What is your strategy to crafting messaging around features that your competitors already have?
Typing quickly, so excuse any typos!
Competitors will always have a common set of features. Every pizza needs a crust and some toppings – what they are, how they manifest, how they taste – that's what's different.
So, first, I'd think:
What's unique about my set of features? Are they solving for exactly the same use case? How do they play alongside our other products and features, in ways that they unlock a different set of use cases? This relates to a previous question about marketing a group of products instead of just focusing on one. Combinations of ingredients can lead to different solutions.
What's unique about how my company approaches the problem set and delivers for customers? Think outside of the set of features for a minute. What are my company's differentiators? What's been different and defensible about our approach? (For example, intuitive design and user-centricity? or tied to a greater platform? or velocity of development and improvements? or administrative oversight? intelligence built into every step? etc). Think about how that unique approach (overall) makes the set of features more differentiated.
What are the competitors' weak spots? What have they gotten flak for from users, from the press? How can we show that our solutions are different in just that way? Let's poke them.
Some features are going to be tablestakes. If they're complete mirror images, won't lead to any competitive advantages, moats, and more of a reassuring-yeah-we-got-that, then include it and don't fret. You can't focus on every little feature. Hype up what is different, defensible against competitors, desired and beloved by users.
Messaging should focus on the benefits you deliver to a customer, not the features. When you focus on benefits, you can start truly differentiating based not just on the "things" your customer can do with your product, but also on the "why" behind your company and your product overall.
If you're focused exclusively on messaging based on features, you open yourself up to comparison from competitors. Focus instead on the value your products deliver to your customers, and you have more room to differentiate, showcase your company's unique POV and how you help your customers be successful.
Crafting compelling messaging for features that your competitors already have can be difficult since it's hard to find a competitive advantage in this instance. When I'm in this situation, I bring the messaging back to the product's overall competitive advantage and hone in on the unique benefit that it provides. It's important to always communicate a benefit or outcome with your messaging, even if it's the same feature that your competitors already have. I also find it helps to get specific about how your feature drives the desired outcome. The more specific you are, the more likely you are to create a competitive edge against your competitors.
Nothing revolutionary. Focus on your competitive differentiators so that customers fully understand why 'you and not them' This seems like it's basic advice but it's very easy to lose sight of what sets you apart. What is your USP? If a large portion of the functionality is 'table stakes' then own that! This will in turn discredit the competitors if they are positioning these as innovative! Again, always focus on the customer..what matters to them and why is your solution superior to the others!
Messaging strategy begins with a deep understanding of our customers' world view, fears, concerns, needs and pain points. Within this I try to focus on:
Continuous Narrative: This is a strategy where we anchor on a few core themes that we'll communicate over the course of a year (or roadmap cycle) to our audience. The themes form the basis of a bigger story or value that we are sharing with our customers and inviting them to be part of the journey. We'll then pepper the narrative at key moments where we'll introduce new features and tie them to the larger theme. This has the effect to move the conversation on table stakes features away from ticking the box to tying it to a bigger value or need of the user.
Highlight Unique Benefits: While competitors might have similar features, our emphasis is on showcasing the unique advantages and benefits that our product delivers. This could be in terms of superior performance, ease of use, or integration with other solutions.
Emphasize Competitive Value: We communicate not just what the features are, but why they matter more when delivered through our product. This might include testimonials, case studies, or data points that demonstrate the impact of these features in real-world scenarios.
Focus on User Experience: Messaging should also underscore the overall user experience that our product offers. Even if a feature is standard, we highlight how our implementation is intuitive, efficient, and contributes positively to the user journey.
Positioning Against Competitors: Rather than solely comparing features, we position our product as a comprehensive solution that excels in areas that matter most to our customers. This could involve illustrating how our approach is more holistic, cost-effective, or forward-thinking.
Tailored Communication: We adapt our messaging to resonate with different customer segments. What matters most to a particular audience might not be the features themselves but the outcomes those features enable.
