14 answers
Group Manager, Engagement & Retention Campaigns at Adobe
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 teams, these are a great reference point for them to use on the phone.
The ultimate goal of the battlecards should be for any salesperson - new or experienced - to be able to quickly articulate how you are different from the competition. If it doesn’t meet that goal, you’ve missed the mark.
The design of this is important. I’ve used a Google doc with a grid and also a vertical PPT slide - it depends on what your company is most familiar with. I would try to update these at least once a quarter.
Scrappy tip: If you’re in a pinch for time, use a service like UpWork to do the data entry for you - you create the framework, and they fill in the rest. For 5 competitors it should be no more than $100 if you pick a good freelancer.
Senior Director, Product Marketing at Twilio
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 competitor), give the rep a compelling reason
it matters, and even lay some trap setting questions.
D...more
Director of Product Marketing at Momentive | Formerly SurveyMonkey, Nielsen
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-level bullets
that help them understand how to put their own company in context of that
compet...more
Head of Product Marketing, Cisco Meraki at Cisco | Formerly Tellme Networks, Microsoft, Box, Vera, Scout RFP, and Sisu Data, to name a few.
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 is that most competitive intel and content is boring, too detailed
to use in the moment, hard t...more
Product Marketing at VMware
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). There's a conference in October that is
focused on competitive marketing, including sessions on content ...more
Product Marketing Lead, Creator Promotion at Spotify
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 you start from a clear understanding of how
the intel will help, it is easier to provide useful in...more
Product Marketing Manager at BigCommerce
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 the first battlecard among
sales leadership before you start building out other competitors.
...more
Director, Head of Product Marketing at Webflow
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. ...more
Director of Product Marketing at Culture Amp
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 sales team:
1. Conduct in-depth Win/Loss research - identify the key lost and won reasons
that...more
Sr. Director, Product Marketing at productboard
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 your sales leaders and sales enablement (if you have sales
enablement) to determine the bes...more
VP of Marketing at Builder.io
As with any other sales content, find out how your specific sales team likes to
consume content. This will give you an idea of the format, as well as the
channels in which to share this information. This will also depend on your
company culture.
In my personal experience it's important to do the...more
VP of GTM & Strategy at Novi
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 interviews, observations, surveys,
etc, and learn their workflows, their gaps, their pain points...more
Director of Product Marketing at jane.app
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 focused competitors (maybe
trending that month) is not only going to be acknowledged, but c...more
Founder at DoubleCheck Research
Real time competitive insight direct from buyers. Easy way to collect this
information is via a win/loss interviews. Simply ask questions regarding who
else they considered and why. Dig into areas such as brand, product, sales
experience, pricing, culture. Sales teams always perk up when the data...more
