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9 Comments

How do you get in front of potential customers that are evaluating your competitors?

Hey IH Community 👋

I'm wondering if anyone has any hacks or experience with competitive products out spending you on marketing (typically VC-backed vs bootstrapped), and how you've been able to "ride their coat tails" so-to-speak. Specifically, ensuring that your product is being considered in an evaluation when the competitor is being evaluated.

I've tried to get into the "directories" where competitive offerings live, running some strategic ads, etc. but hoping the community has some better hacks!

Comment with some of the strategies you've tried to get noticed along side your competitors 🙏

  1. 5

    Create pages on your website that target:

    [angle] [competitor name] alternative

    Try to target an angle you know you can win. As in cheaper, faster, etc. As a small indiehacker it’s easier to rank for a bit more specific terms on google.

    Create YouTube videos where you evaluate your competitors with walk through and stuff like that but end op recommending your product

    1. 3

      Ah great suggestions, thank you! I like the idea of a YouTube video walk through 🙏 haven't done that yet!

  2. 3

    I believe for your product to be considered in evaluations it needs strong SEO/inbound marketing to show up high enough in search results. (Depends how each company does their evaluations of course, "directories" is a great avenue).

    Have you tried g2.com, capterra.com? They're pricey, but I heard good results from them, depending on the tool and the market.

    Are you doing much outbound marketing, direct sales? I think https://obie.ai looks like a great tool to sell directly. Every company I've known for the last 10 years lacked centralised knowledge base, everything was always spread across unimaginable number of folders, tools and departments.

    If you can target the right people, with the right message and value proposition how knowledge base will improve their business, I think you'll see great conversions.

    1. 1

      Thanks so much for the thoughtful reply! We actually did pay for G2 and it was very underwhelming so we cancelled our subscription. Capterra.. not recently, but perhaps it's worth revisiting!

      In terms of outbound marketing and direct sales—almost none. Do you recommend starting with outbound cold emails?

  3. 1

    The thing that works best is customer reviews. If you can, give it away to 3 core customers so you can use them for case studies, testimonials, and reviews on third-party websites.

    To do this, make a list of the directories, websites, and communities where reviews are collected. Ask the companies you need to post reviews if they will accept the free use of your product in exchange for a positive review (if they like it) or no review (if they do not). If they hate it, get the feeedback.

    As a bonus, you can get referrals from them too.

    1. 2

      Thanks, Todd! Any reviews sites that you'd recommend outside of Capterra and G2?

      1. 2

        Based on your industry, Clutch could be critical.

        1. 1

          Interesting, that's new to me.. thanks so much!

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