Where and how to gather competitive information
Part 2
In the first part of this article series on competitive analysis, we discussed the importance of conducting competitive analysis and what type of information to gather.
In this article, we discuss where and how to get the relevant competitive information.
How to obtain competitive information?
So how does one go about getting information as B2B product manager. There are three main sources.
- Company Sources
- External Sources
- Internal Sources
Company Sources
To gain valuable insights into your competitors’ strategies, start with the company provided sources. Consider the following approaches to gather information about your competitors and uncover valuable product insights:
- Website Analysis: Visit your competitors’ websites and thoroughly examine their product and solution descriptions. Look for customer testimonials that highlight the benefits experienced by them.
Pay attention to the founders’ backgrounds, as this can provide insights into their founding principles and areas of emphasis.
- Demo Videos: Search for demo videos on YouTube, particularly those created by their partners and resellers. These videos are often aimed at attracting business and can provide valuable insights into their product functionality and key selling points.
- Ad Monitoring and Landing Pages: Monitor the ads of your competitors and study their landing pages. Analyze the benefits and value propositions they highlight in their advertisements. By understanding how they position themselves in the market, you can gain insights into their messaging strategy.
- Product Experience and Sales Demos: If feasible and ethical, consider signing up for your competitors’ products or requesting a sales demo. Although engaging with a salesperson may be disingenuous, firsthand product experience or demos can provide valuable insights into their features, user experience, and overall product offering. Use precaution.
- Support Pages and Documentation: Explore the support sections of your competitors’ websites. These sections often contain product tutorials, FAQs, and extensive documentation that openly showcases their product features and capabilities. Extracting insights from these resources can help you understand their product in greater detail.
- Public Company Filings: If your competitor is a public company, examine their publicly available documents such as 10K statements. These filings offer insights into their overall product strategy, concerns they may have, and the direction they are taking with their product offerings.
- Press Releases and Announcements:: Keep track of your competitors’ press releases, especially those related to product announcements or expansions into new industries or geographies. These announcements provide valuable information about their product roadmap, market focus, and strategic directions.
External Sources
In addition to examining internal company sources and company-owned channels, leveraging external sources can provide a wider perspective on your competitors. Consider the following external sources to gather competitive information:
- Peer Review Sites (e.g., G2): Peer review sites offer valuable insights into customer experiences, satisfaction levels, and feedback on your competitors’ products. Platforms like G2 allow users to rate and review software solutions, providing an unbiased view of strengths, weaknesses, and overall performance. Analyzing these reviews can help you understand how your competitors are perceived in the market and identify areas where you can excel.
- Social Media: Social media platforms offer a wealth of information about your competitors. Monitor their social media accounts, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and industry-specific communities or forums such as Quora or Stack Exchange. Pay attention to their engagement with customers, the content they share, and how they respond to inquiries or concerns. This can provide insights into their messaging, customer relationships, and overall brand perception.
- Analyst Reports: Stay updated with reports and insights from industry analysts who specialize in your market or industry. Analyst firms, such as Gartner or Forrester, often provide comprehensive evaluations and comparisons of software solutions. These reports can shed light on your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, market positioning, and potential areas of disruption. Many marketing departments have strong relationships with these analysts who are dedicated to an industry. These analysts can also be a good source of valuable information, provided you know how to work with them.
- Partners and Resellers: Engage with partners and resellers who work with your competitors. They can offer valuable insights into the competitive landscape, customer preferences, and the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors’ products. By building relationships with these external stakeholders, you can gain insider perspectives and potentially uncover new opportunities for collaboration or differentiation.
- Investors: Research your competitors’ funding sources and investors. Press releases, news articles, or publicly available information about their investors can provide insights into their financial backing, growth trajectory, and potential strategic initiatives. Understanding their investor landscape can give you a sense of their perceived market value and future plans.
- Community: Engage with industry communities, user forums, and online communities related to your market or niche. Participating in discussions and observing conversations can offer valuable insights into customers’ pain points, feature requests, and overall satisfaction levels with your competitors’ products. This grassroots knowledge can help shape your product strategy and identify areas where you can provide a superior offering.
- Patents: Conduct a patent search to identify any patents or intellectual property filed by your competitors. This can give you a glimpse into their innovation pipeline, technological advancements, and potential areas of future growth. By understanding their patent portfolio, you can assess their R&D investments and identify areas where they may be gaining a competitive advantage.
You can of course hire a consultant if your budget allows for it. Many large companies hire reputed consulting firms to help with competitive intelligence.
Internal Sources
While external sources provide a broader view of the competitive landscape, internal sources within your organization can offer unique perspectives and firsthand experiences. Tap into the following internal sources to gather valuable competitive information:
- Win-Loss Analysis: Conduct a thorough analysis of your sales wins and losses. Engage with your sales team to understand the factors that contributed to successful deals as well as those that led to lost opportunities. Identify the reasons why customers chose your product over competitors or vice versa. This analysis can provide insights into your unique value proposition, competitive advantages, and areas for improvement.
- Sales Feedback: Regularly gather feedback from your sales team on their interactions with customers during the sales process. Sales representatives are on the front lines, engaging with prospects and customers, and can provide valuable insights into competitive positioning, objections raised by customers, and the features or benefits that resonate most with potential buyers. Establish a feedback loop with the sales team to continuously capture this information.
- Direct Input from Targets and Customers: Actively seek input from your target audience and existing customers through surveys, interviews, or focus groups. Ask questions about their perceptions of your competitors, the factors that influence their purchasing decisions, and areas where they see your product as superior or inferior. This direct feedback can provide valuable insights into your competitive positioning, areas for improvement, and opportunities for differentiation.
- Customer Success and Support Teams: Engage with your customer success and support teams to gather insights from customer interactions. These teams have firsthand knowledge of customer pain points, feature requests, and challenges they face with your product and those of your competitors. If a customer is considering a competitor, this would be the right avenue to dig into the reasons by talking to customers.
Not all sources are important. As a PM you can prioritize the sources that are relevant to your industry and your competitive landscape. Create a system in place so that you can efficiently gather intel on an ongoing basis.
