What's your approach to competitive differentiation?

There are many stakeholders when it comes to competitive intelligence and aligning messaging and product strategy with competitive differentiation. I have found an effective model where PMM is the the driver, although any of the contributors could also drive. Regardless, it is a joint effort across at least PMM, PM, Presales and Sales Enablement (some larger enterprises like IBM have dedicated, centralized competitive program offices). As the driver, PMM can focus on arming the sales team with u ...Read More

I believe competitive research should always be part of the process when you develop your core messaging, but it’s important to not get too hung up on your competitors, you can easily lose sight of what your own customers care about. (Also, who is to say that their messaging is better than others?) I usually build a competitive positioning matrix where I will have at least 2 rows for each competitor: “We help you”, and “so you can” (But use what version works best for you)--- and then go through ...Read More

Competitive differentiation is what forms your positioning and what you build your messaging around. With how crowded every market category is now its essential to nail your differentiation and then communicate it through your messaging and the rest of the go-to-market. Enabling sales effectively requires making the competitive information actionable and easily digestible. Whether you’re creating battlecards, sharing competitive updates in Slack, or leading a competitive play sales training dist ...Read More

I have a few lenses that I look through for competitive differentiation: 1. The Positioning Canvas -- I mentioned this in an earlier question, but it's worth repeating the effectiveness of April Dunford's Obviously Awesome positioning canvas (must reading for any Product Marketer). With this methodology, you and your team will go through an exercise of defining 'competitive alternative' -- the task here is to identify what customers would use if you did not exist AND to look inwards at what uniq ...Read More

Competitive differentiation should make up the pillars of your messaging and value proposition. The reason being is that most markets are crowded and customers can choose from many alterntatives, so your differentation needs to be clearly articulated across the buyer's journey. To understand your competitive differentiation you can conduct buyer persona research, closed won research, analyze Gong calls with high ACVs, speak to reps and customer success teams, and really hone in on determining 1) ...Read More

Competitive differentiation is, first of all, a positioning exercise that means finding ways to influence the customer's perception of your company and product versus existing alternatives. This means not only what your direct competitors (other vendors) are, but what other ways of getting the customer's job done there are. You might have a powerful new financial app but if the customer is used to Excel and, well, it's kinda free if you have MS Office, then are you considering Excel a competitor ...Read More

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 differentiate in this case. There are some tactical things you can pursue to drive differentiation: Social Proof Lean-in to aspects of your solution that customers rave about! I've seen this be everythign f ...Read More

The answer here is in the question. My approach to differentiation starts with understanding why the product or service you're responsible is uniquely suited to a specific customer. And then focus on what makes you great, not what makes others less good. Too many companies (including a few I've worked with) focus too much on the question of "how do we compete against X competitor?" This creates a backwards-looking mentality and you're always in reactive mode. I will say it's my favorite thing to ...Read More

Competitive positioning is a key component of defining core messaging. If we sit down and come up with copy on how to best describe our offerings, a key step is to compare that against how competitors describe themselves. You’ll likely be hit with an unpleasant surprise that about half your copy has already been used directly or indirectly by competitors. Some words might be well-adapted lexicons that prospects associate competitors with. Developing your positioning and messaging without this ke ...Read More

The most important aspect of competitive differentiation is that it's authentic and resonates with the customer and/or user.  From a core messaging standpoint, you first and foremost want to focus on the value prop of your product—make sure you have a clear and accurate description of the problem you are solving for people. If you happen to be in a competitive space with similar products, you want to make it clear why someone should use your product vs another to solve that problem. You should e ...Read More

I believe in a simple exercise: what are you good at. this is the category you want to operate in. Its table stakes. if you want to be in the electric car business and you cant design a chassis and a battery you have a problem. what are you better at. this is where you are competitive. say your battery comes in 3 sizes. 0.5 hrs to full charge. 2 hours to full charge. 10 hours. what are you unique at. UNIQUE! something that nobody else does. Irrespective of charging speed your battery and chassis ...Read More