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COMPETITIVE
INTELLIGENCE
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What is Competitive Intel &
introduction How Do You Leverage It?
No company and no product lives in a vacuum. With the
overwhelming number of tools and resources available to us,
there’s not shortage of alternatives competing for our time and
attention. Whether your “competitors” are high-end software
products, free online tools, expensive consulting services, or
simply time spent sitting on the couch, every business has
alternatives to compete against.
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Table of Contents
Introduction 2
Conclusion 39
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2
The Latest Announcements
news, events, and Investments Related to
awards, & PR Your Competitors
The first step in monitoring what your competitors are up to is
to track their mentions in the news, both what they’ve
promoted themselves through press releases and their
website, and what coverage they get across the web. New
customers, partners, acquisitions, financial updates, awards,
events, and other content are key to monitor as they are
published.
“Tracking news
updates can give you Key Questions to Answer:
insight into how a
competitor wants to • What are your competitors saying about themselves in press
position themselves releases? How do they see themselves and what do they
and how successful want to promote?
they are at getting
• What is the industry saying about your competitors? Who are
that message across.”
the influencers you should be connecting with? Are your
competitors being recognized for outstanding performance?
Award Updates
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press releases
Monitoring press releases is one of the easiest ways to keep a close eye on your
competitors’ strategic moves. One particularly interesting insight from press releases is that
you can see how your competitors want to be perceived. Check the press or news pages
for each of your competitors and set up Google Alerts on their brand names to catch the
most important announcements.
news mentions
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Stay on top of these mentions via Google Alerts so you know as soon as they happen, and
arm your internal teams with appropriate positioning in response. You can also leverage
these insights to find which journalists and publications are covering your market and your
competitors. These may be good targets for future press outreach.
award updates
Awards are a great way to build recognition and legitimacy for your company’s branding,
recruiting, and acquisition efforts. But with new awards popping up every year, it can be
hard to keep up with all of the possible areas of recognition. Tracking the awards won by
your competitors can give you great ideas for future awards to go after, and is important for
arming your own internal teams on how to address why you did not win an award that a
competitor did. Track the awards page for each of your competitors regularly, and
supplement your tracking with Google Alerts.
Event updates
In addition to event sponsorships, you will want to track events hosted by your competitors
as well. This can give you additional insight into their target markets, their focus as a
company, and their positioning. And this can give you ideas for your own events and how
you can out-execute on a great marketing activity.
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Your competitors’ events may or may not be listed in a single place. You will want to
monitor event listing pages on their websites as well as key event calendars relevant in
your industry. Subscribe to these calendars where possible, and check the other websites
regularly.
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How to Leverage This Intel:
Want to track competitor news, events, awards, and PR updates at scale? Check out
Crayon Intel Pro, which tracks 100+ different signals to give you a complete picture of
your competitors’ digital footprints. Request a Demo of Crayon Intel Pro.
10
3
Employee Feedback & Growth
Team & Personnel Driven Insights About Competi-
tive Strengths & Weaknesses
When it comes to getting insight about a competitor’s strategic
direction, changes regarding the team can offer a wealth of
information. Learning about new hires can help you see where
the company is investing, and areas where there is turnover
can signal turmoil and internal challenges.
Employee Reviews
Team Changes
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Employee Reviews
One of the simplest ways to get a lens into what’s happening inside an organization is to
listen to what the employees have to say. Third party review sites like Glassdoor can show
you what current and former employees are saying about the company. Check back on
these sites regularly to see the latest reviews and ratings on your and your competitors’
companies.
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team changes
When there’s trouble brewing on an executive team in your industry, it can often be a signal
that there’s a larger shift in the organization beneath the surface. Being aware of these
changes can serve as a competitive advantage.
For instance, if a competitor’s VP Customer Success leaves, it may be a sign that customer
retention rates are low or that customers aren’t happy with the current level of support.
Knowing these details could influence an opportunistic marketing campaign in which you
focus on the relative strength of your services offerings. Keep track of management pages,
about pages, and team pages to find staffing competitive insights when they occur.
