I have worked at two different companies and we approached it entirely
differently. At the first company, we were far and away the market leader and
defined the space. Here, we almost entirely focus
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Competitive Positioning
1 answer
VP, Product Marketing at Attentive • March 24
What is your philosophy when it comes to competitors?
17 answers
Global Head of PMM and Content Marketing, TIDAL at Square • March 25
The competitive set is defined by your audience, not you. And it changes all the
time. At Square, we compete against anything that enables anyone to participate
in our economy, not just other POS comp
Head of Product Marketing at Notion • February 4
Here is the competitive intelligence mission statement I've used for several
years (repeat from previous post but will add more detail). “Define ourselves
based on problems we solve and value we pro
Global Head of Product Marketing at Eventbrite | Formerly Amazon, Ex-Amex • March 10
Thanks for asking this question. The exercise of defining your competitive set
is a critical, but at times under-emphasized aspect of conducting research.
There are three primary modes for competitive
Head Of Product Marketing at 3Gtms • March 31
Interesting question about how I define "compeititor" in and of itself. I tend
to look at competitors as barriers that keep people from buying the product I'm
selling. Sometimes its a comparable produ
Head of Product Marketing at Ramp | Formerly Zendesk, ThoughtSpot, Oracle • June 23
This one is tricky because I think there's a tendency to want to boil the ocean
and do everything for every competitor. Some combination of market research and
competitive win/loss analysis should hel
Head of Product Marketing at Retool • June 25
I think competitors are important, but developing your own unique perspective of
who you are, what makes you different, and who you serve is 10-100x more
important. A short-ish anecdote: I used to wo
Director, Head of Product Marketing at Webflow • July 14
"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 marke
Director of Product Marketing at Culture Amp • September 24
For smaller teams that may not have a built out CI team or CI PMM it can get
tough to manage competitive research, positioning, creation enablement and
dissemination of assets on top of everything el
Head of Product Marketing, Cisco Meraki at Cisco Meraki | Formerly Tellme Networks, Microsoft, Box, Vera, Scout RFP, and Sisu Data, to name a few. • April 14
My primary philosophy around competitors is a little different than most: focus
80% of your energy on what makes you great as a product or service, and the rest
on what anyone else is doing. I've wo
Vice President Product Marketing at AlertMedia | Formerly TrustRadius, Levelset, Walmart • July 8
