Competitive insights is often a back burner to launches and other PMM work. Are their tips in prioritizing and making research actionable?

Good question. In my experience, the best way to prioritize competitive insights is to show there's a clear connection between the work and business results. This often comes in the form of improved win rate for the sales team, better messaging for the marketing team, prioritization of product features, and higher ranking in analyst reports, to name just a few.

Something to consider is creating a table in a Google Doc or similar in which you list all the deliverables or types of insights you will be gathering in one column and in the column next to it you identify which areas are impacted and why. For example:

a) Competitive battle cards --> helps sales to better position us in competitive situations and win more deals;

b) Competitive messaging reviews --> assists the marketing team in updating our website and competitive landing pages, also helps the content team in their planning process;

c) Competitor feature take-down --> used by the product team to prioritize roadmap items;

etc...

Prioritizing competitive insights and making research actionable is crucial for product marketing success. Here are some things to keep in mind so your efforts are moving the right needles:

1. Align with Strategic Goals:

   • Ensure that your competitive research aligns with your company's strategic goals and product roadmap. Prioritize insights that directly impact your product's success or market positioning.

2. Regular Cadence:

   • Establish a regular schedule for competitive research. Set aside specific time for it, whether it's weekly, monthly, or quarterly, and stick to the schedule.

3. Define Clear Objectives:

   • Clearly define the objectives of your competitive research. What specific questions or challenges are you trying to address? Having a clear purpose will make it easier to prioritize and act on insights.

4. Segment Competitors:

   • Not all competitors are equally relevant. Segment competitors into primary, secondary, and tertiary categories. Focus more on primary competitors and adjust your efforts accordingly for others.

5. Actionable Insights:

   • Ensure that the insights you gather are actionable. Instead of accumulating a vast amount of data, focus on key takeaways that can drive decision-making.

6. Cross-Functional Collaboration:

   • Work closely with other teams, such as product management, sales, and customer support, to gather insights and ensure that competitive intelligence is a collective effort. Sharing insights with these teams can lead to more actionable results.

7. Use Tools and Technology:

   • Utilize competitive intelligence tools and platforms to automate data collection and analysis. These tools can help you save time and stay up-to-date on your competitors.

8. Create Playbooks:

   • Develop competitive playbooks that outline specific strategies and tactics to counter competitor strengths or exploit their weaknesses. These playbooks can guide your team on how to act on the insights you've gathered.

9. Feedback Loops:

   • Establish feedback loops to continually assess the impact of competitive insights on your product marketing efforts. Monitor how changes influenced by these insights affect your product's performance and adjust your strategy as needed.

10. Executive Support:

    • Seek support from the executive team. When leadership understands the importance of competitive insights, it's easier to prioritize these efforts and allocate resources accordingly.

11. Training and Education:

    • Ensure that your team is well-versed in understanding and using competitive insights effectively. Provide training on how to interpret data and turn it into actionable strategies.

12. KPIs and Metrics:

    • Define key performance indicators (KPIs) that are directly related to your competitive intelligence efforts. Regularly measure these metrics to assess the impact of your actions.

13. Continuous Learning:

    • Stay open to new methodologies and sources for gathering competitive insights. The competitive landscape is constantly evolving, so your approach should adapt accordingly.

Competitive analysis should be a priority in the following environments: 

• When you’re actively losing market share or your win-loss rate is decreasing. 

• When your sales team is struggling and having head-on battles with competitors to win deals. 

• When prospects are asking about the difference between your product and a competitor’s… and your sales team can’t answer it. 

• When your company is looking to expand into a new market and you need to know which competitors may already be in that space. 

• When you’re launching a product or feature... Even light competitive analysis should be part of every launch. Sales people need to be enabled on how the new product or feature compares to existing alternatives on the market.

One of the ways I approach this is to reframe competitive research and intel gathering to be a prioritized part of my "always on" or "evergreen" activities as part of my weekly workflow as a product marketer- much the same as I would think about the process and work around understanding my customer. You run the risk of big blindspots when you cast this aside as a job to be done in service of promoting a launch or creating new positioning. Tactically, there are several ways to take smaller bites on this- setting automated google alerts on competitors, setting a weekly 30-minute slot on your calendar to review competitor websites and marketing materials (and keeping a running deck with notes and changes), or simply working a few competitive questions into your ongoing dialogues with customers, sales or customer success teams.