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positions added or removed
What if you could predict when and how a specific competitor was growing its staff, would
that be useful information to you? One of the best ways to understand how companies are
staffing up is to monitor and track their hiring page as well as key job boards.
Understanding hiring trends can help provide insight into where competitors are placing
their bets for future growth. Are they developing for mobile? Are they going international?
Are they hiring in Sales or Channel?
Monitor newly posted jobs and dig into the specifics of the roles as well - where they’re
located, what the responsibilities are, and so on.
Just as important as the new positions your competitors are hiring for are the positions that
they are no longer hiring for. If you read between the lines, you can guess if they hired that
position successfully or perhaps gave up on the search. Tracking these movements on an
ongoing basis will give you insight into which positions are being filled, which departments
are growing, and how fast.
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How to Leverage This Intel:
Want to track competitor team and personnel changes at scale? Check out Crayon Intel
Pro, which tracks 100+ different signals to give you a complete picture of your
competitors’ digital footprints. Request a Demo of Crayon Intel Pro.
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4
products & Insights on Products &
Services, Positioning, Reviews,
services Pricing & Packaging
You can’t talk about competitive strategy without talking about
your competitors’ products and services. Every department
across the business, from marketing to sales to customer
success to executive management, wants to know what the
competitors are offering, to whom, and how that’s changing
over time. Staying on top of this helps everyone across the
business make better, more strategic decisions every day.
“Staying on top of
your competitors’ Key Questions to Answer:
products and services
helps everyone across • Does your sales team know the latest about your
the business make competitors’ products and services and how you stack up?
better, more strategic Do the competitors have more or less complete solutions,
decisions every day.” and is the team prepared to sell effectively against them?
• Do your product and executive teams know the ins and outs
of competitors’ solutions and where they’re investing next?
How does your roadmap compare to the rest of the industry?
Product Updates
Positioning Changes
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Services & Support
Reviews
product updates
If you don’t know about the new features your competitors are offering, how will you be
prepared to proactively manage competitive sales situations and stay ahead from a
product marketing standpoint?
To stay on top of product updates, check any and all of the product-related pages on your
competitors’ websites, including product overviews, product briefs, help and support
articles, forum threads, and more. Support articles and forum threads can give you insight
into product feature details and UX as well as product areas that are difficult to use. A
feature ideas site can give you insight into gaps in the product where customers are feeling
pain. Product data sheets, detail pages, and feature grids are great for seeing external
positioning.
Product Page on TableauSoftware.com
Stay on top of new threads,
changes to pages, and
new content to get alerted
to new or removed
features, product gaps, and
company strategy. The key
is to zero in on areas of
relative strength and
weakness between you
and the competition, and
identify new opportunities
for growth.
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positioning changes
Positioning changes can come from any page on a website, not just the home page. Keep a
close eye on all of your competitors’ website pages from staffing to pricing pages in order
to stay informed and keep your brand one step ahead.
What key copywriting and positioning changes have occurred across your competitors’
websites lately? What can you learn from how they’re changing positioning that can make
you more strategic about your marketing campaigns? This is a particularly important
analysis to conduct before you change your own positioning and messaging on key pages.
When it comes to pricing and packaging, you need to equip your sales team with all the
information you can in a concise way so that they can best position the value of your
solution. Keeping track of numbers isn’t enough though, you need to evaluate all of the
features and inclusions of a
Product & Pricing Page on Roku.com
given pricing tier or
software package. It’s
important to monitor
consistently because price
is always top of mind for
customers and prospects.
You’ll want to track the
packaging of solutions as
well, including trial
durations, setup costs, and
other components to each
offering.
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services & support
Service and support can be key differentiators relative to competitors and is one of the best
ways to ensure you retain your best customers. Check your competitors’ services-related
pages looking for changes in how they are packaging and delivering services and support.
Services changes don’t typically make press headlines, so monitoring even small changes
on their website can provide key insights into areas of strength and weakness.
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Reviews
With more and more customers turning to third party review sites to share their feedback,
you have access to incredibly valuable and deep intel about your competitors. Monitor
review sites such as Capterra and Software Advice, and app store listings like iTunes and
Google Play. Customer reviews and references are one of the most used assets in a
prospect’s product evaluation, so it is key to know what’s being said about you and your
competitors online.
