Competitive Analysis Template

50+ Editable Slides to Analyze the Competitive Landscape

and Find Opportunities to Win In Your Market
Inc l ud e d i n t hi s T e mp l at e

Part 1: Competitive Landscape Analysis

Part 2: Competitive Intelligence Update

Part 3: Competitive Analysis Resources

Additional tips and instructions are included in

callouts like this one.
Make t he Mos t of Comp e t i t i ve A nal ys i s

1. Benchmark Performance

2. Identify Opportunities / Action Items

3. Keep Stakeholders Updated

4. Close the Loop

This full cycle is key for an impactful competitive analysis

effort. Where most analyses are lacking is past the first step
of benchmarking performance. The most successful
companies will identify and drive action items, keep the intel
fresh and circulating across the organization, and close the
loop on the efforts driven by a competitive analysis. Be sure
to complete this cycle to make the most of your competitive
analysis.
 Part 1:
Initial Competitive Landscape Analysis
Competitive Analysis:
Acme Corp.
January 2021
Prepared by Jane Doe
T ab l e of Cont ent s

Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................7

Market ........................................................................................................................................................10
Team ...........................................................................................................................................................17
Product ......................................................................................................................................................22
Marketing ................................................................................................................................................28
Sales ...........................................................................................................................................................39
Executive Summary
Competitive Analysis for Acme Corp.
Competitive Analysis: Executive Summary

Comp et i t ors Inc l ud e d i n A nal ys i s

Add competitor logos and group by direct vs.

indirect competitor and legacy vs. emerging
company.
Competitive Analysis: Executive Summary

K e y T ake aways

1. Highlight the top takeaways from your analysis, to be detailed in the rest of the presentation.

2. Focus on areas where there are great opportunities for the company to improve – this is how you get
leverage from a competitive analysis.

3. Call out areas of strength where the company can double down to go even faster.

4. And call out areas of weakness to identify where the company has not focused but could in order to
keep up with competitors.
Market
Competitive Analysis for Acme Corp.
Competitive Analysis: Market

Comp e t i t ors Inc l ud e d i n A nal ys i s

Direct

Legacy Emerging

Indirect
Competitive Analysis: Market

F i nanci al Snap s hot

For some comparisons, you may want to have your
own company’s info side-by-side, but when not
relevant/helpful, feel free to skip that line.

Target Market Total Funding Customers Annual Revenue

Acme Corp. IT professionals at mid- $50m 10k+ $100m in 2019
sized tech co
Globex IT professionals in $5b market cap 800k+ $6b in 2019
financial, telecom, and $800m IPO
tech co
Soylent
Initech
Hooli
Wonka
Stark Identify financial history and standing from
websites like LinkedIn, AngelList,
Crunchbase, financial filings & IR pages.
Competitive Analysis: Market

F und i ng Hi s t ory

Globex Soylent Initech

• 2007 - $800m IPO
• 2002 - $12m Series A
• 1985 - $1m seed

Hooli Wonka Stark

Financial filings and press pages will have

the best data for public competitors, and
sites like Crunchbase are a great source of
funding history for startups and emerging
companies.
Competitive Analysis: Market
Marke t Share A nal ys i s

Customers
TAM 3,000,000
Acme 10,000
Globex 800,000
Soylent 400,000
Initech 300,000
Hooli 15,000
Wonka 7,000
Stark 5,000

Industry reports and public announcements

are good sources to feed a market share
analysis. It will be approximate, but can give
you a sense of relative market share.
Competitive Analysis: Market

K e y Mar ke t T r e nd s
Note key dates and trends relevant to the
development of the market. Leverage
additional data points like Google Trends
or recaps of news events.

1985
First product to 2007 2019
market, Globenet Globex IPO Rise of "keyword"

1995 2017
Globenet acquired Acme founded
by Globex
Competitive Analysis: Market

Marke t A nal ys i s T ake aways

Current Performance Action Items

• Summarize how you stack up against • Identify key action items based on your
the competitors in this analysis category. takeaways.

• How does our funding and revenue • Investigate operational optimizations to

compare to our competitors? cut down on costs relative to acquisition.

