Competitive intelligence done right is a powerful growth lever for any organization.
But getting it right? That's the hard part.
There are many concepts to master if you're to satisfy your customers, motivate your team, and optimize your workflows. Enter our Competitive Intelligence Framework. 🏁
The Framework covers all you need to know to navigate the competitive intelligence cycle, from start to…well, there is no finish really, is there?
For each of the four fundamental stages: Define, gather, analyze, and implement, we’ve unpacked each of the cogs to arm you with the info you need to outcompete the competition.
Define
Being skilled at defining key elements like your target audience, customers' unmet needs, and competitors ensures you're strategically aligned. Develop this competency, and you’ll better understand where your business stands and where it needs to go.
By clearly identifying specific market elements, you can tailor your strategies to effectively meet market demands and outmaneuver competitors, directly influencing your company's success. Knowing your business' objectives also helps you focus your efforts where they can generate the most impact.
Customer Needs and How to Meet Them
Giving customers what they want and need is an essential part of product marketing. Check out our insights on how to identify and act upon customer needs.
Lawrence Chapman
How to Test Internal Assumptions
Assumptions and biases can bite you. Sensible strategizing involves identifying the assumptions you’re making, and pressure testing them before taking on risk.
Lawrence Chapman
Direct Competition Examples
Indirect competition is the kind of competition you experience from indirect competitors. These are competitors that offer different products and services to you, but targeting the same set of customers.
Alex Walton
Direct vs. Indirect Competition Explained (With Examples)
Indirect competition is the kind of competition you experience from indirect competitors. These are competitors that offer different products and services to you, but targeting the same set of customers.
Alex Walton
The Best Competitive Intelligence Tools For CI Tech Stacks
We’ve compiled a list of the top three competitive intelligence tools in every key software category – from dedicated CI platforms to social listening tools and CRMs.
Amelia Wilson
To Crush the Competition, Solve Your Customers’ Unmet Needs
By understanding the unmet needs -- the unaddressed frustrations and desires of your customers, companies can gain an advantage that helps them out-innovate their rivals.
Lawrence Chapman
9 Tips to Align Your CI Function with Company Objectives
By aligning your CI efforts with company objectives from the get-go, you can transform competitive insights from a nice-to-have into the lifeblood of your organization.
Amelia Wilson
Guide to Audience Segmentation & Competitive Intelligence
Audience segmentation is a process of dividing customers into groups with similar interests, needs, and behaviors. Their demographics and psychographic characteristics play a part too. It’s used to get a better understanding of the target audience.
LJ Barnum
Gather
Being adept at gathering intel like win/loss analysis, customer feedback, and market research ensures you're always informed. You'll catch trends and market shifts early, understand what's working and what is not, and understand your competitors' moves.
This knowledge lets you adapt strategies quickly and effectively, keeping your business ahead. Collecting internal insights also aligns your strategy with actual operational capabilities and limitations, making sure you're working with a realistic framework.
Everything You Need to Know About Customer Feedback
Customer and market feedback is an essential part of product marketing. Understand what it is, its importance, plus how to collect data and plan future strategies.
Lawrence Chapman
Using Customer Feedback and Win-Loss Interviews to Improve Your Product
Customer feedback and win-loss interviews are among the most effective ways to gain a firm understanding of how your product has been received, and how you can make changes, where needed.
Lawrence Chapman
5 Ways to Gather Competitive Intel From Internal Teams
Competitive intelligence teams are small, and budgets are limited. If you want to be effective, you must work efficiently. Here’s our guide on how to gather competitive intelligence from internal teams and stakeholders.
Alex Walton
Building Product Vision & Positioning Through Data | Part 1
The goal of this three-part series is to add one more skill to your toolset: creating product vision and positioning based on competitive intelligence and customer research.
Konstantin Valiotti
Competitive Pricing Intelligence: Your Ultimate Guide
Competitive pricing intelligence helps businesses make smarter decisions about their own positioning and pricing strategies, empowering them to win more market share.
Alex Walton
How To Perform a Competitor Website Analysis in 10 Steps
We show you how to examine competitors’ websites and their materials, giving you valuable insights that help your org beat the competition.
Alex Walton
A Step-By-Step Guide to Market Research
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore what it entails and why market research is an indispensable tool for any competitive intelligence expert.
