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September 14, 2011 11:37 AM

Categories: Marketing and PR

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JuliusWal

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Joined: 09/14/2011

Marketing teams gather and analyze a lot of competitor product information that could be valuable to their companies’ prospects. I am interested in good examples of how to use that product information to get leads or educate your prospects.

There are lots of third-party reviewers that have entire web portals dedicated to this (eg www.comparecellular.com for cellular phones and plans, www.dpreview.com for digital cameras), but I can't find examples of B2B companies comparing their industries' products in a formal, organized way.

Perhaps your company or another one you know of compares their products to their competitors’ through their own website, a separate website, their blog, or via a downloadable report? Is the information displayed as part of their online, branded environment or is it kept separate to add a sheen of objectivity to it?

Discussion:    Add a Comment | Comments 1-2 of 2 | Latest Comment

September 20, 2011 2:14 PM

You can find companies that do this on their website or blog, but it's hard to keep up-to-date, especially with SaaS software. If you have outdated or incorrect information about a competitor's features you lose credibility, which undermines the entire point of doing it.

Most often when I see this done it is kept private and shared as part of the sales process. But that might be because we work more with high-end B2B than low-end.

February 11, 2013 11:07 AM

Our company provides comparisons, reviews and information primarily on B2B focused technology tools. We cover online fax services, virtual pbx services, business VoIP, email marketing services, online backup services, online printing companies, etc. We have one site that covers many different areas (ChooseWhat.com), but we also have several websites that each focus on a single category.

Objectivity and accuracy is critical for our business. We have built a system for maintaining records of all the information we gather in our review process, who gathered it, as well as additional notes about the product. This allows us to be able to stay current with the rapid feature and pricing changes of SAAS services.

One of the ways that companies can help themselves through a company like ours is to let us know if they notice something out-of-date on our site. We do our absolute best to keep the information up-to-date, but it definitely helps when companies are pro-active and reach out to us when they make changes to their own product or even when they see changes to their competitors' products.

Also, it really helps for companies to let us know how they differentiate themselves from their competition. This is really the most important thing to us and to our users: Why should I pick your product over another one. Are you particularly useful for a specific industry? Do you have a unique, valuable feature that you can prove none of your competitor's offer? Do you offer the lowest price? Etc.

Hope that helps.

Leo Welder
ChooseWhat.com
CW Highlights: Technology and Entrepreneurship Blog
FindAFax
https://twitter.com/CW_LeoW

Discussion:    Add a Comment | Comments 1-2 of 2 | Latest Comment

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