• Are we smaller or larger, more or less • [Competitor] is growing rapidly despite

efficient with cash? their focus on [vertical], investigate
opportunity to develop product in that
• Are there certain trends in the market area.
that signal a growth or slow-down?
Team
Competitive Analysis for Acme Corp.
 Competitive Analysis: Team
Team Snapshot

Founded Office HQ Office Locations Employees

Acme Corp. 2012 Boston, MA Boston, MA 450
Seattle, WA
Austin, TX
Globex 1985 Redmond, WA Redmond, NYC, Austin, ~40,000
London, Berlin,
Singapore

Compile a team snapshot by pulling

information from their company contact
pages, their LinkedIn profiles, etc.
Competitive Analysis: Team

Key Executives

Highlight executives relevant for your

competitive situation, including leadership
in key business units.
Natalie Jones, CEO
8 years in role, 20 years at company
Experience: operations, telecom

John Baker, COO

4 years in role, 15 years at company
Experience: financial, tech, Oracle

Pat Smith, VP/GM tech vertical

3 years in role, 4 years at company
Experience: tech operations, Initech
 Competitive Analysis: Team

Employee Reviews

Increasing

Decreasing

Show employee satisfaction metrics

available via Glassdoor reviews. See Excel
template supplement for details.
Competitive Analysis: Team

Team Analysis Takeaways

Current Performance Action Items

• Summarize how you stack up • Identify key action items based on
against the competitors in this your takeaways.
analysis category. • Kick off search for leadership in
• Are we lacking in certain markets? [area of expertise] to level-up our
Are we lacking certain expertise knowledge in that area.
on our leadership team? • Develop marketing campaign in
• Are we ahead of our competition [region] to balance out our lack of
in employee satisfaction? presence there.
• Research [competitor]’s weakness
in [area] surfaced by employee
reviews – sales and marketing
opportunity.
Product
Competitive Analysis for Acme Corp.
Competitive Analysis: Product

Pricing & Packaging Overview

Software (Annual) Software Details Services (Annual) Services Details

Acme Corp. $10,000-$20,000 Base package $10k $5,000 Initial setup fee only
Add-ons available, 24/7 support incl.
ranging $1k-$4k each Online customer portal
on-demand
Globex $100,000+ Custom pricing, $50,000-$100,000 Annual service
typically starts at package $50k+
$100k and increases Incl. phone & email
based on usage, logins, Premium services
features available $100k+

Catalogue the price points for various products and

services packages. If not available on their website,
look for these details in third party reviews from
customers and prospects.
Competitive Analysis: Product

Feature Comparison

Feature A Feature B Feature C Feature D Feature E Feature F Feature G Feature H

Acme Corp. ● ● ● ● ● ○ ○ ●
Globex ● ● ○ ● ● ● ● ●

Dig into feature coverage and note, for each

element, if the company has the feature, has
partial functionality, or does not have it at all.
Leverage information on product pages but also
support/help articles and third-party reviews. Add
detailed notes as relevant.
Competitive Analysis: Product

Product Reviews

Capterra Capterra Trust Trust Software Software New New

Reviews Avg Rating Radius Radius Avg Advice Advice Avg Reviews Reviews
(out of 5) Reviews Rating Reviews Rating Last 3 Trend
(out of 10) (out of 5) Months
Acme Corp. 60 4.5 20 8.6 65 4.5 12 Increasing
Rating
Globex 31 4.0 170 7.3 100 3.5 10 Decreasing
Rating

Third party review sites are a public way to get

direct feedback from competitors’ customers.
Make note of volume of reviews, ratings, and the
trend. You may be able to identify new review sites
to leverage, strengths and weaknesses.
Competitive Analysis: Product

Product Review Themes

Positive Themes Example Negative Themes Example

Acme Corp. Customer Service “Great customer service – Reliability ”The product still has bugs
Innovative Product phone calls always get Speed and can be slow to load
answered and staff is very data.” (Jan ’20)
knowledgeable.” (Mar ‘20)
Globex Reliability “Been using this product Difficult to Use “The product is a decade
Feature Richness for years and it still holds Outdated old, and you can see it.
up. Very customizable.” Difficult to do even simple
(Jan ‘19) tasks.” (Feb ‘20)

Dig into the qualitative details available in product

reviews and share both positive and negative
themes. This can uncover positioning material and
drive product/service investment.
Competitive Analysis: Product

Product Analysis Takeaways

Current Performance Action Items

• Summarize how you stack up • Identify key action items based on
against the competitors in this your takeaways.
analysis category. • Go deeper in our product
• Are you more or less expensive? Is strength: recommend further
that a strength or a weakness? development based on customer
• How do you compare in terms of reviews.
product functionality? • Expand product feature
• Which products/services do development: fill the big gap in
customers favor? Who has the [feature area].
greatest customer satisfaction? • Test new package at a price point
not yet offered.
Marketing
Competitive Analysis for Acme Corp.
Competitive Analysis: Marketing

Positioning

Category Messaging Tagline

Acme Corp. IT software Complete IT management IT software to power your
platform with 100+ tech stack
integrations to suite any org.
Globex IT services & software Comprehensive and fully The #1 integrated IT stack
integrated IT stack for the
cloud and platform services.

