Competitors Are Not Your Customers
One of the “standard” pieces of market data that I’ve always read about is competitive analysis. I’ve always been of the mind that successful products are built based on feedback and communication with who the actual users are.
There are some great articles on this topic already, so I don’t feel like I have to write all that much. However, this does tie back to my earlier post regarding the “party of four.” I do not include any competitive data within this for the simple reason that competitors are not your customers.
Who gives a crap if a competitor thinks you have a good product? Clearly, if you have built one that’s taking what they are doing into account, they will. They’ve put a lot of hard work into making sure their products are selling well and performing for their user base.
In that same token, I assume if a company has been identified as a competitor to a product or service, the competition, in essence, is for user base. At the end of the day, whoever is listening to the market / users / customers better will win.
To me, the trick is making sure you have the channels of communication with your users open, and you are in fact hearing what’s being said. It’s a two-pronged effect:
- If you have the channels open, but don’t listen, you lose
- If you want to listen, but don’t have the channels open, you won’t hear anything
Make sure that your channels for listening feed directly into how you feel your market will want to communicate with you, and will communicate the most effectively. Whether this is an e-mail form, telephone line, fax, whatever — make sure you are listening and hearing what the people who are paying you to use your product have to say.
