid higher than you? They’ll win the term and the corresponding traffic, not you. When you’re able to categorize your competition in this way, you’ll better understand their motives, in turn helping you strategize against them. ### Three: Where are they choosing to compete? Which of these search terms are your competitors choosing to bid on? There’s quite a bit of detail to dig into here. Collecting a list of the terms your competitors are bidding on is useful, but you also want to track the following information: - Where are they winning? - Where are they spending the most? - How does this relate to their organic search strategy? Paid and organic search strategies go hand-in-hand. Some businesses won’t bid for ads on a term they rank highly for in the organic results. Others will bid aggressively on such terms. Why? Because multiple results for their website on a high-value query boosts the chances of searchers clicking to their site. Strategy aside, though, you want to identify which terms are driving the most traffic for your competitors. You’ll need to use tools like Semrush and the Auction Insights report from within Google Ads itself to find this out. ![Screenshot of the Google Ads Auction Insights report](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/auction_insights_credit_karooya.png) **The Auction Insights report in Google Ads. Credit: Karooya* Also pay attention to which terms they’re winning and the CPC (cost per click) of these terms. If they’re winning on high CPC terms, they either have a lot of budget at their disposal (useful to know) or they *really* value that term. Finally, link this information back to your own keyword campaigns. Are there any keyword gaps, where your competitors are all targeting queries you’re not? If so, is that a conscious strategic decision on your part, or could you work those terms into your strategy? ### Four: Why are they choosing to compete on these terms? Understanding the motivations behind what you see from your competitors’ PPC strategies is key. Again, a tool like Semrush can help you identify the terms your competitors are winning on, and which are driving the majority of their traffic. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/Screen-Shot-2022-10-19-at-13.27.07.png) **Tools like Semrush and SpyFu offer ways of analyzing your competitors’ organic and paid search marketing strategies.* Tie in the CPC of each paid search query they target into your analysis. The higher the CPC, the higher the value of the term. Commercial search queries like “best basketball shoes” always have a higher CPC than terms with a less buyer-ready intent. **Why some terms have higher CPC** Let’s go back to our earlier example, “best sales enablement tools”. If you’re a vendor of an SE tool, it stands to reason that you’d want your product alongside such a term. Not least because you believe your product *is* the best sales enablement tool out there. Since all your competitors believe the same thing, you’ll all bid aggressively on that one term, driving up the price. But you do this because you believe you can *sell more products* if buyers searching for this term see your name alongside it. That’s because the term has a ‘commercial’ or ‘transactional’ intent, which means most people searching for that term intend to buy, or make a crucial purchasing decision, at the end of their search. 💡 Taking a note of the terms where your competitors spend the most gives you a good sense of what they **value most*. Taking a note of the terms where your competitors spend the most, where they win, where they bid aggressively, etc, gives you a good sense of what vendors that sell products similar to yours *value most*. And, in turn, what you should consider valuing too. Remember, though, you need to take into account what kind of competitor you’re looking at. If you believe they have a much larger budget than you, then bidding aggressively on a term they value highly will trigger a bidding war you can’t win. Instead, identify the terms your competitors have left alone, but that you still believe to have value. Win those terms with the budget you have. ### Five: When do they compete? **Seasonality** is a big factor in any advertising campaign. If you’re advertising a finance product to folks on Wall St, you probably won’t run any ads during the summer months or at the end of the year as the holidays approach. Those folks make a lot of money, work long hours, and take extended vacations. If they’re not thinking about work for several months of the year, then they’ll have no use for your product (or your advertising) during those times of the year either. 💡 Keyword search volumes can fluctuate seasonally. But your competitors will also spend more aggressively at certain times of year. Tools that reveal seasonal search volume fluctuations for keywords are helpful here, but you can also pay attention to what the competition does. If competitors pull all their bids on particular terms at the start of July and don’t put them back on until the end of August, there’s going to be a reason. Find out what it is, and use that intel to inform your own paid search strategy. ## How to use this information to build a paid search strategy When it comes to advertising on Google’s search engine results pages, you don’t have a whole lot of **room to stand out**. You get a title and some descriptive text. Beyond that, all you have is a position in a lineup. Biggest spenders at the top, lowest is at the bottom. Some queries have just two ads listed. Others have four or more, while still others also list ads at the bottom, beneath all of the *organic* search results. You’ve got a budget, and so do your competitors. So **spend wisely**. You need to keep an eye on what’s **winnable** and, when it comes to paid search, that means estimating the size of your competitors’ budgets, the value of each term to them, and judging how much they might be willing to pay for that term. Contrast that with how much they’re spending on the term right now, and with the highest amount you’d be willing to spend on that term. ## TL;DR Let’s **summarize** what we’ve learned. The Five W’s offer a framework for looking at your competitors and their PPC strategy. Follow them to get a handle on: - Who your competitors are. - What type of competition each is. - What they’re targeting. - Why and when they’re targeting it. Pay attention to: 1. The balance between your competitors’ organic and paid keyword strategies. Which keywords are they targeting with organic? [Perform a competitive SEO analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/seo-competitive-analysis/) to learn this. Which with paid? Why and what success are they having? 2. The CPC of those terms. How much would it cost you to compete on the same or similar terms? 3. How likely are you to be able to win terms from particular competitors if you were to bid against them? --- ## Looking to test drive a CI program of your own? Join us at one of our events to learn from CI's best and brightest. Tune in for: ⏰ hours of workshop content 🎥 Expert tuition from proven competitive intelligence experts 📁 templates, worksheets, and other handy bonuses to apply in your role and a whole lot more... [Explore our events](https://events.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/) --- ### In search of a data-informed way to build product vision and positioning: part three URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/data-informed-product-vision-and-positioning-part-three/ Last updated: 2022-10-18T17:30:57.000Z In search of a data-informed way to build product vision and positioning: Part three This is the final installment of a three-part series on building a product vision and positioning by researching decision drivers – factors that influence your customers’ decisions when choosing a solution. Here I wanted to discuss some of the questions that haunted me after we had completed the process for ourselves. If you haven’t read parts one and two yet, you can go and do that now – I’ll wait. Otherwise, read on for a quick recap. **Suggested reading 📘** • [In search of a data-informed positioning process: part one](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/data-informed-product-vision-and-positioning-part-one/) • [In search of a data-informed positioning process: part two](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/data-informed-product-vision-and-positioning-part-two/) # Recap of the first two parts There are five steps to crafting a product vision and positioning based on data you’ve gathered from prospects **Step one: Describe a decision your target audience has to make** The first step has to do with who you’re building your product for and the decisions they need to make. Be as specific as possible with your target audience definition, identify your ideal customer profile (ICP), then identify the role of the person who plays the biggest part in the decision to buy (or not). Then state that decision, or reframe it as a question. For example, “Which solution from \[product category\] should we select?” **Step two: Discover the decision-drivers** Now you’ll gather data on how prospects evaluate different solutions You’ll learn what the overall evaluation process looks like, what sources of information prospects use, and other background context. The goal is to gather decision-drivers from multiple representatives of your target audience. **Step three: Rank the decision-drivers and get context on the most important ones** Here you need to come up with a list of 10 to 15 decision-drivers and ask your interviewees to rate them on a scale from one to seven. You’ll also need to get the context on the three to five most important decision-drivers for each interviewee. You can ask for ratings either via survey, before the second round of interviews, or do it within the interview. You also have to gather context on the key decision-drivers in a structured way. You have to ask very similar questions for each driver to get the same type of information. This shouldn’t prevent you from getting additional context, but it will help you get to the heart of the drivers. [Undifferentiated Marketing Strategy: Pros, Cons, When to Use One.With an undifferentiated marketing strategy, rather than splitting the audience up, you’ll be marketing to the masses.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/erol-ahmed-leOh1CzRZVQ-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/undifferentiated-marketing-strategy/) **Step four: Calculate the average, median, and standard deviation for each decision-driver** This will help you get a prioritized list of decision-drivers that you can apply as you craft your product vision and positioning. Select up to five of the decision-drivers that ranked the highest. At this stage, if you have multiple audiences you want to understand better, just calculate the numbers for them separately. Keep an eye on decision-drivers with a high standard deviation. They might signal that there’s a sub-segment of your target audience within your interviews, and they highly value a decision-driver that might be of no interest to other segments. **Step five: Make the product vision and positioning** Now you’ve got it all: ranked decision-drivers and lots of context for them, all gained through interviews. You’ll have an understanding of what you should build and what’s not important for your audience. This will guide you to a lean product vision that includes only what’s relevant. As for positioning, use context and use the specific language your interviewees used when they described decision-drivers and how they evaluated solutions based on those decision-drivers. # Scaling it up As your business grows, you’ll want to expand your target audience. The methodology still holds, and you can approach scaling from two different perspectives: 1. Reconsider the decision-drivers you’ve gathered and start covering more of them either within the main product or as an add-on. 2. Do the research again, but with a specific segment in mind. In the first case, the idea is to use the data you’ve already gathered to see what decision drivers can unlock a bigger chunk of the market. A simple example here is advanced compliance with different regulations. Maybe you’re in a product category with different levels of data sensitivity, and that was a decision driver for your audience but wasn’t high enough on the list. A company that values this decision driver won’t select you because it’s too great a blocker. You need to study the companies that gave advanced compliance a high importance rating and see what else they require. Is it enough for you to cover the decision drivers you initially covered and do you just need to cover one more? In that case, you have a great opportunity. However, if you conducted the research a long time ago, the results may no longer be relevant, so approach with care. In the second case, you just go through the full cycle of research once again, following the outlined steps. [How to Get Started with Market SegmentationMarket segmentation is the process of splitting up your target market into a set of smaller groups based on shared needs or characteristics. It helps you make more sense of your audience. And studying each segment uncovers new useful information about its members.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/coline-beulin-MPOwVcXSVAI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-get-started-with-market-segmentation/) # What if you’re creating a completely new market category? This series of articles has been dedicated to building product vision and positioning for a product in an existing market category. It’s fair to ask whether we can follow this methodology for a product so novel that it’s going to create a completely new market category. In short, I don’t know. I haven’t tested this methodology on completely innovative products. Regardless, allow me to speculate. In theory (I warned you I was going to speculate!) you could start with a problem for a specific target audience, rather than a product or product category. But in this case, what exactly should we research to build our product vision and positioning? Every problem has a solution. Sometimes the solution is to do nothing, and sometimes people who feel the pain of the problem create workarounds. We can study how the problem is currently solved in two ways: 1. Find decision drivers for their current solution (which you believe isn’t optimal). 2. Find gaps: what exactly are the people or companies you’re researching unhappy with? What prevents them from solving the problem completely? Essentially, the research will be split into two parts because there are now two lists to rank. You’ll follow the same steps, but in the end, you’ll build your product vision and positioning not based only on what they value in their sub-optimal solution, but also on what they miss in the current solution. # Can this work for an existing product? The challenges of working with an existing product don’t lie in the research area. Instead, your challenge will be the many stakeholders that need to be involved, and the sheer organizational effort of using the insights to build a new product vision and positioning. You might run into executives that dismiss your research because “we’ve already done some research” or something similar. It’s just not going to be a priority for many executives. It will be your job to prove that the research is necessary. Going back to the research dimension, working on an existing product will provide additional insights because you’ll be able to talk to your users or decision-makers from existing accounts. You should run those interviews separately from the ones with users or decision-makers of competitive tools, or at least separately within the analysis stage. You’ll not only learn what that segment of the market cares about but also about the existing accounts’ decision-drivers. # Acknowledgments Thanks to Alan Albert, MarketFit president, who has decades-long expertise in building products, crafting positioning, and optimizing pricing, and who led the way for me to dive deeper into discovering customer values. Thanks to Dmitriy Amosov, Sinisa Kravarascan, Maja Blazek, and Tomislav Jus who were an integral part of the initial research that was a foundation for my learning on decision-drivers. --- ## ****We let you do the talking. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Feel like this 🤐 and looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to ****get in touch**. It's your insights we're after, so if you're strapped for time we'll have a quick chat, then write the article for you. 💯 [Yes, give me a platform for my content!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### Learn how to build a world-class CI program live and online URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-virtual-workshop/ Last updated: 2022-10-18T11:08:35.000Z 🎟️ Join us **January 19 2023** at 9 am PST | 11 am CT | 12 pm ET | 5 pm GMT for an exclusive three-hour competitive intelligence workshop led by Airtable’s Alex McDonnell. [Enroll now](https://competitive-intelligence-alliance.teachable.com/p/competitive-intelligence-virtual-workshop) Competitive intelligence has never been more important. No matter your industry, the tech explosion of the last few decades has put the wolves firmly at the door. It’s never been easier for competitors to sniff out your competitive advantages, take steps to neutralize them, and win your market share. Fortunately, that goes both ways. Best practices and frameworks exist to help you beat those competitors at their own game. You just need to learn from one of the best. ## Learn how to build a world-class competitive intelligence program live and online Team up with an expert to build a detailed understanding of your competitive landscape, create flawless strategies, and propel your teams to success. This workshop includes stellar expertise, vetted and tested templates, and unrivaled content that’ll elevate your competitive intelligence credentials and support you when conducting research into your market rivals. And that's not all. The added bonus material will solidify your learning and help you fine tune your approach to CI. ## Meet your instructor Alex McDonnell is Airtable’s Market Intelligence Lead. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/alex_airtable_wide.jpeg) Alex is a self-confessed primary qualitative research nerd, with a special penchant for win-loss interviews. His research methods tend towards semi-structured qualitative conversations over other more rigid methods, such as quantitative surveys. ## What to expect Tune in for: ⏰ 3+ hours of workshop content 🎥 Expert tuition from a proven competitive intelligence expert 🔎 Case study examination 📁 5 templates and 4 worksheets to apply in your role 🎁 Bonus features to help you learn from the likes of Audible, Gong, and Hootsuite … and a whole lot more. You simply can’t afford to underestimate the importance of competitive intelligence in today’s marketplace. Enroll today to secure your spot on the path to CI mastery. [Enroll now](https://competitive-intelligence-alliance.teachable.com/p/competitive-intelligence-virtual-workshop) ### Competitive Intelligence Summit | New York | December 8 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-summit-new-york/ Last updated: 2022-11-29T16:26:37.000Z [FIND OUT MORE](https://events.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/location/newyork) **What is the Competitive Intelligence Summit?** This December, get in a room with your CI peers for a full day of non-stop networking, knowledge-sharing, keynotes, roundtables, and more at the Competitive Intelligence Summit. We've assembled some seriously impressive contributors to reveal their best practices, challenges and experiences with one mission in mind: enabling you to reach your full potential. You'll find like-minded peers, become a valued member of the CIA community and take some of the world's most forward-thinking strategies straight back to your desk. 👉 [Homepage](https://events.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/location/newyork/) 👉 [Speaker line up](https://events.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/location/newyork/speakers) 👉 [Agenda](https://events.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/location/newyork/agenda) 👉 [Tickets ](https://events.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/location/newyork/register) Inspiring content created and delivered by pioneering competitive intelligence leaders. In just one day, you'll learn about: - How to effectively build and scale a competitive intelligence program from scratch - Competitive pricing intelligence - Proving the value of your CI program - Implementing a competitive culture into your company - Establish key metrics to measure effective competitive intelligence - Increase your competitive advantage with a world-class win/loss program - Delivering CI insights to key stakeholders - Effectively disseminating competitor intell across your org [REGISTER NOW](https://events.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/location/newyork/register) ### The role of FOMO in consumer psychology URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/fomo-and-consumer-psychology/ Last updated: 2022-10-16T11:46:07.000Z FOMO, or fear of missing out, is an acronym for a psychological worry that’s been ingrained in the human psyche for as long as we can remember. Coined in 1996, FOMO is a term used to describe the stress people experience when they realize others are potentially having more fun than them. You’ve likely heard it used in a more social sense, for example, when your friends are out having fun while you’re at work. However, it has a place within marketing, too, and it can be a very interesting method of selling a product to your target market. In this article, we’ll delve deeper into this topic, and the role FOMO has on consumer psychology, focusing specifically on: - What is FOMO marketing? - Real-life examples of FOMO marketing - Other ways you can use FOMO in marketing - The challenges of capitalizing on FOMO in marketing ## **What is FOMO marketing?** FOMO marketing is a term that refers to the [messaging](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-ensure-messaging-is-utilized-across-an-organization/) that entices consumers to purchase something before it’s no longer available. In the essay, [Conformity, Conformity Behavior, and FOMO](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/45ed/b91e9aea63d88172893eb64ef178afae2282.pdf), authors Inwon Kang, Haixin Cui, and Jeyoung Son say: “FOMO can be distinguished from two kinds of psychological traits, one is the desire for belonging and the other is anxiety of isolation.” The fear of missing out isn’t necessarily about missing out on getting a good deal; it’s about finding a product before they become unavailable. Some studies have shown that consumers who experience FOMO spend more on average than those who don’t. This may be because their fear of missing out pushes them to spend money they don’t have. This can be in the form of: - Impulse buying, - Bulk buying, or even just - Paying more than the average price to have the same experience. It’s a clever technique that usually relies on the nature of the messaging. To get an idea of what we mean, let’s take a look at some real-life examples of FOMO marketing. ## **Examples of FOMO marketing** ### **ASOS - ‘Selling fast!’** Many B2C businesses have a tag or piece of messaging within their site or store that indicates a sense of limited stock, or that time is running out for you to purchase a product, particularly when selling a physical product This adds a sense of urgency and panic, pushing prospective customers to buy the product if they feel like it’s not going to be there for much longer. For example, the online clothing store ASOS does a brilliant job of this. Within their sale section on the navigation bar, they have a tab labeled “Selling fast”, which is bright red, whilst the other tabs are black. The color makes the words stand out more; red, giving the connotation that there’s an emergency, and the phrase showing, again, a limited stock. The phrase “selling fast” also gives the idea that a lot of people are purchasing it, reinforcing this sense of FOMO within the target customer, because it’s clearly a popular item that others are enjoying. ![Image of the ASOS website navigation bar, under "Sale" where there is a tab that says "SALE selling fast".](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/V94QITWSvTF3I5672ir3M3M9amogkI2q-sfJoJlAVy-4m4RGLFbkcyvBMziuxTdUj2QzmQBe9Wvrm6c_UPjgJXzNFoFroSXVsoKq9nKGJUnb4K0X38htgdQBSW3oHl5cbm49CArOOp2E3unmtrFErbg) They also put the same phrase on the actual product images - so, when you’re scrolling through a page and notice a product is “selling fast”, you immediately assume it’s something valuable, something you’ll likely want, and also something that’ll stop you from missing out if you purchase it. ![A photo of a person wearing shoes and a label on it that says "selling fast"](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/OoTUtXTY9XNM08GYxkSoeTbt46DAvkyoR9x-PRPbsltABLdf0WhTwoFKnBZI8uouZZHgEtHnl1cCN4aE2nyL8UQcbKgyY4tJGJ5EUhI8pnTSGqf8seLY0HMgUkZFwlUEg_s7mhPt-5LoZ1mypgo3JyQ) ### **Klue - ‘100,000+ users…’** Another way companies will instill this sense of FOMO within their target market is by using numbers to show their product’s popularity. The Klue messaging in the image below is a great example of how to do this; they’re highlighting a large number of people (“100,000+ users rely on Klue”) who’ve already signed up for the platform. It indicates that there’s something popular that you, as the prospective customer, are missing out on, that others are already enjoying. ![A screenshot from Klue's website which says "100,000+ users rely on Klue to come out on top. But don't just take our word for it, see what our customers have to say."](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/SJimMJ6xJTuOuLjbWBqutkmtdDS3WM1fRAnqvh83Z5mi7KVwtr5mKg3sulytHq5kExz6YYMfzHJdQ3ra9WyqW6K8E8Atoq70pc9-538wRtmVl0SlVEDf79-HY0K_mbEK7xA9tEeoYzRy2WQuNrjBKms) ### **Glastonbury festival - ticket registration** A common method of FOMO marketing is events that require registration to purchase tickets. One of the most popular examples is Glastonbury Festival. Unlike other festivals, Glastonbury requires you to register for tickets before they launch. There are many steps to the registration process, and by the end of it, you’re still not guaranteed a ticket. ![A screenshot from the Glastonbury Festival Registration page - which says "To obtain tickets for glastonbury festival events you must register. Failure to follow the registration instructions correctly will lead to rejection, you will be notified if this occurs; however we would advise that you check your registration prior to tickets going on sale to ensure your registration has been accepted. Anyone twelve or under when gates open does not need a ticket and therefore need not register. Registration does not guarantee you a ticket. You will need your registration number to purachase tickets when they go on sale."](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/LC4peAw3BvrxQfokbSIZEJ_5-GRl82m47I7bZE-jNmdeJsAQN2P0ddOreA_WBGxE63p96xKw4c4jqNMCv67ESIYKQSHQL1zsFQH1jEes9qe0LAXP-1d72luLo2jdntWSUuh_ODgmxPdYBdE-4T14Vw) This technique only works when an event or company is already fairly popular because it creates a sense of exclusivity toward the event, and panic if they won’t get a place. However, if it was from a less popular event, people wouldn’t care as much, and the registration process would cause more of a deterrent than being a “must have”. #### ****What can we learn from these examples?** These techniques work because they allow customers to feel as though they’re getting a deal that they’d otherwise not have access to. Also, these techniques provide a sense of urgency that makes the consumer act immediately. It’s all a way of applying consumer behavior to your marketing technique. ## **Other ways you can use FOMO in marketing** ### **Set a time limit** > "[60% of people](https://trustpulse.com/fomo-statistics/) make purchases because of FOMO, mostly within 24 hours." As we already know, time limits on sales cause FOMO because the prospective customer is worried it’ll no longer be available once the time is up. This’ll cause an increase in purchases due to the amount of impulse buys the time limit will create. ****Top tip:** Using a countdown clock on your website is effective as it’s a visual reminder to the customer that their time is running out. ### **Offer a giveaway** A giveaway can be effective for a few reasons. First, the audience will feel as though they’re a part of something special, helping to alleviate the fear of missing out. Second, there’s a time limit added to this, meaning they also have that sense of urgency that they need to apply immediately so they don’t miss the deal. And finally, there’s nothing particularly exhaustive for the customer to do, other than sign up. It’s an easy win for them, and an easy win for you. ### **Use social proof or case studies** Proving that others use your product or service is a great way to show that there’s something the prospective customer is missing out on if they don’t purchase it. This is especially true for case studies, as they’re designed specifically to show how useful and enjoyable your product is to use. A way to take this a step further - or ‘raise’ the level of FOMO - is by using an influencer or celebrity to promote your product. After all, there is a high correlation between popularity and FOMO. This is useful because it gives you a bigger chance that your target audience will see your product, it can then cause more conversations and popularity around your product, which then will potentially increase the number of purchases. ### **Improve your messaging techniques** As we mentioned previously, messaging is a huge part of FOMO marketing. After all, a lot of it comes down to the phrasing of your message. Your messaging can make or break the decision-making process. So, ensure to optimize your content and copywriting techniques, and carry out enough [consumer research](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-know-your-consumer-in-market-research-and-win-big/) to know how your target demographic likes to be spoken to. [Building Product Vision & Positioning Through Data | Part 1The goal of this three-part series is to add one more skill to your toolset: creating product vision and positioning based on competitive intelligence and customer research.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceKonstantin Valiotti![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/stephen-dawson-qwtCeJ5cLYs-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/data-informed-product-vision-and-positioning-part-one/) ## **The challenges of capitalizing on FOMO** ### **Ethical concerns** The fear of missing out has become more popular since the rise of social media. In fact, a study showed that [****56%** of social media users experience FOMO](https://trustpulse.com/fomo-statistics/). After all, it is a place where people constantly seek validation from others, especially adolescents, college students, and young adults. > Another stat showed that "**48%** of Millenials have spent money they didn't have to keep up with friends." While this enables marketing professionals to sell their products easier, there’s a growing fear that certain customer segments are being exploited and taken advantage of for financial gain. ### **Skewed data** Another issue is that by focusing on instilling this sense of FOMO in your target market, you’re going to attract an audience that doesn’t have particularly positive purchase intentions. For example, there is a phenomenon called “scalping” where people use bots or an automated platform to buy tickets to events (especially concerts) to later sell them for increased prices. This then makes data analysis and market research more difficult, as some of the data you have collected on your “target audience” isn’t necessarily correct. This could then have a knock-on effect on your marketing approach. ### **Coming off as disingenuous** By capitalizing on your target audience’s fear of missing out, your company runs the risk of seeming disingenuous, untrustworthy, or forceful. Some of the FOMO marketing methods are widely known and disliked. For example, when influencers or celebrities market products that they clearly don’t use purely for compensation. This then reduces credibility for both your brand and the influencer, if done incorrectly. One way to combat this is by finding someone who genuinely loves and uses your product. This way, they’ll have a lot more to say about it, and be able to market it for a more positive effect. Plus, when people then purchase your product, they’ll understand the marketing efforts were genuine, making them trust your brand in the future. --- ## ****We let you do the talking. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Feel like this 🤐 and looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to ****get in touch**. It's your insights we're after, so if you're strapped for time we'll have a quick chat, then write the article for you. 💯 [Yes, give me a platform for my content!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### Undifferentiated marketing strategy: pros, cons, and when to use one URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/undifferentiated-marketing-strategy/ Last updated: 2023-12-08T17:27:16.000Z Everyone loves this gem from **Warren Buffet**: > "How do you beat Bobby Fischer? You play him at any game but chess." And for good reason. It’s a great example of lateral thinking applied to strategy. Its implications for businesses, of course, have a lot to do with the competition. If you’ve got an unbeatable foe lurking somewhere out on the field, you should absolutely refuse to play by their rules. To tip the odds in your favor, get them **playing by your rules** instead. But marketing strategy is about more than your competitors. It’s also about your customers, how you reach them, and how you communicate the value of your product. 💭 Depending on the product you’re looking to bring to market, you might be able to get away with treating your audience as a homogeneous group. In fact, for some businesses, this will actually be more effective. For others? A commercial disaster. That’s why it’s critical to understand what an **undifferentiated marketing strategy** is and when it’s appropriate to use one. In this article, we’ll discuss: - [What an undifferentiated marketing strategy is.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/4e7f4642-b108-4aa6-beda-23b992b3624a/#what-is-an-undifferentiated-marketing-strategy) - [The pros and cons of undifferentiated marketing.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/4e7f4642-b108-4aa6-beda-23b992b3624a/#the-pros-and-cons-of-undifferentiated-marketing) - [When such a strategy might be suitable for you.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/4e7f4642-b108-4aa6-beda-23b992b3624a/#when-undifferentiated-marketing-could-work-for-you) Ready? ## What is an undifferentiated marketing strategy? We’ve already discussed [how to get started with market segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-get-started-with-market-segmentation/). Segmenting your audience forms, at its core, part of a differentiated marketing strategy. You’re focusing on the differences between audience subgroups to identify the highest-value segments to target. Then, you produce targeted marketing messages and deliver them to these segments. An undifferentiated marketing strategy takes the opposite approach. Rather than split the audience up, as you would in a differentiated or concentrated marketing strategy, you’ll be **marketing to the masses.** ## The pros and cons of undifferentiated marketing So when might an undifferentiated marketing strategy be useful? Here’s a quick list of the pros before we deal with each in turn: - [Lower associated costs.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/4e7f4642-b108-4aa6-beda-23b992b3624a/#segmenting-is-expensive) - [Broader market appeal.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/4e7f4642-b108-4aa6-beda-23b992b3624a/#broader-appeal-is-possible) - [Allows you to gather data on brand-new products or services.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/4e7f4642-b108-4aa6-beda-23b992b3624a/#you-can-gather-data-on-new-products) - [Greater campaign longevity.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/4e7f4642-b108-4aa6-beda-23b992b3624a/#it-lends-your-campaigns-greater-longevity) ### Segmenting is expensive Taking the time to split your target audience into specific groups, and to learn all about those groups, requires a **large investment** of time and resources. If you skip this step, you also skip the associated costs, since undifferentiated marketing requires far less research (if any at all). ❗ ****The hidden con:** This might only hold true for your initial costs. Distribution costs (the cost of prime-time TV advertising to reach your large audience, for example) might be far higher than the costs of getting an ad in a niche business website or magazine. ### Broader appeal is possible If you don’t tailor your marketing strategy to a specific group, then you’ll necessarily create a strategy with wider market appeal. In other words, you stand a chance of appealing to a much larger number of prospective buyers than you would if you were targeting a specific, niche audience. ❗ ****The hidden con:** There’s a risk that, in trying to appeal to everyone, you end up appealing to no one. These days people have come to expect personalization in the kinds of advertising they see, and a watered-down marketing message might simply not be appealing enough to offset inertia and persuade people to buy. ### You can gather data on new products When you’re launching a brand-new product you don’t know how the market will respond. With so little data, it’s difficult to start pulling together a well-informed, strategic marketing plan. Putting your product out there and using the information you acquire, however, gets you started and lets you **optimize your strategy** as new intel comes in. ❗ ****The hidden con:** Even if you don’t have any data on your own product, there are established marketing best practices you can use so you’re not starting from scratch. 👇 You can use, gather and analyze competitive intelligence to see how the market responds to similar products. You can also create ideal customer personas (ICPs) for a theoretical understanding of who you’re targeting and how they’re likely to move through your marketing funnel. ### It lends your campaigns greater longevity When your marketing campaign is designed from the ground up to appeal to the masses, you’ll be able to **ride the wave** for a long time once you find something that works. Just think of Coca Cola’s campaigns. Every Holiday Season they run similar ads, with the same message and similar imagery. But they work because familiarity is comforting. ![image of london bridge with large red coca cola truck and image of santa](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/cola.jpeg) **Familiarity is comforting, and simplicity lends broad appeal. But it can also make your brand predictable. If you're a household name like Coca Cola, you might get away with it*. ❗ ****The hidden con:** When people know what to expect from you, you’ve become predictable. This can make it easier for creative, disruptive competitors to eat into your market share as they innovate. ## When undifferentiated marketing could work for you There are certain conditions that make undifferentiated marketing a great choice for marketers. Thankfully, these conditions are pretty specific, so it’s easy to figure out if it’s a good fit for you. ### Does your product have mass appeal? > Mass marketing only works if your product appeals to the masses. If your product solves a very specific problem, you’re going to struggle if you don’t speak directly to the small set of people suffering from that problem. If this is you, you'd do better with a [niche differentiation strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-differentiation-strategy/). But ‘broad appeal’ doesn’t have to mean your product taps into some unspoken, fundamental need of the human condition. If your product is something everyone accepts they need (like body wash or dish soap), there’s no real reason to segment your audience. You’re unlikely to waste exposure even if everyone in the country sees your ad. ### Is yours already an established, trusted brand? Some brands have done all the hard work already. They’ve won a ton of loyal customers, they’ve got a great reputation, and they’re a household name. > Some brands have already won a ton of loyal customers. They can get away with a simple marketing strategy. If this describes the brand you’re looking to market, then you can get away with a simple marketing strategy. That’s not to say it’ll be easy to execute, but your goal scales back to **reminding people** that your product exists, and *maybe* demonstrating that your product works better than competing brands. ### Is the value of your product immediately obvious? If the value of your product is immediately obvious, then you’ll probably get away with an undifferentiated marketing strategy. Of course, that value needs to be obvious to a large set of people, not a niche group. > When your product's value is obvious, you don't need to work as hard to convince, persuade, and convert. But when the value of your product is immediately obvious, it’s unnecessary to dig deep into all the various emotional needs your product can meet for the consumer. On the other hand, if a large number of people are likely to see your product and ask, “do I *really* need that? Will it *actually* be useful?”, then you have some persuading to do. You need to perform the necessary research to figure out how you can persuade that specific buyer to open their wallet. --- ### TL;DR Here’s a **quick summary** of what you’ve learned: 💡 An undifferentiated marketing strategy doesn’t discriminate between groups. You’ll be marketing to the masses. 💸 An undifferentiated marketing strategy can save on costs, offer broader appeal, greater campaign longevity, and a means to collect data on your new product. ❗ Each of the above benefits has a strong counterargument. 💭 Undifferentiated marketing is best for established, trusted brands looking to market products with broad appeal and instantly obvious value. ## What’s next? Have you been tasked with marketing a **brand-new** product? Finding the data you need to create meaningful market segments can be **a struggle**. 😣 Read all about how you can implement a [staggeringly successful competitive intelligence program as a solo practitioner](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/). Gain juicy insights on competing products, and grab the foundation you need to build a **winning strategy** of your own. [Building a Competitive Intelligence Program | CIABuilding out your first competitive intelligence program can be a difficult process. 😮‍💨 Who should be involved? Where do you start? With so many questions, so much data and so many competitors to get a handle on, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AlliancePatrick Wall![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/aedrian-w8fPD9o7NME-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/) --- ### How to get started with market segmentation URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-get-started-with-market-segmentation/ Last updated: 2024-06-19T17:27:14.000Z You’ve just ordered a pizza. It arrives on time \*fist pump\*. You can *feel* it steaming through the cardboard as you carry it over to your laziest lazy chair. You flip back that lid and… What?! They haven’t *sliced it?!* 😤 Moral of the story: large masses of dough are unmanageable. Unwieldy. Just like your unsegmented audience. Slicing up your audience into manageable pieces - *segmenting* it - allows you to appreciate each segment in its individuality. As a piece separate from the whole, with its own unique characteristics. And when you segment your audience, you can put those characteristics to work to inform your strategic decision-making, focus your marketing efforts, and boost that all-important bottom line. 🤑 **Now whose mouths are watering?** We’ll cover… - [What market segmentation is.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/0499f0e9-513d-4c08-9a5f-57061da08293/#what-is-market-segmentation) - [Why segmenting your audience matters.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/0499f0e9-513d-4c08-9a5f-57061da08293/#why-should-you-perform-market-segmentation) - [The four main types of segmentation.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/0499f0e9-513d-4c08-9a5f-57061da08293/#the-four-primary-segment-types) - [An overview of the segmentation process.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/0499f0e9-513d-4c08-9a5f-57061da08293/#the-segmentation-process) Let’s dig in. 🍴 ## What is market segmentation? **Market segmentation is the process of splitting up your target market into a set of smaller groups based on shared needs or characteristics.** It helps you make more sense of your audience. And studying each segment uncovers new useful information about its members. Ultimately, you’ll learn more about the emotional needs of each subgroup in your audience and, in turn, shed light on the drivers behind their buying decisions. ### The goals of segmentation One of market segmentation’s goals, then, is a greater **understanding of your audience** at large. Another is to make clear which sections of your audience you should prioritize your marketing efforts toward for the greatest ROI. When you understand which segments of your audience are most likely to spend money with you from the get-go, you can **focus your efforts** on them. You can tailor your advertising, email marketing, or positioning and messaging strategies to boost sales win rates, for example. So how might this look? Perhaps you tailor an email campaign for mailing list members with the highest open rates on prior emails. Or, you dynamically deliver a different call to action on your blog articles depending on which of your products a website visitor has engaged with most in the past. Market segmentation lets you deliver content that speaks to the pain points and unmet needs of the individual. In doing so, you’ll more effectively communicate how your product beats competing offers. ## Why should you perform market segmentation? High-tech tracking cookies are everywhere, collecting your data online. The websites you visit most are using this data to deliver personalized advertising and content recommendations based on what you like and dislike. That’s true even if you’ve never explicitly offered that information. Whether people realize it or not, they’re now *only* comfortable when they’re shown very relevant content. It’s jarring when you’re shown content that’s *not* relevant. ### People expect personalization It’s probably happened to you recently. Ever visited Youtube in a Private Browsing tab when you thought you were logged in? There was something odd about those ads, right? Something… off? If you live in a high-rise apartment, a lawnmower ad just doesn’t make sense. If you’re fresh out of school, an ad for a product that helps your newborn sleep probably feels just as strange. ![1960s era lawnmower ad featuring man in check shirt holding a lawnmower](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/mower2.jpeg) **Modern lawnmower ads might not look like this, but you'd be surprised to see one while surfing the web if you live in a high-rise apartment building.* If that’s you, you probably don’t see those ads at all. In fact, you probably see the same kinds of ads on repeat. Ads relevant to your hobbies, interests, or at the very least your recent searches online. So when you see something that departs from the norm, it ruffles your feathers. But while tracking cookies are the focus of rising scrutiny and debates around privacy and personal freedom, organizations collect a lot of data that their users and subscribers have genuinely offered during their interactions with the product or brand. This is where market segmentation comes into play. Your customers expect personalization, so segmenting your audience and delivering targeted messages is integral to success. But there are ways of doing this without abusing your users’ trust. ### Segmentation helps you prioritize Using market segmentation effectively can give you: - Fewer wasted marketing efforts. - Greater ROI on your outputs. - Higher conversion rates. - Better customer retention. - A more informed marketing strategy. That last one in particular is interesting. Knowing your market segments gives you the option to focus your efforts on one or two very lucrative segments, or to seed as many leads in as many different segments as you can. Both methods work, but one is more likely to work for *you* and your use case than the other. Market segmentation can help you decide which is right while helping you prioritize, focus your efforts, and inform your marketing strategy as a whole. --- [Niche Differentiation Strategy Explained (+5 Advantages)A niche business strategy is one that sees you targeting a particularly small subset of consumers. Rather than trying to be everything to everyone, you aim to provide the best solution for a small group of people.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/12/Assorted.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/niche-differentiation-strategy/) --- ## The four primary segment types There are four primary types of segmentation. Though other, more niche, types of segments exist, the four below will go the furthest towards getting you started with segmentation. - [Geographic segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/0499f0e9-513d-4c08-9a5f-57061da08293/#geographic-segmentation) - [Demographic segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/0499f0e9-513d-4c08-9a5f-57061da08293/#demographic-segmentation) - [Psychographic segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/0499f0e9-513d-4c08-9a5f-57061da08293/#psychographic-segmentation) - [Behavioral segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/0499f0e9-513d-4c08-9a5f-57061da08293/#behavioral-segmentation) ### Geographic segmentation Of all the ways of splitting up your audience, doing so geographically is perhaps the simplest, and is definitely the easiest to understand, so we’ll start here. Geographic segmentation groups your audience members by their **locations around the world**. A segment for the USA, a segment for Canada, a segment for the UK, etc. Or, to narrow the scope, a segment for California, a segment for Colorado, a segment for Idaho, and so on. Broaden the scope, and you’d get a segment for Europe, a segment for North America, another for Eurasia. Geographic data is also pretty easy to obtain. Every internet user has a publicly available IP address, linked to a physical location. If yours is a physical store, you can segment data by which customers make purchases at particular physical locations around the world. ### Demographic segmentation Segmenting by demographic is more granular than geographic. Details like a user’s: - Age - Gender - Religion - Income - Profession - or education... ... all these can play a part. Demographic data is a little more difficult to obtain than geographic data if your customers don’t offer it freely but, since it’s more specific, it’s more meaningful. But **how is it useful?** Those with a higher income have different spending habits than those with lower incomes. Those who are older prefer to spend their money on different things than those who are younger. Those in their mid-teens are unlikely to be looking to buy a house. But, in certain parts of the US, and to families with certain incomes, their parents may well be looking to buy them a car. Think too of all the generational trends and tropes around. Millennials love their memes. Baby Boomers use tablets. And Gen Z’ers are most likely to use a cell phone as their primary device. All this information can **inform your strategic marketing choices.** [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/CIA_Website_Banners_1.png)](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/0499f0e9-513d-4c08-9a5f-57061da08293/) ### Psychographic segmentation Psychographic segmentation aims to segregate audience portions based on their: - Ethics and values - Lifestyle - Personality - Political leanings This information tends to be less easily attainable again than demographic data but, since it centers around beliefs with strong emotional underpinnings, content created to target specific psychographic triggers can be particularly persuasive. ### Behavioral segmentation Behavioral segmentation is great. The data is easily available for any business since you can pull it directly from your marketing funnel. Observing how leads and prospects have acted within your marketing funnel in the past is data you own outright. And, crucially, anyone who has interacted with your marketing funnel in some way has effectively raised their hand to show you their interest in your product. Someone that signs up for a free trial, for example, and uses the trial every day for a week, can be targeted very differently in your email messaging from someone who has begrudgingly agreed to a follow-up call from a sales rep. > You'll target someone who's actively using your free trial very differently from someone who has only clicked on one of your paid ads. That's behavioral segmentation. You might offer the former a discount code for their first month on board with you if they sign up in the next ten days. You might send the latter some quick, impactful points on the key ways your product has offered similar businesses value in the past 12 months. This data is everywhere and can help you segment your audience by probable stage of awareness, readiness to buy, and other such groupings that deliver huge value to your organization and directly inform you as to what kind of content and messaging you should deliver next. ![Diagram of the 5 stages of awareness, from unaware to most aware.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/pollock-marketing-group.png) **Behavioral segmentation can help you group customers by their stages of awareness, which will direct your marketing efforts.Credit: Pollock Marketing Group* Those who’ve downloaded an informational asset, like a whitepaper or a playbook, but have never spent any money with you, might be ripe for a custom email campaign aimed at drip-feeding them further value via actionable tips delivered to their inbox a few times a week. Offering further value to someone less ready to buy like this continues to demonstrate your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, without asking them to come and find it. In turn, this increases the likelihood of them trusting you, your brand, and your products, moving them along the funnel. ## The segmentation process Ok, so you understand the main four types of market segmentation, you understand what you have to gain from it. How do you actually get on and *do* it? Much like in competitive intelligence, customer research, and many other facets of marketing, there are three main steps here: - [Gather data.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/0499f0e9-513d-4c08-9a5f-57061da08293/#gather-data) - [Analyze that data.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/0499f0e9-513d-4c08-9a5f-57061da08293/#analyze-the-data) - [Implement your findings.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/0499f0e9-513d-4c08-9a5f-57061da08293/#test-and-tweak) ### Gather data First, you need to gather as much information about your existing audience as possible. But this data needs to be solid. **Size matters: larger data sets are better** Market segments are born from the data you collect on your audience, and the customers, web visitors, and leads that make up that audience. The larger this pool is already, the easier a time you’ll have pulling out accurate data. Small data sets are the bane of many an analyst because they give too much precedence to outliers. Larger data sets dampen the effect of any single data point, cleaning the data and making it easier to spot patterns and trends. When it comes to your market segments, you want to pull data from a large existing audience. Then you know you’re building your segments from data that accurately reflects the people willing to spend money with you. **Data sources** The following are great sources of segmentation data: - Original research & outreach (customer interviews, custom surveys, case studies). - Public, third-party research. - Your marketing funnel (ad accounts, social media, your website). - Your analytics and tracking tools. - Your CRM and other software. You also want to conduct more general customer research. Make sure going into this process that you’ve spoken to your customers and you understand their needs. What are their pain points? How does your product solve their problems? ****Suggested reading 📘** • [The four best sources of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/) • [The practitioner's complete guide to competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) ### Analyze the data Once you’ve done your customer research and gathered your audience data, you need to analyze it and find the patterns amongst your highest-value customers. If you can identify what those individuals have in common, then you can start to find other commonalities. This can uncover new opportunities for you to target. **Combine macro and microdata** You can combine this knowledge of individual, high-value customers with your knowledge of the wider market and your ideal customer personas. If you’ve not created them already, [ideal customer personas (ICPs)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-personas/) will give you a better theoretical understanding of how your ideal consumer interacts with your products and moves through your funnel. 💡 Contrast your **expectations* of how a customer would move through your funnel with how your highest-value customers **actually* moved through it. You can find out some interesting things. For example, if one of your ICPs describes a senior sales manager with about 10 years' experience, but more than 80% of your highest-value customers had a junior member of the product marketing team fighting hardest for the adoption of your product, then start producing targeted messaging for junior product marketers. **Combine segments for specificity** Some segments, especially those from demographic or geographic data, are far too broad to be of much use on their own. “Customers in Europe” doesn’t give you much to work with when it comes to personalizing your messaging and content delivery. French males, aged 25-34, employed full-time and earning €30k-50k a year, combines criteria for a much more useful and specific segment. Behavioral segments, however, can be of great use all on their own. “Customers who have downloaded an asset in the last 30 days” is a pretty useful segment. Combining explicit and [implicit segmentation techniques](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/implicit-segmentation-marketing/) will also boost the utility of your segments. **Segment by what matters** 💡 Your product’s value is a measure of the [emotional benefits](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/) it provides to consumers. For real ROI on your segmentation efforts, you need to focus on those segments which have the strongest emotional need for a solution like yours. When you can identify specific segments, and especially when you can incorporate behavioral data, you get a clear picture of which segments are searching for a product like yours, and which of those are most likely to buy soon. Focusing your marketing efforts on members of segments like this is sure to drastically improve your return on investment. ### Test and tweak As with any marketing deliverable, it doesn’t stop here. The world never stands still and **new data rolls in all the time**. You have to use this new data to continually improve your segments, to make them more accurate and defensible. **A solid understanding of your market segments can inform your business decisions, focus your marketing efforts, and boost sales of your product.** --- ## TL;DR Strapped for time? Or just need a quick summary? We got you! 🤝 👨‍👨‍👧‍👦 Market segmentation is the process of grouping sections of your audience based on shared needs or characteristics. 💅 Audiences are used to personalized content delivery. That makes segmentation critical to the success of your marketing efforts. 🧠 The four main types of market segmentation are geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral. 💪 Behavioral segmentation data is easy for marketers to obtain from their funnels, and is powerful once implemented. 🧑‍💻 The segmentation process consists of gathering data on your audience and conducting customer research, analyzing that data for patterns, then targeting your content and messaging to the highest-value segments. 🤌 Don’t forget to continually tweak and optimize your content and messaging based on new data about your segments. --- ## **What's next?** Looking for your next best decision? Join our competitive intelligence Slack workspace and rub shoulders with CI's best and brightest. 💪 [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/CIA_Website_Banners_2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### In search of a data-informed way to build product vision and positioning: Part two URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/data-informed-product-vision-and-positioning-part-two/ Last updated: 2022-10-09T09:04:58.000Z [In part one](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/data-informed-product-vision-and-positioning-part-one/), we outlined the steps to get a data-driven positioning strategy and value proposition, and we went over the preparations you’ll need to make before you start your customer research. In this part, I’ll walk you through building a structure for the research, outlining the necessary steps, and finally helping you analyze your results to build a data-informed vision and position for your product in the marketplace. *Note: This part will only make sense if you’ve read part one, [which you can read here](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/data-informed-product-vision-and-positioning-part-one/) if you haven’t already.* We'll cover: - [Identifying buyers' key decision drivers](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/3e7a99e8-ac4f-4e37-9094-e96cec803032/#step-2-discovering-the-decision-drivers) - [Ranking those drivers and getting context](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/3e7a99e8-ac4f-4e37-9094-e96cec803032/#step-3-ranking-the-values-that-drive-the-decision-getting-the-context) - [Prioritizing the drivers to give us a plan of action](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/3e7a99e8-ac4f-4e37-9094-e96cec803032/#step-4-calculate-averages-and-medians-for-decision-drivers-to-get-an-overall-top-5) # Step 2: Discovering the decision-drivers In product management, we run multiple interviews about problems, solutions, and contexts. We use multiple methodologies or even hire research agencies to do the footwork for us. But while we interview to uncover problems and their solutions, interviewing to discover specific decision-drivers is rarely the top priority. From here on, I’ll give you a high-level overview of the research process for a product that hasn’t seen the light of the market yet (although you can use the same process for an existing product too) but is in an existing product category. This step is about digging wide, not deep. The first thing you need to do (apart from the customer qualification process for the interview, screeners, etc.) is to understand the drivers of a decision you care about. When selecting something, either for business or personal use, we’re guided by specific motivations, needs, and criteria. Sometimes those criteria become explicit (when we create a list of pros and cons), sometimes they don’t (when we decide to buy a shiny new thing, there are still things, like ‘my friends have it, so I should too’ driving the decision-making process). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/konst1.png) The idea is simple: ask questions about a past decision (completely new market categories will be discussed in part 3), to uncover all its drivers. In this step, you’re just looking to uncover all those drivers, their context, their exact meanings, where they fit in the overall decision-making process, the people involved, the sources of information used, and who was consulted in interviews. If you uncover too many decision-drivers in your interviews, you’ll need to filter the list to just the most important drivers. It’s painful to take your interviewee’s words and create a new decision driver by grouping things so if you can, get your interviewees to sign off on the groups you create. [Comparative vs Competitive Advantage: What’s the Difference?Comparative and competitive advantages are economic terms that, when applied to a business, refer to a business’ ability to produce goods and services and to win against competitors over time.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/anastasiya-romanova-vGY31qO4518-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) **Example questions for this stage:** 1. What was the first thing you did when researching \[product category\]? 2. Who were the stakeholders in this selection process and what was their input / what did they care about the most? 3. What made you select your current \[product category\] provider? 4. How did you compare products from \[product category\]? 5. Which products from \[product category\] have you considered in your research process? 6. As a follow-up: How does the selected \[product category\] provider differ from all other providers? 7. As a follow-up: What was the second-best solution as a \[product category\] provider? What made them a bit worse than your selected \[product category\] provider? The outcome of your interviews is a distilled list of decision-drivers. They’ll differ across subjects, and different people will have different names for the same decision-drivers. You’ll need to analyze your results and group similar decision-drivers together. This is a subjective step – you’ll have to do your interviews before you’ll understand if certain drivers were similar based on their contexts. You want to have no more than 10 or 15 decision-drivers for the next phase. **By this point we know:** - What our ideal customer profile (ICP) is for the product we’re considering building (or for the problem we’re trying to solve). - What decision a representative of the ICP needs to make (or what question they are answering). - Which role we should talk to. - What the main decision-drivers are. # Step 3: Ranking the values that drive the decision & getting the context With your list of decision drivers in hand, you can move on to phase two: identifying the top drivers, so you can build a product positioning strategy. There are a couple of ways to go about ranking decision-drivers. The general idea is the same in both scenarios – you want to get a quantified rating of each decision driver. You can ask, “Please rate each expression on a scale from one to seven, where one means ‘completely disagree’ and seven means ‘completely agree.’” Each decision-driver becomes part of a sentence: “In my process of selecting a product from \[product category\] \[decision-driver(i)\] was a key decision factor.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/konst6.png) ## Ask for ratings during phase 2 interviews… The first way of getting to a quantified rank for each driver is to ask for ratings in your interviews. You’ll need to ask the same question about different decision drivers multiple times, while an interviewee has to sit and think about whether they agree with the statement or not. Some interviewees will feel pressured; some will think for a long time – it’s a time-consuming process. The biggest benefit of doing it this way is you can encourage the interviewee to use the whole scale if you see they are only giving ones and sevens. [Combined Assessment Techniques: SWOT & Event Tree AnalysisOpportunities and threats can be assessed separately, but you can also evaluate them together. There are two combined assessment techniques that can help give you a better idea of your situation and the challenges you will face: SWOT analysis and event tree analysis.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceSorin Dumitrascu![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/kaleb-tapp-J59wWPn09BE-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/combined-assessment-techniques/) ## … or do a survey before the phase 2 interviews If you find that your interviews run too long, you might want to run a survey before your second-phase interviews. The questions stay the same, but you’re now presenting them to interviewees one or two days before the interview. They can think through the survey without any pressure, and you won’t have to spend time assigning ratings during the interview. You’ll have more time to ask questions about the context of the most important decision drivers. Our goal at this stage is to understand the five most important factors for each interviewee, then get context on each of those. ## Context is king – five dimensions of a decision-driver Context helps you create a product vision that speaks directly to your target audience. The ratings help you understand what you need to learn. The context teaches you what the decision-driver means, how it’s uncovered, and how it’s measured. All those elements influence how you craft your product vision and positioning. I suggest five dimensions you should learn about the decision-driver no matter what. You may sometimes feel a dimension is not relevant. Ask the question anyway. You might learn something insightful or surprising. Let the interviewee tell you the question doesn’t make sense instead of censoring yourself. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/konst5.png) **Example questions for each of the dimensions:** 1. **Meaning:** How do you understand \[decision driver A\]? And what wouldn’t be possible if \[selected solution\] didn’t have \[decision driver A\]? 2. **Indicators of presence:** How did you know that \[decision driver A\] was present in your \[selected solution\]? 3. **Measurement:** How did you measure how much \[decision driver A\] is covered / present with \[selected solution\]? Or How did you learn that \[selected solution\] will have an acceptable level of \[decision driver A\]? 4. **Comparison:** How did you compare your selected solution with other solutions in the category in terms of \[decision driver A\]? 5. **Indicators of credibility:** What made you confident that \[selected solution\] will cover \[decision driver A\] going forward? When asking questions about these five dimensions, keep the question the same for all decision-drivers. Then you can gather context without biasing the research. The more context you get, the easier you’ll find it to build a positioning strategy. You’ll know both the decision-driver and the meaning behind it. So you can craft messaging, collaterals, UI texts, emails, and in-apps with this context in mind. **At this point we know:** - What our ICP is for the product we’re considering building (or for the problem we’re trying to solve). - What decision needs to be made by a representative of the ICP (or what question they are answering). - Which role should we talk to. - The main decision-drivers. - The context behind each decision-driver. # Step 4: Calculate averages and medians for decision-drivers to get an overall top 5 Hopefully, your interviews will provide you with a wealth of new insights. Understanding decision drivers is crucial, but we still have a bit of work to do before going back to our ivory tower to craft product vision and positioning. At this step, we need to calculate the average, median, and standard deviation scores for each decision-driver. Average and median give you a prioritized list of drivers to use in your product vision and positioning. You’ll need to see how those drivers fit what you’re developing, where you can implement features to support your audience’s needs, and how to better appeal to the audience to signal that your product meets their needs. Standard deviation is important too. It shows you how similar your responses are. If the standard deviation is high, it could mean you have different segments within your group of interview subjects. For example, some respondents think something's an important driver, while others don’t think it’s important at all. Keep an eye on decision drivers with a medium or low average and/or median, but a high standard deviation. There may be an audience sub-segment to explore further. And, for that sub-segment, you could create new landing pages with messaging tailored to their decision drivers, if you understand that sub-segment well. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/konst4.png) If you think, for example, that both B2C and B2B audiences could use your product, but you believe their decision process is different, you can calculate the above metrics for both audiences to see how your hypothesis holds up. If there *are* strong differences, you might want to cater to just one audience in the beginning. In B2B, there might also be huge differences in decision-drivers for companies of different sizes. In addition to calculating the metrics and ranking the overall results, write a description of each value along with the context. If you’ve asked what the driver means for the customer, provide a brief description from a collection of answers supported by direct quotes you’ve gathered. Do the same for each question you’ve asked about a decision driver. **At this point we know:** - What our ICP is for the product we’re considering building (or for the problem we’re trying to solve). - What decision needs to be made by a representative of the ICP (or what question they are answering). - Which role should we talk to. - The main decision-drivers. - The context behind each decision-driver. - The relative importance of each decision-driver. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/CIA_Website_Banners_2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) # Building a product vision and positioning from the research At this step, you are going to start crafting a product vision and positioning from the information you’ve gathered. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/konst3.png) *Features enable you to describe the values of your product that reflect the decision drivers of your primary customer segment.* Select no more than three decision-drivers at this stage. The more you try to address, the fuzzier your product will be. It’s probably obvious from the previous steps that your product vision should address the top decision-drivers. Your positioning should also reflect what makes your product more attractive than your competitors’ products. Use decision-drivers as prioritization criteria for the features you’re considering building. If a feature doesn’t address important decision-drivers, you must have a very good reason for building it (technical necessity and basic expectations are good enough reasons). It’s no less important to think about how you implement these features as many other solutions might have the same feature. But while the way it’s implemented in one solution addresses the decision-driver, the way it’s implemented in another misses the mark for the target audience. With product vision and decision drivers in hand, you can decide how you’re going to position your product in the competitive landscape. Appealing to all decision drivers upfront may not be [the best strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-trend-analysis/). Doubling down on one to three decision drivers instead, with a couple more for optional support, is a better approach. A word of caution: your positioning determines how the market perceives you Whatever you say about yourself in the market, whatever you write down in your internal strategy memos, if it’s not reflected in how customers understand your product and perceive its value, your positioning has not achieved its goals. Customers will listen to your marketing messages but, in the end, they are the judge and jury of your position. So be consistent in both your marketing and in your product. The ‘how’ on actually writing positioning or describing the product vision is a burden I will have to leave with you. \* \* \* In the third and final chapter, we’ll be discussing how to scale this research and use it as your company grows, and we’ll see whether it’s applicable in all situations. --- ## ****We let you do the talking. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Feel like this 🤐 and looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to ****get in touch**. It's your insights we're after, so if you're strapped for time we'll have a quick chat, then write the article for you. 💯 [Yes, give me a platform for my content!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### 5 competitive enablement best practices to skyrocket win rates URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-enablement-best-practices/ Last updated: 2022-11-30T11:54:51.000Z Data from our [2022 State of Competitive Enablement report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-competitive-enablement-2022/) shows that 88.8% of respondents believe their market has become *more* competitive in the last 12 months. Literally none of our respondents believe the level of competition in their market has decreased. With figures like that, it’s clear organizations need to take a proactive approach to customer acquisition. That means beating the competition in competitive deals, and to do that you need a solid competitive enablement program. Competitive enablement uses [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) to create assets that empower your sales reps with the key details they need to win close-run deals. Here’re our top five competitive enablement best practices: - [Make sure the flow of competitive intelligence goes both ways](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/39d640d9-fc15-4a36-a607-e0e5b237f185/#1make-sure-the-flow-of-competitive-intel-goes-both-ways) - [Track and measure the adoption of your sales enablement content](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/39d640d9-fc15-4a36-a607-e0e5b237f185/#2track-and-measure-enablement-asset-adoption) - [Conduct regular sales training sessions](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/39d640d9-fc15-4a36-a607-e0e5b237f185/#3hold-regular-sales-training-sessions) - [Refresh your competitive intel and enablement assets often](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/39d640d9-fc15-4a36-a607-e0e5b237f185/#4refresh-competitive-intel-and-enablement-assets-often) - [Systematize the collection of new competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/39d640d9-fc15-4a36-a607-e0e5b237f185/#5systematize-the-collection-of-new-competitive-intelligence) Read on to find out what they mean to you! ## 1 - Make sure the flow of competitive intel goes both ways Competitive intelligence data is key to your [competitive sales enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) efforts. The insights you gain from this data go into your enablement assets and make the difference between winning and losing competitive deals. But of all the external sources of competitive intelligence you for gathering new data, it pays to make the most of your internal data sources. Yep, we’re talking about your colleagues! Sales and customer success, in particular, are talking to prospects and customers all day long. If a competitor comes up in conversation with a prospect, sales will make note of it. If a competitor launches a new feature that attracts the wandering eyes of unhappy customers, customer success can tell you all about it. Effective sales enablers don’t just *deliver* information to other teams. They also listen to their customer success and sales reps to implement what they learn. [5 Types of Competitive Intelligence to Impress Your BossYour competitors are trying to eke out a competitive advantage. So how do you create your own? That starts with competitive intelligence. Here are five types to get you started.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/giorgio-trovato-_XTY6lD8jgM-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/) ## 2 - Track and measure enablement asset adoption Logic dictates that your sales reps *want* to use your enablement assets. In our 2022 State of Competitive Enablement report, 74.2% of responding organizations said that sales was their primary user of CI. With sales so hungry for CI, then why would they not use the assets you create to deliver them that intel? That’s a good question, and one you need an answer for if you’re looking to boost sales performance. Content management systems (CMS) make tracking and measuring the adoption of each of your assets easy. When your reps are choosing not to use a particular asset, you’ll want to know why. For example, it could be that your sales content is *so* chock-full of information it’s impossible for reps to find the key details they need in the heat of the moment. 💡 If your reps aren't using the enablement assets you create, they're not doing any good to the bottom line. Find out why. And if one or two reps consistently fail to view the appropriate assets at the appropriate times, it might be they’re not confident enough with your enablement platform. Either way, enablement assets are there to help your sales reps. If they’re not using them, it pays to learn why. Make it as easy as possible for them to find the correct assets and, within those assets, the key details they need the most to close more deals. What if they just don’t know how to use the assets? Well, then it helps to… ## 3 - Hold regular sales training sessions Sales training is a great opportunity to workshop your new enablement content, hear feedback in real time, and make sure everyone knows how to use the assets correctly. These workshop sessions might feel a little contrived, but it’s better to get crucial feedback now while the stakes are low. Imagine being the rep who just lost a deal because it was impossible to find the quick dismiss statement in [one of your competitive battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/). Plus, it’s near impossible to get buy-in from a team that feels left out. Holding training sessions and actively seeking feedback from sales reps makes it clear you value their opinions. When your reps feel involved and feel heard, it’s easier to get buy-in and use the enablement assets you create. This helps, in turn, to boost their sales performance. [How to Create a Competitive Intelligence Adoption PlaybookAfter more than 100 hours of deep-dive research and calls with Sales Leads and other stakeholders, I learned people see these two fields as silos. They miss the vast potential of combining enablement with competitive insights. Use these nine proven tactics to create a stellar CI adoption playbook.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceHila Lauterbach![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/ben-white-W8Qqn1PmQH0-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-adoption-playbook/) ## 4 - Refresh competitive intel and enablement assets often Today’s markets are competitive and fast-moving. Changes happen quickly, and your competitors are trying all the time to diminish [your competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). That’s why it’s crucial not to rest on your laurels when it comes to your competitive intelligence and enablement assets. Competitive intelligence is a cyclical process of gathering data, analyzing it, implementing what you’ve learned, and then using new incoming information to refine your competitive enablement content. 💡 CI isn't one-and-done. It's a process. Continue collecting new intel and refresh your enablement content with your findings. When you stay on top of new information as it comes in, you save your sales reps from being taken by surprise. Those moments where customers ask about your competitor’s new feature, what you think of it, or how your product beats it, are the moments in which competitive deals are won or lost. Keep your enablement assets fresh with the most up-to-date intel available and you’ll make it effortless for your sales team to maximize closing rates and boost company revenue. ## 5 - Systematize the collection of new competitive intelligence Dynamic markets don’t stay the same for long. And, if you’re conducting CI on a small budget, you want to be as efficient as possible with your limited resources. But, with so much new information coming in on your competitors in an ever-evolving competitive landscape, what do you do? The answer is to create a system to automate as much of the data collection process as possible. Even a system where sales and customer success representatives ask standardized questions to customers and prospects at key touch points in the buyer journey will help massively. When the data collection takes care of itself, all that’s left for you to do is analyze it for insights and incorporate them into your strategy. 🧐 [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/10/CIA_Website_Banners_2-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ## Bonus: Put the customer first Successful sales enablement programs put the customer first. Sure, competitive enablement is about empowering your teams to win new deals against strong competitors, and that means using your knowledge of those competitors to create an advantage. But it’s your prospects and customers who are voting with their dollars and cents for the best solution on the market. So it’s them you need to impress. That means giving them what they want from your product, and telling them what they want to hear. Solid customer research that sees you conducting win/loss analysis, and talking to churned customers, as well as your high-value and longstanding customers, will teach you a great deal about your competitors. Combine these sales enablement best practices with what you know of your competitors and you’ll have a competitive enablement program that skyrockets your revenue by winning you new business and slashing your churn rates. [Win against competitors by knowing your customersTen steps you can use to keep ahead of your competition and bolster your competitive intelligence to strengthen your product marketing strategy.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAicha Zaa![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/header1.webp)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/know-your-customers/) --- ## ****We let you do the talking. 📣** Consider yourself a competitive enablement expert? Feel like this 🤐 and looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants to **give you a platform** to demonstrate your thought leadership. It's your insights we're after, so if you're strapped for time we'll have a quick chat, then write the article for you. 💯 [Yes, give me a platform for my content!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### Building business strategies around market trends URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/market-trend-analysis/ Last updated: 2023-11-23T11:01:19.000Z Trends are everywhere and constantly changing. They’re incredibly valuable tools for your product marketers because they allow you to follow new opportunities, consistently change and improve your product, and maintain both your product and your brand as something fresh and exciting. But with these trends always evolving, how can you keep on top of them and continue to build your strategy around them? In this article, we’ll be covering topics such as: - [What market trends analysis is](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d873e82f-1d4a-46ca-9adc-3d897f8c51aa/#what-is-market-trend-analysis), - [Why it’s important](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d873e82f-1d4a-46ca-9adc-3d897f8c51aa/#why-market-trends-analysis-is-important), - [How to identify market trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d873e82f-1d4a-46ca-9adc-3d897f8c51aa/#how-to-identify-market-trends), and - [How to build a business strategy around these trends](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/d873e82f-1d4a-46ca-9adc-3d897f8c51aa/#how-to-build-a-business-strategy-around-these-trends). ## **What is market trend analysis?** Simply put, market trends analysis is the process of researching and assessing past and current shifts within the industry. This is in an attempt to spot patterns and notice any potential opportunities for future changes to your business strategy and growth for your organization. ## **Why market trends analysis is important** There are a plethora of different reasons why researching and keeping up to date with market trends is important. ### **Helps you to make unbiased decisions** Researching market trends gives you greater foresight on what the consumer wants, and helps you to make more informed decisions around your solution based on what is currently popular and in demand within the market. ### **Widens your innovation and creativity** Consistently keeping on top of trends makes improving your product more efficient, and offers a wider variety of directions to take it. Plus, you’ll be able to identify how marketing strategy is changing, giving you more ideas for how to market your product and stand out to your potential customer. ### **Staying ahead of the curve** If you’re in a market that’s fast-moving and constantly changing, you must be able to [anticipate your competitors’ next move](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/) and try to [stay ahead of the crowd](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). By keeping up to date with the latest trends, it’ll be a lot easier for you to predict things that’ll likely happen in the future based on emerging patterns. ### **Product and company growth** It’s never a good idea to remain stagnant in a constantly changing market environment. You want to be continually finding new ways to improve your product and move in more fun and exciting directions. This will help you to stand out to your customers. Growth within a company is one of the most important outcomes for continued success. ## **How to identify market trends** So we know market trends are important to ensure you’re keeping ahead of the competition, but how do you identify them? ### **Understand the difference between market trends** First, it’s important to understand the difference between market trends and what influences them. After all, you’ll need to be able to identify which trends are here to stay, ones that may build momentum over time that you can build off of, and which ones you should ignore. 🏢 ****Macro trends:** Macro trends are major shifts in consumer behavior that direct the competitive landscape and typically stay for longer than five to ten years. For example, in IT, cloud computing and the adoption of social media are considered macro trends. 🔍 **Microtrends:** Microtrends are one-off, short-lived trends in specific markets or sectors. Despite the name, a micro-trend does typically still stick around for a while - around one to five years. For example, certain apps could be considered microtrends if they get popular very quickly, but then drop off after a few years as another app becomes available. 🌎 **Megatrends**: These trends are huge, long-lasting, and take years to develop. They’re typically things that are very much here to stay and will affect the majority of people. For example, urbanization would be considered a megatrend. ⏩ **Fads:** Fads are extremely important to look out for because they gain popularity quickly, but lose momentum just as fast. Fashion trends tend to be fads, because of the ever-changing nature of the industry. After this step, it’s important to carry out market research to discover the different trends that are occurring within your industry… ### **Carry out online research** Social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram will give you a close look at what’s trending amongst your target audiences. From these interactions, you’ll be able to see what’s popular, how customers are reacting, how other brands are reaching their audiences, and so on. This type of research is going to help you make informed decisions based on what your customers want. Also, conducting research on other online sites, like blogs, and forums will help you to receive similar information from your target audience and offer insights into different companies as well. ### **Do your competitive intelligence** Watching your competitors and observing how they’re moving within the market will help you see what patterns are occurring, and how you need to act to ensure you’re moving along with them. Carrying out [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/) is going to help you identify what trends they’re going with, and how they’re performing. This then gives you a better indication of what’s most popular, and how you should be implementing new changes into your strategy. ### **Talk to industry experts** Experts aren’t experts for nothing! Opening a dialogue with people who’ve established themselves as experienced and credible professionals within your industry will help you to identify certain ideas and knowledge that you perhaps hadn’t considered. ### **Go to in-person events** In-person events such as conferences and summits will allow you to talk to others within your sector to get a sense of how they work within their own companies, and perhaps pick up some tips and tricks on how to improve your own strategies. Events such as these are bound to carry a lot of information around industry news and other important material that you can use to your advantage. Check out [our in-person and online events](https://events.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/location/newyork) to see what’s coming up in your area. ### **Carry out customer interviews** Customers are incredibly valuable sources of information. After all, you’ll be able to speak with a wide variety of different people about what they’re looking for or what they perhaps are drawn to within the current market. This way, you’ll notice patterns and trends within these answers, and it will give you a solid understanding of what is going to drive them to purchase from you. [Using customer feedback and win-loss interviews to improve your productCustomer feedback and win-loss interviews are among the most effective ways to gain a firm understanding of how your product has been received, and how you can make changes, where needed.![](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/size/w256h256/2019/04/favicon_pma_1000.png)Product Marketing AllianceLawrence Chapman![](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2020/09/PMA_Framework_Graphics_32.jpg)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) ### **Keep up with trend reports** Reports such as these are crucial in helping you to have a wider understanding of your industry landscape, and help you to determine which direction you want to take your business. At **Competitive Intelligence Alliance**, we have a variety of different annual reports that document the current state of certain parts of the product marketing industry. For example, - [The State of Competitive Enablement report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-competitive-enablement-2022/), - [The Competitive Intelligence Trends report](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/trends-report-2021/), - [The Sales Enablement Landscape](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-landscape-vol-2/), and many more. Of course, not everyone has time to read through detailed reports. However, many (including ours) often have a section at the beginning or end which summarizes the most important insights and data that has been collected from the community. It’s a great way to keep track of specific information and intelligence that you may need to help grow your solution and your organization. ## **How to build a business strategy around these trends** A strategy is built and developed from researching, gathering, and identifying pieces of information and data that will then help you to decide the best route to achieve your objectives. So, the steps to building a business strategy around market trends aren’t going to stray too far from how you would develop any other strategy. But let’s lay it all out anyway, so that you have a clear idea of what you’ll be working towards. ### **Research your industry and the state it’s currently in** Identify which trends are currently popular within your industry, what products are already on the market, how popular these are, and how your product can fill a gap they’ve left. Without this information, you’re not going to know how to effectively market your product so that it stands out from the crowd. ### **Determine your purpose/product positioning** The next step is to define what makes your product different from those currently in the market so that you can focus on your messaging, and effectively explain your product’s value to potential customers. This is a crucial step because it helps you to understand where your product sits within the market, how it’s working with current popular trends, and how you can use your strategy to effectively market it to your audience in relation to these things. Remember that you’re always searching for ways to fill a need for your customers that isn’t already being met. ### **Identify your target customer** Finding your target audience is going to help you understand more about how your product or service is going to meet their needs, what trends they’re currently focused on, how they react to certain types of marketing strategies; how they like to be communicated with, and so on. Understanding these elements and how to cater to your customer’s specific needs is crucial to bringing in engagement, a positive brand reputation, a wide customer base, and increased overall sales. ### **Understand your competition** This perhaps fits in with the first step of understanding your industry, but [carrying out competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) is imperative to a company’s success. Understanding your competition, how they’re currently marketing their products, what features they have, and what trends they’re working within, are all going to boost your knowledge on what works and what doesn’t with your target market. From there you can better rake in more customers and sales, and effectively win your market. ### **Implement changes and analyze the data** After you’ve discovered what you need to change/improve/refine with your business strategy, you then need to implement these changes. Don’t forget to set objectives for what you’re trying to achieve with these changes, and continue to use metrics to measure the outcome so you can see whether the change has been a success or not. ### **Communicate your data/intelligence** When communicating your findings to your teams, think about the following: - Define your stakeholders. - Identify the most important aspects of the intelligence you’ve gathered. - Decide how you’ll use the information/data you’ve gathered moving forward. - Outline what you’ve learned from your findings. Working with your stakeholders on the outcome of this process will help make the adoption of the strategy go a lot smoother. Giving everyone in your team the knowledge of its success, and how to implement it into their own strategy will enable your organization to collectively work towards overall success, reach your objectives of more sales, and ultimately increase revenue. If you’d like to have a closer look at how to build specific product marketing strategies, here are some articles to help you: [What Is A Go-to-Market Strategy? - Complete GTM GuideHit your next launch out of the ballpark.![](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/size/w256h256/2019/04/favicon_pma_1000.png)Product Marketing AllianceProduct Marketing Alliance![](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2021/04/Go-to-market-guide.png)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-build-a-go-to-market-strategy/) [How to create a successful product marketing strategyA well-executed product marketing strategy can catalyze a successful product launch for your exciting new product or service, or increase sales for an existing offering. In this article, we’ll explain each step you need to deliver a successful product marketing strategy.![](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/size/w256h256/2019/04/favicon_pma_1000.png)Product Marketing AllianceLawrence Chapman![](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1524086496832-aa348741b7b9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDI0fHxzdHJhdGVneXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MjUyMzU1NjA&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=2000)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-create-a-product-marketing-strategy/) ## **Want to learn more?** Market research is an invaluable part of not just product marketing and competitive intelligence, but the overall organizational function. It helps us to understand what prompts the customer to purchase products within the market and, ultimately, identify how we can position our products in such a way that they stand out from the crowd. 