How much bearing does your competition have on your messaging?

I view the competition as a distraction. Depending on your company’s space, new competitors will pop up every day, or existing ones will launch something new that surprises you. As a PMM, it’s your job to know about this—and if you have a lean team, I recommend you closely partner with Sales Enablement, or User Research, or Product, or some team that does have the bandwidth to always keep their ear to the ground and inform you. My advice is to identify your top competitors and be sure to get agr ...Read More

Competition is critical and should always be a factor in your positioning and messaging for B2B. At Okta, it is a core part of our brand identity and position to be best-of-breed, vendor-neutral. This is how we plan to win the market and is also a core competitive message. When we look at all of our messages by importance to the customer, on average, this is likely the #2 or 3 most critical. However, we elevate it to #1 and reinforce this everywhere because we want our marketing and field teams ...Read More

Short answer: a lot. And unless you are either 1) truly bringing new-to-the-world products to market or 2) already the clear, undisputed market leader in an established category, it's essential to pick your head up and pay attention to how competitors message themselves. Putting yourself in the shoes of your buyer, a lot of B2B vendor messaging tends to sound the same. Too many value propositions are watered down to the point of becoming too generic ("grow revenue", "reduce costs", "minimize ris ...Read More

In 2020, there has been major interest in workplace productivity software. Competition begets innovation, so it’s great that users have more choices than ever. Our role is to help potential users understand what Coda can offer in a sea of possibilities.Some of our guiding principles for competitive messaging are:Benefits & Value > Solution > Features > JargonThis means we always strive to show the value & benefits of our solution, instead of getting bogged down in the kind of in ...Read More

Competitors influence our messaging - but they don’t define it. Our job isn’t to react to everything they do, its to position ourselves as the best choice for our ICP Here’s how I approach it: First - we got to know our strengths. I focus on what makes us different and uniquely valuable. Our differentiation should be the foundation of our positioning, messaging, and value propositions. Next - dissect their messaging. I look at how competitors talk about themselves, where they speak to their valu ...Read More

I think you should always consider what's happening in the market when defining any sort of messaging. What's gaining traction? What's causing you to win/lose deals? What growth opportunities are opening up?  This must factor in competition. How is your messaging differentiated from the competition but also aligned to where the market is headed? What are you saying that might play up the weakness of your competition?  Competition should always play a factor because with messaging you're trying t ...Read More

Competition plays a central role in messaging development and you must get extremely familar with how your competitors tell their story. After all, there's a reason we call it "positioning and messaging", because ultimately the best messaging positions you against something else. It draws contrast between you and your competitor and creates a real choice in the mind of the buyer. It's not enough to merely stand FOR something. You also have to stand AGAINST something in order for messaging to be ...Read More

Competition as a whole informs your positioning in the market. Positioning leads to messaging. So yes competition as a whole does influence your messaging.  I would advise taking a layered approach to messaging and as a general rule, always recommend finding the high ground. Layered Approach: Your website should mostly consist of your top differentiators and value proposition, independent of specific competitors. Positioning is where competition is implictly addressed. The key attributes, value ...Read More