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Dave Steer

AMA: GitLab Vice President of Product Marketing, Dave Steer on Competitive Positioning

January 31 @ 11:00AM PST
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GitLab Vice President of Product Marketing, Dave Steer on Competitive Positioning
Top Questions
How do you create competitive intel that is really beneficial to sales (i.e. they actually read and use it)?
Dave Steer
Dave Steer
GitLab Vice President of Product Marketing • January 30
I think of competitive intel like product managers think about their product.  The first step is to listen to your stakeholders (or internal customers) from sales, product, customer success and marketing to understand what they want and need in competitive intel. What are their gaps in intel? ......Read More
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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.
Dave Steer
Dave Steer
GitLab Vice President of Product Marketing • January 30
Terrific question! A few metrics that are key to competitive intel: Competitive Intel 101 Metrics 1. Sales engagement -- Is your sales team using the competitive content that your team is developing? If you use a sales enablement platform (we use Highspot), getting this data is much easier. Set......Read More
525 Views
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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.
Dave Steer
Dave Steer
GitLab Vice President of Product Marketing • January 31
Be resourceful! Even when there's little public-facing marketing, there's always a ton of other public resources that you can look to. Here are a few: 1 - Audit their social media, press coverage, and press releases -- Companies like to talk about their products and the success they are having i......Read More
627 Views
4 requests
What messaging and persona framework do you use and how much of competitive positioning do you cover in Messaging?
Dave Steer
Dave Steer
GitLab Vice President of Product Marketing • January 31
My team and I use a Message House framework that covers the following elements: * Solution/Product Naming * Tagline * Positioning Statement * Short and Long Descriptions For the Positioning Strategy, we use a modified version of April Dunford's Obviously Awesome positioning canvas. The canv......Read More
4314 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?
Dave Steer
Dave Steer
GitLab Vice President of Product Marketing • January 31
I have a few lenses that I look through for competitive differentiation: 1. The Positioning Canvas -- I mentioned this in an earlier question, but it's worth repeating the effectiveness of April Dunford's Obviously Awesome positioning canvas (must reading for any Product Marketer). With this m......Read More
445 Views
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How do you systematically organize & update your competitive intel when there's so much new information that can flow in every day?
Dave Steer
Dave Steer
GitLab Vice President of Product Marketing • January 31
You're right: competition never stands still. And when you capture competitive information, it's likely that you are seeing the result of what they put into motion weeks, months, or quarters ago.  I've approached the flow of information coming from the competitive landscape differently from co......Read More
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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?
Dave Steer
Dave Steer
GitLab Vice President of Product Marketing • January 30
If you are relying on narrative differentiation alone, then the problem to solve is creating differentiated solutions rather than finding different stories to tell. Use competitive intel as a lever to get product, GTM, and operational strategy. Once you have that in place, you'll have differentia......Read More
335 Views
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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?
Dave Steer
Dave Steer
GitLab Vice President of Product Marketing • January 30
The market is littered with really bad examples of competitive messaging, unfortunately. They usually make their case on technical details that are irrelevant to the prospective customer.  The best competitive positioning doesn't mention competition. After all, why give them air time? Rather, ......Read More
631 Views
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