🏆 Our competitive intelligence community is brimming with talented CI pros just waiting to share their expertise with you. So what are you waiting for? [Join the community](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ### In search of a data-informed way to build product vision and positioning: part one URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/data-informed-product-vision-and-positioning-part-one/ Last updated: 2024-05-30T14:10:34.000Z The goal of this three-part series is to add one more skill to your toolset: creating product vision and positioning based on customer research. The series will outline the steps that can take you from relying on basic intuitions about what will speak to buyers, to a completely research-based positioning and product vision. # Using customer decisions to build positioning and product vision One of my most memorable working experiences comes from some significant research I undertook with my colleagues and a consulting firm called MarketFit, led by Alan Albert. It was about product vision and positioning – a tricky topic, even for the most experienced product managers. Many product managers and product marketing managers don’t know how to tackle crafting product vision and positioning in their company. The problem seems to be cloaked in mystery. At best, companies run internal workshops and brainstorming sessions to devise product vision and subsequent positioning based on their understanding of the market, customers, and the product they’re building. Many business books, including Blue Ocean Strategy, describe the same way to get at positioning or product vision. The implication is that people working on a product should know enough collectively to create good product positioning. While this approach is better than a top-level manager making the decision alone, we can do much more to get product vision and positioning that reflects what our market segment truly needs. # We typically position what we create instead of creating what is easy to position In general, positioning follows a product vision. After all, we start with a vision and only then get to the details: what features to build, what positioning our product will have, how we’ll appeal to the needs of the user, and how to make sure our potential audience realizes we can solve their problems. But we shouldn’t wait until *after* we’ve delivered a product to start positioning. If we start with both product vision *and* positioning, we’ll be able to focus our efforts on features that the target audience will appreciate. Some features won’t make the cut. That’s fine! [The Positioning Matrix: A Beginner’s Guide | CIAEver wondered where your product sits in the competitive landscape? Enter the positioning matrix – a tool for visualizing just that.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/sigmund-B-x4VaIriRc-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/) # Default product vision and positioning aren’t optimal The product vision, positioning, and value proposition are usually decided by an individual or a group. Managers write positioning statements and documents and then push those to GTM teams. There are lots of problems with this approach. ## A sole decision-maker introduces too many biases Industry, market, and client knowledge are nothing to sneeze at, but our experiences within an industry and even insights from interviews introduce biases to our thinking. These biases shape the way we see our product and the needs of our existing or potential customers, resulting in positioning that misses the mark. ## A group comes to a compromise between multiple biases Collaborative work is a much better way to make a decision than following one person’s gut feeling. Triaging multiple data points results in a much more consistent and relevant output, although the biases are still present. You just remove the most egregious offenders by doing the work together. The result is a compromise between the biases of different people. Sometimes the standard approach works – against the odds, we nail the positioning, product vision, and value proposition. The problem isn’t that we can’t ever succeed with this approach; the problem is it’s not consistent and depends on luck, even when we involve experts. So many products fail despite the names behind them. # A data-informed way to build positioning In this series, we’ll go through the steps you can take towards a data-informed product vision and positioning. But why is the data-informed approach so much better than the standard approach described above? First of all, instead of guessing what product features and benefits we should highlight for our target audience, we’ll take those points directly from those who have recently selected a solution like the one we’re building. Secondly, we will have to say ‘no’ to things that don’t align with our audience’s decision drivers. Maybe you’re thinking of introducing a cool machine-learning algorithm that will make you stand out but isn’t relevant to the audience you are building your application for – that’s a no. You might want to think about finding an audience that cares about that algorithm, but you still can’t escape the burden of validation. Thirdly, we won’t just uncover decision drivers with our interviews; we’ll also quantify those decision drivers. ![Flowchart demonstrating how to create product vision and positioning by defining your target audience and discovering decision drivers.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/unnamed--1-.png) To develop an effective positioning strategy, it's crucial you conduct customer research to uncover key decision drivers. As the main idea of the series is to show you how to create a product vision and positioning based on decision drivers, that’s what we’ll spend the most time on. If target audience definition, ideal customer profiles (ICPs), and roles within B2B are not already defined within your organization, you might want to read an additional article or two. # Step one: What decision does your target audience need to make? ## Define an ICP first At the outset, you need to have an idea of the most fitting customer segment for your new product. You may be wrong at that point, and interviews may show you that you can’t respond to the decision drivers of the audience that you thought was best for you, but a rough image of an ideal customer profile is necessary. The problem your product solves is felt most by a specific set of people. Who are they? What do they do day-to-day? What kinds of jobs do they have? Create a portrait and try to screen your interview participants through it in the next steps. For B2Bs, you’ll start with the company description first, and the person description second – you will need both. If you have no experience in [defining a persona or ICP](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-personas/), read up on it or find a person within the organization that can help you. Don’t skip this part just because you think you know your audience. Preliminary research on segments of your target audience may also be necessary, or you may use existing data to build your ICP. 💭 **Remember: segment definition will impact all the work you do next, as different segments will have different decision drivers.* ## Restate the decision into a question It’s vital to know what kind of decision your audience needs to make. A decision can generally be restated as a question. A simple example for B2B SaaS would be: “What product from \[product category\] do we want to select?” Specific needs, values, criteria, and motives drive an answer to this question. The next steps will shed light on the specific decision drivers that help your target audience answer that question. Let’s say you’re creating a B2B SaaS application that allows your clients to accept payments on a website or in an application. The target audience’s decision, in this case, is the answer to this question: “Which payment provider should we introduce to our product?” Restating the decision as a question is my preference, not a hard rule. Knowing the decision is enough, but I feel it’s much easier to empathize with the audience when the decision is restated as a question. ## Define the role to focus on Multiple roles are involved in the selection of B2B SaaS solutions: decision-makers, evaluators, end-users, and others. Sometimes they overlap; sometimes they don’t. For our purposes, we need to hone in on the roles that can answer the above question. You might discover that the evaluator and the decision-maker are different people within the company, but the evaluator will be crucial. The decision-maker can only approve or reject what the evaluator suggests. Often, an evaluator will provide a selection of options a la carte for a decision-maker to select from, so you need to decide: do we want to just get on the list, or do we want to be selected from that list? This concludes part one. In the next chapter, we’ll go about actually discovering decision drivers and their levels of importance as a foundation of the positioning and product vision. **At this point we know:** - What our ICP is for the product we’re considering building (or for the problem we’re trying to solve). - What decision an ICP, or their representative, needs to be make (or what question they are answering). - Which role we should talk to (for B2B). [**In part two**](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/data-informed-product-vision-and-positioning-part-two/)**, we’ll cover:** - Ways to come up with the list of decision drivers (quick and dirty vs. long and robust). - How to perform interviews that are aimed at ranking decision drivers and getting deep context on each important decision-driver. - How to rank decision drivers with supporting context across all interviews. - How to build a product vision and positioning based on all the data you’ll have gathered up to that point. --- ## **We let you do the talking. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Feel like this 🤐 and looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to **get in touch**. It's your insights we're after, so if you're strapped for time we'll have a quick chat, then write the article for you. 💯 [Yes, give me a platform for my content!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### Comparative vs. competitive advantage: What’s the difference? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/comparative-vs-competitive-advantage/ Last updated: 2025-05-14T11:46:23.000Z Want to thrive in a competitive marketplace? Then you need an **edge over the competition**. But what does a competitive edge, or advantage, consist of? In this article, we’ll walk you through the difference between a comparative advantage and a competitive advantage. By the end of this article, you’ll be well on your way to understanding the types of advantages your business has already, and you’ll have a better grasp of why you win or lose deals against your competitors. In a hurry? Jump to the most relevant section for you: - [Comparative vs competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5e831669-3ae4-4415-8e4b-d36987cb40a4/#comparative-vs-competitive-advantage) - [What is a comparative advantage?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5e831669-3ae4-4415-8e4b-d36987cb40a4/#what-is-a-comparative-advantage) - [What is a competitive advantage?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5e831669-3ae4-4415-8e4b-d36987cb40a4/#what-is-a-competitive-advantage) - [Examples of comparative advantages](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5e831669-3ae4-4415-8e4b-d36987cb40a4/#examples-of-comparative-advantages-for-a-business) - [Examples of competitive advantages](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5e831669-3ae4-4415-8e4b-d36987cb40a4/#examples-of-competitive-advantages-for-businesses) - [Competitive intelligence and competitive advantages](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/5e831669-3ae4-4415-8e4b-d36987cb40a4/#use-competitive-intelligence-to-give-your-business-the-advantage) ## Comparative vs. competitive advantage Comparative and competitive advantages are economic terms that, when applied to a business, refer to a business’ ability to produce goods and services and to **win against competitors over time.** If you can pinpoint your organization’s competitive and comparative advantages, you can make more informed strategic decisions about which market gaps to target. One competitor might have an unbeatable advantage, while another might have a slight advantage that you can overtake with the right competitive strategy. --- --- ## What is a comparative advantage? A comparative advantage persuades buyers at the point of purchase to choose you, all else being equal. For example, if your prices are lower, your shipping times are faster, or your product reviews are better than your competitor’s, then you have a comparative advantage that’s likely to sway the buyer in your favor. > A comparative advantage persuades buyers to choose you at the point of purchase. Want it put another way? A comparative advantage means the opportunity cost to the customer is lower when they choose you over your competition. When you have a comparative advantage, it makes little sense for a buyer to choose anyone else. Unless, that is, your competitor has a competitive advantage. ## What is a competitive advantage? A [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/) has predictive value in determining which businesses are likely to win more market share over time. Competitive advantages are more strategic and often cancel out comparative advantages. They empower your organization to offer value indirectly in ways your competitors can’t. > Competitive advantages empower businesses to win market share from their competitors over time. An expert marketing team that transforms trust in your brand constitutes a competitive advantage for your business. Over time, what you gain in brand trust and customer loyalty makes your customers willing to pay a *higher* price for your trusted product. Your competitive advantage in in-house expertise and knowledgeable personnel has paved the way for a cost advantage. Competitive advantages come in two distinct flavors: - [Temporary competitive advantages](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/). - [Sustained competitive advantages](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/). ## Examples of comparative advantages for a business ### Lower prices Lower prices are the simple, most obvious example of a comparative advantage. Of course, lower prices only constitute an advantage if you’re still able to turn a profit. And if your competitors are able to turn a greater profit than you per unit sold, this represents a problem in the long term if you’re not able to make up the shortfall by selling a larger number of units. You can achieve viable lower prices through economies of scale, better contractual agreements with suppliers, or better access to the raw materials you need to produce your products. [The VRIO Framework (What it is and How to Use it)The VRIO framework is a strategic analysis tool focused on helping a business find potential sources of competitive advantage. VRIO looks at a firm’s internal capabilities and resources, so differs from other strategic analysis frameworks like PESTLE analysis that examine external market factors.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2023/11/joey-graham-rHP-c0r_Uso-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/) ### Faster shipping times The time delay between purchasing a product and benefiting from it directly impacts the value of a product or service to your potential buyer. That’s why we’re willing to pay more for same-day shipping services, and why Amazon is investing so heavily in drone- and robot-assisted delivery to get products to your door faster. It’s also part of the value of eBooks, digital downloads, and music streaming services. The closer the wait time is to zero, the faster your customer gets to enjoy your product, and the more likely they are to rate the overall experience highly. ### Better reviews Better customer reviews represent a kind of short-term trust that can persuade customers to choose your product over a competitor’s. This helps to demonstrate the somewhat weaker, shorter-term power of a comparative advantage: if your brand is well-known and widely trusted, customers will frequently choose your product over a competitor’s without checking reviews. They’ll even be more likely to discount any negative reviews they do see. Since you’ve already won their trust, your customers will be more likely to turn a blind eye to evidence against the quality of your product. This kind of confirmation bias plays into the massive value strong branding has for a business. ## Examples of competitive advantages for businesses Michael E. Porter, renowned author and economic theorist, grouped competitive advantages into three categories: - Cost advantage - Differentiation advantage - Focus advantage These broadly refer to, respectively, a business’ ability to manipulate price relative to cost, to offer unique value versus competitors, and to niche down and offer a uniquely positioned product that solves a specific problem very well. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/pawtah.jpeg) Michael E. Porter grouped competitive advantages into three categories. He's best known in the product marketing world for his 5 Forces and Generic Strategies. ### Cost advantage Robert Cialdini’s book *Influence: the psychology of persuasion* was first published in 1984*.* Cialdini documents that many customers are more likely to buy the same product simply because the price is *higher*. That’s the result of a simple heuristic: what’s more expensive must be better quality. Today, people are more time-starved and overloaded with information than ever. With so much competing for your attention, it’s even more common to rely on these subconscious mental shortcuts. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/influence.jpeg) Of course, the only way to charge higher prices sustainably to customers who return time after time is to offer incredible value, even with those higher prices. Cost advantage today, then, is often the ability to hike prices up without negatively impacting sales, though keeping prices the same and reducing costs is another way to increase margins. Cost advantage as we’ve described it here is only available to a business with one or more other competitive advantages (like strong, trusted branding). This gives the business stronger product margins, allowing them to reinvest more revenue than its competitors. More investment paves the way for better products and marketing campaigns, and further revenue growth over time. ### Differentiation advantage Your ability to differentiate is your ability to set your brand, business, or products apart from your competitors. That could mean offering the best customer experience around, either through better product design or excellent customer service. Or making the best use of emerging technologies to accelerate your product’s development. Or it could mean better branding and positioning. Strong positioning clearly communicates your product’s value to prospects. A trusted brand accounts for a lot since it reduces uncertainty (and therefore risk) for the customer. Customers are willing to pay more for a brand they trust since in doing so they offset the risk of disappointment when they choose an unknown or untrusted brand. ### Focus advantage Your focus advantage is your ability to solve a very specific problem for a niche set of customers. In doing so, you occupy a large part of a very small space very quickly. This leaves little room for competitors to come in and claim some part of that market. If you’re looking to niche down for a focus advantage, [your competitive intelligence program](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) will come in super handy. Understand your competitor’s products, and the emotional needs they’re already meeting for customers, then look for open gaps in the market. Talk to your customers and prospects and try to identify a strong, unmet emotional need that competitor products don’t satisfy. Overlay your findings from both processes to identify the gaps in the market that also have a strong, unmet customer need. If you can fill that space, you stand a chance of capturing a powerful focus advantage. [Sustained Competitive Advantage: 10 Superhero StrategiesThat advantage you’ve worked so hard to create? Your competitors are working day and night to replicate it, beat it, and take those hard-won customers right out of your hands. 😤 So how do you stop your competitors cloning your strategy? How do you make your competitive advantage sustainable?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/den-harrson-m-HZ2aex1so-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/) ## Use competitive intelligence to give your business the advantage It’s **not too late** to establish comparative and competitive advantages in your organization. But to do that, you need to understand the competitive landscape and the gaps within it that you can exploit. To do *that*, you need a framework for learning about your competitors, their strengths and weaknesses, and relating those back to your own products. Figure out where *you* can win, strengthen existing advantages, and play your hand to best effect. And if you want to **learn from the best**, then you’re in luck. You get direct access to them when you join our competitive intelligence community. Rub shoulders with the brightest minds in the business. Join our competitive intelligence Slack community today. 👇 [Join the CI Slack community](https://join.slack.com/t/competitive-intel-all/shared%5Finvite/zt-1g8x4dhf8-mUWFovPVLXgxJku5dsUsqg) ### Combined assessment techniques: understanding SWOT and event tree analyses URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/combined-assessment-techniques/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T12:06:04.000Z Opportunities and threats can be assessed separately, but you can also evaluate them together. There are two combined assessment techniques that can help give you a better idea of your situation and the challenges you will face: SWOT analysis and event tree analysis. This article will look at what SWOT analysis is and how you can use it to analyze your situation. It will also look at the event tree and how you can use it to predict possible outcomes from a specific event. Combined assessment techniques are useful in a number of different contexts, including strategic planning, marketing research, and product development. You can use them to help your organization assess its own strengths and weaknesses. What’s more, they can provide a comprehensive snapshot of your organization’s current situation and help you prepare for future challenges. By understanding your organization’s strengths and weaknesses, you can make more informed decisions about which objectives are most important. ## Assessing opportunities and threats You can consider opportunities and threats together using a risk assessment technique. This helps identify how likely it is a threat will occur and what the consequences could be. You can also use risk assessment techniques to help you make decisions. For example, if you’re considering whether or not to invest in a new business venture, you might want to consider the risks associated with the investment. This would include things like the likelihood of success, the potential for losses, and the potential for legal challenges. Combined assessment techniques can help you get a more complete picture of your risks and opportunities. By using multiple approaches, you take all possibilities into account. ## SWOT analysis SWOT analysis is one such combined technique. SWOT is short for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. SWOT analysis is a way to identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of your organization, and its opportunities and threats too. You can use SWOT to strategize on where to focus efforts and how to improve performance. In SWOT analysis, you specify your organization’s primary objectives and identify the positive and negative factors, both internal and external, that’ll impact those objectives. In a combined assessment technique, you review the positive and negative factors contributing to both your own objectives and those of your competitors. You can use this information to identify areas where your company has a strong position and areas where it must improve. This analysis matches your organization’s strengths to external opportunities and also looks for ways to turn weaknesses and threats into strengths and opportunities. Bear in mind that a company’s strengths when it comes to meeting one objective may be weaknesses in relation to another. For example, a company’s strengths in cost-effective manufacturing may be weaknesses in relation to product demand. [Sustained Competitive Advantage: 10 Superhero StrategiesThat advantage you’ve worked so hard to create? Your competitors are working day and night to replicate it, beat it, and take those hard-won customers right out of your hands. 😤 So how do you stop your competitors cloning your strategy? How do you make your competitive advantage sustainable?![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/den-harrson-m-HZ2aex1so-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/) ## Event tree analysis Another combined assessment technique you can use is event tree analysis. An event tree graphically represents possible results from a specific event. Each node in the tree corresponds to an event, and the edges between nodes represent the consequences of those events. The goal is to identify patterns in how events lead to specific outcomes. You can use this information to improve processes and make decisions. For example, you might use event tree analysis to figure out why sales are down at one of your stores and see if there are patterns among the customers who’ve stopped buying. This information helps you adjust your marketing strategies and alter your selling techniques. By creating an event tree, you can also show the likely repercussions of a particular event. Repercussions can manifest as threats or opportunities, depending on the event and the nature of your organization. They’re particularly useful when you need to think about the potential implications of a wide range of possible scenarios. One way to create an event tree is to start with the root event and work your way up. For example, if you want to know how a particular decision might impact your organization, you can start by asking what’d happen as a result What new risks or opportunities would arise? Once you’ve identified all possible outcomes, you can look at how each one might affect your business. You can also use this info to prioritize which outcomes you’ll address first. In this way, event trees can help organizations make informed decisions quickly and efficiently. Event tree analysis lets you visually highlight where a threat or opportunity may arise for your organization. It’s also a good aid for strategizing about the long-term implications of events. [Competitive intelligence planning: short & long-term | CIATo learn more about the long- and short-term planning that’s so important for a well-tooled competitive intelligence program, Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon, sat down with August Jackson, Senior Director of Market and Competitive Intelligence at Deltek.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/hello-i-m-nik-MAgPyHRO0AA-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/planning-competitive-intelligence/) ## Using combined assessment techniques Let’s say you’re a senior manager in a cosmetics company, and you’ve decided to review your overall threats and opportunities. Conducting a SWOT analysis shows you your company can generate more revenue by matching its strongest brands with advertising firms in new markets. Your analysis also warns you it’s likely you’ll lose market share unless you can reinvigorate older brands younger customers see as unfashionable. You can follow up your SWOT analysis with an event tree analysis to assess the outcomes of a number of likely events. Assessing a major new celebrity endorsement, you uncover the threats and opportunities that might result, like critical supply shortages, the impact of any negative publicity surrounding the celebrity, and other undesirable events. Now, you can develop a strategy to minimize those risks. It’s up to you to choose the most suitable technique to assess risk in your organization. When the situation calls for you to consider risks as both threats and opportunities, use [the techniques of SWOT analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-run-swot-analysis/) and event tree analysis. Now that you’ve got a better understanding of how to use combined assessment techniques for the best results, you can use them in your own life. Use them to assess your own strengths and weaknesses, as well as your opportunities and threats. You might even use them to analyze your event tree to help determine your path of action. --- ## **We let you do the talking. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Feel like this 🤐 and looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to **get in touch**. It's your insights we're after, so if you're strapped for time we'll have a quick chat, then write the article for you. 💯 [Let me speak!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### How to create a competitive intelligence adoption program for your organization URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-adoption-playbook/ Last updated: 2022-12-06T09:52:19.000Z ## The challenge of competitive enablement at scale When planning a competitive enablement program in a crowded selling environment, you should ask the following questions: - How can we make sales reps more successful? - How can we position reps as subject matter experts across our multiple industries in front of prospects? - How can we educate representatives to understand our competitive landscape better? - How can we provide them with the right insights to win more business? - How do we, as a CI team, get feedback and know what's working? I recommend taking a managed approach to develop the sales team and enable them to position themselves effectively in front of customers. You’ll find real-time, fresh, actionable intelligence is your secret ingredient to better educate on new skills, improve proposals, and strengthen enablement with content. ## Utilize the new generation of competitive intelligence platforms When creating your competitive enablement program, the intuitive way is to research two different areas: 1. Sales enablement 2. Competitive intelligence After more than 100 hours of deep-dive research and calls with sales, CI and enablement leads, I learned people see these two fields as silos. They miss the vast potential of combining enablement with competitive insights. The good news is modern CI tools are more robust and sophisticated than the traditional platforms that led the market 10+ years ago. The evolution of CI and tech capabilities is essential for all selling teams, especially remote teams. The new generation includes features such as: - Having one central competitive hub the CI team can use to manage their content; - Shorter, memorable, but value-based content in a "cheat sheet" style; - Battlecards updated in real-time - reps can add feedback to the battle card, and changes are automatically available across sales platforms; - Mobile option - reps can access battle cards on the go from their mobile device before meeting prospects. This is super important for a remote sales team; - End-to-end integration lets you share insights in existing sales tools like Seismic/Highspot, Slack, Google Drive, Salesforce, Gong, and others. Modern tools also make it easy to track and measure the success of what you implement. So you can judge if your CI efforts are helping you win more deals. This allows you to iterate and adjust quickly. You can now be super specific, curating only the most relevant competitive intel. Blend this information with the intel arising from competitive conversations going on internally. The end goal is to convert this data to solid market, industry, and product-level insights - and add it to [sales enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/), strategy, and product content. [Use These 10 Tips to Optimize Your Sales Content | CIASales enablement is all about deal support. Sitting between sales and marketing, your sales enablement team exists to support your sales staff with key information at crucial moments. Information about competitors and about your product. All in line with your brand messaging.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/isaac-smith-6EnTPvPPL6I-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/optimize-sales-content/) ## Nine proven tactics for creating your CI sales adoption program Start planning your competitive enablement program with nine proven tactics in mind: ### One CI Implementation requires broad org alignment. To succeed, we should earn the trust and interest of Subject Matter Experts - top-down and bottom-up. ### Two You should publish content every week to drive sales reps' awareness. Build expectations before the official rollout. ### Three Give AE recognition and partner with top performers to identify champions. Sales reps care a lot about public recognition like being the month's best seller. Celebrating success helps drive engagement with CI tools and incentivizes champions to spread the word throughout the sales organization. ### Four Hire a CI owner for enrollment. Or, you can split this responsibility between a few PMMs. Assume you need a full-time position for the first six months of rollout to ensure successful, stable implementation. ### Five Competitive intelligence research differentiates messaging and positioning. All major product go-to-market plans should include CI insights. Go beyond regular competitive landscape research to differentiate messaging and positioning and assist sales in sales cycles. ### Six Using CI tools enables you to forecast a roadmap for sales. Ensuring in-depth visibility of your product themes and market trends. ### Seven Sales content, training, and deal support are pillars of competitive enablement. Plan them together in collaboration with your sales enablement team. ### Eight Prioritize battle cards based on your biggest threats. Launch the platform after a minimum number of top competitors' boards have been completed for credibility and retention. ### Nine Start implementing your competitive intelligence platform as part of a high-tier product go-to-market strategy. Include goals, KPIs, your internal marketing plan and channels, soft launch, and timeline. Your objectives can include the number of competitor battle cards covered, a weekly digest email, champion engagement, platform usage, number of deals impacted, etc. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/CIA_Website_Banners_2-5.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) ## Ten-step plan for actionable intelligence When we built our competitive intelligence adoption program, we planned it as a ten-step flywheel: ### Build allies with sales champions from different groups. Strengthen your relationships with the top 20% of sellers in the company. Make them the first employees to experience the CI platform, share their pain points, and have them vote on the content you curated. Your champions will create buzz for your program across the whole sales team, easing your CI rollout. Whenever a local or national call takes place, be there to pitch how CI can help them close more deals. ### Establish a cross-org CI committee Start a committee with a diverse set of managers from various departments. Discuss: - Market trends; - New technologies; - The current competitive landscape; - And potential future competitors. Analyze industry barriers that might make an indirect competitor a direct threat. Point out companies' acquisitions and irregular hiring patterns. Those discussions are eye-opening! ### Supercharge SWOT and trends reports with CI Create SWOT analysis reports to evaluate competitors' short- and long-term threats. Identify patterns in tech adoption and growing trends you can adopt to your advantage. This helps you focus on developing new products to get ahead of the competition and win market share. ### Complete two competitor battle cards each month While this sounds tactical, it came from a strategic perspective. Set the goal of ten completed battle cards for when you roll out your competitive intelligence platform. Cover your top competitors and make the platform robust enough that sales use it weekly. Check the top AE searches on the CI platform to learn which competitors' names they hear in the field and what is trending. ### Send weekly tips and tricks, and digest emails Sending weekly digest emails boosts awareness and sets expectations for your intelligence insights. ### Integrate with all key enablement platforms Integrate all your existing sales channels and platforms to work together seamlessly. Create a central hub for your sales representatives to manage, maintain, and discover all their content. ### Open a competitive Slack channel Your competitive Slack channel will fast become the go-to place for your reps to report what they’ve heard in the field. A place for reporting on competitors, and sharing real-time news, sales wins, and insights. All the content is sent back to your competitive intelligence software so you can gather insights in your central hub. ### Conduct win-loss interviews and train account executives Add fields to CRM sales opportunities and start to document and track all won and lost deals against competitors. Conduct interviews to learn why you win or lose to your competitors, then follow this up with sales training and education. The goal of this training is to win more deals and improve the sales process. ### Conduct surveys, get feedback from the field, and adjust your content Combining sales feedback, client interviews, win-loss surveys, and intelligence data makes it easy to improve your sales collateral with fresh insights. ### Close the loop with KPI's measurement Measure your success with clear parameters, including sales engagement and feedback cadence, to iterate, adjust and continue the flywheel. These ten steps are a roadmap for driving the adoption of any sales program. You may not hit all ten steps immediately, but use this as a guide for successful planning. [A Practitioner’s Complete Guide to Competitive IntelligenceCompetitive intelligence is your tool for knowing your competitors’ strategies, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses. Armed with this information, you can fine-tune your product strategy and marketing initiatives to win.In other words, competitive intelligence is your ticket to the top.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/ariel-HkN64BISuQA-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) ## Supercharge your organization with insights Start with the sales team, but plan to enable your entire organization with what you learn from competitive intelligence. By starting with sales, you tie your program to revenue immediately. That'll give you visibility and support from other teams like revenue, product, strategy, and executive leadership. Diversify the types of content you create and inject them with your CI insights. Your new content might focus on one or more of the following areas: ### Sales 1. Create a competitive sales “kit” to help sales "learn how to win." Include pre-recorded sessions for new hires as part of your onboarding process. 2. Create “product fast facts” sheets, offering an understanding of your products and where they fit in the competitive landscape. 3. Content that helps sales reps to understand prospects' needs. Include details on how your products solve prospects' pain points. 4. Live battle cards of top competitors, including product and pricing comparisons, info on their strengths and weaknesses, and strategy details. Include conversational landmines too. ### Product 1. Weekly product release notes for sales. Bucket these based on value and usage with themes and industry trends in mind 2. A yearly sales roadmap helps reps have better conversations around upcoming features and updates, particularly when competitors' tech capabilities are mentioned. 3. Improve the competitor research in every product GTM plan for new product launches and add new fields like "Where we win versus our competitors”. 4. Add Capterra competitive rankings to proposals, sell sheets, pitch decks, and other sales collateral to highlight your wins. ### Strategy 1. ELT competitors SWOT & trends reports: Combine competitors' info from public resources and internal feedback with analysis to create forecasting reports. 2. Comparison decks illustrate how your company compares to specific competitors, especially when they announce new products or acquisitions. Also useful when you notice irregular hiring in a particular field. 3. Pricing and bundling comparison decks: when you create the pricing-bundling process, improve your research with insights about competitors' approaches and offerings. 4. Product naming decks - fuel product naming research with CI insights. For example, how competitors name their products with a unique hierarchy and internal logic. ## ROI & KPIs Lastly, I would like to share a few of our KPIs after one year of implementing our competitive intelligence platform, which became one of our most robust CI tools. In the first year, we tracked the following key success indicators and saw great results: - Steady increase in active users; - Extremely high week-on-week sales usage; - Consistently high open rates for digest and “tips and tricks” emails; - Vast coverage of most of our competitors, both direct and indirect, via battle cards; - Correlation between battle cards/content consumption and the number of won deals. [The 5 Metrics to Track to Measure Sales Enablement ROIWith the rise of sales enablement platforms and Big Data, it has actually never been easier to prove the ROI of your enablement charter. You just have to know which metrics to track and how to track them.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/luke-chesser-JKUTrJ4vK00-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measure-sales-enablement-roi/) These KPIs reflect how we measure success, but there are many other metrics: - Conduct net promotor score surveys and gather testimonials from reps; - Assess sales confidence; - Track deal velocity; - Track average deal size; - Check competitive coverage increase (the number of tracked competitors); - Competitive win-loss ratio… …and many more! My best recommendation for organizations planning to implement a competitive enablement program for the first time is to create a sustainable advantage by leading a "culture and cadence" of CI across the entire org. Start with sales, but don’t stop there. Investing in CI tools today will put you in a better competitive position in the short term and increase your sales, and revenue from new deals, in the long term. --- ## ****We let you do the talking. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Feel like this 🤐 and looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to ****get in touch**. It's your insights we're after, so if you're strapped for time we'll have a quick chat, then write the article for you. 💯 [Give my content a platform!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### The 5 metrics to track if you want to measure sales enablement ROI URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measure-sales-enablement-roi/ Last updated: 2024-12-17T09:39:20.000Z The data’s in: sales enablement programs boost win rates versus a random approach. And higher win rates mean more revenue. In other words, sales enablement programs *in general* are profitable. But how do you prove the profitability of your own? Today, with more remote sales reps than ever before, and with more buyers *wanting* to buy remotely, you could argue that tracking the ROI of your program has *never been more difficult*. **Not so.** With the rise of sales enablement platforms and Big Data, it has actually never been easier to prove the ROI of your enablement charter. You just have to know which metrics to track and how to track them. Get this right and you’ll have yourself a sales enablement program that trains your sales team to thrive no matter how challenging the conditions. ## Measuring the ROI of sales enablement: problems and challenges - [Leading vs lagging indicators](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/19cd998e-14d6-4d27-813c-1bb223336601/#leading-vs-lagging-indicators) - [Time lag between training and implementation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/19cd998e-14d6-4d27-813c-1bb223336601/#time-lag-between-training-and-implementation) - [How do you allocate costs?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/19cd998e-14d6-4d27-813c-1bb223336601/#how-do-you-allocate-costs) - [How many enablement reps should you hire?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/19cd998e-14d6-4d27-813c-1bb223336601/#how-many-enablement-reps-should-you-hire) ### Leading vs lagging indicators. You’ll immediately find yourself under pressure to prove return on investment. Unfortunately, the crucial metrics for proving ROI are the revenue and sales performance metrics that take one or more sales cycles to unearth. > Want to keep the wolves from the door? You'll want to use leading indicators like signs of increased productivity. This makes them lagging indicators of success. If you want something to keep the wolves from the door, you’ll need to use leading indicators that forecast the success to come. Leading indicators are the early signs that you’re onto something. Increased productivity should be one of the first you see. When you notice outbound call volumes increasing, you know your sales reps are concluding calls more quickly. This is an early sign that your enablement content is helping them solve customer queries quickly. ### Time lag between training and implementation If it takes months for your sales reps to start implementing what they’ve learned in your enablement training sessions, it’ll be difficult for you to claim your session was responsible for their improved performance. This is another reason why **anecdotal reports don’t work** if you want to prove your program’s ROI. The non-believers will need more evidence. Thankfully, that evidence is readily available if you know where to look. More on that later. ### How do you allocate costs? Ah, yes. How to allocate costs. While you need to figure out the ROI of your sales enablement charter as a whole, early on in its deployment you won’t have the full picture. You’re investing time and money all over the place. In people, in resources, in the opportunity costs that come with leaning on other departments, like marketing, to help your enablement reps create and deliver content. That’s why you need to **get granular** with the data you’re tracking. Track each arm of your [sales enablement strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/). That way you’ll stand a chance at figuring out the ROI of each arm, which’ll help you figure out the ROI of the whole later. ### How many enablement reps should you hire? The question of how many reps to hire before you begin is difficult. How do you quantify how much time your sales representatives will save on admin from having sales operations or sales enablement reps in the building? How much time and how many resources will you need to pull from other departments to support enablement reps in their role? > Combine knowledge of your enablement program with your budget to ID the best number of reps. There are financial and opportunity costs associated with each of these. Our advice is to start with your sales enablement manager, the person responsible for building out your sales enablement program. Knowing what the plan for that program looks like, you can combine that knowledge with your available budget to estimate how many reps you’ll need and how many you can afford. [Sales Enablement Vs Sales Operations: The Hidden DifferencesYour sales team is too busy trying to win deals to tinker with the CRM. That’s why many organizations have introduced two key roles to help your sales reps operate with killer efficiency: sales operations and sales enablement.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/claudio-schwarz-L8iPDE99z9c-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-vs-sales-operations/) ## The sales enablement metrics to track and how to track them According to [Allego’s Complete Guide to Sales Enablement ROI](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/the-complete-guide-to-sales-enablement-roi/), sales enablement has **four key goals**. Each can generate ROI in its own way, so you should track and monitor each of them for effectiveness. These goals are to: 1. Accelerate revenue 2. Cut costs 3. Reduce risk 4. Improve engagement The types of metrics we discuss below correlate with these core enablement aims: - [Sales performance and revenue metrics](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/19cd998e-14d6-4d27-813c-1bb223336601/#sales-performance-and-revenue-metrics) - [Onboarding metrics](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/19cd998e-14d6-4d27-813c-1bb223336601/#onboarding-metrics) - [Content adoption and effectiveness metrics](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/19cd998e-14d6-4d27-813c-1bb223336601/#content-adoption-and-effectiveness-metrics) - [Sales enablement platform adoption and effectiveness metrics](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/19cd998e-14d6-4d27-813c-1bb223336601/#sales-enablement-platform-adoption-and-effectiveness-metrics) - [Qualitative metrics](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/19cd998e-14d6-4d27-813c-1bb223336601/#qualitative-metrics) ### Sales performance and revenue metrics These are the star metrics you’re going to want to jump to immediately. But you can’t! > Performance metrics take time to unearth. Start tracking immediately, but expect to wait a while. As we mentioned above, these metrics take time to unearth. You might need to wait months (or longer, depending on how long your sales cycles are) for them to reveal themselves. Still, once you have them, they’re the ones that make the ROI of your program the most obvious. **Here are the ones to track:** - Lead conversion rate (what percentage of your leads do you manage to convert successfully?). - Quota attainment (how many reps hit their target quotas?). - Average length of sales cycle (the average time it takes a rep to move a lead through to conversion). - Number of annual sales deals. - Average selling price and/or average deal value (the average value of a closed deal). **Tips on tracking** If you wanna get *real* scientific with measuring the impact of your enablement charter, you can use a control group. That’s right, simply *don’t enable* a group of your reps. Then compare their performance over time versus your enabled group. Of course, you’ll have to adjust their sales targets and compensation so this isn’t unfair (after all, it’s not the control group’s fault if they start falling behind). But this makes the impact of your program as clear as possible. Or, if you have all the relevant performance data already, you can simply use *that* as your control and see how the whole team pulls ahead once you pull the trigger on your enablement program. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/CIA_Website_Banners_2-4.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### Onboarding metrics Sales enablement teams often own the onboarding of new reps. Hiring and firing is expensive, so an effective onboarding process that minimizes churn is a high-leverage way of cutting costs. It boosts the ROI of your entire program. But it’s not just the churn you can measure. If you can get your reps making money *sooner* after signing a contract with you, then you’ll have managed to increase the first-year revenue per rep. This is what’s known as a shorter “time to productivity”, and it’s a key metric. Metrics to measure: - Time to first deal (time to productivity). - Time taken to hit quota. - New hire churn. - Content adoption after onboarding. - Number of training sessions attended. - New hire satisfaction scores. ### Content adoption and effectiveness metrics Are people using the [sales enablement content](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/optimize-sales-content/) you’ve created? If not, why not? And for those that *are* using your enablement content, is it actually helping them close more deals? 💭 Remember: the ROI on content no one’s using is always a big fat zero. Try looking at these metrics for content adoption and effectiveness: - Content open rates. - Click rates. - Engagement time. - Number of opportunities to use the content. - Assists and attributions (when a rep ‘votes’ for the effectiveness of the content in helping close the deal). - Content deal velocity (look at the average time prospects spend in each deal stage; measure if those times decrease when reps share content). [Use These 10 Tips to Optimize Your Sales Content | CIASales enablement is all about deal support. Sitting between sales and marketing, your sales enablement team exists to support your sales staff with key information at crucial moments. Information about competitors and about your product. All in line with your brand messaging.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/isaac-smith-6EnTPvPPL6I-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/optimize-sales-content/) ### Sales enablement platform adoption and effectiveness metrics Content takes time to create, and the tools and software you adopt cost money to run. So it pays to ask the same questions. Are people actually using the tools you’ve invested in? Are they well enough trained in the platform that it’s effortless for them to use it? 💭 Remember: your salespeople are busy trying to meet quota. If they see your enablement platform as a hindrance, rather than an enabler, they won’t use it. Show them what the platform’s capable of, and how it can save them time and effort, then train them to use it. With your content management system (CMS), for example, it should take sales *less* time to find the relevant content they’re looking for. That means higher productivity (calls concluded faster, a greater number of calls per day, and more deals closed over time). **Tips on tracking** Your sales enablement platform itself has a vested interest in proving its effectiveness to you. After all, if you spend money on a tool every month, but it isn’t immediately clear how it’s benefiting you, you’ll stop paying. Most sales enablement tools have reporting dashboards that will track and share key metrics with you. So it’s dead easy to find data on the various parts of your sales process. ### Qualitative metrics When your organization invests in sales enablement, a number of key things happen. First, a new business function exists to bridge the gap between your sales and marketing teams. So those two arms of your organization can sync up more effectively. That causes a knock-on effect and, as a byproduct... **You get the following gifts:** - More consistent messaging across the board as sales become clearer on how to talk about the product. - An improved, more consistent buyer experience from seeing and hearing the same things talked about across website copy, shared content, and from salespeople. - Reps make better decisions on the fly thanks to better sales training on the product and marketing strategies. - Improved customer engagement through their buyer journey. All of these things are great, but there’s a problem: they’re **not quantifiable**. While the qualitative metrics listed above make for valuable data and you *should* track them if you can, the world won’t fall apart if you don’t. Each is a direct result of introducing a strategized sales enablement charter. And they’ll indirectly benefit all the quantifiable data we’ve discussed, including those all-important sales performance metrics. So, while you’re tracking what’s quantifiable, you’re also indirectly tracking these qualitative metrics. ## TL;DR To measure the ROI of your sales enablement program effectively, you want to **start tracking** as much as you can, as early as you can. It takes months for revenue data trends to establish themselves, but your superiors often put pressure on you to prove ROI immediately. That’s why it’s vital you have a handle on the **early indicators** of success, like increased productivity. Keep an eye on what’s working best so you can double down on it and discard the fluff. This maximizes your chances of success in the long term. **Productivity** is one of the earliest success indicators, but **content data** makes itself known after a few months too. That'll give you a clue as to what content resonates and what doesn’t. **Revenue and performance metrics** take the longest to establish, depending on how long your sales cycles are. But once your first batch of these performance metrics is in, it’ll be clear you’re onto something. --- ## **We let you do the talking. 📣** Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Feel like this 🤐 and looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to ****get in touch**. It's your insights we're after, so if you're strapped for time we'll have a quick chat, then write the article for you. 💯 [Let me speak!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### Use these 10 tips to optimize your sales content and boost the bottom line URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/optimize-sales-content/ Last updated: 2025-01-21T08:14:58.000Z Salespeople are like fighter pilots. 🛸 They have a job to do. And once the action starts, they need to stay focused. Adrenaline’s high. Performance mode’s activated. They’ve no time to take their eyes off the prize and go hunting for answers. Nope, your sales reps need copilots, ready and waiting with the answers they need to influence decision-makers, win new business, and boost that bottom line. Enter sales enablement. ## What is sales enablement? Sales enablement is all about deal support. Sitting between sales and marketing, your sales enablement team exists to support your sales staff with key information at crucial moments. Information about competitors and about your product. All in line with your brand messaging. [Sales enablement managers](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-manager/) collaborate cross-functionally with customer success, product, sales operations, and other relevant departments to identify the factors influencing the buyer’s decision-making process. SE teams combine this with feedback from sales reps to weave the critical product expertise and marketing strategy into supporting [content your salespeople can use ](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/creating-content-salespeople-will-love/)while on-call. This content proves invaluable for handling objections, reframing competitor products, and increasing win rates. 🗒️ *Note: sales enablement pros also* [*work with sales operations*](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-vs-sales-operations/) *to identify effective tools that can improve the sales cycle.* Content like this is at the heart of any effective sales enablement strategy. But how do you ensure your sales enablement content is the best it can be? Since it plays such an important role in the sales process, how do you optimize it? ## How to optimize your sales content So that’s [sales enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/). It should be clear just how large a part their content plays in the success of your organization’s sales strategy. But how do you create sales content that *really* moves the needle? Here are ten of our top sales enablement best practices: 1. [Get close to your sales reps.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/61a923f8-ccd2-4129-9cc5-4de7c091093f/#1get-close-to-your-sales-reps) 2. [Own training initiatives.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/61a923f8-ccd2-4129-9cc5-4de7c091093f/#2own-sales-training-initiatives) 3. [Expand your content horizons.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/61a923f8-ccd2-4129-9cc5-4de7c091093f/#3expand-your-content-horizons) 4. [Crowdsource sales enablement.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/61a923f8-ccd2-4129-9cc5-4de7c091093f/#4crowdsource-sales-enablement) 5. [Make data your friend.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/61a923f8-ccd2-4129-9cc5-4de7c091093f/#5make-data-your-friend) 6. [Use a sales enablement platform.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/61a923f8-ccd2-4129-9cc5-4de7c091093f/#6use-sales-enablement-software) 7. [Track content adoption.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/61a923f8-ccd2-4129-9cc5-4de7c091093f/#7track-content-usage-and-adoption) 8. [Audit your existing content.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/61a923f8-ccd2-4129-9cc5-4de7c091093f/#8audit-your-content-regularly) 9. [Create your content for its intended audience.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/61a923f8-ccd2-4129-9cc5-4de7c091093f/#9consider-your-content%E2%80%99s-intended-audience) 10. [Give your content a new coat of paint.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/61a923f8-ccd2-4129-9cc5-4de7c091093f/#10give-your-content-a-fresh-coat-of-paint) ### 1 - Get close to your sales reps. It goes without saying. Your sales content needs to contain the right information, and you find that information by working cross-functionally. By speaking with members of the marketing, customer success, and product teams, you get a sense of your customer’s pain points, your product’s strengths and weaknesses, and where your brand fits within the competitive landscape. But all that information’s useless if your salespeople can’t digest it quickly. That’s why the *format* you use to present said information is so important. 💭 *Remember: your sales reps won’t have a lot of free bandwidth while they’re on a call to search for the answers they need.* The only way to figure out *this* piece of the puzzle (aside from sticking with tried and true sales enablement content types like [competitive battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/)), is to test them out with your sales reps, gather feedback, and tweak based on that feedback. Following battlecard best practices (make them scannable, put the key info up top) is another must. But make it a priority to work closely with your sales reps and get regular feedback on your sales content. What gets scheduled gets done, so schedule feedback sessions at intervals to get yourself the feedback you need. ### 2 - Own sales training initiatives. Want to learn more quickly? Then fail faster. By ripping off the bandaid and exposing your enablement content to criticism and failure as early as possible, you slash the time it takes to get from good to great. > Get feedback way earlier by holding training sessions with your reps. Truth is? You don’t have to wait for your content to be field tested. You can get feedback way earlier and avoid sending out prototype content with a low success rate. 😌 Hold training sessions on your sales content with your reps and you’ll meet two needs with one deed. If your sales reps think something won’t be useful, they’ll tell you. But training sessions offer another incredible benefit: they’re an opportunity to get buy-in from the sales team, increasing content adoption. If only a couple of sales reps actually use the content you give them because others dismiss it at a glance, you’ll never get the feedback you need to improve it. By involving reps in the process early on, you make them feel heard and gain their valuable input. ### 3 - Expand your content horizons. Sales enablement content comes in all shapes and sizes. It needn’t stop at battlecards and templates. In fact, sales teams don’t have to use the content themselves at all. Content that helps sales win deals indirectly by warming up the buyer during different stages of the buying process is *still* enabling sales. > Different kinds of content are better suited to different reps and different buyers. [Different kinds of content](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/what-is-sales-enablement-content/) are better suited to different stages of the buyer journey, and it all helps to prime the buyer for their upcoming call with a sales rep. So work with your marketing and content teams to produce emails, lead magnets, case studies, and other valuable content that warms up leads before they get on the phone. Use what you know of your target audience, the stage of the buyer’s journey they’re at when they encounter your brand, and the pain points your product heals. Deliver the right marketing content at the right times and to the right people to make your sales reps’ jobs as easy as possible. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/CIA_Website_Banners_2-3.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### 4 - Crowdsource sales enablement. Much like competitive intelligence, valuable sales enablement insights exist in *all corners* of the business. Initiate and nurture conversations between customer success and sales, between marketing and product development. Set up open channels of communication (a Slack channel works well) to keep the conversation going. Wondering why we think collaboration’s so important here? **Collaborating with marketing** Your marketing team’s in charge of your organization’s messaging and positioning strategies. They’re the ones developing detailed buyer personas you can use to help your enablement content strategy. Getting marketing involved ensures your brand messaging is consistent throughout the buyer journey. This helps eliminate confusion and maximizes the chances of your buyer feeling confident your product can meet their needs. **Collaborating with product teams** At the same time, the product team knows all there is to know about (you guessed it) the product. They’re the ones with plans for its future, and they can tell you if your content lines up with that future or not. Assimilate all that information and use it to optimize your enablement content. This way sales enablement becomes a team effort, and with deals and revenue on the line, this is a simple but effective way to take some of the load off a high-stakes business function. ### 5 - Make data your friend. What gets measured gets managed. And that makes data and analytics your two best friends in sales enablement. 🤝 Your organization is already using a bunch of tools to scale and automate various processes in the sales lifecycle. Your CRM, conversational intelligence software, win/loss platforms … all of these fit the bill. And they’re all chock-full of data and metrics you can use to inform the types of content you create and what you include. In short, all that data is just sitting there, waiting to help you make better strategic decisions about which deals are most winnable and what kind of aid sales needs to communicate your competitive advantage. Finally, [your resident competitive intelligence analyst](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-analyst/) is gonna have a ton of qualitative data for you too. Work closely with them here, because competitive intelligence is another great source of intel for your sales enablement strategy. ### 6 - Use sales enablement software. Don’t turn your nose up at sales enablement tools. They organize and deliver relevant content to your sales reps when they need it. This slices the time it takes your reps to get the answers they’re looking for. And when these systems integrate with other parts of the sales tech stack (like your Salesforce CRM), they put the knowledge right at your sales team’s fingertips. In fact, they’re a goldmine for data in general, tracking and saving all sorts of metrics in real-time. A data-driven sales enablement process is way more effective than one based on guesswork. [It’s time to invest in sales enablement tools. Here’s why.With a cross-functional Go-to-Market strategy where sales can confidently mesh their persuasion and charisma with product knowledge, you’re looking at much higher win rates and, therefore, much higher revenue.![](https://www.gotomarketacademy.com/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/04/GTM_Social_Facebook_Profile.png)GTM AcademyKate Onley-Gregson![](https://www.gotomarketacademy.com/content/images/2022/09/salesenablementools.jpg)](https://www.gotomarketacademy.com/its-time-to-invest-in-sales-enablement-tools/) ### 7 - Track content usage and adoption. You can produce as much great content as you want, but if your sales reps aren’t implementing it, it won’t do your sales enablement efforts any good. That’s why, on top of the all other data types we’ve mentioned, you should collect usage data. Your sales enablement platform will help you here too. Use it to track which of your enablement assets your sales reps are using and when. > Produce as much content as you want, but if your sales reps aren’t using it, nothing'll happen. As well as sales usage, you can track what content *buyers* are engaging with, and which stage of the buyer journey they’re at when they do. See if the data maps with your expectations ‘cause, if it doesn’t, you’ll wanna find out *why*. If there’s a mistake in your sales strategy, uncovering it lets you correct your course and get back on track delivering effective content to the right people. ### 8 - Audit your content regularly. Of the content you have already, what’s a hit? What’s failing to get engagement, increase conversions, or actually come off the shelf at all? It’s a lot easier to tweak what you have than to start from scratch. And, since this content has been circulating for a while, the testing phase is already complete. You’ll have data on how it’s working and won’t have to wait for the results to come in to course-correct (like you would with fresh content). So schedule regular audits of your existing enablement content. How often you audit is up to you, but at least once a quarter is a good starting point. Early on, you can audit more frequently. As you begin to find content that boosts sales performance, you can opt to review less often. ### 9 - Consider your content’s intended audience. Though a lot of sales enablement content is not customer-facing, some of it is. The content you prepare for your salespeople will differ from the content you and your content marketing team prepare for customers. At the same time, not all types of content work for everyone. One sales rep might get on great with your battlecards. Another might never reach for them at all, preferring to study more detailed reports after-hours. > What worked great for your previous bosses or clients might not work where you are now. And, if you’ve done this before, what worked great for your previous bosses or clients might not work where you are now. Our advice? Track everything. And always follow the numbers. If sales folks are using your content and providing good feedback, and win rates are improving, you’re probably on the right track. If, however, your content isn’t resonating with the sales organization, or the content you’re using to warm up prospective buyers isn’t getting downloads or converting, then you’ll know where to focus your attention. ### 10 - Give your content a fresh coat of paint. Sometimes, when a piece of content isn’t working, it’s not the information it contains that’s wrong. Today, there are infinite ways to consume content. And the right information presented in the wrong way will have just the same impact as the wrong information. So if your content isn’t a hit, ask yourself the following questions: - Should the content be visual instead of written? 🤔 - Should it be long-form with a few graphics? 📚 - Should my content contain statistics? 📊 - Should this be presented as a video (pre-recorded product demo, perhaps)? 🎥 Don’t be afraid to try new things, but if you’re looking for the greatest ROI and probability of success, stick with the data and you can’t go far wrong. --- ## We let you do the talking. 📣 Consider yourself an expert in competitive intelligence or competitive enablement? Feel like this 🤐 and looking for a platform to get your voice out there? Look no further. The Competitive Intelligence Alliance wants thought leaders like you to **get in touch**. It's your insights we're after, so if you're strapped for time we'll have a quick chat, then write the article for you. 💯 [Let me speak!](mailto:contribute@competitiveintelligencealliance.io) --- ### Confused by hidden differences between sales enablement and sales operations? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-vs-sales-operations/ Last updated: 2025-02-05T16:48:22.000Z Your sales team is too busy trying to win deals to tinker with the CRM. And with strict targets to hit, they have to keep their eyes on the prize. That’s why many organizations have introduced two key roles to help your sales reps grow, improve, and operate with killer efficiency: sales operations and sales enablement. But what’s the difference? And why does a business need both? Let’s find out. 👇 ## What is sales operations? Sales operations is the more administrative role. These are the folks choosing, maintaining, and managing the tools and processes your sales teams need to *sell*. That’s right, the sales ops team doesn’t do any selling*.* Instead, they focus on the auxiliary actions and processes your salespeople need in place to sell as effectively as possible. Processes like: - Refining day-to-day sales techniques. - Hiring new sales reps. - Creating sales strategies. - Mapping the competitive landscape. - Tracking sales metrics and KPIs. - Creating incentives and compensation plans. That’s a lot of responsibilities! You’ll notice these relate to *systems* of selling*.* These systems and processes act as the tracks the sales train runs on. And it’s sales operations’ job to keep those tracks gleaming. But there’s one huge responsibility we left out: managing the sales tech stack. Remember, there’s a huge amount at stake in sales. And a lot of money involved. So businesses are willing to invest a lot in the tools that help win deals. That’s why CRMs and other sales tools, including Salesforce and Hubspot, are so massive. With this amount of money changing hands, the tools grow. Some of them grow so huge that sales representatives used to one sales platform will refuse a new role that requires them to use a different one. Entire roles have grown around understanding, managing, and optimizing these tools. And sales ops is an example. They’ll build new dashboards and manage the tech that allows sales and enablement to work together to win deals. Can the sales process be shorter or more efficient? Sales ops’ll work to shorten it. Is there an automation tool out there that could help speed up the administrative workflow? Sales ops will choose, evaluate, and adopt the new tools, create sales training programs, and work to integrate them with existing systems. In these ways, sales operations is more data & tech-driven than sales enablement. [Sales enablement manager guide: salary, key skills | CIASales enablement sits right next to revenue. With so much opportunity to impact the bottom line, there’s some eyebrow-raising compensation attached to successful sales enablement positions, with the average sales enablement manager earning $120,000.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/chris-hardy-jMILWeXY0fM-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-manager/) ## What is sales enablement? Sales enablement is more people-driven and concerned with qualitative deliverables. Its function is to give sales teams content and material that helps them close deals. Material such as: - [Competitive battlecards.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) - Sales playbooks. - Buyer-facing marketing assets. But creating collateral for their sales representatives isn’t all sales enablement teams do. Other responsibilities include: - Onboarding new hires. - Reporting on sales metrics. - Upskilling sales reps with L&D programs. - Implementing the sales methodologies sales ops creates. In our train analogy, sales operations is responsible for the infrastructure and its upkeep. The sales representatives are the drivers, intensely focused on a single important job. Sales enablement supports salespeople while they get that job done. This is often called ‘sales readiness’, and describes the sales enablement team’s responsibility to make sure reps have everything they need to maximize their win rates. Sales enablement managers and staff also align sales and marketing teams. Both deliver enablement content for marketing, and help [feed back competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) uncovered by sales reps to the marketing team. In short, sales enablement comes down to improving buyer interactions with learning & content-based strategies that directly support the sales cycle. Depending on the needs of the business, sales enablement could be just one individual in a dedicated role, or an entire team. ****Suggested reading 📘** •[ What is sales enablement content?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-sales-enablement-content/) ## The difference between sales operations and sales enablement teams So what’s the difference? Sure, there’s some overlap, but here’s where they differ: Sales operations is responsible for processes and systems. They’re the engineers working on the infrastructure and getting the trains to run on time. They’ll decide what roles need filling and what to train their people in. Sales enablement supports those new hires and gets them the stuff they need to help do their one job: selling Both roles will liaise with sales managers and report sales performance metrics to sales managers. And different employers might interpret the roles in different ways. So a job ad for a sales operations manager at one organization might include some of the same responsibilities as a sales enablement manager job ad at another. Plus, each role might contribute towards the same end in different ways. While sales enablement pros head up training and development sessions for their sales reps, sales operations staff might be leveraging CRM data to identify areas where the whole team can improve. Both, in the end, are still contributing to sales success within the organization through identifying and executing on training initiatives. ## How sales operations and sales enablement collaborate So how do these two roles work together to improve sales success? Imagine your sales reps are touring musicians. Sales operations gets them to the gig, books the flights and the hotels, manages the transport of the instruments and the rigging, determines how many crew members they’ll need. All that stuff. Sales enablement works closely with the reps themselves, doing everything they can to ensure the show’s a success. They’ll give performance feedback, let them know what needs improving, and they’ll feed back what’s not working to sales operations. Sales operations reps are the strategists. They create overarching sales objectives and strategies and ensure frameworks and processes are in place to make them possible. Sales enablement helps the sales reps use the frameworks, tools, and strategies sales operations has created to reach their targets. They create content that can inform sales reps at a glance, and ensure this content is kept up to date with the latest competitive info and market intelligence so reps have the best possible shot at handling objections, steering conversations, and closing deals. --- ## Ramp up your revenue Interested in taking your revenue and sales teams to the next level? Then it'll pay to take in the surroundings first. Download our Sales Enablement Landscape report now to learn: - The most effective sales enablement assets. - How companies organize their sales enablement efforts. - The best sales enablement tools on the market. ...and more. 🙇‍♂️ [Sales Enablement Landscape Report Vol. 2 | CIASales enablement forms a big part of most product marketers’ day-to-day, and we know this because of the 2,000+ PMMs who participated in this year’s State of Product Marketing report, almost three quarters (73.8%) said creating sales collateral made up part of their key responsibilities.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/CIA_SE_Report_2021_meta_.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-landscape-vol-2/) --- ### The intersection of audience segmentation and competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/audience-segmentation-guide/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T11:46:07.000Z My family and I had just gotten home from church. It was hot and humid and I was late for a date with my “casual clothes”. I stayed in the car with my dad while Mom and my siblings rushed inside to escape the hot Alabama sun and heavy air. As we headed inside, I stopped to investigate a really loud sound. Now, I’ve been accused of hearing voices, but I was 65% sure that was someone saying “HELP!” I turned to my dad to ask if he’d heard the sound. He was turning to me to ask the same. We walked back out into the driveway to take a glance around – only to hear it again! We found our neighbor yelling out her kitchen window for help! We walked over and discovered her kitchen pipe had burst and she was trying to shut it off. After some struggle, a sprint across the street to grab a wrench, and a handful of towels later. We got the flooding under control. Talk about right place, right time. Our audience may not be in the middle of their house being flooded, but you never know! How do you know when’s the right time? Or where’s the right place? **By using competitive intelligence to create audience segments. Let’s get into it!** ## What is audience segmentation? [Audience segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/implicit-segmentation-marketing/) is a process of dividing customers into groups with similar interests, needs, and behaviors. Their demographics and psychographic characteristics play a part too. It’s used to get a better understanding of the target audience, which in turn helps marketers understand who they’re targeting with their marketing efforts, in turn creating more effective marketing campaigns. Sure, we can use market research to get the basics down, but you’ll quickly realize it’s harder to group individuals than expected. Your audience is a living, breathing entity. That’s why we need to overlay audience segmentation with [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/). ## The intersection of audience segmentation and competitive intelligence Competitive intelligence (CI) is an important part of audience segmentation, often overlooked entirely.But together they play a huge role in successful marketing campaigns. It’s a process that lets companies understand their competitors’ products and marketing strategies, and identify their own strengths and weaknesses. When you create your target audience persona, you can cross-reference it with competitive data to see if the persona fits the target audience profile. If it does, you have now validated your persona and have a clear audience target for content creation. Focusing on these segments will not only open you up for using lookalike audiences later on but also gives you a clear target for your content creation efforts! [Competitive intelligence is the analysis of your competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/), getting [info on competitors' pricing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/), products, services, business operations, and other activities. It also includes information about their suppliers and customers, external forces, and market sentiments. You can use this information to make strategic decisions for your business such as: - **More effective messaging** – “John Doe is using competitor A, but is frustrated with X and Y. Let’s send John promotions that focus on those pains.” - **Inciting purchases** – “John purchased from competitor B. Let’s send him a case study comparing the results of B with our offer.” - **Product creation** – “X% of respondents said A was impossible to find in our industry. How can we fill this need?” - **Product development** – “X% of our respondents said they use our product at night. Let’s implement dark, mono, and sepia modes.” - **Content creation** – “A lot of our audience likes X and Y. Let’s reach out about a possible collaboration or a license to use their IP in a media campaign.” - **Choosing influencers** – “Multiple responses mentioned this thought leader as a source for information. Let’s reach out to him for a possible collab” This list is just the beginning. As software and AI progress, the list of possibilities will only grow. ## What different types of audience segments do entrepreneurs need to know about? The goal of market segmentation is to identify and understand the different types of audience segments that are available in a given industry. Generally, we look at segmenting from a very limited window: demographic, psychographic, behavioral, geological, and transactional. - **Demographic** – What are the groups in your audience by age, gender, income, education, marital status, etc.? - **Psychographic** – What are your audience's likes, dislikes, needs, day-to-day life, attention-keepers, market awareness, etc.? - **Behavioral** – When is X used, in what environment, with or without others, self or shared with another person? - **Geological** – Where are they in the world, what’s going on, what language is spoken, what dialect, what slang, what politics, what economics, etc.? - **Transactional** – What do they purchase, what time of year, what time of day, in response to which marketing campaign, from which marketing channel, etc.? Aside from those key non-negotiable segments, there are dozens of ways to categorize your audience, including these lesser-known ways: - **Brand segmenting** – This method is specifically for B2B and B2E companies. This applies segmentation to the brands’ values and demographics to deliver personalized communications. - **Generational segments** – Generational gaps exist in everyday life. There tend to be generation-wide shared characteristics, behaviors, and belief systems. It’s important to take these factors into account when speaking or writing to your audience. - **Lifecycle segments** – What is happening at this stage of their lives? Do they have young children and want to start a college fund? Are they about to retire? Have a baby? Get married? Graduate? By integrating yourself into more intimate moments in their life you effectively become “one of the family”. - **Inclusivity segments** – While there are many brands that overdo this, it’s possible to use data enrichment methods to segment your audience by sexual preference, pronouns, ethnicity, etc. This can help reiterate the brand mission, vision, and values. Tread lightly, consult with others and always be respectful. Segmenting our audience puts us in a better position to relate to our audience on a one-to-one rather than a one-to-many level. ## The benefits of audience segmentation for businesses Beyond the community aspects of audience segmentation, some of the benefits of audience segmentation are: - **Better marketing results** – Audience segmentation is a great way to get better marketing results. It helps you target the right customers, who are more likely to convert. - **Conversions** – Audience segmentation helps your conversion rates. It’s possible to increase sales by targeting the right audience with the right message at the right time. - **Competitive intel** – Entrepreneurs can use competitive intelligence software to gain information and awareness of what their competitors are doing. - **Easy implementation** – Implementing an audience segmentation solution isn’t hard. Import data, create segments, set up automation rules, and guide your teams. ## How to use audience segments to improve your marketing strategy Marketing segments are a uniquely powerful way to personalize your message without crossing the line. We want to avoid the “{{First\_Name}}-in-ad” creepiness while still personalizing the message. Solid segmentation can do everything from informing rebranding, to helping create irresistible ads written in the audience’s native language. There’s no limit to how this info can be used – [just be ethical](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-ethics/). Here are some ideas and why they work. Each of these has a varying level of difficulty, so some technical knowledge may be needed**:** - Show ads with different ad models based on demographics (you look like me – I like you already). - Use a different tone of voice for different age demographics. - Send a targeted promotion to subscribers who previously engaged with similar content, products, or services. - Use affiliate marketing and partnerships to cross-promote related products to subscribers who engaged before. - Show your landing page in your audience’s native language (improves user experience, reducing bounce rates). - Show promotions related to the site your visitor has come from (related content, services, partnerships, case studies, workbooks, etc.). - Use psychographics to split your audience and send them to different landing pages that focus on different pain points. - Use localized storytelling to relate the concept to their region (e.g., reference local geography, culture, or political figures). - Trigger promotions at the times when your audience is most likely to be shopping online. - Present a special promotion to a repeat website visitor. **Again, there are so many ways to use this data. Please use it carefully, be transparent in your privacy policy, and always store this data in a safe environment.** ## Tools for audience segmenting As a conversion content consultant and brand strategist, I have tested a fistful of standout software that can help you achieve audience segmenting. Here are some of them: **Google Analytics 4 (GA4)** – This is best for raw data, though compared to universal analytics, Google Analytics 4 has a few more segmenting capabilities. *(Cost: free).* **Segment** – As the name might suggest, Segment is a customer data platform that excels at creating segments and unified views of your audience. *(Cost: freemium, starts at $120/month, demo required for unified view plan).* **Adobe Analytics** – Most folks know Adobe for Photoshop and After Effects, Adobe also boasts a strong arm in the analytics and segmentation game. Not very beginner-friendly, but allows more control. *(Cost: demo required, reported $500+. Large enterprises pay in excess of $100k/year).* **HubSpot Analytics** – I always end up on HubSpot’s blog for fact-checking (sometimes 2–3 times a day). As the number one free CRM, it makes sense that their software would also have strong analytics and segmenting capability too! *(Cost: start free, starter plan at $50/2 users/month).* **Constant Contact** – Primarily an email marketing tool, the auto segmentation works better than any other. They also support heatmaps, manual segmenting, and click tracking, and will intelligently send emails to your list. *(Cost: $0+/month).* **Sprout Social\***– For brands present on social media, Sprout Social’s social CRM, will help you gather data and segment your audience on social media, adding another angle to your data. *(Cost: $89+ with a free trial).* \*this is a dual-purpose tool and can be used for competitor research too! **Meta Pixel and Insights** – Specifically for creating segments on Facebook and Instagram, this pixel will integrate into our websites, apps, and landing pages and cross-reference user interactions with Meta’s user data. *(Cost: free with a Facebook page).* **HotJar** – If you want to see how users are interacting with your website and segment further based on use, HotJar is for you! *(Cost: Start free, $39+/month).* ## Tools for competitor research **SimilarWeb** – This is a freemium tool that will show you how your competitors are getting their traffic, social media, ads, or search result rankings. SimilarWeb lets you have a few free searches but will not show data for websites that get less than 5k page views per month. **SpyFu** – Primarily a keyword research tool, SpyFu lets you can pull data on your competitors from a search ranking and Adword bidding perspective which will help you reverse engineer their advertising strategy. **SWOT Analysis** – You’ll have to use some brain power for this one, [a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-run-swot-analysis/) is a business analysis framework that lets you analyze your competitors. **Porter's 5 Forces** – Yet another business analysis framework, you will be able to view your competitors from the [lens of the five forces](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-run-a-porters-five-forces-analysis-session/) and analyze their business more objectively. **VidIQ** – If your competitor uses YouTube or TikTok, visiting their profile on a desktop with VidIQ will display the search tags they use, how many times their video was engaged with and shared on social media, what keywords their channel ranks for and way more engagement metrics. **Keywords Everywhere** – A free/less expensive alternative to VidIQ, you can view video tags and basic metrics. It is missing social media engagement data and channel insights, however. **Google Search\***–Typing “site:www.example.com” will show all indexed pages on their website, letting you see everything they’ve created on their website and where they can possibly be ranking. Pro tip: this works with social pages and branded URLs too! \*this is a million-purpose tool and can be used for audience research too. ## Let’s recap Competitive intelligence and audience segmentation are a match made in heaven. They each compliment and enrich the other. By taking the time and effort to invest in creating informed segmentation, your business will not only be uniquely positioned to thrive but to start overtaking the market and building a community on a one-to-one basis at scale. More segmented and targeted messages create an ecosystem of awareness, increased sales, lower acquisition costs, and word-of-mouth awesomeness without being creepy. --- ## What's next? Loving our content, but want to get closer to the source of insights like these? Then you've gotta join our competitive intelligence Slack community. Don't miss out on this opportunity to connect with CI's best and brightest. Click below to see what it's all about. 👇 [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/CIA_Website_Banners_2-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### How to run a SWOT analysis session URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-run-swot-analysis/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T12:09:11.000Z A SWOT analysis session is a way to analyze your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (hence “SWOT”) in one fell swoop. These sessions are a great way to get an overview of your business’s current state and identify actionable next steps to grow your business. This introductory article will provide an overview of how to run a SWOT analysis session, but it won’t go into all the minutiae of each analysis. ## Prepare for the meeting As the business owner, analyst, or facilitator, you need to mentally prepare yourself for the meeting. I always take a few minutes beforehand to meditate, breathe, and get my physical environment in order. Aside from this, you should also have a writing utensil, your SWOT worksheet, and scratch paper (a whiteboard is a good idea) ready with your list of questions and notes. There’s a list of starter questions at the bottom of this article that you can use as a guide. Be sure to read over your notes and questions before the meeting. ## Opening the discussion To start a SWOT analysis session, you’ll need to open the floor. You might say something like, “I’d like to open the discussion about our business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Who wants to go first?” This will allow everyone to jump into the discussion without being nervous about speaking up. There’s no need to overcomplicate this. The fastest way to “mess up” (not really) a session is to open the floor with a general statement or question that doesn’t allow everyone to participate. The question above is a great way to just put the cards on the table and get everyone on the same page from the get-go. ## Maintain an environment of safety If your people don’t feel that they can freely speak their minds, the whole session is that much less effective. In order to maintain an environment of safety and openness, I’ve found that it’s best to have an HR, external business, or external marketing consultant present. I won’t lead a SWOT session without someone else in the room. It’s important to allow everyone to speak their mind, but it’s also important to not let things go off track. A suggestion is to have a facilitator (usually the consultant, manager, director, board member, or investor) who can step in and take over if necessary. Not allowing cross-talk and staying focused on the topic at hand will make this more pleasant. Remember, you’re discussing ways your business is falling short, so keep it light! ## Making the report transparent Before the session, print or display your SWOT analysis chart. Make sure everyone has a copy to follow along with, but keep all the information on one chart. Write everything down, even if it seems redundant. Chances are, if you let it sit for a bit and revisit the topic, there’ll be more insight or a deeper understanding. After the meeting has finished, make sure to have a copy of your SWOT analysis easily accessible. Transparency and making the analysis available for anyone at the company who wants to review it will help build trust and confidence in your team. 💡 Unlock expert templates, frameworks, and insider content from industry giants like Google and Amazon, right at your fingertips. [Become an Insider member today. ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/) ## Wrap up the session with love and a damn break The whole session should take around six to eight minutes per person, but if you have more to say, you should – this is just a guide. I can’t stress how important this next step is. Thank EVERYONE for coming, being honest, and sharing their thoughts and feelings. It’s the most important part of these sessions, to make everyone feel valued, heard, and important to the company. After the session, people may be bored, tired, and feeling a bit vulnerable. The intensity will vary from person to person, but nonetheless, it’s important to take time to recharge afterward. ## The aftercare All of the data and information from the session can now be used to help us understand what to do going forward. These insights can be translated into a plan of action to mitigate weaknesses and threats. In the same way, it can paint a picture for capitalizing on opportunities and making the most of your strengths. ## Starter questions for your SWOT analysis session You can steal any of these to get started. I encourage you to adapt these and come up with your own sets of questions. ### “Strength” starter questions - What does our company do well? - Which services are the most impactful to our customers? - What do we do that is unique? (What’s our USP?) - What do we do better than our competitors? (Note: Don’t assume everyone knows who your competitors are, it’s best to go one by one, i.e., What does {{Competitor}} do better than us? In what way?) - What resources do we have? (This can be physical, monetary, human, or intangible) ### “Weaknesses” starter questions - What does our company do that isn’t working as well as it could? - What do our customers dislike about our products and services? - What can we do better? - What are the areas where the competition is ahead of us? - What resources do we lack? (Again, physical, monetary, human, and intangible) - Which area(s) do we need to work on the most right now? ### “Opportunities” starter questions - Are there industry trends we can hop on or improve our presence in? - Is there something our customers need that we could provide to them? - Is there a customer type that we haven’t yet engaged that we should? - Are there market gaps that we can take advantage of? - How can we grow our market share in comparison to our competitors? - Is there another way we could be pricing or packaging our services? ### “Threats” starter questions - What trends are visible in our audience data? (Are they shrinking?) - If a competitor was to attack a hole in our strategy, what would that be and how would they do it? - What legal problems could we potentially face? - What environmental risks are we exposed to? - Do we have any privacy concerns? - Do we have any support system concerns? While these questions are a good starting point, make sure you ask them in the context of your business and your target audience. ## Wrap up Your SWOT analysis session can be the best way for you to move forward, and remember, it shouldn’t be a one-time thing. For every new product, service, and company milestone, SWOT should be reviewed and updated. This is an ongoing process – growth isn’t a one-time event! ****Read these next 📘**• [Your guide to competitive battlecards: the ultimate enablement asset](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/)• [Impress your boss with these 5 types of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/)• [Using win-loss interviews to improve your product](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) --- ### How to gain a sustained competitive advantage (with 10 superhero strategies) URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sustained-competitive-advantage/ Last updated: 2025-05-14T11:49:24.000Z We get it. