How to conduct your competitive analysis and market research well

Jul 17

4 min read

Over the years I’ve been faced with two schools of thought when it comes to performing a competitive analysis research project - the obsessive ‘let’s find out everything we can and do it better’ eager beavers, and the dismissive ‘there’s nothing we’ll be able to find out from them we don’t already know’ naysayers.

Two completely different ends of the spectrum, and while there’s been those that sort of occupy a middle ground, it’s often seen as a bit of a waste of time and is never really looked at again. Ever.

Look, I know the humble competitive analysis gets a bad reputation, but done properly it will help you define your positioning, provide context as to the decisions you’re making with the product itself, messaging, and even pricing structures.

Why competitive analysis research matters

Competitive research is a fundamental component of building your GTM strategy. Just like building your ICP and your messaging, conducting a proper competitor research project will highlight your position within your marketplace and category and help you bolster your brand narrative.

I’ve conducted dozens of competitor research projects over the years and I always uncover something about the competition that not one other person in the company found in their research. The most common thing I usually find is a direct market and geographical competitor when I was told that the product didn’t have any competitors.

In SaaS your product will always have direct competition. It would be weird if it didn’t. It’s how you use the research you’ve conducted that will start to set you apart from other vendors.

You’ll start to reveal positioning white space, pricing trends, customer expectations, and even gaps in your product roadmap.

So, how do you start your competitor analysis?

Define your competitors

Create buckets of competitors that you’ll examine through a certain selection criteria based on what makes them a competitor. For example, the buckets I usually sort them into, include:

Direct competitors: these are the companies that have the same ICP and solve the same problem as you. Could be in the same or similar industry and have a similar product or features.

Indirect competitors: These companies have a slightly differing approach to the same or similar problem you solve. They may have a similar ICP but the market they’re in and what they provide differs on some level as what you do.

The Manual alternatives: This is the do nothing competitor bucket - for example, using excel, using a manual work around, not willing to replace legacy systems, happy with doing nothing and going along with the status quo.

Get together a list of no more than 10 in each bucket and list them all in a spreadsheet in column A. Along the top are the categories that you’re going to be researching, compiling information and comparing on.

Which leads me to…

What you should be looking at

For direct and indirect competitors, look at and record the following categories. You should also include your company too.

Product and features

Core vs secondary features
Where they’re investing (via release notes, blog, roadmaps)
Integrations, partners and ecosystem
How does this compare to your product?

Pricing

Pricing transparency
Plan structures and if all information is accessible
Freemium/trial models
What they charge for vs give away
How is this similar/different to what you offer?

Positioning and messaging

Homepage headline and value proposition - aligned to ICP?
How do they describe the problem and solution - clearer than you?
Claims, tone, differentiation in market
Look at how you position yourself - is it clear?

Customers and traction

Who’s buying - look at case studies, testimonials, review sites (G2, Capterra)
What their customers love or hate (pull quotes from these reviews)
Where they’re winning and losing (look at Reddit or product forums)

Go-to-Market Strategy

Channels they’re using, for example content, paid, partnerships, outbound
Brand voice and assets
Events, thought leadership, sales motions - do they have a decent community following?

For the manual alternatives, leave them to one side for the time being as this will become the basis for the objection handling side of things that you should work on in the sales enablement part of building your GTM.

What to do with all of your research

Competitor research is only valuable if you actually use it otherwise it just becomes another spreadsheet that gathers digital dust.

The first place you should probably start probing into is identifying any and all positioning gaps and areas of white space. Where are your competitors all saying the same thing? What pain points are they ignoring? What use cases are underserved? This is your opportunity to differentiate, especially if you can fill that white space.

From there, tighten up your own messaging. For example, if your competitor is leaning heavily into all things for all people language, maybe you go sharper on depth or specificity. If they focus on features, maybe you lead with outcomes. The goal isn’t to react, but to make conscious, strategic choices based on what the market is already hearing.

You’ll also start to spot overused and meaningless generic claims such as “seamless integrations” or “trusted by the best.” These are easy to say but hard to prove, and when everyone’s using the same copy, it becomes invisible. Replace it with something clearer and more valuable.

Finally, feed those insights into your content strategy. If customers are consistently confused about a certain feature in your competitor’s product, write about how you handle that use case better. If a competitor is dominating a particular topic, find the angle they’ve missed. Good research will inform your strategy and add fuel to the stories you tell across every channel.

To round off

Don’t skip doing the competitor analysis, you’ll always find insights that will not only help you build your GTM but also help add insights to your longer term strategy.