Jennifer Kay Corridon

As a Product Marketing Manager , effectively communicating and sharing competitor analysis with your team and stakeholders is crucial for aligning everyone on the competitive landscape and informing strategic decision-making. Here are some recommendations for how to approach this: 1. Clearly articulate the purpose and benefits: Start by clearly explaining why conducting competitor analysis is important for the success of the product or business. Highlight the potential benefits, such as identifying market opportunities, staying ahead of industry trends, and making informed strategic decisions. Emphasize that competitor analysis is not about copying competitors but rather understanding the competitive landscape to differentiate and improve your own offerings. 2. Provide actionable insights: Focus on delivering actionable insights from the competitor analysis. Instead of overwhelming stakeholders with a barrage of data, distill the information into key takeaways and recommendations that stakeholders can act upon. Frame the insights in a way that directly addresses their pain points, challenges, or opportunities. Show how the analysis can inform marketing campaigns, product positioning, pricing strategies, or feature development. 3. Demonstrate evidence-based findings: Use data and evidence to support your analysis and conclusions. Include market research, customer feedback, and competitive intelligence that back up your claims. This helps build credibility and instills confidence in the findings. Visualize the data in charts or graphs to make it easier for stakeholders to grasp and interpret the information. 4. Showcase competitive advantages and risks: Highlight how the competitor analysis helps uncover your unique competitive advantages and areas where you may be at a disadvantage. Clearly communicate how this knowledge can guide decision-making and enable your team to leverage strengths and mitigate risks. This approach demonstrates the value of the analysis in shaping strategies that lead to a competitive edge. 5. Encourage participation and collaboration: Engage stakeholders throughout the process by actively seeking their input and involving them in discussions. Encourage team members to share their own observations, experiences, or knowledge about competitors. This fosters a sense of ownership and collaboration, making stakeholders feel more invested in the analysis and more likely to support the resulting strategies. 6. Address concerns and objections: Be prepared to address any concerns or objections that stakeholders may have. Address their concerns by explaining the methodology, data sources, and analysis techniques used. 7. Follow up with actionable next steps: After presenting the competitor analysis, provide clear next steps and recommendations. Outline how the findings will be incorporated into actionable plans, such as product roadmaps, marketing campaigns, or sales strategies. This demonstrates that the analysis is not just a standalone exercise but a foundation for actionable outcomes.

Every company and every growth stage is different so the evaluative framework you utilize needs some flexibility. I recommend that your framework is developed in tandem with your partner stakeholders early on and is communicated often. A reliable framework includes a clear organizing principal, inputs, outputs/ impact, measurements, and timelines. As a first product marketer, I'd also advocate including a line item for dependencies and cross functional asks. Once you start building momentum in an organization, the asks come in quickly and from multiple directions. Your framework will allow you better yield management and help you organize and prioritize where you dedicate your efforts.

The short answer is this is highly dependent and should be greatly influenced by the product and the company that you are part of. This is the dilemma of all things product marketing, there is no one size fits all nor silver bullet answer. I've had equal success with pod models, where a product marketer is embedded with a cross functional teams to work on a particular product or vertical as I have had with creating teams solely focused on bringing products to market. I advocate begining by assessing the individual strengths and professional interests of your team. I'd also work with your partners on product to understand the same and work together to map resources towards goals. At the end of the day a successful product marketing team is going to be comprised of individuals who are excited and engaged by the work they do and the team they work with.

I think a universal experience among product marketers is that the role and contribution of product marketing is highly dependent on the company or organization that you are working for/ applying to- size, focus, where the pmm's sit in the organization, all are influencing factors. To that end, before the hiring process even begins, I spend a lot of time getting clarity on the purpose + goals + focus of the role and the outcomes that need to be achieved. It's from there that I start to create a framework of interview questions that will align and assess to the top needs and then I'll develop a pretty robust conversation and interview track from there. That said, here are the big three that I always come back to: - How do you as a candidate define the role of product marketing? When you think about your last couple of roles, what has product marketing been responsible for owning, and why do you think that was the same or different in the organizations you worked for? -Tell me about your current customers. What do I need to know about them in order to successfully market to them? -What are you wanting to learn or unlock for yourself in your next role.

The fundamental goal of building a strong position in the market remains the same between B2C and B2B: to understand the needs of your target audience and position your products or services as the best solution to meet those needs. And to move your customer to next action. In terms of tools and data, both B2C and B2B companies use similar market research techniques such as surveys, focus groups, and data analytics to gain insights into their target audience. However, B2B companies also rely on industry-specific research and data to understand the needs and pain points of businesses in a particular sector. Generally speaking, B2C (business-to-consumer) companies tend to focus more on consumer behavior and trends, as well as advertising and marketing campaigns that appeal to individual customers. They often rely on consumer data such as demographic and psychographic information to understand their target audience and tailor their products and messaging accordingly.

Here are several key sources and frameworks that I find valuable for gaining clarity on the competitive position. 1. Market and Competitive Research: This includes studying competitor websites, product documentation, press releases, industry reports, and analyst insights. 2. User Feedback and Reviews: Actively listening to user feedback and reviews, both from our own customers and those of our competitors. For competitors I look at online forums, social media, reviews, G2, and other similar resources. I also tap into customers that have switched from competitors to hear their first hand experiences. 3. Customer Interviews and Surveys: I also tap into customers that have switched from competitors to hear their first hand experiences. 4. Product and Feature Comparisons: This analysis can focus on aspects like functionality, performance, user experience, pricing models, and integrations. It allows me to identify areas where we have a competitive advantage or areas where we need to enhance our offerings. 5. Sales and Customer Success Insights: Collaborating with the sales and customer success teams provides valuable insights into competitive positioning and customer feedback. They interact directly with prospects and customers, hear objections, and understand competitive wins and losses. I'll often synthesize my findings into a presentation that would include a good ol' SWOT analysis.