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/ezgif.com-gif-maker--13-.gif) Big rewards mean big competition. And that means winning high-value customers time after time is difficult, even if your product’s great. That advantage you’ve worked so hard to create? Your competitors are working day and night to replicate it, beat it, and take those hard-won customers right out of your hands. 😤 So how do you stop your competitors cloning your strategy? How do you make your competitive advantage *sustainable*? Buckle up folks, we’re about to show you how. --- *Navigate directly to a section here:* 👇 - [What is a sustainable competitive advantage?](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#what-is-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage) - [Identify where you're winning, then make it sustainable.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#identify-your-advantage-then-make-it-sustainable-%F0%9F%94%8D) - [Defensive and offensive play.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#defensive-play-carving-a-defensible-competitive-niche-%F0%9F%9B%A1) - [Ten examples of sustained competitive advantage.](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#ten-examples-of-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage) --- ## What is a sustainable competitive advantage? A [sustained competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-a-sustainable-competitive-advantage/) is an edge over the competition that lasts. It’s the ability to eat up market share while making it difficult for your competitors to catch up. But the way you defend your advantage and make it sustainable depends on what the *source* of that competitive advantage is. Think of these sources as your routes to a superior position in the competitive landscape. Back in the day, that might have meant your trade secrets. Think KFC’s secret blend of 11 herbs and spices. 🐓 But today? Secrets don’t work too well. With the help of modern technology, and with privacy at an all-time low, your competitors can figure your secrets out. And with an increasing number of [competitive intelligence roles and hires](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-analyst/), you can bet there’s someone in your rival’s camp beavering away to find what your customers like about you and how they can win your slice of market share. No, secrets are out. A sustainable advantage is one that’s defensible. And today, secrets are hard to defend. ## Identify your advantage, then make it sustainable 🔍 If not secrets, then what? Well, first you need to know what you’re working with. Then you have to ask what you’ll do when your competitors clone your strategy. This is a big deal and the difference between a [competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-advantage-examples/) that can be sustained and one that can’t. If your advantage can be copied or improved upon, then it’s insecure. On the plus side, you can identify weaknesses in the competitive landscape that you can attack to improve your own competitive position. And a fairly simple framework will get you there. Let’s run through it before we go further. 👇 ### Market research and competitive intelligence The customer comes first. And that remains true when creating a sustainable competitive advantage. How well your products meet customer needs will always sit at the heart of why you win. But the emotional needs of your customers are diverse. That’s why [customer research is vital](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/): you need to know *exactly* why your customers love you and what you do. But your products don’t exist in a vacuum. You also have to understand the competitive landscape. That means doing your market research and gathering intelligence on your competitors. Win/loss analyses and customer interviews are easy first points of call since they check both boxes. But when it comes to collecting a bunch of data about your competitors and the market at large, there are a number of tools and software you can use to help you (using a bunch of them already? [Vote for your favorites in our Tools of Choice survey](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/tools-of-choice-survey-2022/)). To keep the length of this article under control, we’ll refer you to these lovely resources for more info: 👇 --- ****Suggested reading** 📘 • [Building a competitive intelligence program as a solo practitioner](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/) • [Impress your boss with these five types of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/) --- ### SWOT analysis Talking to your customers first is smart since they’ll tell you what your competitors do well and where they’re falling short. So, with the data from your customers in hand, you can turn to your competitors. A competitive SWOT analysis is the best way to ID their strengths and weaknesses. Then tie your findings back to your own weaknesses and core competencies. At this point, you’ll already be asking yourself the following questions (which is what makes this practice so good): Can the competitor attack your advantage? How might they do it? How can you defend against these attacks? ### VRIO analysis [The VRIO framework](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/vrio-framework/) has you examine your firm's internal resources and capabilities as sources of potential competitive advantage. You then rate these resources and capabilities according to each of four factors: - Value - Rarity - Inimitability - Organization According to the VRIO framework, those that meet all four of the above factors constitute a sutained competitive advantage for the business. ### Predictable and unpredictable events Quick side note: it’s not just the things you can predict that you should do your best to defend against. If your organization’s profitability depends on your competitive advantage, you’ll want to develop plans for defending against the so-called “unknown unknowns”. Black swan events are those with a vanishingly small probability of occurring. But, given a large enough time horizon, the probability of them actually occurring at least once becomes huge. If you’re planning on building a brand that sticks around for decades, it pays to create a defensive strategy for handling these extreme events. Otherwise, you risk allowing a possible sustained advantage to degrade into a mere [temporary competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/temporary-competitive-advantage/). ## Defensive play: carving a defensible competitive niche 🛡 Once you know where you’re winning, you can get to work building a moat around these advantages, stopping imitators in their tracks. Making your advantages difficult to duplicate often comes down to being willing to do what others aren’t. And the willingness to put in that extra effort often stems from your organization’s founding principles and values. Once you’re known for being *the* energy provider that cares about the environment, for example, it’s way more difficult for competitors to convince the market that *they* occupy that position instead. But the business that adopts recycled packaging and calls it a competitive advantage? Well, they’ve got the wrong idea. An edge is hard-won in any competitive endeavor. Everyone goes for the low-hanging fruit, so if you want to dominate the market, you’ll need a plan to target the fruit at the top of the tree too. You need to build the ladder, climb up there, and then defend the materials you used to build the ladder in the first place. ## Offensive play: restricting your rivals’ options ⚔️ Defending your advantages against imitation isn’t the only way to make your competitive advantage sustainable. Actively restricting your competitors’ options is just as effective and, with an idea as to how the competition might attack *you*, you can start looking for openings in the market you can exploit. 💭 **Remember: your competitors can begin pursuing an opening in the market at any time too. So be deliberate about what you choose to pursue or leave alone.* As we’ll discuss, trade deals and patents are excellent ways of doing this. They come with their risks, but if you and all your competitors need the same raw materials for processor chips, and you sign an exclusive contract with the key supplier, you have an unreplicable advantage. Of all the types of competitive advantage out there, there will be a couple that stand out as most attainable and most defensible for your organization. But these two principles, of defending your competitive advantages and actively restricting your competitor’s options, are the bedrock for making your competitive advantages sustainable. Get them right and you’re off to the races. 🏎 ## Ten examples of a sustainable competitive advantage So, you need to figure out where you’re winning with your customers, and identify where you sit in the competitive landscape. Knowing which of your advantages are vulnerable to attack, and where new opportunities might exist, is super valuable. But what if you’re wondering what a competitive advantage even looks like? Here are ten examples: 1. [Executing on innovation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#1-executing-on-innovation) 2. [Flexible products and agile businesses](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#2-flexible-products-and-agile-businesses) 3. [Competitive intelligence and (re)positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#3-competitive-intelligence-and-repositioning) 4. [People: their knowledge, experience, and expertise](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#4-people-their-knowledge-experience-and-expertise) 5. [Strength of brand and reputation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#5-strength-of-brand-reputation) 6. [Undercutting: winning on price](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#6-undercutting-winning-on-price) 7. [Pricing power](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#7-pricing-power) 8. [Economies of scale and production](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#8-economies-of-scale-and-production) 9. [Strategic assets](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#9-strategic-assets) 10. [Access advantages: barriers to entry](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/89a6ef1c-3e03-4602-9a28-01b3c31ce3b1/#10-access-advantages-barriers-to-entry) ### 1) Executing on innovation The faster you can innovate the better. When you innovate, you can’t help but stand out. If your product meets customer needs in new and better ways than the competition, then you’ve got a valid competitive advantage. But there’s a problem. *Innovation is expensive.* True creatives and trailblazers are in high demand for a reason. They’re rare and, when their solutions work, they drive massive demand for your product. If you get lucky and land one early on in their career, it can completely change the course of your business for the better. But since true innovation is rare, you could be waiting indefinitely for that person to walk through the door. And poaching someone from another industry or business? Well, if you can’t afford them, then that’s not an option. But there’s another issue. *Imitation*. Imitation is cheaper and faster than innovation, and innovation is nothing without speed of execution. If you’re going to innovate, you have to be able to execute quickly. If your competitors are able to poach your ideas and execute them faster than you can, then the competitive advantage is theirs. **Making innovation sustainable** It doesn’t have to be an individual who brings the creative juice to what you do. Teams working together can compete here. Whether it’s a few individuals or a company-wide effort, you need to recognize your creative talent and then work hard to keep them. After all, if all the creatives are working with you, then they’re not working for your competitors. ### 2) Flexible products and agile businesses Flexibility and agility can mean a couple different things, but both make for great competitive advantages that, done right, can be sustainable. Flexible products, for example, are capable of filling a variety of different customer needs. Or they can fill a single need in a variety of ways, giving many people an enjoyable experience while they have that need met. Or this could mean being flexible as an organization. You see this all the time in tech and start-up environments. Every job ad mentions how “fast-moving” the business is. When this is true, it can be a great strategic advantage. As we alluded to before, coming up with great ideas is only part of the puzzle. And if you can’t execute them in time? Well, then those ideas become meaningless. **Making flexibility and agility sustainable** Flexibility and agility are often baked right into an organization's founding values or the product's design principles. When they’re deep-rooted like this, they’re very sustainable. It’s doing the hard work upfront to establish that kind of company culture or ensuring that the entire product team is working towards the same vision of a flexible product, that’s the challenge. ### 3) Competitive intelligence and (re)positioning Through competitive intelligence programs, an organization can react to competitor developments and position itself, its brand, and its products to cancel them out as soon as they arise. This is a very marketing-specific version of business agility. It requires an active approach to competitive intelligence and cross-functional buy-in to execute quickly on that intel. Done right, your competitors will feel like they’re playing chess against a grandmaster with an answer for all their best moves. Where this sits on the offensive-defensive spectrum is interesting. For one, it’s reactive. Rather than defending a competitive advantage you’ve established, or cutting off an option for a competitor before they can get to it, you’re neutralizing their advantages as soon as you notice them. **Making marketing and competitive intelligence strategies sustainable** Like many of the advantages here, it’s the groundwork you lay early on that sets the course for sustainability. If competitive intelligence is top-of-mind for everyone in the organization, you’ll never lack intel, and decision-makers will release budget to invest in automation tools to help gather that intel. And when it comes to repositioning, it has to be done quickly. That means you need a strong team with the experience to build a plan and execute it. --- ****Suggested reading 📘** • [A beginner's guide to the positioning matrix](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/) --- ### 4) People: their knowledge, experience, and expertise The benefit of a great team can’t be overstated. If you’ve got the best team in the industry, you can’t help but have a competitive advantage. You’ll create a better product, bring it to market more effectively, track metrics more accurately, and make improvements faster. **Making expertise sustainable** The key to making all this sustainable? SOPs. SOPs, or standard operating procedures, are centralized documents, frameworks, and cheat sheets outlining best practices. They make knowledge replicable across the organization, ensuring your results aren’t dependent on the enlightened few. If you make sure that your people are documenting their knowledge in centralized resources, their expertise becomes the organization’s expertise. If a member of your team moves on, you minimize the impact of that loss and continue to benefit from their knowledge. ### 5) Strength of brand & reputation When you cultivate a strong brand and reputation, the payoff can be huge. Double down on doing a few things so well no one can hope to compete. Succeed and you’ll establish strong customer loyalty and brand advocates who spread the word of your greatness, eating up mind-share from other competitors. Rock-solid customer service is a great place to start. It’s cheap to implement and the only real requirement is that you hire well and in abundance (overstretched staff will always struggle to deliver, no matter how good their intentions). **Making brand reputation sustainable** It takes time and investment, with a commitment to excellence, to cultivate a strong reputation, a strong brand, or a superior product. But once you’re known for delivering a great customer experience time after time, your customers will find it difficult to look the other way. Even lower prices, unbeatable offers, and strong promises lose their shine when competing against a trusted and established brand**.** ### 6) Undercutting: Winning on price While competing purely on price is not a sustainable strategy, the ability to strategically undercut your competitors can still help you win. When you compete purely on price, you eat into your profit margins and communicate to customers that your product is a commodity with little differentiated value. Any organization that’s better positioned to take advantage of economies of scale can beat you. But when *you’re* that well-positioned entity, able to offer terrific value at low cost to your customers because of economies of scale, secured deals with suppliers, or other strategic advantages, then [a cost competitive advantage](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/cost-competitive-advantage/) becomes another tool in your arsenal. **Making cost-advantage sustainable** You don’t have to offer the lowest-cost product to offer a competitive price. In the marketplace, value wins. So even if your product is expensive, so long as you’re offering massive value for that price, customers will still think they’re getting a great deal. And the allure of an unbeatable offer is sure to offer you a competitive advantage. ### 7) Pricing power Pricing power has nothing to do with offering the same service at a lower cost. An organization with pricing power is one that can *increase* its prices without losing customers. This is almost always a direct result of having one of the other competitive advantages discussed here, but it’s also a competitive advantage in and of itself. With pricing power, you can increase your profit margins with no consequences. Then, you get to put the extra profit to work by investing in your staff, in your product, in your marketing and messaging, or in securing better business relationships with suppliers. All of these give you options for defending your advantages from competitors. **Making pricing power sustainable** Pricing power is pretty magical in that you’ve already laid the groundwork for it elsewhere to make it possible. When your brand is strong enough that people will pay more just for you, then you have pricing power. Turn the crank, reinvest the profits, and ride the positive feedback spiral to the end. ### 8) Economies of scale and production This one’s huge. Improvements to production processes improve product margins and make possible economies of scale. It was his approach to production (though innovation had a huge part to play) that made Henry Ford his fortune. > “With a mass market for automobiles, it paid to invest in expensive but labor-saving mass production machinery, whose cost per car would turn out to be modest when spread out over a huge number of automobiles.” *Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics.* The key here is “if there were only half as many cars sold as expected, then the cost of that machinery per car would be twice as much.” **Making economies of scale sustainable** Economies of scale rely on mass markets. And the competitive advantage that comes with them relies on the infrastructure your organization builds to produce a product or service on that massive scale. And once that infrastructure is in place you’ll reap the rewards so long as you maintain it. Depending on the market size, there may or may not be room for more than one entity operating at that kind of scale. If there is, you might have to employ one of the other advantages outlined here. ### 9) Strategic assets You can use your business’ strategic assets to defend your intellectual property and to protect your strategic advantages from competitor poaching. Patents, trademarks, and copyrights, are all examples of such strategic assets. But any company asset, attribute, or ability your competitors can’t imitate will provide a superior long-term position for you and your organization. **Making strategic assets sustainable** The great thing about these is that they’re sustainable in and of themselves. If you have the rights to the very thing that make a particular product design desirable, others can imitate as hard as they want - they’ll never manage to fill that customer need as well as you can. ### 10) Access advantages: barriers to entry Access advantages create barriers to entry others must overcome before they can compete. Here’s an example: Perhaps you have family connections to a chain of mining facilities. Many of these facilities mine copper, gold, and other raw materials used in technology and engineering. If you were to go into either of these industries, you could use your family connections to secure unbeatable prices on the raw materials. Then, you could pass those savings onto the customer and compete strongly on price, or you could retain the higher profits, re-invest in R&D, and create a superior product people are willing to pay even more for. **Making access advantages sustainable** Much like strategic company assets, like patents and copyrights, access advantages are self-sustaining. In fact, an access advantage often stems *from* a strategic asset. For example, a ten-year contract for coffee beans at a rock-bottom price. One that blocks your competitors from ever getting as good a price from this supplier. **The issues with access advantages** Access advantages are tricky though. If they’re to give you a sustainable competitive advantage, you have to be able to enforce them. Otherwise, competitors will strike up similar deals and nullify your advantage. You also have to get in early. This kind of “first-mover advantage” is great to have, but you’re out of luck if you’re late to the party. But, as we’ve mentioned, imitating is both quicker and cheaper than innovating, so options exist for those who aren’t first-in. And, if you lock in terms for the long haul only for better terms to become available down the line, you’ll be stuck with worse terms than your competitors. They’ll then eat up the new and improved access advantage. ## Closing thoughts Remember: a competitive advantage always comes back to the customer. The strength of your advantage directly ties to the value you offer your customers above and beyond what they would get from your competitors. Where that value comes from, its *source*, is what you want to defend. At the same time, you can work to cut off the avenues your competitors might take to establish a stronger competitive advantage. --- ## What's next? Looking for your next best decision? Join our competitive intelligence Slack workspace and rub shoulders with CI's best and brightest. 💪 [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/09/CIA_Website_Banners_2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### Building credibility as the owner of a competitive intelligence program URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-credibility/ Last updated: 2022-11-30T12:07:28.000Z Your first day at a new job can be a nerve-wracking experience, all the more so if you’re there to build a brand-new CI function for a company that has never had one before. How can you start building credibility right away and garner a set of allies who know that they can rely on you? That’s what Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon is here to quiz Holly Jackson about in this episode of Into the Fray: The Competitive Intelligence Podcast. Holly runs Competitive Intelligence and Competitive Strategy at Talkdesk, and she's an expert in the space. She’s spent almost her entire career in this discipline, and she’s spun up CI programs at not one, but two different companies. Read on to find out how Holly handles those all-important first 90 days on the job, so you can walk into your next role with confidence. **Key talking points include** - [Building credibility from day zero](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-credibility/#building-credibility-from-day-zero) - [Finding success with sales](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-credibility/#finding-success-with-sales) - [Finding champions in other departments](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-credibility/#finding-champions-in-other-departments) - [Building credibility in a remote working environment](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-credibility/#building-credibility-in-a-remote-working-environment) - [Winning over the C-suite](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/building-credibility/#winning-over-the-c-suite) ## Building credibility from day zero **Q: When you join a new organization, even with your wealth of experience, it's gotta be daunting at first. And I imagine it’s all the more daunting if you’re the first CI hire. How do you begin to build your personal credibility? Do you have to start doing it on day one?** I think it starts before day one, in the interview process. You're always given the advice to interview the company that's interviewing you, and I truly believe in that. It's especially important in a [competitive intelligence role](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-analyst/) or any role where you're coming in to build a function. It's vital to understand your new company’s perspective, culture, and processes, and then use that to form your vision. You can start to set up your vision for the competitive intelligence program in the interview. Then yes, it starts properly on day one. The biggest thing that I've learned is to have an opinion on things. A lot of times in CI, we're getting information from a ton of different sources, and I think that a mistake that some junior CI people make is taking that information and just re-sharing it without adding any perspective or opinion. You’ll be getting a lot of information from the new company you’re joining, and it’s really important to balance that with your own experiences and the research you’ve done so you can bring in your own fresh perspective. --- [‎Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast: Building credibility as the owner of a CI program | Holly Jackson, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Talkdesk on Apple Podcasts‎Show Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast, Ep Building credibility as the owner of a CI program | Holly Jackson, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Talkdesk - 4 Apr 2022![](https://podcasts.apple.com/favicon.ico)Apple Podcasts![](https://is3-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/51/5b/40/515b40ba-64b2-2038-6313-725348fa697c/mza_6590695369496601757.jpg/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/building-credibility-as-the-owner-of-a-ci/id1609944641?i=1000556186503) --- **Q: I love that day zero approach. You're laying the groundwork before you even walk in the front door. And ostensibly, the people you’re talking to in your interview will eventually be your superiors or your colleagues, so you're laying out your very loose framework for how to be successful before you even sign an offer letter. That's fascinating.** A: Absolutely. That's how we did it here. I'm pretty fortunate that my manager had read some blogs from the Product Marketing Alliance and Crayon before he even opened the role, so he realized that there was a gap in his skill set and he needed to bring on a specialist. And I knew from our initial conversations that he had an appetite and a respect for CI and could see the value that it could bring. There could have been a situation where our vision of a CI program wasn’t aligned, and that wouldn’t have been a problem – some companies just have a different vision. But maybe that wouldn’t be the right fit for how I want to run a program. I realized very early on with Talkdesk that we were very much aligned on our vision for the program before I ever received an offer. We had multiple interviews and we talked about everything from [the ethics of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) – that's highly important to both the company and to me – to what kind of program we envisioned, who our initial stakeholders should be, and our long-term vision. Before I ever came on board, we had an alignment of what the CI program overall would look like, and that’s helped us a lot. **Q: So now you're there; you've arrived at the company. It’s day one, and you're meeting everybody. How do you start introducing yourself to new stakeholders? Do you have to come preloaded with an explanation of your role?** A: My manager had a vision for the function already, so he’d already done a lot of groundwork, building a reputation for CI. He just needed someone to come in and own it full-time. He did a great job of setting up introductions with various sales leaders and functional leaders, and then I’d take over that and say, “Hey, I’m Holly Jackson. I'm here to do CI. What’s your perspective on things? How can we work together?” As I mentioned earlier, part of how you build your credibility from the ground up is by having a perspective – I brought that to conversations as well. I came into each conversation, wanting to learn from them, but also being willing to share a little bit of my perspective, just to start laying that credibility and that groundwork and show that I'm here to help. ## Finding success with sales **Q: You’ve gotten past the day one conversations – everyone’s super nice. As you start to approach days 30, 60, or 90, what are some quick wins you can get under your belt to show that the function you’re building is paying dividends?** **During those initial conversations, or perhaps those that come later, are you finding the areas by which you can score a victory that's going to help you take your new girl swag and momentum forward?** A: Yeah, definitely. For us, that was the sales organization. It's the easiest, most digestible, and most actionable application of CI. There's a huge appetite among sellers and SEs to have CI, so that was a way for us to get some quick wins. We use Slack internally. There are a ton of different channels, including a competitive intelligence channel, which is very active. I was able to jump on there very quickly and add some insights. But more often than not, those wins came through conversations with sellers. I’d say, “Hey, I saw that you're working on a deal and that you're competing against whoever. Have you considered positioning our strengths as this?” That helped us get some quick wins and credibility with sellers. [Your Go-to Guide to Competitive Sales EnablementIn this guide to using competitive intelligence to power your sales enablement program, we cover everything you need to know about the discipline.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/11/clark-tibbs-oqStl2L5oxI-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) **Q: How do you make those inroads with the individual sellers? Are there different philosophies in the different companies you've done this in? Does it have to be top-down from management, or can it be built as a groundswell from a couple of interested sellers?** A: The way that I've had the most success is ground-up. I think that every CI practitioner's dream is to influence the highest level, but my personal objective is to have an organization-wide CI practice, where it's not just our team contributing and using CI, but decision-makers and money makers at all levels of the company are armed with intel. So I start with the sellers. I arm them with the information they need, and the ones that get it *get it*. They're the ones that become CI’s biggest advocates. We've also had a lot of success gamifying our CI program with our sellers. To your earlier question about how we identify sellers to work with, I look for the top performers, the ones that had really strong success rates against that particular competitor, the ones that are constantly asking questions or providing answers in the Slack channel. To me, those are the CI champions. I want to align with them and show them that I’m here to help. I see that they’ve already got the appetite for CI and we can work together to nurture their skills. **Q: There's a level of obsession with some of the higher-performing sellers; they'll take every single advantage that you give to them and run with it. A cool point is that you don't go for the middle of the road, or the underperformers, hoping to make them better. The rising tide raises all boats, starting with the yachts, right?** A: Absolutely. There's no harm in starting with the middle of the road or the poor performers. But who are the ones that aren't as successful going to look to in order to learn how they can do better? The rock star sellers. That's who we're going to align with. I think that part of building credibility with CI is showing that there are other people who do it well in the organization. Knowing who those people are and bringing them in at the right time is one of the core things that CI does well. It’s like a knowledge base of internal stakeholders. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/CIA_Website_Banners_2-6.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ## Finding champions in other departments **Q: Have you found influencers in other departments? And is there a different way of going about doing it when it's a product manager, a customer success manager, or somebody in the business development team?** A: We have relationships with so many stakeholders in different functions across the organization. One thing that we've found successful is surveying people when they come about their industry experience. Without breaking any NDAs, we want to know if they’ve worked for a competitor and hear their perspective on the market. We have product relationships, we have partner relationships, and we have customer marketing relationships. It’s about finding people who understand the value of CI, even if they don't realize it, and leveraging their perspective and their insights to make that an organization-wide effort. **Q: Would you say that tapping into people’s industry knowledge as soon as they arrive helps build that level of credibility with brand new starters?** A: That's exactly right. Of course, we ask them if they mind participating, keeping the NDA in mind because we're in a very competitive and concentrated market, and then we interview them. Some of the things we like to know are, what was the perception of Talkdesk among that competitor? What was the perception among their customers? What are some quick wins that we could probably score? What are some greenfield opportunities that we haven't even thought about? So yeah, we're constantly talking to new hires from the industry and elsewhere. ## Building credibility in a remote working environment **Q: You work for a company that's almost entirely remote, but previously in your career, you probably could walk up to somebody's cubicle and share intel.** **In the era of Zoom and Slack, have you found it easier to corral people into those conversations? Or is it more challenging because everybody is all over the planet and not able to come together physically in a room?** A: There are challenges. You miss out on those opportunities to have organic conversations that bubble up naturally. We are mindful about setting up regular calls with sellers to congratulate them on wins and do debriefs. We even join the sales leaders' team calls just to hear what's going on. Slack is also a great resource. Even if I'm not actively monitoring channels, (the number of channels at our disposal can get overwhelming) if I want to know the latest on X competitor, I'll just do a search for it. I can read everybody's responses on that particular competitor, then I can say, “Hey, Joe is talking a lot about them. He must be hearing something a lot in the industry,” and I can take that as an opportunity to have a real conversation with him. **Q: You go directly to Joe and say, “Alright, you're letting out things in dribs and drabs. Let's have a deeper conversation. Who's your source? How do you know about this?” You're almost a journalist in a lot of ways.** A: Yeah. It's funny because a lot of people, when they hear I do [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/), they're like, “Oh, you're a spy?” I much prefer the journalist perspective because we're gathering information with an unbiased point of view, and we're disseminating that back out to the decision-makers. I think that the journalist analogy is perfect. ## Winning over the C-suite **Q: Okay, you’re past your day one, past your day 30, past your day 60, past your day 90\. You’re growing the program and building credibility.** **It's a process; it's taking time, but at some point, you have a conversation with a stakeholder, and suddenly you see it – click, boom, I get this. I understand the value of what CI can bring to me and my department.** **What does that look like for you? Could you describe a moment where you saw someone’s mind being blown?** A: I noticed from day one that Talkdesk has a culture of trusting the people that they hire to be experts for whatever functional area that they cover, so I knew that they were mostly getting it already. The moment I was like, “We've really got it,” was when we were invited to start presenting to the executive leadership team every quarter. That was when I knew that they see the value in CI. It's incredibly validating. I've done this for 10 years now, and this is the first opportunity where the executive level has really gotten it. As validating as that is, it's even more validating to see it played out over and over again when you see a culture of CI being built over time. --- **Further reading 📘** • [Impress your boss with these five types of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/) • [Building a competitive intelligence program as a solo practitioner](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/) --- **Q: The C suite is either the easiest to win over with competitive intelligence or the most challenging because a lot of companies were born in the crucible of competition. Should getting the executives to buy-in be the ultimate goal for a competitive intelligence practitioner?** I think that for every CI practitioner, the dream is to know that your C-suite is consuming and acting on the information that you’re providing, but I don't know that that should be your goal. Especially within your first three months, that's probably unrealistic because if you're coming into a fresh organization with no CI function, you're not going to have that credibility yet. Even after 90 days, no matter how strong of a CI person you are, you have to build credibility. Our executives are very plugged into the competitive landscape, so they already had that level of awareness. The value that we're bringing is just on top of what they already know about the landscape. **Q: Even just getting a little bit of access to the leadership is a good thing, and it should prove that this is a stakeholder group to pay attention to, right?** A: Absolutely. Don't ignore them. In organizations where you don't have access to the C-suite yet, you should look for the layers below that and how you can influence them, inform them, or align with them, because those people influence the C-suite. Finding your champions at every level, especially at the level that can talk to the C-suite for you and give you a seat at the table, is one way that you can start building your credibility at the highest level. --- ## What's next? Like hearing from the pros? Of course you do. For more insights like these, sign up for our competitive intelligence Slack community and rub shoulders with CI trailblazers. Ask questions, network, and knowledge share your way to a more fulfilled career. [Join it now](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### How to run a Porter’s Five Forces analysis session URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-run-a-porters-five-forces-analysis-session/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T12:08:57.000Z Running a business analysis using Porter’s Five Forces (P5F) is an exciting opportunity to dig deeper into your customers’ motivations and behaviors. It’s a great way to gain new insights into your business, and it’s often used in strategic planning to identify potential growth areas and breakthrough ideas. This guide will provide you with the basic information you need to run a successful Porter’s Five Forces session, but it won’t go into depth about what Porter’s Five Forces analysis is. Instead, this article will provide you with the background information you need to run a successful session! Let’s get into it. ## Choosing a facilitator Now, I personally recommend finding an outside consultant to run the session. But I also know that sometimes cost is a barrier to entry. Choosing a facilitator can be challenging, but choose someone who is familiar with the business and the five forces. Office managers, business partners, board members, investors, and directors are all very different people, but all great places to start looking for a facilitator. ## Preparing for the session Before we talk about the session itself, let’s talk about you. You need to be prepared to have your business analyzed. A lot of business owners and entrepreneurs are terrified of this! No one likes to be told that their business sucks. Just try to remember it’s not a personal attack, it’s an opportunity to grow. (I know it’s hard sometimes – take deep breaths!) If you’re the facilitator, make sure you have a list of questions, a clear head, and your [Porter’s Five Forces worksheet](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1EeDx01MP5pmQ6TX69wzcjJIyMwuzJNFgKQk12eTd0JA/edit#slide=id.g13b3b594d70%5F0%5F310) handy. Make sure there are enough copies for everyone in the room. A whiteboard and projector also work perfectly – just don’t forget to take a picture and transcribe it later. I strongly recommend taking 15–30 minutes before the session to go over the worksheet and questions, and to take some time to clear your head. Personally, I’ll meditate, stretch, and get my physical environment clear and ready to go. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/CIA_Website_Banners_2-5.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ## Opening the floor for discussion A simple phrase of introduction is all you need. Start with the first force and work through, asking questions and getting feedback along the way. Kick off the session with a simple, “What kind of competition do we have in the industry?” This will get the conversation flowing the right way. I highly recommend taking steps to make everyone feel safe to share their opinions. An HR representative is great to have present if you have one. If not, just make sure everyone feels comfortable, and most importantly, don’t discredit anyone or brush them off. ## Recording the feedback Either the facilitator or a note taker should take notes on the P5F worksheet that will become the “master copy”. Record everything on the worksheet and if something needs to be expanded on, revisit it later on in the session to keep the flow of the conversation going. ## Starter questions for Porter’s Five Forces analysis Use these starter questions to help get the conversation started. Don’t forget to have a copy of the worksheet for everyone with you! ### Threats of new entrants - What costs are required to enter the market? - What are the barriers to entry? (e.g. trademarks, patents, regulatory body approval, etc.) - What does it take to make the business scalable? - Are your key business concepts protected? (trademarked, patented, or registered with a regulatory body). - How strictly is your market regulated? (e.g. If you run a marijuana dispensary or financial services company you’ll have a higher level of regulation). ### Threat of substitutes - How is your business or service different from its competitors? - Are there any direct substitute products available in the market? - What is the cost of switching to a substitute service or product? - How difficult is it to switch to a competitor? (Note: From a user experience perspective, if your answer is more than “super easy” you want to evaluate if the opportunity to make it simpler will give you an overall advantage or disadvantage). - What products or services can you provide to replace a competitor? ### Supplier’s bargaining power - How many suppliers does your business have? - How unique are the products or services that they provide to you? - How many alternative suppliers can you find? How do they compare? How much would you have to invest to switch to them? How long would it take? ### Buyer bargaining powers - How many buyers control a large percentage of your sales? - What is your average order value or ticket price? - Could your buyers switch suppliers? What costs would switching incur? - What ROI does your product deliver to your customers? ### Competitor rivalries - How many competitors do you have? [Who are your biggest competitors](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/)? - How does the quality of your competition compare to your products and services? What are the differences? - What makes you unique? - Is there a cost for your customers to switch to a competitor? --- ****Recommended reading 📘**• [Impress your boss with these 5 types of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/types-of-competitive-intelligence/)• [The four best sources of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/) --- ## Reporting and wrapping it up After the session, gather all the papers or take a picture of your whiteboard to transcribe everything into a central document. Once the final report is complete, make sure everyone gets a copy. Or, to save paper, make sure the report is available on a shared drive, Dropbox, or in another common area. Much like the SWOT analysis, the P5F worksheet is a living document that should be updated as new information arises. While I call P5F the backup to the SWOT, they should really both be used in tandem, though for different applications. --- ## Connect with the pros Psst! We've got your invitation to the cool kids' table. 🎟 Click below to join the fastest-growing community of competitive intelligence professionals. A place for you to upskill, knowledge share, and connect with the best. 💪 [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/15.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### Don't open an Instagram account to build a brand URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/dont-open-an-instagram-account-to-build-a-brand/ Last updated: 2024-12-17T09:39:09.000Z Brand-building isn't about creating a social media page for people to follow. It's not about consistent posting. It's not about how many followers you have. Those are good to look at, but they serve little purpose when it comes to building a brand. Let's get back to basics. ## The problem with businesses that want to build a brand This article isn't about businesses being on Instagram. This article isn't about social media's ability to generate business. It's about brand-building. If you're in the city, go outside and take a walk. If you see a cafe, a restaurant, or a relatively modern store, pull out your phone and see if you can find their social media. You’ll most likely find it. Today, we live in a world where people are overloaded with information. With every tap and every scroll, new information is thrown at you. This has resulted in reduced attention spans, so it's becoming increasingly harder to reach out to people and move them to take action. With every other business having an online presence, there are three things you have to think about. 1. Why would anyone follow you? 2. Of those that follow you, you'll be lucky if 3% of them engage with your content. 3. Of those that engage with you, you'll be lucky if even a few of them are genuinely interested and actively following your brand. So… **where's the branding**? The problem is, I've seen businesses put so much time, effort, and money into growing their “online presence” on social media, and it brings them negligible results in terms of increasing their brand value. That's just not how branding works, and it's a major flaw in the mindset of businesses and business owners today. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/2.png) ## What is branding? To understand branding, we need to start by understanding what a brand is. **A brand is essentially an identity.** Just as you have an identity, and I have an identity, a brand is like an individual with its own identity. Let's say you walk into a room and see two people – one's your friend, and the other is your enemy. Your friend will want to be around you, while your enemy won’t even want to be in the same room as you. **It's the same with a brand**. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/1.png) If someone likes your brand, they will buy from it consistently. If someone doesn't like your brand, they'll stay away from it. They might even tell others how bad your brand is and discourage them from following it. So what is branding *really* about? If you've followed along to this point, you already know what I'm going to say – branding is about building favorable impressions in the minds of your prospects and customers. To build these favorable impressions, it’s not enough to talk the talk – you need to walk the walk too and make sure everyone knows it. When it comes to building a brand, actions speak louder than words, but you also need words to let people know about the actions you've taken. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/CIA_Website_Banners_2-4.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ## 1975 vs 2022 – Who does it better? Take the famous example of Coke and Pepsi’s blind taste test. In 1975, Pepsi was confident about its product and put it to the test. Two white cups were set up in public places – one with Coke, and the other with Pepsi. Passersby were invited to try both and select the one they preferred. As it turned out, people preferred Pepsi over Coke. Now, do you think this would be such a widely-known case study if Pepsi hadn't marketed the fact that they did this? In fact, it was their marketing that led to Coca-Cola formulating the New Coke. The truth is, everything you believe about bigger brands is a belief that the brand has intentionally created within your mind. **It's deliberate**. You can decide what you want others to think of your brand, but you can't influence anyone's opinion without marketing it. ## Businesses in 2022 Today, the marketing world is a lot more complex. There are a lot of choices, and attention spans are shrinking. The result is that it's harder than ever to influence people. Still, most businesses today lack an understanding of the importance of **action** in brand-building. Now, as you’ve been reading this article, you've probably been thinking to yourself, “But we can educate people about our brand and market it on social media.” Yes, you can. The problem is, that's all many brands do – educate. “Post consistently, and post about your business to become an authority on the subject, and people will follow you.” That’s the mindset of most businesses today. Unfortunately, this is an outdated approach and it doesn't work as well anymore. You might get followers over a period of time, but it's not going to be worth the effort that goes into it. Most businesses today, as good as their [brand positioning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/) ideas may be, fail to take actions that prove their positioning to their audiences. They need to do something tangible that audiences can get behind. ## Where social media comes in Social media is good for spreading the word. It's good for building a community. It's good for a lot of things – but alone, it's not enough for branding. It's a tool that has a lot of potential in furthering your marketing interests, but it becomes a branding tool only when there's a tangible, actionable branding strategy behind it. --- ## Hang out with the experts Enjoy hearing from the experts? Wanna get closer to the source? We've got you covered. Join Slack's fastest growing competitive intelligence community. [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/15.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### Competitive intelligence: How it started, where it's going URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/past-present-future/ Last updated: 2022-11-30T12:08:54.000Z Companies big and small are starting to take notice of [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/). There has been a massive amount of investment in our industry, and there are more job posts on LinkedIn that feature the phrase “competitive intelligence'' now than ever before. But that's competitive intelligence right now. What was competitive intelligence like five to 10 years ago? And what’ll it look like in the next five to 10 years? Those are the big questions that Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon, has for **Steve Hernan**, Senior Manager of Strategic Business Intelligence at Thermo Fisher Scientific and a legend in the CI space. Read on for fascinating insights on… - Steve’s journey from psychology to competitive intelligence - How competitive intelligence went from cloak and dagger to mainstream - The digital revolution in competitive intelligence - The future of competitive intelligence ## Steve’s journey from psychology to competitive intelligence **Q: Over the past 10 years, you’ve borne witness to the growth of the competitive intelligence industry that has brought it to where it is today. Did you ever think that you’d be doing this stuff almost a decade later?** A: Not really. Competitive intelligence isn't a vocation that you go to school to study; it's usually a role that you end up going into through some other entry point, and then, if you like it, you develop it. It's not like being an accountant. My background isn't in business. I studied psychology, and then I went back to school and got an MBA because I didn't know anything about finance, marketing, or anything like that. I'm glad I did it; it’s helped me a lot. After I graduated, I returned to Chicago – this was in the late 1990s – and I wound up doing a series of jobs. I was a conference producer, and then I was involved with a friend's father’s start-up. That went nowhere, unfortunately. Then I saw a job ad for a market intelligence analyst with a boutique telecom consulting company. I was like, “Yeah, I could do this,” threw my hat in the ring, got a call, and got the job. It turned out that this small company was the CI collection arm for a major telco – I won't name them – and they were charged with doing all of the primary research on their competitors, specifically, their pricing for the various business bundles and deployments. It was all undercover and nonpublic. So that was my foray into CI – this rugby scrum of covert intelligence collection. --- [‎Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast: The past, present, and future of competitive intelligence | Steve Hernan, Thermo Fisher Scientific on Apple Podcasts‎Show Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast, Ep The past, present, and future of competitive intelligence | Steve Hernan, Thermo Fisher Scientific - 9 May 2022![](https://podcasts.apple.com/favicon.ico)Apple Podcasts![](https://is3-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/51/5b/40/515b40ba-64b2-2038-6313-725348fa697c/mza_6590695369496601757.jpg/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-past-present-and-future-of/id1609944641?i=1000560073069) --- **Q: Steve, there's so much to unpack there. Let me start at the beginning. You have a psychology degree – that's fascinating. How much of competitive intelligence now is about reading the tea leaves and ascertaining people's true motivations? There's gotta be a through-line between your degree and competitive intelligence.** A: I could go on for a whole day about this. We’re seeing a whole new dynamic right now in competitive intelligence, where we've got to manage, collate, analyze, and automate huge amounts of data. That process leaves the human intelligence side out, which is where the psychology part goes in. I've always been of the contention that there's a human being at each end of this equation – a fallible entity, a walking bubble of bias. You've got to realize that's what you're up against when you're trying to do anything in CI, from the collection to the analysis, the dissemination to guiding policy – everything. Having a psychology degree gives you a huge advantage later on in your career, but early on, especially if it's just an undergrad degree, it's just so general that people are gonna say “Can you do a spreadsheet? No. Okay, I guess you're going to cut your teeth in auto claims,” which is what I did when I first got out of school. ## How competitive intelligence went from cloak and dagger to mainstream **Q: It's interesting that when you got into competitive intelligence, it was very cloak and dagger. Nowadays, companies talk about it all the time, but back then, it was considered to be teetering on the edge of unethical. That's a sizable shift. Can you talk about that change?** It all started with governmental bodies using the human intelligence model. How it transferred over into nongovernmental and commercial entities and got to where it is right now is pretty fascinating. Human intelligence, basically clandestine collection, used to be the only way for various public intelligence agencies like the FBI, CIA, and OSS, to get information. That was the model then; things are different now. My understanding is that there was a shift away from human intelligence collection in the 70s because of some of the ethical questions and concerns about it, especially around the deception, the misrepresentation, the payments for sources, and things like that. That's not to say that these concerns put a kibosh on human intelligence at the national security level. However, what it did do was dampen the emphasis on that model as the major part of how we got our information and made our decisions. What’s interesting is how it translated over into the private sector. My understanding is that people with intelligence skill sets moved out of the government or the military and set up shop. They started to advise and then were actively involved in helping large corporations – mostly because they had the budgets – to collect nonpublic information on their competitors. They were looking for intel about pricing on bids, big defense contracts, aerospace, and all of that. Having access to that kind of information could give a company a huge advantage when it came to making a sale or winning a big project. These were all-or-nothing moves. There were a handful of clients and it was a big, big deal – literally and figuratively. What I feel happened is that, because people started to see the potential results, competitive intel became more accepted as an offshoot of market research, but nonpublic market research from primary sources. It's not primary research in the classic sense where you're doing a focus group and there's complete transparency on both sides, but people are there of their own volition. It's not like they're being plied for information or you're doing it on behalf of a competitor of theirs and you haven't told them. Once CI had become a little bit more mainstream among large companies, industry clusters started building CI programs. Think about oligopolistic industries dominated by a handful of players, industries like natural resources, telecommunications, defense, pharma, and biotech – they were ripe for CI programs, and companies started to appear that could provide those services. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/CIA_Website_Banners_2-2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ## The digital revolution in competitive intelligence **Q: What other shifts in competitive intelligence have you borne witness to over these past 10 years?** It's undeniable that there’s been a digital revolution just in the amount of data that we have from various sources. It's so recent in terms of human history. It's recent, it's sudden, it’s so expansive. So what has this shift caused? Let’s look at an example. Think of machines, computers, AI, all of that – just put them into one category, and then put a human being in the other category. What do you have there? You have on one side, an entity that's inexhaustible, unless you run out of power, and can process tons of information almost instantaneously and churn out analysis and insights. A human being can't do that. We just don't have the capacity. Also, the machine side is not subject to fatigue, and it doesn't deteriorate. When you ask someone in the late stage of their career if they’re as sharp as they were in their 20s, or if they feel like the young turks are snapping at their heels, they’re like, “Yeah, well, you can't swap out what's in your noggin.” So I think it's great that the CI world has started to embrace these different sources of data as ways to make decisions. But at the same time, the human element will always predominate. Yes, a human will take longer to read the data and make a decision, but they bring good things such as understanding and empathy. Unfortunately, they also bring bad things, such as bias, hunger, and addiction. At the end of the day, unless we get rid of human beings, you're always going to have to have a human that's doing the analysis and making and living by the decisions. ## The future of competitive intelligence **Q: I'm gonna switch gears for a second. I read someplace that after you've got back office and sales roles filled out, the first person you've got to hire is a serious growth marketer that's going to feed that funnel and keep the fires burning.** **Do you feel that, somewhere down the road, CI is going to have that same priority level? When does that become such an important position that it's on the list of the first 15 or 20 people you’ve got to hire?** A: That's a great question. I'm going to deconstruct it and say, I don't want to look at CI as a position; I want to look at it as a role that might be full-time or might be part of somebody's existing job. I would go as far as saying that CI should be part of just about everybody's existing job. If I was head of a company with 100 employees, and somebody asked me, “Who are the CI professionals?” I'd say “All 100 of them because they all know who our competitors are. They're steeped in this mindset that we want to collect whatever information can get.” Maybe a person or a team would be tasked with collating and processing that data to make some sense out of it and decide our next course of action. However, intel can't be siloed by one egghead analyst and put away in the basement. It's got to be an institutional mindset, separated from a person in a role. It gives people with CI in their job titles a bit of indigestion when I say this, but I think we need to get more comfortable with the idea of a role that maybe doesn’t say “competitive intelligence” because everything is competitive intelligence these days. CI has almost lost its uniqueness, and it's a moving target as far as what it means. Competitive intel means something very different to the director of sales than it does to the director of mergers and acquisitions. It means something very different to a medical device startup than it would to a fortune 1000 biotech company. Even if you go to the big CI conferences, nobody agrees on the definition of competitive intelligence. **Q: So you’re saying that CI means too many things to too many different people, and as a result, the word itself has become bastardized. And you think that not so far down the road, the job of doing competitive intelligence is going to be up-leveled to better reflect how it can help every part of the company, right?** A: Yeah, I think so. Let's just do a quick reality test right now. I’ll just ask you this question: when you talk with people at a family gathering and you say, “Oh, I work in competitive intelligence,” what's their snap judgment?” **Q: Well, I've been telling people that I do product marketing for the past 10 years, and you should see the dumbfounded stares I get when I say that.** **But when I talk about competitive intelligence, I say, there is information available everywhere, and all that information can influence various parts of what our company does, whether it be product development, sales, or go-to-market.** **I still get some dumb stares from time to time, but I think people recognize that information is power. As long as you can find a good way to collate that and make it actionable, I think that immediately starts to get the wheels turning in people's brains. Does that answer your question?** A: Yeah. But it's a moving target. Before we had this huge explosion of data and all the industry that developed around it, I think if you had said, “I work in competitive intelligence,” people would say, “Oh, you’re in corporate espionage?” **Q: If we don’t call it competitive intelligence in the future, what should this discipline's name be?** A: That's a great question, and this is an ego-driven answer: I would not remove the word “competitive.” I think it connotes that you are looking externally at certain rivals – whether they be direct, indirect, possible substitutes, or disruptors – and you're seeing them as a possible threat. You're looking at their capabilities, and you're devising a way to best interact with them in the space when you have to go face-to-face, both at a tactical sales level and an executive strategic level. The reason I say this is an ego-driven answer is – let’s be honest – when you tell people you work in competitive intelligence, even if you're just putting a bunch of crap on a spreadsheet, they think it's cool. --- ## **Enjoy hearing from the experts?** Good news... *We know where they hang out.* Join the CIA competitive intelligence Slack community for direct access to some of the brightest minds in the biz. 👇 [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/15.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### A beginner’s guide to the positioning matrix URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/positioning-matrix-guide/ Last updated: 2024-03-13T13:10:01.000Z Competitive intelligence is a two-way street. 🚦 Your internal teams serve as a primary resource in your intelligence-gathering efforts. And, in turn, your own findings help to inform these teams’ strategies. So what tools can you use to rapidly communicate your findings to internal stakeholders? And are there any tools that can inform your *own* competitive projects? Visual learners rejoice. The positioning matrix is here. 👀 These handy lil’ tools give you a canvas to paint your competitive landscape on, informing essentials such as your: - Positioning strategy - Value propositions - Product roadmaps …and a whole lot more. ## What is a positioning matrix? Ever wondered where your product sits in the competitive landscape? Enter the positioning matrix – a tool for visualizing just that. You take two comparative qualities, stick each on an axis, and plot where you and your competitors fit on those axes. It’s like a positioning map for your competitive environment. *Note - there are actually tons of different types of matrices used in strategic marketing. Competitive matrices, SWOT analysis matrices, sales matrices… the list goes on. We’re focusing on the ‘positioning matrix’, whose closest cousin is perhaps the ‘product feature and benefits matrix’.* Take a look at this. ![Blank set of axes for a positioning matrix](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/Positioning-matrix-basic.jpg) That’s it. Not too daunting, right? Now let’s populate the matrix and choose a comparative quality for each axis. ![Positioning matrix populated with community maturity and target market scope labels, plus logos of various competitors](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/Positioning-matrix-basic--1-.jpg) All done? Then you should have something that looks a bit like this. 👆 We’ve plotted ourselves and some of our sister communities according to a pair of wonderfully neutral parameters: 1. The size of the target audience. 2. How long the community has been around. Some positioning matrices introduce a third dimension too. The size of each plotted element on the chart represents this third dimension. So if we decided to introduce generated annual revenue, or popularity as polled by the community, as our third dimension, we might get something that looks like this: ![Positioning matrix with labelled axes and various-sized competitor logos.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/Positioning-matrix-basic--2-.jpg) (We’re not biased or anything. 😉) 💡 **Tip: You might also use a positioning matrix to see how a new product stacks up against the rest of your portfolio.* ## How a matrix can inform your positioning strategy Being able to visualize where you stand amongst your competitors can inform your strategic planning. How, you ask? Your positioning matrix can be an early indicator when a new competitor pushes into your market share. Or, it might show you your positioning is a little too similar to an established rival’s. From there, you might decide it’s time to review your [competitive differentiation strategy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-competitive-differentiation/), or the finer points of your own positioning, to ensure there’s no confusion for your potential customers as to whose is the stronger product. To achieve this, you might tweak your messaging and value proposition (in the shorter term) or your product features roadmap (in the longer term). ### Ok, but walk me through it Here’s an example. Let’s say you provide accounting tools for businesses. You’ve learned of a few new disruptors in your sector. They’re using automation tech to meet the customer’s needs more quickly and cheaply. But you’re an established player, with a competitive position driven in part by your mature onboarding process and the ease of use you provide for large clients. You decide to plot these disruptors on your positioning matrix, in light of your market research into their product, brand positioning, and messaging. You find that one of these disruptors sits uncomfortably close to you on the matrix. ![Positioning matrix featuring two closely positioned competitors.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/Positioning-matrix-basic--3-.jpg) Like this, for example. This informs your positioning strategy immediately. Since this new disruptor is trying to push into your market share, you can choose to take steps (through messaging, product development, and marketing strategy) to clearly communicate your competitive advantage versus this new player. Alternatively, you might decide no response is necessary, or you might instruct the head of your [competitive intelligence program ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/)to gather more intel on this competitor. In other words, a positioning matrix can highlight those competitors over whom you should work to secure or strengthen your competitive advantage. --- ****Recommended reading** 📘• [Guide to implicit market segmentation](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/implicit-segmentation-marketing/) --- ## How to create a positioning matrix Here’s how to create a positioning matrix: 1. Launch your favorite graphic design tool. 2. Draw a pair of lines, or arrows, as axes. 3. Label those axes with your comparative qualities. 4. Plot yourself and your competitors on the matrix. It really is that simple. But what tool should you use? And what should you be comparing anyway? ### What software can I use to create a positioning matrix? You don’t need anything fancy. You just need to be able to get what you see in your head onto the screen. That’s easy to do. A bare-bones tool like Google Drawings (which we used here), works just fine. This probably doesn’t need to be briefed to your design team unless it’s an asset that won’t change for a long time. If it is, and you want it to live somewhere for the whole organization to see, then it might be worth the attention of your resident aesthetics wizard. Otherwise, your rudimentary skills in photoshop, GIMP, or any basic wireframing tool will work. And it’ll take less than ten minutes. 💡 **Tip: Google Drawings can be found by heading to Google Drive, clicking 'New', then 'More' below Docs, Sheets and Slides.* ### What should I compare? A positioning matrix is a versatile tool. And the metrics you choose to compare can be qualitative or quantitative. But, since this is a positioning matrix, those metrics must relate to your product positioning. 🔑 Also, it’s a good rule of thumb to use ‘sliding scale’ metrics, where each end of the axis represents an opposite extreme, with the middle offering a neutral middle-ground. Here are a few examples of what you might want to compare: - Premium vs economy product, - Niche vs broad target markets, - Highly customizable product vs not customizable at all. If your organization’s small and your marketing function isn’t built out yet, that doesn’t mean you can’t still benefit from a positioning matrix. It just means you’ll have to do a bit more prep work. But here’s a trick for finding the most useful positioning qualities to compare: **start with the customer.** Too often, we product marketers get so lost in the product and its latest and greatest features that we forget why the product exists in the first place. T*o meet the customer’s needs.* So, if you’re stuck, ask yourself this: > How does my product aim to fix my customers’ **core problems**? Brainstorm for a few minutes, and you’ll likely have a list of at least a few problems your product aims to solve. Now, look for all the ways you’re presenting that as an experience to your customer. Positioning ties in with how you want your customers to *feel* about your product and the experience you want them to have while using it. So once you’re clear on the practical need your customer wants to solve, you can delve a level deeper, get to the emotional need they want fulfilling, and look at the subtext in your existing messaging that’s hitting your customers’ emotional touchpoints. Need an example? Here goes. ### A better night’s sleep for just $5 You sell lavender-fragranced eye masks for sleeping. That’s your product, priced at $30 a pop. You’ve positioned the product to solve the customer problem: **poor sleep quality.** But you’ve also positioned yours as a **premium product**. You’ve identified the core, emotional customer need as one of **craving comfort**. They want a holistic experience, and that’s what you’ve positioned your product to provide. After all, your product is lavender-scented, and perhaps also made of breathable, soft fabric that’s a joy to wear on your face. Even in the hot Summer months. And the copy on your website makes this clear. So, while you might not use price itself as a comparative quality, you might set one axis on a customer-experience scale from “economy” to “premium” and place yourself near the “premium” end. --- ## What’s next? If that’s enough technical jargon for you, why not breathe a little? Get a little more organic? A little more social, perhaps? 🍃 Our fast-growing competitive intelligence community is your new place to go to grow. Grow your network, grow your skills, grow your knowledge. Click below to join the party. 👇 [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/CIA_Website_Banners_2-1.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### Competitive battlecards: a guide to the ultimate enablement asset URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/ Last updated: 2023-11-15T12:02:56.000Z 👃\*sniff\* Ahh! Don’t you just *love* the smell of freshly baked battlecards in the morning? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/ezgif.com-gif-maker--12-.gif) Well, your sales team certainly will. Because up-to-date battlecards, sprinkled with the finest competitor intel, make your salespeople’s lives *so* much easier. So what separates the Michelin star from the microwaveable mush? Often, it leaves out the obvious. The stuff sales prospects can find in a blink. Yup, we mean [competitor pricing intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/). But also, details that live on the homepage of your competitor’s website, or on their LinkedIn. Don’t get us wrong. That’s perfectly good intel. But battlecards require a specific formula. A *recipe*, if you will, to get right. Read on to discover: - [What competitive battlecards are](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/#what-are-competitive-battlecards-%F0%9F%A7%90) - [How to begin creating them](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/#how-do-you-make-a-competitive-battlecard) - [The secret recipe for maximum battlecard efficacy](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/#what-makes-a-good-battlecard) - [The vital ingredients for really great battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/#what-makes-a-good-battlecard) ## What are competitive battlecards? 🧐 Competitive battlecards are a [sales enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) deliverable aimed at helping your sales executives overcome objections and ‘dismiss’ competitors. While that might sound harsh, the \*ahem\* *classy* way to do this is to frame your competitor’s strengths as solving a *different* problem than the one your customer’s facing. This way, you avoid belittling your peers while increasing your win rate. Your prospect thinks, “oh, maybe competitor X wouldn’t be such a good fit after all”. And now, you can frame yourself as their best solution. To that end, the battlecard is a key revenue enablement asset and should form a part of your wider market strategy. ## How do you make a competitive battlecard? So how do you go about making a competitive battlecard? It all starts with [competitive ](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/)intelligence. See, your sales battlecards should be strategically layered with just enough information to help your sales reps close deals. But not so much they become overwhelming. And since competitive battlecards in particular include information about your competitors, you need to know enough about them to put yourself in a position to counter FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) sown by your competitors and to handle prospects’ objections. There are a few things you need to know first: ### 1) Know your customer First, understand your customer. *Really* understand them. Get this information from your internal resources, including not just your customer-facing teams, like sales and customer support, but your marketing team as well. Why these teams? Your customer-facing teams are on the phone with existing and potential customers all day, every day. Meanwhile, marketing can share insights on the [market segments](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/implicit-segmentation-marketing/) and personas they’re targeting. Use these resources to grab a list of the following: - Key prospect objections. - Recurring pain points. - The product features your customers love. Include anything else that might help you to understand the customer, their needs, desires, and frustrations. Remember, without a deep understanding of the customer, you won’t know how to frame your messaging. ### 2) Know your product This one might seem obvious, but understanding your product is key. 🔑 A little humility goes a long way here. Speak with your marketing and product teams to get a sense of the past, present, and future of your product. How does it solve customer pain points? What are its key differentiators and value propositions? Understand how your product meets the needs of your customers and prospects. Learn what your prospects think of your brand and your products. Then, you’ll stand a chance at crafting unbeatable battlecards. ### 3) Know your competitors and their product This is where you really start to add value. Up until this point, you won’t have learned anything your veteran sales executives don’t already know. But, with what you’ve learned, you can begin to grasp what makes your product *different* from everything else out there. To do this, you’ll need to begin gathering intelligence on your competitor’s product. With enough of it, you can really start to make your battlecards *competitive*. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/CIA_Website_Banners_1.png)](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle/?mini=true&url=https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/p/dc98b36f-4e48-4316-8ca9-82407b243d52/) --- ## The secret battlecard recipe 🥘 So you need information on your competitors to know your key differentiators. How do you go about finding it? And what information do you need, exactly? Well, there’s a four-step process you can follow to figure all that stuff out: 1. Identify **who** your core competitors are. 2. Identify **why** you’re losing out to them. 3. Create a **strategy** for circumventing these losses. 4. **Distill** that strategy into a brief battlecard. ### Step one: prioritize your competitors 🏅 First, know that you don’t have to cover *every* competitor out there. No one can do everything, and there’s an opportunity cost for everything. So narrow it down to the three-to-five competitors you most narrowly lose out to, most of the time. Prioritizing these competitive deals ensures an ROI that higher-ups will appreciate come the end of the fiscal year. ### Step two: identify why you’re losing 😳 Second, take a look at *why* you’re losing out. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) data, interviews with experienced sales reps, customer feedback from surveys, all these things will help you figure out where you or your product is falling short. For example, is a competitor sowing the seeds of doubt by spreading FUD about your product? Be thorough here. While there are an infinite number of reasons you might lose a deal, you’ll find (with enough data), that there’s a very finite number of ways you typically *do* lose. Again, prioritization is your best friend, and it’s these losses you should focus your time and attention on. ### Step three: strategize 🎲 Once you know who you’re losing out to, and how they’re beating you, you can start figuring out a way to turn the tables. That’s why the third step requires you strategize by taking a look at your existing features and differentiators. What do you have in your arsenal to use against them? ### Step four: distill 🍸 Finally, you’ll feed that strategy back to your salespeople in a form that they can digest and put to work ASAP. This is where your battlecards come in. --- ****Recommended reading 📘** • [The four best sources of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/) • [Building a competitive intelligence program as a solo practitioner](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/) --- ## What makes a good battlecard? Gushing about all the awesome intel you have on your competitors is *not* the name of the game here. Instead, remember that your sales reps are in ‘performance mode’ while they’re on a call. The human mind isn’t nearly as good at multitasking as we’d like to think. A sales rep who’s busy turning on the charm and remembering that key new feature from the product roadmap won’t have the cognitive wherewithal to digest a 1,000-word document on the fly. ### Brevity That brings us to our first attribute of a great battlecard: the best battlecards are **concise.** Ever heard of the acronym, beloved by C-suite execs everywhere, BLUF? It stands for “bottom line up front”, and is the time-starved leader’s way of asking the rest of us to get to the point. When you’ve a ton going on at once, detail is a luxury. The same approach applies to your battlecards. Put the salient points right up top in as few characters as possible. ### Malleability There’s a balance to strike, too, between a battlecard that looks great, and one that you can update in a flash. Today, especially in SaaS, tech, and fast-moving startups, disruption is normal. The competitive landscape can shift in a second. So it’s crucial to be able to go in, make your changes, and push the fresh versions to sales with as fast a turnaround as possible. This is also an opportunity to impress your prospects with your poise when they bring up competitor X’s great new feature. When your competitive intelligence program is strong, this information won’t come as a shock to your sales reps. Instead, it’ll be old news easily handled. ### Relevance Brevity’s important. But that doesn’t mean creating a hundred short battlecards in place of a single long one is better. Instead, create focused, relevant battlecards for specific, recurring sticking points in the sales cycle. This way, your battlecards will fit seamlessly into your organization’s sales strategy and it’ll be clear to stakeholders when to use which battlecard. Your battlecards should also be very relevant to your competitive prospects. When your market intelligence is solid and your product marketing team shares persona info, it’s easy to categorize which customer types frequently make which kinds of objections. Including case studies and other information that ties everything back to the customer’s use cases can be helpful. Again, since brevity is key, and since case studies are such great fodder for salespeople, you should only have to include the name of the organization involved to bring to mind all the associated info. ### Design Good visual design is important for your battlecards too. Notice how we said ‘good’. Not ‘great’. Asking your design team to pull off a miracle isn't a great use of their time. We already know we want these assets as malleable as possible. If your changes will mess with design details, making all the team’s hard work for nothing, the design doesn’t support your need. And that could dissuade you from making those all-important updates. Instead, the best thing to do is to pull the copy you’ve got for your battlecards into a Google Drawing, Microsoft Publisher, or a similar tool. The goal is to make the information **scannable.** And seeing your battlecard laid out like this will encourage you to build a simple, wireframe design that you can edit at will. Use headings, bullets, line breaks, and every other trick in the book to make the info you include as easy as possible for your reps to use. --- ## Wanna learn from the best? So you’ve learned (most) of all there is to know about battlecards. For tips and tricks on objection handling from CI’s best and brightest, join the Competitive Intelligence Alliance Slack community. 👇 [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/15.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### Measuring the ROI of competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measuring-roi/ Last updated: 2024-12-17T09:39:03.000Z A meaningful [competitive intelligence program](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/) is key to staying ahead of the market, but how can you demonstrate its value to your stakeholders? And what KPIs should you be tracking? To get to the bottom of these questions, Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon is joined by Fiona Finn, Director of Product Marketing at Jane.app and a veteran of such companies as Unbounce and Clio. Erik and Fiona have an insightful conversation about how to effectively measure the success of your competitive intelligence efforts, the confidence that a product marketer can have in their metrics, and the part that both tangible and intangible metrics have to play. They even have a little chat about the Spice Girls. Read on to find out about… - [The value of competitive intelligence in product marketing](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measuring-roi/#the-value-of-competitive-intelligence-in-product-marketing) - [The tangible and intangible impacts of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measuring-roi/#the-tangible-and-intangible-impacts-of-competitive-intelligence) - [Proving the value of competitive intel with KPIs](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measuring-roi/#proving-the-value-of-competitive-intel-with-kpis) - [Arming customer success teams with competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measuring-roi/#arming-customer-success-teams-with-competitive-intelligence) - [Aligning with other stakeholders on the metrics of success](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measuring-roi/#aligning-with-other-stakeholders-on-the-metrics-of-success) - [Aligning with the Spice Girls (aka the C-suite)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measuring-roi/#aligning-with-the-spice-girls-aka-the-c-suite) - [The future of competitive intelligence ROI](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/measuring-roi/#the-future-of-competitive-intelligence-roi) ## The value of competitive intelligence in product marketing **Q: How long have you been a competitive intelligence maven, and how does CI help you achieve your goals as a product marketer?** A: I would say that CI has pretty much always been a part of my role. At Jane, I'm using [competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-complete-guide/) for my own purpose of learning the landscape and getting a feel for what's out there and what’s standard in terms of pricing, packaging, and feature sets. That's really me using competitive intelligence to level up my own know-how of the industry. The next phase of leveraging competitive intelligence at Jane will be taking those insights and figuring out how we can create a go-to-market strategy that differentiates us from the other players. So I think that competitive intel can be used for your personal goals of leveling up your know-how and your confidence in your market. Then you can use that confidence and knowledge to support your product team to build a better product, support your sales team to win more deals, and give your marketing team insights that can be translated into impactful messaging. By nature, a lot of product marketers are very curious people, and that curiosity goes hand in hand with wanting to understand what’s happening in the market. The important thing is to take all that information and distill it into actionable insights that help people do their jobs better. That intel can be transformed into a great message, a great campaign, and a great onboarding experience, so your customers get value from the information you're uncovering as well. ## The tangible and intangible impacts of competitive intelligence **Q: It’s great that you use the term “value” there because competitive intelligence is often described exactly how you framed it.** **The product marketer does pricing, packaging, and positioning – the three P’s of Product Marketing – which are mainly focused on the end-user, while competitive intelligence is focused on an internal set of stakeholders and the value they can get from market information.** **How are you measuring that value and getting the feedback that shows you're pulling the right levers and appealing to those internal audiences?** A: I like to think about value in terms of the tangible and intangible wins that come with competitive intelligence. The tangible wins are the measurable impacts. They’re the difference that your work makes for the business as a whole. You can measure that and see change over time. You might see your win rate or churn metrics changing, or you might be able to manage conversations with clients better. I personally love the intangible wins, the harder-to-measure ones. That's the feeling that you get when a competitor's name is mentioned in a conversation and the energy in a room is different. When you're not doing a great job of competitive intel or your program is less mature, a competitor's name being mentioned gives that sense of anxiety. That’s because we're not in control, and we don't know how to respond. As you feel your output getting traction and you find that the work that you're doing for competitive intelligence is working, that changes. When a competitor's name is mentioned, people should feel confident because they know who they are, they know where they stand, and they know how to manage that conversation. That's a very intangible thing, but ultimately, that's when I know my competitive intel work is on the right path. --- [‎Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast: The ROI of competitive intelligence | Fiona Finn, Director of Product Marketing at jane.app on Apple Podcasts‎Show Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast, Ep The ROI of competitive intelligence | Fiona Finn, Director of Product Marketing at jane.app - 1 Mar 2022![](https://podcasts.apple.com/favicon.ico)Apple Podcasts![](https://is3-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/51/5b/40/515b40ba-64b2-2038-6313-725348fa697c/mza_6590695369496601757.jpg/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-roi-of-competitive-intelligence-fiona-finn/id1609944641?i=1000552571569) --- ## Proving the value of competitive intel with KPIs **Q: You talked earlier about win rate and some of the other metrics you use to measure the value of a CI program. What other KPIs have you identified that can show you it’s time to either pull back or double down on competitive intel?** A: It depends on your go-to-market strategy and whether you’re product-led or sales-led. From there, it’s important to look at measurable inputs and outcomes. In a more traditional sales-led organization, one of the key metrics I like to look at alongside win rate is average revenue per account. Are you not only closing a deal but closing it in a meaningful way that gets the most revenue potential possible? I like to look at churn as well because competitive intelligence should be looked at not just from an acquisition standpoint, but also from a customer retention standpoint. Perhaps the CS person is having a conversation with a client who thinks that another tool dies a certain job better, but in actuality, it doesn't. If they have that knowledge, they can navigate that conversation differently. Aligning with your sales team to make sure that people are generally hitting their quotas is great, too. If we don't know enough about our competitors, people will miss their targets. Then it becomes a question of if we can invest in our competitive program and make sure that everyone is more successful. At the end of the day, it is a team effort. You need to understand your role in the team and make sure that you can have those shared measurable wins. ## Arming customer success teams with competitive intelligence **Q: You mentioned the value of intelligence for combatting churn from a customer success perspective. That’s interesting because in Crayon’s 2022 State of Competitive Intelligence Survey, 5% of those surveyed do not believe that their customer success team is an important stakeholder in competitive intelligence. It’s great news that 95% of other respondents said that CS is very important or somewhat important in competitive intelligence.** **However, it also means that 5% of customer success organizations are leaving their flank open. They don't know if there are sharks in the water, and they’re ill-equipped to be able to address that competitive pressure. By paying attention to negative churn, you’re equipping your customer success team with a shield.** **How do you think about measuring churn? Is a customer success team aware when their customers' eyes are wandering, and do they know the right questions to ask? And what kind of impact can that have on renewal opportunities?** A: It depends on the structure of your CS team. If you have a super mature CS team with customer success managers who have direct interactions with customers, they should be receiving more or less the same CI training as your outbound and closing team members. They need to be in the know about who else is out there and what customers might be hearing. You also want to make sure that a customer isn’t having one conversation with a sales rep and another conversation with CSM. How you position yourself against a competitor should be consistent for every single role within the organization. But back to your question, I think arming CSMs with a high level of information is essential. We know that people in customer-facing roles have so much going on. They’re trying to be experts on the product and the customer already; layering competitors on top of that is a lot to ask. But if there is a way to do a quick summary of the most important things to be aware of, you can bet that they will remember those and bring them up with customers when the timing is right. You can also automate retention activities to be inclusive of competitive intel, through solutions like Writeback. When someone is leaving you for a competitor, you can offer a compelling reason to stay within your automated communication process. That’s a really easy way to integrate competitive intel into your CS and retention programs. --- [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/CIA_Website_Banners_2.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ## Aligning with other stakeholders on the metrics of success **Q: Have you identified motivators for any other stakeholders within your organization and aligned your KPIs with theirs?** A: For sure. Working with product is always important. I think that increasing product-market fit, whether measured or not, should always be a shared goal between your marketing and product teams. You need to make sure that you’re looking at the right market to penetrate. Then making sure that you're building things that will allow you to capture that market share is important. Competitors play an important role in that because they may exist in that market and you may want to compete with them, or they might be on your tail and trying to compete with you. Your product team is always going to want to be aware of the benchmarks they should be working towards. Arming them with that information to increase your product-market fit in a meaningful way is vital. **Q: Interesting. So speed to market on features is the KPI that your product team is looking for, and that’s about user efficiency, but also efficiency in getting new features and beating the competitor to market?** A: Absolutely. A lot of the time, we're not reinventing the wheel in SaaS. There are solutions out there; you just want to make sure that you are building the best solution for your customer, and you can take inspiration from others around you as needed. It could also be that you want to differentiate and not make the mistakes of others, so that you can have the best solution in the market for your customers in the most efficient way possible. ## Aligning with the Spice Girls (aka the C-suite) **Q: Other vital stakeholders within the organization are those in the C-suite, your executive leadership, or your board of directors. They want to have some understanding of what the market and your competitors are up to, and that, I believe, is a little bit more difficult to measure tangibly.** **Do you find that there is some sort of intangible value you can get from equipping your executive leadership with competitive intelligence? They might not be inclined to take a survey, so how do you measure the value for those with a “C” in their title?** A: I think I've made this comparison before – sometimes your C-suite is kind of like the Spice Girls. Everyone has character and style. Your sales lead might be Sporty Spice, very laser-focused on their goals. Then there might be an empath on the marketing team that's softer and maybe a bit more like Baby Spice. Although they’re different characters, their goal is probably the same. They want growth for their company, and to build a great brand and a great product that has great rev share. And then there are going to be various key inputs to those core outcomes that matter more to the different players. What I have done in the past – and I've done this both for competitive intel and for tricky projects like pricing and monetization – is not necessarily surveying the C-suite, but writing down a list of outcomes that you could get from a program. I'll use a competitive intel program as an example. So I would say “Okay, we're going to invest six weeks, X budget, and X resources in competitive intel. What are the highest priorities for you?” and write down a list of both tangible and intangible metrics. Those metrics could include increasing rev share, increasing ARPA, reducing churn, increasing internal confidence, and so on. I make sure I have a succinct but powerful list of priorities and ask the C-suite to vote on those. It’s not going to be possible to do everything on that list so I come back to the C-suite with the top three outcomes that they want to get from the CI program. Sometimes, you might have to disagree and commit to one priority over another, or you might want to squeeze in another one. The important thing is to make sure that they're on the same page before you launch into any research, investment, or large-scale program. They should know what outcome to expect, and then you're going to have them bought into anything that happens after that. **Q: I cannot believe that your answer included a mention of my personal favorite Spice Girl, Melanie Chisholm!** **So what you've basically done is create a measurement by way of OKR. You've said to your executive leadership team, you define the objectives, and then we will measure the key results against that objective, as opposed to walking into a sales organization where you can presume that there are certain metrics that you're going to look to achieve.