Competitor Analysis
A key area of Product Marketing that not only enables an understanding of product positioning, but provides insight into viable markets to target
Read a research report I prepared and wrote, dissecting a SaaS solutions market position through the analysis of competitors, software complexity brackets, pricing, and more.
Competitor Type Analysis
Traditionally, competitors may be broken down into 5 categories:
Direct Competitors that offer what we offer, the same way we offer it, and to the same customers / market we target
Category Competitors that solve the same problems as we do, but might include their solution within a roster of products outside our target; or offered to a completely different market (in a different way)
Substitute Competitors that sell a product or service that differs both in category and technology type, but one which our customers might choose to spend their money on instead
Budget Competitors that offer different products than us, but take the budget that would have typically been slotted for our solution
Organizational Competitors that have established favorable (and sustainable) customer relationships through sales and/or networking efforts
By breaking down our competitors in this way, we are able to identify patterns which may expedite business decisions. As an example, if a product has little to no Direct competitors, yet an abundance of Category competitors focused on a different market, it might signal that the market it's targeting does not exist; and approaching the market targeted by these competitors might be a viable option.
Battle Cards
By summarizing each competitor with information that's updated regularly, concerning positioning, pricing, and the like, we're able to build our own corporate intuition of the competitive space and arm our sales team to ensure our win-rate increases from focused product value.
Last updated