AMA: Klaviyo Director of Product Marketing, Katie Gerard on Competitive Positioning

The easiest way to differentiate yourself is to have a really innovative product and solid marketing to back it up. My favorite example right now is a Klaviyo customer, Magic Spoon. They make low carb/keto diets for people on a diet but wish they weren't. On their website, they even have a tagline "Hold on to the dream." (The dream of eating sugary cereals guilt free.) They have lots of fun cereal flavors you'd associate with your childhood but they're grain free, low carb, etc. For a certain ma ...Read More

Narrative differentiation is essential no matter what. No product speaks for itself and often comparing features can lead you down a "who wore it better" rabbit hole. Also, research actually shows people remember things better if they're part of a story. So your pitch will be a lot more memorable if your product features support the narrative of how you're going to change a customer's life for the better. When I'm crafting competitive differentiation, I think about: What's the experience I'm sel ...Read More

As a PMM, it can be frustrating to put a lot of work into something and have it sit unused. But I have a lot of empathy for my sales colleagues. Their lives are super busy and they're overwhelmed with information. It makes sense that it's hard to get their attention! When working on competitive intel for a new competitor, here are some action items that will help you to optimize sales engagement: Prioritize the right competitor. Within PMM, we get a lot of one-off requests for comp intel and we ...Read More

I typically think of direct competitors as being other players in the same category of my org that are going after an overlapping share of wallet with an overlapping group of target customers. You may also spend time on your indirect competitors or even substitute products, but you're much less likely to hear about them from your sales team day to day. There are actually a few possible goals of competitor analysis, here are some common ones I've seen in my career so far: Create battlecards and t ...Read More

This is a tricky one and there are definitely some more above and also below board answers. I've known people who have made up fake identities in order to get demos from competitors. If you're not a great actor, here are some other approaches: Ask your customers. You may have a customer you won over from that competitor. Maybe you have a customer who considered your competitor and remembers their pitch. Ask your partners. Your partners often have a pretty good idea of how your shared customers f ...Read More

Competitive positioning is basically a zoomed in version of your overall positioning. If you think of a competitive matrix, your overall positioning puts you on the map. How you're positioned versus a specific competitor zooms into the matrix and describes your exact position relative to this one other specific data point. Also, all positioning is competitive in a world where you have competitors. Not everyone in your company will understand the difference and that's ok. When I think about enabl ...Read More