** **How do you start that conversation? If you’re coming into a new company, like you've just done, do you have to build rapport first, or do you hit the ground running and say, “Okay, guys and gals, I'm here, what do you need me to do?”** I tend to lean on the side of asking for forgiveness, not permission. You’re there to do a job because you have a unique or different set of skills from those around you, so jump right in. You are the expert on the market, you are the voice of the customer, you have your eyes on the competition, and people are looking to you to be that expert. So just get started. Ask the leadership what’s most important for them to learn, get that information, and start to structure a program around that. ## The future of competitive intelligence ROI **Q: What does the future hold for measurements of ROI in competitive intelligence? Do you feel that there is another shoe yet to drop? Is there soon to be a disruptive software startup that helps measure the effectiveness of competitive intelligence efforts?** A: I see the future of CI being less of a long-term measurable program and more something that is incorporated into everyday business insights. We're living in a world where technology is changing so fast, our situations are constantly changing, and disruption is normal. Measuring things on an annual basis when it comes to CI just isn't enough. Constant metrics that show themselves by osmosis are going to be the difference-maker for businesses of every size. If you can do reporting and integrate that into Slack so it’s shared with your team daily, your metrics are going to be front of mind for everybody. Measurements integrated into your day-to-day – I think they’re going to be the biggest change. **Q: Fiona, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us.** A: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. --- ## Enjoy hearing from the experts? Good news... *We know where they hang out.* Join the CIA competitive intelligence Slack community for direct access to some of the brightest minds in the biz. 👇 [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/15.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### The four best sources of competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2024-12-13T15:27:18.000Z You’re short on time. Where should you go for your CI? 🧐 We’re of the opinion that… - [Win/loss interviews](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/#1-winloss-interviews-%E2%9C%85); - [Social listening tools](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/#competitive-intelligence-tools-%F0%9F%9B%A0); - [Competitive SEO analyses](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/#3-competitive-seo-analysis-%F0%9F%91%A9%E2%80%8D%F0%9F%92%BB); - [And Competitor websites…](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/#4-competitor-websites-%F0%9F%95%B8) …present four of the very best sources of competitive information out there. It’s a fact that some sources of CI, whether internal or external to the organization, offer more bang for your buck. And, as Patrick Wall, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Imperva [has told us](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/), prioritization is a competitive intelligence professional’s best friend. Why should prioritizing your data sources be any different? Read on to find out all about our four picks, why we chose them, and why you should be using them if you’re not already. ## 1) Win/loss interviews ✅ There’s no saving the best for last here. We’re of the opinion that win/loss interviews are the competitive intelligence professional’s single most effective source of actionable CI. Here’s why. First, win/loss connects you with your sales team immediately. And when it comes to making an impact on revenue (your biggest priority), there’s no better place to start than sales. Second, it puts you in touch with the people whose opinions matter most: your customers. There’s no guesswork involved. Your customers will tell you where you’re dropping the ball versus your competitors. And they can offer a ton more useful information to boot. For example, your latest feature that shows great potential? Maybe it’s not solving your customers’ problems in quite the right way. Who better to tell you that than your customers themselves? Best of all, this market research costs very little (though the promise of a value exchange of some kind is unlikely to hurt your response rates and general willingness to share). By leveraging this great, inexpensive resource, you’ll be able to quickly gain valuable insights into what your product teams can improve, and how your product roadmap can be reshaped for maximum upfront impact. ### How to conduct win/loss Conducting win/loss interviews is simple. Put together a list of won and lost sales prospects from the last few months (or any timeframe that suits). Get them on the phone and ask them why they made the decisions they made. Simple right? Here are some tips for maximizing your win/loss ROI. First of all, you’ll want a pretty good spread of won and lost deals represented in the interviews you have lined up. And if you’re targeting a number of different market segments, then you’ll want to divide up your results accordingly so you can see how responses differ by segment. 💡 **Note - segmenting your results like this will also be useful if you’re testing against multiple different products.* In short, make sure you’re using a fair sample. One that accurately reflects your target audience. Secondly, you’ll want to make sure you’ve a large enough sample size for meaningful data. Around 15-20 interviews should be enough. This is a manageable number, even if you’re flying solo. But it’s large enough for you to recognize anomalies and outlier feedback when they appear. ### What’s next? So you’ve conducted your win/loss interviews. Now, you’ll use what you’ve learned to improve and optimize your sales process. Hearing that customers like a competitor’s version of a feature more than yours? Maybe they don’t understand how yours is different. Brainstorm the best counter to make clear your feature differentiators. Use these to update [your competitive battle cards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) and other sales enablement materials. Now the customer’s sure to see the light. Make your findings go further. Use them to inform your product roadmaps. 💡 **Tip: be tactful in how you approach your product team with your findings.* But be mindful that product teams have to balance dozens of requests from across the business. The good news is, you have hard data on your side. But you’re still competing with requests from other persuasive people (including leadership). That’s why it pays to get buy-in early from all corners of the business when it comes to your competitive intelligence program. ## 2) Competitive intelligence tools 🛠 Competitor analysis can be a big task. That’s why, if you’ve a bit of budget at your disposal, it pays to leverage pre-built solutions to take some of the pressure off. Depending on your definition of a ‘competitive intelligence tool’, you’ve quite a deep pool of helpful software to make your life easier. The good news is that any analysis tool that helps get you more high-quality competitor data can make your job a breeze while skyrocketing your results. That means your CRM, your call analysis software, and social listening tools, to name a few. ### Social listening tools When you hear ‘competitive intelligence tool’, this is probably what you think of first. Social listening tools are like Google Alerts if they gobbled up one of those mushrooms from Super Mario. 🍄 Social listening tools monitor social platforms and the wider web for mentions of your competitors and/or specific keywords. Whenever a topic is discussed, it’ll loop you in and log the mention for review. These tools blend real-time updates with historical data. This allows you to asynchronously keep tabs on developments in the competitive landscape. Then you can batch your review into one task, which saves even more time. Such intelligence software also automates a lot of the admin that comes with tracking info on your competitor’s strategy. Machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) algorithms, working behind the scenes, are able to categorize new data more efficiently as time goes on. ### CRM CRMs like Hubspot and Salesforce are always chock full of information that can help you win against your competitors. They contain so much data that, if you know how to crunch the numbers, it’s actually difficult *not* to find an emerging pattern. The info here can kickstart a hypothesis to explore in your win/loss interviews. Even something as simple as manually inputting notes against each customer can make for great historical data. Look for patterns preceding customer churn, for example, to develop an early warning sign that you’re losing a customer. Then make that actionable by enabling your retention team with counters to the competitors attracting your churning customers. This can help you retain customers before you’re able to tweak your service to fix their issues. ### Call analysis software A call analytics tool records and analyzes your calls to offer metrics and insights into customer interactions. This makes designing development plans for your customer success and sales reps a foolproof process. This might not sound so much like ‘competitive intelligence’ as straight sales enablement, but the smartest software also offers strategic initiatives to your executives to help them win more deals. ## 3) Competitive SEO analysis 👩‍💻 Competitive SEO (search engine optimization) analyses give you a look into your rivals’ content strategies. You can gain a bunch of insights into your competitors’ activities with keyword research and position tracking metrics. These offer an early indicator of a shift in the target organization’s content strategy and, perhaps, a shift in overall marketing strategy. Since such shifts take budget to effect, they’re often indicative of a strategic change. One spurred by the release of a new product, or a play for some new market segment, perhaps. But keyword research isn’t all competitive SEO tools have to offer. The best can offer insights into your competitor’s PPC strategy, organic and paid website traffic, [backlink profile](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-backlink-analysis/), and more. Particularly useful are the metrics on a website’s internal linking structure. Webmasters have a ton of control over a website’s internal link profile and tend to use it to strategically influence Google’s perception of each page’s relative importance on the site. Pages with many internal links are likely key pages. The content on those pages should tell you what the competitor values. New pages that fit this description act as a possible indicator of some new development or investment by your competitor. ### How to conduct a competitive SEO analysis SEO tools are complicated beasts. While there are many ways you can conduct a competitive analysis, here are a couple of actionable workflows for two of the most popular SEO tools: Ahrefs and Semrush. **Ahrefs** SEO tools can offer valuable insights into your competitors’ SEO and content strategies. Ahrefs is no exception. To get started conducting an organic traffic analysis on one of your competitors, head to the Site Explorer tool and search for the domain of the website you’re interested in. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/ahrefs-1.png) Add a number of competitors to compare their performance across a number of metrics over time, including organic traffic, the number of referring domains, and paid traffic. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/ahrefs-2.png) Click the ‘organic keywords’ number to see the organic keywords your competitor ranks for. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/ahrefs-3.png) You can get pretty granular here. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/Screenshot-2022-08-01-at-17.21.34-1.png) We’ve filtered out navigational queries by excluding the domain name itself from the search query. Then, we sorted by Traffic to see the keywords bringing the site the most traffic first, and filtered out any keyword with a CPC lower than 1.00. This shows you the keywords (and associated pages) bringing in a good amount of high-value traffic to the competitor. You can start tracking these keywords to periodically compare them with newer lists in the future, to easily identify new pages and products bringing our competitors a lot of traffic. You can use that information to set up competing pages and try to grab some of that traffic for yourself. **Semrush** The method in Semrush is similar. Head to the Organic Research tool and search for the competitor you’re interested in. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/semrush-1.png) In the bottom-left of the results dashboard, click “View all organic keywords”. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/semrush-2.png) From here, you can apply all the same filters as we used in Ahrefs to identify high-value, high-traffic keywords. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/08/semrush-3.png) ## 4) Competitor Websites 🕸 We couldn’t let ourselves get away with not mentioning a good old-fashioned hunt around your competitors’ websites. If you’ve a great social listening tool or competitive intelligence platform on your side, it’ll inspect competitor websites for you. But if your budget’s tight and you’re looking for a great bang-for-your-buck source of solid competitor information, you could do much worse than looking around manually. Competitor websites are a hub of feature announcements, product documentation, [competitive pricing intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/), and more. They’re a modern-day brochure for all things related to your competitor’s products and services. But that’s not all. Digital marketing relies heavily on content to educate, inform, and advertise to various market segments. As a result, most online businesses have a content marketing strategy. This means your competitors’ websites double as a content library to inform and educate you on their products and any changes or feature updates. This is what makes them such a goldmine for market intelligence. Even external news and press releases are often mirrored on the website, so you never have to move far to capture the data you need. 💡 **Tip: Use Google Advanced Search functions to find downloadable product documents in the SERPs. “ filetype:pdf”.* We know. It seems backward to hunt for information manually when there are ways to automate it. But if you’ve effectively prioritized your competitors, the list of websites you have to search through won’t be long. And, since everything’s in one place and websites often show their newest content upfront, you won’t have to search hard for the most pertinent information. With so much valuable data available, this method is one of the most overlooked and valuable available to you. ## What about other data sources? Of course, there are plenty of internal and external data sources we haven’t covered. Simply following your competitors on social media is a great way to stay abreast of updates, announcements, and developments, for example. But a great social listening tool will handle all of that for you. As will a quick browse of your competitor’s website. Community forums and customer reviews are also great places to look for information. However, since all the information is so disparate, and much will be generic, a sequence of targeted win/loss interviews usually represents a better use of your time. If you’ve the resources to do both, do both. Otherwise, prioritize! Notice, too, how we didn’t mention free trials of competitor products. We’ve said this before, but since you’re not the customer, it’s very difficult for you to take an objective stance on the strengths and weaknesses of the product you’re trialing. Win/loss interviews and other forms of direct customer feedback on competitor products (and where they’re beating yours) are more valuable. --- ## What’s next? Of all the possible ways to gain a competitive advantage, you could do much worse than starting with these. So if you’re a bit overwhelmed by all the options out there, give these your all and get back to us. We’d love to know how you get on! Wondering how you can stay in touch? Sign up for our competitive intelligence Slack workspace, a vibrant community where you can upskill, knowledge share, and rub shoulders with some of the best minds in CI. 👇 [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/15.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### Sales enablement manager: salary, key skills & responsibilities URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-manager/ Last updated: 2022-11-30T11:58:54.000Z We’ve said it before: sales enablement sits right next to revenue. With so much opportunity to impact the bottom line, there’s some eyebrow-raising compensation attached to successful sales enablement positions, with the average sales enablement manager earning **$120,000**. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/ezgif.com-gif-maker--6-.gif) So, whether you’re coming from competitive intelligence, product marketing, or sales itself, a sales enablement manager position could be a great next step for your career path. Read on to find out: - What a sales enablement manager does. - The qualifications you’ll need for the role. - The skills to develop if you want to excel. - What a sales enablement manager gets paid. But first, some definitions… ## What is the role of sales enablement? [Sales enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) is a marketing role focused on deal support. That means creating marketing collateral to help sales teams win more deals. Marketers spend a lot of their time thinking hard about product positioning, effective messaging, and the competitive landscape. Sales enablement practitioners work to bring that understanding to sales reps. ## What is a sales enablement manager? 🧑‍💼 A sales enablement manager creates enablement initiatives to drive revenue growth. They manage a sales enablement team, or a group of relevant stakeholders, to see these initiatives through. The end goal is to create learning materials and resources that help sales win more deals. ## Is sales enablement part of marketing? Who owns sales enablement? The truth is sales enablement sits at the intersection of sales and marketing. The successful sales enablement professional will act as a liaison between both groups. They’ll distill marketing’s knowledge of the product, and the competitive landscape, into a form that sales teams can use. ## What do sales managers get paid? 💰 Ok, that’s it for definitions. What about the money? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/ezgif.com-gif-maker--7-.gif) Our friends over at SEC put together this amazing[ Sales Enablement Salary Survey](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/sales-enablement-salary-survey-2022-download-the-report/). Here are some stats: - The average base salary of sales enablement professionals, regardless of gender, job title, or any other factor is $119,228. - The average salary of a sales enablement manager, regardless of location or any other factor, was $122,753. - The base salary range submitted by survey respondents varied widely, from as low as $15,000 to over $200,000. More than 75% of all respondents reported receiving some sort of bonus or commission in addition to their base salary. So, successful sales enablement managers can look forward to such perks as well. Sales enablement practitioners in North America receive the highest average base salary; almost $20k more than those in Europe. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/Screenshot-2022-07-27-at-18.10.34.png) Sales enablement managers are paid, on average, more than any other sales enablement job title. ## Sales enablement manager job description and responsibilities 🫡 Ok. So what would you *really* be doing all day? We’ve looked through dozens of job listings for sales enablement managers, and it’s safe to say we’ve distilled the role to its core. Here’s what you can expect from the role: ### Generate new insights Sales enablement is a data-driven role. This data will often be tabular in nature (think spreadsheets), but just as often it’ll take the form of verbal feedback. This feedback will come from discussions and brainstorming sessions with colleagues. It’ll be up to you to gather this data and analyze it for new insights into the sales process. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/lukas-blazek-mcSDtbWXUZU-unsplash.jpg) Sales enablement managers need to be comfortable working with both quantitative and qualitative data. ### Improve sales processes Of course, your new insights won’t just be interesting talking points at the next Christmas party. These insights need to make a real impact on revenue. So you’ll use your analysis to identify opportunities for improvement within each stage of the sales cycle. And as you make incremental improvements to the sales process, you’ll need to test and evaluate your sales metrics for results. This means tracking, gathering, and analyzing more data as you go. You’ll also feed this information back to the marketing manager as you gain crucial insights into the effectiveness of your messaging and product positioning. ### Manage and create learning materials Once you’ve identified an area for improvement, you’ll need to brainstorm a solution to the problem and feed that back to sales teams in a form they can use. This often means creating a [competitive battle card](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/). But, it might also take the form of a training session or seminar. Most of the time you’ll need both. You’ll also want reference material or memory aids to help your sales reps when they’re on calls, and training sessions to make sure they’re aware of how to use them. ### Design, develop and deploy key enablement programs. All in all, the above steps constitute separate parts of a cohesive ‘enablement program’. Your success as a sales enablement manager depends on your ability to perform each of these responsibilities well. Designing, developing, deploying, and overseeing these enablement programs will be your bread and butter. You’ll own the process end-to-end and be responsible for the ultimate results of your initiatives. ### Report to the leadership team With a big project out of the way, who do you report to? You’ll be working closely with others at the managerial level, including the marketing manager, product manager, and perhaps a sales manager as well. But since your role can (and should) impact revenue in a big way, you’ll probably be reporting to the leadership team. If you haven’t worked closely with leadership before, this means delivering a high-level overview of your objectives and results, as well as a basic rationale on how your initiatives tie in with company goals. ## Necessary qualifications and experience 🎓 Here are some of the required qualifications we saw crop up in job listings: - **Three or more years of experience** in sales management, sales operations, or B2B marketing (though some job listings specified 10+ years of experience). - Experience working with **customer-facing** teams. - Experience **mentoring** and onboarding junior staff. - **Bachelor’s degree** in marketing or sales, or equivalent experience. - Proven experience in **revenue-facing** teams. And some nice-to-haves: - Experience working in a start-up or ‘fast-paced’ environment. - Ability to ‘change gears’, switching between high-level strategy and in-the-trenches implementation. - Experience with spreadsheets and reporting software. - Ability to work with large volumes of CRM data. ## What skills do you need for sales enablement? 🔺 And here’s the lowdown on the skills you’ll need to smash your next sales enablement role. 🤩 ### Communication skills No surprises here. Living at the intersection between two very different departments (marketing and sales), you’ll need the communication skills to get the knowledge you need quickly and effectively whilst keeping everyone around you happy. This includes presentation skills and the ability to communicate a message effectively to an audience. As a sales enablement manager, it’s your job to make sure the insights you’re generating are applied. And that starts with understanding. If the sales team doesn’t see the value in the insights you're bringing them or doesn’t understand how to implement them in real-time, then you’ve got a problem. That’s why conducting sales training with your team, even if it’s not expected, is something that you should be doing. But there’s a third area that will demand great communication skills. Though many marketing roles aren’t customer-facing, sales executives are on the phone with customers all day. As a sales enablement manager, you’ll reap the rewards if you can communicate as effectively with customers themselves as you can with your internal stakeholders. ### Critical thinking skills If there’s a part of your sales process that’s not working, it’ll be your job to figure out why. Your purpose as sales enablement manager is to improve your sales team’s performance. And that means gathering information, identifying weaknesses, and figuring out how to eliminate those weaknesses while strengthening existing processes. So your problem-solving and critical thinking skills will go a long way. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/milad-fakurian-58Z17lnVS4U-unsplash.jpg) Creativity and problem solving are at the heart of successful sales enablement. ### Creative and lateral thinking Sales is inherently competitive and, like any competitive endeavor, you’ve got a bunch of smart people working against each other. And everyone’s vying for the largest piece of the pie. As a result, your edge is always small … and always receding. Your success doesn’t depend on how well you tick the boxes and follow the processes, but on how you outdo the competition. Coming up with new and better ways to empower your sales team relies on your creativity. ### Project management skills You’ll need to dream up new initiatives and implement them. Without the ability to oversee entire projects from start to finish, you’ll fail to get results. And with the sheer number of moving parts involved in any business project, you’re doomed without great project management skills. If you’re not confident in your project management skills, take on simpler projects with shorter time horizons and fewer stakeholders, in the beginning. You’ll build some confidence by stacking up a few early wins. ### Technical proficiency We’ve found that most businesses with sales enablement positions employ a tech stack consisting of the following: - CRM (customer relationship management system). - CMS (content management system). - LMS (learning management system) or sales readiness platform. - Conversational intelligence tools. - Pipeline analytics and forecasting tools. - Prospecting and segmentation tools. - Demo automation. None of these tools requires any great technical prowess to navigate or use, but each tool has its own user interface to learn. What you will find useful, is the ability to work with large volumes of tabular data. Yes, that means spreadsheets. A CRM like Salesforce is a goldmine of customer information. If you know how to crunch the numbers in a scalable manner, you’ll arrive at better conclusions more quickly. ## Can a sales enablement manager work remotely? 👨‍💻 Today there’s an abundance of tools to help business professionals from any department work remotely without having to sacrifice performance. Plus, many organizations today are more forward-thinking in their hiring approach. It’s more common to see businesses hiring globally, embracing remote- and flexible-working policies as a fair tradeoff for better talent. But, a word of warning. When it comes to performing your sales enablement function remotely, there’s that much more separation between you and internal teams. So you’ll have to work harder to make your presence felt in the business. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/workperch-364mlXhpMgs-unsplash.jpg) Want to work remotely? It's possible in sales enablement roles, but you might have to fight for it. But, if you have the necessary skills and experience, it’ll be easy to perform your sales enablement function remotely. You can do your sales training using video conferencing platforms. You can touch base with sales reps asynchronously with business messaging tools like Slack. And cloud-based file sharing, paired with project management software, makes collaboration across projects easy no matter where you’re working from. However, not many of the job listings we canvassed specify that they offer remote work opportunities. But if that’s what you need, don’t give up hope. This is something you can discuss in your interview. And employers will be more flexible for their strongest applicants. Once you’ve built a bit of rapport and impressed your interviewer, go ahead and ask! --- ## What next? Want to learn how to leverage competitive intelligence to fast-track your route to sales enablement success? Sign up for the CIA Signal newsletter for monthly insights delivered directly to your inbox. 👇 [Competitive Intelligence Newsletter - CIA SignalJust like passive income, you can have a stream of CI goodies dropped right into your inbox once a month when you sign up for our CIA Signal newsletter. Getting ahead of the game just got easier.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/13.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-newsletter/) --- ### Head-to-Head: The Competitive Intelligence Playbook URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/head-to-head-playbook-blog/ Last updated: 2023-01-18T10:23:57.000Z Do you wonder if there’s some part of the competitive intelligence process you’re missing? 🧠 Do you dream of wowing your bosses with unbelievable results? 💭 We put together **Head-to-Head: The Competitive Intelligence Playbook** for people like you. To bring you the knowledge you need to define, then refine your competitive edge. ## Here’s what you’ll get: - The six steps you need to conduct a **successful** CI program. - Actionable advice from the top minds in the industry from juggernauts including **Airtable**, **ClickUp**, and **Atlassian**. - **Free** templates that do the hard work for you and bulletproof your approach. - Tips for handling CI’s greatest challenges with **ease**. [Get the playbook](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/to/DqAdUtxZ) ## Take a sneak peek: In this playbook, we go into depth on the six core pillars of competitive intelligence. Follow these steps for success and download your copy today for the juicy details. 🍋 1. Identify your competition. 2. Gather intelligence. 3. Conduct competitive analysis. 4. Develop your competitive strategy. 5. Enable your teams. 6. Implement, review and refine your approach. ## Get your copy So, ready to level up your competitive intelligence results? Download your copy today and whip your CI program into shape. 👇 [Grab a copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/to/DqAdUtxZ) ### State of Competitive Enablement Report 2022 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/state-of-competitive-enablement-2022-blog/ Last updated: 2023-01-18T10:21:04.000Z As a competitive intelligence professional, you run the gamut. You’re talking to three, four, even five departments daily. You’re fielding requests, prioritizing, informing product positioning, and benefiting your organization in all sorts of ways. 👏 But when your annual review rolls around, you know there’s one question you’re certain to be asked: “How much did you contribute to the bottom line this year?” When it comes to making a business impact and advancing your career, sales enablement is where it’s at. Sales is the team that sits closest to revenue. Their feedback loop is the shortest by far. Enable your sales team with competitive assets, and you’ll maximize the effectiveness of your competitive intelligence, boost the bottom line, and reap the rewards. So grab yourself a copy of our [State of Competitive Enablement report](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/to/NzNr4Kh9), bring yourself up to speed, and start putting the knowledge you need to work today. 🔥 ## What we cover: In this report we bring you valuable insights on the following topics: - Competitor growth - Tips for remote workers - Buyer education - Enablement challenges - Proving ROI ## Here’s a taster of what you’ll find inside: - **100%** of respondents agree that their market has either increased or sustained its level of competition. - **88.8%** of that 100% believe their market has become more competitive. - **74.2%** report their sales teams as the primary consumer of competitive intelligence in the organization. - **47.2%** of participants say sales reps ask for support on 20% or fewer of their deals. Want more? Grab your copy now. 👇 [Get your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/to/NzNr4Kh9) ### Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2021 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/trends-report-2021-blog/ Last updated: 2023-01-18T10:18:33.000Z Endless information, ever-increasing competition. We know how easy it is for you competitive intelligence professionals to get lost in the details. 🤯 And who could blame you? With so many competitors to keep track of, and with CI in such high demand across organizations, it’s hard enough to step back and take a 10,000-foot view of your own competitive landscape. Let alone keep track of the state of competitive intelligence in general. If you’re no longer seeing the forest for the trees, we’re here to help. Our 2021 Competitive Intelligence Trends report brings you the latest developments in competitive intelligence. Are you behind the curve? Or ahead in the race? [Download your copy now](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/to/NKVqhbqT) to find out. ## Inside, you’ll learn: We partnered up with Klue to survey hundreds of competitive intelligence and product marketing professionals from every corner of the globe. Here are just some of your questions we’ve got answers for: - Who organizations consider responsible for CI. - How competitive intelligence is executed. - How often competitors are monitored. - The types of competitors businesses focus on. - How much budget is spent on CI. - CI’s biggest challenges. And much more. And since we’re feeling generous, here are a few statistical snippets to really get you going: - Almost **70%** (69.4%) of respondents monitor competitors at least once a month. - Sales and customer success strategy was surprisingly the area **least cited** by businesses as their key objective for competitive intelligence. - The most popular frequency (23.6%) for conducting light spot-checks on competitors was ‘a couple of times per week’. Find these stats insightful? Well, you’ll find more where those came from in our Competitive Intelligence Trends report. What are you waiting for? [Get your copy](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/to/NKVqhbqT) ### Sales Enablement Landscape Vol. 2 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/sales-enablement-landscape-vol-2-blog/ Last updated: 2023-01-18T10:16:31.000Z Sales enablement forms a big part of most product marketers’ day-to-day, and we know this because of the 2,000+ PMMs who participated in this year’s State of Product Marketing report, almost three quarters (73.8%) said creating sales collateral made up part of their key responsibilities. With that in mind, we decided to dig a little deeper into the world of sales enablement, surveying 400+ product marketers in all stages of their career, all over the world to bring you this...The Sales Enablement Landscape Vol. 2. In it, you’ll find the answers to questions like… ❓ Who owns sales enablement? 🔥 Which sales enablement assets are most effective? 📎 How do different companies organize their sales enablement efforts? 🙌 Which are the best sales enablement tools on the market? 📐 Do PMMs measure the effectiveness of their sales enablement work? 💪 How much influence do product marketers feel they have in the sales enablement process? Plus pages and pages of juicy sales enablement stats like… - 47.9% of product marketers do not have a dedicated sales enablement team - 56.3% of product marketers reported that in their organization sales enablement is solely owned by marketing. - According to 78% of product marketers, customer case studies are the most effective sales enablement asset. - How about some hot sales enablement tips courtesy of PMMs from organizations like Showpad, HERE Technologies, Seismic, and Formlabs? Yep, they’re in there too. What are you waiting for? Download all 50 pages for more 👇 [Download the report](https://productmarketingall.typeform.com/to/pk5YqPsP) ### Competitive intelligence ethics URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-ethics/ Last updated: 2023-10-09T10:21:37.000Z ## Game theory and the prisoner’s dilemma 🎲 If you’re not familiar with the prisoner’s dilemma, it’s a classic game theory problem you can read about [here](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/). The problem’s interesting as it raises questions about trust, risk, and the optimal choice you should make if you want to ‘win’. This applies to anything competitive where an unscrupulous action offers a moderate edge over the competition—for example, paying for followers on social media, or taking performance-enhancing drugs in sports. Since you can *always* trust the unscrupulous few to cheat, well-meaning individuals are *forced* to follow suit to remain competitive. That’s what the prisoner’s dilemma proposes. So how does this relate to the ethics of competitive intelligence? 🧐 ## Ethical competitive intelligence The prisoner’s dilemma suggests that the world rewards dishonesty in any competitive endeavor as it re-levels the playing field. This stops people from adhering to ethical standards. But is this true for competitive intelligence? No! Why? Because unscrupulous behavior in this instance is considered *corporate espionage*. And corporate espionage is *illegal*. 😱 Just kidding. It’s not quite that simple. If you’re gaining information by legal means, you’re not breaking the law. But there are some guidelines you can follow to establish a fair competitive advantage without losing sleep at night: **One:** use publicly available information when you gather competitive intelligence. **Two:** Follow business ethics best practices as you develop your CI strategy. ## How to gather competitive intelligence ethically So what would gathering competitive intelligence ethically look like? 🤔 ### Use information that’s publicly available **Competitor-side** Putting internal [sources of competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/) aside for a second, let’s look at some of the external sources of CI that are fair game. *Short on time? Here’s a quick list for you (detail below):* - Customer case studies. - Review sites. - Social media and social listening platforms. - Financial information. - [Competitive pricing intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-pricing-intelligence/). - Trade shows and industry events. - Press releases, white papers, and other official documents. - Competitor SEO analysis and content strategy. - Organic & PPC data analytics. We’ll start with anything publicly available, even if you have to work harder for it. Competitor financial information, for example, is a little tricky to get your hands on, but it’s possible … [if you know where to look](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/product-managers-how-can-you-estimate-your-competitors-product-line-revenues/). But not everything’s so hard to find. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/ezgif.com-gif-maker--3-.gif) Believe it or not, there’s proprietary information that your competitors *want* people to see. Crazy right? Well, no. Customer case studies, press releases, white papers. All of these are public documents your competitors publish for all to see. And that includes you if you search for them. Collect enough of these and you’ll start to see patterns over time, giving you insight into competitors’ marketing plans. There are also social media and social listening platforms. Social listening tools are like Google Alerts with superpowers. With more customization options, sorting and filtering, search functions, and other all-around upgrades, they’ll find mentions of your competitors across the web and log them for you to catch up on whenever’s convenient. Review sites, either from customers or employees, are terrific too. G2 is a great resource for B2B reviews, while an old faithful like Trustpilot is great for B2C. Glassdoor tells you what it’s like to work in the company, while information on hiring from any source could give you a heads up that your competitor is making a play for a new sector by growing a particular team. Finally, your SEO tools like Semrush or Ahrefs will come in super handy. You can use them to investigate a competitor’s keyword and content strategies. By tracking these over time, you’ll see their new and improving keyword rankings, which could alert you to a change in their SEO strategy or positioning. **Internally** There are all sorts of internal sources of competitive intelligence too. Your sales and customer success teams are a great place to start. They’re asking customers multiple times a day what they’re looking for and which of their needs are already being met by competitors. And if you’re not already, you can conduct win/loss interviews with customers to determine what made them choose you over a competitor (or not). --- For more on internal sources of competitive intelligence, read our article on building a competitive intelligence program. 👇 [Building a Competitive Intelligence Program | CIABuilding out your first competitive intelligence program can be a difficult process. 😮‍💨Who should be involved? Where do you start? With so many questions, so much data and so many competitors to get a handle on, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AlliancePatrick Wall![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/aedrian-w8fPD9o7NME-unsplash.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/) --- ### Be open at all times about who you are If you’re signing up for a free trial of your competitor’s product, or if you’re attending a training webinar for their customers, don’t try to hide the fact that you’re a competitor. Avoid even using a personal email address when signing up. Use your business email instead. While you’re not breaking any laws it pays to play fair. Good karma, and all that. But here’s a question for you: *Why* are you signing up for a free trial of your competitor’s product? We know, it seems like a great idea. You’ll get hands-on, no-limit access to their product. And, if you lie about who you are, they won’t even know it was you! How could they possibly contend with your cunning! 😏 Here’s the issue: you’re not the customer*.* You’re not an impartial party*.* And you can’t assume that your reactions to particular features or inconveniences will be the same as those of your customers, for whom the tool might make up just a part of their tech stack or workflow. You’re working on a competing product all day, every day. Your customer is not. No matter how much you try to put yourself in their shoes, you’ll struggle to appreciate what features might be exciting for them. And something you think of as a misstep by your competitor might not bother your customer. Here’s a better way to use free trials: If you’re hearing in your win/loss interviews about some great new competitor feature, use the trial to see it firsthand and take (objective) notes on how your competitor has implemented it. 💡 The key difference here is that the customer’s opinion *precedes* your adoption of the free trial. ## Industrial espionage (how not to cross the line) Let’s return to the prisoner’s dilemma from our introduction, and consider the strength of the competitive edge you could establish through unethical practices. What confidential information could you uncover that you wouldn’t be able to gain through legitimate means while adhering to a code of ethics? Wiretapping a competitor’s phone lines, for example, might yield private conversations between staff members, or indicators of future plans. But what’s the point? With a bit of work and much less strain on your conscience, you can legally and ethically track competitor behavior over time, and identify changes that offer clues as to future marketing plans. (Competitive SEO research and social listening tools might form a part of this process.) And once you have this intelligence gathering infrastructure in place, you’ll find it easier to cross-reference other indicators as confirmation of competitor plans. Whereas, if you’re only gathering information by illegitimate means, you may struggle to validate it, or corroborate it with other sources. In conclusion, it’s more than possible to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage without trying to expose trade secrets or steal intellectual property. There are more than enough legitimate sources of competitive intelligence offering valuable information to inform your product roadmaps and marketing strategies. There’s no reason to devolve market research into corporate spying. --- ## Where to go from here Struggling to get results with your competitive intelligence program? Sign up to our competitive intelligence Slack community for direct access to some of the top minds in the industry. Ask questions, make introductions, and even land your next role. All of that and more is waiting for you - sign up today. 👇 [Slack Community - Competitive Intelligence AllianceOur Slack community workspace includes spots for friendly hellos from your new peers, job postings, and open forums for fielding questions, sharing resources, and getting up to snuff with all the best fresh content.![](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/06/15.jpg)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-community/) --- ### Competitor analysis for digital marketing URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitor-analysis-for-digital-marketing/ Last updated: 2022-07-22T11:53:54.000Z Your competitors have something to teach you. Yes! You may have differences in values, team, sales targets, etc. but one thing you have in common is the clients. You stand to gain a lot from paying attention to what they do and following their lead (or avoiding their mistakes!) to grow your business. Simply put, a competitor analysis is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors. In digital marketing, you will need to look closely at what your competitors are doing, when they are doing it, and how they are doing it. # Why you need to do a competitor analysis If you are new to digital marketing, what your competitors do or don't do can guide your strategy on how you too can attract visitors, turn them into leads, and close sales. For this, you will need to analyze competitors that are closely related to your brand, particularly those with the largest market share. Perhaps you’ve hit a sales plateau or, worse, sales are going down. A look into your competitors may be just what you need to find new ways to up your game and start attracting leads again. You can do this by looking at the competitors who seem to have the highest web traffic, social media following, and positive online mentions. What are they doing to get those results? Before you embark on this journey to attract new customers or retain your current loyal fans, you need to take a brand health test. Done right, a brand health test will help you to gain a fresh outlook on what your brand stands for. It will help you and your team revisit the problem you are trying to solve, who you want to solve it for, and why your solution is the best. If you don’t yet have your buyer persona pinned down, this is the time to fix that. # The simple analysis you can do today Here are the simple steps you can take today to analyze your competitors and grow your business. These steps can be done manually, but for a more in-depth platform analysis, you will need certain tools. ## Step one: Find out what platforms your competitors are using Pay close attention to which platform they use the most and research why they might have made that choice. Understanding what attracted them to the platform could shed light on facts you had not been aware of. ## Step two: Look at the demographics in the platform Here are some of the trends you want to look at among your competitors’ users: - Age group - Gender - Number of monthly active users - Geographic location - User purchasing power/ economic situation ## Step three: Understand how frequently your competitor uses this platform Look for these indicators: - Average number of posts per day and per month - Time of day at which your competitor posts - Type of content shared. Which of these are your competitors using the most? - Videos - Memes - Images - Carousels - Text / quotes ## Step four: Analyze their engagement rates You know what they are posting and when, but what are the followers’ most common reactions? Here’s what you can look for first: - Website visits - Likes - Comments - Shares (Repost, retweets, etc.) - Hashtag response from followers. When you understand what excites your competitors’ followers, you can create a similar or more optimized strategy to grow your business. ## Step Five: Get insights into competitors’ marketing campaigns Details to keep an eye on: - What are they offering? - How are they offering it? In other words, how unique is their campaign? - What's their end game? - How long is the campaign? If they’re milking the campaign for all it’s worth, that could suggest that it’s proving to be effective. - Who are they working with? (Influencers, media houses, small businesses, etc.) # How to use this information Now you have this insight into your competitors, act fast! First, rethink your strategy and make changes where needed. Then, recreate the most effective content you saw on your competitor's platforms. Take your new content for a spin and see how it works for you. Using the insights into your competitor's campaign wins and failures, you can create better-targeted ads and reap the rewards. What worked for them will most likely work for you. Don't be afraid of failure, instead, test out as many ideas as possible, enjoy the wins and learn from your mistakes. Above all, have fun! One more thing: be sure to enlist the help of a digital marketing consultant when you feel you need more help. ### Planning competitive intelligence for the short- and long-term URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/planning-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2022-11-23T10:27:21.000Z They say if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. That ethos is every bit as valid in competitive intelligence as it is when it comes to organizing a wedding (though with less risk of scorn from your future in-laws). 🙈 To learn more about the long- and short-term planning that’s so important for a well-tooled [competitive intelligence program](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/), Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon, sat down with August Jackson, Senior Director of Market and Competitive Intelligence at Deltek and a pioneer in the competitive intelligence industry. Key topics include: - [Cultivating calm in competitive intelligence](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/planning-competitive-intelligence/#cultivating-calm-in-competitive-intelligence) - [Your cross-functional CI stakeholders](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/planning-competitive-intelligence/#your-cross-functional-ci-stakeholders) - [Allocating CI resources in the right places](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/planning-competitive-intelligence/#allocating-ci-resources-in-the-right-places) - [Competitive intelligence planning 101](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/planning-competitive-intelligence/#competitive-intelligence-planning-101) - [Methodologies for competitive intelligence planning](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/planning-competitive-intelligence/#methodologies-for-competitive-intelligence-planning) - [“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.”](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/planning-competitive-intelligence/#%E2%80%9Cplans-are-nothing-planning-is-everything%E2%80%9D) ## Cultivating calm in competitive intelligence 😌 **Q: Is planning part of your DNA, or do you ever feel uncomfortable with it?** A: I've always been a big planner. I'm a big fan of David Allen's Getting Things Done and the OmniFocus software. I'm diligent about sitting down every week to do reviews. Every quarter, I do my off-site and do some planning. That's always been my nature. One of the reasons I joined Deltek, in particular, is that they run project-focused organizations, and I thought, “Now here are some people who are going to understand project management,” and a lot of people do. But you know that saying “the cobbler's children have no shoes?” It applies to project-focused organizations too. We still have moments of panic where there’s something that needs to be done right now. When I joined, there was a lot more of that last-minute panic, then I think people began to see the benefits of programming and planning competitive intelligence, such that now there is a sense of calm around a lot of the projects. I would say at this point, 60% of our activities are planned out. A lot of things we do are just on a cadence – quarterly readouts for members of the board, quarterly readouts for our sales and leadership, and those sorts of things. We do still get a lot of bespoke project requests coming our way as well; those can sometimes be a little bit more hectic. --- [‎Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast: Short and long-term planning | August Jackson, Senior Director of Market and Competitive Intelligence at Deltek on Apple Podcasts‎Show Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast, Ep Short and long-term planning | August Jackson, Senior Director of Market and Competitive Intelligence at Deltek - 1 Mar 2022![](https://podcasts.apple.com/favicon.ico)Apple Podcasts![](https://is3-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/51/5b/40/515b40ba-64b2-2038-6313-725348fa697c/mza_6590695369496601757.jpg/1200x630wp.png)](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/short-and-long-term-planning-august-jackson-senior/id1609944641?i=1000552571504) --- **Q: That’s a really interesting point – cadence breeds calmness. Deltek is a process-focused company, so they want to instill a sense of calmness in your customers, but were there any growing pains in getting the organization to think the same way about competitive intelligence?** Absolutely, there were. There was a time when mid-market companies generally didn’t have dedicated competitive intelligence functions. One of the things I'm excited about for the profession now is that everybody wants a competitive intelligence team, particularly SaaS companies. But when I came on board, there was very little maturity in competitive intelligence. The company had realized they needed a dedicated function, but there was still a bit of a Chicken Little “the sky is falling” moment anytime a competitive development happened. One of the things I really focused on in my first year at Deltek was working with stakeholders to give them a perspective on what our competitors were doing. Let’s say a competitor wrote a blog post with a load of FUD about Deltek; we sit down and think about what that means for us and what reaction, if any, that justifies. Most often, it doesn't justify any sort of reaction. That perspective has now permeated throughout the business, so rather than seeing a development in the market and being like, “Oh, my gosh, we have to do something,” there's now this exercise of sitting down, evaluating what’s going on, and thinking about what options are best for us and our customers. ## Your cross-functional CI stakeholders 🙅‍♂️ **Q: CI planning doesn’t happen in a vacuum; you need to loop other stakeholders into the process. Who are your stakeholders, and when do you loop them in? Do you lay the groundwork yourself and then bring them in for validation, or are they involved from the get-go?** A: I like to bring people in from the get-go. In some ways, you're never done planning, reevaluating, and rethinking because things change all the time. As I mentioned before, I'm a planner, but I'm also somebody who likes to go back and look at things as they progress as well. In terms of who those stakeholders are, it really runs the gamut. When I came on board, I endeavored to be very collaborative in how we do competitive intelligence here, so I would engage people at all levels in all functional units throughout the business. Now, I've got a good number of people that are my go-to's for input and insight. Sometimes I'm going to them and explicitly asking for input; sometimes it's just a matter of listening, observing, reading what they're writing, seeing what their KPIs are, and trying to determine the best ways the Market and Competitive Intelligence team can lean in to help them achieve their objectives. In competitive intelligence roles, at least historically, there's tended to be either a focus on sales enablement and helping the organization win new business, or there’s a function dedicated to helping executives make strategic decisions. Here, both those roles are integrated into one team, which is a challenge in and of itself. Sometimes I wonder if that was the best way to pitch my competitive intelligence competencies within this organization because there are trade-offs involved in trying to do both. Usually, there is some bifurcation, and we haven't done that. But back to your question, we‘re engaging with the Chief Sales Officer and her VPs and directors, all the sales managers, and sometimes the individual reps, sales engineers, and SDRs. We want all those different perspectives. We're engaged with the marketing, product marketing, and product teams as well. Our partnerships and alliances run the gamut. We're highly collaborative, and we're always reinventing the plan together. It sounds chaotic, but it's not. ## Allocating CI resources in the right places 📝 **Q: You mentioned the fact that some companies bifurcate so there's an air gap between the sales enablement side of competitive intelligence and the business strategy side of competitive intelligence.** **You guys have bought it all together. Sometimes that could be chaotic, but from a planning perspective, at least one side knows what the other is doing. That must make it much easier to unite towards common goals that affect both business strategy and closing and retaining new business. Is that right?** A: Absolutely. Where it becomes a challenge is mostly with resourcing. Top of mind for me is that we only have so many units of time, attention, and effort. Where best can we put those on the chessboard to win, particularly in a very crowded and dynamic market? It's a matter of multiple markets as well because, in the different industries that we sell into, we face different competitors. It’s important to recognize that in trying to do all those things, you run the risk of spreading yourself very thin. That's something we're always pushing back against. **Q: How do you decide what to prioritize and where to allocate those resources? And who needs to be involved with those decisions?** A: Thinking about what the business is trying to achieve this year helps guide where we place some of the chips. Of course, the CEO and the exec team have their goals for the year, and we want to align and support those as best we can. On the sales enablement side of CI, the issue of resourcing is very important. In crowded markets, you have to very carefully pick and choose which competitors you're going to focus on. That's driven by a lot of data to understand who we’re coming up against. Most often, we focus on the opportunities that are either individually or in aggregate going to drive the most revenue, and that determines how we focus our attention on competitors in the market today. So it is a mix. In both the strategic bucket and the sales enablement bucket, you still have to make decisions about where you're going to put those priorities. ## Competitive intelligence planning 101 💡 **Q: Let’s get down to CI planning 101 for, say, a product marketer who has competitive intelligence as part of their job description. You mentioned making sure your activities roll up to the business goals. What's the next step after identifying which shooting star you're aiming for?** A: That's a great question, and it's really complicated. I like to sit down and think about everything I'm going to deliver in terms of enablement over the period of time I have in front of me. In a product marketing role, where you have competitive intelligence as part of your functional remit, so much of what you do is going to be focused on tactical plays. You’ll be looking at the enablement around being able to market and sell a particular product, for example. There's also going to be a little bit of that strategic angle as well because product marketing teams that have a competitive intelligence role are often guiding the product roadmap. You need to look at those two pieces of the role and decide what you are going to do on each side. On the product roadmap front, that might be more informed by what the business is trying to achieve in the long term. The sales enablement piece is likely to be a little more tactical and short-term. You need to break down what you’re going to do for each side and make sure you have a deep understanding of the KPIs for all the different stakeholders. Then you’ve got to assess your own goals based on those KPIs. Successful competitive intelligence teams align their key performance indicators with the KPIs of the stakeholders that they're trying to support. What are the things you can do that are measurable, but also contribute to your stakeholders’ KPIs and demonstrate that you’re aligned with their success as well? **Q: So the advice for a small product marketing team with competitive intelligence as an additional function is to start your planning process by understanding what the deliverables could be, identify the stakeholders, and then align towards their KPIs. That's awesome.** **As you're embarking upon a planning process, whether it be CI 101 or the graduate-level courses that match your experience, are you building KPIs and benchmarks into the plans and then looking back to see how you're progressing?** A: Absolutely. We have a very thorough process built around KPIs and balanced scorecard initiatives. We've combined qualitative and quantitative KPIs to evaluate how we’re supporting our stakeholders. We regularly go back and evaluate ourselves based on those KPIs to see if we’re still driving the level of success that we wanted to drive for our stakeholders. It's both a matter of evaluating whether we’re meeting our own benchmarks and also reevaluating our performance in relation to the stakeholders’ performance and how we're delivering value inside the business. ## Methodologies for competitive intelligence planning 🎓 **Q: Talk to me for a minute about SWOT analysis. Do you use SWOT analyses or any other techniques to get your stakeholders who may not be mavens of competitive intelligence into the planning mindset?** A: SWOT is a great place to start. That's why it gets a lot of both love and hate from the business world and competitive intel. I absolutely love it, and I've definitely grown in my SWOT methodology over the years. I’ve learned that opportunities and threats can often be very similar for all of the competitors in a particular industry because they are purely external and completely outside of your control. That's one of the things that I think a lot of people who are doing SWOT analysis get wrong. We've done some great brainstorming sessions by looking at competitors' SWOT analyses too. When you take all the strengths, opportunities, and threats, and mix them together, you can come up with a course of action. It’s an exciting brainstorming exercise. SWOT, for me, is part of something that I call “the stack” – three analytical frameworks that can help anybody understand the competitive landscape and develop insight into what's going to happen in an industry across various timeframes. SWOT is actually at the bottom of the stack, and it’s a valuable tool for understanding individual players within a market. At the top of the stack is something called STEEP analysis. The acronym stands for social, technological, economic, environmental, and political, and it's an organizing framework to understand the trends and uncertainties that are impacting a particular macro-environment or industry. I find it a fantastic framework for making sense of an overwhelming amount of information. From there, we can begin to do some other really powerful analytical exercises, like scenario analysis and implications wheels. But to understand what the macro-environment is today and what it’s going to look like in a year or five years, or 10 years, steep analysis is top of the stack. In the middle of the stack, you have Porter's Five Forces, which is all about who has power in this particular market or dynamic. It evaluates buyers, sellers, substitutes, and the intensity of the competition among them. You can use this framework to quickly get an idea of whether an industry is dominated by a few large buyers and if they’re being threatened by new market entrants. Combining these three frameworks is a really powerful way to understand the macro-environment, who has power within it, and the capabilities and opportunities for each player. ## “Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” 🧐 **Q: How rigid or loose are your plans? Do you try to build in a little bit of leeway, recognizing that even if you try and embark upon a certain course, outside events might throw everything into flux?** A: Great question. You're bringing to mind the Eisenhower quote – “Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” Or maybe it was Yogi Bear or Mark Twain who said that. **Q: Or Mike Tyson – “Everyone has a plan ‘till they get punched in the mouth.”** A: Absolutely. The TL;DR is that I remain pretty loose. Planning is important, but I do try to leave some slack. Things can come up, and you need to be able to pivot. Even as you're throwing the plan out the window, having that plan in the first place means you know exactly what you're throwing out the window, and that's useful as well. It's a terrible situation for a parent to be in, but an example could be a parent who's a really diligent planner, but then their kid falls in the park and breaks their arm. And all of a sudden, that’s the most important thing they’ll be dealing with. Everything else can go by the wayside until the kid is safe and feeling better. It’s the same when you’re putting out fires at work. Some people might look at that and think the planning was useless because it got thrown out the window, but the planning also helps you get back on that horse. Anytime a fire breaks out, I feel empowered to go to the people to whom I’ve made previous commitments and say, “Sorry to do this, but I gotta push these plans down the road,” and 99 times out of 100, everybody's on board with that. So I do weave some margin into the plan. Even if that fire never happens, usually the margin gets eaten up anyway by administrative trivia or an expansion in the scope of the project. **Q: August, I could sit and talk with you for hours, but it’s time we wrapped things up. Thank you for chatting with us today.** A: Thank you for having me along. --- ## Join our competitive intelligence community 🗣 Interested in meeting like-minded competitive intelligence professionals? Join our [competitive intelligence Slack community](https://bit.ly/3yyRfDs) \- a place for marketing veterans and newbies alike to upskill, knowledge share, and supercharge their careers. 💪 ### Building a competitive intelligence program as a solo practitioner URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-program/ Last updated: 2023-05-22T10:45:20.000Z Building out your first competitive intelligence program can be a difficult process. 😮‍💨 Who should be involved? Where do you start? With so many questions, so much data and so many competitors to get a handle on, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But here’s some good news for you: With competitive intelligence, you’re never starting from scratch. In any organization, including yours, people *want* to win. That means, from sales to customer success, pockets of CI data already exist throughout the business for you to discover and turn to your advantage. Because whether competitive intelligence takes up 10% of your time or 100%, you’ve got an exciting opportunity to boost your win rate and impact your organization’s bottom line in a big way. *If* you get it right from the start. We’re here to tell you how to do that. 👏 In this article, we’ll be covering: - How to start your own competitive intelligence program from scratch. - The first thing you should do when building out a competitive intelligence program. - The best next steps once you’ve gotten started. - A framework for working with stakeholders. - Common mistakes when starting a CI program. - And a whole load more… ## What is competitive intelligence? Competitive intelligence is a cyclical process that involves gathering, analyzing and acting on information about your competitors. CI is cyclical. Once you’ve actioned your analysis, you need to review the impact your sales enablement assets, or other deliverables, have had. Then, improve them where possible in light of what you’ve learned. Along the way, you’ll gather new information and update your deliverables accordingly. ## Starting your competitive intelligence program Before you start gathering competitor intelligence or looking for actionable insights from around the organization, there’s *one* thing you must do: Tier out your competition. Everyone has a ton of competitors, but you have limited time and limited resources. You need to prioritize. I like to categorize competitors into three tiers. ### Tier one competitors These are the competitors most important to your organization. Usually, about 5 key players make up 80% of your competition. Focus on these for the most business value. When you talk to your sales team, you should notice these names coming up a lot. Their products are serving similar needs to your own and there’s something about their messaging that makes customers consider them whenever they’re considering you. Carving out a competitive advantage and helping to win more of these deals means a bigger slice of the market share pie for you, growing revenue for the business, and making you look amazing in the process. As a solo practitioner, all of your attention should go to this handful of key competitive players. ### Tier two competitors These are the squeaky wheels. They’re the loud, annoying competitors who you hear from a lot but, when it comes down to it, you don’t lose out to them often enough for them to be worth your time. Again, since you’re doing this alone, you *have* to prioritize. It’s easy to get distracted by the competitor that shouts the loudest, but if that’s not where the business value is, forget them. Focus on your tier-one competitors instead. ### Tier three competitors These are niche players. You don’t hear about them too much and you know they aren’t that important. Don’t get lost in the weeds here. If they’re not a tier-one competitor, categorize them, grab a little intel, and move on. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/florian-schmetz-fbCtFV3FkfE-unsplash.jpg) ## Centralizing your market intelligence What’s exciting about competitive intelligence is how far-reaching it is in your organization. Whether people know it or not, they’re probably gathering, analyzing, and acting on CI data every day. The issue? All this data is disparate. Some of it’s sitting in a sales rep’s drawer. Some more is floating around in a customer success rep’s head. So now that you’ve sorted out your priorities by identifying your tier-one competitors, your next step is to find and tap into these wells of existing knowledge in the business. This is the first step to getting everyone in sync. Here are some of the best places to start: - Sales. - Product. - Customer success. ### Why sales? Your sales team sits right on the edge of revenue with a short feedback loop. When you need to test things out and get to what works the fastest while impacting the bottom line the quickest, it’s the sales team you should target. Many sales teams naturally find themselves performing some kind of a win/loss analysis, even if they’ve never heard the term. And since they’re handling objections and getting asked how your products stack up against those of your competitors, they have a vested interest in gathering business intelligence on those competitors. Your sales team will be a great ongoing resource for you. ### Why product? Product teams are responsible for building and designing the future of your product or service. They need some understanding of the competitive landscape for confidence in their product roadmap. As you gain experience, you’ll be a great source of value for product teams as the go-to person for learning more about the competitive landscape and the best places to innovate and differentiate. But early on, it’s likely to be the product team with the greatest understanding of that competitive landscape. This makes them your source for the 10,000-foot view of your market trends. ### Why customer success? Customer success reps know all about two key groups: your best and worst customers. You can learn a lot from the insights and questions these customers have. And by opening a line of communication with customer success, you’ll hear about these things when it counts. You might hear that a customer recently switched from a competitor and loves a feature you never considered a key differentiator. Or you might learn that you’d benefit from pricing yourselves higher. Reach out to each of these teams and take note of the responsive individuals regularly performing data collection. Nurture them. ### Create a single home for your intel With all this great data coming in, your goal is to create a single place everyone can go to access that intelligence. It might not be the best intel (yet), but it exists in a single place everyone knows about. That’s the goal. Here are some ideas on where to store your CI data: - An intelligence platform. - A repository. - A PDF. - A file on a cloud storage platform. Where you store it isn’t as important as *doing* it*.* If you’re a solo practitioner with limited resources and a limited budget, just get things moving and get the job done. That puts you one step closer to seeing an impact. ## Standardizing your market intelligence Of course, dumping all your market research into one location isn’t enough. You’ll have different versions of the same information. You need to de-duplicate and standardize all of that data, then distill each piece into a single, best message or asset, like a battle card or a presentation. Once you’ve done this, there will be a single message around CI, so everyone’s at least taking part in the same conversation and following the same competitive strategy. ## Crowdsourcing to gather information Once the housekeeping is done and all existing data from internal sources have been collected, centralized, and standardized into a single best message, it’s time to gather new intel. The best practice I can recommend here if you’re a solo practitioner is to ‘crowdsource’ CI. As an individual, you don’t have the bandwidth to build everything. The good news is that, as you’ll now know from centralizing intel, almost every department has a stake in CI. Each will have someone you can go to for new insights. And when you make colleagues feel like they’re a part of your competitive intelligence program and plan, you nurture their vested interest in its success. When you build it together, you can share the wins together, which is motivating for everyone. As you get new intel make sure to feed it into your central, standardized hub and use it to refresh your existing messaging. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/ux-indonesia-qC2n6RQU4Vw-unsplash.jpg) ## Tips for working with your stakeholders ### Create a competitive Slack channel A competitive Slack channel is one of the easiest ways to involve multiple areas of the organization in competitive intelligence. As simple as it sounds, this puts CI right where people are already spending a good portion of their day, helping to keep it top-of-mind. It’s asynchronous, it’s always open and it offers your colleagues a place they can go to share ideas, voice concerns or raise questions. ### Build a competitive ‘team’ Early on, it’s important to consciously and actively involve enthusiastic individuals from other areas of the business. Get them involved from the start and make it clear that the work you do together will help them to shine in the organization. The sooner you show impact together, the easier it will be to get buy-in from others. That doesn’t mean anyone has to take on more work, though. Wherever you can, create a new process, or streamline an existing one, to help these individuals log their competitive intel. ### External sources of business intelligence Until now, we’ve only discussed internal sources of intelligence. When you’re low on time and resources, making the most of these is crucial. But it would be a mistake to ignore external sources. Social media platforms, especially LinkedIn, can act as an early indicator of shifts in your competitive environment. You’ll hear about everything from one competitor’s new product launch to another’s changes in hiring strategy. Business review sites, too, like G2, or even Glassdoor, can give you insight into changes in hiring patterns that might suggest a change in a competitor’s business strategy. Competitors’ websites are another ethical source of publicly available information just sitting there for you to claim. ## Common pitfalls when building out a CI program ### 1) It’s a marathon, not a sprint In fact, it’s more of a triathlon. Right after you’ve finished with one aspect of CI, you’re onto the next part of the cycle. Once you’ve gathered new intel, it’s analyzing that data and boiling it down to the actionable insights that really affect the landscape for your customers and for your organization. These are processes that you’ll build out and refine over time. Get started, get some results, keep improving and people will start to take notice. Guaranteed. ### 2) Don’t boil the ocean I’ll say it again: prioritizing is key. There are so many competitors out there and new ones pop up all the time. Don’t get overwhelmed and don’t get distracted by the latest noisy newcomer. Just keep going back to your tier-one competitors. Your program will grow the fastest and see the most success when you focus on the value, and that’s with your tier-one competitors. Plus, there are always more competitive requests coming in across the board. If you take on everything as a solo CI practitioner, you’ll burn out. Accept that you don’t have to be the number one expert on every competitor, or have battle cards for everything and anything. There’s always an opportunity cost, so make sure you’re maximizing your effectiveness. ### 3) Great data is the only data that matters Be very careful about the quality of the data you’re gathering. If you have great data, competitive analysis is easy; great data leads to great analysis. But bad data means bad analysis. Every time. So make sure you have solid data. ### 4) Work on making an impact early Don’t get misled by imposter syndrome. Don’t be fooled into thinking that success is for “everyone else”. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be striving to make an impact early. This will get you noticed and get budget flowing to start scaling up your CI program. Again, this comes down to prioritization, but that gets easier as you make an impact. When leadership sees what you’re doing is working, they’re going to take more of an interest in what you’re doing and why. As those requests start to flow in, those executives can help you hold your ground when it comes to focusing on where the value is. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/2022/07/eric-muhr-8HyrGTYPQ68-unsplash-1.jpg) ## Next steps for your successful CI program Once you’ve centralized and standardized, opened up lines of communication, have a steady stream of fresh intel, and are providing value, you’ll find yourself becoming a subject matter expert for the organization. At this point, you’ll have a steady stream of requests for support in closing deals, retaining customers, product messaging, and more. That’s when you and those around (and above!) you will know the impact your competitive intelligence program has had. This is the perfect time to ask for budget to grow your CI team. When it comes to hiring, I’d urge you to have a firm grasp of your own strengths and weaknesses and then hire to cover those weaknesses. Use what you’ve learned through implementing and owning your CI process to shine a light on where you could have done better. Is that down to an issue with your process? Or is this something that could benefit from a fresh perspective? Also, what parts did you not enjoy so much? If there’s some part of the process you don’t love, you’ll never be as great at it as someone who lives for it. Hire that person and the strength of your CI team is sure to grow with each new hire. ## Get competitive intelligence certified Hungry for more? Sign up to get [competitive intelligence certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified/) and get the skills to: ✅ Build a **tech stack** for competitive intel. ✅ Conduct **win/loss** and primary research. ✅ Visualize your **competitive position** with a market map. ✅ Enable sales and customer success to deliver crisp **competitive positioning**. ✅ Bring CI to the table in **strategy** and product decisions. [Get competitive intelligence certified.](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified/) ### Product managers: how can you estimate your competitor’s product line revenues? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/product-managers-how-can-you-estimate-your-competitors-product-line-revenues/ Last updated: 2022-06-30T08:33:22.000Z Understanding your competitors’ product line revenues is critical. Revenue information helps to put the relative strength or weakness of a competitor into the proper context. It helps product managers to make the best decisions about priorities, investment, and focus. It is relatively straightforward to understand the total revenues of competitors. Public companies are required to file periodic reports with regulatory agencies like the SEC containing audited financial statements. There is no SECgov where you can find financial statements for privately held companies. There are a number of techniques you can use to estimate a private company’s total revenues. Determining the specific product line revenues for public and private companies is tough. Public companies sometimes disclose product-level revenues, privately-held companies rarely do. But there are some techniques you can use to build order-of-magnitude estimates. In this article we will discuss: - Why Is Understanding Competitor Product Line Revenues Important? - How to Estimate Product Line Revenues of a Public SaaS Company - How to Estimate the Total Revenues of a Private Company - How to Estimate a Private Company’s Product Line Revenues - Test Case: Estimate Your Company’s Product Line Revenues ## Why Is Understanding Competitor Product Line Revenues Important? SaaS product revenues are important. Revenue is the best metric for describing the relative success of a product in the marketplace. A simple example is Microsoft Bing search versus Google search revenue. In 2020, Bing generated [$7.74 billion in revenue](https://backlinko.com/bing-users). Google search generated $[104 billion in revenue](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/18/how-does-google-make-money-advertising-business-breakdown-.html#:~:text=Search%20is%20Google's%20most%20lucrative,57%25%20of%20Alphabet's%20total%20revenue.). DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine generated approximately [$100 million of revenue in 2020](https://99firms.com/blog/duckduckgo-statistics/#gref). These facts help product managers at Microsft, Google, and DuckDuckGo make the best decisions they can about how to prioritize investments to achieve their company’s goals. Understanding your competitors’ product line revenues is critical. Many SaaS companies suffer from what is called the disproportionate impact effect. The disproportionate impact effect is when someone takes a competitor’s actions (or inactions) out of context and demands a change to your company’s strategies or tactics. For example, consider the scenario when a salesperson loses a deal to a competitor. They hear a rumor that the reason why they lost is that the competitor could afford to cut their prices dramatically to win the deal. The rumor might be true, or false. If a product manager knew that the competitor’s product had been losing revenues for two years in a row they could recognize that the competitor’s pricing for a specific deal might be more of an act of desperation than a viable strategy your firm should adopt. Some companies intentionally try and sabotage their competitors by launching disproportionate impact tactics against their competitors. Understanding competitors’ product line revenues help you to put their strategies, as well as your company’s strategies, into the proper context. For example, the explanation of a competitor extremely discounting their products might be due to another reason. If the competitor just raised a lot of venture capital or private equity funding, they may have adopted a strategy to gain as much market share as possible as quickly as they can. Your firm may never be able to compete on price. You will have to find other ways to differentiate your products and justify the return on investment for customers. ## How to Estimate Product Line Revenues of a Public SaaS Company Public software companies are required to file periodic reports with regulatory agencies like the [SEC](http://sec.gov/), the [Companies House](https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/companies-house) in the UK, or the [Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) ](https://www2.asx.com.au/)in Australia. Audited financial statements (Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statements) must be filed on a timely basis. In the U.S. the most common filings are 10-K (Annual Reports), 10-Q (Quarterly Reports), and S-1 (Initial Registration Statement). One of the important things about public filings is that they must be complete, accurate, and factual. There can be significant penalties for publishing inaccurate or misleading information. ## 10-K, 10-Q, and Annual Reports Some public SaaS companies report product line revenues. Here is an excerpt from Google’s 2020 10-K report: ![Google 2020 product line revenue](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*yj9FkSPKJdXGyCoX) Reports like 10-Ks and 10-Qs contain not only audited financial statements, but management’s discussion of what has occurred. There is a standard section in each 10-K/10-Q named Item 7\. Management’s Discussion And Analysis Of Financial Condition And Results Of Operations. The management discussion helps you to understand ****why revenues** are growing or declining. Here is an excerpt from Google’s 2020 10-K: > ****Trends in Our Business** > > The following trends have contributed to the results of our consolidated operations, and we anticipate that they will continue to affect our future results: > > ****Users’ behaviors and advertising continue to shift online as the digital economy evolves.** > > The continuing shift from an offline to online world has contributed to the growth of our business since inception, contributing to revenue growth, and we expect that this online shift will continue to benefit our business. > > ****Users are increasingly using diverse devices and modalities to access our products and services, and our advertising revenues are increasingly coming from new formats.** > > Our users are accessing the Internet via diverse devices and modalities, such as smartphones, wearables and smart home devices, and want to feel connected no matter where they are or what they are doing. We seek to expand our products and services to stay in front of these trends in order to maintain and grow our business. > > We generate our advertising revenues increasingly from different channels, including mobile, and newer advertising formats, and the margins from the advertising revenues from these channels and newer products have generally been lower than those from traditional desktop search. Additionally, as the market for a particular device type or modality matures our revenues may be affected. For example, growth in the global smartphone market has slowed due to various factors, including increased market saturation in developed countries, which can affect our mobile advertising revenue growth rates. > > We expect TAC paid to our distribution partners to increase as our revenues grow and to be affected by changes in device mix; geographic mix; partner mix; partner agreement terms; and the percentage of queries channeled through paid access points. > > We expect these trends to continue to put pressure on our overall margins and affect our revenue growth rates. > > ****As online advertising evolves, we continue to expand our product offerings which may affect our monetization.** > > As interactions between users and advertisers change and as online user behavior evolves, we continue to expand and evolve our product offerings to serve their changing needs. Over time, we expect our monetization trends to fluctuate. For example, we have seen an increase in YouTube engagement ads, which monetize at a lower rate than traditional search ads. > > ****As users in developing economies increasingly come online, our revenues from international markets continue to increase and movements in foreign exchange rates affect such revenues.** > > The shift to online, as well as the advent of the multi-device world, has brought opportunities outside of the U.S., including in emerging markets, and we continue to develop localized versions of our products and relevant advertising programs useful to our users in these markets. This has led to a trend of increased revenues from international markets over time and we expect that our results will continue to be affected by our performance in these markets, particularly as low-cost mobile devices become more available. This trend could impact our margins as developing markets initially monetize at a lower rate than more mature markets. > > Our international revenues represent a significant portion of our revenues and are subject to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates relative to the U.S. dollar. While we have a foreign exchange risk management program designed to reduce our exposure to these fluctuations, this program does not fully offset their effect on our revenues and earnings. > > ****The portion of our revenues that we derive from non-advertising revenues is increasing and may affect margins.** > > Non-advertising revenues have grown over time. We expect this trend to continue as we focus on expanding our offerings to our users through products and services like Google Cloud, Google Play, hardware products, and YouTube subscriptions. Across these initiatives, we currently derive non-advertising revenues primarily from sales of apps, in-app purchases, digital content products, and hardware; and licensing and service fees, including fees received for Google Cloud offerings and subscription and other services. The margins on these revenues vary significantly and may be lower than the margins on our advertising revenues. A number of our Other Bets initiatives are in their initial development stages, and as such, the sources of revenues from these businesses could change over time and the revenues could be volatile. > > ****As we continue to serve our users and expand our businesses, we will invest heavily in operating and capital expenditures.** > > We continue to make significant R&D investments in areas of strategic focus such as advertising, cloud, machine learning, and search, as well as in new products and services. In addition, our capital expenditures have grown over the last several years. We expect this trend to continue in the long term as we invest heavily in land and buildings for data centers and offices, and information technology infrastructure, which includes servers and network equipment. > > In addition, acquisitions remain an important part of our strategy and use of capital, and we expect to continue to spend cash on acquisitions and other investments. These acquisitions generally enhance the breadth and depth of our offerings, as well as expand our expertise in engineering and other functional areas. > > [Google 10-K](https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001652044/000165204420000008/goog10-k2019.htm#s7E164D6797425D368E0A2E18504CF241) Most public SaaS companies only report revenues in a summary manner. I have been an executive for three different public software companies — only one of them reported revenues n a product line basis. They were eager to show that their core revenues were growing, while their ‘legacy’ revenues were declining. ## Investor Presentations Sometimes public companies reveal more information in presentations they make to stockholders or at investor conferences. For example, I recently studied a public Australian SaaS company in the sales enablement market — Bigtincan. While they disclosed total revenues in their audited financial statements, they provided a lot more detail in their annual investor presentation: By piecing together the information contained in the presentation it was possible to determine their product line revenues: ![Bigtincan financial progression](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*QxKgWxBBCXEdMjyK) ![Bigtincan FY 2020 reevnue breakdown](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*ICDmw-pNmwupvkl9) [Bigtincan Annual Report to Shareholders](https://www.bigtincan.com/company/investors/#) ![Bigtincan product line revenues](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*Zm3pkfWH3T9ZUsHH) Regrettably, product line revenue reporting is more the exception than the rule when it comes to public SaaS companies. If you cannot find any detailed information you can use the approaches described in the next section on How to Estimate Product Line Revenues of a Private Company. ## How to Estimate the Total Revenues of a Private Company Estimating product line revenues for a private company is hard. The best you can do is develop a broad estimate — there can be significant variances between your estimate and the actual revenues +/-50%. You always have to balance the effort required to investigate revenues against the benefit of having the data. There are a number of tactics you can use to quickly see if there is information you can leverage. First, you need to estimate a company’s total revenues. Next, you can build estimates of how much revenue is associated with a specific product line. ## Use Google Google search is the best place to start. Consider the following Google query: ![Google search for Google product line revenues](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*fBoOvC-6o1VALs5k) Structure your query as Company Name + Product Line + Year. If there is relevant info available, it will show up in the top results. Remember to always assess the credibility and biases of any search result. ## Latka.com Latka is a subscription service that provides a ton of information about SaaS companies. Examples of what Latka can provide include: ![Latka.com summary](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*IUYedOfkdyTo1Owc) ![Latka.com summary](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*7MXFPeELkBnXUnUE) ## Owler.com Owler is a crowd-sourced research site that provides overviews of private companies, including revenue estimates. They offer a limited free plan and two paid plans. Here is an example of an Owler summary: ![Owler.com profile](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*2mHruLbZnsikv7t8) ## Growjo.com Growjo is another aggregator of information about SaaS companies. It is a free resource. Here is the type of information you can find: ![Growjo profile](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*qdWE1U1xKd95ia6u) ![Growjo profile](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*SlkZWrUAzeMmvQL9) ## Headcount Proxy If none of these sources yield any results you can use a technique known as the headcount proxy. Companies that are in the same industry tend to have similar ratios of revenue/headcount and operating income/headcount. You can examine the filings of public companies to determine a range of revenue/headcount ratios and then apply that to the competitor you are studying. In every 10-K Annual Report, there is a section that lists the total number of employees. To estimate the revenue for the private company, find the total employee count (LinkedIn, Owler, or Crunchbase) and apply the Revenue/Headcount ratio from your analysis. Here is an analysis that I developed for a recent assignment on the sales enablement technology market: ![Hezdcount proxy](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*RkuYtCBj5ifAq1cP) Headcount proxy analyses are very broad estimates but are usually accurate within +/- 25% ## How to Estimate a Private Company’s Product Line Revenues Estimating product line revenues for private companies is very hard. Unless the company has only one product line, you will have to make broad estimates based on the evidence you gather from multiple sources. ## Build a Product Line Revenue Framework To start, build a simple model to describe the relative share of total revenues each product line contributes. ![Product line revenue framework](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*IjTF3L8Z_iRhAhEk) ## Gather Evidence of Product Line Revenues Next, scour the web for information about potential product line revenues. For example: - Google search for \[ABC SaaS Company Product Line X 2020 Revenues\] - Review vendor press releases - Review industry analyst reports that talk about vendor market shares - Review industry market sizing reports - Review use review sites like G2.com, Capterra, and SoftwareAdvice As with any kind of Internet research, carefully consider the credibility of any information source you discover. Remember, determining product line revenues for private companies is just an estimation exercise at best. While total revenue estimates may be reasonably accurate, product line estimates are just that — estimates. ## Sanity Check with Corporate Development Professionals or Other Industry Experts Most companies have an executive that focuses on mergers & acquisitions. This person typically has access to all types of industry and competitor information. Most of the data is subject to Non-Disclosure Agreements, but you can ask these executives if your estimates seem ‘reasonable’. You can also ask them for any publicly available information that might be useful to you. I was a senior executive responsible for M&A for several public software companies as well as venture and private equity-based firms. At one point I had over 500 detailed profiles of competitors and other firms we were interested in. Where I could, I readily shared my data to help product teams in their work. ## Test Case: Estimate Your Company’s Product Line Revenues If you are like most product managers, you do not have access to actual product line revenue data. As a test, try and estimate your company’s product line revenues. Use the techniques described in this article and see what you can discover. Share the results with your VP and see how accurate, or inaccurate your estimates are. ## Summary Understanding your competitors’ product line revenues is critical. Revenue information helps to put the relative strength or weakness of a competitor into the proper context. It helps product managers to make the best decisions about priorities, investment, and focus. It is relatively straightforward to understand the total revenues of competitors. Public companies are required to file periodic reports with regulatory agencies like the SEC containing audited financial statements. There is no SECgov where you can find financial statements for privately held companies. There are a number of techniques you can use to estimate a private company’s total revenues. Determining the specific product line revenues for public and private companies is tough. Public companies sometimes disclose product-level revenues, while privately-held companies rarely do. But there are some techniques you can use to build order-of-magnitude estimates. --- *This article was [originally published at Development Corporate](https://developmentcorporate.com/2022/01/04/product-managers-how-can-you-estimate-your-competitors-product-line-revenues/).