Putting key company messaging side-by-side can

highlight overlap across companies and identify
gaps or opportunities to differentiate. Pull this
information from a company’s website, in
particular their homepage titles and metadata.
 Competitive Analysis: Marketing

Website Traffic

Use tools like SimilarWeb, Alexa, or

SEMrush to rank your traffic trends vs. your
competitors.

Call out insights like, ”Stark is fueling its growth by focusing on

search and taking on Soylent. We have the opportunity to grow in
this area, especially with our content expertise.”
 Competitive Analysis: Marketing
Social Media Reach

Track key social channels on a monthly basis

and monitor growth rates. See Excel
template supplement for details.
MoM
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Total
Growth

Acme 6,600 525 580 7,705 4%

Globex 12,600 4,700 1,900 19,200 2%

Soylent 8,900 3,100 3,900 15,900 4%

Initech 57,000 80,000 16,000 153,000 5%

Hooli 825 345 900 2,070 4%

Wonka 400 70 70 540 7%

Stark 10,550 7,800 10,000 28,350 4%

Call out insights and related action items, such as “Initech continues to
dominate in social media but it still drives a small percentage of their
traffic (see previous slide). Need to evaluate if it’s worth investing
more effort in growing our social reach.”
Competitive Analysis: Marketing

Keywords & Links

Organic Keywords Inbound Links Top Organic Keywords Top Referring Links
Acme Corp. 2,000 1,000 acme boston Stackoverflow.com
acme IT Entrepreneur.com
best IT software Venturebeat.com
IT best practices Medium.com
Globex 5,000 20,000 globex Mysql.com
globex services Forbes.com
globex careers Stackoverflow.com
IT consulting services Nerdwallet.com

Tools like SimilarWeb, Buzzsumo, and Highlight keyword and link building
SEMrush can give you details on organic opportunities, specifically tied to non-brand
search: keywords and links. related keywords.
Competitive Analysis: Marketing
Content Overview

Blog Ebooks/Whitepapers Videos/Webinars Audio/Podcasts

Acme Corp. 200 posts 15+ ebooks 10+ webinars -
Publish 3/week Publish 1/month 1 new webinar/month
3,000 subscribers
Globex 500 posts 10+ whitepapers - ~5 recordings of CEO
Publish irregularly Publish irregularly interviews
2,000 subscribers

Compile an overview of content published by each competitor

to get insight into their content strategy and where you can
surge ahead. See this Crayon blog post for a much deeper dive
into this topic.
Competitive Analysis: Marketing

CTA/Conversion Points

Primary CTA Top of Funnel Middle of Funnel Customer or Bottom

(Homepage) Conversions Conversions of Funnel Conversions
Acme Corp. Free Trial 15+ ebooks Free Trial User Guide
Overview Video 10+ Webinars Demo Help/Support Videos
RFP Request Upgrade Request
Globex Find a Reseller 10+ Whitepapers Find a Reseller User Guide
Contact Us Contact Us Reseller Guide

Identify the main calls to action and

conversion points on the homepage and
across the website.
Competitive Analysis: Marketing
Other Key Marketing Programs

Events Email Discounts/Promos

Globex IT Expo (Mar 2018) Monthly newsletter 10% off annual contract
Meetups (x6 cities) highlights new whitepapers Free upgrade to enterprise
& upcoming meetups services package

Identify other key areas of marketing investment to get

visibility into how competitors are acquiring customers.
Subscribe to their emails, check event pages, and scour
their website for this info.
Competitive Analysis: Marketing

News Mentions
If you want to gain historical and real-time
news mentions, check out Owler.
P.S. Get 20% off Owler Pro when you use that
link.

