Who Is Your Competition?

When starting your competitive research, the first order of business is creating a list of your competitors. Since this task often falls to someone who’s doing this for the first time, I thought it helpful to list some tips to complete the list:

• Ask your (sales) team who they encounter in their work. Who do we win or lose against?
• Let Google do the work for you. Type in various forms of “MyCompanyName vs. ….” and see how Google autocompletes the …. (once you’ve found a few competitors, do the same for them and see who they compete with).
• Some of your competitors will bid on your company or product name in Adwords. So when you type in your name in search those will show up as ads.
• When doing #2 and #3, you’ll likely find some websites that review the various players in your space (i.e. g2crowd, Capterra, and software advice). These are another good source. Be sure to scroll to the ones on the list that are not paying for the top position.
• Ask your customers if you get that chance. Who did they consider besides you?
• One last Google trick. Just type in “MyCompany" Name Competitors” and you’ll likely get a list.

Easy.