1. Develop a Competitive Playbook: Create a comprehensive competitive playbook that outlines key information about each competitor, their offerings, strengths, weaknesses, and positioning. This playbook should serve as a go-to resource for your sales team, providing them with the necessary insights to understand the competitive landscape. 2. Conduct Competitive Training Sessions: Organize regular training sessions to educate your sales team on competitive positioning. These sessions should cover information from the competitive playbook and emphasize the unique value propositions, differentiators, and messaging that set your product apart. 3. Provide Battle Cards: Prepare concise battle cards or cheat sheets that highlight the key points of differentiation for each competitor. These cards should include common objections raised by customers and suggested responses or counterpoints to address them. T 4. Provide Regular Competitive Updates: Keep your sales team informed about changes in the competitive landscape. Share regular updates on competitor product releases, new features, pricing changes, or market trends that may impact the positioning of your product. This can be done through email newsletters, internal communications, or dedicated meetings. 5. Organize Competitor Battle Workshops: Conduct workshops or collaborative sessions where the sales team collectively strategizes on how to tackle specific competitors. Encourage the team to share their experiences, best practices, and success stories in dealing with different competitors. These workshops foster a sense of camaraderie and provide a platform for knowledge exchange among the sales team. 6. Gather Feedback from the Sales Team: Actively seek feedback from your sales team regarding their experiences in competitive situations. Listen to their challenges, understand their needs, and address any gaps in the competitive positioning materials or training.

The question comes up a lot in product marketing. It is particularly challenging when you are in a product marketing role or on projects that lean heavy into influence or when your organization is stacked with channel owners. Simply put- there is no one metric that suits all product marketing. That said, at the outset of any project, it is critical to discuss what the hypothesis or goal of the work is and how you intend to measure the success of the outcome. Since product marketing is cross functional, I'd look to align goals and outcomes around known or proxy metrics and I'd urge communication- consistently + often around them.

1. Deep Understanding of Customer Needs: Ensure your sales team has a deep understanding of customer needs and pain points. This allows them to clearly differentiate your offering from competitors, even if the functionality seems similar on the surface. 2. Highlight Unique Value Proposition: Emphasize the unique value proposition of your product. Focus on aspects that go beyond basic functionality, such as ease of use, scalability, integration capabilities, performance, security, customer support, or industry-specific features. 3. Showcase Success Stories and Case Studies: Share compelling success stories and case studies that demonstrate the tangible benefits and results achieved by customers who have chosen your product over the competitors. Highlight specific use cases and outcomes that showcase the distinct advantages of your solution. 4. Leverage Competitive Analysis: Conduct a thorough competitive analysis and provide your sales team with detailed insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the competition. Equip them with talking points that highlight the areas where your product outperforms and delivers a superior experience. This helps build confidence in the sales team and provides them with data-backed arguments during customer conversations. 5. Tailor the Message: Customize the sales messaging to address the specific needs and pain points of each customer. Demonstrate how your product not only meets their functional requirements but also offers additional benefits and differentiators that competitors cannot match. Personalize the pitch to showcase how your solution aligns with the customer's unique business objectives and strategic goals. 6. Conduct Proof-of-Concept or Product Demos: Offer the opportunity for potential customers to experience your product firsthand through proof-of-concept trials or product demos. This allows them to see the unique functionality, ease of use, and value that sets your product apart.

Simply put, it's a big commitment of time, effort, and energy to both build and maintain. My advice here is before diving in to build or if your assuming the responsibility for a program that has become outdated, that you get stakeholder and partner alignment on what the goals are, what the key pieces of information that it useful and usable for functional areas, frequency of updates, and get clarity on how teams will utilize. If you've got a big field of competitors your tracking, get agreement on primary folks to track versus secondary. I also like to walk everyone through what's involved in aggregating the information. It's very common to see a list of 10 "essentials' get knocked down to 5 when there is realization of the investment to gather. Tactically, once you've got that here is how to approach and best practicies: 1. Establish a Centralized Repository: Create a centralized and easily accessible repository for all relevant information. This could be a cloud-based document management system, a shared drive, or a dedicated folder within your organization's intranet. Make sure it's organized logically, with clear categories for competitive data, personas, and market research. Share access with teams and stakeholders. 2. Regularly Scheduled Updates: Set up a schedule for updating and reviewing these materials. Consider quarterly to half year reviews , but adjust the frequency based on the pace of change in your industry. 3. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Foster collaboration between product marketing, sales, customer support, and other relevant teams. Encourage them to contribute updates and insights based on their interactions with customers and the market. Assign owners and keep them accountable, 4. Automated Alerts: Leverage tools or software that can send automated alerts or reminders for content updates. Google alerts pop in your email inbox daily. 5. Competitive Monitoring Tools: It's an investment that many companies won't make but if you are lucky enough to have budget.... 6. Persona Interviews and Surveys: Regularly conduct interviews or surveys with your target personas to validate and update their profiles. Their needs and pain points may evolve over time. Small investment to keep your ear on the ground. 7. Market Research: Stay engaged with market research firms or conduct your own market research to gather current data and insights. I subscribe and follow a core group that is direct to my industry and then a secondary ancillary group that are relevant from a related or micro-economic perspective. 8. Audit Trail: Maintain an audit trail of changes made to sales materials, including who made the changes and when. This can help in identifying errors or tracking the evolution of content. 9. Regular Sales Enablement Sessions: Host regular sales enablement sessions where product marketing provides updates on competitive intelligence, personas, and market trends.