If you are focussed on messaging at the feature level, there's probably little you can do to differentiate if you are playing catch up with a specific piece of functionality. But messaging the feature in the overall context of how your product is different and better than a competitors is how you can differentiate.
For me differentiation starts with product positioning (check out April Dunford's Obviously Awesome if you haven't already). Her five components of positioning:
- Competitive Alternatives
- Differentiated “Features” or “Capabilities”
- Value for customers
- Target Customer Segmentation
- Market Category
You'll end up paying less attention to tablestakes feature parity and more attention to what's truly differentiating about your product when you focus on positioning instead.
There are a few parts that go into this at the foundational level, that I think help when doing the tactical writing for gap closing features.
Prior to writing any code, you and your product counterparts should have aligned on the why behind building this feature (ie X competitor has it, and we are losing deals because we don't) but you should have also established the differentiation in what you're building.
If the feature is basic, and functionally the same - it is still a part of your wider organization and supports your company's specific value props and is built with your company's ethos. Leverage this more macro messaging to craft the feature messaging to really help differentiate.
Another area to consider here is audience. Likely you have some kind of tiering system. Tier 1 and sometimes 2 features are usually defined by being something truly different in the market - and therefore used to attract prospects, where tier 3 and 4 are likely gap closers or table stakes and the audience is likely existing customers. This should also be worked into your messaging strategy.
The benefit of offering features your competitors already have is that consumers understand them—so don't overcomplicate messaging, or try to use unique branding for a product that's not unique. Stick to the names and descriptions users already know.
Serve your audience first, I’d say. If you’re both solving the same problem in the same way, your messaging will sound very similar, and that’s fine. What you’ll want to avoid is highlighting a differentiator in that feature that no one cares about. A good test for this is finding out whether that thing could be a reason why your ICP does or doesn’t buy.
I remember I was once competing with another link analysis tool, and really wanted to highlight that we were using unsupervised machine learning models while our competitors were using supervised 😂. My boss brought me back to reality that that was a little too much information for our average buyer—and it wouldn’t influence their decision. Now, if I really wanted to drive the market here, I should tie this differentiator to the job that my audience needs to accomplish, or a benefit they’d experience—but only if the job or benefit is already understood by them.
When messaging in a known category, there are two ends of the spectrum: differentiate or blend in. The best approach is usually finding some blend of the two. As marketers, we’re often taught to focus on our “UVP” (unique value proposition) or “USP” (unique selling proposition), but there are absolutely times when the desire to show up as a “special snowflake” can end up making it hard for consumers to grasp what it is you’re offering. To balance this, you may consider using naming and messaging that’s quite similar to your competition, especially if those products are looked upon favorably and have high adoption.
To illustrate how to find the right balance of known and unique messaging, I’d like to share an example that is admittedly more focused on product naming, but the positioning and messaging is inherent in it.
When Quizlet first launched its textbook solutions offering, our biggest competitor in the space was Chegg. Chegg was well-known for having textbook solutions and it was a strong subscription driver for them.
On the flip side, especially during the pandemic the media was putting a spotlight on companies like Chegg that appeared to profit from students short-cutting their studies. Quizlet has always put academic integrity and actual student learning at the forefront of its product design and we were concerned about being associated with a brand that was in a tacit way, encouraging the opposite.
So in 2020 when we launched our version of “textbook solutions” (acquired from Slader.com), we called the offering “Explanations” because we wanted to emphasize the step-by-step nature of the content form and put the emphasis on understanding.
While we saw some early success and eventually built up credibility, it wasn’t until we changed the name to “Expert solutions,” that we saw a large shift in adoption and recognition among students.
My interpretation of this is that using familiar language goes a really long way, especially for top of funnel consideration. Chegg and several smaller competitors had called this product category “textbook solutions.” When we re-installed the familiar “solutions” noun, and added “expert” be our differentiator (both compared to Chegg, and to our own user generated content), we found the right balance of familiarity and distinctiveness that drove both trust and interest.
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