General Best Practices

• Ensure you have a person who owns AR at your company. Even if only part of their job, they should have clear OKRs (or equivalent).
• Vendor briefings vs. inquiry
  • Vendor briefings are free. Expect analysts to be more in listen & question mode during briefings. Briefings are typically 30 mins so use the time wisely.
  • Inquiry is part of their paid service. Expect analysts to be more in answer/advise mode during inquiries.
• Get on a regular cadence of briefing analysts – typically quarterly
  • Analyst relations is a long game, not a one-off exercise
  • Identify the analysts who cover your space.
    Not all analysts are created equal. In particular, there are some analysts who spend the majority of time speaking with vendors (less valuable) and others who spend most of their time speaking with end users (more valuable). It may not always be easy to identify the difference, but look for those who have authored Magic Quadrants (especially) or Waves.
  • Create a briefing deck covering:
    • The problem you solve
    • How you solve that problem differently from competitors (including DIY)
    • Evidence in the form of use cases & case studies (this is the most valuable & credible part of the briefing). Unsurprisingly, analysts put much more weight on your large ENT customers than they do on SMB customers.
  • While it is very tempting to want to be a ‘category creator’ with no competition other than DIY, this can create challenges for analysts. First, they want to have the glory of discovering/defining new categories. Second, if the category does not exist, then analyst firms do not know who should cover your company. Third, analysts hear “I’m a category creator” all the time and very skeptical so saying this may harm your credibility. Hence, frame your company in parallel in an existing, well-defined, best-fit “strategic category” and an adjacent “visionary category.”
  • Usually, you should not demo during a briefing. That being said, it is a very good sign if an analyst wants a demo following the briefing. To that end, offer if they do not ask.
  • End the briefing with 3 questions:
    • Are you authoring any upcoming research that covers our space?
    • Which of your colleagues should we also speak with?
    • Do you want to speak with any of our customers about their use cases? (Analysts love this!)
  • Don’t challenge analysts; flatter them. They like to be the smartest person in the room. For instance, don’t tell analysts they are wrong to put you into an existing category rather than the category you are ‘creating.’
  • Analysts do love seeing your product roadmap. Assume anything you share could find its way to competitors in part or whole as a natural consequence of analyst writing about your space and/or speaking with others.
• Analyst firms ranked from largest to smallest size/influence: Gartner -> Forrester -> IDC
  • Start a new round of briefings with smaller firms like IDC. That way, you can polish your overview deck in advance of speaking with Forrester and then Gartner.
• When you get a call from an research & advisory firm, clearly distinguish between salespeople and analysts.
  • Salespeople may tacitly or explicitly promise influence but they really have no direct sway over analysts.
  • If analysts call, then jump on the opportunity to engage with them.
• Great AR offers value in two ways:
  • Influencing analysts who then write & mention/recommend your solution. Even getting an honorable mention in a MQ can be very valuable; potentially even more valuable then being included in the lower left of the MQ; this tends to be the case for smaller vendors, esp. < $10M ARR. Another example is being featured in a “Cool Vendor” report.
  • Improving your product roadmap & GTM/messaging
    (JD: While analysts certainly can help with messaging, the jaded view is that they are synthesizing what was, is, or shortly will be. Hence, they do not have a long enough forward horizon to inform your product strategy unless you already have key competitive gaps which you likely already know about.
• The typical annual subscription cost is $70K. This buys you the ability to read research and conduct inquiry.
  • We recommend waiting to become a customer until a firm has analysts dedicated to regularly covering your space. The evidence for this is that they intend to / already publish a Magic Quadrant or Wave.
  • When you do sign up, it is OK to keep your relationship small ($ wise) especially if you only offer products in one or two categories.
• Are analyst firms pay to play?
  Not explicitly. Analysts strive to be objective and truly believe they are agnostic to whether a vendors is a customer or not. However, analysts are humans and are heavily swayed by relationships. Vendor briefings are ‘as-available.’ In contrast, inquiries are on-demand so can be fast & frequent. Moreover, when analysts advise vendors, the analysts will (subconsciously) want the vendor to succeed with their guidance. Hence, they become ‘bought-in.’
• Due to the cost of their services, research & advisory firms make their money from vendors and larger (upper MM & ENT) end-user companies. Hence, analysts relations is far less relevant if you sell to SMB.

Software Rating & Review Websites

[TBD – G2, Trustpilot, Capterra, Gartner Peer Insights, etc.]

Analyst Relations Consultants

(*) = recommended

• (*) The Skills Connection (will help build story; identify analysts; project manage briefings)