Highlights:
• Acme:
• Entrepreneur feature
• Globex:
• ConsumerReport quote
• Fortune 40 Under 40

Monitor trends in PR activity, from press

releases to news mentions to placed
articles. Make note of top coverage.
Competitive Analysis: Marketing

Tech Stack

Content Mgmt Mktg Automation Analytics Content/Social Services

Globex Drupal Marketo Google Analytics Facebook Ads Zendesk
Optimizely New Relic LinkedIn Ads
FullStory Wistia

A company’s tech stack can give you insight into where and
how they’re investing in their efforts across marketing,
services, etc. BuiltWith is a free tool that checks a website’s
code to identify the tools they’re using.
Competitive Analysis: Marketing

Marketing Analysis Takeaways

Current Performance Action Items

• Summarize how you stack up • Identify key action items based on
against the competitors in this your takeaways.
analysis category. • Invest more in an area of
• Are you ahead of behind in terms marketing opportunity: content,
of marketing efforts? social, search, PR to drive more
• Is the messaging differentiated traffic, leads, or rankings.
and who stands out? • Highlight areas of strength
• Who is winning in terms of traffic, prominently, such as on the
social reach, SEO, content, PR? homepage
• Reach out to outlets that have
recently covered competitors.
Sales
Competitive Analysis for Acme Corp.
Competitive Analysis: Sales

Sales Overview

Customer Count Geographic Focus Sales Model Customer Champions

Globex 800k+ Worldwide Channel Groovefix, Conequon,
Medway, Namdax

Are you talking with any of your competitors’

Customer Champions? Is there an opportunity to
expand or focus your sales model based on where
your competitors are investing?
Competitive Analysis: Sales

Partners & Resellers

Reseller Count Key Resellers Partner Count Key Partners

Globex 10k+ Global Services Inc, ~50 Umbrella Corp,
Zenholdings, Runcane Tamtech, Freshware

If the reseller and/or partner channel is a key strategy in your market,

you may want to dig deeper and compare each company’s
partnerships across different verticals and functional areas.
Partnerships can highlight gaps in a company’s offerings and/or point
to key markets where they are looking to expand.
Competitive Analysis: Sales

Sales Win Rate vs. Competitors

Pull the latest sales win rate data being tracked in your
CRM. Every sales opportunity should have a primary
competitor noted in order to get this data. Look for
overall areas of opportunity and new trends.
Competitive Analysis: Sales

Sales Analysis Takeaways

Current Performance Action Items

• Summarize how you stack up • Identify key action items based on
against the competitors in this your takeaways.
analysis category. • Invest in sales enablement around
• Are you ahead of behind in terms competitors we’re not beating in
of ramping up acquisition efforts? deals.
• Do you have recognizable marquis • Reach out to potential partners to
customers compared to the expand acquisition efforts.
competition? • Create a marketing campaign to
• Where are you winning and reach customers of competitors
where are you losing deals? you’re crushing.
 Part 2:
Competitive Intelligence Update
Competitive Intel Alert
The key to a successful competitive analysis strategy is
staying up to date on the latest intel. Monitor your
competitors’ moves with a tool like Crayon and
disseminate the most important alerts in real-time,
coupled with your analysis and takeaways.

[Competitive Update] Globex Announces New Partnership with Initech

• What Happened: Globex announced partnership with Initech to serve the non-profit
sector.
• Link to Announcement: http://www.prnewswire.com/123456/globex-initech-
partnership
• Acme Takeaway: Globex and Initech are looking to share costs to expand in the non-
profit market and gain additional press coverage. This should not impact Acme
substantially, since we do not focus on the non-profit sector.
• Acme Positioning: Acme is 100% focused on providing the best IT optimization
software for the B2B SMB market. Our focus on this market allows us to deliver the
best solutions for this industry instead of getting pulled in many directions.
 For less immediate updates, recap your
Monthly Competitive Highlights competitors’ moves in a monthly
update to relevant stakeholders. This
can spur ideas and discussion and allow
the team to act on the opportunities
you highlight.

Hooli ramps up Negative Wonka SVP Customer Success New LP & ad related
content about reviews citing product replaced at Initech to “keyword phrase”
“keyword phrase” bugs and speed from Soylent
• Previous SVP Customer • Soylent now
• 7 posts last month on • Series of 5 new
Success, Jake Bibari, no advertising on
“keyword phrase”, customer reviews
longer listed on “keyword phrase” but
shifting focus from across Capterra &
leadership page ad goes to main
“old keyword phrases” Software Advice citing
• Action Item: Highlight contact us request
• Action Item: relaunch issues with bugs and
customer success • Action Item: Re-
ebook on “keyword speed
ratings on website to promote our ebook on
phrase” • Action Item: present
contrast ”keyword phrase” on
• Action Item: revamp at sales team mtg
• Action Item: Add tech blog and social
article on “keyword • Action Item: “speed
support prompt to
phrase” test” campaign to
sales script
highlight our speed
 Thank You
For more competitive analysis
resources, check out crayon.co