# Competitor landscape Human Guide

## What This Is For
Use after analyzing 2+ competitors — you have individual profiles and need the comparative view. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for competitive research: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Competitor landscape agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for competitor landscape.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Competitor landscape guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- **Your product info** — name, key features, pricing, differentiators
- **Competitor data** — for at least 2 competitors, provide for each:
- Pricing (model, tiers, price points)
- Positioning (their headline/value prop)
- Social proof signals (customer count, notable logos, review scores)
- **Custom axes for positioning map** (optional) — default: market presence vs. product breadth
- Core features that define the category (everyone should have these)
- Differentiating features (only some competitors have)
- Your unique features (only you have — highlight these)
- Features competitors have that you don't (gaps to assess)
- Where you're significantly cheaper or more expensive than the market
- Competitors using per-seat pricing where value doesn't scale with headcount (vulnerability)

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: Usage, Process, Step 1: Gather Inputs, Step 2: Feature Comparison Matrix, Step 3: Pricing Comparison, Step 4: Positioning Map, Step 5: Aggregate SWOT, Step 6: Moat Landscape, Step 7: Content Comparison (if data available), Step 8: Strategic Recommendations.

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- Features competitors have that you don't (gaps to assess)
- PLG friendliness (self-serve → sales-required) vs. Enterprise readiness (SMB → enterprise)
- **Strengths across competitors** — what does the market generally do well? These are table stakes you must match.
- **Messaging landmines** — claims competitors make that you should avoid competing on directly (because they're stronger there) or because they're becoming commoditized.
- Never invent data — if information is missing for a competitor, note "data not available."
- Never present a positioning map without explaining why you chose the axes.
- Never make strategic recommendations without citing evidence from the data.

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Competitor landscape human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the superamped/ai-marketing-skills skill entry for `competitor-landscape`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# Competitor Landscape

## Usage

Use after analyzing 2+ competitors — you have individual profiles and need the comparative view. Also useful for preparing a board deck, investor update, or strategy doc that needs a market landscape section.

## Process

### Step 1: Gather Inputs

Ask the user for:
1. **Your product info** — name, key features, pricing, differentiators
2. **Competitor data** — for at least 2 competitors, provide for each:
   - Name and URL
   - Key features
   - Pricing (model, tiers, price points)
   - Target audience
   - Positioning (their headline/value prop)
   - Strengths and weaknesses
   - Social proof signals (customer count, notable logos, review scores)
3. **Custom axes for positioning map** (optional) — default: market presence vs. product breadth

If the user has previously run competitor-site-analysis or competitor-content-analysis, they can reference those outputs.

### Step 2: Feature Comparison Matrix

Build a side-by-side feature comparison across all competitors and the user's product:

| Feature / Capability | Your Product | Competitor A | Competitor B | Competitor C |
|---------------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
| [feature 1] | [status] | [status] | [status] | [status] |
| [feature 2] | [status] | [status] | [status] | [status] |

**Status values:** Full / Partial / Missing / Unknown

Include:
- Core features that define the category (everyone should have these)
- Differentiating features (only some competitors have)
- Your unique features (only you have — highlight these)
- Features competitors have that you don't (gaps to assess)

Sort rows by strategic importance, not alphabetically.

### Step 3: Pricing Comparison

Build a pricing comparison table:

| Dimension | Your Product | Competitor A | Competitor B | Competitor C |
|-----------|-------------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
| **Model** | | | | |
| **Free tier** | | | | |
| **Entry price** | | | | |
| **Mid-tier price** | | | | |
| **Enterprise** | | | | |
| **Value metric** | | | | |
| **Annual discount** | | | | |
| **Trial** | | | | |
| **Key upgrade trigger** | | | | |

**Pricing signals to flag:**
- Where you're significantly cheaper or more expensive than the market
- Competitors using per-seat pricing where value doesn't scale with headcount (vulnerability)
- Competitors with no free tier in a PLG market (acquisition barrier)
- Mismatches between pricing model and GTM motion

### Step 4: Positioning Map

Plot all competitors + your product on a 2x2 positioning map.

**Default axes:** Market Presence (low → high) vs. Product Breadth (focused → broad)

Score each company 1-10 on both axes:
- **Market presence** — traffic volume, review count, brand recognition signals, funding stage
- **Product breadth** — number of features, integrations, use cases served

**Alternative axis options** (offer to the user):
- Customer satisfaction (from review scores) vs. Market share (from traffic)
- Price level (low → high) vs. Feature depth (basic → advanced)
- PLG friendliness (self-serve → sales-required) vs. Enterprise readiness (SMB → enterprise)