There are a few types of competitors to think about: Tier 1: Prime Competition -
Those who compete for the same dollars for a very similar product. You often end
up in feature battles with them and e
Market Intelligence Lead at Airtable • September 21
The goal of our work is to help our company build and express our competitive
differentiation. A competitor is anyone who has a similar value prop for the
same audience. Not necessarily the same solut
Product Marketing at Glassdoor • September 28
In the most simpliest terms, a direct competitor is solving a simliar or same
pain point as you are. One goal in conducting a competitive analysis as part of
your market research is to identify points
Head of Competitive Intelligence at ClickUp • October 19
1. Revenue impact 2. Product innovation I used to only focus on the first point.
That's an important one—and if you have limited bandwidth, I'd recommend you
start there first. These are the vendors
Director of Product Marketing at HubSpot • December 7
This is a great question because: fortune favors the focused. In our world,
there are thousands of SaaS offerings on the market. Many offer competitive
products and capabilities to us. However, only a
Senior Director, Product Marketing at MURAL • February 17
A competitor is anything that can be substituted for the value that your product
offers. Sometimes, that's a product with a very similar feature set. Sometimes,
it's a product that is designed for a d
VP, Product Marketing at Attentive • March 24
'I think a competitor is anyone who is in or adjacent to your space. Said
another way, a competitor is a vendor that can cause confusion or slow down your
sales cycle for some reason. There are a few
15 answers
Vice President Product Marketing at Salesforce • February 6
I like the positioning doc to address your audience need, how do you stand out /
differentiated, what do you provide and white space. For example, if you have
customer need, you can easily come up wit
Operating Partner at Unusual Ventures • February 7
Posted this on another similar question, but on the competitive positioning
point specifically, I think there's a 'turn' in the narrative toward the end of
the story where existing solutions can't sol
Head Of Product Marketing at 3Gtms • March 3
My views on competitive positioning are largely stolen from Andy Raskin. Rather
than repeat that which I've "adopted" from his writing, I'd suggest looking them
up (LinkedIn great place to find a lot
Head of Marketing at LEVEE | Formerly Mezmo, Sauce Labs • April 27
At its most basic, messaging is about answering 3 key prompts: What is the
problem facing the market today? What solution (generally) will help solve this
problem? What does your product do to help
Product Marketing at Glassdoor • June 4
Once you are clear on the value proposition of a product/feature and/or a
positioning statement for the company or product, you are ready to pull together
a messaging framework that your cross-functio
Head of Product Marketing at Ramp | Formerly Zendesk, ThoughtSpot, Oracle • June 23
Competitive research is a critical step before you even start your messaging and
positioning exercise — I see it as an input rather than an output. I have a few
favorite messaging frameworks and usua
Director, Head of Product Marketing at Webflow • July 14
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
Head of Marketing at Instawork • September 2
I borrow from the typical ones mentioned on Sharebird (the box one? mind's
failing me here) and modify them based on what I'm messaging. Re: competitive
positioning, I break it down by 3 segments at
Vice President of Product Marketing at Workato • September 28
There are a few different messaging and persona frameworks I have used for
different purposes. Here are a few of my favorites. Positioning Statement -
this is typically the foundation of any product/
Sr. Director, Product Marketing at Productboard • December 15
There are a lot of great frameworks out there and they all have common elements.
I recommend reviewing a few and customizing to what’s relevant and actionable
for your company. I like to include: our
Vice President Product Marketing at AlertMedia | Formerly TrustRadius, Levelset, Walmart • July 7
I dont think we should ever mention competitors directly in our messaging. Sure,
you can address it directly in response if a prospect brings them up. But
proactively naming competitors puts you in a
Director of Product Marketing at HubSpot • December 7
We develop personas in three degrees depending on the need: lightweight,
qualitative, and quantitative (statistical). Each of these populate a similar
framework: demographic details (job title, geo if
Vice President of Product Marketing at GitLab • 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
VP, Product Marketing at Attentive • March 24
Competitive positioning and messaging have to be one and the same. When you look
at your decks and positioning, you need to do the gut check of "can my
competitors say this" and if yes, change your me
4 answers
VP Global Head of Product Marketing at Shopify • November 17
An example that stands out to me was Steve Jobs’ manifesto on Flash and its
security problems. What was fascinating about it was actually Adobe’s response
to it. They bought full-page ads in newspaper
Director of Product Marketing at HubSpot • December 7
Unsurprisingly, we have some great content on this on our blog. My favorite
example (shared here) is Adidas video which shoes that yes, a runner can sprint
through the desert in Nike shoes -- but a ca
Vice President of Product Marketing at GitLab • January 31
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 c
VP, Product Marketing at Attentive • March 24
I will answer this question the total opposite way that you asked it based on
something I saw this morning. I was making my son a bagel with cream cheese. The
cream cheese had a logo saying "Our cows
I'm about to just call and ask them if they still sell it.
12 answers
Head of Lightroom Product Marketing at Adobe • August 9
I would say it's time to get scrappy! Calling them (or even having a consultant
do so) can be tricky because most companies that are secretive or demo-shy
screen for this. But it's amazing what you ca
Director of Product Marketing at Right Networks • August 9
Capterra is another good review site. Along with YouTube, check out SlideShare
for the same reason, often times there are presentations from conferences etc.