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How to Leverage This Intel:
Want to track product and services intelligence at scale? Check out Crayon Intel Pro,
which tracks 100+ different signals to give you a complete picture of your competitors’
digital footprints. Request a Demo of Crayon Intel Pro.
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5
Customers, Testimonials, &
customers & Partners Announced or
partners Removed
Customers and partnerships are a key signal of growth as well
as key marketing fodder when talking to potential customers
and partners. Monitoring both additions and removals of key
customer testimonials and partnerships is a great way to get
insight into the growth rate of your competitors. It is also
important to stay on top of these changes to arm your sales
team with the best positioning of your role versus your
competitors’ in the industry landscape.
“Customers and
partnerships are a key
signal of growth as Key Questions to Answer:
well as key marketing
fodder.” • Who are your competitors signing as customers? What are
those customers saying about them? What does this say in
terms of company targeting and customer success?
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customer updates
Are your competitors featuring new customer logos or quotes on key pages? Are they
adding new customer testimonials, case studies, or videos on or off their website?
Your company is no longer what you say it is, it’s what your customers say it is. With social
reviews dominating the internet these days thanks to companies like Amazon and Yelp,
getting your customers to publicly endorse you is the most effective way to build brand
strength across your industry.
To stay on top of how your competitors are winning or losing customers, you’ll want to track
their case study pages, testimonial pages, YouTube channel, and key pages where they
feature quotes and logos to look for signals about new customer wins or losses.
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partner updates
A great way to get insight into a competitor’s strategic direction is to monitor their
partnerships. What partners are they adding? What partners are they removing? This can
signal areas of increased or decreased investment for the products or services. Check your
competitors’ partner pages regularly and watch for changes, including both additions and
removals, to get a handle on their partnership strategy.
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How to Leverage This Intel:
Want to track customer and partnership updates at scale? Check out Crayon Intel Pro,
which tracks 100+ different signals to give you a complete picture of your competitors’
digital footprints. Request a Demo of Crayon Intel Pro.
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6
Content Published &
content &
Promoted, Social Media
social media Engagement
In a world of increased online content production, it’s all the
more important to create content that stands out from the
noise. Monitoring what your competitors are publishing and
how they’re promoting that content is key to creating better,
more differentiated content. You can also get insights into what
type of media and what channels work best for them, and find
new ideas to improve your own content and social media
marketing efforts.
“Monitoring what your
competitors are
publishing and how Key Questions to Answer:
they’re promoting that
content is key to • What topics are competitors using to engage their prospects?
creating better, more What types of arguments should your sales team be
differentiated prepared to sell against?
content.”
• How much content do your competitors produce each week?
What type of content do they focus on? How does the quality
compare to your content?
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Blog Articles
downloadable resources
Ebooks, research reports, infographics, oh my! These resources are effective for gaining
credibility and attention in your industry, and turning anonymous prospects into leads. If
your customers are outperforming you in both frequency and quality, your prospects,
customers, and search engines will pay attention to them instead of you.
Tracking resource download pages can be tricky because they often live on landing pages
that are disconnected from the central website. The content that companies do post on
their website will most often live in a “resources” section, and features on the marketing
blog and social media.
Downloadable resources can give you insight into how your competitors are generating
leads, the broader positioning used as part of the sales process, what topics and media
resonate with their prospects, and niches they target within the industry.
blog articles
Every company in the world is blogging. Ok, that might be a stretch, but all the industry
leading companies are actively blogging and we bet you are too. So how do you
benchmark yourself and how do you get your content to stand out? Monitor competitor
blogs and keep track of how often they post, what topics are being covered, the quality of
the content, and how each competitor is positioning themselves within the industry via their
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blog. Just looking at the titles of all the blog posts published by your competitors each
week can give you quick insights into what your industry is talking about.
More and more companies are producing videos to diversify their content and increase
engagement on and off their websites. From quick tip videos on YouTube to emotional case
study videos embedded on the website to long form educational or product webinars, there
is a wealth of information you can leverage for competitive insights.
