Sharebird
Sign Up / Sign In
Back to Your Feed
How do you perform extensive competitive product research?
I've been tasked with it but I'm missing the mark. This research is for the CEO and Product/Engineering teams who want to know how our tech stacks up in the market. Do you have any tips?
14 Answers
Hien Phan
Hien Phan
Amplitude Director of Product MarketingOctober 5
Not sure what mark you're missing. But your CEO and product/eng team are probably looking for (1) an overview of the space, where everyone is going (2) highlighting a few players and going deep dive into why they're building it and who they are building for. [I would hire a secret shopper for the......Read More
574 Views
Grant Shirk
Grant Shirk
Cisco Head of Product Marketing, Cisco Campus Network ExperiencesApril 13
I think this one just dropped in. Let's do it live! My gut reaction is: If you're being asked to do "extensive competitive research," something is broken. And you should say no, gracefully. It's very difficult, if not impossible to learn how to win in a market by looking at a competitive produ......Read More
339 Views
Leah Brite
Leah Brite
Gusto Head of Product Marketing, Core ProductSeptember 30
I’d clarify upfront what they are hoping to achieve with the exercise. Is it for internal knowledge? To publish competitive checklists on your website? What will it mean for them to know how your tech stacks up in the market? Clarifying and getting alignment on how the information will be used an......Read More
455 Views
Christiana Rattazzi
Christiana Rattazzi
Okta VP, Industries & Platform Product MarketingNovember 2
The best competitive research I've seen goes beyond the competitor's website, press releases and YouTube videos. They might include competitor customer interviews and tailored sales demos. I've personally worked with great small businesses and consultants who are experts in doing this analysis an......Read More
540 Views
Ambika Aggarwal
Ambika Aggarwal
Culture Amp Director of Product MarketingSeptember 23
This is definitely tricky since getting in-depth product intel requires intimate knowledge about your competitors products. One technique some companies employ is mystery shopping research where you hire a researcher to pose as a buyer, but your organization may have a stance against this type of......Read More
334 Views
Ryan Van Wagoner
Ryan Van Wagoner
Forethought Senior Director, Head of MarketingSeptember 15
My first recommendation would be to make sure you understand exactly what exactly your stakeholders are wanting to know (and why). Are they looking at making product decisions based on this information? Adjusting the pricing? Refining the messaging? Knowing the strategic goals behind the request ......Read More
363 Views
Leandro Margulis
Leandro Margulis
Prove Head of ProductSeptember 7
The definition of "Extensive competitive product research" may be different for different people. I suggest asking the CEO and Product / Engineering teams the kind of questions they are looking to answer. Sometimes the high level market research you can get from a 3rd party will not be enough, an......Read More
299 Views
Amey Kanade
Amey Kanade
Amazon Product Marketing at Fire TV (Smart TVs)February 17
Here are some tips based on my eperience: 1. Keeping up with competitive product research, especially in tech, is hard: The tech space evolves at a rapid pace and your research can become absolute/stale within few weeks. Provide competitive intelligence back to your CEO/Product teams at an agree......Read More
616 Views
Shezana Manji
Shezana Manji
BenchSci VP of MarketingOctober 12
If your'e missing the mark, take a step back. Make sure you have a clear understanding of the business challenge you're trying to solve (why do we need this research, what decisions will it help drive). I will share a tangable example of how we approached "how does our tech stack up" At a previ......Read More
416 Views
Lauren Craigie
Lauren Craigie
Cortex Head of Product MarketingSeptember 14
We all miss the mark here. I'm not even sure I would trust a PMM that says they don't struggle with this! You can stack the deck though, to show that you're exploring every possible avenue:  1. Consider a competitive monitoring solution like Crayon. I've used them in the past and even if they ca......Read More
360 Views
Indy Sen
Indy Sen
Hypergrowth Leader and Product Go-to-Market AdvisorMay 18
There's no silver bullet for this. You want to bake competitive research into everything you do and have your antennae out. The cool thing about product marketing is that done right, you have a unique vantage point. You are the closest members of your team to customer conversastions, product conv......Read More
326 Views
Marcus Hartwig
Marcus Hartwig
Vectra AI Director of Product MarketingSeptember 1
