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Ryan Smith
Eightfold Sr. Director, Product Marketing
AMA: Eightfold Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Ryan Smithon Competitive Positioning
November 28 @ 10:00AM PST
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Eightfold Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Ryan Smith on Competitive Positioning
We will email you Ryan's answers
to these questions after the event in case you can't make it.
Questions must be topic related and not promotional. (250 character limit)
Top Questions
When considering a new initiative, how do you determine what questions to ask your MR team to ensure you are getting the right data to inform your decision?
Where do you typically uncover the most competitive insights? What frameworks do you use to get clarity on the competitive position?
What can we do if there's no Wave or MQ for our category?
Could you share best practice tips for integrating market research into various stages of GTM, from business case justification through to launch readiness and post-launch adoption?
How do you recommend communicating and sharing the competitor analysis with the team/stakeholders?
How do you separate out your competitive positioning for two different plans of your product, while keeping a unified view, if the plans serve different customer segments?
For example - Shopify Plus and Shopify (core)
What are some great examples of bold — yet tasteful — competitive positioning you've seen in the market? How can companies straddle the line without turning it into a game of finger-pointing?
How do you disseminate competitive positioning to your sales team?
What ways do you gather competitive intelligence that are ethical and fair?
What market research do you do to segment your market, understand each segment's needs, and inform the build/buy/partner strategy? And how do you share those insights?
I'm working at a company where we're trying to unlock new industries that we as a company need to have a better understanding of.
How do you enable sales in deals where competitors say they have the same functionality as you, but do not?
What are your top 3 methods for conducting effective competitive research?
How do you access customers for research when an internal stakeholder group is "protective" of their clients?
How do you systematically organize & update your competitive intel when there's so much new information that can flow in every day?
Relying on narrative differentiation is obviously essential when products are essentially the same across you and your competitor set, but it's also a tough thing to do? Any advice?
What metric, goal or KPI can you put on providing competitive intelligence to the company or product teams?
I work in a company that measures the impact of all projects, but admittedly this is a difficult area to track. Would love to any suggestions/thoughts.
How do you perform extensive competitive product research?
I've been tasked with it but I'm missing the mark. This research is for the CEO and Product/Engineering teams who want to know how our tech stacks up in the market. Do you have any tips?
What are the top documents you create when working on Competitive Positioning programs?
What constitutes a competitor, and what is the goal you have in mind when you conduct competitor analysis?
What is your philosophy when it comes to competitors?
How do you stay on top of competitors when it's a crowded market and things are changing every day?
How do you create competitive intel that is really beneficial to sales (i.e. they actually read and use it)?
Brought to you by:
Klue - The Competitive Enablement Platform
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