AMA: Clari VP, Solutions Marketing, April Rassa on Competitive Positioning

A few come to mind for me: Notion vs Confluence (Atlassian) & Google docs Notion has positioned itself as a modern, flexible, all-in-one workspace, subtly making Confluence and Google Docs look bloated and fragmented. Instead of directly attacking competitors, Notion uses clean, minimalist messaging like “One tool for your whole team” and “Goodbye, messy docs”, suggesting that traditional document tools create inefficiency. Their UI showcases elegant simplicity, while legacy competitors feel ...Read More

Shift the Battleground: Compete on Outcomes, Not Just Features Competitors can copy what you build, but they can’t easily copy the results your product delivers. Reframe the Narrative Around Business Impact Instead of “We have Feature X”, focus on how it solves the customer’s problem more effectively than any alternative. Example: Weak: “We offer threat intelligence feeds.” Strong: “Organizations using our intelligence reduce threat detection times by 70%, preventing attacks before they escalate ...Read More

Making competitive research actionable requires more than just gathering intelligence—it needs to be prioritized, surfaced at the right moments, and directly tied to revenue-driving decisions. If research sits in a document or is lost in a Slack thread, it won’t influence deals or strategy. The key is ensuring insights are consumable, embedded into workflows, and continuously refined based on usage and impact. One way to make research actionable is to deliver it in the right format for the right ...Read More

Oh I love this question ... lots you can do to pave the way. If there’s no Forrester Wave or Gartner Magic Quadrant (MQ) for your category, that doesn’t mean you’re at a disadvantage—it means you have an opportunity to shape the category narrative on your own terms. Rather than relying on analysts to validate your market, you can build credibility through alternative influence channels, customer proof, and category leadership. Own the Category Definition Yourself Without a Wave or MQ, analysts h ...Read More

Here’s the structured process I’d use: 1. Direct & Indirect Sources Publicly Available Pricing: Check competitor websites, pricing pages, FAQs, and help centers for any disclosed information. Sales & Customer Conversations: Gather insights from sales teams who hear about competitor pricing during deal cycles. Collect customer feedback on pricing objections and comparisons. Competitor Quotes & Proposals: Work with the sales team to collect and anonymize real competitor quotes shared b ...Read More

One of the most common mistakes companies make when trying to differentiate their products is focusing too much on feature comparisons rather than customer outcomes. Companies often build messaging around why their feature set is better than a competitor’s, assuming buyers make decisions based on a checklist. In reality, customers care less about individual features and more about how a product solves their problem more effectively, with less friction, or at a better ROI. Simply having “more AI” ...Read More

Managing competitive intelligence (CI) effectively in a B2B scale-up—especially as the company enters new markets—requires a structured approach that ensures insights are actionable, accessible, and continuously updated. Here’s the most effective way to do it: 1. Establish a Centralized CI Hub Use a dedicated competitive intelligence repository (e.g., Notion, Confluence, Highspot, Crayon, Klue) to store and organize insights. Structure it by competitor profiles, pricing intelligence, win/loss da ...Read More

Market research isn’t a one-time activity—it should be embedded at every stage of your GTM process, from business case justification to launch readiness and post-launch adoption. Each stage requires different research inputs to ensure the product is positioned correctly, meets market needs, and gains traction. Business Case Justification (Validate the market & size the opportunity) At the earliest stage, you need research to validate whether a problem is worth solving, who the ideal customer ...Read More

Yes, dissecting competitors by industry makes sense when their strengths, weaknesses, and traction vary across verticals. Some competitors thrive in highly regulated industries like financial services or healthcare due to compliance and security advantages, while others gain momentum in AI-heavy sectors like retail and media because of their data processing capabilities. For example, Snowflake and Databricks compete broadly in data infrastructure, but Snowflake has a clear edge in financial serv ...Read More

When competitors claim to have the same functionality, the best response isn’t to debate features—it’s to reframe the conversation around business outcomes, execution, and customer impact. Instead of engaging in a checklist war, sales needs to position the solution in a way that makes the competitor’s claims irrelevant. The focus should be on who solves the customer’s problem better, scales with their needs, and delivers measurable value. Rather than responding with "We do it better", sales team ...Read More

When thinking about competitive strategy in a Product-Led Growth (PLG) or self-serve model, the focus shifts from traditional sales-driven differentiation to user experience, product stickiness, and viral adoption. Instead of competing primarily on feature sets or enterprise sales tactics, you’re competing on:- Frictionless onboarding (How quickly can users get value?) - Adoption & retention (How easy is it for users to stay engaged?) - Monetization efficiency (Can free users convert at a hi ...Read More

Competitive positioning is neither just an output of features nor purely a marketing story—it’s the strategic intersection of product differentiation, customer perception, and GTM execution. Features Alone Don’t Create Positioning Problem: Features can be copied.Example: Webex and Microsoft Teams had more features than Zoom, but Zoom won by positioning itself as the fastest, easiest, and most reliable option. Marketing Alone Can’t Manufacture Differentiation Problem: If the product doesn’t deliv ...Read More

Here are some options that I've used: Customer & Market Research Customer Interviews & Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) Research Conduct interviews with customers, prospects, and lost deals to uncover their key pain points and goals. Use the JTBD framework to understand why they seek a solution: It starts with "When I [situation], I want to [goal], so I can [desired outcome]." Example: A revenue leader might say, "When I need to forecast my quarterly revenue, I want to aggregate pipeline data from ...Read More