that have been posted. And speakingof
Latam Marketing Manager at ActiveCampaign • January 11
Although @Mary (Shirley) Sheehan and @Mark Officer already posted great answers,
I would like to add two other great sources. 1 ) A source of data is reading
what their employeers are posting on Lin
Head Of Product Marketing at 3Gtms • March 2
Two questions about the lack of public-facing marketing that I think can help
guide the search: 1. Is the lack of public-facing marketing in fact part of
their narrative (secrecy) or marketing inepti
Head of Product Marketing at Ramp | Formerly Zendesk, ThoughtSpot, Oracle • June 23
This is a really great question. For stealth products that are competitive in
your sales cycle, it's worth asking your sales team to try to gather information
from prospects that are evaluating your c
Head of Product Marketing, Cisco Meraki at Cisco Meraki | Formerly Tellme Networks, Microsoft, Box, Vera, Scout RFP, and Sisu Data, to name a few. • April 14
I'll start with the assumption that this isn't a product you can personally go
out and procure on your own. Hands-on is always great. Review sites are good,
and can often generate a list of targets
Head of Competitive Intelligence at ClickUp • October 19
I had one gut reaction when I read this question. "Why isn't there much
public-facing marketing around it?" A few thoughts come to mind: 1. They
discontinued the product (try checking publicly-facin
VP Global Head of Product Marketing at Shopify • November 17
We typically begin by looking at their financial information, social media
channels, and forums like Reddit to get a sense of what their customers are
saying. We sometimes call competitors directly, a
Vice President of Product Marketing at GitLab • February 1
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
Senior Director, Product Marketing at MURAL • February 17
That's definitely a challenge! There are a few things you could try to gain more
insights: Utilize your sales team to ask about a competitor in discussions with
prospects and customers. Hire a third
Co-founder of Grow+Scale at Grow + Scale • February 17
OOOOhhhh I love that question. There are always tracks you just need to start
looking for them. I call this operation Ghost Recon. Play a Secret Shopper -
all of us have some sort of email accou
VP, Product Marketing at Attentive • March 24
Call them! It is all fair game. Going deep on youtube and searching their exec
team is also a great resource. Odds are even if they don't have public content,
the CEO has spoken at a conference at som
7 answers
Head Of Product Marketing at Square • September 15
This is a great question. Overall, product differentiation is key and one of the
roles I really enjoy within PMM is having such a pulse and influence on what
differentiates your product in the market
Market Intelligence Lead at Airtable • September 21
The narrative is a huge part of positioning. That's what frame your product's
actual capabilities and determines which criteria are relevant or irrelevant.
That said, I don't quite accept the view tha
Head of Competitive Intelligence at ClickUp • October 19
Don't use corporate jargon and you're already 90% ahead of everyone else (if I
had a nickel every time I read a company referring to their product as
"industry-leading" or "robust"...). How do your h
Director of Product Marketing at HubSpot • December 7
You can't rely only on the narrative. But a strong one, especially one that
frames up the problem and value you deliver as different / outsized, is critical
to competitive success. But you know what e
Vice President of Product Marketing at GitLab • January 31
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
Senior Director, Product Marketing at MURAL • February 17
Ideally, your narrative should actually be doing the heavy lifting when it comes
to differentiation. Features can easily be copied. As this question states, it
often leads to products being essentiall
VP, Product Marketing at Attentive • March 24
You have to pick something to focus on. Find whatever edge you can and make it
seem like the biggest deal in the world. You can also talk about the sum of the
parts as the narrative. Another appro
8 answers
Head Of Product Marketing at Square • September 15
Some key documents that my teams have implemented for competitive positioning
are starting with data gathering on points such as: key value props, feature
set, target customers, pricing, strengths, cu
Market Intelligence Lead at Airtable • September 21
- Market Map: Overall visual landscape of our competition. Where does everyone
play, where are they moving? - Battlecards: Tells Sales/CS what to say when
delivering competitive positioning to custome
Head of Competitive Intelligence at ClickUp • October 19
There are a few documents that I maintain over time: Competitor product releases
for the Product team (updated monthly) Competitive battlecards for the Sales
team (updated as needed) Win/Loss reporti
VP Global Head of Product Marketing at Shopify • November 17
When we do competitive positioning, we try to take a holistic approach,
examining companies across numerous areas. We put together a general overview
focused on their overall positioning and messagin
Director of Product Marketing at HubSpot • December 7
There are a few rinse and repeat assets that work well for us in competitive.
