Data-Driven B2B SaaS: Analytics & CI for Product & Marketing
Finding the balance between keeping an eye on competitors and creating your own unique edge is pivotal to creating a valuable B2B SaaS product.
As a data-driven B2B SaaS company, you know that competition is steep. But with a passion for helping your target market succeed—and knowing how to use hard data to make smart changes—you can grab your own slice of the market share.
Let’s take a closer look at how you can apply competitive intelligence principles to stand out in the crowd.
What Is Competitive Intelligence?
Competitive intelligence means gathering and analyzing information about your competitors, market trends, and industry.
In the B2B SaaS sector, knowing what your competitors are up to helps you:
- Improve your business strategy
- Stay ahead of the market
- Make smart decisions
- Avoid potential risks
- Spot opportunities
- Adapt to changes
You can gather competitive intelligence in several ways.
For instance…
Secondary sources include industry reports, competitor websites, news articles, and social media. These reveal valuable insights about your competitors’ strategies and market conditions.
Primary research involves direct interactions, like interviewing customers, suppliers, or even competitor employees. These sources offer specific and actionable information.
Competitive monitoring means using tools and software to continuously track competitors’ activities, such as changes in their products, pricing, and marketing tactics.
By using these methods together, you’ll get a fuller, more accurate picture of your competitors so you can make informed decisions.
Why Competitive Intelligence is Essential
Competitive intelligence is essential to understanding your audience’s needs, staying updated on key competitor moves, and keeping up with market trends.
By knowing what your competitors are doing and how the market is evolving, you can tailor your strategies to meet customer demands more effectively.
This also allows you to create products and services that resonate with your target audience. In fact, research shows that businesses leveraging competitive intelligence see significant benefits.
According to Crayon, companies that share intel daily are twice as likely to report revenue impact for their competitive intelligence programs.
TL;DR: In the B2B SaaS sector, competitive insights make a huge difference. By staying informed about competitors’ moves and market trends, you can make proactive decisions, anticipate challenges, and take advantage of new opportunities.
Types of Competitive Intelligence
There are two main types of competitive intelligence: Strategic and tactical. Each serves a distinct purpose and plays a critical role in guiding your business decisions.
Strategic competitive intelligence focuses on long-term, broad business decisions. It analyzes market trends, emerging technologies, and competitor strategies to inform your overall business direction.
By understanding the bigger picture, you can:
- Shape your company’s vision and roadmap
- Stay ahead in a competitive market
- Identify potential opportunities
- Predict future challenges
- Set long-term goals
Tactical competitive intelligence deals with short-term, specific decisions. It includes monitoring competitors’ activities, such as pricing changes, new product launches, and marketing campaigns.
By staying on top of day-to-day changes in the market, you can:
- Make agile decisions that keep you competitive in the short run
- Make sure your business remains responsive and adaptive
- Make immediate adjustments to your strategies
- Respond quickly to competitor moves
- Optimize your operations
How to Use Competitive Intelligence to Level Up Your Marketing and Product Strategy
Follow these best practices to improve your B2B SaaS marketing plan and become a key industry player:
Understand Your Customers With A Customer Data Platform
Get clear on who your customers are and what they need.
B2B SaaS companies often deal with large amounts of customer data from various sources. These might include website interactions, CRM systems, marketing automation platforms, and support channels.
Enterprise customer data platforms can act as a central hub. They unify customer data from disparate sources and create a single customer view. This gives you a more holistic understanding of your customers’ needs, behaviors, and interactions with your product.
Compare these user metrics against the competition to see how your solution helps solve problems compared to your competitors. You’ll identify your competitors in the next section.
Identify Your Competitors
Identify your top five direct, indirect, and aspirational competitors.
Your direct competitors are companies that offer similar products or services to the same target audience. Look for businesses that match your offerings closely and operate in the same geographic area.
Indirect competitors provide different products or services that fulfill the same customer need or solve the same problem. While they might not compete with you directly, they still compete for your customers’ attention and spending.
Aspirational competitors are companies you admire and aspire to compete with in the future. They might operate at a higher level or serve a broader market, setting a benchmark for where you want your business to go.
Gather Competitor Data
Collect useful and actionable information about your competitors.
Start by defining your objectives and what you need to learn about your competitors. Then, identify which methods and sources you’ll use to gather high-quality data about your target audience, competitors, and the market.
Examples include:
- Performing a “SWOT” analysis to understand competitors’ Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
- Analyzing your competitors’ online presence, such as their websites, email newsletters, and social media channels
- Reviewing official industry reports and market research studies
- Conducting surveys or interviews with customers for direct insights into their experiences with your competitors
Focusing on your rivals’ online presence is especially important. Pay attention to their websites, social media activity, SEO strategies, customer reviews, and online ads.
Always verify the information you collect—and cross-check multiple sources to make sure it’s accurate.
Analyze Data
Extract key information from your research and focus on the most relevant data points that impact your business.
Next, organize your competitors into threat groups based on their potential impact on your market position. This helps you better prioritize your analysis and strategic responses.
Once you have a clear understanding of your competitors, consider which actionable steps to take based on your findings. These steps might include adjusting your marketing strategy, improving your product offerings, and exploring new market opportunities.
Brainstorm your approach with relevant team members.
Put together a staff meeting agenda in advance, complete with discussion topics, your findings, and your current ideas. This is key to making sure decision-makers at your brainstorming sessions stay focused and on track. It’s also pivotal to making sure every critical point is addressed and nothing gets lost in translation.