Monitoring and watching videos can give you deeper intelligence into a company’s
positioning, content strategy, and inside operations. And, where possible, seeing the view
counts on key videos can give you the added layer of understanding which content is most
effective with their target market.
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social media posts
The list of social media sites seems never-ending and ever-growing. How are your
competitors using social media? Watching their activity can show you which channels are
or are not working for them, and how they are sharing their content online. Social media
channels also allow you to “listen in” on conversations your competitors are having with
others - whether it’s their customers, prospects, thought leaders, or employees. You may
find opportunities to jump into the conversation, you may identify new thought leaders to
engage, or you may find trends on what their prospects or customers are asking.
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How to Leverage This Intel:
Want to track your competitors’ content and social media activity at scale? Check out
Crayon Intel Pro, which tracks 100+ different signals to give you a complete picture of
your competitors’ digital footprints. Request a Demo of Crayon Intel Pro.
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7
conversion & Conversion Campaigns, Tests,
promotions & Promotions
What are your competitors doing to acquire new customers?
Conversion tests, offers, and promotions provide valuable
insights into marketing strategy. Monitoring new promotions
across channels, including email and web, can take a lot of
time and effort but is well worth it if you can turn that insight
into more effective marketing campaigns of your own.
New Promotions
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conversion campaigns & tests
Get insights into the offers your competitors provide as well as how they position and
promote those offers to acquire leads and customers. Stay on top of the landing pages
published by your competitors, what information they’re collecting, and any A/B tests
they’re running to increase conversion. Ad copy and creative can also provide great
inspiration for your campaigns and insight into your competitors’ marketing strategy. This
can be hard to get, especially if your competitors are good at targeting prospects rather
than their own competitors. Tracking and comparing your own campaigns against theirs
can be a valuable learning and brainstorming experience.
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new promotions
Aside from landing pages and advertisements, promotional emails can provide great
insight and inspiration for marketing campaigns. Subscribing to your competitors’ email lists
will give you a feed of promotional content from them, as long as they don’t filter out
competitive subscribers.
See what changes are being made Try new imagery, copy, form fields,
New landing page A/B test or in the hopes of increasing or multimedia to evaluate if these
change conversion, like new imagery, elements could improve your
copy, form fields, or multimedia landing page conversion rates
Want to track your competitors’ conversion tests and promotions at scale? Check out
Crayon Intel Pro, which tracks 100+ different signals to give you a complete picture of
your competitors’ digital footprints. Request a Demo of Crayon Intel Pro.
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8
Turn Competitive Insights into
conclusion Strategic Actions
At this point, you’re well aware of the wealth of information
you can collect about your competitors. But the key is not to
simply sit on this information - it’s to use it to your advantage.
Product Team
Sales Team
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Services Team
The services team, too, will find these insights relevant and useful. Sharing competitive
intelligence with this team can help you reinforce strategic messaging across every
customer touchpoint while also providing helpful background on customers’ expectations
based on past experiences with competitors.
Marketing Team
Last but certainly not least, the entire marketing team is a key audience for competitive
intelligence. There are endless applications, from ad campaigns to product positioning
iterations to landing page tests to PR media targeting. Share this information across the
team so that every marketing function can benefit from the inspiration and insights that
come from competitive intelligence.
With each of these areas of the business diving in and leveraging competitive intelligence,
your company will be best positioned to win in a complex and constantly changing market.
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Ready to take your competitive intelligence to the next level?
Crayon Intel Pro tracks 100+ different signals to give you a complete picture of your
competitors’ digital footprints. Keep tabs on the latest customer reviews,
key executive departures, pricing tests and offer promotions, and more
on a single market intelligence platform.
Crayon is a market intelligence platform that provides strategic insights and inspiration for
marketers. Crayon tracks hundreds of millions of pages across 7 million websites. Browse
web designs on Crayon Inspire, track company updates on Crayon Intel Free, and monitor
your competitors’ every move with Crayon Intel Pro. Sign up at www.crayon.co.
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