What tools or frameworks do you like to best utilize when conducting competitive and market intelligence?

Three types of research should inform any competitive and market intelligence program:

• Internal resources and intelligence, such as sales calls and win-loss analysis, are great for identifying high-level competitive and market insights. I typically use these resources to identify areas for further research (e.g., we usually lose deals to competitor X due to a specific capability gap) and differentiators to showcase in our marketing and selling motions.

• Publicly available resources, such as competitor websites, news articles, analyst reports (e.g., Gartner, Forrester, IDC), and review sites (e.g., G2, TrustRadius, Capterra) should be the foundation of any competitive or market intelligence initiative as they help you identify "what" makes you different or better than your competitors. You should sign up for competitive and market newsletters to keep a pulse of your industry.

• Complement your research with primary research when necessary to identify the "how" you are different and "why" that matters to customers. I recommend that you interview competitive switchers (customers switched from a competitive solution) or prospects who use a competitive solution to understand 

Tip: My advice would be to develop a comprehensive framework that you can use every time you profile a competitor or market to ensure consistency of comparison (e.g., positioning, value props, capabilities, features, claims, target audiences, etc.).

There are plenty of tools out there to gather competitive intel and you don't technically even need a tool - you could just set up Google alerts or search yourself. That said, here are some of the things I think are critical to gather when conducting competitive research:

• Strengths/weaknesses (sometimes called swords and shields) with talking points for each

• Product(s) overview

• Feature comparisons including gaps

• Questions for prospects to plant (landmines)

• Track record against you with customer examples (both wins and losses)

• Customer quotes/testimonials

• Positioning/messaging

• Analyst intel (if available)

• Pricing (if available)

• SWOT analysis

• Company overview

• How they go to market

• Market share and financial info for public companies

• M&A activity (if any)