What are proactive things that you can do to minimize the damage when you know an analyst report is coming out that will make your product look bad compared to the competition?

These things are bound to happen, but the good news in today’s world is that customers are likely getting their information from multiple sources. If I were in rapid response mode, I’d probably start by lining up some blog posts and customer testimonials that address the perceived weakness. Perhaps even hosting a webinar and running a counter narrative that goes directly in the face of the report…something like “Analyst X says we’re terrible at this…attend this webinar to find out why they’re wrong!”.

Longer term, it comes down to communication. The analyst community can only write about what they know. So if you’re not communicating early and often with them, then do not expect things to change. Ideally, you bring them along on the journey when you’re launching new product or updating your positioning so that they can both feel included, but also so they’re not surprised when you launch and one of their clients calls them on launch day to get their take on what you’re up to.

The key in this situation is to be uppfront with your internal teams and provide them with the right messaging to steer conversations with customers and prospects. 

The negative placement can happen in a number of scenarios. Maybe a competitor released a game-changing capability that no one else has yet; or there was a major acquisition in the market making a competitor leapfrog everyone else; or maybe there's one area of your product which didn't perform well acconding to analyst expectations during your demo. 

First, you have to identify the reason for the discrepancy. Was it something under your company's control or completely unexpected? Based on what is the primary reason, you then have to prepare your sales team and others in the organization to address this with customers if the issue comes up. Share an internal communication that:

1. Addresses the results of the report, outlining what is the current placement and how it changed from the last time;

2. Guides your internal teams on how to interpret the results and what to tell customers;

3. Outlines a plan for correcting the placement by the time the next report comes out. 

The right positioning will help give the right context for a customer or prospect and minimize potential damaging effects.  

If you know there is an analyst evaluation report coming out and you didn't perform as well as you would have liked, or you weren't included at all, there are a few things you can do to mitigate the situation:

• In the lead up time to the publication date, you can start to drip out social posts with customer proof and quotes about the areas where you might not have performed so well.

• If there were product features you were missing during the evaluation but that you either have since released, or added to your roadmap and made progress on, you can also run campaigns highlighting new customers using those features. Even proof from beta customers can go a long way.

• I always recommend creating a response doc for your Revenue/Sales team to use with key talking points, again with as much customer proof as possible. Make sure you go line by line on the strengths and challenges highlighted in the report, both for your company as well as your top competitors. Provide the Revenue team with insights as to why a particular score or ranking might have been lower than desired.

• Another thing you can do is to highlight other third-party validation where you do show well. Start dripping out social proof and campaigns leveraging the other reports you have.

The key thing to leverage is your customers. Actual, real-life examples and meaningful customer results always trump bad placements so get your customers talking for you across as many channels as you can.

One important thing NOT to do, is please don't bad mouth the analyst or analyst company. I've seen vendors try to downplay the reports by referencing them directly and talking about why it is so off the mark for whatever reason. This is almost always a mistake. First, you risk your relationship with the analyst and analyst company. And second, you look petty and childish. The better option is to take the high road but show your customer proof and get the other third-party evidence you have to speak for you.