Position Against a New Competitor
Marketing · 1 week · Intermediate
The job
Structure your competitive analysis and positioning response when a new competitor emerges.
What the sponsor gets
Each canvas and map from this playbook — SWOT Analysis, Value Proposition Canvas, Persona Canvas, Experiment Canvas — exports as a PDF, or as PowerPoint on Pro, straight from the session, and the whole run exports as one PowerPoint for the sponsor. Nothing is redrawn.
The method
Gather competitive intelligence
Research the competitor's positioning, pricing, features, target audience, and go-to-market approach. Review their website, content, reviews, and social presence. Talk to customers who've evaluated them.
Tip: Talk to your sales team first — they're hearing the competitor's pitch through customer objections every day.
Assess your position relative to the competitor
Create a SWOT canvas specifically framed against this competitor. Your Strengths and Weaknesses are relative to them, not absolute. Opportunities and Threats reflect what their entry changes in the market.
Tip: Be honest about their strengths — dismissing a competitor as inferior is the fastest path to losing customers to them.
Compare value propositions
Create a Value Proposition Canvas for both your offer and theirs, side by side. Where do they match? Where do you win? Where do they win? This reveals your genuine differentiators.
Tip: If your differentiator is a feature they could build in 3 months, it's not a real differentiator — look deeper.
Understand who you're losing (and who you're not)
Create a Persona canvas for the customer most likely to switch to the competitor. Understanding who they attract helps you decide whether to compete directly or cede that segment.
Tip: Sometimes the right response to a competitor is to double down on the segments they can't serve, not to chase the segments they can.
Craft your positioning response
Write a positioning statement, competitive battlecard for sales, and updated messaging for the segments where you compete. Focus on your genuine strengths, not on attacking the competitor.
Tip: Never mention a competitor by name in your marketing — it gives them free awareness. Let sales handle direct comparisons.
Test updated positioning
Create an Experiment Canvas to test your new messaging with the at-risk segment. Measure whether win rates stabilise or improve.
Tip: If win rates don't improve within 60 days, the issue isn't messaging — it's product. Escalate to the product team.
The canvases and maps
- SWOT Analysis
- Four quadrants split inside from outside and helpful from harmful, so strengths cannot hide threats and every point has to land somewhere.
- Value Proposition Canvas
- Customer jobs, pains and gains face the products, pain relievers and gain creators meant to answer them, so fit is something you can check line by line.
- Persona Canvas
- Goals, frustrations, behaviours, motivations and needs side by side, so the person you are designing for is specific enough to disagree about.
- Experiment Canvas
- Hypothesis, design, metrics and success criteria come before results and the decision, so the goalposts are written down before anyone sees the data.
What it doesn't do
It doesn't run the room for you or decide for the client. The steps, canvases and duration are a starting point you adapt; the judgement stays yours.