Sales and customers will be your most vital partners for this task. They will have likely have had multiple run-ins with your competitors. As a result, they will give you an excellent high-level understanding of competitive pitches, pricing, what attracted customers to them, and how the market, i......Read More
277 Views
Mirio E. D. de Rosa
The industry sector you deal with may lead to different suggestions. In general, however, “product research” may suggest you are working on a new product launch or re-staging. In such cases, begin with the framework, consider the research tools, and then move to the operating part of the research......Read More
299 Views
Pranav Deshpande
Pranav Deshpande
Product Marketing LeaderAugust 25
To start I'd say thorough competitive research is the foundation of great product marketing, so it's great that your company is investing in it. It's really important for the PMM that owns a product to be an expert on both direct and indirect competitors. Competitive research shouldn't happen in ......Read More
405 Views
RELATED
Priya Gill
Priya Gill
Momentive (SurveyMonkey) Vice President, Product MarketingJune 30
Not sure I completely answer the question. Typically when I ask candidates to give a presentation, it's less about the specific products they're presenting, but rather HOW they present it. Can the candidate articulate how they effectively approached their GTM strategy, from ideation to execution ......Read More
3092 Views
RELATED
Brianne Shally
Brianne Shally
Nextdoor Head of Product MarketingJanuary 12
Here are a few of my approaches to influence product leadership on the product priorities:  * Work cross-functionally across UX, research, Data Science, Product Operations, Sales, etc. to incorporate everyone's input so Product Marketing's list represent all input and is the source of tru......Read More
90 Views
RELATED
Matt Hodges
Matt Hodges
Atlassian Head of Marketing, ConfluenceDecember 14
At the stage before anything is handed over to eng for design. At Atlassian, we refer to this as the "Explore" phase–"Wonder" and "Make" come before and after, respectively.  When you do this, be clear on the role PMM is playing and the type of feedback the design wants and needs to move forwa......Read More
1292 Views
RELATED
Laura Jones
Laura Jones
Instacart Chief Marketing OfficerDecember 8
One way I have approached this is to bring the cross-functional team together for a Design Sprint. Sprints are one of the most effective ways to quickly align a team around key insights and develop a customer-centric product solution. Having PMMs participate in or even lead these sprints is a gre......Read More
1526 Views
RELATED
Gregg Miller
Gregg Miller
Oyster® VP of Product MarketingFebruary 11
Our job as product marketers is to help the organization maximize the capture of market opportunity — whether that’s becoming more competitive, entering new markets, increasing the value we deliver to existing customers, or numerous other ways. Thus I think it’s important to start with “what op......Read More
862 Views
RELATED
Carrie Zhang
Carrie Zhang
Square Product LeadNovember 16
I have a different perspective. Most of the turnovers I have seen are voluntary - people moving on to different companies, different roles. So to me it's not necessarily a bad thing. Personally I get bored doing the same thing for more than 2 years. So if my role does not present new learning opp......Read More
3940 Views
RELATED
Vikas Bhagat
Vikas Bhagat
Webflow Senior Director, Head of Product MarketingJuly 13
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 want......Read More
1592 Views
RELATED
Christy Roach
Christy Roach
Airtable Senior Director, Portfolio & Engagement Product MarketingOctober 8
Everyone’s definition of soft and hard skills differs, but here are the nine skills that I think are the most important for a product marketer to have. I've used these skills as a compass to help me grow in my own career and have turned them into a success guide for my team at Envoy to use: Soft......Read More
5052 Views
RELATED
LeTisha Shaw
LeTisha Shaw
UserTesting Director, Product MarketingFebruary 25
Whenever you are starting a new role, it's critical to understand what's important to your manager and what the objectives are for your new organization so you can align yourself well to them. Every company has a different onboarding plan, and for PMMs I think it's critical to get the lay of the ......Read More
9822 Views
RELATED
Jeffrey Vocell
Jeffrey Vocell
VP of Product MarketingAugust 3
Great question! I'll start with saying Klue has a phenomenal blog post on this topic I'd encourage you to read. But to your question, most will try to differentiate off features. In most cases this will lead to a conversation about value -- and in a crowded market is really difficult to truly ......Read More
338 Views