For products with a significant rep-assisted motion, having competitive
comparison cards helps distill complex products in
Senior Director, Product Marketing at MURAL • February 17
The most important resource for competitive positioning is battle cards. It's
the best summary and most actionable document (or group of documents) that can
drive impact quickly. Some important compon
VP, Product Marketing at Attentive • March 24
I think there are a couple of different docs that I would use, depending on the
audience (internal, external) and the competitor (are you ahead, behind)
INTERNAL resources Feature comparisons "Kille
27 answers
Head of Lightroom Product Marketing at Adobe • September 14
I’ve had the best success with easy to digest “competitive battlecards” for
sales. The simpler, the better. They should give basic company info, pricing,
and how to handle objections. For larger sales
VP of GTM & Strategy at Novi • December 21
This is a little meta, but the best advice I have is to treat your sellers as
your customers. What would you do to try to understand how to get a customer to
use your product? Do some research - via
Director of Product Marketing at jane.app • July 6
Timeliness and accessiblity are also key to providing value to your team.
Providing a list of month-end/ quarter-end killshots speaking to the most
up-to-date intel and positioning you have on focu
Product Marketing Manager at BigCommerce • July 13
Getting sales buy in on what type of information they want early on can be
really helpful (it can also be useful if they change their mind later on).
Starting with a proof of concept then circulating
Senior Principal Product Marketing Manager at Red Hat • July 31
Agree w/ comments above. Easily digestible chunks of data presented in a battle
card format (2 pages) is very effective. Remember to keep it brief and concise
(e.g. 3 bullet points per topic). Ther
Director, Head of Product Marketing at Webflow • July 14
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 c
Director of Product Marketing at Culture Amp • September 24
This is a great question and one that generally takes refinement over time based
on feedback from sales. Here's what you can do to make sure your competitive
intel is beneficial and leveraged by your
Senior Director, Product Marketing at Twilio • December 3
Competitive Battlecards are the best asset for sales but remember to KISS (keep
it stupid simple). Sales are often pressed for time so how can you clearly pick
apart your differentiators (vs the compe
Sr. Director, Product Marketing at Productboard • December 15
Love this question, because if sales doesn’t use your competitive intel then
what’s the point of investing time at the expense of your other competing
priorities. A few things I recommend: Work with
Associate Director Product Marketing, Creator Promotion at Spotify • March 17
When gathering competitive intel, I find the most important thing is to have the
goal for it clearly mapped out. Why does Sales (or product) want the competitive
intel? What will they use it for? If y
Director of Product Marketing, Global Insights Solutions @ Momentive at Momentive (SurveyMonkey) | Formerly SurveyMonkey, Nielsen • March 24
Hah! You kinda answered your own question here. Create competitive intel that is
easy to read and applicable to how Sales will use it! Sales doesn't want a novel
about each competitor. They want high
Head of Product Marketing, Cisco Meraki at Cisco Meraki | Formerly Tellme Networks, Microsoft, Box, Vera, Scout RFP, and Sisu Data, to name a few. • April 13
This is a fun one. An aphorism we could coin here is that "Competitive
battlecards are just like datasheets. Every salesperson desperately wants a new
one, but nobody ever uses them." The challenge
Director of Product Marketing at Indeed • July 29
I first start with really solid positioning, which should clearly identify how
your offering is differentiated from other competitors in the market and lean
into that. Second, I listen and shadow sale
Head Of Product Marketing at Square • September 15
Like any good marketer, it's about knowing your end customer and how they would
like to consume information. All sales teams are different and finding the right
communication methods (format, frequenc
Head of Competitive Intelligence at ClickUp • October 19
Get them involved. Interview them to learn about their encounters with
competitors. Here are things that I regularly ask my sellers. Which competitors
are coming up most in conversations with buyers
Director of Product Marketing at Snow Software • November 17
In my experience, the best way to communicate with sales people is to speak with
them. They are so busy, and I find they don't read emails from PMMs, especially
emails not directed to them personally.
