How to Analyze your Competitors

There are many ways to monitor your competition. The traditional ways of doing this involved analyzing competitor products, websites, marketing materials and using some type of framework or template to collect the data. The problem is that doing all this manually can be very time-consuming, especially if you have many competitors.

That’s why more and more businesses are using competitor tracking software to automate the process. The idea is once you’ve set up an automated competitive analytics tool, you just sit back and let the data flow.

Whether you compete with 1 or 100 businesses, you’ve got to start somewhere. 

Understanding who your top 5 competitors are is key to building a successful sales program.

Not all competitors are equal; different types are monitored in different ways. To gather the right data, you first need to understand the role of direct vs indirect competition.

Direct competitors are businesses you go head to head with on a regular basis. 

Does their name appear in your CRM often?

Do they come up in most customer calls? 

That’s your direct competitor.

These companies will have overlapping messaging and product features. They are likely targeting a similar buyer persona and customer segment as you are.

A great example of direct competitors is Hubspot vs Salesforce in the CRM segment. Both companies target the Sales department with a CRM product. For years Hubspot was known for its marketing tools and Salesforce was a dominant sales platform; today the two giants are competing for many of the same customers with overlapping products.

Indirect competitors are going after the same budget but might not have the same product. You can call them the “wallet-share” competitors.

For example, Microsoft & Okta. Enterprises buy products from both companies and in many situations, the two must work together as partners to make their customers successful. But if you ask them who they think they compete with, both businesses are likely to name each other. 

Indirect competitors can lead to head-scratching moments for your partner and sales teams. It’s important to educate your teams on how to interact with them in any given situation. A good sales Battlecard can help your teams understand how to position against the co-opertition.

Creating a battlecard can help you visualize your landscape of direct vs indirect competitors.

Additionally, a tool like 1up can help automate queries about the landscape:

Using an automated competitor intelligence platform can help you analyze your opponents’ products, features, and functionality. It enables you to understand differences between your product offerings, find out what new features and messaging your competitors are promoting, and reveal hiring trends to learn how they might be investing in R&D.

An automated competitor analysis tool can help you track marketing messaging, positioning, and collateral with ease. It can even tell you if a competitor is copying you by helping you answer questions like:

Queries like this can be automated with 1up like this:

You should know what your competitors are doing in the real world as well as online. See a calendar of their events to keep tabs on their activity and get automated alerts & summaries on their webinars. 1up will even watch your competitors’ videos so you don’t have to, saving you time and manual effort.

Where is your opponent’s capital coming from and how are they investing it? How much are they spending and on what? How much revenue did they generate? What is their sales rep quota? From venture capital to burn rates and beyond, you need to keep an eye on the financial health of your competitors.

Your competitor isn’t some abstract concept or entity—it’s a team of people. And they’re good at what they do. Knowing who your competitors’ people are means monitoring their hiring and firing activity, retention rates, and the general feelings among employees. 

With a tool like 1up, you can spot trends and answer questions like, “Who is my competitor hiring and where?” – you can see what departments they’re investing in, get alerts on key hires and churn rates, and know how people feel about working there.

One of the best ways to learn about your competition is by looking at their customer base. Why are users buying the product? Where does the competitor focus their efforts? How do people feel about the competitor’s product?

Combining a variety of signals both public and private can help you track a competitor’s customers. Plugging this data into 1up can give you an idea of how customers feel about your competitors, and how you can use that to your advantage.

Being able to pull competitive analytics across multiple segments is the foundation of a strong GTM strategy. But data alone is not actionable. Sales & Marketing teams need to be able to glean insights that guide their strategy and messaging. They need a fast and easy way to respond to customers and handle objections.

How do you effectively bring this data together for your team?

Next -> Tying it Together with Sales Battlecards