How to Crush a Competitor Intelligence Review in Tech GTM

A robust go-to-market (GTM) strategy is crucial for successfully launching a new product or optimising an existing one, especially for those in SaaS or FinTech. At Digital BIAS, we've developed the proprietary ARISE™ GTM framework to help businesses create and refine their GTM strategies. 

A key component of this framework is the Research stage, which includes, amongst other things, conducting a comprehensive competitor intelligence review. The story behind the ARISE™ go-to-market framework is one of frustration, which was two-fold.

The first was driven by a need for more consistency in our capacity to scale and maintain an excellent customer experience. We found ourselves in a weird juxtaposition between a high NPS and churn. My frustration was that when I was acting as a freelancer rather than an agency owner, I retained clients for 4 or 5 years, and as I tried to grow the business, new staff meant churn massively increased to sometimes 4 - 6 months.

The truth became apparent when I realised we had no documented processes. Looking around the competitive landscape, I saw that others had well-defined processes. COVID provided the opportunity to redesign our processes and how we want to deliver, and the ARISE™ go-to-market framework was created. Now, we have individual playbooks for each product or service we offer.

This article will explore how this review process can significantly benefit your GTM strategy and contribute to your overall market success.

The Importance of Competitor Intelligence in GTM Strategy

Competitor intelligence is a vital element of any successful GTM strategy. By thoroughly analysing your competitors, you gain valuable insights into market trends, customer preferences, and potential opportunities for differentiation. This information lets you make informed decisions about your product positioning, marketing tactics, and overall GTM approach.

Other approaches we adopt during the ARISE Research process are SWOT analysis and Porter's Five Forces. Now, let’s examine the benefits of conducting a competitor intelligence review.

Benefits of Conducting a Competitor Intelligence Review

Conducting a Competitor Intelligence Review offers numerous strategic advantages for businesses looking to enhance their market position and refine their go-to-market strategies. 

This comprehensive analysis provides invaluable insights into the competitive landscape, allowing companies to identify market gaps, refine their value propositions, and optimise their offerings. 

By systematically examining competitors' products, pricing strategies, marketing tactics, and overall market presence, businesses can uncover unique selling points, anticipate market shifts, and develop more effective strategies to differentiate themselves. 

Furthermore, a thorough competitor intelligence review enables companies to benchmark their performance, identify potential threats and opportunities, and make data-driven decisions that can lead to sustained competitive advantage and growth in their target markets. Let’s look at what you should focus on during your review.

1. Identify Market Gaps and Opportunities

A comprehensive competitor analysis helps you uncover gaps in the market that your product can fill. By understanding what your competitors offer and where they fall short, you can identify unique selling propositions (USPs) for your product and target underserved market segments.

2. Refine Your Value Proposition

Analysing your competitors' value propositions allows you to fine-tune your own. You can highlight features or benefits that set your product apart and address customer pain points your competitors may be overlooking.

3. Optimise Pricing Strategy

Understanding how your competitors price their products helps you develop a competitive pricing strategy. You can identify opportunities to offer better value or justify premium pricing based on unique features or superior quality.

4. Enhance Marketing and Messaging

By studying your competitors' marketing tactics and messaging, you can develop more effective marketing strategies for your product. This includes identifying successful channels, content types, and messaging themes that resonate with your target audience.

5. Anticipate Market Changes

Keeping a close eye on your competitors allows you to anticipate market shifts and adapt your GTM strategy accordingly. This proactive approach helps you stay ahead of the curve and maintain a competitive edge.

Conducting a Competitor Intelligence Review

To conduct an effective competitor intelligence review as part of the ARISE GTM framework, follow these steps:

Identify key competitors in your market segment

Identify key competitors in your market segment by systematically analysing various aspects of the competitive landscape. 

The review covers crucial areas such as market presence, product offerings, positioning, marketing strategies, and company information. By examining factors like target customers, product features, pricing strategies, and marketing channels, you can pinpoint companies that directly compete with your business or target similar customer needs. 

The review also helps uncover indirect competitors offering different products but competing for the same customer base. You can build a clear picture of your competitive environment through thorough analysis of customer feedback, evaluation of online presence, and examination of sales strategies. 

This process reveals established players and helps identify emerging competitors who might disrupt the market. Additionally, you can gauge competitors' strategic direction and potential future impact by assessing factors like growth trajectory, recent acquisitions, and recruitment patterns. 

Ultimately, a well-executed Competitor Intelligence Review provides a nuanced understanding of your market segment, allowing you to accurately identify and prioritise critical competitors, which is crucial for developing effective go-to-market strategies and maintaining a competitive edge.

Analyse their products, features, and pricing strategies

Analysing competitors' products, features, and pricing strategies is integral to conducting a Competitor Intelligence Review. This analysis provides invaluable insights into the competitive landscape, allowing businesses to identify market gaps, refine their value propositions, and optimise their offerings. 

By examining competitors' products and features, companies can uncover unique selling points, identify areas for improvement, and discover innovative ideas to incorporate into their product development. Scrutinising pricing strategies help businesses understand market positioning, identify opportunities for competitive pricing, and develop more effective pricing models. 

