What are your top 3 methods for conducting effective competitive research?

I’ve found the top 3 sources of competitive research to be: Peer review sites. G2 and other review sites are the best source of information because it comes straight from the users. Even though most reviews will be positive, pay close attention to the low star reviews and what customers say in the dislike section within the positive reviews. This is where you’ll find your kill points. Competitors’ content. Deep dive into what they post on their website - videos, guides, documentation, case studi ...Read More

I'm not an expert, but here are 3 practical ways that I make time for competitive research as part of my day-to-day work. Competitor websites, mailing lists and product documentation. I get a lot of value from reading the Products and Solutions sections of competitor websites, subscribing to their blogs, and reading their product docs. Web content gives you a high-level understanding of their messaging and key capabilities. Product documentation provides more depth on how their products work to ...Read More

It really depends on a few factors: time, resources and who the competitive research helps. I would answer these questions to help you gauge how deep you go. There are entire PMMs dedicated to competitive research and you may not have that type of time/resource so you need to determine the level of effort you put into this. Time - is this an extremely urgent question that needs to be answered in the next week, three weeks, 6 weeks, 12 weeks? Resource- do you have a budget, if so, how much is it? ...Read More

The outcome you are targeting with your competitive research plays a role in the efficacy of your research method. So have the outcome in mind before you start, that way you will already be on the path to success! Competitive positioning - There are plenty of tools around like Klue, that scrape the web and sources data and information about your competitors. But you will need to add color and context based on your specific differentiation. You may also want to do some primary research on your co ...Read More

I've found a few of the top methods for conducting competitive research: Competitive Content - Starting with your key competitors and understanding how they're positioning themselves, what content they are creating and releasing is a great starting point. Based on your product expertise (of your own product), this should give you some high-level insight into key differentiators. You can also infer a lot between what they share versus what they don't (for example, is their technical documentation ...Read More

Talk to customers: they will tell you why they evaluated different vendors and what they liked/disliked about them; Talk to channel partners: they have a deep understanding of the market and the other vendors; Talk to analyst firms: they have seen all the major players and know them well and can help you identify their strengths and weaknesses. You noticed that I did not mention "do internet research" but that's a given... competitor websites, support portals, and more can be great sources of co ...Read More

Customer interviews are the most beneficial resource to land "how" you are different vs. competitors and "why" it matters to your customers. Instead of focusing on three research methods, I will recommend three types of interviews you should consider when researching a competitor: Switcher interviews: Interview customers who recently switched from a competitive solution to yours to understand what attracted them to your company and the key reasons for choosing your solution over the competition. ...Read More

The top three ways I recommend researching competitors are: READ as much as you possibly can about them online. This includes the competitor's website and published content, peer review sites like G2 and TrustRadius, communities and forums like Reddit and Quora, analyst write-ups, etc. WATCH/LISTEN to as many things as you can. This would include live or virtual presentations by the competitor (at conferences, on webinars, etc), online demos self-guided tours they've released, sales calls where ...Read More

Lots of answers pointing to sites like G2, Capterra, Owler, Trustpilot, TrustRadius, etc., which are like Yelp... you have to discount the fact that most reviews are biased and/or incentivized and have very little concrete feedback to analyze. I, also, am biased, but hear me out, since we all are!The Amulis Awards are a platform for competitors to transparently offer actual counterpoint in a debate format. Certain features, partner integrations, and other unique elements of the value prop are hi ...Read More

Customer interviews! Happy customers are very willing to spend time with PMMs and share what they have learned about competitors.  Listening to sales calls. In addition to sitting on calls, I love tools like Gong where I can use AI to quickly access insights! Plus, it’s hard to make time to sit in on calls. Using tools like Gong can help you get the research done faster.  Sales data. Use reports from whatever tools your sales team uses (i.e., Salesforce reports). From here, you can see which com ...Read More