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AMA: Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions, Daniel Kuperman on Competitive Positioning
June 1 @ 10:00AM PST
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Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions, Daniel Kuperman on Competitive Positioning
Top Questions
Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • June 1
The best advice I can give is to not throw everything including the kitchen sink into a competitive battle card. I've seen competitive intel of 5+ single space pages given to sales teams and you can guess how many people actually read it. When preparing competitive intel for sales, keep in min......Read More
2046 Views
2 requests
How do you obtain competitive intelligence on a competitor's product that has very little public-facing marketing around it?
I'm about to just call and ask them if they still sell it.
Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • June 1
The first source I would go for is your own customers. If you have a CAB (customer advisory board), that's a perfect forum for finding competitor intel. It is likely that your direct competitors are all still marketing to your own customers in hopes of winning them from you. Your customers could ......Read More
1979 Views
3 requests
What's your approach to competitive differentiation?
How does this inform your core messaging, how do you enable sales to understand what makes you different/better, how do you know if it's working with your target buyers?
Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • June 1
Competitive differentiation is, first of all, a positioning exercise that means finding ways to influence the customer's perception of your company and product versus existing alternatives. This means not only what your direct competitors (other vendors) are, but what other ways of getting the cu......Read More
2129 Views
3 requests
Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • June 1
In the traditional B2B Tech world, my experience has been that you need several ways to disseminate your competitive positioning: * Sales battle cards for your field sales teams and channel partners easily reference; * Training sessions to go over key competitive differentiation and review......Read More
2098 Views
2 requests
Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • June 1
1. Talk to customers: they will tell you why they evaluated different vendors and what they liked/disliked about them; 2. Talk to channel partners: they have a deep understanding of the market and the other vendors; 3. Talk to analyst firms: they have seen all the major players and k......Read More
2114 Views
2 requests
How do you get competitive pricing and packaging information from B2B complex sales companies i.e not saas, and with components on hardware, software, business services
Like Industrial automation solutions, including costs for integration
Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • June 1
Most of my experience has been with SaaS but I did work for a software company in the backup and disaster recovery space which had a hardware component as well and so did competitors. In that case, we leveraged our channel partners, who were very familiar with the industry and had previously sold......Read More
1906 Views
2 requests
Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • June 1
If you see different competitors by industry, then yes. At a previous company we realized that when we expanded into different industries (e.g. going from Tech to Healthcare), the competitive landscape changed somewhat. By doing a win/loss analysis we figured out that most deals that we lost, wer......Read More
1897 Views
2 requests
Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • June 1
This is tricky, especially if you are a startup or strapped for cash. I have reached out to people via Linkedin asking for help to validate a specific product or feature and have also seen other companies to the same. If you have the budget, hire an outside market research firm to help with it. A......Read More
2186 Views
2 requests
Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • June 1
We are always looking at the competition and assessing their moves. Having said that, we don't obsess about it. This means there's gotta be a balance between what the market is doing vs what your own plans should be. Too much outside focus and you are just copying and following someone else, but ......Read More
2143 Views
2 requests
Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • June 1
For me the term 'market intelligence' is more broad, signifying not only what your direct competitors are doing but also where the market in general is headed. For example, in a market intelligence report, I would expect to see information about customers' priorities and needs, new technology ent......Read More
2210 Views
2 requests
Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • June 1
The key rule of thumb is to always be truthful. Don't lie about who you work for, your role with the company, and what you are looking for. For example: * When filling out an online web form to download content from a competitor's website, use your real name and business email address. * W......Read More
2250 Views
2 requests
Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • June 1
Good question. In my experience, the best way to prioritize competitive insights is to show there's a clear connection between the work and business results. This often comes in the form of improved win rate for the sales team, better messaging for the marketing team, prioritization of product fe......Read More
2316 Views
2 requests
Daniel Kuperman
Atlassian Head of Core Product Marketing & GTM, ITSM Solutions • June 1
The biggest mistake is to focus on what the competitor does versus what the customer cares about. Don't start with what the competition is doing or not doing, start with what specific customer needs are not being met by the current players, and find better ways to serve them. Another common issu......Read More
2221 Views
2 requests
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