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Competitive Research: A Step-by-Step Guide
Grace Windsor
Jan 17, 2025
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Let’s be honest: competitive analysis doesn’t usually top the list of exciting research tasks. It often gets treated as a one-off slide in a pitch deck or a glorified feature comparison that quietly dies in a Google Doc.
But that’s a missed opportunity—especially for researchers.
Done right, it’s not just about what your competitors are doing. It’s about what your customers are choosing between, what expectations they’re bringing with them, and what they’ve been burned by in the past.
And that’s exactly the kind of context researchers are best placed to surface.
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Why researchers should invest in competitive insight
As researchers—whether in product, UX, or marketing—we spend a lot of time trying to understand what people need, want, and expect. But expectations don’t form in a vacuum. They’re shaped by experience, often with competing tools, platforms, or approaches.
So if you skip the competitive lens, you risk missing what customers assume a solution like yours should be.
A few examples:
- A UX team tests onboarding and feels confident…only to discover later that every major competitor includes single sign-on, smart defaults, and a guided walkthrough. Suddenly, your “good enough” flow is just average.
- A product marketer is refining messaging for a product launch, but doesn’t realise competitors are all selling the same feature under a different name. Their unique differentiator just sounds like catch-up.
- A product team sees requests for integrations, but doesn’t realise the real pain is poor syncing, not the number of tools connected. Meanwhile, a competitor wins deals with fewer integrations but a better UX.
In all of these, competitive research would have added crucial context.
Competitive analysis isn’t just for strategy decks
Competitive analysis isn't just about watching what other companies do.
It helps you:
- Prioritise product development based on where the gaps actually are.
- Refine onboarding by seeing what “good” looks like elsewhere.
- Design surveys or interview guides that reflect real-world choices.
- Write better test hypotheses based on known user trade-offs.
- Support GTM decisions with sharper insight into buyer psychology.
Don’t stop at logos and feature tables
Traditional competitive analysis often stops at listing out competitors and logging their features. That’s fine as a starting point, but it rarely leads to decisions.
A more useful approach for researchers is to treat competitive analysis like any other insight-led project. Start by defining what you’re trying to learn:
- What tools are customers comparing us to?
- What do those alternatives do well—and what do they miss?
- What trade-offs are users willing to make?
- How do customers describe the value they’re getting elsewhere?
Then layer in a few frameworks to make sense of what you find.
7 frameworks and tools to turn research into strategy
Competitive analysis works best when it’s structured. These frameworks help you turn raw data into strategic insight—and each pairs well with specific tools depending on what you’re looking for.
1. Jobs-to-be-Done Mapping
Focus less on features and more on the core job each product is helping users achieve. Understanding intent helps explain switching behaviour and what users actually value.
What to look for: Switching behaviour, desired outcomes, pain points competitors solve well (or poorly).
Helpful tools:
- Review mining (G2, Trustpilot) surfaces comments like “we moved to X because...” or “finally a tool that…”
- Customer interviews let you dig into motivation and context.
- Reddit/forums often reveal real-world use cases outside the marketing narrative.
2. Perceptual Mapping
Plot competitors based on two customer-valued dimensions (e.g. ease of use vs. flexibility). Helps identify market white space and understand where your product actually sits.
What to look for: Patterns in how users perceive each product’s strengths, and where there’s room for differentiation.
Helpful tools:
- G2 and Capterra filters/tags for perceived attributes like usability, support, or value.
- SEO/content tools (SEMrush, Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, BuzzSumo) to understand positioning and what messages gain traction.
- Customer surveys or interview coding to validate mapping assumptions.
3. Messaging Gap Analysis
Compare what companies say they do (on their websites, in demos) with what users say they actually deliver. This reveals disconnects that often become competitive opportunities.
What to look for: Discrepancies between marketing promises and customer realities.
Helpful tools:
- Company websites, demo videos, case studies reflect the intended story.
- Reviews, forums, and social listening tools (SparkToro, Mention, Sprout Social) show how users describe real experiences.
- Support documentation and help chat logs highlight where confusion or disappointment shows up.
4. Experience Benchmarking
Evaluate specific touch-points across the competitor landscape—onboarding, pricing, support, documentation. Especially valuable for UX and product teams.
What to look for: Friction points, UX patterns, clarity of setup and pricing, gaps in support.
Helpful tools:
- Free trials, product walkthroughs, and onboarding flows (firsthand or via video) for direct comparison.
- Product comparison matrices for side-by-side visuals.
- Wayback Machine to track changes over time (e.g. onboarding improvements, copy shifts).
5. Strategic Group Analysis
Cluster competitors based on characteristics like pricing model, feature complexity, or customer segment. Helps show where your product fits—and who you're really competing with.
What to look for: Groupings by value prop, buyer type, or go-to-market model.
Helpful tools:
- SEO/content tools (SEMrush, Ahrefs) to reveal who’s targeting what.
- Google Trends and LinkedIn hiring data for insights into growth strategy or positioning.
- Customer feedback tools to assess perceived value and fit.
6. SWOT Analysis
Still useful when grounded in actual data. Identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats across product, UX, reputation, and distribution.
What to look for: Key differentiators, areas of vulnerability, market shifts, and customer pain points competitors fail to address.
Helpful tools:
- Review platforms and social listening give insight into real strengths and weak spots.
- Google Alerts and Wayback Machine can track messaging changes or major updates.
- Market research tools (IBISWorld, Owler) for financials, hiring, funding, or strategic moves.
7. Porter’s Five Forces
Useful for assessing the broader environment—especially if you’re entering a new space or repositioning. Looks at the intensity of competition and potential disruption.
What to look for:
Threats from new entrants, buyer and supplier power, substitutes, and market saturation.
Helpful tools:
- IBISWorld or Owler for structured market reports and competitor comparisons.
- SparkToro for audience insight and adjacent player awareness.
- Google Trends and LinkedIn hiring data to see where competitors are investing or pulling back.
Start small. Focus on the user journey. Look for friction, unmet needs, and assumptions competitors are making.
Then bring that insight into roadmaps, planning sessions, and team discussions—not as a “gotcha,” but as an informed perspective grounded in the real market.
Wrapping up
Competitive analysis isn’t about obsessing over what everyone else is doing. It’s about understanding the world your customers live in—so you can build something better.
Researchers are in the perfect position to lead this work.
You’re already trained to spot patterns, ask better questions, and see around corners. With the right frameworks and a handful of tools, competitive insight becomes a natural part of your research practice—not a separate task.