Director of Product Marketing at HubSpot • December 7
Make it snackable. Make it easy to remember. Make it impactful. Show the impact
of reps applying this to amplify awareness and usage. Reps spend their days
diving into a multitude of different busines
Vice President of Product Marketing at GitLab • January 31
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 marke
Senior Director, Product Marketing at MURAL • February 17
One of the key things to consider with any information provided to a sales team
is making sure you answer two questions: Why does it matter? What should they do
with it? When it comes to competitive
Co-founder of Grow+Scale at Grow + Scale • February 20
If you're banking that your sales teams will use your materials then you ask
them first! Start with the top 2-3 sales reps or a sales manager who has a
low-down on the biggest objections and reasons
VP, Product Marketing at Attentive • March 24
I try to use the Pyramid approach to all content. Start with just absolute
essential information, then expand. This way sales reps are able to capture the
exact right amount of information in the most
3 answers
Senior Director, Product Marketing at MURAL • February 17
There's nothing that says gathering intel in standard ways isn't ethical or
fair. There are definitely some tactics that might straddle the line and a few
that go way over the line that should obvious
Co-founder of Grow+Scale at Grow + Scale • February 18
I never thought of checking competitions as immoral or "scammy". I would go and
say that I do like to play detective and spy on the best competitors but that's
simply called gathering intel. If I'm
Principal Product Marketing Manager, IoT at Twilio • March 4
I've gathered competitive intelligence in a few ways: 1) Voice of Customer
interviews (either conducted by myself or a 3rd party) 2) Market analyst reports
3) 3rd party-conducted interviews of ex-empl
11 answers
Vice President Product Marketing / GTM at Wrike • April 10
It depends on the competitive dynamics in your market. Are you the market leader
or a new emerging alternative? What are the important buying factors in your
market and with your buyers? Is price a
Head of Product Marketing at Symphony Talent • October 20
A truly successful pricing and packaging exercise can't be completed in a vacuum
which means competitive positioning must be included in the discussion. The main
reason is that you don't want to creat
Head of Product Marketing, Platform & Commerce at Atlassian • August 5
Your pricing inherently reflects the value of your products, and since
competitive comparisons will inevitably come up in deals, you have to translate
all your competitive research and market understa
Sr. Director, Product Marketing at Productboard • December 15
Positioning (which by definition is competitive positioning since it carves out
a place in the market where you are the clear winner) is your strategy. It
defines who you're for and how you'll win. A
Director of Product Management - Pricing & Packaging, CXP at Twilio | Formerly Narvar, Medallia, Helpshift, Feedzai, Reputation.com • February 25
The truth is most pricing problems aren't pricing problems. In fact, they are
rarely pricing problems. They are just the causal impact of poorly understood
and/or communicated positioning of a product
Head of Product Marketing, Cisco Meraki at Cisco Meraki | Formerly Tellme Networks, Microsoft, Box, Vera, Scout RFP, and Sisu Data, to name a few. • April 14
Pricing and packaging are positioning. They're the most concrete way you are
defining the value and TCO of your solution relative to the pain a customer is
feeling. But it's important to remember that
Senior Director of Product Marketing at Drift • May 4
They go hand in hand. You need to keep a pulse on your competitors pricing &
packaging so that you can adjust or create promos/spiffs to support your sales
team when needed. That said, you don't b
Product Marketing Lead - Spend Management at Brex | Formerly Klaviyo, Square, Intuit, PepsiCo, Heineken, Mondelez • October 26
Your pricing and packaging are components of your competitive positioning - the
way you group features or the value metric you use to charge a SaaS fee helps
frame your offering to your target audienc
Director of Pricing & Packaging Strategy at Gong • November 11
Really depends where you stack up in the competitive ranking. Let's say there
are three products: Mercedes, Toyota, Pontiac. The price reflects the package.
That's why Mercedes are $50k and Toyotas
Co-founder of Grow+Scale at Grow + Scale • March 8
Pricing will be one of the elements of how your brand is perceived. Priced low
- you might be thought of as an early-stage startup who doesn't have
product/market fit yet or isn't confident in their