* ### Product management competitor business intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/product-management-competitor-business-intelligence/ Last updated: 2022-06-30T08:31:02.000Z Competitive intelligence is a core responsibility of product management. There is more to competitive intelligence than understanding the features and functionality of competitive solutions. Product managers need to understand competitors’ revenues, headcount, funding, industry analyst relations, global footprint, and enterprise value. Product managers need to understand the business aspects of their competitors and how they stack up against their own business. Fortunately, there are many free resources and tactics product managers can use to learn about these items. ## Competitor business intelligence There are many topics product managers need to cover in competitive analysis. There are a group of topics that relate to the competitor’s business, yet are rarely covered in most sales/competitive battle cards. Understanding some facts about the competitor’s ****business** is extremely valuable. There are seven topics you should explore include: ![Competitor Business Intelligence Topics](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*-YNXCNsVyCMvQ6J5) [DevelopmentCorporate](https://developmentcorporate.com/) There are many free sources of information product managers can leverage to learn about these topics. These sources can work for competitors that are public companies, as well as privately held. ## Competitor headcount Headcount and staffing are key metrics for software companies. If your company has 300 employees and you are competing against a company that has 3,000 employees, things can be tough. Understanding competitors’ headcount and staffing is important. There are two easy free ways to find a competitor’s headcount: Google and LinkedIn. ## Using Google to find competitor headcount Using Google is the easiest. Simply search for company name + employees — “[How many employees does Google have?](https://www.google.com/search?q=How+many+employees+does+Google+have%3F&rlz=1C1CHBD%5FenCR845CR846&sxsrf=AOaemvIDhUOemFyS1olkB8wh23dnPq8Ikw%3A1636128366046&ei=blaFYdaUAo2TwbkPqsW0aA&oq=How+many+employees+does+Google+have%3F&gs%5Flcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEOgcIABBHELADOgcIABCwAxBDOhAILhDHARDRAxDIAxCwAxBDOgoILhDIAxCwAxBDOgQIABANOgYIABANEB5KBQg4EgExSgQIQRgAUJIMWL3ZF2DP8BdoAnACeACAAYUFiAGqGpIBBzMtMS4xLjSYAQCgAQHIAQzAAQE&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwjWg8KQzYH0AhWNSTABHaoiDQ0Q4dUDCA4&uact=5)” 90% of the time, Google can provide an answer: ![How many employees does Google have](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*qNupxnVbIlZc17Dc) Public companies, like Google, report their headcount every year in their annual 10-K filings with the SEC. Finding the headcount for privately held companies is easy too. ## LinkedIn LinkedIn is a great source of competitive business intelligence for both public and private companies. Simply search for the company name and drill into LinkedIn’s company profile. LinkedIn can show the total number of employees as well as where they are located: ![How many employees does Google have LinkedIn](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*ADevqsmEM_B10wPf) You can also see headcount by major business function: ![How many employees does Google have LinkedIn](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*h5FbhN6ksu5PRP2u) You can even search by job title. Say you wanted to learn how many people at Google were involved in product management. You can narrow the search: ![How many product managers does Google have](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*AD0ZpUkCt6-9o-wb) ****It is important to note that there are limitations to LinkedIn’s free search capabilities. Free search results will include current as well as past employees.*** If you upgrade to LinkedIn’s premium offering ($29.99/month) you get additional search filters, one of which is current employees only. LinkedIn is extremely valuable in researching privately held companies. In a recent consulting sales process I needed to research the EdTech market. While I had been involved in EdTech 20 years ago, I needed to brush up on my sales opportunity and their marketplace. LinkedIn was very helpful in assessing the headcount of the various market players, and how many employees each company had in marketing, sales, engineering, operations, and finance. ## Competitor revenues Competitive revenues are a critically important fact. You need to be able to understand the scale and composition of your competitor’s revenues. You should be able to analyze trends in competitor revenues and other financial items like gross margins, net dollar retention, deferred revenues, operating expenses, and debt. For public software companies, this is fairly easy. For private companies, you have to rely on estimates and industry averages. ## Public software companies Publicly traded software companies are required to file detailed reports with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC). You can access these reports for free on the SEC website SEC.gov. You can download most financial statements in Excel format. Here is a quick summary of one of the companies I researched for my EdTech sales prospect, 2U (Nasdaq: TWOU): ![SEC filings](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*Y39r80v-d2fX1mo5) The blue button labeled “Interactive Data’ leads to another screen where you can download the filing as an Excel file: ![Download SEC filings to Excel](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*19snsYoNTlw6PUhn) In the Excel file, you can see and analyze Income Statements (P&L), Balance Sheets, and Cash Flow Statements. Here is 2U’s most recent quarterly Income Statement (P&L): ## Income statement ![2U Income Statement](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*wDh-JDkl9p8pVBaG) ## Balance sheet ![2U Balance Sheet](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*LYK5kBKeIe6xBWLD) Cash flow statement ![2U Cash Flow Statement](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*1uFSSa2EVOuxfu64) One of the great things about public filings like 10-Ks is that revenue information is reliable and accurate. Publicly filed financial statements have to be audited by an independent auditor, and their ‘audit letter’. Thanks to the [Sarbanes-Oxley Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley%5FAct), CEOs, and Chief Accounting Officers have to certify the accuracy of their financial statements and the effectiveness of internal controls., Public regulatory filings like 10-K Annual Reports, 10-Q Quarterly Reports, DEF 14A Annual Meeting & Proxy Statements, and S-1 Registration Statement provide a wealth of competitive information. ## Private company revenues Unfortunately, there is no SEC.gov for private companies. There are paid subscription services that provide confidential information, and some free services as well. There are also techniques you can use to estimate private company revenues by leveraging publicly available data. ## Paid services Paid services like Pitchbook, DealRoom,, PrivCo, and CBInsights, offer insights into private company financials. Sometimes they have access to financial statements. These services are not cheap — the lowest Pitchbook subscription is $20K/year, prepaid. You might ask your company’s corporate development executive if they have access and would be willing to share it. ## Owler.com Owler is a crowd-sourced research site that provides overviews of private companies, including revenue estimates. They offer a limited free plan and two paid plans. Here is an example of an Owler summary: ![Owler profile](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*tQybW6bXjSXJECIq) ## Crunchbase.com Crunchbase is a service that provides good research information, especially for venture-backed companies. Like Owler they offer limited free information and paid options from $29 to $49 a month. Here is an example: ![Crunchbase profile](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*9TGt_1CCtBn5EgNW) ## Latka Latka is a new startup research service that targets bootstrapped companies. The LATKA SaaS database uses CEO interviews, public data, and data estimates to showcase over 30,000 SaaS companies. Where there is no CEO interview, the data is estimated. Data includes revenue, customer count, churn, customer acquisition cost, average contract values, & payback periods, among many other important SaaS data points. LATKA also runs periodic special ranking reports such as top growing SaaS companies by employee growth, bootstrapped, and sales team churn. They offer limited free views and a monthly $79 subscription to access their entire database. Some samples include: ![GetLatka Profile](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*XectBx0OrzV3AGhP) ![GetLatka Profile](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*XkhR390nBhfIV5Z1) ## Estimating private company revenues using the headcount proxy Another tactic you can use to estimate the revenues of private companies is known as the headcount proxy. Generally, software companies in the same market targeting the same types of customers (consumers, small-to-medium businesses, mid-market, or enterprises) tend to have similar economics. A common metric is revenue/employee. If you can find some accurate information about a company’s employees and revenues, you can develop an estimate for a company’s revenues based on its headcount. As I mentioned before, I recently had a consulting sales opportunity in the EdTech space for a privately held EdTech SaaS provider. I had worked in EdTech 20 years ago but was not up to date on current trends. I did a basic analysis to see what the competitive landscape looked like. First I found a few public companies and reviewed their SEC filings. Then I identified a number of private companies I was interested in. I looked up their headcount information on LinkedIn. This was the result: ![headcount revenue prozy](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*SSXObUOFn4GJ2i8z) The headcount proxy technique can only be used to build a rough estimate. Whenever possible I try and correlate multiple sources to build an estimate (Google Owler, Latka, etc.) A challenge with the headcount proxy is that unless the companies you are comparing are very close competitors, the comparison may be skewed. Comparing the economics of a firm that has $20 million in annual revenue to a firm that has $1 billion is not exactly apples and oranges. If the comparable company has a large number of employees in low-cost markets that can skew the numbers too. Freshworks, a $350 million company that just went public has 3,900 of its 5,000 employees in India. ## Competitor funding Understanding the amount of funding and the funding history of a competitor is important. It lets you know how much of a ‘war chest’ the competitor has to deploy. Crunchbase and Latka are two great sources of funding information: ![Latka fundraising profile](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*2C5kRUQvGy1vBwiN) ![Crunchbase funding profile](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*jKX0vXrsJqNhLRVW) You can infer that a company is cash-flow positive or even profitable if they have not raised any money, or it has been many years since its last raise. ## Competitor industry analyst reports Industry analyst reports can provide great insights into competitors. In the enterprise space, inclusion in a Gartner Group Magic Quadrant can make or break a company’s sales potential. If you have a subscription to Gartner, Forrester, or Ovum use it. If you do not have a subscription, you can sometimes find reports for free. Many vendors offer copies of reports that feature them on their websites. Simply Google vendor name + Gartner magic quadrant and see what you can find. For example, BMC offers a free copy of the I.T. Service Management MQ Report: ![GG Magic Quadrant](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*ABiizxVMjTnoKN-s) You can also check popular user review sites like G2, Capterra, or Software Advice. Some use review sites to provide market summaries. Here is one from G2: ![G2 Quadrants](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*a9xDXaeG6yxvU45m) You can also do general Google searches as well. Here are two market research reports I found during my EdTech investigation: ![EdTech Research HolonIQ](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*hbcVgtAulgw-0QkN) ![EdTech Research Brightview Ventures](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*xegr6_e9tub6d7fx) Brightview Ventures ## Competitor global footprint Understanding where a competitor’s employees and offices are located can provide insights into their overall ability to execute. A quick review of their website, job openings, and LinkedIn can help. ![Edtech global footprint](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*789fAa9B0cecN1Js) ## Competitor enterprise value Enterprise Value is the best metric to describe the value of a company. Enterprise Value is a single metric that describes how valuable a company is. It combines the value of a company’s equity(sock), revenues, profitability, cash, debt, and other factors into a single metric. It can be used to describe both public companies as well as privately-held companies. Enterprise Value (EV) is the measure of a firm’s total value and factors in the entire market value instead of just the equity value. It includes considerations like cash, debt, and other factors. A company’s value is often described as a ratio involving Enterprise Value. Enterprise Value/Revenue (ttm) is a common metric. It describes how Enterprise Value is a multiple of its trailing twelve months revenue. According to the Software Equity Group’s research, in [Q3 2021 the median SaaS company had an EV/Revenue ratio of 13.2x.](https://softwareequity.com/seg-snapshot-3q21-saas-public-market-update/) In other words, the median enterprise Value was 14.3 times the size of the prior twelve months’ revenues. EV/EBITDA is another common metric. In Q2 2021 the [median EV/EBITDA ratio for SaaS companies was 63.8x](https://softwareequity.com/seg-snapshot-2q21-saas-ma-update/). The formula for calculating Enterprise Value has seven steps:: 1. \+ common equity at market value (this line item is also known as “market cap”) 2. \+ debt at market value (here debt refers to interest-bearing liabilities, both long-term and short-term) 3. – cash and cash equivalents 4. \+ minority interest at market value, if any 5. \+ preferred equity at market value (preferred shares/liquidation preferences) 6. +unfunded pension liabilities and other debt-deemed provisions 7. – value of associate companies Major stock reporting services (Google Finance, Yahoo Finance, NASDAQ, NYSE) automatically calculate the enterprise value of public companies. You can estimate the enterprise value of private companies. For my EdTech project, I created an enterprise value analysis: ![EdTech Enterprise Values](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*QDNz4TTMlibWUkck) ## Competitor marketecture Marketecture is a concept that combines several factors into one chart to show the dynamics of a particular market. It is similar in concept to the Gartner Group’s Magic Quadrant. Typically I use Enterprise Value for one axis and Ability to Execute as another. You should determine what are the relevant factors for your company. Here is a marketecture diagram I built for my EdTech project: ![Marktecture example](https://miro.medium.com/proxy/0*xxxLtq8fD8x5d752) ## Summary Competitive intelligence is a core responsibility of product management. There is more to competitive intelligence than understanding the features and functionality of competitive solutions. Product managers need to understand competitors’ revenues, headcount, funding, industry analyst relations, global footprint, and enterprise value. Product managers need to understand the business aspects of their competitors and how they stack up against their own business. Fortunately, there are many free resources and tactics product managers can use to learn about these items. --- *This article was [originally published at Development Corporate](https://developmentcorporate.com/2021/11/07/product-management-competitor-business-intelligence/).* ### What I learned about competition mapping. And why every company should do it. URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-i-learned-competition-mapping/ Last updated: 2022-06-30T08:26:03.000Z In the last few years, I launched several companies, some achieved good results, and some failed. One of the things that I learned, in this period, is that by analyzing market players you can get a reasonable insight into the results that your company may achieve in this market. As an example, if the companies in your target markets were born several years ago, they are still small and they raised only small rounds, then, this means that this market can’t support high-growth companies or is not ready yet for scaling (and building unicorns). On the other side, if in your market there are some examples of high-speed growing companies, then, probably there is a small chance to build something that can scale. Of course, this is not a universal law, but it works quite well. In my opinion, competition mapping is one of the key strategic activities that every entrepreneur should perform before and while running a business. The motivation doesn’t reside in the will of copying, following or being worried about competitors but in the need to understand with real data if a market exists, its profitability, the growth rate of the companies, the trends and hidden opportunities of an industry. Some time ago I watched a YouTube video of a lesson by Peter Thiel at YCombinator, named“Competition is for Losers”. In this video, Thiel focused on the importance for Startups of identifying a specific market niche and becoming its monopolist of this small market instead of betting on wider markets and being insignificant. In his mind, this is the only way to assure consistent growth and potential interest from larger companies interested to acquire new markets. The math behind his mind is easy: Reaching 4% of 10B but competitive market with plenty of horizontal solutions is much more difficult than reaching 80% of 500M ultra-targeted niche market with a super vertical solution (ie. a solution designed specifically to solve a problem). The potential turnover is the same but the probability, the complexity, and the costs to reach this are not. Discovering hidden market opportunities is then, also, one of the motivations why a good mapping can be a really important task to be performed before launching a business. This doesn’t mean that you won’t find competitors but it means that they will be mainly indirect competitors instead of direct ones. # **Prerequisites** Before performing competitor mapping, whether I have still just an idea or an established business it is important to have a quite clear idea about our **value proposition and our business model.** For that motivation, I suggest spending time on this only after an **initial data-driven validation with landing pages**. The risk, otherwise, is maybe to track companies that are not the competitors that we will really face on the market. # **How to identify and tag competitors** Identifying if competitors are direct or indirect is quite easy: ****Indirect competitors:** They are a) companies that target your same customers or b) companies that employ your same solutions (in different niches). They are not in direct competition but maybe they will become so. ****Direct competitors:** These kinds of competitors are companies that have both previous characteristics, ie. same customers and same technologies. This doesn’t mean that they have exactly the same solution but that there are probably some features in common and your product will be frequently compared to them. I will try to make an example: Assuming we want to build a marketplace for P2P physical storage space between privates, in this case, our competitors could be: Indirect: Airbnb — P2P home rental (same solution, different customers) or Uhaul — Storage Box Rental (different solution/business, same customers) Direct: Neighbor — P2P physical storage space between privates (same solution/same customers) ![](https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*OqfBIYpTe3MMSr5Qq4Glbw.png) Direct Vs Indirect Competitors # **Indicators to be tracked** But, what are the right indicators to be tracked? And How? I recommend starting by creating a table on a spreadsheet with different columns representing the indicators to be analyzed: ****Name:** of the company. ****Website:** to be able to check its proposition easily. ****Direct/Indirect:** Track if it’s in direct or indirect competition against your solution. ****Type:** Try to differentiate some main classes of the competitors (ex. P2P home rental, Box rental, P2P physical storage space between privates). ****Value Proposition:** What is the value that they are selling to their customers? ****Country:** Where is the company located? ****Market Presence:** In which countries is the company selling? ****Employees Count:** Analyze how many employees work in the company, and if possible also track the employee count trend. This is important to understand if the company is already large and if it’s growing fast. ****Foundation Year:** It helps you to understand how much time they need to reach an actual state of development. ****Funding**: It helps you to understand if they raised money, which round, and how much they raised. This is really important to understand the conditions of the market. If investors are betting on those companies probably there exists an opportunity, if rounds are closer it means that the growth is strong. You can confirm this data by analyzing the employee count. ****Revenues:** It helps you understand how the money raised is performing. This is not a law but small investments, short times, and high revenues mean that probably the market is very profitable. ****Pricing/Business Model:** This helps you to understand how other companies are approaching the market. Learning from other experiences can be a good starting point to understanding your pricing. ****Product Features:** for each competitor track all the features and compare them with yours. ****Customer Reviews:** Analyze what their customers are saying about their products. This is also a gold mine to identify potential business opportunities. ****Keywords:** Analyze the keywords they are using to position and promote themselves on the market and for SEO scopes, there are several tools to perform this analysis. Probably it’s the result of long data analysis and testing. You can cut your path by learning from them. ****Social Accounts:** Analyze the type of content that they are using to promote themselves, probably it’s the result of long data analysis and testing. You can cut your path by learning from them. For a complete analysis I recommend using some market available tools like SemRush, Keywords Everywhere, Similarweb, Spyfu, Moz, Google News, etc. to track ****Media exposure**, ****Searches on their brand trend, Acquisition channels, and Estimated ADV budgets**. That information can be useful when you will design your Marketing Strategy. ![](https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*Hhe4m96_t9IuyVKIxsXQbg.png) Example of a Mapping Table (not all fields are displayed) After the creation of the mapping table you will be able to complete your Market Competition Analysis using several methods: ## **1- Performing a SWOT Analysis** to identify your product’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. If you want to read more about SWOT you can read this article on [Business News Daily](https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4245-swot-analysis.html). ## **2-Performing a Competition Qualitative Analysis:** by comparing qualitatively your product’s strengths and weaknesses against each competitor mapped. - Does XYZ have the same customers? - Does XYZ have the same solution? - Which are my strengths against XYZ competitors? - Which are my weaknesses points against XYZ competitors? - How can I protect my position against XYZ? ## **3- Performing a Five Forces of Porter Analysis** The Porter Five Forces are a collection of factors that explain why various industries are able to sustain varying levels of profitability. The five forces are frequently used to evaluate the competitive intensity, market attractiveness, and profitability of an industry or market. This methodology analyzes: ****a) Competition in the industry**: it refers to the number of competitors and their ability to undercut your company. - How many competitors do you have? - Which is their dimension? - How can you protect your company against them? - What are you better than them? - What are they doing to protect their position? - How complex is it to switch from your competitor’s solutions to yours? When a market has low competitive rivalry, companies can charge higher prices and negotiate better terms to achieve higher sales and profits. ****b) Potential of new entrants into the industry:** it describes the impact of a new market player entry, - Which is the probability that a new company enters your market? - What is the complexity for a new company to enter your market? - What are the effects of new entrants into your market? - What is your strategy to prevent new entries? - How difficult is it to switch from your solution to a new one? A strong entry barrier in an industry is ideal for existing companies within that industry since they can charge higher prices and negotiate better terms. ****c) Power of suppliers**: Describes how suppliers can easily drive up input costs - Which is your purchasing potential? - How many customers does your supplier serve? - How many suppliers are available for your components? - How big is the technical gap between your potential suppliers? - How difficult could it be to switch from one supplier to another? A company would be more dependent on a supplier if an industry had fewer suppliers. ****d) Power of customers:** Their ability to influence price reductions - Which is your supply potential? - How many customers do you have? - How is your turnover balanced? - Can you serve any parallel markets? - How big is the technical gap between your product and others? - Which is the impact of losing/acquiring a customer? If a company has many independent, smaller customers, it will be easier for it to charge higher prices to increase profitability. ****e) Threat of substitute products:** The threat posed by goods or services, originally designed for other applications, but that can be used to replace your products or services. - Are there any products used in other markets that can be used to solve your same problem? - How complex could it be for a company in a different market to enter your market (business model, regulatory, brand awareness, barriers, etc.) - Which barriers can you design to prevent other market players from entering your market? A company that produces goods or services for which there is no close substitute will be able to raise prices and lock in favorable terms. If you want to read more about Porter’s 5 Forces this is a good article by [Harvard Business Review](https://hbr.org/1979/03/how-competitive-forces-shape-strategy). ## **4- Defining Market Positioning** What is your company recognized for? Market positioning is the process of influencing consumer perception and recognizability. In other words, it is the process of establishing the brand’s image and identity. By doing so, a company can attain superior margins compared with its competition. All your marketing activities depend on the market positioning. If you want to read more about Porter’s 5 Forces this is a good article by [MagePlaza](https://www.mageplaza.com/blog/positioning-in-marketing.html). # **Conclusion** Competition mapping is an ongoing very powerful activity that could be used during the opportunity validation phase. It's also a vital marketing planning tool for running companies to track and protect positioning since new players are continuously emerging and existing ones are continuously evolving their value propositions. ### Competitive intelligence - dissemination URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-dissemination/ Last updated: 2022-06-28T16:09:22.000Z In an [earlier article](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/a-beginners-guide-to-competitive-intelligence/) I introduced the four-step model for competitive intelligence: ![No alt text provided for this image](https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4D12AQFlGtyD07jdRw/article-inline_image-shrink_1000_1488/0/1630400493596?e=1661990400&v=beta&t=QYnzlHWrEDWriIzPdbp6Ha4s8y_cXPFXgKow_LrqVyQ) And then in a [subsequent article](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-collection/), I described the first step - Collection. The second step, Evaluation, is perhaps the most complex, and therefore I am going to address it in an upcoming article in order to do the topic the justice that it deserves. For now, I am going to focus on the third step - Dissemination. In other words, communicating the intelligence to your stakeholders. This is definitely a case of one size does not fit all. > *You must create a communication plan that matches the needs of each stakeholder group. The content, timing, and method of communication for each group will vary.* Therefore, you should meet with each team to discuss their needs and agree on an appropriate strategy with them. When executing your plan, this is a good opportunity to build your credibility and reputation within your company and as a part of that, I recommend creating a Competitive Intelligence brand for yourself by using a consistent, distinctive style to your communication. If your marketing team allows it, you could have your own logo which should be consistent with the rest of the company’s branding but stand out from it. Use this logo in all your emails, presentations, and reports. ### Breaking News As well as the approaches discussed for each group of stakeholders discussed below, you should also be prepared to handle ‘breaking news’ - significant competitive events that need to be communicated quickly so that they can be acted upon. However, don’t be tempted to simply forward a link to a news story to everyone on your internal email list, hoping to impress them with the speed of your action. You must add some analysis and I would suggest a two-step approach: - To get the news out as quickly as possible, add your thoughts on the impact of the news on your stakeholders. - And then follow up a few days later once you have been able to gather further insights from industry analysts and others that may be commenting on the news. ### Sales Team A salesperson needs tactical Competitive Intelligence to use when they are in the middle of a deal and they learn that a particular competitor is also in the opportunity. Therefore your primary goal for the sales team is to provide ‘always there’ access to the latest competitive intelligence. This will typically be in the form of dynamic sales battlecards easily accessible via an online Competitive Intelligence tool, or through the company’s Intranet or CRM system. Whilst battlecards are the primary delivery tool for the sales team, they should not be the only ones. Sales should be included in a regular (probably monthly) Competitive Intelligence update email or newsletter that summarises the key competitive developments in the most recent period. This is a good way for sales to learn about new entrants to the market and major campaigns that competitors are launching etc. It would be wise to attend sales meetings on a quarterly basis, not just to communicate to the team, but as an opportunity to interact with them and get feedback. ### Executives Your executive team will have very different needs from the sales team, and your communications plan must reflect that. They will not spend time looking at battlecards and are unlikely to pay much attention to regular emails or newsletters - although some ‘breaking news’ items such as the merger of two competitors will be highly relevant (as long as you provide some analysis - executives are likely to have their own sources and will almost certainly be aware of the big stories as soon as you are and so you must provide additional value). You should try to get a regular (perhaps twice a year) slot on the agenda for the senior management team meeting to provide a competitive update. This should be strategic in nature and focus on the changing competitive landscape as well as insights from activities such as your win-loss program. Once you have established your team’s credibility for providing strategic insight, you are likely to receive one-off requests from executives for research and analysis. This in turn will likely require a different communications strategy - perhaps an in-depth report (but confirm with your stakeholder what they are expecting before you produce anything.) ### Product Management and Marketing These are two important groups of stakeholders and as well as receiving your regular email/newsletter I would recommend meeting with each every quarter. These meetings should be two-way with you conveying the latest Competitive Intelligence on topics relevant to each group while hearing from them what they would like from your team. It is likely that the product group, in particular, will also have some useful insights that they have picked up while talking to customers and partners but probably did not think to pass on during the course of normal business. > *No matter how comprehensive and timely your data collection, or how good your evaluation of that data, unless you have a well-executed dissemination plan for each of your stakeholder groups, your efforts will have been wasted.* ### Competitive intelligence - collection URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-collection/ Last updated: 2022-06-30T08:24:41.000Z In my [previous article](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/a-beginners-guide-to-competitive-intelligence/), I gave a brief introduction to the topic of Competitive Intelligence (CI). In this one, I will look at the first component of the four-step CI process - Collection ![No alt text provided for this image](https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4D12AQFNrotgZ_pz_w/article-inline_image-shrink_1000_1488/0/1618561127068?e=1661990400&v=beta&t=5rzbtDHl_w24ad4HDY0a3_lwDZrcZzaH-VyiIxqd24E) In many ways, the evolution of the World Wide Web over the past 25 years has made the collection of competitive data much easier. A lot more information is freely available and there are a host of tools, from Google Alerts to full-blown CI applications, that can automate the capture of data. However, the proliferation and ease of capture create a new problem for the CI professional: it is now all too easy to be overwhelmed by the volume of data and make the next step - Evaluation - that much more difficult. Remember that *raw data is of no value until it has been evaluated and communicated to the relevant stakeholders*. Collection is not a one-time process. Yes, you will have to do extensive research upfront to create your initial battlecard or produce your first analysis report, but thereafter you must have an ongoing collection process to track changes in your competitive environment. ### Humint v Sigint Using an analogy from the world of military intelligence, we can distinguish between two sources of intelligence data. Human intelligence (*humint*) is information obtained by speaking directly with people who have knowledge of the subject, while signals intelligence (*sigint*) is the published, or written, information. The latter might be freely available to all, or hidden away in a private database or behind a so-called paywall. Both humint and sigint are of value. Humint in particular can give you access to unique information not available to others, but any source should be evaluated for reliability. ## What to Collect With so much data available, it is important that your collection process is focused on finding the information that will help to deliver on the objectives of your CI program, whether that is helping your sales team beat your number one competitor, or understanding broader market trends for your M&A executives. As noted above, there is a lot of information freely available via the Web to anyone who cares to look and it is very likely that your competition will be accessing the same data, thus reducing its strategic value. So it is well worth investing time, effort, and money to find and access the more hidden data. Whilst being selective is important, the most effective CI practitioners also understand the value of serendipity and will constantly scan for possible connections and insights. ## Examples of Sources of Relevant Data There are too many possible sources to discuss them all in this article and so I have picked a few of the more important, focused on competitors (although many will be equally applicable to other entities such as partners, customers, and suppliers that you should be watching). ****Company Websites** You will find large quantities of valuable information on the websites of your competitors, but this does come with a warning. Most of that information will have been placed there quite deliberately by the company’s marketing team in order to convey the messages that they want to be seen. This information may not reflect accurately the actual position - for example, the product announcements from software companies often tend to over-hype the capabilities and availability of the product. Among the topics to look for on competitor websites are: - Marketing messages - News of customer wins and new partnerships - Product announcements - Leadership changes - Financial results (for public companies) ****Review Sites and Support Forums** There are a number of well-established product and employee review sites such as Capterra, Trustpilot, and Glassdoor that can give useful insights into a company’s products and culture. Often the more negative reviews are of most value as they can highlight weaknesses that can be exploited in your own sales campaigns. Support forums are sometimes publicly accessible and provide an insight into what users are really experiencing when using the product, and if moderated by the vendor, a view of how well they care for their customers. ****Interviews with Former Employees** To remain ethical and to avoid an individual from violating confidentiality agreements you need to tread carefully, but if your company has recently hired employees from a competitor it is always worth having a conversation with them. One useful question is to ask them how your organization is viewed from the competitor’s perspective. ****Win-Loss** In an ideal world, your CRM system should contain valuable information about how your company is doing against today’s competition - who you are winning and losing against and maybe some comments from sales reps. However, if your company is just starting out on the CI journey, the sales team will not yet be in the habit of recording this data. You should start by interviewing the reps, or better still the customers and prospects themselves in order to extract valuable insights. I will discuss setting up a win-loss program in a future article. ****Analyst Reports** In many industries, there are analyst organizations that study the market and its major players. They then use that information to advise their clients when selecting a new product or service. Normally their research reports are only available to their paying clients. However, if a vendor receives a particularly glowing review, they might purchase reprint rights to the report and make it available to their prospects and customers. It is usually possible then to obtain a copy simply by giving your email address and downloading from the vendor’s website (although some organizations will block downloads from their competitors' domains). ****Financial Information** The amount of financial information about companies that you will be able to find easily will vary significantly depending on whether they are public or private corporations, and in which country they are based. For example, in the UK all companies have to submit at least some level of annual financial report to the authorities, which then becomes publicly available, whereas in the US, only publicly traded companies have to do this. There are also organizations such as Crunchbase and PitchBook that can be a good source of data, although may require a paid subscription. ****Other Sources** Among the other good sources of data are a company’s social media presence, blogs, trade shows, trade journals, conferences, consulting firms, academic papers, your partners … The list is endless. ## Summary Collecting data about your competitive environment is the vital first step in the CI process. You could never hope to capture everything and so being selective, based on your objectives, and organized are keys to success. ### A beginner's guide to competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/a-beginners-guide-to-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2022-06-30T08:23:58.000Z Welcome to this new series of articles exploring the world of Competitive Intelligence (CI), aimed at newcomers with no prior knowledge of the subject. If you are looking for a role within CI, or are just interested in the topic, these articles will give you a solid understanding of the basics and hopefully stimulate your interest to understand more. This first article starts with the basic concepts and provides an overview of the topic. Later articles will explore each area in more depth. ## What is Competitive Intelligence? A naive view of CI is that it is just about understanding your current competitors. Indeed I have heard folks speak of ‘Competitor Analysis’. In reality, Competitive Intelligence is a very broad subject and there are many definitions of CI out there. One organization focused on the topic - Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) - uses the following definition: *“A discipline that enables organizations to reduce strategic risk and increase revenue opportunities by having a deep understanding of their operating environment. It's using intelligence to increase competitiveness, not simply monitoring competitors.”* Two key points stand out in this definition: - CI is about delivering significant business benefits - ‘reduce strategic risk’, and ‘increase revenue opportunities’. - CI is much more than watching your competitors and should involve the broader operating environment - market trends, customers, vendors, etc. But this definition is still rather high level. What exactly is involved in ‘doing’ Competitive Intelligence? It can be viewed as a process involving four main steps: ![No alt text provided for this image](https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4D12AQGpBHo_vlazxA/article-inline_image-shrink_1000_1488/0/1617179233739?e=1661990400&v=beta&t=qZE6VukleesIgyDJFhTvYbOxZat5jmW40QBbCvLbI5g) - Collecting data about the market in which you operate. - Evaluating that raw data to turn it into actionable information. - Disseminating the information to relevant stakeholders. - Taking action on the information. The final step is critical. Without action, there is no value in Competitive Intelligence. We will look at each of these steps in detail in future articles. ## Competitors Although the above definition makes clear that CI is about more than Competitors, that is where most CI programs start, and so it is worth considering who are your competitors in the broadest sense. Most companies will have obvious direct competitors - those businesses that provide the same type of product or service to the same customers - think Coke and Pepsi, or McDonald's and Burger King. Then there are companies that are selling other products to the same customers and in doing so are competing for a share of the same funds. It is often the case that those indirect competitors can fairly easily extend their product line to compete directly with you. But often the most dangerous competitors are those firms that will compete in the future (but do not currently) as a result of a significant change in the market - often as a result of new technology. Blockbuster did not see Netflix coming. ## Where Should You Focus? With the potential of so many competitors - current and future - even the largest Competitive Intelligence department cannot expect to study them all to an equal depth. Therefore the targets must be prioritized, and in order to do that, you must be clear on the objective of your CI program. For example, if your primary goal is to assist the sales team then you should be looking at the competitors that appear most often in deals and to whom you are frequently losing. But if the goal is to provide information to senior executives for strategic purposes you might want to look at the up-and-coming new entrants who are not showing up in deals yet as well as scanning the market for evolving trends. ## Stakeholders For a CI function to deliver value, it must be clear who its stakeholders are and what they are looking for. This should be agreed upon when establishing a CI function and reviewed on a regular basis as conditions change and the CI capability at your company matures. Typical stakeholders include: ****Sales Teams** are the folks that are facing the competition every day and need information at their fingertips to counter objections placed by competitors as well as plant land mines for them. The precise needs of individual salespeople will vary depending on their role - for example, business development reps, new business account executives, and installed base account managers. The most common form of communicating CI to sales teams is through Battlecards - easily digested, to-the-point summaries of the key information needed by reps in the field. ****Product Managers** will be interested in the competitors’ products. Detailed feature/function comparisons are difficult to achieve and even more difficult to keep current and are therefore probably not a good use of CI resources. Much better to invest effort into understanding the strategic product direction of your competitor’s offerings. ****Marketing** will want to know about your competitors’ positioning and the campaigns that they are running in order to differentiate their own messaging ****Executives** will be looking for much more strategic output from CI in order to inform activities such as mergers and acquisitions and will likely want to know about the broader industry trends. ## Summary In this article, we have defined what we mean by Competitive Intelligence, described the types of competitors that you might have, and reviewed some of the stakeholders. Next time we will look at the four key processes of CI - Collect, Evaluate, Disseminate, Action. ### Closing the gap between revenue teams URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/closing-the-gap-between-revenue-teams/ Last updated: 2022-11-30T11:59:25.000Z At Showpad we believe the best customer experience wins, and in this article, I’ll explain two common gaps that drive poor buying experiences; customer knowledge variance and the revenue enablement gap. I believe revenue enablement can go some way to bridging these gaps, so I’ll cover the four pillars of revenue enablement and share how we think about revenue enablement and what it actually should be doing for our customers. My name's Louis Jonckheere, I'm the co-founder and president of Showpad, and in this article, I'll discuss how to close the gap between revenue teams and align your customer-facing teams to deliver the best possible buyer experience. Showpad is a sales enablement platform that helps our customers deliver the best possible sales interactions and conversations to their customers. ## **The best customer experience wins** This is something we truly believe in as a company and something that’s really driving a lot of success and change across B2B organizations across the world. ![the best customer experience wins](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/oEVhBZ62g6qhH5rpuODGSL-tPD3--YEwidVgv6Cl2MxzQS4pZRgDaXorpP69CrrZZe0rgePaiO0w9s14sPfSwUFZlXYb989v_Bx_P8Wz83Zujj87C2sUOq2aqgiyijYH7dsw2yMV) ### **Convenience** This for me is the first driver of a great customer experience. From the B2C world, we've learned that technology made it easier and more convenient to buy something to get from A to B, to order a meal, etc. Think about anything - technology has made it extremely convenient for us. ![convenience](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/a51xZS8YPy0ObZO3oiLtB0QTAmdkLoogfgn0E5T2LRmPH_FGzKbSTPn4i_xSajmtnLAxW4Zgg3j2pJNXoTUwTwgdC0kPZWjCKeeCJBlZ7PrvDSUSdIbSb2Bdf9RbY2iA8TaqOcLd) Think about selling B2B and buying, is this convenient enough? Are you a convenient business to work within your sales and buying processes? That's something to really think about when you deliver on your customer experience. ### **Exceptional value** The second piece is exceptional value, are you delivering value at every single touchpoint of your customer journey? Every interaction you have with a customer needs to deliver personalized, unique, exceptional value. If you do not do that you're wasting your customer's time. ![exceptional value](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/UlBuNLMmJd_Ircjw8qk3M39ocL7Fky4156Wh1t1etfCBlNumqu0uZ_K6-2I8n3CUHKL1fKbSNbbyHakJH0jIhOAO0kmsrG7ETAP72rY56oCMQww7MrfJSncQUjKgotj4NZMnW2t5) Convenience and exceptional value are two key drivers of what is in my opinion, a very strong customer experience. ### **Customer experience is the current battleground** 90% of B2B companies expect customer experience to be the next battleground. ![90% of b2b companies expect customer experience to be the next battleground](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/2JeMY_NM8HuJT2Ij4De6rOB772prAsYTK-yemCuA7sPTHgAeUPdl_It0_1eyCFB-it8gzidiyRiYh-OqgWTJ03mYqnkNsZFT1MpzY8sZuMqmtkwP_6cHTHeqEiRvlLFgD7sgGLC8) This is a number from two years ago, I think especially given the pandemic and all of the digital change we've seen, it is the current battleground. That's trumping product, trumping price, and making sure customers choose your product or service to work with and not your competitors. We are today on this battleground and it's time to up our game. But we're still not there yet. ![77% of b2b buyers feel making a purchase is too complicated](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/x1BFdY8Vmi1qCoGxus4Cdk8Dvhv84VmTIaFI7faZ8DjXR4oVBBDMfthaapSGvKM0t-m9EAK2flN0vL-wxtcEm5pK3zoS2obLTl4aps6lfjP1QzVVc6PXXdzagxY65ktyLZCOHRgr) Last year's study by Gartner shows more than 75% of buyers feel that it's too complicated and too time-consuming to buy something from you, as a business, very specifically in B2B. ![customer experience is the current battleground](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/U0Wddh_LnBHxi9nEtV-1PU7oDcLrAa1JxaVKKwSLrE85Q9Dz0TDu8MiV5GhpXkcgznHdUAvT850KFjcq6TlLq3YQuEkrRtLn3wOXtToXQhm2GGNM06shW5CjsEKjKZ7z_gy6cdkS) So we have to buckle up, we have to do more, and we have to think deeper about how we can make buying easier for our customers. ### **We aren’t organized to deliver unified buying experiences** The first thing I want to talk about is the silos, I think we all see that one of the big hurdles to delivering a great customer experience is the fact that we work in silos. ![we need to to deliver unified buying experiences](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/o-welhsjePDIVwHAogAgSqU-iVJ0DFEADVXRI431hzQ6VMH9VIdU-hg7K_wnv1B6P4bhcKltbPnuWefwAgeP2scqBU6H51AN1xoVT9OvjXDpXIdkCfQtUR5fpx8Ml3Ew5u5R9qiy) Every silo has its version of the truth, its strategy, and its way of thinking about the customer and the go-to-market strategy. We need to change this, we need to bring those silos together around unified metrics, processes, and technology, which I will talk more about later. ### **We don’t have the tools to deliver a unified buying experience** We don't have the technology today to make that happen. Your CMS system or your CRM, your marketing automation platform doesn't help you to deliver a consistent customer experience across all of those silos. ![we need the tools to to deliver unified buying experiences](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/RFf8ppElOybx-zXhFQw4B-IQy_ZEW4bCyOHivQrKuRnViVzpMI67EDr6d66SzYl0WgMXduq56iH4TsAks8d4ycTu5yItVtl2pF7oIo9hYOMlOkl1Jc0wyjdwp8bH6CPUzyCUMydf) This is where we believe sales enablement technology really fits in. There are two gaps that I would like to talk about that drive, in our opinion, a poor buying experience across all of your channels. ## **Two gaps that drive poor buying experiences** The first one I want to talk about is customer knowledge variance. ### **Customer knowledge variance** Customer knowledge variance is about the idea that every single department has a very different view on what customer knowledge is, who their customers are, and how to approach them. ### **Where is my customer knowledge?** Basically, if we ask the question where is my customer knowledge? It's spread across different systems and it's spread across different teams. It's in your CRM system, a million Excel sheets, your surveys, meeting notes, market research, it's everywhere. ![where is your customer knowledge?](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/6EOY9JOKTuEm-8k3jzIOZku7hFk0Wka_AW3TwGVrVj36WgglTGHVfgFSOT1GBLTQp-8nPCTZ9NbzgRPAgh25sY8G1PYSgn21FtxuKVrRr2nUzJvGAEfBkF_5wATLLO7qRa421UDC) It's not centralized. It's also not evenly spread across teams. Every silo has its own version of the truth and there's very little collaboration in really understanding who the customer is. I believe companies are making progress on that but most companies that I start working with, when I ask that question, don't have a great answer - it's spread across systems and teams with very little collaboration. ### **How accurate is my customer knowledge?** The second question is how accurate is your customer knowledge? From our perspective, the most accurate customer knowledge you can capture is actually the sales conversations and customer conversations you have. > But today 95% of that information gets lost because we rely on meeting notes and opinions. And because we use those opinions and meeting notes and share it with each other until we have a dumbed down version of what actually has happened in a specific conversation. ![95% of what happens in sales conversations gets lost](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/JAbyWLTjXPUWldfhh23Uk9Ria5CHQbE7HesHgMnzAlvY04DpvQtmqodo2sUNlaRtBpkjXkIB4LsVLDxzvCYI49LX1M2KqyXgxzHgwwrgqNqw5iC-_0sKr0oxK6Z-F1i2Clfq0EOZ) Sales conversations are one of the most important knowledge sources that you have as a company. I'll talk about how to actually deal better with that. ### **Ramifications** If you then go a bit deeper customer knowledge variance has major ramifications. - Marketing doesn't really understand the customer so the messaging and content they create is ineffective. - Sales, who have to deliver that value messaging to the customer, is unable to articulate a unique value because they really don't understand the customer. - Your customer experience organizations are unable to show that unique value to customers to make sure they see the value of your product and service, and ultimately renew or stay with you for the rest of their lives. ![marketing, sales and CX are siloed](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/ZFx-NKGLP3DBUTHdK2l3sUey6pT9Y7skhAlczMcEXq45lhRZraEvJydTr9q2U2HvD0X24pEV52eqlY0aHC-kxnnizF_k-rU71wOPW1SEIGEZvbZYHAtvo4u63WWb8Kj4hZUPP4Ek) Customer knowledge variance has huge major ramifications that we really need to think about. ### **Revenue enablement gap** The second gap we see that really drives a poor buying experience is the revenue enablement gap. This is a simple one, it starts with your customer, your buyer expects a buyer experience that is very consistent across all of your channels; sales, service, CX marketing, your partners, etc. ![the buyer expects a consistent experience across all channels](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/2hUCpZobBPCtgk2pnRupiYVMox86qoTsgGg12XPmUmmnikuX419D6Z1jMvNS_ZVgcIAWOZ4HGkKVRh-VCaF8YJUgRL_oX2GXsPkTbfsm79U_ACoSM1E4Had7GvdXU7a3uteIyTYB) > It doesn't make any sense to just enable your sales team to have great conversations, you need to do that with every single actor in your business who interacts directly with a customer. Very important to think about the topic of alignment - inconsistency will become really important here, which I will talk about later. Revenue enablement is about equipping your revenue teams with the right knowledge, skills, and tools to acquire and grow customers efficiently and effectively. ![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/PpJ4pNwuLLmsbhpqCEowKVGTUVS2RrgWOfEay78OlSqNJzjeRn5KV9RV2z9t66VTqIySj9TensF-WIHwgBkc2HlTFaGcq2CNK4vf10rwmO0MglEWdN7lpNtEhm-tQNMcF4fxy9Gu) The keyword for me here is ****effectively** \- get more out of the conversations you have with your customers, don't focus on getting 10x more meetings, but make sure the ones you have are more effective. Now I'll talk about revenue enablement because, in our view, revenue enablement really fixes or bridges some of the gaps that I've talked about - customer knowledge variance and the revenue enablement gap. I'll share how we think about revenue enablement and what it actually should be doing for our customers. ## **The four pillars of revenue enablement** ****Gain knowledge** It's about knowledge and gaining knowledge. If you think about the idea of knowledge and making your sellers and customer-facing teams knowledgeable, there are a few key items I want to touch upon here. ### **1) Make your content findable** First of all, as an organization - and this is where sales enablement technology can help - make your content findable. Make sure your sellers can find what they're looking for in search, browsing, and filter. ![make your content findable](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/x5vc34a2kgeOPll3KzYTSeSB71mVeJ7DMaxbqsRSUlunEWeK7HGi-oss7MgQ1hUqMr9gI_vLSX88HHWNYlLQkifYxmnDv-JmwcUu8TAeuJwX95UbBmmUMDv1LlCNTP59SVgh8_mh) Bring your content and logic in a user interface that actually helps sellers to find very quickly what they need. Make it findable for us is step one, in terms of content. ### **2) Make any relevant knowledge snippets findable** Secondly, we strongly believe in the idea of knowledge snippets. If you have a question, as a salesperson, and you want to have a quick answer. for example, with regards to competitive intelligence or an RFP, invest in a snippet or in a knowledge snippet database, which can be served to salespeople. ![many relevant knowledge snippets findable](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2Lta2iy0sh3tF0tmAyZgKuN4cb8IoiJi50CAq0aJdVfgYhPaIi-pzXnXPNE1qSnut9YPh_vJWBnB91QYVcoi235XGCuJvGxIzmd1Ldi1VlnSP8yNyl5iOvvVKc9gYUlPxyicSTi-) Content is a big driver of knowledge, like little snippets, which is again, something technology like Showpad can help you with can bring knowledge to salespeople faster. That's the second piece. ### **3) Guide sellers through plays** Plays, for me, are a game-changer in [the world of sales enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/). They're basically playbooks that start from achieving a specific goal. Let's say that you want to sell a new product to your customer base, make that very specific, that's the goal. Then really focus on the target and the characteristics of the customers you want to sell to. Then make sure you're very consistent about the knowledge, the battle cards, the messaging, the tools they can use, and the experts in the business that can help you in answering some of the questions. ![guide sellers through plays](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/Vl9EQvcN0dqErb05QIpKU1Ib009I4CRGogxlmw6KeuV3QaJuJmfUGv7OCvn9JDH0TY2svpz89dNNZUgQjTYLQ-d5ChJVN9hwsupKOHQZeYeKpE31HVoU9xUUdgnJfelICnh0TRdc) The idea of a play is that you bring together all of the knowledge, all of the tools, and all of the guidance together in a single interface that's going to really guide salespeople to make sure they ask the right questions, they show the right presentations, and they see the right things at the right moment. Plays are a really important piece of sharing knowledge with your customer-facing teams. ### **4) Deliver contextual (micro-)training** The last piece for us is training. Again, training is something we do when we onboard when we have a new product launch when there's a new initiative, and we see a huge move in the space towards micro contextual training. Small knowledge snippets that are delivered to salespeople when they actually need it, and not just at a moment in time when we want to organize a training. ![deliver contextual micro training](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/S-U5XemkhgjWa8oFETFwJo6kvBdtb6CQ0BOp42lPUMU8PFQwc95XHn6lTbyCI1bQVg8Z63QTNpNL47CzpRZ4YlIH84tAycZuE91QiLMZzZH2Oa9xX3XHN7LkMt5dQFIqUMY69DjS) Contextual micro training at the point where they actually need it, and in a format that they actually want to consume it. We see a lot of our customers at Showpad moving to a world where training is something that happens continuously, and not just at specific moments in time. That's the knowledge piece within revenue enablement. ## **Engage with buyers** The second piece is engaging with buyers. Your customer-facing teams need to have tools to engage with their customers in a very personalized and interactive way. ## **What makes a customer conversation great** If you think about customer conversations and what makes them great, it's about storytelling, value, and collaboration. It is something that we've learned, as B2C sales and marketing organizations, to be super important. ![what makes a customer conversation great](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/hH7SyuqXoSkLu1oGtwa386L4dwGTfIyiBmre0Us0KQdJ4y-963PMuRkVyql5yNH74K9PxLCOkiPz4Vu2hU5CJOmBFH8CDuEEMdxXJQmo596a2qjKkfziDwh19-L03i2Mc7rX6GQ1) But with the COVID pandemic hitting us, all of us have been confronted with the reality that we've moved from field sales to virtual selling, and in a very disruptive way we had to change gears and really become experts in that. ### **Deliver your story in an engaging way** I believe that we need to build a very similar expertise and level of innovation in virtual sales conversations that we have in in-person meetings. We need to think about improving them. I mean, if we're really honest here then virtual storytelling has its limits. ![deliver your story in an engaging way](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/lFaNa06AmV-8hl5F35lNZzAGqhw48AFynD62tRRC7PPKF9k6XVCXBc8wSVg72S55L-K_DNa7DhVJAaLq3JNFGorUsb0Xpl-UtaD5icNswC91yc5_hV3_7wqyl2ecsikq2xlzoyt-) ### **Visual storytelling has its limits** We're basically looking at a full-screen slide deck and the seller is that small, it doesn't really deliver the best customer experience that your customers expect. I think there's a lot of room for improvement and we believe that sales enablement technologies have a very important role to play there. ![virtual storytelling still its limits](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/pS8-NU9hfjVZYlgFj-Vkk4iAwpO1zSu5K9rWpZNrZzz-T425ZzkgzeEjICby3eWVqvo0SpkcLvuJ02L5Oj6YWRENSWGoCApGqL5WORD8eYtTJ_0w52YS5W-teud0-joAIy-uaBnD) ## **Becoming experts in virtual storytelling** At Showpad we're continuously innovating, adding capabilities, and adding innovation on top of that. Already today, you have capabilities, for example, with Zoom and a lot of their marketplace innovations such as adding interactive backgrounds and sharing interactive content with your customers. I believe today, we're just setting the first steps and becoming experts in virtual storytelling and I do expect a tonne of innovation in the market from a lot of players including sales enablement platforms. ![become an expert in virtual storytelling](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Bn0DpIveSh0-FtPtJ9X_8ngu0mkLJkdNhz5WHTVWXxp-dNQhWnHNg3NiX3pgcZFct6PjZLKt09eWgAWF3BQ1jydce5t9atQeYdwHiL-d32FiX0qldNFOQDUAlyJvETs5cTE18aMI) Virtual storytelling is the first piece I want to talk about. ### **From email to personalized buyer portals** When it comes to engaging your customers, we strongly believe at Showpad in the idea of buyer portals. Email is not a good tool to collaborate with your customers, especially now that we have a selling team and a buying team. ![from email to personalized buyer portals](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/BW68nIGhgxeMQ0jLBIyIwA_OiwXNBMbVxNrve997UvF5N7vgveKvcbK0_6iGyWtEnc6cSfwTXpMziobG8XquNO4qdzse7puWEr36Y14Xr44-Zk9HyQ7vhOOeddCU1u6FjWEq0Izc) It needs to be brought together in a portal that drives collaboration, personalization, and ultimately buying power. From email to personalized buyer portals, what we see with a lot of customers out there is the B2B organizations who embrace that idea of a buying portal deliver much more revenue. Up to 28% higher revenues. This is the buyer portal. ![utilize buyer portals to deliver information and achieve 28% higher revenue](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/6ppCklVpQdcd-x0sGwlX6SCaJBT8Sidud0YzDVcY7q7IVUQH05rYO_QUX-19HZMl2ZT3cLMtlIdueWxX0Jek6J_Uz-_rVGunLHW-AYrKmv9bfqDAlCLU9lwgqUoIehR4OwhpDEFB) Again, the buyer portal delivers you improved content findability for your customers, better personalization, and you can use it across the whole customer journey. ![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/rc6i4Xdipyw-h-huNDXrT1-2UxNB0_L8WdpGG3v2FScv5t-fTiRGYu1buQHbZAY6ywhXgVxuUXMhEnfkcUaarIrbV6bxZ1ZSbdZy3GH8Hq7ZK8m7ls-fSshPnM7qGNJhpGTslVHo) Those are two aspects of customer engagement we really think are going to be key to drive customer experience; ****virtual storytelling**, and ultimately much better ****buying portals** which your salespeople - your customer facing employees - can set up and use across the customer journey. ## **Be coached on skills** The third piece I want to talk about is coaching. ![upgrade sales skills with modern coaching](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wMjHNXL4Meyx6C_uvRvTA31JZP0bpjk78eGaihZfByxqt5uB1070JlKxAlGr9wAwb49f3FFC6vDJRG28U-ZCBl3HhOKQMV8xuYr5NphcomYISquh61nJENXo1jjs35KnwEWt9vDy) Yes, your sales team, your customer-facing teams need knowledge, they need to have tools to engage with customers, but they also need to be coached on the skills. They need to be coached on skills to be better salespeople, to be better customer success professionals. ### **Coaching changed drastically overnight** Also here, coaching changed drastically overnight. We all went through a reality where coaching suddenly had to happen virtually. We moved away from the watercooler conversations where we coached our colleagues or our manager coached sales reps at their desks when they closed the deal or lost the deal. ![Coaching changed drastically overnight](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Tej0oLhTRuxPF5HFnHaeO18h2ynxx9HY4FEQnq3bHJNy6Jy_RLPU24cZVzXqErKkIjl36qDGpFJWGH1lPx5FX4T6j2yc1JTI4H9uAUtCAfM5UtzaPLgKNmaYJeeJ_uMyap3FNBin) That changed drastically overnight and we now all have to do that virtually. There are a few areas I would like to focus on and share our ideas on how coaching really should be driven in a revenue enablement platform. ### **Sales managers don’t focus enough on coaching** First of all, this is really a reality that we see with lots of our customers and companies out there - we don't spend enough time coaching our sellers or customer success people. Half of the managers only spend less than 30 minutes per week coaching somebody. ![Half of managers only spend less than 30 minutes per week coaching somebody.](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/6Va1EPtI6FngvzgpAFIC0b-M5zC1ugoXCgmLw-qtxp8PAQspUl8TPpxLmh1c6JXfIbxz4XgL6bm3f0DhGQMbTPDEyOT0xF_o9UzNSIhVaCDUPq1gpnDQjYaf0LhZPvSyaAGHAEuc) If you think about it that's super low, especially knowing that coaching can deliver such an amazing upside. ## **The impact of coaching on quota attainment** As you see here, the impact of coaching on quota attainment is massive. ![The impact of coaching on quota attainment](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wyVFp1FXECgISDg2N9tFr3RbxK5rMOTNi4OVyXAc2HPZC7erSZwINBhyNm_7QX_rPryGk8APpBo1cjLLxMoQRkJEnZFR3mZUV72znDm4DW4nhHmyU_Z-rln7-JcDxe8B4ac2INnO) If you move from random coaching and where a lot of customers and companies are, to a dynamic form of coaching, you really start to have a massive uplift in your revenue. This is a great study from Miller Heiman and if you Google it there's lots more interesting data points to find. But coaching works, coaching drives business value and drives success. Yet, we don't do it enough, we don't have it formalized, and we do not know how to do it in a virtual environment. ### **Guide reps from tests to practicing** The first thing that we see at Showpad is we need to move from just giving sellers tests to giving sellers practice environments, giving sellers digital environments to: - Practice their pitch, - Record themself through video, - Write an email, - Do a roleplay, - Do a voiceover on deck, And then share that with their manager and with their peers to get specific feedback and specific coaching. ![guide reps from tests to practicing](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/A0IDz7pzabfUGQtBKSVQu0aK7I5EvYBK9zY7pyiwLt9eM5k_79gaIeg773FWf4jHJEi_Bi474UqY2qIpQkfeUy0xndWLfGoF_3gl_MfNoeZsPdMDAfPtJSyCbXqeCYSmpEK_mJS8) > A massive improvement I see in the world of coaching is that sellers can actually practice something and then get feedback and coaching based on what they've produced. If you think about it, it's fundamentally much more interesting, much stronger and more effective than just typing in the dust, which ultimately, isn't that effective. ### **Coach sellers on their practice assignments** The second thing is you can then basically coach your sellers, as I've mentioned, on those practice assignments. I've recorded a pitch, sent that to my manager, my manager now can give me feedback, they can score or rate me based on very specific criteria. ![Coach sellers on their practice assignments](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/sH0UiXboiE9v6U71m5scx73BZcaY0vzMlEgEYWbcYElZ2bazNf_7O73guqdct6eE0InBtH2gliaItN5zftGeKZvtxp8cgZXPPf1GOvDMC4Uhh64uEJJYzNTGqn_8SxuzQ15GY4Zg) You can share those examples with the rest of your team and if you have great practice assignments, and great practice pitches, the manager can decide to share them with the broader team so they can use that knowledge to make their pitch better. ![Coach sellers on their practice assignments](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/fam0rfKhYBOj-_LCiUFzN26WrfY6oTfq7A3DIOrCOxUy0kO0UxluXcQG-sqbTVi1P2hohqgfY5ME3Dl8plgrza_3DetSuPMKfb21hDZOC-Xc6f7Hefe9eN7E6YoMj6V07pu2GAkC) Super important that you close the loop there. ### **Start recording your customer meetings** I strongly believe customer meetings truly hold exceptional value in terms of coaching yourself. If you started recording your customer meetings, the first thing you'll notice is many of your customers will not have an issue with that, they really are more and more accepting of recording customer conversations. ![Start recording your customer meetings](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/8XUhnXTxotDNIPo9xdOp1j0B3QCj7WTy4Mx6YN3o9pdW14jam1RWL2bU53dU9VbKujtvDHE84UtHL-2v_aQIxMtUmtbHAcI4fNm_hE6GL12UuZxWHG-ANfsJw7txiImVhAiAqHM8) If you use conversation intelligence, which is a capability built into the Showpad platform, you can automatically record meetings through Zoom, etc. get the recording into your enablement technology and get the transcription. ![Use conversation intelligence to enhance understanding](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/lkDXTkN69P1O81zB99aEAErF59n9Q9xmXGydpqBa1RKnzmrAU3R9-sCVfstXIevEDTGC4wgjc_fBBkJZVmsb0MdDRodeQRvRTQB8CGCR_VSSSlK6wtvUyNnSXYQQkREMc1KpqENp) A very important piece of making sure you capture that knowledge inside of the platform. ### **Deliver high-impact coaching with meeting recordings** But then, of course, you use those recordings to deliver high-impact coaching. You use those specific pieces of recording, let's say the pricing negotiation or the product introduction, you take a snippet of that, and then the manager and the seller have a conversation about that interaction and get very specific and tangible coaching. ![Deliver high impact coaching with meeting recordings](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/uC39hEAXuTppInQ3Xmo6PlmuXlkAelXJK6BonDY3aTR8ZsnOkrw-Y0GsaVR1peMPBQWcHr9XdkBy5y5iMLZ3egdQc99yCh60TClZQ_fbWG1Tov3ESS1fk64o4B50Pbxa69mQhPw0) Based on real-life scenarios of salespeople, customer-facing employees really can get coaching and feedback which really has the highest impact. So, gain knowledge, engage buyers, and be coached on skills - three very important drivers of revenue enablement. ![three drivers of revenue intelligence](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/7FzcLcznRIlKUjPYo_vS7ppcVNjxkOKcsYG_9z-0IBCabkVcumfo7kS6TcGla70Qkvdk9oAXzDrpMKXsQctq_z5riy-kN-qYb27ne4I6KjpYtdUwHHHl4Hm1JAyAaTGEMz0Fl8Ti) > At the center we then see revenue intelligence, because in a sales enablement platform, your sellers will consume knowledge, they will engage with customers, through virtual meetings, buyer portals, email, personalised content, etc. and they'll be coached. That is delivering us a massive amount of intelligence and data that we want to capture and want to give to our customers. ## **Harness the power of revenue intelligence** If you think about the idea of revenue intelligence, then basically there's ****content intelligence**, and the idea that you start to get insights on how your content is performing and how you can create better content. ![Harness the power of revenue intelligence to close the gap between revenue revenue teams.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/kh7Tqmw0mLA1SLvVBXKJh8jPTh43jZ5z-RoF8G86XaJNjGU7nAayYFxDw3ScN3n-IuteFHMiQh415m-i1JJBjGuW-YwjL3FVZwtv_21b84cpkkyGcUliJc4RMEp2t__RlpilsVDX) If you then think about engaging buyers that translates into ****buyer intelligence**: - How is your customer responding to sales conversations, specific offers? - How do they feel about the product, about the competitive environment? You can get intelligence out of those interactions. And then ultimately, as well, ****people intelligence**: - Who are the best performers in our company? - And how can we use what we've learned there to coach the rest of the sales team to actually be at that level? Revenue intelligence ultimately will drive a tonne of insight and a tonne of change for a lot of revenue teams out there. ## **Summary** To reiterate, we see two gaps that really drive alignment between revenue teams, and deliver success. First of all, **the customer knowledge variance.** Customer knowledge is not evenly spread in different systems, and it's open to being inaccurate. Secondly, ****the revenue enablement gap**. This starts from the idea that your customer, your buyer, wants to have a consistent customer experience across all channels. That's where ****revenue enablement** comes in. It's about gaining knowledge, engaging with your buyers, being coached on skills, and then ultimately having the intelligence from your revenue organization that drives content intelligence, buyer intelligence, and ultimately, people intelligence. Thank you. [Download the deck](https://speakerdeck.com/salesenablement/closing-the-gap-between-revenue-teams) ### All you need to know about battlecards URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/all-you-need-to-know-about-battlecards/ Last updated: 2024-05-30T14:18:47.000Z Sales enablement assets help sales teams close more deals. This can involve enrolling your team members in training courses to fine-tune their skills, or giving them access to third-party articles and videos. Many companies include battlecards among these resources and provide these assets to their sales reps to turn their [buyer personas](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-create-buyer-personas/) into fully-fledged customers. In this article, we'll focus on the essentials, such as: - What is a battlecard? - What to include in a battlecard - Tips for creating battlecards - Battlecard examples - Why is sales enablement important? - Sales enablement resources - Battlecard templates and frameworks --- ## **What is a battlecard?** Battlecards are concise, actionable summaries of your product, the market, existing customers, and the competition, and their job is to equip your sales team with quick-fire responses to questions, queries, or objections a customer might have. They also provide a firm understanding of a rival’s strategy and the [value propositions](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-ultimate-guide-to-creating-a-value-proposition/) needed to flag your offering as the preferable option. --- ## **What to include in a battlecard** Your battlecard should be specific to your product, and include sections focusing on: - Company/product overview - Customer pain points - Key features - Key differentiators - Why your product or service is the best on the market - A script to handle customer objections - Questions to ask the prospect - Pricing - Third-party validation - Refer to relevant customers These features will help you create a thorough battlecard that’s relevant for your product. Let’s take a look at each feature in further detail: ### **Overview** The overview is a brief description of your company, your product, and what you're offering. Keep it punchy; 2-3 sentences is long enough. ### **Customer pain points** In this section, you need to address why people buy your product. In the example below, the company sells health insurance to businesses. One of their customer pain points is that employees can't afford high deductible plans. ![Example battlecard for Corporate Health Plans, Inc.](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/ZCXN3oWVLE_STsVtxO2JLZRspJWtOAgOOmfUavn3OB2rypJEN3iXV_v2YbPrsXLI52vTitUocC3uaqaMybimmyLaJi-HM-1pOpqK0sqVQ060ahvjaeocvmwg3caaDsqQPkw08N_o) Courtesy of b2binternational.com ### **Key features** After identifying your customer’s pain points, you need to demonstrate how your product addresses them. In the example above we looked at how most employees couldn't afford health insurance, and how this impacts their health and wellbeing. In this section of the battlecard, not only would you highlight how you can successfully help your customer address any health concerns, but you’d also point out how offering employees your health care plan would ensure a healthier and more productive workforce. ### **Key differentiators** This is where you match your product up against your competitors. For example, if you’re offering a software solution, is your product more speedy? Does it have more features? Is your customer support better? A handy grid format will help your sales team answer these questions quickly and confidently. 👇 ![Example of how to layout your comparison section in your battlecard.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pZ1ALEAXs78WZj_EjWq2tu6MquSluQhTvvykC_BeFrRW6FCig_8iH1mRKP_rUkRUz5oJlSOXaLpmvbpxbSZuZsXOWEZwcVEmz1CIsQxmj-1QmITY4YOeiJYg_tdx629VXsoHZyhY) ### **Why do you win?** In this section, you’ll need to know what’s important to your potential customers. For example, is it the price? Customer service? Security? If you don’t know this information already, conduct some [customer and market research](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-what-why-and-how-of-customer-market-feedback/) to give you a thorough understanding of your customers and what their needs are. List the relevant benefits your product provides and back it up with specifics. Use statistics, numbers, and real-life success stories. ### **Handling objections** Sometimes your sales team will face objections when pitching your product. You need to help them respond constructively and keep their pitch on track. In this section, list your top three or four objections and script a response your sales team can refer to when they're met with these common obstacles. ### **Questions to ask** Here, list two or three questions your reps can ask the prospective customer to best position your product. For example: “how do you feel about your current solution?” is a good starting point. This question allows your sales reps to differentiate your product from the competitors’. Then, follow up with: “what’s the most frustrating thing about your current solution?” This question gives your reps insight into the prospect’s pain points and enables them to effectively [position your product](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-create-and-maintain-product-positioning/) as the solution. ### **Pricing** [Product pricing](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-identify-a-suitable-pricing-strategy/) will always play a crucial role in your customers' final buying decisions. **Ashley Murphy, Toast's Director of Market Insights and Pricing**, shared her specialist insights, including her preferred [pricing strategy](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-identify-a-suitable-pricing-strategy/), the role of product marketing in the pricing process, and her own top tips. Your battlecard must include a section outlining your pricing, and how you match up against your main competitors. Make sure your sales reps have everything at their disposal to answer any questions about pricing accurately and confidently. **Tip:** Conducting [competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/gathering-and-staying-on-top-of-competitor-intel/) will help you keep an eye on your competitors’ pricing and update your content, so your sales reps don’t provide out-of-date information. ![Example of how to outline your pricing compared to rival companies when producing your battlecard.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/1DSXxAetlaqk0fMFWs0XgCto9iF_CChzatouXNBJ3u8iM5zMITnDAeMUHVDl9uJZEus6POJiLRPeMe7AscFd9KbV_coPi4eIAT3yT6MN8j1CyWNKhwStFTmLdEm_jEXcDDp55CUJ) ### **Quick tips** Here’s where you need to make a few short notes about how your sales rep can get the most out of the call. For example, it may be necessary to list a couple of questions you’d like your rep to ask, such as: “Ask how many contacts they have” or “Find out what their current solution is early on.” ### **Third-party validation** Reputable customer testimonials or endorsements are priceless; they can give your product credibility and provide an insight into what the prospect can expect if they decide to invest in your solution. This section needs to shine the spotlight on what great things your existing customers are saying about you. If a well-established, internationally recognized brand has provided a review, use their quotes. This could include a comment a customer made about how much quicker they completed a task with your solution, in comparison to one of your competitors’ products. ### **Refer to relevant customers** Give your prospective customer FOMO by reeling off the companies you already have as customers. However, be sure to keep it relevant. For example, an SME will be more likely to relate to another SME over a Fortune 500 company. 🏅 Enroll in[****Sales Enablement Certified**](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/sales-enablement-certified?%5Fga=2.204131920.1385419488.1653302783-559979617.1652695309)and gain key knowledge needed to launch powerful sales enablement programs.Join highly-distinguished sales enablement expert Sapphire Reels, and discover how to:👊 Convey the importance of sales enablement and sell it to key stakeholders.🔥 Design a sales enablement program from scratch in line with business objectives and sales needs.🚀 Launch and iterate on sales enablement programs.🤑 Communicate the impact of sales enablement on the business and revenue generation.[****Refine your strategies**](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/sales-enablement-certified?%5Fga=2.204131920.1385419488.1653302783-559979617.1652695309) ## **Tips for creating battlecards** When planned and executed correctly, a battlecard can play a significant role in your sales success. With this in mind, we asked product marketers for their tips on creating effective battlecards, and how they use them in their respective companies. > *“I like to start with a SWOT for each competitor. I try honestly to assess their strengths, weaknesses, etc. I keep it pretty simple but I find it is a great starting point before building a battlecard.”* **Martin Bakal, Product Marketing Director and Evangelist at OpenLegacy** “Firstly, consider your audience. How can you amplify the value of your research to cover not just sales processes, but product and leadership strategy? “You also need to include impacts to your [go-to-market strategy](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-go-to-market-strategies/) and predictions for their future go-to-market strategy, [customer segmentation](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-is-market-segmentation/), and product. > *“Get in the weeds with pricing, packaging, and value delivery. Don’t just look at the* [*perfect price point*](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-calculate-the-perfect-product-selling-price/)*, but consider the value from your target customer’s perspective.* > *“Finally, include quotes where possible, and feedback from a customer that a) chose a competitor over you, and b) chose you over a competitor.”* **Fiona Finn, Director of Product Marketing at Unbounce** > *“*[*Communicate internally*](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-importance-of-internal-communication-plus-how-to-crush-it/) *and survey your sales team to understand who they're actually competing against and also pull in* [*win/loss analysis*](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-conduct-win-loss-interviews/) *to enhance your battlecard.* > *“Also, spell out how your company wins against each competitor so it's easy for sales to get what they need quickly.”* **Jaclyn Rose, Staff Product Marketing Manager at HealthJoy** --- ## **Battlecard examples** ![Example battlecard from Hooli](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/qj3KnTs6xrbsnd99dGsGNZZvJFhheNzbrF9x4yuOy2arSuOTaGn0v_Y-8kccIPbWV5JR3crNj17c_GqdMH79aGkyoOAYntviLN2b5Hm-f0MLAz6rdetfFqoSrrJHfda71GEXpDtV) Image courtesy of Sales Hacker ![Example battlecard used by Klue](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Gu5xo87xDiZxWtcdROpw0bGiTyPAoR-DjwpD2OIsE7VENRpL6t7GlanXXMaAHdOtzUD5iEyCJE8bEHM4bzn-G9NLJTa6dNB-Weqx0Fsk6zio0DPrFmj_XlI5YIux1u6TmpIj9qyU) Image courtesy of Klue ![Example battlecard used by AceSoftware](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/f0U56YYtJibk93PWcAw74LmRO8eBGvvyv3eUO0Qd7o2QDZDGVIDLfd5YI7mLqJUFrUem0yQdN6yf4jgO0ItM6dMTbNkv1zNVwPXqF_2MiRCLXqVBK2Dx4cVoNUwnr-Bqp0RXAR9W) Image courtesy of Rauch Associates --- ## **Why is sales enablement important?** You may be skeptical as to whether you need to create battlecards and accompanying [sales enablement resources](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-ins-and-outs-of-sales-enablement/), especially if your sales figures are through the roof. But ask yourself the following questions: - Are you hitting ALL of your sales goals? - Are your reps always on message? - Are you 100% sure reps are using sales tools to their full potential? - Can you improve seller quota attainment? If you’ve answered NO to any of these questions, or if you know there’s room for improvement, you need to devote time and effort to strengthening your sales enablement tools. Even if you answer every question with a resounding YES, your business fortunes can quickly change. For example, if you recruit new team members, you may need to formalize your onboarding process. Perhaps your reps have been tasked with selling an ever-changing product or service, in which case, the buying process could become more complicated, or your [product messaging](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-nail-your-product-messaging/) or [go-to-market strategy](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/gtm-process-scaling-for-success-q-a-with-iterable/) may have to be revamped. Having the appropriate sales enablement tools in place can work wonders for companies keen to maintain sales figures during a transition period. Still not 100% convinced? Complete a [sales enablement scorecard](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/sales-enablement-scorecard/) to establish how strong your current setup is. --- ## **Sales enablement resources** Battlecards are one of many types of [sales enablement assets](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/sales-assets-choose-your-weapon/) you can use in your teams. Below are some resources to help you explore sales enablement further. (We also focus on the topic in our [State of Product Marketing Report 2020](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/state-of-product-marketing-2020)) - [22 sales enablement tools for product marketers](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/22-sales-enablement-tools-for-product-marketers/) - [Sales enablement scorecard](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/sales-enablement-scorecard/) - [So true! 7 ways comedy can impact sales enablement and prospecting](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/so-true-7-ways-comedy-can-impact-sales-enablement-and-prospecting/) - [Simple strategies to cut through the noise and engage sales](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/simple-strategies-to-cut-through-the-noise-and-engage-sales/) - [Scaling sales enablement: a product marketing perspective](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/scaling-sales-enablement-a-product-marketing-perspective/) - [How to deliver an effective product demo](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-deliver-an-effective-product-demo/) - [How to create a first-class product comparison page](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-create-a-first-class-product-comparison-page/) - [How to create product collateral](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-create-product-collateral/) --- ## **Battlecard templates and frameworks** If you’re a PMA member, we’ve created a bank of [editable templates and frameworks](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/templates-and-frameworks/) to help your sales team to convert leads into customers. ![PMA battlecard template including within our membership plans](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/HWP6F4wCDmLb0fpKqa_73QUA6e1RgPG8-UwbNMmphD_sklXB3qjU-HD_ugoF8ua9TRrKld0Y9ls1iiHI4ot4fkMlyi-y9JjWqDW04Ti4OFRwG-3VsMxLMUkpDfB2aDd6m3JWbXZS) Not a member already? Sign-up for a [PMA membership](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/signup/) to get access, and enroll in our [Product Marketing: Core \[On Demand\]](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/product-marketing-certified-core) course, or [Product Marketing: Core \[Live + Online\]](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/product-marketing-certified-core) accreditation to level up your strategy. ## Get product marketing certified. PMMC™ unleashes product marketers’ potential. Lauded by leading lights like Facebook and HubSpot, it offers expert insights, priceless tuition, and awesome resources. No topic missed. No page unturned. [Get certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/product-marketing-certified-core) ### Scrap your sales process! Building a new enablement strategy for (post) modern buyers and sellers URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/scrap-your-sales-process-building-a-new-enablement-strategy-for-post-modern-buyers-and-sellers/ Last updated: 2022-11-30T11:59:39.000Z *Tim Riesterer gave this presentation at the Future of Sales Festival in June 2021* ## ****Main aims of this article** If we're going to talk about the future of sales, what does it mean for the sales process? To understand where the future is headed– or the postmodern future, if you prefer– Let’s look first at the history of sales. But first, let me lay out the main talking points of this article: - The sales process: Where we were and where we’re headed. - The traditional approach. - The new postmodern approach. - Acquisition and expansion. - Commercial choreography. - The role of sales and enablement. - Let’s talk about expansion. ## ****The sales process** ### ****A brief history on the traditional sales process** This fixation on a sales process came out in the 1980s. The idea was that a singular process would drive how sellers behave. How the companies would equip, enable and train sellers was dictated by the goal of ultimately replicating our star performers. The thinking was, “can we move a C to a B player, can we move a B player to an A player,” etc. ### ****Selling in the postmodern world** In the modern world, this is really changing. I believe we're in a postmodern selling era. Postmodernists deny the existence of any single set of principles that are applied to every single individual. In postmodern selling, that translates to there no longer being a single set of principles that can be applied to every single approach to the customer. ## ****The traditional approach** Let's talk about why the traditional sales process is declining. ### ****It's too sales focused** The data behind this says that 80% of buyers are on a digital journey and they're not inclined to have conversations with salespeople. So, really, it should now be **buyer focused.** And that's not news, per se. What’s now absolutely crucial to understand is, it's now a buyer centric or a buyer activity focused journey. ### ****It’s one- size fits all** There's one process and everybody's got to follow it. It's really more about ****situational fluency**. Why is that? Because people are recognizing now that it’s no longer just about acquire, acquire, acquire. We're now in a subscription based recurring revenue model. And in fact, 80% of customer revenue that you generate is from existing customers, not new prospective customers. ### ****Loosely enforced** With the traditional sales process, as interested as people were in getting everybody on the same page, It was loosely enforced. The idea was that everybody should follow it, but 80% of managers didn't really coach the process, according to the research. 80% of buying is now digital and buyer driven; 80% is now focused on existing customers, not new logos. And 80% of the process was never really coached in the first place, it was merely a suggestion.People want their sales process back, because it never really existed to begin with, and it needs to change for the future. ![Traditional sales process: sales-focused, one-size-fits-all, loosely enforced.](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/RwYHpo2I7nUle61KdZ2z8t1px2dWCcwRwh96hezl4st33UawPHk4VVNGEXzL-jcn-qedD-sCGOuKcTXYuMQOQsm2HxiVM63TlbafObXUTYyn2ds7_sASDz03Kj1yk2cFGQ) ## ****The new postmodern approach** And so let's talk about what a postmodern revenue process needs to look like. ### ****A partnered process** It's no longer sales-focused. Instead, it's partnered. It's marketing, sales and customer success all working together. They’re working together in a cross functional effort to create a consistent buying experience across every touchpoint. This needs to be a partnered consistent experience across that whole journey. ### ****A relevant, precisely focused process** It's no longer one size fits all. It needs to be relevant, it needs to be precisely focused on the specific commercial moments. The idea of acquisition is distinct and different from expansion, upsell, cross sell, even from retention and renewal. That postmodern revenue process is not one size fits all. It is a size for acquisition, one for expansion and one for retention. It's not just sales focused. It's actually partnered across all departments. ### ****It’s prescriptive and automated** And it's no longer loosely enforced. The postmodern revenue process is going to be run with automated rigour. You're going to integrate messages, and you're going to integrate the content that carries those messages. ![Postmodern revenue process: partnered, precise, prescriptive.](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/4b_xGZo_RLiILHUCyB2bkjcHVs-fe5NDmqBNxC0ui9SI5ntKgzFTUr6jcvLFUHQz7pPBsjI0g4XqOqBBy68R0sCne_iJCBNgAHvmZK4RvsYUPXYTSgic-RE4OsBUM8N0KQ) And you're going to integrate the skills with which you enable the salesperson, and your marketing teams and Customer Success teams. This is achieved through automated smart cadences that drive greater persistence into your sales and buying journeys. ## ****Acquisition and expansion** ![Defeat status quo bias: customer acquisition doesn't equal customer expansion.](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/M824Mjy1MJ9P1zj-4gyvB22UkA6cMcbF31fqkoZSL3mBAUpfV-K-dHv__IVlpkBJuFAY1qoSp6vE1ZDY5HxZu95kYMKHrVBC4qYmkYQNNy3EOd8MXKrEo7-yOOsdkeDmMg) ### ****Acquisition does not equal expansion** The first thing to realize is that customer acquisition does not equal customer expansion. We've done research, we’ve done behavioural studies, we’ve done neuroscience studies, and we’ve done field trials to understand how B2B buyers make choices. One of the principles we uncovered was… ### ****The human science of status quo** This bias is at the centre of all decision making. But as a result, it creates a strong distinction between how customer acquisition works, and how customer expansion works. When you think about it, that makes sense when you're trying to win new business. You are in the business of creating messages, equipping and enabling salespeople to go out and defeat or otherwise disrupt status quo bias. You're trying to convince people to change, you're trying to convince them to pick you, and you're trying to convince them to do it now. ### ****Defeat the status quo bias** There’s a very specific set of messages, content and skills that defeats status quo bias. Very often, you're not disrupting status quo bias at all. In fact, because ****you are** the status quo bias. Your messages, your content, your skills, training, and your enablement for your sales teams are meant to reinforce your incumbent advantage. You’re then building on that as growth as opposed to disrupting growth. So, the real move that's being made here by [sales enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/), is recognizing that this is a different psychology. And as a result, it requires different stories and different skills to be effective. ## ****Commercial Choreography** I'm going to take a look at the idea of acquisition and how it's partnered between marketing sales and customer success. I’m going to look at how it's precisely focused on the moment of truth, where you're working at attracting new prospects to your business, and how it's prescriptive and persistent across that buying journey. We call this concept, ‘commercial choreography.” And what you're really doing is bringing together all of these elements: Marketing, messaging campaigns, cadences, sales, skills and conversations. ![Commercial choreography: marketing, sales, enablement, customer success.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/GcsKAYCj904On6wlGz2pA2-OlEvD2hZGzU4vl2B5LZcIXUq6F-BRJTqdhpKLz4i05-2KyqSQOZFwa3XYZ_61H_d6gWtTfmmA7L1Ngm_uRhCgBPY_sk-Bwexk1zKl4cKGbw) In the process, you recognize the role that customer success has in acquisition, and in expansion and retention. It needs to be part of the partnered, precise and prescriptive selling process. ![Commercial choreography: opportunity management.](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/sDTEfb6RObpXqtCn8Z52K0w_3VbD6bpxts_aOukNoCNTQIP2kuD5_gT2azyu2cC-coIxRHHeA-Y9WTHIbrkRorgBA2iuKdU2c_2fh824xktqO5jGQW5HKSTTcqEZNnZcgA) What you see here is a set of a set of activities that create an opportunity (left side of the diagram), and then a set of activities fulfilling or closing that opportunity (right side of the diagram.) And there's a role for marketing, sales, the enablement team and customer success. They’re all prescriptively and precisely aligned to those moments. Before these things were all happening in silos. Because they were run by different departments, it was loosely enforced, a loose confederation of activities. But the postmodern sales process recognizes that you need a partnered, precise and prescriptive move. So let's take a look at this bit by bit. ## ****Cadences** Some people call them sequences, some people call them plays. But the idea is that these are highly prescriptive, automated, integrated touch patterns that create a persistence that might otherwise not have happened. Let me just describe what has to happen at the beginning of an opportunity when you're creating opportunities. ### ****Persistence** There are moments in opportunity creation that are sometimes left to chance. Fatigue sets in when people don't make enough touches. The problem is there's just not enough frequency for what needs to happen in order to actually get enough hand raisers to convert to pipeline. ### ****The "get a handraiser" cadence** ![The "get a handraiser" cadence](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/M3pHOLNcpKe1wzH0w7eM66VtsI8Ml_guT1mSjTiGq044nh78nxEhutuu2deZUwHC3fQyhIasWOnuxamfzl_zs0Wws3Re_8XpxpqlyZBnSEuDuAhQtZNP3fopHWkdNYhTAg) The future of sales enablement is going to be much more prescriptive. We are already working on testing specific cadences that look at the right number of steps on the right days. We’re working on being able to tell you what elements go into which communication devices. We are even specifically testing what content assets you should be providing to generate the most hand raisers. Idea number one is that you get a hand raiser, and there needs to be a level of consistency and persistence with the number of touches and the number of days. The right messaging and the right content assets are also essential for this acquisition moment. ### ****The "get a meeting" cadence** The second touch pattern or cadence that we are testing in the acquisition motion is the ‘get a meeting cadence.’ Once somebody has raised their hand, they're still not convinced, they need to take a meeting. And that either goes to your SDR team or your BDR team. The problem is that sales development reps or sales reps do not persist as much as they should. The number of touches needed to squeeze as many appointments or opportunities out of your hand raisers are about 15 steps across 21 days. It requires multiple different modalities, emails, voicemails, LinkedIn. And then a bit of rinse and repeat every now and again. ![The "get a meeting" cadence](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/eSYSDXARB5jBm0l0PKB_x4EFvclw7U7i4Hi2AJQtPqYXTM6hoSAInP8bwWakdJpjBvQn_6-9yyHQjF-nmPwdBexvfA9G2uR2FD_bJ90IhuySP73JJvPwGge1xOadwUOwsQ) Remember, this is now a mixture of your messaging content and the skills of your sales development reps. There's just too much giving up. It stems from a loosely enforced ‘suggested’ effort, as opposed to an integrated, automated and persistent effort. But getting a meeting is maybe a familiar cadence for people. ### ****The "pipeline conversion" cadence** ![The "pipeline conversion" cadence](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/JxtbYjNAq5SFzxEgd5j888wb75oaZhUDaZ_eB3RCf9pQ47_4geDVEeSUR3xNy0FqaYJRZXGmC_2muU0qaG2AVFq9h4m2ip3cKKsjQysmcAQ0IuEKLfavSr3BuAcEJPL1Xg) But none of this means anything until you turn that into a qualified pipeline, with real dollars and real timing attached to it. This now becomes something you can put a cadence or a touch pattern against , where you have specific steps across time. The premise here is that so many things that were left to chance are now becoming more automated, more integrated, and more insistent on persistence. ## ****The role of sales and enablement** ### ****All selling is now inside selling** All selling is basically inside selling now. Where before the seller would say, “Oh, I will maybe use your technology, maybe put something in the CRM. I'll maybe get around to making all those calls. But I'm really busy. I'm out in the field, and I don't have a lot of time.” The world of automated prescriptive cadences that drive certain messages and certain touch types is now going to be a regular part of the future of selling operating procedures. But there needs to be an interaction with cadences and technology to drive the procedure. This amount of activity is going to be a regular part of selling’s condition of employment. That's just going to be the way it's going to happen. ### ****Are your sales and enablement aligned?** The key is making sure the sales and your enablement team is aligned. Marketing generally drives the’ hand raisers. But now you have SDRs, or reps running to get a meeting cadence. And when they get that meeting, it has to be great. They have to deliver a provocative, powerful, insightful, ‘why change’ message to potentially acquire a new logo.Then they have to be persistent in nurturing that to an actual qualified pipeline. They have to be able to tell not just a disruptive ‘why change’ message, they must tell a differentiated ‘why you’ message. That means that your messaging, your content, and your skills training are really imperative. No longer is skills training going to be some standalone thing out there on a calendar. ### ****Aligned content assets** ![Aligned content assets.](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/63Nn0cTiWy0VjiPP2d4BpadhQ1gILAwTyFEn9GKijkUub3WR5W4PsSbvokKVHyuJhJOZ2ySXIxvMIoWae-cCZCtCSGYZUGrhlT_HxACK-sp_55RE9iuiblNvSLKg9MP1fw) Even the messaging and the content, assets and skills training you provide need to be aligned to these three movements. The integration of cadences and content assets and supporting content assets is all in the spirit of this partnered and precise approach to the sales process. The future of selling and enablement will again consistently be this integration of activities between marketing, sales, sales enablement, and customer success. ## ****Let’s talk about expansion** The thing about expansion is that the science of expansion is different from the science of acquisition. And what most people don't realize is that your messaging, your content and how you involve customer success is completely different in the expansion motion. ### ****The incumbent advantage** What I want you to understand is that essentially, you have something called incumbent advantage. The incumbent advantage recognizes that you have been able to deliver some sort of current impact that you can anchor and reinforce with your customer. It has to actually generated results, outcomes and delivered measurable benefits. ![Incumbent advantage.](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/kIsbBNnHZ_qBxgZ5TqmGmsBPZmSHF2qSBPoLxGj0jW26_t-cO1Yuk9BZ9qnIb_3CP7fztoITNf5PXVQqocpXvytbRQNwMkknVwhtExX9I-fep7-16L215KClzFYnqfsaIw) But you've also worked with them in terms of investment and effort in terms of time, money and investment effort. In a way, there's a lot of sunk costs that's involved, and there's a lot of effort that both sides have made. ### ****Don’t sound like a competitor** More than anything, you don't want to sound like a competitor. You want to have a better story to tell than your competitors. Even when you have a commercial choreography for expansion, it may look a little bit similar to your competitors on paper. The distinction in your story is what will generate interest. ![New needs: competitor potential value](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/KrvRxmPSnJg5URZe_TFy93pKRh5NyEVsVhh4yF4uBQGY6ZL90HthTqBZEknlTCxQP9T6kkWjA4WeBA9hY_MguaBZXIUwNFgH_jrrIj8aKwSfJWhjqwAeEibX-4WMagzJPQ) But your goal isn't to get some sort of a cold appointment and get them interested. Your job now is to create an opportunity to come in and talk about the impact and the progress that's been made, then you can begin to introduce some cross sell opportunities. And so the question you have to ask yourself, do you have the right messaging, the right content and skills to have this expansion conversation? The assumption is you've got them implemented and got them on board. But now there's some metrics, some numbers, and some effort that you want to document. You can then filter that into the story, the messaging, the content and skills that you equip and enable the seller to use when they are having that business review. ## ****To wrap up** 1\. The future of selling is a partnered, precise and prescriptive opportunity of customer acquisition versus customer expansion. 2\. It's not one size fits all. It's precise and aligned. For Specific customer commercial scenarios, you don't use the same process for every engagement. You want to have distinct ones for the type of commercial scenario you're engaging in. 3\. It's not loosely enforced anymore. You can't even consider it a process unless it operates like a process. The future will be much more prescriptive, where you will be integrating the messages and content and skills into something that is automated. ### What is sales enablement content? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-sales-enablement-content/ Last updated: 2024-05-30T14:19:03.000Z Sales enablement is bigger than ever, and with its current trajectory, it’s only heading in one direction: up. As a result, there’s an influx of people taking up sales enablement positions. One of the great things about enablement is that it can attract people from so many different backgrounds, such as the sales team itself, product marketing, learning and development, marketing, and more. By its nature, [sales enablement](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-sales-enablement-guide/) encompasses so many elements that it can be hard to pick them up. Someone with a sales background may have more to learn when it comes to enablement’s learning and development aspects, and vice versa. In this article, we’re going to be focusing on sales enablement content, both internal and external-facing. We’ll cover: - What internal sales enablement content is - What external sales enablement content is - Creating great sales enablement content - Creating a sales enablement content strategy But what exactly is sales content? Simply put, sales content contains information for either a rep or prospective customer to view, which provides them with a better understanding of your product/service. It’s content that a sales rep uses during the sales process to convince a prospect of the product/service’s value. Let’s begin by covering the two main types of content: internal-facing and external-facing: ## **What is internal sales enablement content?** Internal content is content that is intended for use by an organization’s *own* sales reps. The goal of any internal content strategy is to provide reps with a greater knowledge of their product portfolio. This internal-facing content will reinforce the messaging of sales enablement’s coaching and training programs, as well as give reps a consistent source of truth regarding the product. It’ll put the product/service into context and encourage them to imagine how the product could be implemented within a business. Internal content can take many forms. The classic examples include battlecards that provide answers to common customer questions and explain competitive differentiators, objection-handling scripts that address common customer pushbacks, and short videos that keep key training points front-of-mind. But really, there’s no limit to the shapes that internal content can take, as long as it can communicate its key message to reps effectively. ## **What is external sales enablement content?** It doesn’t matter what you call it. Whether it’s external content, customer-facing content, sales content; it exists and it’s important. External content can occasionally be owned by various departments aside from sales enablement, such as marketing or product marketing. However, sales enablement should absolutely have input because this content exists to support reps as they work to close a sale, and that’s definitely in the sales enablement wheelhouse! This type of content includes assets that customers can take away to read/watch in their own time. It can’t state the obvious, if content is going to be presented to a customer it has to offer real value, not waste their time. Examples include: - Detailed industry reports which offer insights that prospective customers can apply to their own work and back up the points reps already discussed in conversation. - Explainer videos that allow prospects to put your product/service into context and help them understand how it would benefit their company before you have further discussions - Case studies or testimonials that provide evidence and reassurance of the real-life value you can provide (and have provided to previous customers). One important note is that sales content, regardless of who the target audience is, should be tailored to each step of the sales process. You can’t use the same content during the early stages as you do right before closing a sale. Part of sales enablement’s job is to ensure that content covers each part of the process. ## **Creating great sales enablement content** Creating sales content is time-consuming, but the rewards for getting it right are really big. Internally and externally, great content enhances your reps’ ability to sell. From an outside perspective, well-coached reps who have taken internal content to heart and use external content effectively *look* professional and paint your organization in a good light. Still, creating content is time-consuming. If your content isn’t good, and you don’t get the reward after putting in all that time and effort, you’ve got an issue. Therefore ensuring that your content is of high quality is very important. But how do you actually create great content? ### **Internally** We’ve covered how to create content that sales reps will *actually* want to use more in-depth before at SEC, but we’ll run over it in this article as well. When you’re producing content that’s intended for internal use, involve multiple groups in the creation if you can. Ask the salespeople (the target audience!) what they feel like they need and what they’d like to have on hand as content. Ask the marketing and product teams if there’s existing content that can be repurposed and used for sales enablement. This sort of cross-functional collaboration and two-way feedback helps the sales team feel included, and not like content is just being thrown at them. > Another consideration is this: what problem are you trying to solve? Have you noticed that your reps struggle to differentiate you from competitors? Then you have to keep that at the forefront of your mind as you create content. Make sure this piece of content *specifically* targets that problem you want to solve. A single piece of content can’t be a seller’s bible that addresses every single issue that could ever pop up. Focus on solving one problem at a time and you’ll find more success than trying to cram every answer into one piece of content. ### **Externally** External content broadly has the same role as internal content, which is to help sellers sell more effectively. The key with customer-facing content is to ensure it has real value not just to your rep, but to the prospect as well. We’ve all seen the statistics. It used to be that sales was seller-centric, but now the buyer can be up to 60% of the way through the buyer journey before your organization even makes contact. They *probably* know about you, before you know about them. What does that mean for the content that you want to provide to prospects? > It absolutely has to be more than general information about your product/service. It needs to be more than what the prospect can pull up in under two minutes in a web browser. To create good customer-facing content, one of the most important aspects is to put yourself in their shoes. If you were interested in purchasing your product/service, and had shopped around a bit, what would *you* want to know in more detail? As we mentioned before, you’d want an industry report that highlights the need for the product/service, you’d want to see it in action and in context. If you had a genuine interest in a product/service and a rep presented you with a PDF that had some top-level statistics and nothing more, you’d feel a bit disappointed. You’d want more. So bear that in mind when you’re creating content aimed at prospects. What does a prospect want to have to hand after a first meeting? What do they want to read right before closing the sale? ## **Creating a sales enablement content strategy** So far, we’ve discussed what sales enablement content actually means, and what to consider when creating *a* piece of content in a vacuum. However, in real life, sales enablement professionals have to have a content strategy. This means that rather than just making a piece of content and leaving it there, you instead have a plan and every piece of content is created and stored as detailed by that plan. While we could (and will!) write an entire article on content strategy alone, we’re going to touch on some of the most important aspects of creating that strategy below: - **Audit your existing content:** we touched on this above, but ensure that auditing your organization’s content library is something you’re doing on a regular basis. Marketing or another department may have whipped together a really useful piece of content for their own use, but if you’re not auditing the organization’s content you might miss it. - **Analyze the content’s performance:** as the old saying goes, information is power. The more you know about which content is being used most often and what content is most effective, the better. If you’re tracking the content’s performance you can then make adjustments and learn from what works. - **Align content to each step of the customer journey:** again, this is a point we mentioned above but it deserves a spotlight in this section. Tie specific pieces of content to steps in the buyer journey. Take the guesswork away from your sales reps so that they know exactly what content to use, when. Because knowing *when* to use content is just as important as having good content. - **Create processes to improve content as time goes on:** just how sales enablement doesn’t stop at onboarding (and instead continues into “everboarding” and continuous coaching), when it comes to content your strategy must be long-term. Don’t create the content you need now and never revisit the strategy. As your organization inevitably grows and expands, and the sales landscape changes, you’ll have to create content that will allow reps to create relationships with new buyer personas, and that uses new technology. - **Ensure the sales team knows what to do with the content:** you can make the best content in the world, but if you don’t have proper processes that train your sales team on how to use that content, it’s useless. You can’t just throw a load of content into the pile and expect reps to use it. Train them and teach them how to use it strategically, situationally, and effectively and then you’ll reap the benefits. ## **In summary** To summarize, let’s answer the question in the title of this article concisely: *What is sales enablement content?* Sales enablement content is content that sales reps use to help them sell their products/services as they go through the sales process. It provides reps with support and answers to common questions, and it provides prospective customers with context and understanding in regards to a product. While content won’t make a sale *for* you, it can still be a great help to your reps. ### 8 things to remember when deploying an effective sales enablement function URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/8-things-to-remember-when-deploying-an-effective-sales-enablement-function/ Last updated: 2022-06-24T14:41:53.000Z Knowledge, skill, helpfulness. These are just *some* of the traits possessed by a successful sales enablement professional. Build a team of people who combine these elements with both traditional leadership skills and sales expertise and you're on your way to creating a killer sales enablement team. It's about having evolving concept which acts as a driving force for sales, operations, and marketing, helping them promote customer acquisition and ultimate revenue growth. A poorly organized sales enablement team can stop your reps from reaching their revenue-generating potential. At worst? A not-fit-for-purpose sales enablement team can easily damage your customer acquisition efforts and ultimately result in a dip in sales conversion rate, and a decrease in revenue growth. Obviously, that's an alarming situation for any business to find itself in. Therefore, organizations need to be cautious and meticulous in building up an efficient, skillful, and reliable sales enablement team, which will help them to accelerate their business growth. As time goes on, we continue to see countless companies deploying sales enablement functions with incredible results. But how do you deploy this game-changing function? Here are a few keys to remember when deploying an effective sales enablement function: ## **1\. Know the objectives** Sales enablement must know the organization's desired goals and objectives. The team should collectively work towards achieving those goals and objectives in measurable, achievable ways. The key is to be scientific and methodical in determining how sales enablement will contribute to those wider business objectives. ## **2\. Know the customer** As important as it is for the sales team to be customer-focused, the sales enablement team equally needs to be customer-centric as well. Oftentimes, sales enablement teams are focused solely on the sales team’s requirements rather than the customer. In *my* view, they must learn to be customer-focused alongside meeting the sales team’s requirements. This ensures the information provided to the sales team is effective and is used efficiently throughout the entire sales cycle. Since the ultimate goal is to deliver the best experience to a prospect or buyer, sales enablement must know them inside and out. They must understand customers’ pain points and challenges, and must be able to recognize buying signals and trigger events that are related to that prospect’s problems. ## **3\. Define strategy and execution methods** Don't forget about how significant sales enablement is in the big-picture. While focusing on small, day-to-day pieces is important, sales enablement plays a vital role in defining broad, organization-wide strategies that help identify gaps and opportunities. Ultimately, sales enablement is about putting plans in place that can deliver immediate *and* long-term results. ## **4\. Practice strong communication** Sales enablement leaders are responsible for building strong communication between sales reps, sales managers, and sales leaders to ensure the growth and success of sales team. They establish a regular cadence for communication with different parties across the company in a variety of ways through one-on-one conversations, team meetings, email messages, or conference calls.Doing so, they promote opportunities for salespeople to get 360 evaluation and feedback, such as peer-to-peer learning and sales coaching. ## **5\. Training and knowledge reinforcement** Sales enablement must invest a good amount of time and energy in providing training on a number of topics, including: - Product training - Sales training - Tools/technology training - Market and industry training - Critical thinking and problem solving You are the team that continuously checks for the reinforcement of knowledge and training in reps, thereby keeping them fresh and up-to-date on the latest product releases or service updates and sales practices. Last but not least is to help reps to understand the sales strategy of the organization. ## **6\. Create quality content** It’s sales enablement's job to create the right type of content *and* make it easily available for reps to access and utilize to drive more deals. By creating quality content, sales enablement helps reps stand out amongst the noise, as well as aiding them in establishing expertise and building trust with prospects. The team should develop case studies that speak to every type of customer, whether it’s by industry, company size, or specific use case. Additionally, sales enablement must optimize content utilization by diversifying various content promotion channels as well. ## **7\. Adopt the right tools and technology** It’s also sales enablement’s job to establish a process to find and then adopt tools and technology. Leveraging the latest tools and technology to enhance your current sales strategy is essential, so it’s the duty of the sales enablement department to choose the relevant tools that streamline processes, save time, and helps to deliver strong results. Whether it's customer relationship management (CRM) systems, learning management systems (LMS), or something else, it's important to have the right tools to enhance your reps' performance. ## **8\. Streamlining and improving workflow** At its heart, sales enablement identifies and analyzes problems, introduces, and streamlines a process workflow that improves productivity. Since one of the key objectives of sales enablement is to increase a rep’s active selling time, workflow integrations are very important. They make sure that reps spend less time going back and forth, from tool to tool. Having tools that automate and seamlessly integrate with all the other tools reduces time spent on admin-related tasks, like logging activity, transferring data, and finding the right content. ### Customer needs and how to meet them URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/ Last updated: 2024-07-09T14:46:07.000Z There are three certainties in life: Death, taxes, and product marketers being reminded to address their customer needs. Sure, you can be easily forgiven if you’re sick of hearing this time and time again. After all, it’s a message seemingly being played on a continuous loop, and it ain’t gonna lose its momentum anytime soon. And with good reason. After all, a customer base is at the heart of every business, driving sales and propelling organizations to the next level. Without them, we wouldn’t exist. Period. So follow our advice as we look at: - [How to identify customer needs](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/#how-to-identify-customer-needs) - [The most common customer needs &](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/#what-are-the-most-common-customer-needs) - [How to meet them](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/customer-needs-and-how-to-meet-them/#what-are-the-most-common-customer-needs) --- ## **What are customer needs?** There are times when we act impulsively and buy something on a whim. We’ve all been in the scenario when we’ve been at the mall with zero intention of buying something and ending up wasting money on a horrific shirt that’s confined to the wardrobe, never to see the light of day. However, the majority of the time, customers buy products or services because there’s a genuine need and reasoning behind their purchase. Let’s say the customer’s lawn is looking like Tarzan’s Africa, and they’re keen to transform it into their very own Garden of Eden. They’ll need a lawn mower and gardening equipment to resolve their problem. So, customer needs can be defined by what a customer wants and needs when they’re set to interact with your business, your competitors, or when they’re searching for a product or service you may be able to offer them. Product marketers need to make sure they’re in a position whereby they can cater to the requirements of customers who fit their buyer personas. Let's face it, if you can’t offer the solution to their problem, they won’t hang around until you’ve got your ship in order. They’ll waltz to your nearest competitor, who’ll be more than happy to benefit at your expense. Which prompts the million-dollar question: Which methods are used to identify customer needs in the first place? --- ## **How to identify customer needs** Make no mistake, understanding your customer needs isn’t merely a case of throwing mud and seeing what sticks. A range of methods are used by companies to ensure they’re not barking up the wrong tree and offering customers products that are way wide of the mark. But this doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to introduce ways that’ll give you an indication of what customer needs you should be honing in on - and as usual, we’re going to ease your worries and give you a whistle-stop tour of what you need to know. Hakuna Matata. ### **Focus groups** Sometimes, you need to turn to the art of conversation to discover what you want to find out, in which case, what better way to pick the brains of your customers than focus groups? Focus groups are a market research method whereby you interview a group of people who are representative of your target audience. Granted, a breadth of valuable information can be gained by using data, but addressing your prospective customers directly brings a whole new perspective on what they want in terms of features, price points, and so forth. You can even grill them on things they don’t like about products provided by competitors and use this feedback to either develop an existing product or design an offering that’ll blow their socks off - figuratively speaking, of course. Focus groups provide the perfect backdrop for a frank, honest discussion with your customers. While you may not necessarily like some of the feedback you receive, in many ways, that’s the point of conducting these sessions - to iron out any imperfections and be sure you’re providing a solution your customers love. Sometimes, it may be difficult to get a sample together to survey a physical location, particularly given the current circumstances surrounding COVID-19\. Yet this needn’t stop you in your tracks. Surveys can be sent via email, post, and with the emergence of video platforms such as Zoom, you could even hold a virtual meet - the possibilities are endless. Working on a budget? No worries - Google Forms is an awesome tool you can use for free. So, wear your thick skin and set the ball rolling. ### **Social listening** Social media listening allows companies to track and analyze what their prospective customers are saying about them on social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. In 2019, 2.95bn people were using social media platforms - pretty crazy, right? In essence, this creates an invaluable pool of feedback for companies whereby they can monitor their customers' social media posts and see exactly what’s being said about their company and the services they offer. Let’s say you’re a fast-food chain and your brand-new burger prompts a hashtag to start trending on Twitter - and the feedback isn’t great. The widespread feedback amongst burger buffs is the sauce on the burger is too spicy, but otherwise, they love the other features of your new creation. You could go back to the drawing board, revise the recipe, and start the same burger, with a sauce that won’t give diners the sweats. This is a perfect example of social listening: you’ve launched a product, listened to the response, and amended your offering to align with the expectations of your customers. Easy-peasy. ### **Keyword research** Not only is it important to think about what your customers want, but it’s also important to think about what they’re searching for. Google receives over 63,000 searches per second on any given day. Madness, isn’t it? And all the more reason you need to make sure your keywords are on point. Keyword research not only sweetens your SEO ranking, but it can also give you an idea of your customer’s requirements, and what they want from your business and the product or service you’re offering. By identifying your customer’s online searching habits and more to the point, how they’re searching for your company and industry, this enables you to establish exactly what they’re looking for - i.e. their customer needs. Using this nugget of information, you can finetune your strategy to ensure you’re giving your customers what they need. ### **Customer needs analysis survey** The customer needs analysis is used to help companies figure out their position in their respective competitive markets and how they fair in terms of meeting their target customers' needs. The survey should ask questions about your brand as well as competitors, what your customers know about your product, and brand awareness in general. You could ask: - Are there any positive and negative word associations with our brand? - Which brand would you is similar and/or competes with our brand? ### **Means-end analysis** Now you've conducted the customer needs analysis survey, you can use the answers to get a better picture of why your customers are your customers, as well as what makes your product or service stand apart from your competitors'. A means-end analysis uses those answers to determine the reasons why a customer would buy your product. These reasons are then divided into three main groups: **1\. Features**: Your customer may purchase your product because of a specific feature, if you were buying a new phone, for example, the fact that it has a titanium, indestructible casing might be a draw. **2\. Benefits**: Your customer buys your product or service because of a benefit, they believe your product will offer them. E.g. the customer might buy your phone because it wirelessly syncs to their other devices easier than competing models. **3\. Values:** A customer buys a product or service to help them fulfill an individual value. They may feel that by buying this phone they’ll communicate more frequently with loved ones who have the same handset. Reasons for buying a product can be personal to each customer and vary wildly, which is why it’s important to make note of the answers and group them into each category. From there you can identify exactly which motivating factor your product falls under and which perceived problem it solves! This is a great way to find areas you need to improve in and discover new ways to one-up your competitors. --- ## Looking for next steps? **Competitive intelligence is a powerful growth lever for any organization... if done right.** There are many concepts to master if you're to satisfy your customers, motivate your team, and optimize your workflows. Enter our Competitive Intelligence Framework. 🏁 It covers everything you need to know to navigate the competitive intelligence cycle, from start to finish. [The Competitive Intelligence FrameworkCompetitive intelligence done right is a powerful growth lever for any organization. But getting it right? That’s the hard part. There are many concepts to master if you’re to satisfy your customers, motivate your team, and optimize your workflows. Enter our Competitive Intelligence Framework.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/05/CIA-favicon.png)Competitive Intelligence AllianceAlex Walton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/e8/6f/e86f6f19-2e88-4435-935d-8e26f8c8d7e2/content/images/size/w1200/2024/06/CIA-Framework-Wheel_Meta.png)](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-framework/) --- ## **Examples of customer needs** There is a whole range of different customer needs. For example, when we reach into our pocket and order an Uber taxi, this is driven by the need to go from A to B. Similarly, we may call for a pizza delivery, and again, this is driven by our need to satisfy hunger. The list is endless. We’ve categorized the types of customer needs below and divided them into two categories: product needs and service needs - have a nosey and familiarize yourself with them. ## **Product needs** ### **Functionality** Q: Given the choice, will your customer A) invest in a product or service that does half a job, and may not even solve their problem, or B) buy a product or service that’ll tick all the boxes? No prizes for the right answer there. Customers need your product or service to function exactly the way they need it to, to rectify an issue or fulfill their desire. ### **Price** Whether it’s $20 or $2000, more often than not, buyers will be working on the constraints of a budget. Remember, your customer will have a price point they won’t be able to surpass, so price accordingly. ### **Compatibility** Always ensure your product or service is compatible with your existing products on offer. For example, when Xbox released its Xbox One console, a list of backward compatible titles from the previous console was released, meaning gamers could continue to enjoy their old favorites. In doing so, you’ll keep your customers happy, and reduce the likelihood of them switching allegiances to your competitor. ### **Efficiency** Let’s face facts: we’re all impatient, and your customers are no different when looking for a product or service. They’ll always be attracted to a product or service that offers immediate gratification. ### **Performance** Nobody would visit a car showroom and buy a top of the range Mercedes with square wheels. After all, why buy the undrivable car? Similarly, your product or service needs to fulfill the duties required by the customer so they can achieve their goals. ### **Reliability** Sticking with the car motif, ever wondered why so many people buy Volkswagen cars? One word: reliability. Products or services need to perform reliably, as advertised, whenever the customer uses it. Anything else doesn’t meet the customer's needs. And that won’t cut the mustard. ### **Design** A product could have every feature on God’s green earth, but if it’s lacking aesthetically, chances are it won’t perform to its optimum potential. When designing your product, always put usability at the forefront of your mind, because if it’s awkward to use, there's a strong possibility this will impact the customer experience and they could seek future solutions elsewhere, rather than give you a chance to redeem yourself. ### **Experience** Never overcomplicate things as far as using your product or service is concerned. Remember, the customer has bought your product to simplify matters, not make things harder! ### **Convenience** Your customers are always looking for the most convenient solution to their problem - if they wanted to jump through hoops, they’d have joined the circus. Offer a practical solution to their problem. They’ll be grateful for it. ## **Service needs** ![](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525598912003-663126343e1f?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&w=2000&fit=max&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjExNzczfQ) ### **Accessibility** Nobody wants to constantly hear a pre-recorded message when calling customer service teams - it’s irritating, and sends out all the wrong signals. You need to make your customer service support teams accessible, even if this means having multiple ways whereby they can get in touch with you, including chatbots, customer service numbers, and so forth. Remember, word of mouth can make or break your company’s reputation, and if your existing customers turn the air blue if you’re not accessible, they’ll make their voices heard. ### **Empathy** However, let’s be positive and assume your customers won’t have any trouble at all contacting you. **Top tip:** people getting in touch with customer support aren’t calling for a chat - they have a problem. So, if they’re disappointed, or express dismay for whatever reason, show empathy and understanding when providing help. ### **Be fair** Nobody likes being ripped off. Ever. So, when you’re pricing your product or setting out terms of a customer contract, don’t be sneaky or sly. It’s not big, it’s not clever, and you’ll only wind up booking your customers a first-class, all expenses paid trip to your nearest rival. ### **Be clear** Similarly, we can’t say how important it is to be crystal clear with your customers. For example, if their cell phone tariff is set to increase by a couple of dollars, don’t spring a surprise on them when they open their next bill. Pick up the phone and let them know. They’ll appreciate your honesty, and it’ll only do good for your reputation. ### **Control** Everyone likes to feel some level of control and customers are no different when it comes to business interactions. Customers should feel empowered from start to finish and well after the sales. Make it easy for them to return products they don’t find satisfactory, play around with terms, and change subscriptions and you’ll have a customer for life. ### **Options** Consumers need options, after all, variety is the spice of life! Make sure you offer a variety in the form of products, features, subscriptions, and the way your customers can pay. ### **Information** Ever been in a scenario whereby you’re totally out of the loop? If you haven’t, you’re not missing out: it sucks. If you have, you’ll know what we’re talking about, and shouldn’t subject your customers to the same treatment. When people know about what they’re buying, this inspires trust; a relationship with no trust holds no credence, and sooner or later, you’ll shoot yourself in the foot. Publish content geared to providing your customers useful information they can use to make informed buying decisions and get the most from their purchases: blogs, instructional videos, downloadable brochures - they’re all useful resources that’ll improve your overall service. --- ## **What are the most common customer needs?** We’ve unleashed a helluva lot of examples onto your plate in our previous section, but don’t panic; not every single one of the aforementioned customer needs will be particularly applicable to your circumstances. To round off, here’s a bite-size list of the most common customer needs: 1. Price 2. Reliability and sustainability 3. Risk reduction 4. Usability and convenience 5. Transparency 6. Control 7. Empathy 8. Information --- ## **How to meet your customers’ needs** Sometimes, circumstances stop your customer from meeting their needs with your products or services, and when you’ve devoted copious amounts of time and effort to developing a product or service you’re super-proud of, it can be difficult to stomach seeing customers go elsewhere. But not to worry, some steps can be taken to address common pain points and have your customers eating out the palm of your hand. Well, not literally, but you know what we mean. Here are some ideas: 1. Develop company-wide messaging, 2. Provide in-depth instructions for easy adoption, 3. Always ask for customer feedback, 4. Nurture customer relationships, and 5. Create the right buyer personas, to solve problems the right way. ### **Want to learn more?** Product marketing is and always will be a customer-centric role. A core part of your job is to value the voice of the customer and advocate for their wants, needs, and pain points. It’s your responsibility to make them feel heard. Therefore, customer marketing is an integral part of what you need to do to ensure that you’re staying true to this. The [Customer Marketing Certified: Masters](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/customer-marketing-certified) course has been designed to give you invaluable, practical insights into streamlining your customer marketing approach so that you can ensure that: - Your customers are happy, - Your products are the best they truly can be, - Your brand reputation is consistently positive, and - That you bring in increased revenue for your organization. So what are you waiting for? [Enroll today](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/customer-marketing-certified) ### Your ultimate guide to creating a value proposition URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/your-ultimate-guide-to-creating-a-value-proposition/ Last updated: 2024-06-19T17:28:54.000Z A powerful value proposition can be the difference between a prospective customer choosing your brand, or your competitor. Here, we’ll focus on key topics, such as: - What is a value proposition? - How to format your value proposition - How to create a value proposition - Examples of value propositions - How to improve your value proposition --- ## **What is a value proposition?** A value proposition communicates how your product or service will benefit your customer. You need to outline why your product is essential for your [target segment](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-is-market-segmentation/), how it will solve their pain points, and why your product is more desirable than others on the market. Time is of the essence when communicating your value to a prospective customer; research has suggested you have between [5 to 30 seconds](https://blog.chartbeat.com/2013/05/20/how-engaged-time-affects-brand-recall/) to hold the attention of a visitor to your landing page before they take their custom elsewhere. --- ## **How to format a value proposition** There isn’t a universally accepted way of creating value propositions; what works for one company, could be unsuitable for another. However, while a value proposition can be presented in any number of ways, a basic formula applied by many companies includes: - A headline - A sub-headline - Key benefits of the product or service - An accompanying image When you’re creating your value proposition, it’s essential to write an eye-catching headline; on average, [8 out of 10 people](https://www.digitaldoughnut.com/articles/2019/september/the-80-20-rule-of-headlines) will only read the **headline**, with just 2 out of 10 opting to read the rest. However, if your headline is enticing, this will prompt your readers to check out the rest of the content - you need to [nail your messaging](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-nail-your-product-messaging/). Headlines should be short, concise, and snappy, to grab the attention of your readers. This will entice them to read the sub-heading, in which you can explain [the benefits of your product](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/features-vs-benefits/) further. When the time *does* come to provide more information, hone in on the key features most relevant to your [buyer personas](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-create-buyer-personas/) \- use this opportunity to pique their interest and identify with your [key messaging](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/establishing-and-developing-product-messaging/). Finally, include a carefully selected image to tie all the aforementioned components together and reinforce what you bring to the table. Don’t be influenced by aesthetics. Any image included should bring value and solidify your value proposition. For example, a picture of people using, and enjoying, your product. --- ## **How to create a value proposition** A strong value proposition is essential for any company, and can be achieved by completing four steps: ### **Research your audience** If you don’t understand what’s motivating your audience, how can you produce a value proposition that’ll resonate with them and convince them to buy your product? [Researching the market](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-a-to-z-of-market-research/) will allow you to identify what kind of language is appropriate to include to ensure that you’re able to pinpoint the USP of your product effectively. If you have an existing customer base, conduct [customer and market research](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-what-why-and-how-of-customer-market-feedback/) sessions. This will provide you with essential information on how your product is already helping them in their daily lives. Always ask questions that’ll help you establish: - **The type of language you should be using -** craft your messages with prospective customers in mind, and speak their language. For example, if your target segment is 16-24-year-olds, colloquial language would be justifiable. On the other hand, if you’re creating messaging for middle-aged professionals, this wouldn’t be appropriate. - **Their problems and pain points -** You need to present yourself as *the definitive* solution to the problem. If a prospect doesn’t consider you to be the best option on the market, they’ll take their custom elsewhere. In some instances, feedback from your customers may indicate what you initially considered to be your main selling point isn’t held in the same esteem among your customers, in which case, you need to [reposition your product](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-create-and-maintain-product-positioning/) and reevaluate your initial messaging. ### **Create buyer personas** Buyer personas are crucial, as they help you understand your customers from a human perspective - what motivates them to purchase a product? What features do they value most? These questions offer the information you need to create a value proposition that resonates and leads to them purchasing your product. ### **How to create buyer personas** Your personas need to be built with real information from real people - using your gut instinct won’t do. And remember, creating personas is all about understanding audiences you already know want to buy from you; not people you wish would buy from you. Buyer personas can be created in four steps: ### **Step 1: conduct thorough research** Start by sifting through your records to see what kind of information you’ve already got on your customers. It’s unlikely you’ll stumble across everything you need to build a robust persona, but at the very least it’ll give you a jump start. Some other outlets to gather information include: - Adding relevant fields into any forms on your website; - [Communicate with sales teams](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-importance-of-internal-communication-plus-how-to-crush-it/) \- they’re talking to these people day in, day out after all; - Introducing useful questions to your [customer onboarding](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-fundamentals-of-customer-onboarding/) process; and/or - [Interviewing existing customers](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/) face-to-face or over-the-phone - this option will usually provide you with the richest information. **Tip:** if you’re struggling to get people to say ‘yes’ to an interview start by making it clear it’s not sales-driven, give them flexibility around days and times, and think about adding an incentive. If you’re picking up insights from several different sources remember to create some sort of forum for it all to be collated - it doesn’t need to be complicated, something as simple as an Excel spreadsheet with clearly defined headings would do. There isn’t a set number of people you need to speak to. The more the better, but, as a rule, for a persona to be considered credible you should aim for between 5 - 10 matching patterns. ### **Step 2: understand your aims** The two core areas you should be aiming to understand are: 1. What problems people are trying to solve, and 2. What they want to achieve. This kind of intel is gold dust for your marketing efforts because it enables you to relate to their motivations and tailor-make your proposition to their wants and needs. As well as A and B above though, get around a table at the outset and think about anything specific to your business that would come in handy - the last thing you want is to realize you missed something key later down the line. ### **Step 3: ask the right questions** There are endless questions you could ask, but here are a few ideas to help you hit various touchpoints and create a holistic picture: ![Key questions to ask when creating a value proposition](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/aGtCGCxMTxa-vFXt6TYqT1sQbst2rH-dxCCoGgv96xBN-qsscxD8WFRdUgPYN70llBMtdrbPx9uB-woeVnpneR6IZ0YaCfYweoRgZ-gi5x3cgtsoGFHsNlqJlK_o9B2ke4KbG6Jl) create buyer personas | ask the right questions ### **Step 4: collate your learnings** By this point, you should have insights coming out of your ears. To turn them into something actionable and meaningful, start by grouping common characteristics - it’s important not to rush this stage or make any hasty generalizations. Go through everything with a fine-tooth comb and only solidify an assumption if you’ve got enough evidence to go off. To help you get from A to B, here’s an overview of the types of areas you’ll want your personas to cover: - Job title and decision-making authority - Gender, age, and geographic location - Communication preferences - What they’re struggling with - Their overarching aims - How your product or service helps - How you should position your marketing messaging. One of your buyer personas might look like this: ![An example user persona](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/w6D0AXCk_WYkPzfmNsfCUY40ea3byzMn7-zu4xy6pZdQhVn2D-HXn6BYDQ3K83cUi7LfJ3tHJBWDUCvPjTemvz8ivon8-sDdEQXpwHmiopGgK0lJmPbMPCvIRhZT0knc_ZEF_hqM) create buyer personas | ask the right questions When you’ve identified your target audience, you need to [develop your product messaging](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/product-messaging-made-easy/) and [product positioning](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-create-and-maintain-product-positioning/). Your positioning statement will be used to communicate your value and highlight the benefits of your product, above those of your competitors. Be sure to answer key questions, such as: - What can you offer your customers? - What value do you bring to the table? - How will you solve the customer’s pain points? ![PMA template for user persona](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/z6V_daGetazNA3h6c26WDV5IUytEe-8nyeUY0gHlBAU8yZh8QEM1yu-Hgwt2xRmu3CZ1XhbclOinkbhMy_uwsIB2PBHreCGJDpAdq_kQaYUuf1DbDPqiFU3_90dJwlwcsnoYoAKP) ### **Complete competitive intelligence** Never assume you’re the market leader. You need to conduct thorough [competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/competitive-intelligence-101/) to establish what other businesses are doing, and if they’re offering something different, you need to develop your product to surpass the competition. If a customer has a choice between two competing products doing the same thing, you’re relying on the toss of a coin. However, if you’re offering a differentiating feature, this can easily set you apart and see company revenue and [customer retention](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-it-means-to-have-a-high-customer-retention-rate/) increase, with [customer churn](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-reduce-customer-churn/) falling. Product marketers shared their [competitive intelligence tips](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/30-competitor-intel-tips/): > *“Don’t be afraid to get help from other parts of your organization. Being able to get help from a Sales Engineer or a Developer while you’re reading technical documentation can save a ton of time and help you better* [*understand different personas*](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/an-introduction-to-personas/)*.”* **Mindy Regnell, Marketing Insights Manager at BigCommerce** > *“Job postings reveal a lot about your competitor's product/growth strategy. They’ll often disclose which areas they're trying to invest in on a technology perspective or which* [*customer segments*](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-is-market-segmentation/) *they're trying to grow the business in the most.”* **Julian Clarke, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Team Lead at Lattice** > *“Spend time getting to know the competitor from all angles: explore their website and gated assets as if you were a prospect, but also understand from their existing customers if the true product experience matches the initial marketing.”* **Megan Magee, Product Marketing Manager at ServiceNow** > *“Start with your value proposition not mentioned by you, but by your customer. From there, understand why you don’t live up to that value proposition and where you can improve. Know your segment, know your buyer and persona.”* **Hien Phan, Director of Product Marketing at Formation** > *“Social media is a goldmine of information.”* **Avi Goldstein, Manager of Vendor Relations and Product Marketing at Hertz Furniture** > *“Keep an eye on your peers, but don't lose sight of why your company is unique. That's the story you want to focus on getting in front of your customers. We've found that when we check all of the right boxes, our customers spend less time comparing us to others and more time asking us what else can we do together?”* **Jessica Munoz, Senior VP of Product Marketing at LiveIntent, Inc.** > *“Hearing what customers say has been the most fruitful competitor intel - using tools like Gong and G2 help to gather that info.”* **Andrew McCotter-Bicknell, Product Marketing Manager at ZoomInfo** > *“Read the cons on all the reviews - even the 4-star review has something they don't like. I analyze this for trends so we can rebuke any objections to a sales pitch.”* **Maureen West, Director of Product Marketing at 6sense** > *“Communicate with your customers who have switched from a competitor. They're the source and can articulate pain points which are more valuable than market-facing positioning from the competitor.”* **Miles Price, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sailthru** ### **Identify the main benefit of your product** Having identified your [buyer persona](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/winning-the-buyer-persona-begin-with-studying-what-matters-to-buyers/) and competitors, you need to establish the main benefit of your product. In some cases, there may be multiple reasons you think a customer should use your product or service. For example, Uber acknowledges the frustrations associated with ordering a ‘traditional’ cab, before highlighting why users should use their app instead. They have three features that could be deemed USPs: a car comes directly to you, your driver knows exactly where to go, payment is cashless. However, the collective USP is that commuters can order a cab at the touch of a button - that’s what users are interested in most. ![Uber value proposition](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/ZOfr0TTY-5siFFAWumEjKmmwB1T5A_CrUdmZIcFeFUTCsu-8VmeU3uG274MFkmFm0TL9AeHk_B2f8itlwdhWZy90A4ba0IzkS1HmjYFnmcYgOrtipX5vJKAH_Z1h5OGoWACCKVFy) Statistics make the world of difference. Go above and beyond and provide specific stats to demonstrate how purchasing your product will enhance their lives and/or business. Let’s stick with Uber to explain our point. If they said “Uber reduced commuting time in 2020” this doesn’t carry as much weight as “in 2020, Uber helped over 93 million users per month reduce their journey time by an average of 15 minutes”. The difference is there for all to see; statistics help you to express concrete value. These four steps are key to creating a value proposition that ties together your customer needs, what the market offers, and what you’re offering. --- ## **How to test a value proposition** When you’ve created your value proposition, it’s important to test it to establish whether it resonates with your audience. Complete a test run by following these five simple steps: 1. Define who you are targeting and what benefits you are bringing them 2. Build a simple landing page 3. Set up a cold email / LinkedIn outreach campaign 4. Launch outreach to them 5. Evaluate if the offer resonates or fails A cold campaign serves as the true acid test for your value proposition; if you’re able to convert prospects you’ve never approached before, the chances are you’ve created a value proposition ticking all the right boxes. --- ## **Value proposition examples** ![Value proposition for Apple iPhone](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/duiEL7HNoQUkEYAqYF8EXXHVfXZsW8UAjMAvwsMch1rvm4c8s1kA5YCMGUTsg_BDHjmLx5_nfr1zdtIfJMVvedWt7VJJXZqkXEGACcv3mBgrtedIW6qgqF39KWoiwPJjJAvxroV-) ![Value proposition for Unbounce](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/fEr7U2nJLmFOm4KyZlcq31tYE1arOXmhapUgma0L_WCzPbpAZKihu2gHKw5B6FxDwVzUm1IGRbKgCNDVaQspSoyLfWhwrx4uQmhn0QaYhd5wKFa7svRDc6b_yQ_tQrlz3FLw5aEb) ![Value proposition for Slack](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/mcDsKDpoSYVOOq_DQ-5fzk4qVtQnLeas5nhvTxeKAcKltMI1Kb07V6co_xNe06u-A1JbE8F0TYZqnMqjoe5JaLzn5IvrEvYMwjuIYRM6YbsUzMC8Djyr5DqTh5bq7YG6yinjdAiH) Looking for further inspiration? We spoke with **Nisha Goklaney, Marketing Director at Sage**, who gave her perspective on [how to create a killer value proposition](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/pmmnow-reasons-to-believe/) for your customer. Get expert advice on key topics such as: - How to create a value propositions framework - Examples of value propositions that work - Essential steps to consider when getting started with value propositions ### Is it time to switch from feature to outcome-driven product roadmaps? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/is-it-time-to-switch-from-feature-to-outcome-driven-product-roadmaps/ Last updated: 2022-06-23T10:11:17.000Z > “Where we’re going we don’t need roa… no wait we DO need roadmaps!” ![Doc Brown gif](https://www.productledalliance.com/content/images/2022/01/doc-brown.gif) *'Said Doc Brown to the product manager.'* Okay, so Marty Mcfly was never a product manager. But if he had been… he would've definitely been given the advice above (and there probably would have been more stringent testing on the time machine, but anyway…). Because the product roadmap is, of course, an absolutely essential [part of a winning product strategy](https://www.productledalliance.com/effective-steps-you-can-take-to-create-a-winning-product-strategy/). The product roadmap acts as a guide and strategic plan of action, which clearly communicates how your short-term product efforts match up with your long-term organizational goals. It serves as a shared source of truth that product owners can utilize to outline the vision, future product functionality, priorities, progress, and new features that will be released. The product roadmap really sets the bar for communication, and in agile product development, it offers crucial context for the day-to-day work of the team. Traditionally, the feature-driven product roadmap has been a staple of product development. Full to the brim of features and enhancements that, when taken in isolation, don’t actually mean a whole lot. In fact, these roadmaps often lack representations of any desired outcomes. That’s why there’s been a steady shift away from the feature-based product roadmapping of the past, towards a more outcome-focused future. But should you make the change? Let’s unpack the problems with feature-driven product roadmaps, and why more teams are focusing on outcomes. Ultimately, we’ll dive into how adopting an outcome-driven mindset can make your product roadmap work better, bring more focus, and communicate more effectively with stakeholders… ## **Problems with feature-driven product roadmaps** It can certainly be argued that there’s an abundance of product roadmaps out there that simply list features. These features are normally set out on a vague timeline, which creates a lot of pressure on teams to build everything on that list, even when they don’t really solve the right problems. The standard procedure is to complete one feature, then move on and start developing the next. This happens even when the overall product strategy and user needs have actually changed since the roadmap was put in place. The feature-based roadmap ends up leaving product managers in a position where they’ve delivered on almost every feature within the intended estimate, but [the key metrics](https://www.productledalliance.com/product-led-growth-metrics/) are all going in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, this can be quite common with feature-list product roadmaps. Teams can often continue to doggedly deliver on the list, even when features aren’t hitting the mark. > *“Feature roadmapping adopts a predefined prioritization method, not responsive to the goals and needs of the company or market...”* > *“A roadmap based primarily on customer requests is an example of a feature roadmap because it often leads to focusing on the superficial level of customer needs and wants and you create features to solve them on an incremental level.”* ****Becky Flint, CEO of Dragonboat** Becky Flint knows all about how having an outcome-driven culture can be a solid [foundation for roadmap success](https://www.productledalliance.com/the-product-ops-roadmap-to-success-for-accelerating-portfolio-outcomes/) that ties everything together. A feature-driven roadmap means you’ve already set out your list of features and set some sort of priority. But as your customer needs change and your organization evolves, these defined priorities need to evolve too. ## **Escaping the feature-driven product roadmap** The list-based roadmap can set product managers down the wrong path, especially in large organizations where a top-down culture often translates to senior management handing down features to teams to deliver. You’ll likely feel backed into a corner, and have your role boil down to just delivering each feature most effectively. This feature-driven mindset can often be a side effect of a product strategy that’s more aligned with ticking off features than creating positive outcomes. So how do you escape from the feature-based roadmap path, and start heading in the right direction? ****The answe**r - you start focusing on the ‘why’ as well as the ‘how’. ## **Adopt the outcome-driven product mindset** > *“Many product people I work with still use traditional feature-based roadmaps and are fairly new to the concept of outcome or goal-oriented roadmaps. The whole point is rather than focusing on output and deliverables, i.e, “what needs to be done?” try asking, “why do we want to enhance the product? What is the specific value that we want to create?”* > *“What are the specific outcomes and goals we'd like to achieve?” That might be to acquire more users or customers, to increase engagement, to improve conversion and start generating revenue, etc. I think part of the reason why feature-based roadmaps are still dominant is that it’s hard to shrug off that traditional way of doing it.* > *There's an interesting correlation between product roadmapping and the level of empowerment that product people have. I find that when product people aren't fully empowered, they're often given a feature-based roadmap and told to deliver.”* ****Roman Pichler, Product Management Author, Consultant, and Trainer** *You can listen to more of what Roman had to say when it comes to embracing the outcome-driven product roadmap approach,* [*on his For the Love of Product podcast episode*](https://www.productledalliance.com/drive-the-best-outcomes-through-your-product-roadmap-with-roman-pichler/)*.* It’s important to forgo the features and start focusing on the actual problems: - Focus on the outcomes. - Focus on how things will look if the team succeeds. - Focus on how your customers will *feel*. - And focus on what your customers will now be able to achieve. By taking this approach, you can avoid being stuck delivering on a list of features, and instead, your whole team can own the problem. The outcome-driven product mindset places more autonomy back within your teams and allows for more knowledge to be shared. You’ll have greater certainty on when an actual customer problem is solved, as opposed to when a particular feature is shipped. When you gain clarity on outcomes, you’ll be able to realize a wider range of possibilities and gain better context for specific items on your product roadmap and their prioritization. At the same time, you’ll also be able to ensure the product strategy is still well communicated and consistently adhered to. With clear outcomes, every necessary step is captured, along with the reason each step is there. The reason is well understood, extraneous steps are avoided, and the desired goals are more measurable. ## **Building an outcome-driven product roadmap** So, you’ve decided to commit to focusing on outcomes, as opposed to a roadmap of endless features. But how do you begin putting an outcome-driven product roadmap together? Just like your overall goals, any outcomes you put in place need to be measurable, and recognizable to your stakeholders and customers as something valuable. For example, focusing on an outcome like “the customer getting seeing more marketing emails” isn’t valuable to them. So, let's summarize some key steps you can follow to build an outcome-driven product roadmap. ### **Ensure your product vision, strategy, and objectives are aligned** A strong product roadmap needs to effectively communicate your product vision, strategy, and objectives. It needs to make them understandable and unite your team behind a common purpose. To do this, think about the long-term outcomes and benefits you want or need to deliver to your customers. And when crafting the product vision and strategy, consider the following: - What you hope to achieve in the short and long-term. - [Customer insights](https://www.productledalliance.com/how-to-use-data-and-insight-to-create-better-products-for-our-customers/). - Market and technology trends. - Competitive intelligence. - Your organization’s business model. - Any unique differentiators. Once you’ve cemented your product vision and strategy, it’s time to break them down into objectives. These objectives should represent the desired outcome for your customers or product, while also helping you prioritize decisions around the features to focus on next. ### **Prioritize the features based on your desired outcomes** So, you’ve [aligned around your central vision, strategy, and objectives](https://www.productledalliance.com/creating-a-great-product-strategy-insights-from-cpo-summit-speakers/). Next, you need to prioritize the features that will go onto the product roadmap. This stage can be a little overwhelming due to the amount of information you’ll be dealing with while juggling stakeholder needs; from customer insights and date-based milestones to the capacity of your team. Customers can be a great source of feedback at this stage, but keep in mind their suggestions may not address the actual underlying problems. But going through this stage will help shift your focus from the ‘how’ to the ‘why’. Check out our [product prioritization frameworks](https://www.productledalliance.com/templates-and-frameworks/) by becoming a ****PLA member**. Having a framework in place will help you assess the various inputs more effectively. ### **Create a product roadmap to communicate your features** Time to create the roadmap itself, which needs to communicate the products and/or features you’re building. It needs to outline: - Each planned product feature. - When each product feature will be worked on. - Roughly when a specific product feature will be released. - And why certain features are a priority above other options. To craft an informative and easily understood outcome-driven product roadmap, remember to set realistic expectations around when features will be rolled out so other teams can plan accordingly. You don’t have to be terribly specific with a deadline, just communicate a general time, like a month of the coming year. Keep in mind you can be as detailed as you want when it comes to outlining the features you’ve planned into the timeline. But ensure you clearly explain why you’re including a feature to provide the right amount of context. Your teams must know exactly why you’re building certain features next, as this provides valuable strategic context. This will alleviate stakeholder concerns, as they will better understand the rationale behind decisions. ### **Empower your team around the product roadmap** Now it’s time to lay out your outcome-based product roadmap and empower your team by providing them with all the information they require. Ensure each product team member has access to the roadmap and anyone else involved in [the product lifecycle](https://www.productledalliance.com/building-ai-products-the-ml-lifecycle-from-the-pm-perspective/). Of course, the benefit of using outcome-driven roadmaps, which focus on broad timelines, is they can meet the needs of varying stakeholders and senior executives. You just need to make sure they include information such as market opportunities, and profit and loss details if needed. ## **From feature-based to outcome-driven roadmaps** Remember, a product roadmap is a living, breathing document that needs to allow for deviations along the way. It’s okay to have several versions, depending on your audience. You may still require a feature-driven roadmap, especially for things in the shorter term. External teams may need to know exactly when you’re delivering certain features, and the sales and customers will need different details than engineering, so this kind of roadmap can help with reassurance. But it’s important to show how you’re driving towards outcomes. To communicate how your strategic initiatives will evolve from a problem into a solution. The outcome-driven roadmap works extremely well for your internal development team because it allows you to bring clarification and focus. It allows you to stop loading up your product with features that users may not want. It will likely lead to getting the maximum impact out of existing features, instead of just piling new things on top of them. And may also allow you to retire certain features that are getting in the way of your customers. But you have to shift away from the mindset that sees your roadmap as a list of commitments, that leads you down a path where shipping features have become more important than delivering outcomes. So perhaps it’s time to take a new approach. Forgo the long list of features and focus your product roadmap on outcomes! ### How product managers can scale the embedded analytics maturity curve URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-product-managers-can-scale-the-embedded-analytics-maturity-curve/ Last updated: 2022-06-24T14:25:11.000Z As a product manager, the value of embedding analytics is clear. It provides your product a key point of differentiation in the market, directly integrates helpful analytics tools so that your users don’t have to go outside of your software for it, and ensures your users derive more value. But today’s line-of-business users are spoilt for choice when it comes to their data and analytics. After 20 years of using standalone dashboards and reports (built mostly by IT), a wave of modern embedded analytics solutions have empowered many to build reports and explore their data themselves, and make analytics feel like a core part of the applications they use for work. However, with this leap in new analytics options brings a new challenge: Users expect more. The increased accessibility of sophisticated analytics features, from [automated monitoring](https://www.yellowfinbi.com/blog/2020/09/dashboards-vs-automated-business-monitoring-whats-the-difference) to [AI-generated insights](https://www.yellowfinbi.com/platform/analytics-dashboards/assisted-insights), means dashboards and reports on their own no longer cut it in the search for insights. It also means your product’s analytics now require more to stand out from the pack. While not every product needs to have the latest analytics features to realize success, gaining competitive advantage, keeping future-proof and increasing revenue in this area require being up-to-date. If dashboards are the extent of analytics your product offers today, now is the best time to recognize there are opportunities to expand your capabilities and meet the new baseline. ## **The constraints of an ad-hoc approach to embedding analytics** For some vendors, analytics in general is never made a priority consideration. The focus may have been on building the initial Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and getting it market-ready, or there’s an intention to add some form of analytical capability later. But typically, it’s left to developers to add in analytical features piecemeal, and to the users to request them. The problem this ad-hoc approach creates is you may not have an accurate understanding of your product’s current analytical offering, or of what both groups need to make adding a feature worth it - or possible, depending on the state of your data structure and integration capability. Using the previous example, your product may have had some form of reporting added-on over time, but there’s a big difference between adding on a data export feature for users to pull data and use it in another external analytics tool, and a fully embedded analytics module that sits alongside your core product experience. Without some formalized process and effort made to guide the introduction of analytics at every phase, your product’s analytical maturity could be at an earlier less sophisticated stage than your team believes it to be, and your users may ultimately not be getting the kind of reliable data and discoverable insights they expected. ## **Understanding where the analytics in your product stands today** Of course, understanding what a new analytics feature can bring, or when you’re ready to make a move, or even how capable your product’s analytics is today, isn’t always simple. This is why we made the ****Embedded Analytics Maturity Curve**, a strategic framework and visual roadmap that helps formulate your analytical development, adoption and long-term strategy. ![Maturity Model - Simplified](https://www.productledalliance.com/content/images/2021/06/Blog-Graphic---Maturity-Model---Simplified.png) The Curve exists to take product teams through five defined phases of the overall product journey, based on our extensive knowledge gained from helping our customers, to help you understand the requirements to action the most effective and efficient introduction of embedded analytics into your software product possible, whether it is existing software or a new product. ## **From dashboards to AI insight: 4 things you need know to make the move** The benefits of using a progress model for your product’s analytics pipeline, rather than approaching analytics as an ad-hoc add-on, are numerous, and aim to assist teams to think about and assess key areas that may be overlooked or neglected. Some examples include: 1. ****Identify your data access and structure**: Does your product offer users easy access to their data? Is it cleansed and usable to support self-service consumption? Analytics starts with data, but it’s common for product teams busy with other priorities to not have the full picture on what their data actually looks like, how it is structured, or where it’s captured and stored from. Using the Curve helps your team understand it’s not simply a case of offering features, such as data exports or basic reporting, that determine whether your product offers analytical value, but also the readiness and reliability of your data assets to allow your users to derive accurate insights. 2. ****Understand what user insights look like**: Are users exporting their data from your product into another to derive value? Can they explore their data and find answers when using your product? The Curve assists in defining the differences in what insights look like in each stage and can help you pin-point what data wrangling is required to meet the requirements for more accurate, sophisticated decision-making and reporting before you can move to your target state. 3. ****Evaluate future analytics scenarios**: What typical priorities or roadblocks does the product team need to address before adopting a new analytics feature? What kind of challenges do you face when updating your software with the latest features? The Curve breaks down the many nuances of each stage of maturity for a clearer picture of what to expect, what to address, and whether a move to the next stage is appropriate right now, to minimise rushed transitions. 4. ****Know when you’re ready to update - and why**: Your data model is highly performant and you have the internal expertise to embed analytics the right way. Great! But *why* should you update? The Curve covers the many reasons you should consider moving from one stage to the next - from users struggling to build reports to customers churning to competitors in their search for a better option for analytics consumption - that may not be immediately clear to your team. ## **Why a strategic approach to your analytical maturity is critical** Many product teams still lack a full picture of the state of their data, users and analytic technologies, but pursuing and implementing meaningful updates to your analytics can only match up to the new, modern expectations the self-service analytics revolution has brought can only be done when you understand and can articulate your current and target capability. If you need help in getting started, the ****Embedded Analytics Maturity Curve** can provide valuable guidance in what, when and how you can mature your software’s analytical capabilities, and even be a much needed wake-up call for the rest of the organization to get on-board. ***Yellowfin is a global analytics and business intelligence (ABI) software vendor with a suite of world-class products powered by automation.** ***Yellowfin is recognized as an innovator by the world's leading analyst firms. More than 29,000 organizations and over 3 million end-users across 75 countries use Yellowfin every day.** ### Using customer feedback and win-loss interviews to improve your product URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/using-customer-feedback-and-win-loss-interviews-to-improve-your-product/ Last updated: 2024-05-30T14:09:55.000Z As many product marketers will testify, bringing a product to market is no piece of cake. From conducting [market research](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-a-to-z-of-market-research/) and forming your [personas](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/exploring-the-intricacies-of-user-personas/) to completing [competitor analysis](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-get-results-with-competitor-analysis/), you need to follow a long process, before unleashing your creation on the world. Some might say the release marks the end of the journey, yet this is only the start of a thorough process; you need to consider what is, and isn’t working, to make your product even better. [Customer feedback](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-what-why-and-how-of-customer-market-feedback/) and win-loss interviews are among the most effective ways to gain a firm understanding of how your product has been received, and how you can make changes, where needed. And remember, customers and internal teams can both contribute to the stages, in equal measure; let’s check out how you can gain the insights needed. ### **How to source customer feedback externally** We’ve said time and again: the voice of the customer is paramount. Surprise, surprise, we’re not breaking the mold anytime soon; it’s the key ingredient in the post-production pie, and you can’t go without it. Receiving feedback from your target audience can provide you with golden insights that’ll give you essential information into what went well and which areas you need to improve, allowing you to refine your efforts in a bid to stay one step ahead of your competitors. So, how can you secure customer feedback? ### **Pick up the phone** Sometimes, the tried and tested, no-frills methods are the most effective. 🤷‍♂️ While we can't promise every one of your customers will be willing to take part, when you do manage to speak with customers on the phone, this is a great source of qualitative data for your post-launch product analysis. Calls allow you to ask your customer for their opinions, probe with follow up questions, and gauge their true emotions, by listening to vocal expressions, detecting hesitancy, and so forth. When a customer is on a call, it’s much harder for them to pull the wool over your eyes and provide an answer lacking validity. Sure, you may need to provide an incentive to convince them to pick up the phone in the first place, (a voucher goes down a treat), but believe us when we say the information you’ll get back will be worth much more than a $10 Amazon voucher. ### **Inbound emails and surveys** Rather not pick up the phone? If the cat’s got your tongue, inbound emails and surveys can also be used to generate wide-scale responses from customers. Inbound emails are often used by companies given they’re cheap. With little to no set-up involved in capturing customer feedback or survey responses, you can send an email to 1,000s of customers, and allow them to complete the feedback at a time to suit (within reason!) Some customers freeze like a rabbit in the headlights when they receive a phone call asking for feedback, an email or postal questionnaire allows them to feedback under no pressure. Such are the benefits of inbound emails and surveys, they’re often used by some of the world’s leading brands, with AirBnb, Netflix, and Slack all advocates of the approach. **Airbnb example** ![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/1gQFhEjZf2OdWnKzuZTk-nSJgpS2gMPz0mJRtmpmdFiZzGiHBan4DUXe0J1zlZHeLTwbW2PeGiZizb3SPflkOBqxoyafAj-Kw1-eRAmDokXaXzV2Dgkkj8y7p6gYCHt8DYuxTQK3) **Netflix example** ![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/3vDUW93GztzbeHWx4JnSlT7BDMsTi04LTTLbIyRozFZ-whXwDrl8fKSimSOHIHI0Ably85D9Vj85Z8ioN8_oo33f9LqE_5P0HLY8f1BJRybisgTpPPY72yN2XaLnXaAaspjub_ge) **Slack example** ![](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2020/08/image.png)  ### **Win-loss interviews** There’s no such thing as a product that’ll please everyone, that said, you can invest your efforts into making your product as good as it can be, and that involves speaking to converted customers, as well as the ones that got away. Win-loss interviews are invaluable when you’re trying to improve your product, as the process gives you insights from both perspectives; in the case of your customers, which features make your product stand out above the competition? On the other hand, what dissuaded some to invest, and opt for an alternative? The Apple and Android debate is the perfect example of two companies competing within a saturated market. Both crave the attention (and wallets!) of mobile phone users, and while they win plenty of customers, they’ll also lose some of their prospects to their rival. Therefore, win-loss interviews will be used to establish why their target audience A) decide to choose their product, and B) opt to take their custom elsewhere. The process is critical in identifying which features need to be implemented within a new (or existing product) to capture the attention of those who have opted not to buy a product. In this instance, an Android user may reveal they opted against an Apple product due to comparatively poor battery life. Therefore, this could be an area of focus as you seek to improve your product. Similarly, win/loss interviews also inform you of the positive feedback, with converted customers divulging key information about why your product appealed to them, rather than the offerings of other competitors. ### **Customer advisory boards** Customer advisory boards allow customers to provide PMM teams with candid feedback about their product or service after it’s been launched. Admittedly, it can be difficult if customers are critical of your product, but the process is worth its weight in gold when you’re trying to address what is and isn’t working with your product. The process provides an open forum for your target audience to vent their frustrations, (or sing your praises!), providing you and your team with an indication of how they’re using the product and its features. Customer advisory boards could validate your assumptions, but perhaps more importantly, the feedback may reveal other features that have caught their attention, in which case, you can amend your collateral and product messaging and bring to the forefront of the minds of prospective customers. Similarly, customer advisory boards can influence the product roadmap, as your customers may provide insights into additional products and features you need to develop to complement your offering. Perhaps you’re newcomer to the world of customer advisory boards? Or maybe you want to refine your existing knowledge? Either way, our episode of the Product Marketing Life podcast with **Bree Bunzel, APAC Product Marketing Lead at Dropbox** provides a whole host of actionable insights. **How to source customer feedback internally** There’s no doubting speaking to your customers delivers essential information for product development. That said, there’s also a whole host of insights sitting right under your nose that can guide your analysis, post-launch. ### **Sales representatives** Most companies selling a product have a sales team in place, and low and behold, every day, they’re talking directly to the people you’re desperate to get hold of - the customer. If you’re not asking your sales reps every question under the sun about how prospects respond to your product, then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. Make the time to sit with your sales teams and ask thorough questions about prospect feedback: what do they like? Which features have emerged as being particularly popular? On the other hand, if your product isn’t meeting pain points, why is this the case? Are they disgruntled with a particular feature? Collate every piece of information and form a bigger picture of what the prospect likes, what the prospect doesn’t like, and act proactively to give them what they want. Some pretty popular methods to gather this kind of feedback include: - Biweekly/monthly feedback sessions, - Desk drops, - Surveys, and - Dedicated Slack (or similar) channels. ### **Customer success teams** The role of a customer success team is to form strong relationships with a company’s customers, and ensure they’re aware of their needs and experiences. Given customer success spends time communicating with your target audience regularly gaining insights and maintaining relationships they’re a beacon of knowledge and can provide you with an array of information you can use to address shortcomings and also hone in on features that have ticked the relevant boxes. ### **Customer service teams** First things first: let’s clarify the difference between customer success teams and customer service. Customer service is focused on rectifying problems that rear their head, in a bid to keep the customers satisfied and keep them from jumping ship and swimming to your nearest competitor. Unlike the reactive stance adopted by customer service teams, customer success implements a more proactive approach, channeling their efforts into understanding and supporting customers, to deliver desired business outcomes. When you think about customer service teams, one word immediately springs to mind: Complaints. While, on the one hand, no company in their right mind actively seeks customer complaints, when a customer service team’s faced with a tetchy customer, it’s for one reason, and one reason only, something isn’t’ good enough. Speaking with the customer service team allows you to identify any negative customer experiences that’ve arisen since the launch of your product, before acting accordingly. Sure, you can’t please everyone, but if there’s an issue that’s repeatedly rearing its head, then it’s apparent this needs to be addressed. ### **How trends influence your business** After collecting internal and external data, you’ll need to assess any potential trends that may have emerged. And remember, a trend isn’t one customer or sales rep saying jump and you saying “how high?” - it’s looking for a pattern of a similar subset of your audience saying the same thing. The data will give you an indication of the positives and the negatives of your product, influencing decisive factors moving forwards. For example, after initially launching your product, you may’ve placed an emphasis on a particular feature as being your core USP in your marketing campaigns. However, if your feedback comes back from your customers and the trends indicate A) your target audience are impressed by alternative features, or B) your USP has been identified as a flaw, rather than a benefit, your product marketing team can rectify the issue to improve the user experience, and also amend accompanying collateral and messaging, highlighting the features considered to be more valuable by the target audience. Moreover, trends can also be introduced within collateral such as sales reps’ assets. For example, battlecards should be revised to highlight the key differentiating features earmarked by now customers, as well as comparisons against your competitors, and so on. The post-launch process is like a product marketing jigsaw puzzle; until you pop together all the pieces, you won’t see the whole picture. ## **Want to learn more?** Product marketing is and always will be a customer-centric role. A core part of your job is to value the voice of the customer and advocate for their wants, needs, and pain points. It’s your responsibility to make them feel heard. Therefore, customer marketing is an integral part of what you need to do to ensure that you’re staying true to this. The [Customer Marketing Certified: Masters](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/customer-marketing-certified) course has been designed to give you invaluable, practical insights into streamlining your customer marketing approach so that you can ensure that: - Your customers are happy, - Your products are the best they truly can be, - Your brand reputation is consistently positive, and - That you bring in increased revenue for your organization. So what are you waiting for? [Sign up today](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/customer-marketing-certified) ### Competitive intelligence 101 URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-101/ Last updated: 2022-06-23T09:54:50.000Z ### **Beat your competition** Nearly everyone will have some form of competitive intelligence inside their company, but how do we prioritize our competitors and ultimately define them? In this article, I’ll discuss the process of prioritizing, defining, and researching competitors through the lens of Formstack and how we’ve had to rethink how we compete and who we compete against after multiple acquisitions, and specifically how we prepare our sales teams to beat the competition. My name is Clint Buechler, I'm Product Marketing Manager at Formstack and in this article, I'm going to be talking about competitive intelligence. I've titled this 101 because in some ways it’s back to basics. Everyone probably has some sort of competitive intelligence inside their company, I'm going to talk a little bit about how Formstack does it. We've been through a string of acquisitions recently, and I've had to really think differently about how we compete and who we compete against. I'm going to talk about that process of how we define our competitors, and how we prepare our sales teams specifically. ### **Why do we care about competitors?** A lot of times, there are other companies who just focus strictly on themselves and say, 'we're gonna do what we're gonna do, we're not gonna let anyone influence us'. But competition isn't necessarily about trying to be someone, we don't want to be keeping up with the Joneses. We don't track competitors to try to do the same thing as them. A lot of times with competitors, it's all about learning about what customers expect and what they want from us. Because if they're going to competitors, they're not coming to you, and that means you're not fulfilling a need. That need might be something that you want to do, it might be something you don't ever have, or are never going to put on your roadmap. But understanding what competitors are helping other customers do can help you figure out whether or not you're going to play against them in the market. ### **Formstack’s platform evolution** Formstack is a form building product that was founded back in 2006; a basic drag and drop form builder that allows you to collect any type of data from anyone and spit out quick things really easily. We've been going through a platform evolution, we got acquired back in 2018, and have gone through a string of acquisitions that have really shaped us into a new market. - Back in March 2018, we acquired a company called QuickTapSurvey, which is a mobile one to one survey tool that you might find in an airport where you press a button on it, and things like that. - Bedrock Data was acquired in December 2018, a data synchronization tool that allows you to sync data between databases like HubSpot, NetSuite, and Salesforce, so all your data is always the same wherever you write it, it always changes. - April of 2020 we acquired Webmerge, which is a document automation software that lets you create customized PDFs, Excel sheets from all kinds of data sources. - Our final acquisition was InsureSign back in July, a typical e-signature provider that focused a lot on the insurance industry when it first got its start. All of these new products have allowed us to become, rather than just a forms product, more of a platform for workflow productivity, which is a lot different than what we had been talking about as a company before March 2018. ### **Our competitors** From a competitive landscape, we used to traditionally focus on other types of form builders, Jotform, Typeform, Form Assembly, all those regular different competitors you probably know about. When we acquired QuickTapSurvey, we got into the survey market, as we brought in Bedrock, we brought in other databases as competitors. Then we brought in document automation; Conga, PandaDoc, then we brought in signatures; DocuSign, etc. All of these now have some sort of stake in our product. As we have built our platform, all of our products are individual products. They're standalone, you can buy them by themselves so we have been able to compete individually in all these but then we have a platform play that we also have to compete against different people as well. ### **How do you prioritize competitors?** It gets really confusing on how we do it and how do we focus and who do we focus on? We've really defined a new structure for us. There are a lot of different ways you can do this, but one is starting to look at the different types of competitors. ### **Types of competitors** This is very much your business course in marketing, but it's always good to have a refresher. ****Direct competitors** Your direct competitors are people who do the exact same thing, basically the exact same way. For most of this article, I'm going to be focusing on direct competitors, because those are your biggest threats at the moment. For example, Netflix and Hulu. These are the people who can steal customers away because they're doing the exact same thing. ****Indirect competitors** Indirect competitors sometimes aren't even other products, they're sometimes different processes. If you think about jobs to be done, for example, one of our indirect competitors is paper forms. Just a simple piece of paper, people can not spend their money on us and they can just go print something out on their computer and put it on their desk and that's how they're doing forum. Indirect competitors do have the same end goal, but do it in different ways. McDonald's and Pizza Hut - both are trying to do fast food, one does it with pizza one does it with burgers. ****Replacement competitors** Replacement competitors are more industry disruptors and people coming in and doing something completely different. You probably don't focus a lot on them, because you normally don't see them coming but it's something just to keep an eye on. For example, think about Kodak and the iPhone, the digital camera industry was completely disrupted when the iPhone came in and basically did the exact same thing, and more. I'm going to be focusing a lot on direct competitors, at Formstack we do a lot of direct competitor focus as well. ### **Defining your competitors** We run our competitors through these three types of checks here on how we define them. 1. Who does the market say you compete against? 2. Who do your competitors say you compete against? And, 3. Who does your customer say you compete against? ****What does the market say?** The first one, who does the market say you compete against? This is mostly third-party companies who don't have anything necessarily to do with you, who are they saying you are naturally competing against? A lot of times these can be review sites like G2, Trustpilot, and Capterra. For example, if you go to Formstack's G2 site, this is who they say we compete against, they give us comparisons for all these other people. Obviously, they're sourcing this competitor list for us, because this is what people are coming to them for. If you have a relationship with a Forrester or a Gartner and see their magic quadrants, who else is on there? Go to the App Store, see who you're naturally coming up against. Those are the people who the market is saying that other people are looking for it. That's a good indicator of when people are going to check on your competitors, they're going to go and find these other people. ****What do your competitors say?** If your competitors are trying to compete against you, they obviously think they have something over you, they are filling a need that you aren't, and they can pull share away from you. How dare they? An easy way to do this is just to type in your name and alternatives and find out who's running paid ads against you. If they're running paid against you, they’re obviously putting dollars behind it so they're making a big bet that they are going to pull a share away from you. ****What do your customers say?** Talk to your sales team they are the ones who are on the phones with people, they hear who's naturally coming up in conversation over and over again. Look into your website's SEO, figure out what your top-performing pages are. If you have alternative pages on your site, see which ones are the best performing. If you're running competitive paid ads yourself look into the efficiencies of those. If you type in competitor name alternative and your ad's popping up and people are clicking on it, you see some synergy there where you might be filling a need that someone else isn't looking at. We're looking at the intersection of all of those and that's where you should start. Those are where you should make your initial list of competitors that you want to focus on. Where the market says, your competitors say, and who your customers say. Cognito forms and Fast field forms, as you can see, weren't on my list of competitors above, we don't usually find them as we run up against them, our sales team doesn't say we hit them, and the market doesn't say we hit them, so we don't focus on them. They can run paid ads against us all day long, but we're not going to take our time to go out to them because we feel we have bigger fish to fry. ### **Start small** The first step is just trying to define three to five competitors who you're going to focus on first. If you don't have a list, if you're trying to start something brand new, start small, start really focused and specific to who you're going to go against. ### **Where do I start to research competitors?