AMA: Webflow Director, Head of Product Marketing, Vikas Bhagat on Competitive Positioning

Great question and one that really hits home for me since I used to do competitive intel while sitting in the sales organization at Medallia. The best approach I've seen is first identifying the top content needed by the sales team by actually sitting in sales meetings and in front of customers. It's a great way to see where the gaps are in the messaging and content bill of materials that PMM needs to produce for Sales. After getting some first hand knowledge, I typically work with Sales Engineers and Account Executives to build and test the content (1-pagers, demo videos, competitive battle cards). Getting cross functional stakeholders in the Sales org to jump in during the development process of the content is the best way to drive champions within the org. Lastly, find ways to partner with your enablement team to help push out the material in the most sales-friendly channel. This could be through a Slack post, a weekly enablement session or a recorded video. I've also worked with my enablement partners to capture feedback on a rolling basis from the field once content is lanuched. One tool I've loved using to track sales engagement with collateral Is Highspot - the ability to track views, clicks, pitches at the content level really helps highlight which content is resonating the most with the field teams. This also helps with building content that helps drive business impact. 

There are a number of ways to approach customer research pre-launch. At Webflow, we spend a lot of time with our community members to better understand their needs and wants as it relates to our product roadmap and their business needs. Really understanding specific audience segments and the why really helps our product marketing team with better messaging that resonates in the market. I've also been part of organizations where leveraging a cross-functional product beta program with sales, product, and product marketing creates a strong repository of not only customer feedback for product but also a feeling that the customer is part of the product development and launch process. From a marketing perspective, beta programs are a great way to tell customer stories during the actual product launch to amplify the effectiveness and reach of your product launch (I.e. think press, social media, blogs, analyst community, etc.). 

I use a pretty simple framework for messaging - namely, the messaging house. I typically focus on the following sections of the house (top to bottom): Brand prop, product description, customer context (the problem), Needs and wants, 3-5 value props, Benefits & features that address needs and wants(How does it work?) Competitive positioning is a great foundation for supporting messaging. FInding the intersection of the unfair advantages of your product/service and the items your customers' value (I.e. speed, flexibility, security, etc) is a great way to build lasting messaging. 

"Competitor aware, customer obsessed" is something that I've internalized when thinking about competitors. Competitors are a good thing - it validates your space, your product-market fit and the market opportunity. The key is balancing the focus on competitors and the focus on customers. It can be really easy to go down competitive rabbit holes and chase every organization in your space but the best way to prioritize top competitors Is by looking at the impact they are having on your organization's growth (I.e. sales growth, win/loss rates, etc.). I've found attributing dollar amounts of competitors is a great way to drive alignment on focus of competitors. My goal varies but it usually is about education and enablement - really understanding the competitor and being able to build out collateral that will help level the understanding of the competitor across the organization. From there, the goal changes to changes in strategy, messaging, etc (the action taken from competitive intelligence). 

For me, positioning is the statement about why/how your product is unique and why it is better than the competition. Messaging, on the other hand, is how you articulate (the words) the positioning to a specific audience/persona. The positioning your create for your product is really the foundation the messaging is built on. To get buy-in with stakeholders, I really focus on starting wtih the positioning and getting sign-off from leadership on those key statements. Once there is alignment there, the messaging becomes an exercise in iteration and testing. Here is one example of Slack's positioning statement: “Slack is the collaboration hub that brings the right people, information, and tools together to get work done. From Fortune 100 companies to corner markets, millions of people around the world use Slack to connect their teams, unify their systems, and drive their business forward.”

This is a fantastic question! In my experience, for competitive research/marketing, it is critical to spend time with your customers and frontline sales teams. In my previous roles, I've built voice of customer programs to help support quant and qual research. This has come in a number of formats - a win/loss VoC program for enterprise sales deals, an annual customer survey and a churn surey. I've typically used survey tools like Medallia, Qualtrics and Gainsight. The key is being able to build a repository of these insights and operationalize them across the organization so people take action from the customer feedback. Typically, when I've done win/loss surveys, I will send a short survey to the customer (think 3 questions max) with one question asking if it is okay for a 30 minute phone follow up. I'll typically do a more in-depth interview where I can go in to specific questions about product, marketing, sales process and of course, competitors. I think the best VoC programs are the ones that operationalize across an organization. Withr egards to messaging, I've typically used those findings to do messaging audits once a quarter. The other area I've focused on with customer feedback is helping inform our product roadmap strategy and general GTM strategy (I.e. identifying the white space in our messaging, product investment and amplifying our differentiation). 

Great question! I think it all starts with how you approach the conversation with that internal group. Building out a "walking deck" that explains my goals, intentions and the potential program is a great way to lower the fear of other teams. It also helps to bring those stakeholders along the journey as you build out that deck - ask them questions - what do they wish they knew about their customers, what could be improved across product, marketing, sales, etc. Once you can identify the stakeholder group's goals, you can build that into your plan and show an opportunity.

It really depends on the current understanding of that competitive positioning within my sales team. I usually work with Sales Enablement or frontline Sales Managers to create a bill of materials that would help inform the team on competitive positioning. Usually this includes but it varies on who I'm tryin to enable (Account executives, leadership, customer success, technical sales engineers, etc..) * Competitive battlecards * Why we win/why we lose messaging + customer stories * Product differentiation deep dive (in partnership with a Sales/Solutions Engineer) * A competitive training session hosted by the enablement team The key with sharing information with the sales team is always around "how much do they need to know right now and what is actually actionable?" Think framing building collateral and education around those two dimensions is helpful in focusing on the right things in the short, medium and long term. As a PMM, you don't want to get in the business of being just a service organization, especially with competitive work. You want to be seen as a consultant/advisor helping the sales team focusing on real signals vs. the noise in the market. For distribution, I usually leverage tools like Highspot, Slack and Loom.