This comprehensive analysis enables companies to make informed decisions about product development, marketing strategies, and pricing, ultimately leading to a stronger market position and increased competitiveness. 

Furthermore, by understanding the strengths and weaknesses of competitors' offerings, businesses can better differentiate themselves, address unmet customer needs, and capitalise on market opportunities their competitors may have overlooked.

Evaluate their marketing tactics, including messaging, channels, and content

Evaluating competitors' marketing tactics, including messaging, channels, and content, is crucial to conducting a Competitor Intelligence Review. This analysis provides valuable insights into how your rivals position themselves in the market, communicate with their target audience, and distribute their content. 

By examining their messaging, you can identify key themes, value propositions, and unique selling points that resonate with customers in your industry. Analysing their channels helps you understand where your target audience is most active and which platforms are most effective for reaching them. 

Assessing competitors' content strategies reveals the information and formats that engage your shared audience, potentially uncovering gaps in your content marketing efforts. This comprehensive evaluation allows you to benchmark your marketing tactics against industry standards, identify opportunities for differentiation, and refine your strategies to compete more effectively for customer attention and loyalty. 

Ultimately, this analysis empowers you to make data-driven decisions about your marketing approach, helping you to optimise resource allocation and improve the overall effectiveness of your go-to-market strategy.

Assess their strengths and weaknesses

Assessing competitors' strengths and weaknesses is critical to conducting a Competitor Intelligence Review. This comprehensive evaluation provides invaluable insights that can shape strategic decision-making and drive competitive advantage. Businesses can identify market gaps, refine their value propositions, and optimise their offerings in response to the competitive landscape. 

By thoroughly analysing competitors' products, features, pricing strategies, and marketing tactics, companies can uncover unique selling points, identify areas for improvement, and discover innovative ideas to incorporate into their product development and marketing strategies. 

This analysis enables businesses to make informed decisions about resource allocation, product positioning, and market approach. Furthermore, understanding competitors' weaknesses presents opportunities to capitalise on unmet customer needs or underserved market segments. 

This assessment is crucial, as it forms the foundation for developing robust, data-driven strategies that can effectively differentiate a company in a crowded marketplace and drive sustainable growth.

Identify potential threats and opportunities for your product

Identifying potential threats and opportunities for your product during a Competitor Intelligence Review is crucial for shaping a robust go-to-market strategy. This process enables businesses to anticipate market shifts, seize new growth opportunities, and mitigate risks posed by competitors. 

By analysing competitors' strengths and weaknesses, companies can uncover gaps in the market that their products can fill, thus capitalising on unmet customer needs or underserved segments.

Additionally, recognising threats like new market entrants, changing customer preferences, or regulatory changes allows businesses to develop proactive strategies to counteract these challenges. 

This foresight helps refine product offerings, adjust marketing tactics, and optimise resource allocation, ultimately ensuring that the go-to-market strategy is resilient and adaptable. A thorough identification of threats and opportunities positions a product more competitively and enhances overall strategic planning, leading to sustained market success and growth.

Integrating Competitor Intelligence into Your GTM Strategy

Once you've gathered and analysed competitor intelligence, it's crucial to integrate these insights into your overall GTM strategy. This may involve:

• Adjusting your product positioning to highlight unique features or benefits
• Refining your marketing messages to address unmet customer needs
• Exploring new marketing channels that your competitors may be underutilising
• Developing strategies to counter potential competitive threats

By doing this and building a strong messaging framework, you can impact your customer acquisition and retention strategies and your bottom line.

The ARISE GTM Framework: A Holistic Approach

At Digital BIAS, we understand that competitor intelligence is just one piece of the puzzle. That's why our ARISE GTM framework takes a comprehensive approach to developing and optimising go-to-market strategies. The framework consists of five key stages:

1. Assess: Evaluate your current market position and internal capabilities
2. Research: Conduct market research and competitor analysis
3. Ideate: Generate innovative ideas and solutions based on insights
4. Strategise: Develop a comprehensive GTM strategy and action plan
5. Execute: Implement the strategy and continuously monitor its effectiveness

The competitor intelligence review forms a crucial part of the Research stage, providing valuable insights that inform the subsequent stages of the framework. By incorporating competitor intelligence into this holistic approach, you ensure that your GTM strategy is well-informed, adaptable, and positioned for success.

This framework allows businesses to take a structured and comprehensive approach to developing their GTM strategies, ensuring that all aspects of the market, competition, and internal capabilities are considered.

The research stage, which includes the competitor intelligence review, serves as a foundation for ideation and strategy development, ultimately leading to a more effective execution of the GTM plan.

Conclusion

A thorough competitor intelligence review is essential to a robust GTM strategy. By understanding your competitors and the broader market landscape, you can make informed decisions about product positioning, marketing tactics, and overall strategy. 

Whether launching a new product or optimising an existing one, the insights gained from competitor analysis will help you create a more effective and competitive GTM approach.

Remember, the competitive landscape is constantly evolving, so it's essential to conduct regular competitor intelligence reviews as part of your ongoing GTM strategy optimisation. 

By staying informed and adaptable, you'll be better equipped to navigate market challenges and seize new opportunities as they arise.

To help optimise your current go-to-market strategy, book time with our team through the form in the footer.