** Where do you start to actually do the research? Now you have these three to five lists, how do we know what we compete on? Usually, competitor research will turn into something like this. Here are my settings, here are my features, here's who I integrate with, what fields I have available, here's what competitor one does, here's what competitor two does, these little X's, yadda, yadda, yadda, and that's usually where it stops. This is great for something to do later but from a beginning perspective, don't start with this because you will just go down a rabbit hole with all these different features and then you can never keep it updated. You will never be able to keep it updated for eternity. Don't do it because then you don't have to worry about keeping it updated. ### **Messaging teardown** At Formstack how we think about competing is through messaging. We do what we call messaging tear downs of our competitors. We will look at: - what they say they do well, - who they're trying to tell that to, and then - have either of those changed over time? What they say they do well, is what key value are they trying to drive on their website, through their customer stories, things like that. Who are they trying to get to and who are they trying to tell? Is this a specific industry, in general, everything like that? Has either of those changed? That really tells you where they're going as a company. You can do this by going to a website time machine and you can look back at multiple iterations of their home pages and different messaging, go back a couple of years, and just see what their tagline is on their homepage. They will tell you a lot about where things are going. ### **Where to research** ****Website & blog** When you're trying to do this messaging research a couple of places to go would be their website and their blog, reading through what's on there, their taglines, if they have specific solution pages or industry pages or role pages, what are they focusing on? Read their blog, scroll through their blog all the way down to the bottom, see where they started out, then go to the top one, figure out what their most recent post was. ****Product review sites** Product review sites are really good at identifying strengths and weaknesses, so go to G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, and figure out what people like about their product, and what people don't like about their product. ****Free trials** Free trials of competitor products, if someone has something you can get into, if they have demo videos, go on YouTube, look them up, see if you can see inside their product and what they're trying to showcase. ****Competitive feature sets** Competitive feature sets are necessary in a sense of grouping those feature sets into categories. For example, at Formstack, we don't want to go and say they have a signature field, they have a radio button field. But we might say they have good integration sets around payments or integration sets around databases. We can group those together and figure out where their synergies are. ****Turn into positioning statements** After we've done that messaging, we want to turn those into positioning statements. This is your deliverable at the end of the day for your competitive research. This is Geoffrey Moore's positioning structure, which we use at Formstack. I highlighted the different areas that you want to do for your different competitors. This makes it actionable. These are the things you can circulate throughout your entire company so they know. You can segment till the cows come home by your target customer, your specific competitor, and you can say 'for healthcare customers, we beat them here. For education customers, we beat them here. For SMBs we beat them here'. You can do all these different types of segmentation for just one specific customer. How this works if you've never seen Geoffrey Moore's framework before is as follows: - For - your target customers. - Who you're trying to speak to - that shouldn't be just your competitor’s customers, for example, for us it shouldn't be just Typeform customers, you should make it a little more specific than that. - Who - the statement of need, what you're trying to bring to them, what does your product bring? - The - your product name. - Is a - whatever category you will compete in. For us, it's usually form builders but now that we have document generations, we have signatures, those types of things. - Your statement of key benefit - unlike your competitor, what is your differentiation point? The differentiation point is what you just got from that messaging teardown, that's where that goes. For example, at Formstack, we might say: > *'For education customers who need to spin up surveys fast Formstack is a form builder that gives you easy to use tools to build forms, unlike Typeform our product allows you to connect systems, databases, and students across your organization'.* I didn't list features there but I listed those messaging things that we have that the competitor Typeform doesn't. ### **Quick ethics quiz** When you're doing your research, remember these things. 1. ****Never lie**, that's an easy one. Just because they don't have it on their site doesn't mean they don't have it. If you see something, do a little research to the point where you feel you've exhausted your options a little bit to figure out if they have something or they're saying something. We've had competitors come up to us around things like HIPAA compliance, whether we have it or we don't have it. We've had people say, "Hey, this competitor just told me you didn't have this". And we're like, "Yeah, we do. They lied to you". And they're like, "Oh, cool, I'm not gonna deal with them anymore". If you get caught in a lie, it can help out your competitor. 1. ****Never imply you're going to make a purchase**. If you do a free trial or something don't get a sales rep on the phone and say, "Hey, what's your pricing because I might be interested", that can put things on their forecasts and they can forecast those dollars, and then it messes up their projections for the month and it can hurt them. Don't imply you're going to make a purchase. 1. ****Don't buy competitive lists**. I'm sure everyone gets those, we have all these competitors, you don't know where that list is sourced, now with GDPR and with California rolling out all these big security things, you don't want to get trapped and someone asking how you got their email - it becomes a big thing. ### **Preparing your sales teams** After we've done those positioning statements, we want to prepare our sales teams. We focus a lot on competitive from a sales perspective, because we do a lot of inbound, we have a lot of free trial options, so that's where we focus a lot of our time on competitive research. You can also share those through marketing but I'm just going to talk about the sales team here. ****Creating battlecards** Use the positioning statements you have to create these. We put basically three things on ours: 1. ****Go and no-go areas.** Basically the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. Go areas are where they're weak, no go areas might be a place that you have a product gap that they might be filling. 2. ****Trap questions**. Questions of a feature or a type of feature that you know a competitor doesn't have, that you can ask your customer if they're interested in. For example, "Hey, are you looking for a payment integration?" If you know your competitor doesn't have one that's a great question for your sales team to ask. If they say yes, you can say, "Oh, you can't even deal with them. They don't have that." 1. ****Objection handling**. Things you're going to hear from those competitors, probably around pricing and feature sets, things like that. How are they going to handle that and spin that to help you win that deal? This is an example of what our battle cards at Formstack look like: - We have those no and no-go areas. Go areas are for non-sales teams, price-sensitive customers. No-go areas are contract management, use cases. - We have their strengths and weaknesses listed out. - Those opportunities are called opportunities but those are trap questions. Questions that we know if they say yes to those, we're likely to win the deal. Take these and roll them out to your teams. ### **Rolling out your battlecards** ****Go where your sales team is working** The first thing is to go where your sales team is working - that's the biggest takeaway from this. We've tried to roll out different things multiple times and if you try to roll out a new system, or put it somewhere else, put it in for example an internal wiki, they're not going to go there. Because they are creatures of habit, and they're only going to work where they're going to work on they're not gonna listen to you. If your sales team's in Gmail, Salesforce, wherever they are, try to figure out how you can get your information there so they don't have to go to a separate system. ****Create a pilot program** Create a pilot program to get quick feedback, figure out a couple of sales teams or one specific sales team, roll it out to them, iterate with them, figure out what's working, what's not. ****Make training small and interactive** If you have a sales team with hundreds of people try to get those down to smaller groups that all have similar needs. For example, it's an outbound group, or an inbound group, or an expansion group, however you want to break those up just so they all see the benefits of it together. ****Measure a sales readiness score** This is something we implement at Formstack, where after we do a training or something, we'll send them a quiz afterward. It's just a quick three questions, for example; do you know where to get this? What's a key no go area for this type of competitor? Then we just do a quick one through 10 - how ready are you for this? That way, we can see how prepared they are for it. If it's a really low score, we'll roll it back, do another training, figure out what's going on. But it just helps us to know that what we're doing is working. **Tracking your success** You've done all this work, you've rolled it out, but you can't just let it sit there, it's got to continue to be iterated on and continue to move. ****Develop a win/loss program around compete** If you don't necessarily have a win/loss program, it's not that hard to do. It seems a little difficult but win/loss is all about tracking when you're winning opportunities and when you're losing opportunities. We do this through Salesforce. On our opportunity, we have some fields on here that we make our sales team, if they're going up against a competitor put whatever competitor on the opportunity. Then we'll go back and run reports every month, that shows us what competitors we won against and what competitors we lost against. You can do this in a variety of ways, for example, specific competitors. ****Head to head vs. replacement** Another thing that I've seen a lot of other people do is defining if you're going head to head against a competitor, meaning your customer's considering you versus another competitor, or if you're going as a replacement, so they already are on a competitor and they're looking to come to you. That's another category that's really impactful, that can show you whether or not you're winning when you're going together or if you're just replacing a lot of people. Use that information and drill down into those. If you're winning a large percent of replacement competitors you can bring that to your marketing team and have them spin up more money towards ads on those. If you're losing a lot, you can do more sales enablement, more training around those types of things. ****Closed-lost notes** Also, closed-lost notes help you identify if it's a product gap, pricing, you're just not talking to the right people, did they just go dark? You shouldn't consider those losses necessarily. That's something you can do to make sure that you're actually hitting everything. ### **Final thoughts** ****Start small and gain confidence.** Rome wasn't built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour. It's better to do something than to do nothing so keep moving, keep working. ****Accept that you're not always the best product.** It's really hard to be humble but understand why you're doing this, and keep in a frame of mind that you can't win every opportunity and sometimes there are use cases that you're not necessarily going to work towards. That's sometimes hard for sales to admit, but getting them the information so they know those no and no go areas is important. ****Share your success with others.** Make sure when you're rolling this out that you show people what you're doing because that's how you get buy-in across your organization so people can see how what you're doing is making an impact on everyone. [Download the deck](https://speakerdeck.com/productmarketing/competitive-intelligence-101) ### How to make the most of competitive intelligence findings URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-make-the-most-of-competitive-intelligence-findings/ Last updated: 2022-06-22T09:19:47.000Z [Competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/gathering-and-staying-on-top-of-competitor-intel/) plays a critical role in a product marketing and [customer marketing strategy](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/why-its-crucial-to-nail-your-customer-marketing-strategy/). It highlights the activities of your competitors under the spotlight and can be the difference between success and failure. The process is time and labor-intensive, not to mention costly, so it’s important to share information and make the most of your findings. --- ## **What is competitive intelligence?** Competitive intelligence is when companies gather information on their competitors, customers, and the overall market, using their findings to introduce appropriate strategies, as they strive to gain an upper hand in their respective markets. --- ## **Why is competitive intelligence important?** [Competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/30-competitor-intel-tips/) allows PMMs to identify key trends and behaviors and pre-empt the behavior of competitors to maximize their offerings and keep them at arms length. In doing so, they can create a product or service that fulfills the customer needs of the target audience. Greater customer satisfaction goes a long way, having a positive impact on [customer retention](https://search-api.swiftype.com/api/v1/public/installs/pc/5yXidsn86hxuseLbeqam.json?%5Fst%5Ftracking%5Bdoc%5Fid%5D=605cf0db196a67311bc6f46a&%5Fst%5Ftracking%5Bquery%5D%5Bq%5D=customer%20retention&%5Fst%5Ftracking%5Bquery%5D%5Bpage%5D=1&%5Fst%5Ftracking%5Bquery%5Ftype%5D=autocomplete&%5Fst%5Furl=https%3A%2F%2Fproductmarketingalliance.com%2Fwhat-it-means-to-have-a-high-customer-retention-rate%2F) and reducing the likelihood of customer churn. However, if competitive intelligence is ignored, not only are you missing an opportunity to improve your product but more importantly, you’re extending an open invitation to competitors to take advantage of prospective customers who may not be satisfied with the level of service they’re receiving. To make the most of [competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/is-enough-pmm-budget-spent-on-competitive-intelligence-tools/), product marketers need to communicate and distribute results throughout their company. --- ## **How to share competitive intelligence results effectively** To make the most of competitive intelligence, you need to [communicate your findings](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-importance-of-internal-communication-plus-how-to-crush-it/) so that your teams can use the information to develop and evolve your offering. After all, if you owned a restaurant and knew the secret ingredient for your rival’s best-selling dish, you wouldn’t keep it under wraps - you’d use your know-how to make the same dish (but better!) Results are useless if you keep them to yourself - share the knowledge. Our [Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2020](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/competitive-intelligence-trends-2020/) revealed 86% of product marketers share their findings with Sales teams, closely followed by Product (83%). Previously, it’s been suggested there’s room for improvement in relations between product marketers and leadership teams. However, it was encouraging to see a significant proportion of people taking part (77%) saying they discuss their findings with executives and leaders. ![Competitive intelligence results are mostly shared with Sales teams.](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/2C2S-TYleFbzL98rQ3YkoxIw8XGfnpQl-0ergSlk-OJ0bkVQULyLnHyYqPLC7cjG2qJj5-6qF__YFxDKOK5BeD4BK6CMxnKDN3TnC_inr_a_3TpYsnsoZMNCUanIrGxdOj48LzDE) When we dug a little deeper and explored the preferred methods for sharing competitor intel findings, we found knowledge was shared in-person on a team-by-team basis, and by segmented emails to each relevant team. Both of these areas accounted for 34% of responses, while a further quarter indicated they send blanket emails to relevant teams within the organization. Of the 25% of people who fell into the ‘Other’ category, the likes of battle cards, Slack channels, and tools such as Klue were identified as the chosen method of communication. With so many different ways of sharing information, we spoke with **Matt Powell, Product Marketing Manager at Docebo**, to get an insight into how competitor intel findings are shared at his company: “I don’t think there is a silver bullet for effectively sharing competitive intel - it’s completely dependent on the realities of your business. I do, however, think that it’s all about creating a culture internally in which everyone is as actively involved in gathering and sharing competitive intel as possible. “That’s a big behavioral change when it becomes less about having one or a few people gathering and sharing intel, and instead extending it as a responsibility of everyone in the revenue organization. That’s when good things start to happen - the activity becomes more collaborative and is focused on problem-solving rather than just information sharing. “We share our intel on a team-to-team basis leveraging our competitive intelligence platform to develop regularly cadenced newsletters. They’re good and they’re actionable, but we find the juicy stuff is the intel that happens in real-time. But, I’ve found the most effective way to share intel and have great conversations in the flow of work around competitive intel is through Slack. “Our company is a big-time Slack shop - everything happens there. However, there was a lot of good intel being lost in the scroll of conversations. To combat that, we turned it into an opportunity by installing a two-way integration that allows us to send competitive intel to our CI platform directly from Slack. “This has been a bit of a game-changer in making sure that as much information as possible isn’t lost. The great thing about these kinds of Slack channels is that the intel is only the tipping point, the conversations that happen in the threads afterward generally end up being the context you need to make the intel actionable.” ![Competitor intel is mostly shared in-person on a team-by-team basis.](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/MmRP7mkGoOuh7vZweniZ9HwNzsdYnmgXiCxQfI_M7T-ibdFhbJyvOAc5nq6EnVvmhfg9duLsAby8jcqpMVV4KBXKvzSRM5DrirqqHoclRMIAXSxr5uSqfVsJGECXk_66yyIt90vN) --- ## **Competitive intelligence tips** Competitive intelligence can be worth its weight in gold. Product marketers who’ve collected and shared insights gave us advice on how to kickstart the process: “Don’t be afraid to get help from other parts of your organization. Being able to get help from a Sales Engineer or a Developer while you’re reading technical documentation can save a ton of time and help you better [understand different personas](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/an-introduction-to-personas/).” ****Mindy Regnell, Marketing Insights Manager at BigCommerce** “Job postings reveal a lot about your competitor's product/growth strategy. They’ll often disclose which areas they're trying to invest in on a technology perspective or which [customer segments](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-is-market-segmentation/) they're trying to grow the business in the most.” ****Julian Clarke, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Team Lead at Lattice** “Spend time getting to know the competitor from all angles: explore their website and gated assets as if you were a prospect, but also understand from their existing customers if the true product experience matches the initial marketing.” ****Megan Magee, Product Marketing Manager at ServiceNow** “Start with your value proposition not mentioned by you, but by your customer. From there, understand why you don’t live up to that value proposition and where you can improve. Know your segment, know your buyer and persona.” ****Hien Phan, Director of Product Marketing at Formation** “Social media is a goldmine of information.” ****Avi Goldstein, Manager of Vendor Relations and Product Marketing at Hertz Furniture** “Keep an eye on your peers, but don't lose sight of why your company is unique. That's the story you want to focus on getting in front of your customers. We've found that when we check all of the right boxes, our customers spend less time comparing us to others and more time asking us what else can we do together?” ****Jessica Munoz, Senior VP of Product Marketing at LiveIntent, Inc.** “Hearing what customers say has been the most fruitful competitor intel - using tools like Gong and G2 help to gather that info.” ****Andrew McCotter-Bicknell, Product Marketing Manager at ZoomInfo** “Read the cons on all the reviews - even the 4-star review has something they don't like. I analyze this for trends so we can rebuke any objections to sales pitch.” ****Maureen West, Director of Product Marketing at 6sense** “Communicate with your customers who have switched from a competitor. They're the source and can articulate pain points which are more valuable than market-facing positioning from the competitor.” ****Miles Price, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sailthru** --- ## **How often should competitive intelligence be completed?** When it comes to frequency of research, every company is different. Product marketing never stands still. Customers buy into new trends, [pricing strategies](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-identify-a-suitable-pricing-strategy/) constantly need to be adjusted, and competitors are always looking for new ways to get the upper hand. So, how often are product marketers monitoring competitors to solidify their understanding of the market and strengthen their own strategy? The Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2020 revealed over one-quarter (29%) of product marketers surveyed said they’re currently monitoring their competitors every week, while a fifth (21%) track the behavioral patterns of their rivals every month. ![Over one-quarter of product marketers conduct competitive intelligence weekly.](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Tm9b8d0EANhSk1cjfdXoCGXkXO09IqYm_hqxzg7lB3hJ5p66V8_N5VUMkC37G_daekNMsHNE3Mp33MbGtkLTqgg7lTvdWCBJL5tyJwQqIFuSpX-UcBjE3SKhzA1R8nYD5vkKQ0FC) ****Amine Ammar, Business Development Director at Advantage Industrial**, said he uses several mediums to keep updated about his competitors: “I try to keep informed consistently, by letting the information come to me; I subscribe and try to take part in everything our competitors are throwing out, such as newsletters, webinars, industry events, etc.” Competitor intel is a continual process; it’s a constant work in progress. There isn’t necessarily a definitive timeframe in which to complete the process. Frequency will be decided by factors such as how many companies are being scouted. When product marketers spend more time completing the process, this opens the door to more insights, enabling PMMs to make more well-informed business decisions. --- ## **Getting started with competitive intelligence** For some product marketers, starting with competitive intelligence is as daunting as sharing the actual results. Thankfully, there are a range of tools available to help PMMs begin understanding the true extent of the market. Many tools are being used by small-medium companies and large-scale organizations, and many of these can be found in the [PMM Tech Stack](https://tools.productmarketingalliance.com/) \- our comprehensive round-up of recommended product marketing tools. When we surveyed PMMs to establish favored tools on the market, Google and Google Alerts were the most popular, while product marketers are also fans of Crayon. ![Graph showing preferred tools for collecting competitive intelligence.](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/K2RWEG8mt13ggk2Tbvkd1Ebix4cp72ANaklO7Un5rp_dNvp1GkYyYK1Sx5C2O591biFYSJxbu1DGgNC1gXhwlSDowrnP4i0SRjqxBq1zfM7pojU6SVNuF7qXLXfejEmo5riO-qta) ### **Don't want the CI learning to stop? We've got a course for that.** Face competition with confidence. Cut through the noise. Get [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.108224066.1197595817.1655717107-1412273468.1655111923). ### 6 steps to a successful competitive intelligence process URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/6-steps-to-a-successful-competitive-intelligence-process/ Last updated: 2022-06-30T15:05:56.000Z The foundational goals of a [competitive intelligence](https://www.crayon.co/competitive-intelligence) program are to enable the organization to better understand their market, make stronger strategic decisions, and ultimately increase revenue. But, what exactly does that mean for someone who wants to get started with competitive intelligence? How do you build a competitive intelligence process? The unfortunate truth is that not everyone is well-versed in the process of competitive intelligence. The 2021 [State of Competitive Intelligence Report](https://www.crayon.co/success/state-of-competitive-intelligence-2021) dug into how different teams conduct their competitive intelligence process. This report is the largest study of best practices and challenges within the competitive intelligence industry. Covering everything from goals, KPIs, and resources - we realized that a lot of companies have a different approach to the competitive intelligence process. To help you get started, we’ve outlined this 6-step process to design a competitive intelligence process. Let’s take a look at the six easy steps to designing an effective competitive intelligence process, and the benefits for your whole organization. ## **1\. Identify your competitors** The first step in the competitive intelligence process is to identify your competitors. Have a [robust competitive landscape](https://www.crayon.co/free-competitive-landscape-report). Start with your top five direct competitors. In addition to your direct competitors, you should identify your indirect competitors, your aspirational competitors, and your perceived competitors. Your indirect competitors are key players within your industry but likely don’t compete with you for customers. Your aspirational competitors are those leading companies within your industry that you don’t necessarily compete with, but you can pull inspiration from to benefit your own business. Finally, your perceived competitors are those companies that may come up during the sales discovery process, but that you don’t actually compete with for business. If you want to segment your competitive landscape even more, you can break it down by sales vertical or industry focus, and solution type. Identifying your competitors is key to beginning your competitive analysis and diving deeper into your market to understand your competitive landscape. [*Looking to get a headstart on your competitive analysis? Request a free competitive landscape report.*](https://www.crayon.co/free-competitive-landscape-report) ## **2\. Track competitors’ digital footprints** Once you’ve identified your competitors, and who you want to start analyzing, you should choose major focus areas for the data you need to collect. Consider all of the data accessible online about each of your competitors as well as internal knowledge from your front-line teams. If you narrow down the types of intel you care most about, data points that align with current initiatives, it will be easier to digest the data. If you’re unsure where to start, try exploring some of the [most engaging competitive intelligence types.](https://www.crayon.co/competitive-intelligence/types-market-intelligence) ## **3\. Gather your intel** The act of gathering the intel can be the most time-consuming step of the competitive intelligence process. In fact, The State of Competitive Intelligence reported that 33% of time dedicated to CI/MI goes toward the research phase. This is where you have to take the time to explore your competitors’ online presence and gather information about their products, websites, teams, announcements, social media engagements, content, and everything in between. You want to gather the most intel about each of your competitors so that you can dig in and analyze the data to pull out the valuable insights. ## **4\. Create a competitive analysis** Analyzing the intel is where your analyst or competitive intelligence manager breaks down the data, pulls out the key trends and essential pieces of information, and organizes the findings so that it can be easily communicated throughout your organization. [Creating a competitor analysis](https://www.crayon.co/blog/what-competitor-analysis) can be done a couple different ways. One way is to do a benchmark or baseline analysis, which will allow you to compile your data and create a competitor profile. Competitor profiles or battlecards are highly useful to ensure that your findings on each competitor are being kept within one centralized document. An equally important approach to a competitor analysis is to analyze competitive intelligence on an ongoing basis, in real-time. It’s beneficial to create profiles on your competitors, but it’s even more valuable to continue to track your competitors. The best way to keep a pulse on your competitors is by setting up alerts on everything from new news mentions to product changes to customer reviews. That way, you can stay on top of your competitors’ moves and continue to arm your team with up-to-date analysis. ## **5\. Communicate intel** The worst thing to happen when you’ve gathered competitive intelligence is if no one consumes your findings. You want to ensure that the key stakeholders see your findings and that the data is being leveraged to improve your own strategies. The State of Competitive Intelligence report found that 66% of companies share their competitive intel via email, 54% use meetings, and 25% of companies use an internal chat. A useful tool that many people take advantage of for intel communication is Slack (or other internal chat), where they can easily communicate competitive intel to their whole company via instant message. Another great place to store complete competitor profiles if you don’t have a CI platform is on a collaborative website such as a company wiki or intranet. That way, you can alert your coworkers when new intel is added, and you can ensure that the information is in an easy to locate place. ## **6\. Turn data into results** So, now you’ve identified your competitors, gathered intel, analyzed the data, and effectively communicated your findings to the relevant stakeholders. The final step is to make your data actionable - use your findings to benefit your overall business strategy. Here are a few ways you can make the data actionable for each of your key stakeholders. ## **Benefits for your executives** Your executives have a lot on their plates, but they need competitive intelligence insights to effectively steer the organization. While they might not be the ones acting on the insights, they want to have a view of the competitive landscape so they know what their teams are focused on. When you deliver insights to an executive, [follow these tips](https://www.crayon.co/blog/how-to-deliver-competitive-intelligence-to-executive-leadership) for making sure they’re getting the most out of the data. ## **Benefits for your marketing team** The information you gathered about your competitors’ marketing efforts, whether that be content marketing, events, social media, messaging, or A/B tests, can be used to improve and implement new marketing initiatives. In collaboration with the product team, your product marketers can craft stronger messaging to assist with upcoming product launches, website copy, and collateral for your whole organization. ## **Benefits for your sales team** The information you gained about your competitors’ pricing, sales teams, and products can be used to improve your [sales collateral, demo scripts, and sales processes](https://www.crayon.co/blog/12-types-of-sales-enablement-materials-to-win-more-deals). If you turn the information you gathered into sales battlecards or competitor profiles, your sales team will be well equipped with the information needed to turn competitor intelligence into revenue won. The data that you arm your sales team with can give them the competitive edge they need to better handle competitive objections throughout the sales process and win more competitive deals. ## **Benefits for your product team** Gathering information about your competitors’ products from [their websites](https://www.crayon.co/blog/why-and-how-to-track-website-changes-on-your-competitors-websites), customer reviews, and online forums is a great way to improve your own products. Knowing the specs of your competitors’ products, how they work, and what people like (or dislike) about the solutions can help your product team iterate to make your product even better. There are many [tools that you can use ](https://www.crayon.co/blog/8-market-research-tools-that-every-analyst-should-explore)to assist with gathering intel and analyzing your competitive landscape. There is a lot of valuable data on the internet about each of your competitors, and with the right resources, you can seamlessly integrate competitive intelligence into your existing business strategy. If you follow these steps, you can pull out key pieces of intel, communicate it to your team, and derive value from the data you gathered during your competitive intelligence process. [Understand who are the market leaders, who is controlling the conversations, and who is up-and-coming in your industry. Request a free competitive landscape report.](https://www.crayon.co/free-competitive-landscape-report) ### **Don't want the CI learning to stop? We've got a course for that.** Face competition with confidence. Cut through the noise. Get [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.172045667.1197595817.1655717107-1412273468.1655111923). ### The two most critical areas for improving your competitive enablement program URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-two-most-critical-areas-for-improving-your-competitive-enablement-program/ Last updated: 2022-06-22T09:07:15.000Z During the creation of the first-ever [Competitive Enablement Maturity Model](https://hubs.la/H0W7YK60), we locked 20+ competitive strategists in a virtual room — not entirely against their will, we promise — for numerous sessions to analyze what really goes into building a competitive enablement program from scratch, and the steps needed to level it up into becoming an instrumental part of the business. After conducting the research, we were able to identify five different levels of competitive enablement maturity that programs currently exist in, and the actionable steps you can take to progress along each stage. During the process, however, ****two key themes emerged as most important for improving the maturity of your competitive program.** Today we’ll jump into what they are, and why they matter so much while focusing on the following topics: - Why sales are key for faster time-to-value - How sales are your ticket to earning a strategic voice - Why quality over quantity is important when working with content - Why sharing *every* bit of competitive intel is inefficient - Reasons why product marketers need to control their competitive narrative - The creation of efficient and repeatable competitive enablement programs --- ## ****Sales trust is foundational to your competitive enablement program’s success.** At roughly hour nine of our session, with our very own competitive guru, Vincent Lo, on his third Red Bull, a light bulb went off in the back of the room. According to ****Kimberley Bauer, Senior Competitive Intelligence Analyst at Carbon Black**: > *“Frankly, building trust with sales should be an objective across all the stages of maturity."* The answer was staring us right in the face! But why does [earning and maintaining trust with sales remain critical](https://hubs.la/H0W7Ddh0) at every stage of your competitive program, regardless of if you’re starting out or informing hundreds of end-users? --- ### **Sales are key for faster time-to-value** Firstly, the sales team is the lifeblood [for collecting high-value intel from the field](https://hubs.la/H0W7Dp80). This is important at every stage of maturity as it will [enable you to collect intel at scale](https://hubs.la/H0W7DqY0), but is a critical entry point when starting from scratch and there are numerous knowledge gaps on different competitors that need to be filled. Having an engaged sales team that is frequently sharing what they hear about competitors on calls is the fuel that will drive your competitive engine. But, the collection is only part of the story. Enabling the sales team first is the most measurable way to demonstrate your competitive program’s impact on revenue. Helping sales improve their competitive win rates, and [reporting on this in even greater detail](https://hubs.la/H0W7DM40), is your opportunity to shift the view of competitive enablement away from being a cost center to a revenue driver. People give a budget when they have a pain that needs to be solved. By positioning the impact of the revenue lost by teams who don’t use your competitive intel, you’re more likely to get winces from execs and demand for the problem to be fixed. For example, Symphony RetailAI used an ‘Impact Analysis’ to measure the competitive win-rates of reps who were using the competitive content at their disposal against those who weren’t. This offers a far clearer indicator of the program’s revenue impact than just content consumption or general win-rate improvements. ****Patty McDonald, Global Solution Marketing Director at Symphony RetailAI** said: > *“The Sales Impact analysis helped us measure changes to Win Rates and Average Deal Duration. The results were very positive right from the beginning, so this helped us get executive buy-in early on."* ![“The Sales Impact analysis helped us measure changes to Win Rates and Average Deal Duration. The results were very positive right from the beginning, so this helped us get executive buy-in early on,” said Patty McDonald, Global Solution Marketing Director at Symphony RetailAI.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2021/07/Patty-McDonald-Klue.png) --- ### **Sales are your ticket to earning a strategic voice** There’s also a lesser-known result of enabling sellers well — they’ll become your ticket to earning a strategic voice in the company. Nobody wants to be order takers, and if your program is getting vocal support from sales along [with quantitative metrics to back that up](https://hubs.la/H0W7DP80), then execs are going to notice. Helping sales win competitive deals proves your impact on revenue in the short term, which will allow you to take on longer-term strategic plays as your program matures. That’s where you can really get into the fun stuff. “The opportunities are vast once you start to gain that credibility and buy-in from the executive team,” said ****Scot Kim, Director at Lenovo**, in a recent episode of ‘[The Competitive Enablement Show](https://hubs.la/H0W7D-70)’. > *“You can then introduce other programs. It could be programs with some aspect of market intelligence where you start to look at new adjacent markets and figure out what markets can your company can grow into.”* ![“The opportunities are vast once you start to gain that credibility and buy-in from the executive team,” said Scot Kim, Director at Lenovo, in a recent episode of ‘The Competitive Enablement Show’. “You can then introduce other programs. It could be programs with some aspect of market intelligence where you start to look at new adjacent markets and figure out what markets can your company can grow into.”](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2021/07/Scot-Kim--Lenovo.png) By supporting sales with competitive content early — and using a repeatable framework to do so — it will allow you to spend less time reactively responding to one-off sales requests and instead proactively taking on other strategic initiatives that are important to the business. Initiatives like leading campaigns to steal competitor clients. Or informing executives on the competitive landscape and strategies on how to tackle emerging threats. Or presenting the acquisition opportunities that may be available. Or informing the product team’s roadmap based on what competitors are doing. Or, as Scot Kim mentioned, offering a view into adjacent markets that your business could target in the future. There’s a lot that your competitive program can do to drive more wins across the business. But it starts with sales. --- ### **Intel collection is the foundation, but with content, it’s quality over quantity.** The other biggest takeaway from these analysis sessions is that maturity isn’t just about how advanced your competitive intelligence gathering tactics are, but about how repeatable and scalable your processes are at enabling the necessary teams with usable information. Yes, collecting quality internal and external intel is crucial for your program’s success. But it has no value if it goes unused, collecting dust. A mature program turns intel into actionable competitive content by adding context and why it matters, gets that content into the hands of the right people, and has a process attached to how they should use it to beat their competition. In fact, the competitive leader at an anonymous enterprise company explained that building a repeatable process was the most critical factor in improving their program. > *“As a large organization, the most important aspect of our competitive program is enabling hundreds of employees to use competitive intel for their respective roles.”* ![The competitive leader at an anonymous enterprise company explained that building a repeatable process was the most critical factor in improving their program. “As a large organization, the most important aspect of our competitive program is enabling hundreds of employees to use competitive intel for their respective roles.”](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2021/07/Klue.png) Data from the ‘2021 Competitive Enablement Report’ backs up how critically important making competitive intel usable is for your competitive program. The biggest reason that four out of five stakeholders were doing their own competitive research is that the intel they were being provided with wasn’t relevant to their role. ![Data from the ‘2021 Competitive Enablement Report’ backs up how critically important making competitive intel usable is for your competitive program. The biggest reason that four out of five stakeholders were doing their own competitive research is that the intel they were being provided with wasn’t relevant to their role.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2021/07/Competitve-intel-graphic.png) --- ### **Sharing every bit of competitive intel is inefficient** There are a few reasons why sharing competitive intel with a lack of context or process as to how it should be used can be harmful to your competitive program. Firstly, if end-users are looking at intel that isn’t relevant to their role then it’s going to turn them off using the information entirely. Without any utility, then the competitive intel provided becomes nothing more than a glorified news feed for end-users. And the last thing that your sales team (or any stakeholder for that matter) needs is another newsfeed to browse through. It will actually make them less efficient in their roles when they’re left to filter out what’s useful intel and what’s just more noise. Instead of flooding them with every bit of information, your stakeholders need concise information with context as to why it matters to them, and actionable steps on how they should use it in their role. --- ### **Product marketers need to control the competitive narrative** Secondly, if the intel is being shared without any oversight or context from those in charge of the competitive program, then it’s left to the end-users to interpret what it means and how they should use it against the competition. Now, this is a dangerous game. Sellers will make their own talk tracks independent of one another. A buyer might hear a completely different story depending on the salesperson that they talk to. As the person in charge of competitive enablement, it is critical that you control the narrative around how sellers speak about the competition. If you don’t have this in place, competitive intelligence can devolve into the wild west, as ****Chris Owen, Director of Product Management at Saviynt** explains. > *“One of the challenges we had was that there were lots of decks and presentations, but all were slightly modified. You never knew what was accurate, and it was distributed all over the place.”* You’re the expert on competitors. Your program should be the source of truth. And as the competitive strategist, you need to create consistency around how stakeholders access and then use the information provided to them. One way to provide concise, digestible competitive content is through structured battle cards. --- ### **Create a competitive enablement program that is efficient and repeatable** One of the biggest reasons that we built the Competitive Enablement Maturity Model is that product marketers and competitive leaders have been tasked with building their competitive programs without any support as to what they should look like or how they can get there. With the support of competitive strategists that have hands-on experience building programs from scratch, along with the data of 550+ survey respondents, the model offers a roadmap with real advice as to what it takes to make your competitive program more efficient, repeatable, and impactful to the business. With the five stages of maturity, you can pinpoint where your competitive efforts are currently, and the next steps you can take to improve how you enable teams to beat their competition. ### **Don't want the CI learning to stop? We've got a course for that.** Face competition with confidence. Cut through the noise. Get [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.7543538.1197595817.1655717107-1412273468.1655111923). ### How to make competitive intelligence useable for your team URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-make-competitive-intelligence-useable-for-your-team/ Last updated: 2022-06-22T09:02:23.000Z Over in the PMA Slack community, **Morgan Greene, Lead Product Marketing Manager at Swiftly, Inc.** recentlyraised a great question that fast became a talking point amongst other PMMs quick to offer their advice. Morgan - amongst many more of you out there no doubt - wanted to find out more about how other product marketers make competitive intelligence usable for their teams. It’s all well and good nailing the capturing of competitive intelligence but what comes next? Without an actionable strategy in place, your CI might as well just be floating around in the aether. By honing in on the subject matter, in this article we cover: - What competitive intelligence is - Making competitive intelligence actionable for product marketing teams - Key findings from the 2020 Competitive Intelligence Trends report - Our advice on how to use competitor intel findings - Key takeaways --- ## **What is competitive intelligence?** As the brains behind leading market and competitive intelligence platform, Crayon say in [this article](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/steps-to-successful-competitive-intelligence/): > *“The foundational goals of a competitive intelligence program are to enable the organization to better understand their market, make stronger strategic decisions, and ultimately increase revenue.”* You can’t sleep on what your competitors are doing. You know what they say about snoozing and losing. You also know what they say about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer… 👀 Competitor intel should therefore form an integral part of any [customer marketing](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-is-customer-marketing/) strategy. In order to maximize your own offering and stay ahead in the game, you MUST keep a close eye on what your competitors are doing to be able to preempt their actions and adjust your own strategy accordingly. --- ## **2020 Competitive Intelligence Trends report findings** In the Product Marketing Alliance [****2020 Competitive Intelligence Trends**](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/competitive-intelligence-trends-2020/) report, we found that: - The vast majority of product marketers (****87%**) use competitor intel to establish how they can differentiate themselves from their rivals. - But only ****2%** said they have a specialized competitive intelligence team in place at their company. - And ****13%** of product marketing teams don’t currently have a competitor intel tool at their disposal. - Most PMMs (****77%**) currently get their insights from reading press releases and media mentions. When you know what your competitors are doing - or indeed, *not* doing - to satisfy and engage their audiences, you gain an advantageous steer on how to retain your own customers and attract new ones. Perhaps even poach a few of your rival’s customers whilst you're at it… \*Pause for Dr Evil laugh\* Right, that’s quite enough from us for the time being. Let’s take a look at what the PMMs in our Slack community had to say in response to Morgan’s question, so you can steal some pearls of wisdom for yourself. --- ## **Making competitive intelligence actionable for product marketing teams** ****Q: How do you make competitive intelligence useable for your team? I'm curious about tools or processes that have enabled your teams to effectively understand both high-level and detailed competitive intelligence.** *“Slide deck presented in a lunch and learn format, and Ask Me Anything; mix of high level and granular. People can come to you individually for deeper dives.”* ****Yuting Chu, Digital Product Manager at CrowdDoing** *“Useful deliverables: External - one slide for customers showing where you are better (tick marks vs crosses). Internal - two-page battle card with strengths, weaknesses, how to attack, etc.”* ****Anatolii Lakimets, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Bold** *“Sales will be focusing on individual deals and their territory - product marketing can add value by looking more broadly at trends and collating to give a larger picture. We tackle market intelligence a few ways at my company:* - **Maintain battlecards for tier 1 competitors, quick SWOT analysis for tier 2 and emerging competitors, and quick readouts of competitor news (investments and acquisitions, product updates, etc) analyze closed opportunities each month for win/loss, and do a quick recap on Slack to build interest in our market position.* - **Build an overview of key competitor analysis for new hires with a picture of where we win/they win.* - **Run workshops with sales to analyze recent deals, to get them talking to each other and sharing insights. E.g. how to spot a competitor, what traps they leave for us when to walk away.* - **As we build up a better picture of our competitors we create assets such as one-pagers to show reasons to choose us vs them. It’s not a feature comparison or checklist but we highlight our pricing strategy and how that helps customers to grow with us, for example.”* ****Louise Dunne, Product Marketing Manager at Linnworks** *“Table with comparison by features and pricing. Newbies onboarding and testing. Bi-weekly meeting about the news and competitors. Chat in the Slack or Telegram for hot news, questions, and updates.”* ****Alexandra Kulachikova, Product Owner (ML-based SaaS for B2B) at Semrush** *“In my experience, sellers want very straightforward competitive materials. Our battlecards are built in Crayon and integrated to live in Highspot with the rest of our collateral. They consist of:* - **Quick dismisses (< 10-word responses when a competitor is mentioned)* - **Long-form content for emails* - **Shareable collateral (G2 grids, case studies, etc)* - **A feature comparison* - **Negative customer reviews (from G2 and TrustRadius)* *“Our executive team gets a monthly newsletter summarizing competitive product changes, acquisitions, funding, pricing updates, employee headcount changes, and competitor mentions (tracked via Chorus).* *“Product managers get semi-annual reports based on the products that they own. In the reports, we include information from analysts, NPS, win/loss reviews, and survey responses that help them better understand what to prioritize for their roadmaps.”* ****Andrew McCotter-Bicknell, Product Marketing Manager at ZoomInfo** **Key takeaways** Now that the experts have had their say and answered Morgan’s original question about how PMMs make CI useable, here are the key nuggets of information you should tuck away in your knowledge bank: - Competitive intelligence is a must-have tool when it comes to better understanding your market and where you pitch up against your competitors. - When collected and used right, competitive intelligence has the power to increase revenue and boost the bottom line. - Competitive intelligence needs to be made usable otherwise it’s rendered useless - without an actionable strategy off the back of it, you might as well not bother. 🤷 - As always in the product marketing profession, how PMMs make their CI findings actionable varies from org to org in a diverse plethora of ways, including slide decks, battlecards, one-pagers, and workshops. But hey, that’s just the tip of the iceberg! 🥶 To chip away further and take a deeper dive into the world of competitive intelligence for product marketers, get yourself enrolled on our ****Competitive Intelligence Certified** course - stat. Get [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.79368660.1197595817.1655717107-1412273468.1655111923). ### How to monitor competitive activity URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/how-to-monitor-competitive-activity/ Last updated: 2024-02-15T15:55:09.000Z What’s the secret to becoming a leader within your market? [Competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-competitive-intelligence/). To successfully position yourself as the market leader, you need to keep a pulse on what your competitors are doing. What features do their products have? What’s their pricing? What do they share on social media? Which website pages are they updating? What do their customers think? All of those questions can be answered by monitoring your competitive activity. In this article, I will walkthrough: - How to set yourself up for success - The sources you should monitor to gather competitive activity - How to make that intelligence actionable Let’s get started! ### **Set yourself up for success** Before you begin monitoring your competitors, you need to set yourself up for success. Competitive intelligence (CI) can’t be conducted in a vacuum—if you’re conducting CI on your own, with no clear goal in mind, your CI program won’t be impactful for your organization. Here are four actionable items to complete before you get started monitoring competitive activity: ### **Identify your competitors** Every company has multiple competitors, even startups. The first step in monitoring competitive activity is identifying who you’re competing against. Depending on the size of your company, you might have many competitors. At first, you don’t want to go after your entire competitive landscape, so break down your market, and tier your competitors based on who you compete with for the most revenue. Start with tier one, two, and so on. ### **Identify your stakeholders** Externally, you’re identifying your key competitors. Internally, you need to identify your key stakeholders—who within your organization is integral to your CI program? While everyone within your organization can benefit from Competitive Intelligence, you will have a group of key stakeholders that you’ll work closely with, who will be the main consumers of your intel. Some examples of key stakeholders might be: - [Product Marketing Managers](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/becoming-an-expert-the-product-marketing-career-path/) - Sales Enablement Managers - Product Managers - Sales leadership - Marketing leadership - Executives ### **Set a cadence for monitoring** Conducting competitive intelligence research doesn’t have to be time-consuming. If you can set aside a certain amount of time every week or month to focus on CI, you’ll soon build a habit of incorporating competitive intelligence into your day-to-day. When setting a cadence for monitoring competitive activity, you should take a few variables into consideration: - How much time can you realistically allocate to your CI initiative? - How many people are dedicated to CI on your team? - How often are changes happening within your market? There is no right or wrong answer to how often you should be conducting competitive intelligence research. It all depends on your unique market and your business needs. Whether you’re going to spend 10 minutes per day or five hours per week, just make sure you set a cadence and stick to it. ### **Set goals and KPIs** As a product marketer, you know that it doesn’t make sense to kick off a new project without setting goals and [KPIs](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-measure-the-success-of-product-marketing-2/). When it comes to CI, you should set both short-term and long-term goals, as well as a combination of both quantitative and qualitative KPIs. **Some examples of KPIs:** - Revenue - how has your revenue changed? (Revenue is the ultimate KPI!) - Win rate - how has your win rate improved? - Strategy shifts - How has your strategy been impacted by CI? - Employee engagement - Is there a high adoption rate of your CI tools? Are your teams benefiting from CI? ## **5 sources for monitoring competitive activity** There are many sources across the web to monitor competitive activity. These days, every company has at least a website and a small social media following. Those two sources alone can give you a wealth of competitive information. But, more often than not, companies have a very large digital footprint encompassing websites, microsites, social media accounts, third-party review sites, and more. While there are many sources to choose from, here I’m going to spotlight five highly valuable sources for monitoring competitive activity. ### **Monitor competitive websites** Your competitors’ websites are the [main source for tracking competitive activity](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/best-sources-competitive-intelligence/). Websites include a lot of information that can give you insight into key investment areas, product strategy, and overall business growth. You can find information about: - Executives - Investors - News - Events - Products - Pricing and packaging - Thought leadership ...and so much more! One sweep of your competitors’ website pages, and you’ll be able to identify so many golden nuggets of competitive intelligence insights. When you’re evaluating a competitor’s website, you should identify key themes that will help you pull together a narrative. What’s their key messaging? What are they writing about on their blog? Where are they hiring? Are they raising a new round of funding? All of those questions (and more) can be explored and solved on your competitor’s website. ### **Set up Google Alerts** If you’re just beginning your competitive intelligence initiative and don’t want to invest in an automated competitive intelligence solution, setting up Google Alerts is the next best thing. You can save time by having competitive intelligence come to you, rather than you having to manually monitor every mention of your competitor on the web. The best part about Google Alerts is that you can choose topics, cadence, and time of day so that you’re getting the alerts at a time that fits your busy schedule. You can be vague, such as getting alerts about every mention of your competitor or be very specific with your search to get targeted Google Alerts sent to you. Once they’re set up, all you have to do is monitor your inbox and wait for the next group of alerts to come through. ### **Follow social media accounts** Companies use social media accounts for a variety of reasons. Some companies use social media to promote upcoming events, thought leadership, employee updates, support—or a combination. Following your competitors on social media can give you insight into the content they’re producing, which events they’re sponsoring, or how satisfied/unsatisfied their customers are. All of this information is valuable to different elements of your strategy, so monitoring your competitors on social media can not only give you insight into their strategy but help you plan your next move. ### **Crawl review websites** Review websites are the holy grail of customer satisfaction. Of course, you want to know how happy or unhappy your own customers are, but the key is knowing what your competitors’ customers think. Does their new feature not work as well as yours? Are they missing something major that your market wants, and you could build? Does their helpdesk not offer valuable support? Third-party review sites, like G2 or TrustRadius, can give you extremely valuable insight into how others view your competitors and how successful their product really is at helping your market. ### **Subscribe to marketing emails** Monitoring your competitors by subscribing to their marketing emails may seem a little suspicious. But, you’re guaranteed to know what your competitors are working on if you’re subscribed to their email list. You’ll know which content they’re sharing, what events they’re planning to attend or sponsor, and webinars they’ve got coming up—which you can attend to gain *even more* insight. Don’t worry about using your personal email vs. work email because the truth is, it’s common practice to subscribe to your competitor’s email list, so you don’t need to worry about flying under the radar. ## **What to do with Competitive Insights?** So, you’re searching websites, third-party review sites, social media, setting up alerts, and receiving marketing emails. Great! But, now what? Once you’ve compiled your competitive intelligence information, you should put that intelligence into action. Here are four ways to share competitive intelligence across your organization: ### **Create competitive analysis** [Creating a competitive analysis](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-analysis-starting-a-business/) is a great way to not only map out what your competitors are doing, but also where you fit into your competitive landscape. It’s important to monitor your competitors and collect information, but you need to translate it into something of value. Competitive analysis helps you visualize your market landscape, identify gaps in the market, and figure out how you stack up against your competitors. ### **Share findings with your key stakeholders** Once you’ve collected competitive intelligence and created a competitive analysis, you need to share your findings out with your key stakeholders—those key people that you identified before getting started with competitive monitoring. Don’t forget to tailor your communication based on who you’re communicating with. You’ve gathered a lot of intel on your competition, but not every stakeholder cares about everything or wants to consume the intel in the same format. Customize your reports so that each communication of competitive information speaks directly to that specific key stakeholder. ### **Create sales enablement collateral** Competitive intelligence can give your sales team an impactful competitive advantage. Leverage the intel you’ve gathered and create sales enablement materials to help your team prepare for competitive objections, answer feature questions, and get stronger at selling within competitive deals. Some examples of valuable sales enablement tools are: - [Competitive battlecards](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-battlecards-guide-2022/) - Competitor profiles - Competitive comparison pages - Sales training - Win/loss reports ### **Leverage CI to iterate on your strategy** Ultimately, monitoring your competitors is beneficial to your own strategy. By evaluating your competitors, you’re able to pull out key pieces of intel to craft a narrative about where their strategy is heading next. If you set up your competitive monitoring initiative using the tips above, monitor these key sources, and turn your findings into action, you’ll be able to iterate on your strategy and position yourself as an industry leader. ### **Don't want the CI learning to stop? We've got a course for that.** Face competition with confidence. Cut through the noise. Get [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.83113814.1197595817.1655717107-1412273468.1655111923). ### 30 competitive intelligence tips URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/30-competitive-intelligence-tips/ Last updated: 2024-02-15T15:58:19.000Z You know it. We know it. Heck, *every* product marketer should know it: [competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/gathering-and-staying-on-top-of-competitor-intel/) is an *essential* part of the role. If you don’t know what your competitors are doing, you’re giving them free rein of the market, and you’ll rue the decision further down the line. [Competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-get-results-with-competitor-analysis/) can help you and your product marketing team understand the methods being used by your competitors, how their products work, key features and USPs, and [pricing strategies](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-identify-a-suitable-pricing-strategy/), to name a few. When we surveyed product marketers for the [Competitive Intelligence Trends 2020 report](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/competitive-intelligence-trends-2020/), we unearthed a plethora of competitive intelligence tips to consider when conducting the process. --- > “Don’t be afraid to get help from other parts of your organization. Being able to get help from a sales engineer or a developer while you’re reading technical documentation can save a ton of time and help you better understand different personas.” **Mindy Regnell, Marketing Competitive Intelligence Manager at BigCommerce** > “Job postings can detail info about their tech stack. For example, if they say ‘looking for an IT manager with experience in Oracle, Kronos’, then you know the company uses these tools.” **Laura Massingham, Senior Director of Global Product Marketing at HotSchedules** > “Make sure to leverage your entire company and look for a way to integrate information-sharing into your teams' daily tools (be it Slack, or a Sales Enablement tool, etc). > “Whenever someone new starts at Showpad, we hold a session dedicated to Competitive Intel and how each Showpadder plays a part in gathering and sharing that information. Our Product Marketing team is not big enough to do all the research ourselves so we've set up a system to source info gathered by BDRs, AEs, CSMs, etc.” **Lara Verlinden, Product Marketing Manager at Showpad** > “Spend time getting to know the competitor from all angles: explore their website and gated assets as if you were a prospect, but also understand from their existing customers if the true product experience matches the initial marketing.” **Megan Magee, Product Marketing Manager at ServiceNow** > “Start with your value proposition not mentioned by you, but by your customer. From there understand why you don’t live up to that value prop and where you can improve. Know your segment, know your buyer and persona.” **Hien Phan, Director of Product Marketing at ModeAnalytics** > “Social media is a goldmine of information.” **Avi Goldstein, Director of Product Marketing at Hertz Furniture** > *often* **Julian Clarke, Product Marketing Manager at Lattice** > “In a non-transparent market, get creative. Current clients can be great sources of information. Also, think about other players in the ecosystem that can share stories and data.” **Jill Dornan, Director of Product Marketing at HealtSparq** > “Don't ignore customer reviews and prospect calls.” **Ruchita Shah, Product Marketing Manager at Mavenlink** > “Automate it or do frequent checks. As far as understanding your marketplace and competitors is concerned, you need to form your own opinions to roadmap.” **Benny Kuo, Product Marketing Manager at CDSG** > “Try the product, the screenshots on the website look better than the actual product is!” **Natasha Katson, Product Marketing Manager at JetBrains** > “Keep an eye on your peers, but don't lose sight of why your company is unique. That's the story you want to focus on getting in front of your customers. We've found that when we check all of the right boxes, our customers spend less time comparing us to others and more time asking us what ELSE can we do together?” **Jessica Munoz, VP of Product Marketing at LiveIntent** > “Give sales and product as many chances and channels as possible to easily provide information. Then prove value with easily scannable sales tools that help the team combat objections. That will make them more willing to contribute when they do have juicy info!” **Katie Jefcoat, Product Marketing Manager at PayNearMe** > “Take screenshots of your competitor's top messages on their site and maintain a ‘clip file’ to compare over time, like quarter over quarter. Put into a PowerPoint deck and use as visuals for understanding messaging trends over time.” **Sheryl Floyd, Global Sales Enablement and Product Marketing Manager ar Papaya Global** > “Not every company you may consider to be a competitor is a competitor. Spend more time identifying who that true competition is rather than wasting time on outliers or perceived competition. > "If you're able to truly understand what differentiates you from your core competencies, you'll inherently be able to find your value prop against those perceived competitors.” **Matt Powell, Product Marketing Manager at Docebo** > “Hearing what customers say has been the most fruitful competitive intel - using tools like Gong and G2 help to gather that info.” **Andrew McCotter-Bicknell, Product Marketing Manager at Zoominfo** > “Keep close with engineering to understand the technical stuff behind the marketing message.” **Suvi Tarvas, CFO and Product Marketing Manager at Rugged Tooling** > “Monitor direct competitors, but beware of the newcomers. They can sweep you up in a second!” **Igor Kranjcec, Product Marketing Lead at Lemax** > “Read the cons on all the reviews - even the 4-star reviews have something they don't like. I analyze this for trends so we can rebuke any objections to sales pitch.” **Maureen West, Director of Product Marketing at 6sense** > “Get your new hires to take demos and gather intel before they start / when they still have their old email addresses.” **Natalie Clark, VP of Product Marketing at Stardog** > “Loss interviews can be very revealing, especially with customers who leave you for your competition.” **Carmen DeCouto, Product Marketing Manager at SiSense** > “You need a good platform that helps capture intel that’s already publicly available. We use Klue and have found it easy to use for the product marketing team and more importantly the users. I would advise against building something in-house as it’s costly and time-consuming.” **Jayne-Marie Pooley, Product Marketing Director at CDK Global** > “Communicate with your customers who have switched from a competitor. They're the source and can articulate pain points which are more valuable than market-facing positioning from the competitor.” **Miles Price, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sailthru** > “Find a competitive intelligence tool that is helpful to you. Don't just use an expensive one.” **Nina Churchill, Product Marketing Manager at SellersFunding** > “Get everyone to agree on who your competitors are first, then start the research/monitoring efforts.” **Ian Thomas, Director of Product Marketing at BlueVoyant** > “When building your analysis, start from the point of view of your buyer, not from your own features or your what your competition is doing.” **Gudrun Van Durme, Product Marketing Manager at Unmind** > “Automate the gathering of intel, otherwise, it is a full-time job!” **Kimberley Megaw, Customer Success Manager at Kompyte** > “Get the right processes and tools in place to take the heavy lifting off of you.” **Steven Pelham, Senior Customer Success Manager at Podium** > “When sharing competitive intel with other teams, add some context about why it matters for your business. > "For example, if you're seeing signals that a competitor is shifting up-market, explain how that will open up a gap in the market that can be filled by your product. What seems obvious to the product marketer isn't always obvious to others.” **Larissa Hildebrandt, Head of Product Marketing at Close** > “There's a big difference between positioning and a product feature analysis. Even the biggest players go up against competitors that eat their lunch in a feature-by-feature analysis - but you can't let that distract you from the big picture. Positioning is all politics. I like to say: If your position can't fit on a bumper sticker - you don't have it yet.” **Laura Foster, Director of Product Marketing at Innovid** ### **Don't want the CI learning to stop? We've got a course for that.** Face competition with confidence. Cut through the noise. Get [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.139162227.1197595817.1655717107-1412273468.1655111923). ### 5 steps for effectively leveraging competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/5-steps-for-effectively-leveraging-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2022-06-24T14:25:27.000Z You did it. Your persistent competitive research efforts have yielded a key piece of intel about one of your competitors. Maybe a competitor is quietly discontinuing a product line, or maybe they’re starting to change their pricing model. Either way, you know at least one of your internal teams can use that information to their advantage. So what’s next? Research is just one part of the [competitive intelligence](https://www.crayon.co/success/competitive-intelligence-guide?cid=Paid%5FPartnersponsorship%5FPMA%5FArticle%5FDownload) (CI) process - a part to which many marketers and CI pros dedicate entirely too much of their limited time. According to Benjamin Gilad and Leonard M. Fuld’s writeup in the Harvard Business Review, ****50%** of intel collected by CI pros goes unused. The steps you take after uncovering a particularly important piece of competitive intel are just as important as those that came before. After all, research that doesn’t lead to action is just wasted effort. To ensure the fruits of your research make a substantial impact on your business, make sure you dedicate as much energy to analysis and action as you do research. Most CI pros have a finely-tuned workflow guiding their competitive research. Why not employ a similar process to improve intel distribution? The following workflow for the post-research analysis and distribution of intel should serve as a staple of any mature competitive intelligence process. There are 5 steps you can implement to effectively leverage competitive intelligence in your organization: - Analysis, - Context and corroboration, - Distribution, and - Research. ## **Analysis** ### **Snag, bag, and tag** Before sounding any alarms, there are a few less exciting (but incredibly important) steps any CI pro should take to ensure their findings can help them in future competitive endeavors. The piece of intel you collect may end up being one puzzle piece in a broader, incipient competitive shift. As you should with every competitive data point you unearth, do your future self a favor and catalog your findings. Whether you’re using a spreadsheet, an internal company wiki or a dedicated CI platform, centralizing and cataloging individual data points is incredibly valuable and can help you identify broader trends. Tagging data points by competitor, date, “type” of data point (messaging, product, hiring, etc.), and other similar filterable attributes are the first steps. Tagging data with keywords more specific to the data point is even better. The ability to filter data points by these key commonalities will pay huge dividends down the road. ## **Contextualize & corroborate** Corroborating and contextualizing competitive intel is critical in ensuring your findings are taken seriously and properly understood. Assuming you’ve been fastidiously cataloging your competitive intel as outlined in the previous step, the corroboration part should be straightforward. Querying whatever CI database you employ to zero in on any data points related to your finding can help strengthen the validity of your takeaway. If you’re unable to find any additional data there, socializing the finding with certain team members may also help - you never know what tribal knowledge exists in other peoples’ heads. Just be careful not to announce the findings with your broader organization until ready to do so. Contextualizing your findings is also important. The fact that Competitor X is shifting their product roadmap to appeal to a new market segment is big news, but the implications of that finding are different for different teams. Providing takeaways that factor in the nuances of your own business and the information requirements of each team is one of the best ways to ensure your findings aren’t just heard, but fully understood. Working with teams like sales enablement, product management, and executive leadership is the best way to tailor your findings accordingly. ## **Distribution** ### **Identify and alert pertinent parties** We all have that one colleague who rarely checks their email or the one who always takes days to respond to Slack/Microsoft Teams messages. Broad communication of important competitive findings is key. In large organizations, in particular, communication mediums can even differ by team. Employing a broad range of communication mediums can be key. Email, instant messaging platforms, company wikis/intranets, [sales enablement](https://www.crayon.co/success/the-guide-to-sales-enablement?cid=Paid%5FPartnersponsorship%5FPMA%5FArticle%5FDownload) platforms - make sure you understand which are most heavily used, and how high the tolerance for in-depth information is in each. A five-paragraph explanation of your competitor’s latest move is likely to be ignored in Slack. Using Slack to provide a summary and a link to a more detailed writeup in your CI platform or intranet is a better idea. ## **Update or create collateral** Competitive assets like [battlecards](https://www.crayon.co/success/battlecards-guide?cid=Paid%5FPartnersponsorship%5FPMA%5FArticle%5FDownload), competitor analysis, and SWOT analyses are all living, breathing documents. Sometimes, a major competitive update may change the broader nature of your positioning against a competitor, which would necessitate a full refresh of many of your assets. Smaller moves may just require a simple addition or removal of certain points. Either way, every competitive move should, at minimum, prompt a review of any relevant competitive assets to ensure they remain up to date. ## **Back to research** ### **Earmark for further monitoring** Where there’s smoke, there’s often fire. While some competitive intel you uncover needs no further inquiry, much of it is just the tip of an iceberg. Whether you uncovered your finding on your competitor’s website, online forums, trade websites, or elsewhere, continuing to monitor that source is usually a good idea. If you found out that a competitor’s product is faltering from a disgruntled employee on a website like Glassdoor, make sure to keep your ear to the ground there, as many others may follow if their exit from the company is part of a broader trend. Ensuring your work makes a considerable business-level impact is key for any function, and CI is no different. Focusing on the steps that follow research in the CI process will help ensure that the findings you so painstakingly uncovered are fully leveraged by your organization in a way that matters. ***Crayon, the leading competitive intelligence platform for mid-market and enterprise businesses, brings a complete, real-time picture of what competitors are up to—delivering valuable insights to key departments in a range of formats that can be easily accessed and acted on. So companies can quickly see and seize opportunities, and build sustainable business advantage. To learn more, visit [www.crayon.co.](https://www.crayon.co/)** ### The ARR of objection handling: address, reframe, redirect URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/the-arr-of-objection-handling-address-reframe-redirect/ Last updated: 2024-04-22T15:35:49.000Z Who doesn’t love a good acronym? They’re fun to say, make you sound smart, and pack a whole lot of meaning into just a couple of letters. The revenue types may already be familiar with one ARR acronym, but now it’s time for another to share the spotlight. When it comes to [objection handling in sales](https://www.salesenablementcollective.com/how-to-handle-the-4-most-common-sales-objections/), ARR stands for Address, Reframe, and Redirect. Each refers to an approach you can employ to handle and overcome common objections. In this article, we'll focus on five different types of competitor claims: - Blatantly not true, - Not true anymore, - Not *entirely* true, - True but not relevant, and - Just plain true. The right approaches are a critical component of the objection handling process. It’s at this point in the Objection Handling Pyramid where we move from understanding the ‘why’ of objection handling and move on to the what. ![The right approaches are a critical component of the objection handling process. It’s at this point in the Objection Handling Pyramid where we move from understanding the ‘why’ of objection handling and move on to the what.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2021/12/Objection-handling-pyramid.png) Of course, one size never fits all when it comes to handling objections. Whether you Address, Reframe, or Approach will depend on the type of competitor claim or buyer objection you’re looking to overcome. Each of these approaches focuses on how you can turn an objection into an opportunity. This can be especially useful when your prospective buyer already uses the competition. For **Kevin Dorsey, VP of Inside Sales at Patient Pop Inc.**, these types of negotiations provide a unique opportunity for overcoming objections: > "If you're targeting an account that uses your competitor, it means they've already made the leap to solve the problem that you're trying to solve. Going after a competitor is actually a great thing because \[your prospect\] already opened the doors on why they should make the change." ## **Approaching five different types of competitor claims** At the risk of over-simplifying things, you can bucket objections and competitor claims into two overarching categories: true and untrue. But within these two large buckets are five subcategories of claims. ![At the risk of over-simplifying things, you can bucket objections and competitor claims into two overarching categories: true and untrue. But within these two large buckets are five subcategories of claims.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2021/12/Competitor-claims.png) At the extremes are claims which are either blatantly true or blatantly false. No matter how you slice it, these claims are supported (or unsupported) by objective evidence. In the middle are claims that contain elements of truth but leave ample room for interpretation, and demand more context. The context you can use to your advantage in the objection handling process and in your approaches. ### **How to overcome untrue objections** If the objection you’re looking to overcome is blatantly not true or not true anymore, you should take the same approach. The best tactic to employ in this instance is to ADDRESS the claim head-on. Here are two examples of false claims drawn from real-life objections: ### **1) Blatantly not true** **CLAIM:** “The other vendor we’re considering in this deal says they’re the undisputed leader in your category. Why would we go with you instead?” **CONTEXT:** Some of you may recall a time when you had to back up these ‘best in the world’ claims with evidence. Sadly, many of your competitors will suggest they are the undisputed leader when there is in fact much to be disputed. **APPROACH:** ADDRESS this objection head-on. Demonstrate the claim is false by using third-party validation. Reputable review services like G2, legitimate industry groups, and other objective data points can all support your position and help you correct the record. **TALK TRACK:** “I’m not sure what else they told you, but the reality is we rank higher in customer satisfaction and ease of adoption based on over 500 reviews. Also, market data highlighted in \[insert report\] shows very clearly that we are head and shoulders above the competition.” ### **2) Not true anymore** **CLAIM:** “Slack integration is something that’s really important for our team. Your competitor told us theirs is the only platform with an integration.” **CONTEXT:** Overcoming sales objections is really an opportunity to be on the offensive. A claim that perhaps was once true but is no longer true is a prime example of an opportunity to turn the falseness of a claim right back on your competitor. **APPROACH**: Not only are these sorts of claims easily disprovable, but you should also leverage the opportunity to highlight the big swing and a miss your competitor struck out on. Again, you should ADDRESS this type of claim head-on. **TALK TRACK:** “It looks like they’ve got some very outdated intel on this topic. We announced full integration with Slack in our Q1 product release. Our platform also seamlessly integrates with Salesforce.” **Overcoming partly true objections** No product is perfect. Even the most widely-used products and services are not airtight. Your competitors will inevitably gather intel on these gaps and use them to deposition you in competitive deals. But guess what, your competitor ain’t perfect either. That’s why overcoming objections that are not entirely true, or true but not relevant, demands a Reframe approach. ### **3) Not *entirely* true** **CLAIM:** “It looks to me like your functionality is exactly the same as the other vendor we’re looking at.” **CONTEXT:** It’s true that you and your competitor will often appear similar on the face of things. With over [8000 martech companies](https://news.crunchbase.com/news/martech-marketing-tech-social-media/) fighting for their spot at the table, differentiation is increasingly difficult. **APPROACH:** Reframe this objection by acknowledging the partial truth. Follow that up with your key differentiation points focusing on the underlying gap the prospect is trying to fill. Highlighting why your product solves the problem better. **TALK TRACK:** “The interface looks similar for sure. But when the content we curate and how we do it is a better fit for your needs.” ### **4) True but not relevant** **CLAIM:** “This is just adding another program for my salespeople to use. They’re not going to use it.” **CONTEXT:** For the prospect making this claim, it feels true to them that their sales reps won’t want to use an additional app or program. But past experience isn’t relevant to you winning the deal at present. And the claim being made here speaks more to the irrelevance of their current tech stack than anything to do with what you bring to the table. **APPROACH:** Reframe this objection by circling back to the relevance of your product to fit their needs. **TALK TRACK:** “We should avoid using assumptions about what sales reps want and need. Do you currently measure the consumption of your competitive intelligence? ### **5) Just plain true** The facts are the facts. There will be limitations to what problems your product can solve no matter how powerful it is. As long as you know your weak spots, there is no reason to fret objections that are plainly true. Instead, make use of the second R in ARR and REDIRECT the conversation. **CLAIM**: “Your program doesn’t work in Mandarin. We do business in China and need to have that functionality.” **CONTEXT**: Whether it’s an integration your engineering hasn’t figured out yet or any other kind of limitation, you can’t be everything to everyone at all times. Luckily your product still does a hell of a lot! **APPROACH**: Redirect the prospect towards your product’s strong points, while acknowledging the limitation. **TALK TRACK**: “We see things a little differently. Right now our machine learning isn’t attuned to Mandarin. But we can sync up to anything with an RSS feed, and there are zero language limitations when it comes to building your [team’s battlecards](https://klue.com/blog/sales-battlecard-template-objection-handling-and-counterpoints). It’s great feedback though and we’re working on a solution for this that we will hopefully roll out in the future.” ## **Establishing tactics for objection handling** The objection handling techniques featured above start with a conceptual approach and then move into tangible tactics when it comes time to address, reframe or redirect. Deciding what to say, to whom, and when is not improvised on the spot. Rather it is established and informed by intentional preparation beforehand. As **Clara Smyth, Sr. Marketing Manager at Slack** explained at the first-ever [Competitive Enablement Summit](https://klue.com/competitive-enablement-2021), “I would highly recommend creating something like an internal-facing objection handling guide, external-facing competitive case studies, and then feature function matrices.” However, tactics are the last step in the Objection Handling Pyramid. So we’ll save that for another blog. ![The objection handling techniques featured above start with a conceptual approach and then move into tangible tactics when it comes time to address, reframe or redirect. ](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2021/12/Approaches-to-handling-objections-in-sales.png) Overcoming sales objections in competitive deals is an absolute certainty in the life of a sales rep. And it can be a struggle for the greenest rookies to the most grizzled veterans. Add a new acronym to your vocabulary and set yourself up for success with the ARR of objection handling. ### **Step 1:** Categorize your competitor’s claim into one of five categories: - Blatantly not true - Not true anymore - Not *entirely* true - True, but not relevant - Just plain true ### **Step 2:** Decide if Address, Reframe, or Redirect is the right approach for the claim ### **Step 3:** Win. More. Deals. [***Klue***](https://klue.com/) ***provides a lens into your competitor’s world, continuously updating and connecting dots to help you win more business. It’s a new way to capture, manage, and communicate market insights from the web and across the company, in platforms you already use.*** ### Which teams own competitive intelligence - and how is it being executed? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/which-teams-own-competitive-intelligence-and-how-is-it-being-executed/ Last updated: 2022-06-22T08:36:28.000Z There are many roles and responsibilities that are conducive to a successful company dynamic, and there isn't a blanket approach that can be applied when exploring the delegation of such tasks. Fundamental processes such as [sales enablement](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-sales-enablement/), [pricing](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-pricing/), and [research](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/your-guide-to-research/) can fall under the remit of different teams, and the same rationale can also be applied to competitive intelligence. We'll also share a sure-fire way how to improve your [competitive intelligence knowledge](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/which-teams-own-competitive-intelligence-and-how-is-it-being-executed/#how-to-improve-competitive-intelligence-knowledge)... 😉 ## **Which teams are responsible for competitive intelligence?** In the [2021 Competitive Intelligence Trends Report](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-2021-competitive-intelligence-trends-report-has-arrived/), we explored who is responsible for the CI function to decipher which department owns the process and understand *who* is responsible in most cases. Most product marketers surveyed ****(78.6%)** indicated that they are responsible for competitive intelligence at their company. The undoubted value of a dedicated CI team is being recognized, with ****11.4%** of respondents saying they have a specialist team who own the process. ![In the 2021 Competitive Intelligence Trends Report, we explored who is responsible for the CI function to decipher which department owns the process and understand who is responsible in most cases. Most product marketers surveyed (78.6%) indicated that they are responsible for competitive intelligence at their company.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2022/01/Who-is-responsible-for-competitive-intelligence_.png) ****Adam Houghton, VP of Success at Klue**, gave an insight into how the company’s client success team sync with PMMs across the board, and some of their common findings: > *“Our Client Success team works closely with thousands of product marketers across multiple industries and company sizes.* > *"There’s a common thread we tend to see - understanding how they differ from competitors and where they fit in their market landscape is critical to success - not only for positioning and messaging to empower revenue teams to win, but to help drive product direction and strategy across the organization.”* ## **What are the goals of competitive intelligence?** No matter who competitive intelligence is being carried out by, its purpose remains the same: the process helps you understand your market rivals, differentiate your product, and compete in increasingly competitive markets. That said, while the benefits of competitive intelligence can't be disputed, for some companies, CI remains unchartered territory. At our 2020 event, [Product Marketing Off-Piste](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/product-marketing-off-piste/), we welcomed a group of PMMs experienced in competitive intelligence to demystify the art of CI. ## **How is competitive intelligence executed?** With competitive intelligence, the more thorough you are, the more insights you’ll gain, and this bodes well for your product. With this in mind, it was encouraging to see nearly ****60%** of respondents believe CI is influential within their role. ![Nearly 60% of respondents believe CI is influential within their role.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2022/01/Influence-of-competitive-intelligence-in-the-PMM-role.png) ****Patty McDonald, Global Solution Marketing Director at Symphony RetailAI**, revealed how crowdsourcing intel helped competitive intelligence become more prevalent at her company: > *"One of the biggest jumps in our competitive program happened once we crowdsourced collecting intel.* > *"It allowed us to gather information at scale and ensured that information wasn’t getting stuck within the minds of a few individuals. This provided our Marketing team with the means to strategically own CI."* ### **How often do product marketers monitor competitors?** When we completed the Competitive Intelligence Trends 2020 report, all signs seem to be pointing to a landscape where the role of the product marketer is reduced - but *not* lost altogether. Competitive intelligence in product marketing is still very much alive and kicking, with PMMs using it to reevaluate their pricing strategies, introduce new products, and refine existing features. In 2021, we wanted to find out how often PMMs are thoroughly monitoring their competitors, and we were encouraged to find most said they check in on their competitors weekly ****(32.9%)**; a slight increase from 2020’s figure of ****29.4%**. One of the respondents in the ‘Other’ category indicated they complete competitive intelligence every single day, while at the other end of the spectrum, another said they only do it when it’s needed. ![We wanted to find out how often PMMs are thoroughly monitoring their competitors, and we were encouraged to find most said they check in on their competitors weekly (32.9%); a slight increase from last year’s figure of 29.4%.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2022/01/How-often-are-competitors-monitored_.png) We picked the brains of ****Matt Tyrer, Head of CI, Data Management & SME at Commvault**, who outlined how automating intel helped keep a tab on up-to-date market trends: > *“Having an automated collection and consolidation of intel from a myriad of data sources allows me to stay on top of what’s happening in the market, and ensures that I provide the best possible analysis of that information. I send the latest information to the right people at the right time, allowing us to not only react but to be proactive and get ahead.”* ### **What are the core areas of focus?** We then switched our focus on what product marketing teams identify as their core priorities when checking out the activities of their competitors. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it time and again - there’s no such thing as a blanket approach when it comes to competitive intelligence; while the activity remains the same in the title, the objective varies from team to team. Most of the respondents ****(91.8%)** said their aim is to improve their product knowledge, while product positioning was identified as a motivator by ****85.9%** of product marketers we spoke with. This didn’t come as too much of a surprise, as this correlates with the trends we found in our 2020 report, in which product and positioning were also the leading areas of focus. 2021's set of statistics appear to suggest competitive intelligence is being used to understand the product, as opposed to the market, with percentages for product and positioning both increasing, albeit marginally, while responses pinpointing market and market strategy as core areas of focus have both decreased by ****11.4%** and ****10.4%**, respectively. ![2021's set of statistics appear to suggest competitive intelligence is being used to understand the product, as opposed to the market, with percentages for product and positioning both increasing, albeit marginally, while responses pinpointing market and market strategy as core areas of focus have both decreased by 11.4% and 10.4%, respectively.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2022/01/What-are-the-core-areas-of-focus_--1-.png) ****Fiona Finn, Director of Product Marketing at Unbounce**, outlined how her team pays particular attention to differentiation when bringing a new product to market, and why product marketing should be considered a quintessential part of the CI process: > *“When we launch a product, we know that differentiation is really important. There are so many new technologies out there, both indirect and direct competitors. That's why product marketing is really part of that ideation process right from the start.”* ### **How often are light spot-checks completed?** The most successful companies are those who continually check in on their competitors, before using their newfound knowledge to adapt their strategies. There’s a misconception amongst some product marketers that competitive intelligence consists solely of thorough, time-consuming research; this can serve as a deterrent when companies are weighing up the pros and cons, and in many cases, lead to the postponement of CI entirely. However, light spot-checks are also keeping market contenders at arm’s length, and form a crucial part of the competitive intelligence process. Just below one-quarter of respondents said they complete light spot-checks a couple of times a week ****(23.6%)**. This marks a slight increase when compared to 2020’s report, in which ****19.3%** of product marketers said they did this twice weekly. Moreover, one-fifth ****(21.2%)** indicated light spot-checks take place monthly, a ****3.4%** increase. ![Llight spot-checks are also keeping market contenders at arm’s length, and form a crucial part of the competitive intelligence process. Just below one-quarter of respondents said they complete light spot-checks a couple of times a week (23.6%). This marks a slight increase when compared to 2020’s report, in which 19.3% of product marketers said they did this twice weekly. Moreover, one-fifth (21.2%) indicated light spot-checks take place monthly, a 3.4% increase.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2022/01/How-often-are-light-spot-checks-completed_.png) ### **Are direct *and* indirect competitors being monitored?** When completing competitive intelligence, it’s often assumed that the work stops when you track direct competitors, i.e. someone offering the same product or service within the same market - but this couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s also essential to understand the threats posed by indirect competitors because, further down the line, they too can become a direct competitor. So, it was encouraging to see this hasn’t escaped the attention of the PMMs we spoke with, with most saying they monitor 10+ indirect competitors ****(36.5%)**, a slight increase from 2020's figure of ****32.9%**. Conversely, most product marketers surveyed said they monitor five direct competitors ****(27.1%)**. This appears to suggest there’s more of an emphasis on the market activity of indirect competitors, as opposed to direct rivals. ![It was encouraging to see this hasn’t escaped the attention of the PMMs we spoke with, with most saying they monitor 10+ indirect competitors (36.5%), a slight increase from 2020's figure of 32.9%. Conversely, most product marketers surveyed said they monitor 5 direct competitors (27.1%). This appears to suggest there’s more of an emphasis on the market activity of indirect competitors, as opposed to direct rivals.