Don’t Be Jealous of Your Neighbours — Learn From Them Instead With A Competitor Analysis.
A great way to start at a new company as a product manager — the competitor analysis playbook
I’m a freelance product manager and therefore work on many different products and services. Whenever I work on something new, I usually begin with a competitor analysis. It is a great way to get to know the industry, and if done right, it will guide you in your product and marketing strategy. There’s no reason to start from scratch when you come up with your plan. Have a look at your competitors and learn from them, so you don’t make the mistakes that they’ve already made before you.
Over the years, I’ve tried multiple ways to do competitor analyses. After many tries, I finally found a method I like and which delivers consistent results. There are three steps:
- To built a Kano model for the product you work with.
- To search for information on competitors using all the tricks in the book.
- To add competitors to the Kano model from step 1.
At the end of this article, you’ll know how to complete a repeatable and sustainable competitor analysis. I’ve even made a Google sheet template for you to record and track your investigation. So let’s not wait any longer and start comparing apples with apples.
1. Kano model
The Kano model is in itself interesting enough to be the subject of its own article, but for this article, I’ll stick to the basics. The Kano model offers a framework to rank the features of your product into three categories: the must-haves, the performers and the delighters.
Must-haves — If your product doesn’t have must-haves, your product is incomplete. Let’s take the example of a car. Seatbelts are a must-have. Without seatbelts, you probably won’t buy the car. However, the funny thing about must-haves is that you can’t use them to compete. They have to be there. Trying to have the best seatbelts or adding twenty belts to the car, won’t influence the customer’s decision to buy the car. Must-haves don’t make customers happy by being there but do make them unhappy when they are absent.
Performers — The performers are the core of your product. In the case of the car, gas mileage could be an example of a performer. A better gas mileage could be a reason for someone to buy the car. A lousy mileage, however, doesn’t mean that nobody will buy the car, as was the case with the seatbelts. Tesla competes with Jeep on mileage. But they also have performers that set them apart. Jeep, for example, will stress their ability to drive through the roughest of terrain. And Tesla on having less impact on the environment.
Delighters — Delighters aren’t expected by customers to be in your product. But when they are there, they add that wow-factor. For cars, GPS navigation used to be a delighter. Another example was to have internet on an aeroplane. Or the software updates that Tesla provides car owners.
Delighters tend to lose their wow-factor and tend to become mainstream over time. People learn to expect them. When that happens, delighters become performers. And even further down in time, performers can become must-haves. But back to the delighters: these are the features to brag about. They might not be the features people buy your product for, but they can push people over the edge. These features can make a doubting customer turn into an evangelist of your brand.
Now that you have an overview of the Kano-model, let’s get to work. First of all, use the Kano-model to map your product to the Product Strategy Grid by Dan Olson. Split your product into features and figure out whether the features are must-haves, performers or delighters. To make it even easier for you, I’ve made a Google sheet which you can copy and use to do this.
2. Search for information on your competitors, using all the tricks in the book.
Now that you’ve made a Kano model of your product go check out your competitors and map them to the same framework. The Kano model helps you understand what you are looking for. It might be that you will have to add some features, and you might have to switch features between categories if you look at enough competitors. A feature you thought was a delighter, might turn out to be shared between all the competition and therefore be more of a performer than a delighter. That’s alright. That means that you are learning about your product space!
How do you know what competitors to look for?
- Start asking others about the competition — don’t reinvent the wheel and ask around who your colleagues see as competitors. Or ask your customers who they see as an alternative for your product.
- Online search — pretend that you have the problem your product solves and Google how to solve it. Which companies pop-up?
- Comparison sites — depending on the space you are in, there will be sites like www.g2.com that do their type of competitor analyses for you. Always good to have a look and see who they think that your competitors are.
Once you’ve found your competitors…
- Look at their product. Use it. Download their app, sign-up for their trial and go crazy.
- Look at their marketing materials. Check their website. But also don’t forget to check channels like YouTube (product videos), Facebook, Twitter and whatever social media channel they’re on. How they market themselves, is how they would like to be perceived and it will teach you about the space you are in. Sites like SEMrush can help you find out where and to who they market their product.
- Look at the LinkedIn of their employees. Many times, employees share news about smaller wins for the company, in a more personal and less purposeful marketing way.
Things that I’ve found to be helpful in the past were old tweets of competitors that showed how their strategy changed over time. Or shared roadmaps. They are probably talking about what they think their performer and delighter features are.
3. Add competitors to the Kano model.
After going through step 1 and 2, step 3 is easy. Look for all the features you’ve introduced on your model and add/rank the competitors. Often, you’ll find that your competitors have some features you don’t have. In that case, add those to the model and rate yourself on these as well. The goal is to get the overview that your potential customers would have and use in their decision making.
This overview gives you an excellent overview of the landscape of your product. You’ll have a structured way to look at your competitors, and you’ll have learned how they tackle issues or solve the problems that you are trying to solve.
Mistakes you don’t have to make — I’ve made them for you.
To start a competitor analysis without a structure. When you start with a competitor analysis, you will have some assumptions about companies you will research. A lurking danger is the confirmation bias. In short, it’s the danger of trying to confirm the things you already believe. Keep your analysis objective by using a framework like the one I’ve described in this article so that the rules to compare the product are clear before you start your work.
To copy your competitors instead of differentiating from them. It’s easy to see what others have that you don’t. But to be successful, you will need to find your own voice. That’s why competitor analyses are useful. If you copy what your competitors have, you will lose uniqueness and become less distinguishable. Use your competitors as an inspiration to find your voice.
To fail to keep the analysis up-to-date. Your competitors have smart people working at their company as well. They are always moving forward. So make sure to keep your competitor analysis updated over time. Subscribe to their newsletters and set Google alerts, so that you’ll be the first to know when they come up with product improvements.
Have I missed anything in this article, like ways to get information on your competition? Let me know in the comments, as I would love to learn from you.