Create Your Strategy
Tailor your business strategy according to your findings and the discussion you had during your brainstorming session. Consider factors like demand and revenue goals as you decide which opportunities to pursue and which threats to mitigate.
For example, if you discover a gap in the market that your competitors haven’t addressed, consider tailoring your product offerings to fill that niche. If you learn that a competitor is gaining massive traction with a particular marketing strategy, consider following suit.
Here are some specific ways you can apply competitive intelligence insights to improve your B2B marketing and product strategy:
Example 1
If a competitor is offering a feature that’s gaining popularity with your target audience, consider incorporating a similar feature into your product—or enhancing an existing one.
For instance, if you’re a project management SaaS company, and you notice a competitor has introduced a new collaboration tool that’s receiving positive feedback, consider developing a similar feature to stay competitive.
Example 2
If you’re a B2B CRM SaaS provider, and you notice that your competitors aren’t creating content around integration with popular marketing automation platforms, consider creating targeted content to fill this gap—and attract potential customers searching for integration solutions.
Example 3
If you consistently see complaints about a certain aspect of a competitor’s product, such as poor customer support or a lack of scalability, emphasize these strengths in your own marketing messaging.
For instance, if you offer exceptional customer support using platforms such as call center software as a B2B accounting SaaS provider, you could highlight this aspect in your marketing materials to differentiate yourself from competitors with lower customer satisfaction ratings.
Example 4
If you notice a competitor has increased customer acquisition and retention by offering discounts and new pricing tiers, consider adjusting your own pricing strategy.
For example, if you’re a B2B email marketing SaaS provider and you observe a competitor offering a limited-time discount, you might consider running a similar promotion to attract new customers or retain existing ones.
Example 5
If you’re a B2B project management SaaS company, and you notice that a competitor is gaining traction through partnerships with industry influencers, you could explore similar partnerships to expand your reach and attract new customers.
Example 6
If you have a B2B team collaboration tool, and you notice that a competitor’s platform offers a more intuitive interface, you might invest in redesigning your interface to enhance the customer experience.
Example 7
If you’re a B2B CRM SaaS provider and you notice that many users of a competitor’s product are requesting integration with a specific third-party tool, you could prioritize developing that integration to meet customer demand and attract new users.
Example 8
If you’re a B2B analytics SaaS provider and you notice that your competitors are primarily focused on serving large enterprises, you might explore targeting small and medium-sized businesses in niche industries where there’s less competition and higher demand for analytics solutions.
Use the Right Tools When Implementing Your Strategy
Choose dependable tools to help you implement your competitive analysis strategy.
For example, Unkover offers comprehensive competitor tracking and analysis so you can monitor competitors’ online activities, pricing changes, and marketing strategies in real time.
Its features include customizable alerts and competitor benchmarking. Pricing starts at $99 per month, with additional features available in higher-tier plans.
Another essential tool for competitive analysis is Semrush. Semrush offers a wide range of features for competitive research, including keyword analysis, backlink tracking, and traffic insights.
With Semrush, you can uncover your competitors’ online marketing strategies and identify opportunities to improve your own. Pricing starts at $129.95 per month, with customizable plans available for larger enterprises.
A third tool to consider is SimilarWeb. SimilarWeb provides detailed insights into your competitors’ website traffic, audience demographics, and referral sources. Its features include website ranking comparisons and industry benchmarking. Pricing starts at $149 per month, with additional features available in higher-tier plans.
Other notable tools for competitive analysis include Ahrefs, which specializes in backlink analysis and keyword research. And SpyFu, which focuses on competitor keyword analysis and PPC campaign monitoring.
Track and Adapt
Stay on top of the strategies you implement to make sure they’re working and aren’t contributing to revenue loss. Consider having a task force track and adapt your strategies so you have a dedicated team you can count on to help you succeed.
Be sure to also keep your data and battle cards up to date as you learn new insights. Consider updating your battle cards monthly (or quarterly at the latest) so you’re consistently staying ahead of the competition.
As always, if something isn’t working, don’t be afraid to make smart adjustments.
What works well for one business may not work well for yours. And just because there’s a gap somewhere doesn’t mean you’re meant to fill it. Your best bet is to weigh out the costs versus benefits, implement strategies on a smaller scale, and then scale up as you learn what works and what doesn’t.
Data-Driven B2B SaaS: Over to You
Competitive intelligence helps you understand competitors, market trends, and audience needs so you can stay relevant and claim your slice of the market share. By gathering data, analyzing it, and adapting strategies based on key insights, you can stay ahead of the curve and scale your B2B SaaS business.
To implement effective competitive analysis strategies, it’s essential to use the right tools.
Unkover, Semrush, and SimilarWeb are among the top choices, offering features like competitor tracking, keyword analysis, and website traffic insights.
For good measure, here’s how to become more competitive:
- Understand your customers with a customer data platform
- Identify your competitors
- Gather competitor data
- Analyze data
- Create your strategy
- Use the right tools when implementing your strategy
- Track and adapt
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Stay informed, stay competitive, and stay ahead of the game.
Here’s to your success!
Ioana Wilkinson
Ioana is a business strategist and content writer for B2B tech and SaaS brands. She also helps aspiring entrepreneurs build remote businesses. Born in Transylvania and raised in Texas, Ioana has been living the digital nomad life since 2016. When she’s not writing, you can catch her snorkeling, exploring, or enjoying a café con leche in Barcelona!