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2022/01/Are-direct-and-indirect-competitors-being-monitored_.png) Attributing equal importance to both direct *and* indirect competitors played an unequivocal role in the success of many companies, as highlighted by ****Tirrah Switzer, Director of Product Marketing at Community Brands**: > *“The ability to monitor all competitors, not just our biggest threats, was very important to us in building our competitive program at Community Brands.* > *Having that intel on hand, even for just our own PMM team, makes it easy to quickly distribute to the field when they need it.”* ### **Methods used for competitive intelligence** Whether you’re focusing on direct or indirect competitors, you need a suitable method to optimize your CI activities. Press releases and media mentions were identified as the most popular sources of information, at ****81.2%**, while just over three-quarters of product marketers opted to manually check competitors’ websites and marketing activities. ![Press releases and media mentions were identified as the most popular sources of information, at 81.2%, while just over three-quarters of product marketers opted to manually check competitors’ websites and marketing activities.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2022/01/Competitive-intelligence-methods.png) ****Tamara Schebel, VP of Product at Klue**, acknowledged the breadth of CI resources available to product marketers, whilst also highlighting the importance of focusing on the facts that really matter and can bring optimum value to a CI program: > *“There’s a ton of publicly available competitive information out there - from the press and media - the challenge is that the time it takes to sift through that noise to find the intel that matters can take away from time spent finding more valuable information from your internal sources like field feedback, recorded sales conversations and win/loss programs. Getting beyond common knowledge about your competitors is critical.”* ## **How to improve competitive intelligence knowledge** As we've alluded to, competitive intelligence flags gaps in the market and can be used to improve your products and services, and give customers what they **really* want. [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.190462127.547783355.1642413164-1497506634.1640956915) will help you refine your CI skills and hit the loftiest heights. Delivered by ****Alex McDonnell, Market Intelligence Lead at Airtable**, the 10 chapter, self-paced course features nine vetted templates and resources, over four hours of content, a host of exam questions, and official CI certification. The course is your ticket to a string of takeaways, and will help you: ✅ Build a ****tech stack** for competitive intel ✅ Conduct ****win/loss** and primary research ✅ Visualize your ****competitive position** with a market map ✅ Enable sales and customer success to deliver crisp ****competitive positioning** ✅ Bring CI to the table in ****strategy** and product decisions [Get CI Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.190462127.547783355.1642413164-1497506634.1640956915) ### Is enough PMM budget spent on competitive intelligence tools? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/pmm-budget-spend/ Last updated: 2022-06-22T08:30:22.000Z *Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer…* It’s a cliche that rings true in everyday life, but more so in the cut-throat world of business. ‘Cos let’s face it, if you give your rivals an inch, they’ll take a yard, if given half the chance. The solution? You need to keep one eye fixed firmly on their every move, anticipate their next step, and be proactive in counteracting any move they make. [Competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/common-challenges-when-gathering-competitive-intelligence-2/) is ideal for keeping market rivals at an arm’s length; dedicating time, effort, and resources to making sure it’s done right, can be the difference between dominating the market and [retaining customers](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-it-means-to-have-a-high-customer-retention-rate/), or laying down and seeing your [churn rates](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-is-customer-churn-analysis/) soar. And as we all know, [reactivating churned customers](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-reactivate-churned-users/) is no picnic. Which got us thinking: are organizations taking [competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-collect-and-share-competitive-intelligence-results/) seriously enough? And are they putting their hands into their pockets to finance it? So, let's kick-off by checking out why it's *always* important to complete competitive intelligence at your company. --- ## **Why is competitive intelligence important?** If you’re controlling the purse strings at your organization and think you can pinch a penny or two by dodging competitive intelligence, you’re taking a huge risk - if anything, investing in the process is more likely to *save* you money, in the long run. Competitive intelligence tools help you and your internal teams understand the behaviors of your competitors, and any potential moves they could make in the not-so-distant future. It also gives you a platform by which you can analyze customers and regulators, in turn, unearthing new industry trends. By removing the guesswork, you and your PMM team are left with nothing but cold, hard facts; when you’re spending less time shooting in the dark, hoping you eventually hit the target, this means you’re able to a) boost product service, and b) bring products to market with greater efficiency. And the fun and games don’t stop there - not by a long shot. Introducing competitive intelligence tools helps you make more informed decisions, and plug any gaping holes in your business plan - it bodes well for your company now, and in the long run. Competitive intelligence also serves as an ideal way of identifying whether the idea you've got in the pipeline will make your target market say “phwoar, I’ve never seen *anything* like this before”, or “meh, this isn’t pioneering or exciting - it’s yesterday’s news.” And as we all know, innovation sells. 💰 So, now we’ve harped on about why competitive intelligence is *so important*, you’re no doubt wondering what the best tools are to get the job done - right? --- ## **Recommended competitive intelligence tools** There are a string of [competitive intelligence tools](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/19-of-the-best-competitive-intel-tools-for-product-marketers/) product marketing teams around the world are using to help you scope out their competition - without slipping into a ridiculous disguise. 🤡 And a *whole bunch* of them are right under your nose, in our[ PMM Tech Stack.](https://tools.productmarketingalliance.com/s?category=competitive-intelligence&q=competitive+intelligence) PMM approved? You got it. ✅ Vetted and tested? You betcha. ✅ They’re all here, and they’ll all make your life much, *much* easier. Granted, competitive intelligence tools will no doubt support the execution of your CI efforts. However, speaking to people who’ve been there and done it goes a long way. 🧠 --- ## **Competitive intelligence tips** When we spoke to PMMs during our research for the [Competitive Intelligence Trends 2020 report](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/competitive-intelligence-trends-2020/), we discovered a ton of [competitive intelligence tips](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/30-competitor-intel-tips/) \- and because we prescribe to the view that ‘sharing’s caring’, here are some invaluable nuggets of information: 👇 > *“Don’t be afraid to get help from other parts of your organization. Being able to get help from a sales engineer or a developer while you’re reading technical documentation can save a ton of time and help you better understand different personas.”* ****Mindy Regnell, Senior Market Intelligence Officer at Postscript** > *“Job postings can detail info about their tech stack. For example, if they say ‘looking for an IT manager with experience in Oracle, Kronos’, then you know the company uses these tools.”* ****Laura Massingham, Director of Product Marketing at Tackle.io** > *“Make sure to leverage your entire company and look for a way to integrate information-sharing into your teams' daily tools (be it Slack, or a Sales Enablement tool, etc).* > *“Whenever someone new starts at Showpad, we hold a session dedicated to competitive intel and how each Showpadder plays a part in gathering and sharing that information. Our product marketing team is not big enough to do all the research ourselves so we've set up a system to source info gathered by BDRs, AEs, CSMs, etc.”* ****Lara Verlinden, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Showpad** > *“Spend time getting to know the competitor from all angles: explore their website and gated assets as if you were a prospect, but also understand from their existing customers if the true product experience matches the initial marketing.”* ****Megan Magee, Senior Product Marketing Manager at ServiceNow** > *“Start with your [value proposition](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-write-a-killer-value-proposition/) not mentioned by you, but by your customer. From there, understand why you don’t live up to that [value proposition](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/value-propositions-that-sell/) and where you can improve. [Know your segment](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/customer-segmentation-unbounce/), know your buyer and persona.”* ****Hien Phan, Director of Product Marketing at Amplitude** > *“Social media is a goldmine of information.”* ****Avi Goldstein, Director of Development at Tomche Shabbos of Rockland County** > *“In a non-transparent market, get creative. Current clients can be great sources of information. Also, think about other players in the ecosystem that can share stories and data.”* ****Jill Dornan, Director of Product Marketing at HealtSparq** > *“Don't ignore customer reviews and prospect calls.”* ****Ruchita Shah, Senior Product Marketing Manager at HealthSparq** > *“Automate it or do frequent checks. As far as understanding your marketplace and competitors is concerned, you need to form your own opinions to roadmap.”* ****Benny Kuo, Product Marketing Manager at Eleven Software** --- ## **How much is being spent on competitive intelligence?** Whether it’s an awesome [product launch](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-makes-a-successful-product-launch/), [compelling messaging](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-avoid-messaging-positioning-mistakes/), or [essential sales enablement assets](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/which-teams-create-sales-enablement-assets/), investment plays an essential role in the success of every facet of product marketing. Which prompts the million-dollar question: is enough money being spent on [competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-collect-and-share-competitive-intelligence-results/)? In our follow-up report to the 2020 write-up, [Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2021](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/2021-competitive-intelligence-trends-report/), we asked our crop of PMM experts how much budget is allocated to competitive intelligence at their companies, and it was encouraging to see ****62.3%** of respondents indicated their orgs are setting money aside to support the function. ![ 62.3% of respondents indicated their companies are setting money aside to support competitive intelligence.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2022/03/Competitive-intelligence-budget.png) ****Chris Owen, Director of Product Management at Saviynt**, explained how the company used existing data to incentivize company executives to invest in a competitive intelligence program: > *“The first thing we did at Saviynt was targeted the exec team with the concept of a CI program, asking how we can stretch our competitive landscape from 1 to 40.* > *“By starting with the data we have in Salesforce, and broadening that to the other software areas in which we exist, we were able to predict how much we could increase our win rate by targeting certain competitors. That really incentivized them to move forward with a CI solution.”* ## **How to improve your competitive intelligence** There’s no disputing the value [competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-get-results-with-competitive-intelligence/) brings to the table, and here at Product Marketing Alliance, we're dedicated to familiarizing you with best practices. ### **Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast** Join ****Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon**, for [Into the Fray - The Competitive Intelligence Podcast](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/into-the-fray-competitive-intelligence-podcast/). Erik welcomes a host of guests and discusses the intricacies of CI with experts who've mastered the craft. [Tune In](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/into-the-fray-competitive-intelligence-podcast/) And there's more... ### **Competitive Intelligence Certified** [Sign up](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.202415697.1591864429.1648577579-1497506634.1640956915) for our [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.202415697.1591864429.1648577579-1497506634.1640956915) course and join ****Alex McDonnell, Competitive Enablement Manager at Airtable**, as he reveals how to face competition with confidence and cut through the noise in your respective field. This course will equip you with essential CI skills and by the end, you’ll be able to: ✅ Build a tech stack for competitive intel ✅ Conduct win/loss and primary research ✅ Visualize your competitive position with a market map ✅ Enable sales and customer success to deliver crisp competitive positioning ✅ Bring CI to the table in strategy and product decisions Ready to equip yourself with the skills needed to oust your competition? [Get CI Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.202415697.1591864429.1648577579-1497506634.1640956915) ### How do product marketing leaders influence competitive intelligence? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/product-marketing-leader-influence/ Last updated: 2022-06-30T15:07:18.000Z Award-winning scholar G. Richard Shell once said: *“The first law of business: make the rules, or your rivals will.”* However, before you can *make* the rules to keep your rivals at bay, you need to *understand* what it is they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and introduce measures to give you the upper hand. [Competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/competitive-intelligence-101/) is a critical part of the product marketing function. Not only does it help PMMs identify competitors, the process shapes [pricing strategies](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-identify-a-suitable-pricing-strategy/), flags gaps in the market, and supports companies in identifying new industry and market trends. These are a select few of the many reasons product marketers need to dedicate time, money, and effort to their competitive intelligence efforts. Neglecting the process paves the way for missed opportunities and plays into the hands of your market rivals. Given the importance of the process, product marketing leaders often involve themselves in the process to ensure it's being executed properly. Our [State of Product Marketing Leadership Report 2022](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-state-of-product-marketing-leadership-report-2022/) addressed the role of leaders in competitive intelligence, and in this article, we’ll focus on the influence they're *really* having on the process[](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-do-product-marketing-leaders-influence-competitive-intelligence/#how-often-do-leaders-analyze-their-target-market-and-adjacent-markets)[](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-do-product-marketing-leaders-influence-competitive-intelligence/#how-often-are-indirect-competitors-being-tracked)[](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-do-product-marketing-leaders-influence-competitive-intelligence/#are-leaders-planning-on-moving-into-an-adjacent-market)[.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-do-product-marketing-leaders-influence-competitive-intelligence/#how-are-leaders-differentiating-their-products) We’ll also treat you to a collection of [competitive intelligence tips](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-do-product-marketing-leaders-influence-competitive-intelligence/#competitive-intelligence-tips), and tell you how you can [improve your competitive intelligence knowledge](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-do-product-marketing-leaders-influence-competitive-intelligence/#how-to-improve-your-competitive-intelligence). ## **How often do leaders analyze their target market and adjacent markets?** With competition fierce, we wanted to understand how much time product marketing leaders are setting aside to analyze their target market and adjacent market spaces. ****39.8%** of respondents said they analyze their target market and adjacent market spaces quarterly, more than any other category. Just under one-quarter of leaders ****(23.7%)** said they complete the process monthly, ****21.5%** weekly, while ****10.8%** only analyze their market and adjacent market spaces on an annual basis. A small percentage ****(4.2%)** selected the ‘Other’ option - here’s what they had to say: > *“We always analyze our target market and adjacent market spaces - it’s a continual process.”* ****JeriAnn May, Senior Consultant at Maple Marketing Solutions** > *“We complete the process as needed - mostly bi-annually.”* ****Sophie Bussell Cheng, Senior Director of Product Marketing at ZoomInfo** > *“The process is completed on an ad-hoc basis, less than annually.”* ****Zachary Fox, Senior Director, Product, Customer & Partner Marketing, & BizDev at RD Station** ![39.8% of respondents said they analyze their target market and adjacent market spaces quarterly, more than any other category. Just under one-quarter of leaders (23.7%) said they complete the process monthly, 21.5% weekly, while 10.8% only analyze their market and adjacent market spaces on an annual basis.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2022/04/How-often-do-you-analyze-your-target-market-and-adjacent-market-spaces-.png) ## **How often are indirect competitors being tracked?** Coke vs Pepsi, Spotify vs Apple Music, Chevrolet vs Ford - the market is *full* of direct competitors offering similar products or services within a target market. But is enough attention being given to *indirect* competitors? I.e. products that are in a different category entirely, but may be seen as an alternative purchase choice? While an indirect competitor may not offer direct competition now, it could develop into a direct competitor shortly. Most of the leaders (33.3%) said they keep track of indirect competitors every month. ![Most of the leaders (33.3%) said they keep track of indirect competitors every month.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2022/04/How-often-do-you-keep-track-of-indirect-competitors-.png) ****Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon**, offered his perspective: > *“Both this result and the one that speaks to target/adjacent markets align with the growing need within mid-market and enterprise companies to maintain a broader view of their competitive landscape.* > *“High-growth organizations can no longer be concerned about only their direct competition—they need to keep an eye on those aspirational companies who may veer into their lane by expanding their product line or come further down-market. Or they need to pay attention to where there may be market opportunities that they themselves can take advantage of.* > *“In this way, the market and competitive intelligence tasks that PMMs are now taking on with greater frequency become that much more important to their company’s strategic plans.”* 🎧 Join Erik for [**Into the Fray: The Competitive Intelligence Podcast**](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/into-the-fray-competitive-intelligence-podcast/), in which he discusses key topics with CI experts. ## **Are leaders planning on moving into an adjacent market?** When we asked those occupying leadership roles if they plan to move into an adjacent market in the near future: ****54.8%** answered ‘Yes’; ****45.2%** answered ‘No’. ![When we asked those occupying leadership roles if they plan to move into an adjacent market in the near future: 54.8% answered ‘Yes’; 45.2% answered ‘No’.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2022/04/Screenshot-2022-04-13-at-17.05.13.png) ## **How are leaders differentiating their products?** Customers are attracted to products that are different and stand out in a competitive market. With communication essential to product success, we asked leaders about their processes for differentiating their products from their competitors. > *“Our company focuses on connected TV advertising alongside our independence from media sales to foster interoperability with leading publishers and partners in the space.”* ****Laura Foster, VP of Product Marketing at Innovid** > *“Our differentiation lies with our platform-based approach.”* ****Vijay Sarathi Cherukuri, Associate Director of Product Marketing at Innovacer** > *“We use our technology (crawlers), unlike our competitors who often buy third-party data.”* ****Igor Kranjcec, Head of Marketing at Mediatoolkit** > *“By identifying the entire API lifecycle, we can clearly articulate that Stoplight fits at the very beginning. On the other hand, market alternatives start in the middle of the lifecycle.”* ****Anna Daugherty, Product Marketing Manager at Stoplight** > *“We look at the difference between the types of customers we have vs. the types of customers our competitors have.* > *"Then, we complete a big deep dive into our differentiators. When we go up against a competitor in a deal, we try to pair a few or more of our differentiators to each competitor's weak spot.”* ****Erin Lewis, Director of Product Marketing at Intellum** > *“We analyze competitive messaging to call out why we are different, and ensure crisp messaging is carried out across all mediums.”* ****Karen Crowley, Director of Solutions Marketing at Deep Instinct** > *“We focus on macro-level arguments pertaining to our product offering as a whole and its unique ability to solve customer problems, as well as the extras we offer outside of the product specifications.”* ****Lara Dobson, Head of Product Marketing at Staffbase** > *“Our products are part of a complete solution/ecosystem where the client can solve all issues in the same platform. We provide an all-digital solution and offer great customer support.”* ****Renata Zanquetta, Product Marketing Lead at Creditas** ## **Competitive intelligence tips** Like their less-experienced colleagues, product marketing leaders can always benefit from tips and tricks from PMMs who’ve also worked on competitive intelligence at their respective company. As part of the [Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2021](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/2021-competitive-intelligence-trends-report/), we asked PMMs for their competitive intelligence tips. ****NB:** Job titles may have changed since the publication of the report. > *“Collaborate with all the other departments who have access to vital information.”* ****Karen Bamford, Director of Product Marketing at Zivver** > *“Start with understanding why someone bought your product instead of the product offered by the competition.”* ****Aastha Trivedi, Senior Product Marketing Manager at VWO** > *“Network a lot and up your social listening skills.”* ****Jacqueline Basil, Senior Product Marketing Manager at AlgoSec** > *“Everyone in the company is very reactive about CI but it requires a level of discipline and practice to turn down the temperature on it.”* ****Julian Dunn, Director of Product Marketing at PagerDuty** > *“Understanding win/loss analysis is the first step in completing great competitive intelligence.”* ****Sara Kingsley, Director of Product Marketing at Securonix** > *“Do not overlook true social listening, even in B2B.”* ****Davin Galbraith, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Sprinklr** > *“Use your tech stack to gather market signals from the competition.”* ****Anaud Ganpaul, Director of Product Marketing at Achievers** > *“Competitive intelligence is one of the most important aspects of sales enablement. You might want to pay special attention to it - networking with the product dev and Sales teams is the best way to know the product innovations of your competitors.”* ****Suchismita Roy, Senior Product Marketing Manager at SWZD** > *“Take marketing material with a grain of salt. Unless you see their product in action, don't believe the hype.”* ****Katy Martin, Product Marketing Manager at Lacework** > *as* ****Fiona Finn, Director of Product Marketing at Unbounce** > *“I think competitive intel is just as much about understanding what customers value as it is about knowing what the competitor does. You might identify a product gap with your tool vs your competitors, but understanding what needs this fills for the customer is essential.”* ****Brittany Gaither, Product Marketing Manager at Benchling** > *“It is really easy to get caught in a feature parity race, especially if you're not the leader in your space. But hold fast to what you offer to your customers and focus your competitive research on understanding what will make you better instead of more similar to your competitors.”* ****Jessica Muñoz, VP of Product Marketing at Liveintent** > *“If you're in the B2B space and struggling to find pricing, don't forget to check government supplier directories, which (depending on your country) have to be made public.”* ****Matt Salter, Product Marketing Manager at photoSentinel** > *“Checking job descriptions can be a great resource for what a competitor is planning to do as well as backend platforms that they may use.”* ****Marrika Zapiler, Director of Product Marketing at Audacy** > *everyone’s* ****Dee Houchen, VP of Product Marketing at Signavio** > *“Getting the information is not the #1 challenge. Rather, it is getting the insights to the people respective and getting the information read.”* ****Jan-Eike Rosenthal, Product Marketing Manager at COYO** > *“Start a Slack channel and use it as a hub to share information between all departments. It's a game-changer.”* ****Andrew McCotter-Bicknell, (People) Manager of Product Marketing at ZoomInfo** > *“Lean on everyone within the org. ProdMar is a primary R&R for competitive intelligence but everyone can contribute.”* ****Katie Tankersley, (People) Manager of Product Marketing at Outbrain** > *“If the market is overcrowded, align your main efforts to monitor your main competitors in the space you want to emerge and the one considered by your mid-market customers (80-20 rule) so you can see the emerging trends and ensure you’re not getting lost in the data noise.”* ****Silvia Kiely-Frucci, Director of Product Marketing at Castor** ## **How to improve your competitive intelligence** Competitive intelligence flags [gaps in the market](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/8-ways-to-identify-opportunities-in-the-market/), improves products and services, and gives customers what they **really* want - so you need to know *everything* there is to know to perform to your potential. [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.239124355.1433421281.1649689506-1557966655.1649689506&%5Fgac=1.53200474.1646139147.CjwKCAiApfeQBhAUEiwA7K%5FUH3Csqtt67x1wf5aEJvkYpnjuE1h6fB8drWLshDU%5F%5Fo6TkQMh3TtVTRoCnioQAvD%5FBwE) will equip you with essential CI skills and by the end, you’ll be able to: ✅ Build a ****tech stack** for competitive intel ✅ Conduct ****win/loss** and primary research ✅ Visualize your ****competitive position** with a market map ✅ Enable sales and customer success to deliver crisp ****competitive positioning** ✅ Bring CI to the table in ****strategy** and product decisions [Sign up now](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.239124355.1433421281.1649689506-1557966655.1649689506&%5Fgac=1.53200474.1646139147.CjwKCAiApfeQBhAUEiwA7K%5FUH3Csqtt67x1wf5aEJvkYpnjuE1h6fB8drWLshDU%5F%5Fo6TkQMh3TtVTRoCnioQAvD%5FBwE), refine essential skills, and raise your CI game. [Get CI Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.239124355.1433421281.1649689506-1557966655.1649689506&%5Fgac=1.53200474.1646139147.CjwKCAiApfeQBhAUEiwA7K%5FUH3Csqtt67x1wf5aEJvkYpnjuE1h6fB8drWLshDU%5F%5Fo6TkQMh3TtVTRoCnioQAvD%5FBwE) ### How to collect (and share!) competitive intelligence results URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/collect-and-share-results/ Last updated: 2024-07-22T15:20:50.000Z Let’s kick things off with a key question: are you[communicating internally](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-importance-of-internal-communication-plus-how-to-crush-it/) with your PMM team? 🙋‍♂️ Yes? That’s awesome. But what we wanna know is: are you looking further afield and keeping a beady eye on how rival companies are occupying their time? If not, then you oughta take a *long, hard look* at yourself and begin giving [competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/product-marketing-meets-competitive-intelligence/) the credence it deserves. Why? Because it ranks alongside [product messaging](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/product-messaging-the-difference-between-good-and-great/), [market positioning](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/what-is-market-positioning/), [buyer personas](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-create-buyer-personas/), etc., as one of the most important duties of a product marketer. So, with that in mind, let's take a moment to refresh our memory and remind ourselves of the basics. --- ## **What is competitive intelligence?** It's a process in which companies gather information on their competitors, customers, and the overall market, before using their findings to introduce appropriate strategies, as they strive to gain an upper hand in their respective market. It’s like spying - PMM style. 🕵️‍♀️ When it comes to gathering research, there are two forms of research methods to consider: internal research and external research. But how do they differ, and which do PMMs prefer? ## **Research methods for competitive intelligence** ### **What is external research?** As the name suggests, external research involves gathering information from sources outside of your company: for example, newspapers, websites, social media, etc. When we completed the [Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2021](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/2021-competitive-intelligence-trends-report/), we decided to explore exactly how product marketers were collecting their CI insights, and we found many were turning to external sources as their main source of information. ![reading press releases and media mentions 81.2%, manually checking competitiors' website and marketing activities 76.5%, signing up to competitor emails 70.6%, following competitor social accounts 67.1%, searching online reviews 64.7%, google alerts 62.4%, downloading gated product materials 58.8%, asking prospects/customers about them 51.8%, checking competitor support resorces 45.9%, reviewing job postings 42.4%, using a third-party app 31.8%, speaking to competitors' previous employees 28.2%, visiting competitors' booths at trade shows or events 28.2%, other 5.9%](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wdqmS2oSNPQ4N9Wp69PAnTHNcC5yOKYDhgc4HebHMMWEEQZmDWFqAjLxL4NU6roAanlHY-hlO3z4IA3V1STYGeOCaYj-Ujj2GDpq1sakGP-bOLGU31TuUlZ6AO3cQytvYUPr-DBC) After taking a closer look at some of the methods being used by product marketers, we found a number of diverse methods were being used during the competitive intelligence process. **81.2%** of PMMssaid they check out press releases and media mentions to understand the current activities of those within their market - an increase from 2020 at **76.5%**. Plus, an increase from 2020 (**74.3%**)showed that **76.5%** of participantstook the relatively old-fashioned approach and headed straight to the source itself, checking out websites and marketing activities. ### **What is internal research?** With no end of *external* methods available to those planning competitive intelligence, this doesn’t mean *internal* methods can’t be used instead. And, as we’re sure you’ve guessed, internal research involves turning to research methods from within the company. [Internal communication](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/are-internal-teams-communicating-effectively/) is a fundamental part of product marketing in any circumstance, but it can also be the difference between getting mediocre material for your competitive intel or comprehensive insights from people in your organization. The good news? There are several avenues for PMMs to explore in their bid to gain a competitive advantage. 👇 ![Email correspondence 65.9%, Dedicated slack channel 61.2%, 1:1 conversations 47.1%, CRM notes 36.5%, organized meetings 32.9%, surveys 21.2%, I never get intel from internal sources 4.7%, other 1.2%](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/znBvPGo0KeSRHNiBsncz03rCyQEetrgc2soh7tNKbKDPrmOi7dsDKsgpWWHbE2m0kCNOsekpvJiNd--xdZbZWEB8ZU-qUQj5LvMDC4y9BmeIlgfUQmO_50rqd-yP2pZHeOoB6klD) When we surveyed our sample, we found product marketers were making the most of resources under their noses to learn more about their competitors, with simple means of communication such as emails (**65.9%**) and conversations among peers (**47.1%**) emerging as the most popular form of internal competitive intelligence research. --- In terms of which specific teams PMMs were liaising with most when conducting competitive intelligence, our research indicated the sales teams were identified as the port of call for many PMMs, with a whopping **92.9%** saying they turn to them for CI support. In some corners of the product marketing world, it’s suggested that leadership figures and executives either, a) don’t support the PMM function, b) don’t understand the role of a PMM or c) ignore the role altogether. So, we’re sure you’ll share our enthusiasm in hearing **77.6%** of product marketers we spoke to about competitive intelligence said they’re able to gain competitive intelligence insights from members of the executive/leadership team; a marked improvement on some of the PMM perceptions we discovered among some members of the C-Suite, as we outlined in our [C-Suite perceptions report](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/product-marketing-perceptions-among-the-c-suite-report/). ![sales 92.9%, product 84.7%, executives/leadership 77.6%, marketing 74.1%, customer success 63.5%, corporate strategy 32.9%, engineering 20%, finance 14.1%, other 1.2%](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/3RTMAzHNpjX6ZodNUsXnBaksWdVRYOngn9Yra1VXf47xSV1SiVCmcUqcoDl5wt8z0UuJbKwJCV21FhxNNR9qQPEk1MLc87wyKbpMkmCgnHoMXUO6U_HTaNJz93eTkq3CXYYDpN26) ## **How to share competitive intelligence results** If you were a sports coach and knew *exactly* what the Achilles heel of the opposition was, would you keep your mouth shut and watch your team struggle? Of course, you wouldn’t. And the same principle needs to be applied when you’re conducting competitive intelligence. We asked what skills make a rockstar product marketer, and unsurprisingly, collaboration came out on top, with 78% of PMMs saying they value collaboration with coworkers above any other attribute. Collaboration and effective communication go hand in glove with competitive intelligence. You need to work as a team to share insights and make the most of the important information at your disposal, otherwise, you can miss key insights that could be applied to your strategy. In an ideal scenario, product marketing professionals the world over would apply this rationale, but to what extent are PMMs actually doing it? We asked PMMs to rank how open internal teams are when it comes to knowledge-sharing around competitive intelligence on a scale of 1-10, and this generated an average rating of **6.9**; only **28.2%** of product marketers deemed their in-house knowledge sharing to be worthy of a perfect ‘10’. ![0 - 1.2%, 1 - 3.5%, 2 - 5.9%, 3 - 4.7%, 4 - 4.7%, 5 - 12.9%, 6 - 1.2%, 7 - 16.5%, 8 - 14.1%, 9 - 7.1%, 10 - 28.2%](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/TTXW8EVbHSqHSCp7xP7bJJiOAbXSwFNjSlNEdAxbUJDfpHHZZ2WpUn8IxLfnJy75wvQlf_8rktd37Kn7TTPgCG9o-caztvWyCkOrp6Lr7XVHErC4zse18_RLh7sqc3x_uqbmGdZI) Sure, you can collect thorough competitive intelligence results, but what good are they if you’re not spreading the word among your peers and putting your knowledge to good use? With that sentiment in mind, we burrowed *even deeper* into the CI habits of a product marketer, checking out preferred methods for sharing intel, once they establish what their rivals have up their sleeve, and here’s what we found… 👀 ![sales 82.4%, product 52.9%, customer success 51.8%, executives/leadership 45.9%, marketing 30.6%, corporate strategy 18.8%, enginerring 5.9%](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/4EDr-xTQJ5ibFdpIUrquhJxsMcKrjWf_gZAydF9uO_UpSrWmi3WLyQpkq7pf7C0aP2L55C83lPfKP3h0C--snHDUVR5E16rwm-wzxjeqL8U2kQmefc39wGKoG8TM1wxivzJW_vmk) The very best product marketers need no encouragement when it comes to sharing their competitive intelligence findings with their teams - and this stretches far beyond the product marketing team. When we completed our research survey as part of our report on competitive intelligence, we found that there were as many as five departments product marketers mainly turn to when sharing results. Ahead of product marketing itself, with sales **(82.4%)**, product **(52.9%)**, customer success **(51.8%)**, executives and leadership **(45.9)**, and marketing **(30.6)** identified as the key quintet as far as information sharing is concerned, before product marketing even entered the fray. ![In person on a team by team basis - 52.9% in 2021, 19.3% in 2020, segmented emails to each relevant team 34.1% in both 2021 and 2020, a blanket email to all relevant teams 31.8% in 2021 and 25.2% in 2020, in person to all relevant teams at the same time 23.5% in 2021, 19.3% in 2020, other - 12.9% in 2021, 25.2% in 2020](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/HY5W9JBNRrYF4X1NMfBaMxXDH3zd979MGyEmmochKSscTHBvD5OC7AYdHG2QioYMikiZTRfrB2Eil8tc_FgVXgKs3u9wUMkd5EKf_uXkOusJcofIYbW1NJg4na1YkeapCkTjNc4q) As for the most common methods for spreading the good CI word? In-person/team-by-team feedback and email segmentation were both earmarked as being the two most popular methods for feeding back to product marketing teams. Over half **(52.9%)** expressed a preference for doing this in-person, on a team-by-team basis. Email was also identified as a popular option, with **34.1%** sending segmented emails, while **31.8%** typically send a blanket email to all relevant teams. Some of the PMMs we spoke with **(23.5%)** also said they share information in person with relevant teams at the same time. We reached out to some members of the PMM community to see what kind of things they use to help share their CI insights. Here’s what they had to say: > “Our methods depend on the audience; sometimes we share information on presentations, sales enablement training material, while other times, findings are used on battle cards.” > **Silvia Kiely Frucci, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Castor** --- > “We add them to the knowledge base of our competitive intelligence.” > **Brittany Gaither, Product Marketing Manager at Benchling** --- > “Competitive intelligence is shared in a dedicated Slack channel.” > **Andrew McCotter Bicknell, Head of Competitive Intelligence at ClickUp** --- > > > **Jada Gale, Former Product Marketing Manager at FreeWill** --- > “We use Highspot to publish our findings so that everyone across the company can access it.” > **Renu Jinturkar, Senior Product Marketing Manager at LiveIntent** --- > “We use Slack channels and a Salesforce integration.” > **Shane Robbins, Director of Product Marketing at Cloudbeds** ## **Competitive intelligence tips** We’re not going to beat around the bush: collecting and sharing competitive intelligence can be time-consuming, but there’s no doubting the benefits it can bring to the fore. A heightened understanding of others vying for your precious customers willequip you with an opportunity to improve your product offering as you bid to stave off competition. We popped together a list of 30 [competitive intelligence tips](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/30-competitor-intel-tips/) from product marketers who’ve been there, done it, and continue to flaunt their CI shirt. Here’s a sneak peek into what you can expect from our list, with the following snippets of advice sure to alleviate the strain and help you navigate the path to CI perfection. > "Competitive intelligence is an incredibly important activity for every product marketing team. Every customer-facing team within your organization will likely hear bits of information about competitors, and collecting that in one place is crucial. > "From my experience, a shared Slack channel for competitive intel where people can post updates they are hearing is useful. PMMs can vet those, and update battle cards or different assets as needed. > "If there are a small number of competitors you compete fiercely with, it can also be worth establishing a group like a tiger team to discuss things like objection handling, differentiators, and real-time advice on how to win. All of the information within this team is naturally fed back into core competitive assets as well." > **Jeffrey Vocell, Director of Product Marketing at Iterable** --- > “Don’t be afraid to get help from other parts of your organization. Being able to get help from a sales engineer or a developer while you’re reading technical documentation can save a ton of time and help you better understand different personas.” > **Mindy Regnell, Senior Marketing Intelligence Manager at Postscript** --- > “Job postings can detail info about their tech stack. For example, if they say ‘looking for an IT manager with experience in Oracle, Kronos’, then you know the company uses these tools.” > **Laura Massingham, Director of Product Marketing at Tackle.io** --- > “Make sure to leverage your entire company and look for a way to integrate information-sharing into your teams' daily tools (be it Slack, or a Sales Enablement tool, etc).“Whenever someone new starts at Showpad, we hold a session dedicated to Competitive Intel and how each Showpadder plays a part in gathering and sharing that information. Our Product Marketing team is not big enough to do all the research ourselves so we've set up a system to source info gathered by BDRs, AEs, CSMs, etc.” > **Lara Verlinden, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Showpad** --- > “Spend time getting to know the competitor from all angles: explore their website and gated assets as if you were a prospect, but also understand from their existing customers if the true product experience matches the initial marketing.” > **Megan Magee, Senior Product Marketing Manager at ServiceNow** --- > “Start with your value proposition not mentioned by you, but by your customer. From there understand why you don’t live up to that value prop and where you can improve. Know your segment, know your buyer and persona.” > **Hien Phan, Director of Enterprise Product Marketing at Amplitude** --- > “Social media is a goldmine of information.” > **Avi Goldstein, Former Manager of Vendor Relations and Product Marketing at Hertz Furniture** --- > “Job postings reveal a lot about your competitor's product/growth strategy. They will often disclose which areas they're trying to invest in from a technology perspective or which segments they're trying to grow the business in the most.” > **Julian Clarke, Senior Product Marketing Manager | Team Lead at Lattice** --- > “In a non-transparent market, get creative. Current clients can be great sources of information. Also, think about other players in the ecosystem that can share stories and data.” > **Jill Dornan, Senior Director of Product Marketing at HealtSparq** --- > “Don't ignore customer reviews and prospect calls.” > **Ruchita Shah, Product Marketing Manager at Mavenlink** --- ## **Competitive intelligence tools** Thought our insights into competitive intelligence were finished, finito, finite? Well, you’re mistaken, because as a parting gift, we’re steering you towards our [PMM Tech Stack](https://tools.productmarketingalliance.com/), where you’ll find a collection of competitive intelligence tools designed to help you improve the effectiveness of your research. --- Plus, we’ve also got an incredibly in-depth guide called [**Head-to-Head: The Competitive Intelligence Playbook**](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/head-to-head-the-competitive-intelligence-playbook/), which is filled to the brim with actionable advice designed to equip you with the knowledge you need to build and refine your competitive intelligence (CI) strategy and ultimately win your market. --- And that’s not all! [**Into the Fray: The Competitive Intelligence Podcast**](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/into-the-fray-competitive-intelligence-podcast/) is hosted by Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon, where he discusses the intricacies of CI with leading experts from the likes of TalkDesk, Imperva, and jane.app who have refined their own approaches. What are you waiting for? Start as you mean to go on, and set new habits. *Have a nosy.* ### **Don't want the CI learning to stop? We've got a course for that.** With the help of **Alex McDonnell, Market Intelligence Lead at Airtable**, we have created a [**Competitive Intelligence Certified: Masters course**](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified), designed to go even deeper into equipping you with the essential CI skills. By the end of the course, you’ll be able to: - Build a tech tack for CI. - Conduct win/loss and primary research. - Visualize your competitive position with a market map. - Enable sales and customer success to deliver crisp competitive positioning. - Bring CI to the table in strategy and product decisions. Face competition with confidence. Cut through the noise. [Get Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified) ### How can you create a culture of competitive intelligence at your company? URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/culture-of-competitive-intelligence/ Last updated: 2022-11-23T10:27:30.000Z In the world of politics, you often hear talk of trying to get more voters into the tent. Well, with competitive intelligence, it's less about getting more people inside, and more about making the proverbial tent that much bigger. To learn more about creating a culture of [competitive intelligence (CI)](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/competitive-intelligence-101/) within your organization and using it as a catalyst for collaboration, ****Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon**, sat down with ****Patrick Wall, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Imperva**. In their discussion, they explored a variety of key topics, including: - [The role of cross-functional partners when building competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-can-you-create-a-culture-of-competitive-intelligence-at-your-company/#cross-functional-partners-in-building-a-culture-of-competitive-intelligence) - [Tools and tips for engaging key stakeholders in competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-can-you-create-a-culture-of-competitive-intelligence-at-your-company/#tools-and-tips-for-engaging-all-your-key-stakeholders-in-competitive-intelligence) - [Using competitive win-loss analysis to learn from your losses](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-can-you-create-a-culture-of-competitive-intelligence-at-your-company/#using-competitive-win-loss-analysis-to-learn-from-your-losses) - [Proving the need for competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-can-you-create-a-culture-of-competitive-intelligence-at-your-company/#proving-the-need-for-competitive-intel-even-when-the-wolf-isn%E2%80%99t-at-your-door-yet) This is not Patrick’s first foray into CI: he began his career in sales engineering, doing stints at ****Neo4j**, ****Oracle**, ****Cambridge** ****Semantics**, and ****Datawatch** before joining ****Imperva**, so Patrick's had competitive intelligence at the front of his mind for quite some time. # **Cross-functional partners in building a culture of competitive intelligence** ****Q: You come from a background in sales engineering. Is talking the talk and walking the walk with a sales rep an advantage in getting sales to adopt competitive intelligence as a discipline?** A: “Sales engineers are the best for knowledge within the organization. They’re the ones talking to the customer. A lot of the time, a customer won't tell the sales rep everything because they don’t want to be sold another solution, but they'll tell the sales engineer so much more about what's going on in their market. I think that's where, as product marketers, we can get a ton of information. “Product marketers and [competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/competitive-intelligence-101/) need to lean into the sales engineers. I'm on calls with sales engineers all the time because they have such a great impact.” ****Q: Who are your other partners when it comes to implementing competitive intelligence in your organization?** A: “Customer success is an awesome partner within competitive intelligence, and it's bilateral – I'm helping customer success by making sure they understand our competition, and they're bringing back nuggets of intelligence from conversations with customers. “Product managers are another vital resource when it comes to [gathering intel on your market](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-collect-and-share-competitive-intelligence-results/). They know a ton about your product, and they know a lot about the competitor's products as well. "When you have a good product manager, they can help you build up motivation, and say, “This is why we're building this into our product because we see there's a gap in our competitors’ as well.” “You want to get [sales enablement](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/which-teams-create-sales-enablement-assets/) on board too. At Imperva, we have an amazingsales enablement team. Amy McCormick, who runs the org, is awesome. She gets competitive intelligence, and she’s a valuable partner. "When we do weekly [sales enablement sessions](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/unlock-your-reps-potential-with-sales-enablement-sessions/), I can be there to talk about how we're using competitive intelligence and building support. People raise their hands and say, “This is helpful. I love this,” so you get this crowd momentum.” ****Q: Who has been the toughest nut to crack in terms of getting them to come over to your view of competitive intelligence?** A: “I don't think it's one group in particular, but sometimes change is hard. If someone has relied for years on a certain battle card or certain competitive features, trying to change that can be difficult. "It's about [communicating with your internal teams](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-importance-of-internal-communication-plus-how-to-crush-it/) and showing them why we're making a change. A lot of times people just want to be heard and to understand.” ## **Tools and tips for engaging all your key stakeholders in competitive intelligence** ****Q: How do you go about raising awareness of competitive intelligence and incorporating it into those other teams’ daily practices?** A: “Having those weekly [sales enablement sessions](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-improve-sales-team-training-sessions/) has been great. Being involved right from the start is key too, so when a new rep comes in, that intel is already right in front of them. “Slack is a great tool too. One of the first things I realized when I came into Imperva was that we didn’t have a competitive intelligence Slack channel, so I created one. Now it's one of the most popular channels, and it’s great because I'm not the only one answering questions. I'm crowdsourcing intel, which is so much better. “The Slack channel is helping people become knowledge experts as well. If a question goes up in the chat, I can tag someone who knows the product very well because they’ll be able to give a great answer. It boosts them by putting them in the company spotlight.” ****Q: What other types of tools are you using to engage with a broader group of stakeholders with CI? Have you been able to get CI into your CRM and sales enablement tools?** “Absolutely. One of the first things I said when I came in is that I want competitive intelligence to be wherever you are. If you're in Salesforce, I want you to see competitor information there. If you're in Guru, which is our sales content platform, I want you to find CI content there. “That being said, having a central place for competitor intelligence is key because everyone has so much on their plates; if they can go to one place and see the most up-to-date intelligence, it hands-down shows the value of the competitive intelligence program.” ****Q: What methods do you use to gauge people's understanding of the** [****messaging**](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-ensure-messaging-is-utilized-across-an-organization/) **that you're putting out?** “I use team calls and I go on management calls to find out what people are asking for. That gives me a gauge of whether or not people understand what I’m putting out there. If they’re asking about a certain point a lot, maybe I need to do another enablement session. Or, if a lot of requests are coming in about a certain competitor, maybe it's time to go out and build some intelligence on them. “The understanding is always gonna be on a curve too. There will be some reps who don't look at the intel and just do their thing, the majority of reps will have about 80% knowledge, and then there are some reps who are almost competitive experts themselves. It's about understanding where the majority of the individuals are. “The ones that I want to get through to are those with only a minimal understanding because competition-wise, you're only as good as your worst rep. "Normally they're actually great reps, but they just haven't grasped the competitive piece, and that's why I'm constantly in their face talking about intelligence so that I get them further up the bell curve.” ****Q: We've been talking a little bit about one-to-one communication. Let’s look at one-to-many. How empowered have you felt to get up in front of the entire organization and talk about your competitors and what they’re up to, and has that helped in building a company-wide culture of competitive intelligence?** A: “Yeah, and I think when you do this, whether it's in a kickoff or a company meeting, you need to understand that there are different levels of expertise in intelligence. "Sales for example, usually have a pretty high level of awareness, but then there are other parts of the organization that may not know our competitors very well. I think giving everyone a market overview or a refresh is great because it gets them all on the same page about why we’re taking certain actions.” ****Q: In a company meeting, where do you slot in, and where do you feel is the right place to either capture people's attention or fit into the context of the conversation?** A: “I think it varies by company. I've been in companies where I would say my piece before the kickoff, so everyone has some competitive intelligence to get them ready for the main event. “There was another time when I was up in the last slot on day three and everyone was like, “Oh, my God, I've been here for how long?” "They just wanted to get out and have cocktails with their friends, so I did competitive intel cocktails – what's better than having a drink and talking about your competitors? It was one of the best kickoffs I've ever done, and it paid dividends because everyone relaxed, we had a great conversation, and people reached out again later on.” ## **Using competitive win-loss analysis to learn from your losses** ****Q: As competitive intelligence professionals, we talk a lot about the notion of competitive** [****win-loss analysis**](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/8-tips-for-effective-win-loss-analysis/) **and learning from your successes and failures. Are they good data points for you?** “Absolutely. I think some of the best data points in CI are from wins and losses. You might lose to a competitor, and I think understanding why is so important. “Learning from your losses is probably one of the most important things you can do as a business, but It’s a difficult conversation to have because no one wants to talk about losses – they’re not something people are thrilled about.” ****Q: So how have you had those difficult conversations?** A: “I think it's about building trust with your sales, being able to say, “I'm here for you” and making sure that whatever they tell you stays between you and them – it doesn't go across the whole organization.” ****Q: How did you get your leadership to buy into competitive win-loss analysis as a method to build CI culture?** A: “I'm lucky because I have an awesome CMO, Julian, and an awesome CRO, Scott. They get the value of CI because they realize that this is how we're gonna get better. Having two amazing executives to help you to build out CI culture is powerful because they can yell, “Here's the budget. Let's make sure it gets done.” ****Q: Let's say for the sake of argument, you were in a different situation, and those two guys didn't understand your point of view. How would you start to influence those leaders if they weren't bought in from the get-go?** A: “I have had that in other organizations, where the leadership were like, “They're my reps, why are you going to talk to them?” "I think it’s all about showing them the value: I'm going to take a little time out of their day to have conversations about why they win and why they lose, so then we can make it repeatable.” ## **Proving the need for competitive intel, even when the wolf isn’t at your door (yet)** ****Q: Is there a way to create a culture of competitive intelligence without existential threats?** A: “Yeah, and it does happen sometimes. Some industries are hyper-competitive, and in some industries, there are not so many competitors. “Actually, a company I worked for a while ago thought they didn’t have any competition so they didn’t need to focus on CI at all. I had to show them, look, we might be OK for now, but in two years we’re going to have a ton of competition and we need to get ahead of that.” ****Q: So you're trying to get people to see a future where the little guys get bigger and suddenly they're a problem?** A: “Absolutely, and sometimes it's not even just the little guys getting big. Sometimes it’s the bigger guys who might decide to muscle in on your market. “You don't know when the competition is going to show up so you always have to plan for the worst and hope for the best. "You have to look at the market and figure out who your friends are, who your enemies are, and who could be an enemy two years down the road. You need to identify those people who are going to be a problem if they wake up one day and decide they want to do what you're doing.” ## **How to improve competitive intelligence** ### **Into the Fray: The Competitive Intelligence Podcast** Competitive intelligence is a fundamental part of product marketing and the wider business landscape. Therefore, you need to know the essentials inside and out. In the [Into the Fray: The Competitive Intelligence Podcast](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/into-the-fray-competitive-intelligence-podcast/), host ****Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon**, explores a variety of key topics with product marketers who’ve refined the competitive intelligence function at their respective organizations, with discussions including: 🔮 The past, present, and future of competitive intelligence 🧱 Building credibility as the owner of a CI program 📝 Short and long-term planning 💰 The ROI of competitive intelligence [Get expert CI advice](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/into-the-fray-competitive-intelligence-podcast/) ### **Competitive Intelligence Certified** [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.190915050.1385419488.1653302783-559979617.1652695309) has been built to help product marketers enhance their knowledge of pivotal areas of CI. Hosted by ****Alex McDonnell, Market Intelligence Lead at Airtable**, [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.190915050.1385419488.1653302783-559979617.1652695309) will teach you how to complete essentials, including how to: ✅ Build a ****tech stack** for competitive intel ✅ Conduct ****win/loss** and primary research ✅ Visualize your ****competitive position** with a market map ✅ Deliver sales and customer success to deliver crisp ****competitive positioning** ✅ Strategically bring CI to the table in ****strategy** and product decisions [Improve your CI credentials](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.190915050.1385419488.1653302783-559979617.1652695309) ### The role of competitive intelligence in product marketing leadership URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-product-marketing/ Last updated: 2022-06-21T15:21:03.000Z The business realm has always been notoriously competitive, with global companies fighting to establish themselves as leaders in their respective fields. Competitive intelligence (CI) serves as a source of crucial information for PMMs, as they seek to identify market rivals, establish potential gaps in the market, and improve pricing strategies, to name a few. In this article, we’ll take a look at the role of CI in product marketing leadership through the results of the ****[State of Product Marketing Leadership report 2022](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-state-of-product-marketing-leadership-report-2022/)**, specifically: - How often do leaders analyze their target and adjacent markets? - How often are indirect competitors being tracked? - Are leaders planning on moving into an adjacent market? - How are leaders differentiating their products? ## **How often do leaders analyze their target market and adjacent markets?** With competition fierce, we wanted to understand how much time product marketing leaders are setting aside to analyze their [target market](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/method-marketing-immersing-yourself-with-your-target-audience/) and adjacent market spaces. ****39.8%** of respondents said they analyze their target market and adjacent market spaces quarterly, more than any other category. Just under one-quarter of leaders ****(23.7%)** said they complete the process monthly, ****21.5%** weekly, while ****10.8%** only analyze their market and adjacent market spaces on an annual basis. A small percentage ****(4.2%)** selected the ‘Other’ option - here’s what they had to say: > “We always analyze our target market and adjacent market spaces - it’s a continual process.” > ****JeriAnn May, Senior Consultant at Maple Marketing Solutions** --- > “We complete the process as needed - mostly bi-annually.” > ****Sophie Bussell Cheng, Senior Director of Product Marketing at ZoomInfo** --- > “The process is completed on an ad-hoc basis, less than annually.” > ****Zachary Fox, Senior Director, Product, Customer & Partner Marketing, & BizDev at RD Station** ![](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/ZxMR4vwgJXZmPU-js7T_Ey_NSx92xAreMtnH8CJS3Da7iDCf8exiME7GWbXdHuB4Zi-77IFz07S_cKwjw_btAT4VWzfFfwBDHpUtEUI0tNO8paSQ33kd8npHVY7QlvJawN_v87VJxHLER-EpyA) ## **How often are indirect competitors being tracked?** Coke vs Pepsi, Spotify vs Apple Music, Chevrolet vs Ford - the market is *full* of direct competitors offering similar products or services within a target market. But is enough attention being given to *indirect* competitors? I.e. products that are in a different category entirely, but may be seen as an alternative purchase choice? While an indirect competitor may not offer direct competition now, it could develop into a direct competitor shortly. Most of the leaders ****(33.3%)** saidthey keep track of indirect competitors every month. > “Both this result and the one that speaks to target/adjacent markets align with the growing need within mid-market and enterprise companies to maintain a broader view of their competitive landscape. > “High-growth organizations can no longer be concerned about only their direct competition—they need to keep an eye on those aspirational companies who may veer into their lane by expanding their product line or come further down-market. Or they need to pay attention to where there may be market opportunities that they themselves can take advantage of. > [competitive intelligence](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/competitive-intelligence-101/) > ****Erik Mansur, VP of Product Marketing at Crayon** ![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/cW5qr1h6Od6AIUrryiAaamCE_lc6sQCZT_I95VfsSJT52WkgFJJEsPVKtK1w_phrwcc8UuE-ypUpZ3Sow7vKmHAnXuuetw6xU02rTQW_V2Z6sqwCmuYLRIr2-AL1VDLuLCQiO3X_c7v7b1diBw) ## **Are leaders planning on moving into an adjacent market?** When we asked those occupying leadership roles if they plan to move into an adjacent market in the near future: ****54.8%** answered ‘Yes’; ****45.2%** answered ‘No’. ![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/7kAmYOjHv4Ev6BRW_b7Z3iYhWUVKctMVEmvDFKv6RbbygJMuuqMGUXL8AlsuSWPDmcKpXTTNpvrYSBXBKk2ltPpxjAidi9NrFilDNGPm5Hvs39AA3MieNsa1XHadRB90LQ1pCM4NP9sAICitaQ) ## **How are leaders differentiating their products?** Customers are attracted to products that are different and stand out in a competitive market. With [communication](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/the-importance-of-internal-communication-plus-how-to-crush-it/) essential to product success, we asked leaders about their processes for [differentiating their products](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-differentiate-when-you-arent-different/) from their competitors. > “Our company focuses on connected TV advertising alongside our independence from media sales to foster interoperability with leading publishers and partners in the space.” > ****Laura Foster, VP of Product Marketing at Innovid** --- > “Our differentiation lies with our platform-based approach.” > ****Vijay Sarathi Cherukuri, Associate Director of Product Marketing at Innovacer** --- > “We use our technology (crawlers), unlike our competitors who often buy third-party data.” > ****Igor Kranjcec, Head of Marketing at Mediatoolkit** --- > “By identifying the entire API lifecycle, we can clearly articulate that Stoplight fits at the very beginning. On the other hand, market alternatives start in the middle of the lifecycle.” > ****Anna Daugherty, Product Marketing Manager at Stoplight** --- > “We look at the difference between the types of customers we have vs. the types of customers our competitors have. Then, we complete a big deep dive into our differentiators. When we go up against a competitor in a deal, we try to pair a few or more of our differentiators to each competitor's weak spot.” > ****Erin Lewis, Director of Product Marketing at Intellum** --- > [messaging](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/how-to-ensure-messaging-is-utilized-across-an-organization/) > ****Karen Crowley, Director of Solutions Marketing at Deep Instinct** --- > “We focus on macro-level arguments pertaining to our product offering as a whole and its unique ability to solve customer problems, as well as the extras we offer outside of the product specifications.” > ****Lara Dobson, Head of Product Marketing at Staffbase** --- > “Our products are part of a complete solution/ecosystem where the client can solve all issues in the same platform. We provide an all-digital solution and offer great customer support.” > ****Renata Zanquetta, Product Marketing Lead at Creditas** ## **Optimize your competitive intelligence** We have a plethora of different resources you can you to help take your competitive intelligence skills to the next level. ### **Competitive Intelligence Certified: Masters** With the help of ****Alex McDonnell, Market Intelligence Lead at Airbase**, we have created a [****Competitive Intelligence Certified: Masters**](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.76710421.1601187126.1643709923-1003886437.1633208572) course, designed to go even deeper into equipping you with essential CI skills. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to: ✅ Build a ****tech stack** for competitive intel. ✅ Conduct ****win/loss** and primary research. ✅ Visualize your ****competitive position** with a market map. ✅ Enable sales and customer success to deliver crisp ****competitive positioning.** ✅ Bring CI to the table in ****strategy** and product decisions. [Get CI Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.76710421.1601187126.1643709923-1003886437.1633208572) --- ### **Head-to-head: The competitive intelligence playbook** [****Head-to-Head: The Competitive Intelligence Playbook**](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/head-to-head-the-competitive-intelligence-playbook/) has been designed to equip you with the knowledge you need to build and refine your competitive intelligence (CI) strategy, and ultimately win your market. Get your copy of the long-awaited CI playbook and receive: 📈 Six in-depth steps that’ll push boundaries and drive you towards CI success. 🧠 Valuable and actionable advice from industry experts from the likes of ClickUp, Airtable, and Atlassian. 🔥 Key tips and tricks that’ll make even the toughest parts of the CI strategy clear and manageable. 🧑‍💻 Free useful templates to take your approach to the next level. [Download the playbook](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/head-to-head-the-competitive-intelligence-playbook/) --- ### **The State of Competitive Enablement report** Discover pivotal insights into how product marketers implement and handle their competitive enablement (CE) approach, especially when enabling revenue teams. [****The State of Competitive Enablement report**](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/state-of-competitive-enablement-2022/) contains data from PMMs worldwide and has invaluable advice from leading experts from the likes of Klue, Highspot, Adjust, Legit Security, and more. We've asked a vast range of competitive enablement questions, analyzed the data, and delivered an eye-opening report filled to the brim with CE intel, focusing on the following topics: 📈 Growth of competition 💻 Remote working 📝 Increased buyer education ✅ Impact of change on PMMs 🤐 Enablement difficulties 💰Proof of ROI [Get your copy](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/state-of-competitive-enablement-2022/) --- ### **The Competitive Intelligence Summit** On June 8, 2022, join 20+ CI experts as they lead over ten action-led talks in one event laser-focused on competitive intelligence. Listen to expert speakers for keynotes, panels, fireside chats, and OnDemand content, network with like-minded peers, and leave with new actionable strategies to implement. [Grab your free pass](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/competitive-intelligence-summit-online-june-8-2022/) ### Common challenges when gathering competitive intelligence URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/competitive-intelligence-challenges/ Last updated: 2022-06-28T16:26:34.000Z Sports fans: when your favorite team hits a rich vein of form, winning week after week, and can’t put a foot wrong, you love them - right? Even that big-money summer signing who hasn’t quite set your pulse racing. 😒 But what happens when the wins dry up, and your beloved club couldn’t buy a *draw*, let alone a *win*? Then, things get tricky, and patience can become fraught. The same principle applies to competitive intelligence; when things are going well and the results are paying dividends, product marketers are very quick to sing its praises (and rightfully so, we might add!) However, as is the case with the very best sports teams, there are sometimes challenges that rear their head - tribulations tough enough to test the hardest of product marketers. Problems aren't uncommon when gathering competitive intelligence (hence, why we treated you to 30 CI tips 😉). After all, as the saying goes: “anything worth having, doesn’t come easy”, and believe us when we say competitive intelligence can be worth its weight in gold. --- ## **Why is gathering competitive intelligence useful?** Competitive intelligence is useful because it gives PMMs an understanding of the activity of market rivals. These insights can be used as a preventative measure against making the same mistakes as other companies. Let’s take a look at the fast-food industry to bring this to life. In the late 1990s, hamburger chain McDonald's introduced the McHotdog to its menu, with the surprise addition capturing the attention of fast-food competitors, as well as their customer base. ![McDonald's McHotdog is an example of why competitive intelligence can help businesses avoid unnecessary mistakes.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2021/02/McHotDog--1-.png) In theory, it was a masterstroke: how many burger chains also gave their customers the option of buying a hotdog instead? In reality, however, the McHotdog bombed - badly. So much so, even a seasonal release in 2002 couldn’t add some juice into the dead dog of the nineties. The point of this food-themed anecdote? We 100% guarantee McDonald's rivals' would’ve been watching proceedings like hawks; any sign of success and they’d be releasing their own version before you could say *ketchup and mustard*. Competitive intelligence in this instance saved other brands time, money, (and their pride). McDonald's took the hit, and life moved on. Gathering competitive intelligence can also do wonders for your pricing strategy, as it gives you an idea of how much your direct and indirect competitors are charging your targeted customers. Let’s move away from the fast-food analogy and sink our teeth into the gaming industry to put more meat on the bones. Since Microsoft released its first XBOX console in 2001, the company has been vying for gamers' attention with Sony, manufacturers of the hugely popular Sony Playstation. ![The rival between Sony and Microsoft highlights how pricing strategies are shaped by competitive intelligence.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2021/02/ps5-xbox-series-x--1-.png) In 2020, both companies released their new consoles, the Playstation 5, and XBOX Series X. In the build-up to the launch, Microsoft opted to make its anything pricing public first, no doubt in a bid to stave off competition and gain the upper hand in the build-up to the festive shopping season. However, in blinking first, Microsoft left themselves wide open in the pricing stakes. Sony’s response? They matched the cost of the XBOX Series X. After all, the hard work had been done for them - it’s a textbook example of an instance when gathering competitive intelligence pays dividends. The rest, as they say, is history. 🎮 --- ## **Competitive intelligence challenges** Anything worth having doesn’t land in our lap; there are always challenges you need to overcome to reap the rewards. Competitive intelligence falls under this umbrella. Product marketers can sometimes be faced with challenges en route to unlocking CI’s undoubted benefits. So, what exactly are some of the obstacles faced by members of the PMM community? > *“At my company, there aren’t enough resources. I’m the only PMM.”* > *“There are a few areas I’m struggling with. I find it difficult to complete an apples to apples comparison, while it’s also tough to find pricing, hard to distinguish what a company does from their marketing hype.”* > *“It’s difficult to keep every single piece of intel up-to-date.”* > *“The market we're serving is still light years behind in terms of IT usage. Which makes looking up info that much more complicated.”* > *“We have no standard framework to work with.”* > *“We operate in a highly competitive space, in which buyers have traditionally been more focused on functionality rather than value. The biggest challenge we've had is getting our sellers onboard in selling value and solution over functionality, by trying to equip them with the value differentiators our product has over our competition.”* > *“Our industry doesn't have a ‘free trial’ standard, so it makes it hard for us to try the competitive product. We must rely on their customer reviews and other second-hand intel.”* > *“So much vital information is gated. Therefore, it’s time-consuming to collect and very reliant on customers. We don't have a competitor intel platform that can collect information for us.”* > *“We struggle with focus and prioritization. Most of the players in our space are not competition. Our offerings are not comparable and our target customers are not the same. We mistake everyone in the industry as potential competition."* > *“We have no budget and insufficient time to do it all manually. There are so many internal requirements for different information.”* > *“There’s a lack of information available, and sales are overly focused on feature comparisons versus product positioning, which is far more important.”* > *“There’s never enough time to communicate information with other departments.”* > *“Private companies don’t disclose their financials, so it’s hard to get an insight into their performance.”* > *“We struggle to get enough information about competitors’ marketing strategies.”* > *“Some companies describe their services inaccurately and misrepresent their solutions.”* > *“We don’t have dedicated resources for competitive intelligence, so it’s often deprioritized.”* > *“Our team's biggest challenge is choosing when to communicate an update to other teams. We keep our competitor pages up-to-date as we come across new content, and we work to reevaluate our product positioning each quarter. But that rarely aligns with the timing that various sales teams need updated information.* > *“If they have similar alerts set up or if they're asked about a recent update while out in the market, they can sometimes be caught off guard if they haven't checked in on the latest comp intel. Keeping internal teams aware of the latest information is our biggest challenge.”* > *“In the AdTech industry, your competitors can be your frenemies. So it is sometimes difficult to pick out your exact competitors.”* > *“There are too many methods and tools you need to apply to gather the same information.”* > *“Most products in our domain don’t have a trial option. We need to book a demo to see the product, so the only information is what we get from the websites or customers.”* > *“We have to handle a large volume of information, and try to make sense of what matters.”* > *“Timeliness and predicting what competitors will do next, and understanding their long term strategy and focus, is challenging.”* Remember, we’ve highlighted these challenges to make sure you can do everything in your power to negate the same issues. There are a string of competitive intelligence tools available that can help you and other product marketers execute the process with precision. Add to that, with reports such as our very own Competitive Intelligence Trends 2020 out there for public consumption, there’s a berth of information geared towards educating PMMs about the topic. The more you know, the better you’ll perform, so if you haven't read it already, get your copy and dive in. 📖 --- ## **Competitive intelligence tips** Sometimes, the best way to overcome competitive intelligence challenges is to gather advice from people who’ve been there, done it, and got the t-shirt. So, as part of the Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2021, we asked product marketers well-versed in the art of competitive intelligence for their top tips on how to get the job done with aplomb - here’s what they said: ****NB:** Job titles were correct at the time of writing. > “Collaborate with all the other departments who have access to vital information.” ****Karen Bamford, Director of Product Marketing at Zivver** > “Start with understanding why someone bought your product instead of the product offered by the competition.” ****Aastha Trivedi, Senior Product Marketing Manager at VWO** > “Network a lot and up your social listening skills.” ****Jacqueline Basil, Senior Product Marketing Manager at AlgoSec** > “Everyone in the company is very reactive about CI but it requires a level of discipline and practice to turn down the temperature on it.” ****Julian Dunn, Director of Product Marketing at PagerDuty** > win/loss analysis ****Sara Kingsley, Director of Product Marketing at Securonix** > “Do not overlook true social listening, even in B2B.” ****Davin Galbraith, Head of Competitive Intelligence at Sprinklr** > “Use your tech stack to gather market signals from the competition.” ****Anaud Ganpaul, Director of Product Marketing at Achievers** > “Competitive intelligence is one of the most important aspects of sales enablement. You might want to pay special attention to it - networking with the product dev and sales teams is the best way to know the product innovations of your competitors.” ****Suchismita Roy, Senior Product Marketing Manager at SWZD** > “Take marketing material with a grain of salt. Unless you see their product in action, don't believe the hype.” ****Katy Martin, Product Marketing Manager at Lacework** > “Gain executive leadership sponsorship of top competitors and priorities.” ****Jason Gaudreau, Business Intelligence Analyst at NetApp** > “Integrate competitive intelligence into your day-to-day through automation as best as possible.” ****Fiona Finn, Director of Product Marketing at Unbounce** > “I think competitive intel is just as much about understanding what customers value as it is about knowing what the competitor does. You might identify a product gap with your tool vs your competitors, but understanding what needs this fills for the customer is essential.” ****Brittany Gaither, Product Marketing Manager at Benchling** > “It is really easy to get caught in a feature parity race, especially if you're not the leader in your space. But hold fast to what you offer to your customers and focus your competitive research on understanding what will make you better instead of more similar to your competitors.” ****Jessica Muñoz, VP of Product Marketing at Liveintent** > “If you're in the B2B space and struggling to find pricing, don't forget to check government supplier directories, which (depending on your country) have to be made public.” ****Matt Salter, Product Marketing Manager at photoSentinel** > “Checking job descriptions can be a great resource for what a competitor is planning to do as well as backend platforms that they may use.” ****Marrika Zapiler, Director of Product Marketing at Audacy** > Collaborate across the organization ****Dee Houchen, VP of Product Marketing at Signavio** > “Getting the information is not the #1 challenge. Rather, it is getting the insights to the people respective and getting the information read.” ****Jan-Eike Rosenthal, Product Marketing Manager at COYO** > Start a Slack channel ****Andrew McCotter-Bicknell, (People) Manager of Product Marketing at ZoomInfo** > “Lean on everyone within the org. ProdMar is a primary R&R for competitive intelligence but everyone can contribute.” ****Katie Tankersley, (People) Manager of Product Marketing at Outbrain** > “If the market is overcrowded, align your main efforts to monitor your main competitors in the space you want to emerge and the one considered by your mid-market customers (80-20 rule) so you can see the emerging trends and ensure you’re not getting lost in the data noise.” ****Silvia Kiely-Frucci, Director of Product Marketing at Castor** > “Use your prospects! They have more info on your competitors and will be happy to share things like pricing insights because it helps them get a better deal.” ****Jada Gale, Product Marketing Manager at FreeWill** > “Prioritize your attention to who you compete with most. There is likely a small handful of your competitive space that make up the majority of your competitive sales scenarios. Spend the majority of your time on those. > “If you can understand how you differentiate against who you compete against most, you'll have a better understanding of how you differentiate as the market evolves and new threats emerge.” ****Matt Powell, Product Marketing Manager at Docebo** > product demos free trials ****Mitch Comstock, Product Marketing Manager at LeadIQ** > “Don't focus so much on competition that you lose the plot on what made you unique in the first place.” ****Alicia Carney, Head of Product Marketing at Lune** > “Focus on the issues that will help your leaders make the important decisions and deliver differentiated value to your customers.” ****August Jackson, Director of Product Marketing at Deltek** > “Read their blog and social media posts. It's often enough to keep aware of what they're adding, where they're headed, and how you can differentiate yourselves.” ****Sai Anand, Product Marketing Manager at Zoho Corporation** > “Create a competitor map and focus on your core competitors to cut out the noise generated by those who don't pose a direct threat to the business.” ****Jamie Wallis, Product Marketing Manager at Gearset** > “Stay on top of competition based not only on products but importantly on their financial standing and quarterly earnings calls and reports, leadership changes and Intel on the key leaders and their past success strategies at other companies and news and events and interviews that reveal their vision.” ****Seema Kathuria, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Duo Security** --- ## **How to identify your competitors** If you don’t know who your competitors are, you’ll find yourself adding your own struggles to the list above. Gathering competitive intelligence is a fun part of product marketing - after all, do your friends get paid to spy on and outwit other companies? No. Didn't think so. Here’s how you can start the process by identifying direct and indirect competitors. 👇 ### **Direct and indirect competitors** First and foremost, you need to know who your direct and indirect competitors are. Direct competitors are businesses that offer the same services as you, while indirect competitors may not offer the same services, but the services on the table will be very similar. Think McDonald's and KFC. Both are fast food restaurants, but while one is known for chicken, the other dishes up trademark hamburgers - they’re indirect competitors. ### **Scope the market** You’ve earmarked the competition - awesome. Now, it’s time to familiarise yourself with their products. Leave no page unturned: check out pricing, features, specs - everything they do, you wanna know it. Ask yourself: - How are the products distributed? - Which methods are used to differentiate products from competitors? - Does the company offer a budget or costly product? - What’s their market share? - What are the main needs and characteristics of their customers? - Does their online pricing differ from their pricing in-store? ### **Identify their marketing methods** Marketing makes the world of consumerism turn around - and you wanna bring your competitors' world to a grinding halt. There’s no such thing as being too inquisitive when it comes to competitive intelligence, so when you’re mapping our marketing, make sure you can confidently answer these questions: - Do they publish regular blog content? - Do they favor graphics, such as infographics, to communicate with their audience? - What advertising campaigns are being used? - Is there an FAQ section for customers? - PMA has two podcasts: Product Marketing Life and Product Marketing Insider; do they upload a downloadable podcast? - Do they have videos, webinars, and articles? Also, don’t neglect the importance of sales tactics, content strategies, preferred social media platforms, and marketing methods. --- ## **Competitive intelligence tools** With so much on the line when it comes to conducting competitive intelligence, the slightest error can create opportunities for your rivals to benefit at your expense. As highlighted in the Product Marketing Tools of Choice, there are plenty of competitive intelligence tools available to prevent this. The majority of respondents from the Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2021 identified ****Klue** and ****Google** as their preferred options, while ****Crayon** also emerged as a go-to option. A small proportion of respondents also said they prefer to conduct their work manually. ![The majority of respondents from the Competitive Intelligence Trends Report 2021 identified Klue and Google as their preferred options, while Crayon also emerged as a go-to option.](https://www.productmarketingalliance.com/content/images/2022/06/Top-10-competitive-intelligence-tools.png) We’ve said it before, and we’re going to say it for the umpteenth time: competitive intelligence isn’t a piece of cake. That said, it isn’t impossible, by any means. Heed our advice, plan meticulously, and you’ll reap the rewards. Now, go snoop. 👀 ### **Don't want the CI learning to stop? We've got a course for that.** Face competition with confidence. Cut through the noise. Get [Competitive Intelligence Certified](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.133266894.1391032827.1654545101-559979617.1652695309). [Enhance your sales](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/competitive-intelligence-certified?%5Fga=2.133266894.1391032827.1654545101-559979617.1652695309) ### Win against competitors by knowing your customers URL: https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/know-your-customers/ Last updated: 2024-04-26T10:19:08.000Z > *“Anytime you find someone more successful than you are, especially when you’re both engaged in the same business – you know they’re doing something that you aren’t.”* **\- Malcolm X** Business competition can be fierce, especially in fast-moving markets where customers often shop around. Competitors are not always there to pull you down the ladder, but to serve as a dynamic tool to help you evolve as a business, and it can prove to be a constructive teacher to improve your business strategies. Here are ten steps you can use to keep ahead of your competition and bolster your competitive intelligence to strengthen your product marketing strategy. ## **Know your customers** Most product marketers know their customers’ purchasing patterns, which is certainly helpful to track. But there is so much more information you can use to continue refining your marketing plans. By knowing your customers, you can build a relationship between them and your company, extending the customer lifecycle beyond only a couple of purchases, reducing churn, and boosting customer retention. Customer expectations can change dramatically, so find out what matters to your customers now - is it lower product price? A more premium service? Product feature updates? Another great tip is to comb through the comments section in your competitors’ websites and social media pages to get to know their audience better. Here you’ll find golden nuggets of information about your shared audience that can help evolve your own approach. ## **Know your competition** In order to stand out in your market, you need to know who your competition is and what they are doing vs. what you are doing. And it is most important to begin by examining the marketplace. First, take a hard look at the things your competitor DOES do and ask yourself: - Does that company have intimate conversations with customers that lead to conversions? - Do they have a unique angle to tell their story from? - Are they providing a solution for customers that you aren’t? Second, look to see what your competitor DOESN’T do, and then try to fill in that part of the market. This will help you identify the areas you need to compete in and give you a platform for differentiating yourself. Knowing your competition like the back of your hand should be a priority and if you don’t know, **start learning today**. Learning your [direct and indirect competitor’s](https://www.competitiveintelligencealliance.io/what-is-indirect-competition-examples/) products and services isn’t about stealing their ideas, but instead knowing what you are up against. It’s important to pay attention to what is working for them – and what isn't. You can gain some insight and ideas of how to improve upon your own product or service by looking at what they provide and how popular it is. ## **Differentiate yourself** It’s essential to give your customers good reason to come to you rather than a rival. To provide this reason, you first need to know what differentiates you from your competitors. Once you know this, you can use it to your advantage when competing in the market. This can be achieved by developing a unique selling point (USP) that taps into what your customers *really* want. It should be clear and obvious - no-one should have to ask what makes you different. The goal is to offer something that sets you apart and can be seen as better than your competitors in at least one way. Building solid buyer and/or user personas from the outset can help you shape and steer what you want your USPs to be. Maybe you are cheaper, or you offer more value, or you provide a different service. Either way, you need to have that one thing that sets you apart. You can also be unique in how you market yourself. You have to be if your product or service is exactly the same as your main competitors. Think about ways to market differently and be innovative in how you communicate with your customers so you can stand out that way as well. ## **Perfect your marketing strategy** It is not enough in today’s competitive market to have some business cards, pamphlets, and a generic website. You need to develop your online and offline presence in a way that makes you stand out from the crowd. It’s no good just shouting the same things into background noise - you need your voice to be heard over it. Make more effort to tell people who you are, what you sell, and why they should buy from you. It doesn't have to be expensive – cost-effective promotional ideas include everything from leaflet drops to campaigns on social media. ## **Target new markets** When you have one market locked down, selling into new markets can increase your customer base and spread your risk. This is important in learning how to handle competition in business as new markets can lead to faster and better growth. You should ask: *Are there other potential customers similar to your existing target market? Could you reach a wider audience by selling online or overseas?* Make sure you tailor your offer to each different market segment. This idea goes hand-in-hand with finding something unique about yourself. If there isn’t anything unique in your offerings or abilities, look for an underserved group. The old saying, “the riches are in the niches” applies here. Find something people need and be that. Starbucks didn’t invent coffee but it did brand a lifestyle and coffee-house experience into that cup. To find these target markets, you need to analyze your customer data to determine the typical demographic information of your audience, their geographical location, their spending habits, and other relevant patterns. For a marketing campaign to thrive, it needs to be strategic and highly focused. Hone in on a specific target market for each of your core services or product niches, and develop strategies that cater to each niche individually. ## **Look after your existing customers** The customer is king! As product marketers, we know that but how many of us *really* create strong processes around it? New markets are exciting to enter, and when your company is ready, new markets can lead to a big payoff. However, don’t forget the customers who are already loyal to your company, as they are your competitors' target market. They might have become brand advocates but now the work is in keeping it that way. To begin with, use customer feedback surveys to gather this information. Learn how your competitors offer to support their customers and weigh yourself accordingly to discover the scope of improvement. Customer support and satisfaction is the door to a profitable business as it helps businesses win their customer trust and maintain loyal relationships. One option you have to continue supporting existing customers is product development. Introduce new or better products to existing markets. Continue development on your existing products, like your bestsellers, in order to renew your commitment to current customers to the best of your abilities. Through product development, you can expect to outperform competitors and keep your customers happy. ## **Find and solve customers' pain points** One likely way to beat your competition is to address the needs of your shared target audience better than your competition can. Ask open-ended questions to find exactly what your customers want while using your products or services. Certain trigger questions that identify pain points may be especially effective to ask your customers. These questions include: - What is your company's biggest obstacle to growth? - What is your biggest personal obstacle? - What matters the most to your supervisor? - Which tasks occupy most of your time? - What are your complaints? - What might account for any recent business or customer losses? After you identify a customer's pain points, you can attempt to solve them by discussing their issues using terminology that they use themselves. Once you have a clear picture of the issue, the next step is to ascertain who at their company can solve those pain points and who is authorized to purchase your products and services. ## **Explore partnership opportunities** For businesses, partnership opportunities are very popular right now. Most businesses are reaching out to others in the hopes of tapping into a new market or demographic. These symbiotic relationships help both partners by providing some sort of opportunity that was not otherwise attainable. When considering partnerships, think of what your company needs to succeed more and then act on that opportunity. Starbucks has partnered with Earthwatch since 2001\. One of the goals of this partnership was to introduce Starbucks employees to the scientific research behind coffee beans – benefitting Earthwatch’s goals. Additionally, Starbucks was able to increase employee engagement through this partnership. This partnership helped Starbucks develop its ethical approach to coffee while assisting Earthwatch in spreading sustainable and scientific practices. ## **Set competitive pricing** One of the easiest ways to beat your competition is to offer more affordable pricing. To determine the ideal price point, you need a clear picture of what your competition's goods or services are priced at. Research which competitors offer the best value. Then you need to determine if what you are offering brings more value to the table and thus should be priced higher. However, if beating your competition is your primary pricing concern, opt for a competition-based pricing strategy. Using this strategy, you ignore product costs and consumer demand. Instead, you focus on the existing market rate for your products or services. You then set your price to fall within the range of prices that your competitors offer. The best pricing strategy isn't always about lowering your prices. Since the market is segmented by lower, middle, and upper-tiered customers, you need to figure out which group your audience is and price from there. ### **Want to learn more?** Product marketing is and always will be a customer-centric role. A core part of your job is to value the voice of the customer and advocate for their wants, needs, and pain points. It’s your responsibility to make them feel heard. Therefore, customer marketing is an integral part of what you need to do to ensure that you’re staying true to this. The [Customer Marketing Certified: Masters](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/customer-marketing-certified) course has been designed to give you invaluable, practical insights into streamlining your customer marketing approach so that you can ensure that: - Your customers are happy, - Your products are the best they truly can be, - Your brand reputation is consistently positive, and - That you bring in increased revenue for your organization. So what are you waiting for? [Enroll today](https://certified.productmarketingalliance.com/p/customer-marketing-certified)