Lawrence Chapman
A 6-Step Guide to Customer Research (And Profiting From It)
Customer research aims to learn more about the needs and behaviors of customers and to use that information to create products, features, and messaging that resonate with them. In other words, customer research helps you sell your products by tailoring your approach to the needs of your customers.
Lawrence Chapman
Analyze
Mastering analysis frameworks like SWOT, PESTLE, and competitive gap analysis is crucial because it sharpens your strategic thinking. You'll identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats more accurately, understand broader environmental factors, and pinpoint where you can gain an advantage over your competitors.
This deep dive into data transforms raw information into actionable insights, enabling you to craft proactive strategies that take you beyond the reactive default. In short, strong analytical skills empower you to make informed decisions that propel your business forward, and strengthen its footing in the competitive landscape.
How to Do a PESTLE Analysis (A Guide in 7 Simple Steps)
A PESTLE analysis (or PESTEL analysis, sometimes simplified to PEST analysis) is a strategic planning framework that has you examine six types of external factors that can impact an organization: Political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors.
Alex Walton
How to Perform a Competitive Landscape Analysis: 5 Steps
A competitive landscape analysis analyzes your entire competitive environment to give you a comprehensive overview of your industry.
Alex Walton
How to Run a Porter’s Five Forces Analysis Session
Running a business analysis using Porter’s Five Forces (P5F) is an exciting opportunity to dig deeper into your customers’ motivations and behaviors. It’s a great way to gain new insights into your business, and it’s often used in strategic planning.
LJ Barnum
Use a Competitive Gap Analysis to Blast Past Competitors
A competitive gap analysis compares the results you’re actually getting with the results you expected to get, taking into account the overall competitive landscape.
Alex Walton
How To Do a SWOT Analysis of a Product
We discuss how to do a SWOT analysis of a product, with examples, sample templates, and frameworks to save you time.
Alex Walton
Implement
Being skilled at implementing your strategic findings and creating deliverables like battle cards and CI workshops ensures your insights don't just sit on the shelf. You'll translate analysis into practical deliverables that directly empower stakeholder groups.
This application of intelligence helps your business anticipate competitor moves, seize market opportunities, and respond to challenges effectively. By actively shaping strategy and execution, you ensure that your competitive intelligence work drives real, tangible results, keeping your company competitive and agile in a dynamic market.
How to Deliver Competitive Intelligence to Leadership
We’ve covered sales, marketing, and product, but there’s another group that can make even greater use of competitive insights: the C-suite.
Amelia Wilson
All You Need to Know About Battlecards
Many companies include battlecards among these resources and provide these assets to their sales reps to turn their buyer personas into fully-fledged customers.
Lawrence Chapman
A Guide to Business Wargaming for Strategic Planning
Business strategies are high stakes. There’s money on the line, and mistakes matter.
That’s why pressure testing your business strategy is key.
In this article, we’ll explain what business wargaming is, and how you can use it to test and improve your business’ strategies and tactics.
Alex Walton
How to Deliver CI to Sales and Customer Success
Sales and customer success teams need to be able to handle prospects’ objections and speak confidently about competitors. Here’s how your CI helps them do that.
Amelia Wilson
The 4 Best Sources of Competitive Intelligence | CIA
Win/loss interviews; social listening tools; competitive SEO; and competitor websites present four of the very best sources of competitive intel.
Alex Walton
What is Sales Enablement Content?
In this article, we’re going to be focusing on sales enablement content, both internal and external-facing, and how to make it great.
Daniel O’Dowd
Enjoying these resources? Go on, treat yourself
Give yourself an unfair advantage. Our newest competitive intelligence course lifts the lid on the frameworks and processes experts use to deliver impactful intel with confidence.
You can expect:
- A 100% self-paced and online course packed with competitive wisdom so you can stop worrying and start winning.
- Bonus features from established competitive professionals to give you an unfair advantage.
- 6 downloadable, customizable templates and frameworks that make analysis a cinch.
Competitive Intelligence: Core
We'll show you how to:
- 👑 Lead development of your org’s all-important competitive positioning.
- 🦾 Master CI’s essentials, including its most powerful research techniques.
- 🚀 Arm sales and customer success with intel to skyrocket win rates and turn down churn.
- 🧠 Offer leaders critical intel that informs their decision-making and strategy.
- 📈 Elevate CI’s role within your org to ensure career progression.
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