How to Stand Out From the Competition in 2020

By Sameer Shah

Today’s red-hot economy means both unprecedented opportunity and stiff competition. Businesses in both traditional industries and innovative fields are facing a variety of competitive threats. Failing to fully evaluate your company’s external environment leaves you open to significant risk.

Competitive intelligence is the discipline of understanding and tracking an organization’s landscape, including not just competing businesses but also the market trends and industry at large. That information impacts how a company presents itself, its brand, core messaging, and potentially its product roadmap.

The Competitive Intelligence Process

The first step is to define the competitive set. Who are the key competitors? Does that list vary by product or service offering? Once the competitive set is defined, the next step involves a deep dive into each. We find the best way to organize and compare the information is to create a simple matrix in a spreadsheet program, with each competitor listed down the Y axis and various aspects that you’re tracking across the columns at the top.

The list of elements to track will vary by your needs, but this list is a good starting point. This information may not be readily available, especially in the case of private companies, so fill in as much as possible and use company presented information to make inferences as needed (for example, a private company may not publish its revenue but might list its major clients, from which you can guesstimate revenue).

Basic Information

HQ and office location
Regional or international presence
Company size (employees)
Sales team
- Outside
- Inside
- Ecommerce/online
Key news and information, press releases, etc.
Website URL
Social media handles

*Pro tip: Set up Google alerts for key competitors

Financial Metrics

Last year or trailing 12-month revenue, expenses, profits/losses
Funding or external capital raises
Major capital investments
Key clients
Average order size (estimate if needed)

Products and Services

Products and services offered
Features and benefits of each
Pricing
Key differentiators

Branding and Marketing

Brand:
- Value proposition
- Tagline
- Mission/core values
- Customer testimonials/reviews
- Net Promoter Score
Tactics:
- Social media presence
  - Platforms
- Posts, types, voice, examples
- Paid digital advertising
- Traditional (print) advertising
- Tradeshow presence
- PR capabilities
- Speaking engagements, thought leadership
- Subjective website review (gauge how each competitor’s website stacks up against the others)

Industry Trends

Industry news
Analyst/expert predictions

Completing this type of analysis on even a small number of competitors will take a good deal of time, but once the baseline is in place, it’s easy to maintain.

Weaponizing the Information

Once you know what you’re up against, the key question is how to best use that information to drive your marketing and growth efforts. This is both the hard and the fun part, and it’s where your dedicated marketing team or an outside agency plays the lead role. The goal is to understand your company’s differentiation and tout it. In some cases, it may be necessary to compete head-to-head on a particular feature or benefit (our widget is better than your widget because…), and in other situations it might be best to stand above the fray and let your value speak for itself.

This thought process becomes a key piece of the overall brand strategy. It may also impact your product/service roadmap. For example, a competitor may release a new feature that you can’t risk not adding to your offering. Your industry analysis may tell you to shift your product roadmap in a certain direction to take advantage of budding consumer trends.

Resources

All this can seem intimidating, especially for smaller organizations that may not have a dedicated marketing team. Outside agencies (like Khaana) can help, and sometimes a competitive review can be a standalone exercise, although we like to include it as a part of a larger brand review.

In the meantime, here are a few links for additional information and reading:

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How to Stand Out From the Competition in 2020