What are the most effective ways to use product comparisons to sell software?

1 Know your audience

Before you create or present a product comparison, you need to understand who your target audience is and what they care about. Different types of buyers may have different criteria, preferences, and pain points when evaluating software options. For example, a technical buyer may be more interested in the features, integrations, and performance of your software, while a business buyer may be more concerned about the price, value, and return on investment. Therefore, you need to tailor your product comparison to match the needs and expectations of your audience. You can use buyer personas, surveys, interviews, or other research methods to gather insights about your audience and their decision-making process.

2 Choose the right competitors

Another important aspect of using product comparisons effectively is choosing the right competitors to compare your software with. You don't want to compare your software with irrelevant, outdated, or inferior alternatives that don't pose a real threat to your sales. Instead, you want to compare your software with the most credible, popular, or similar competitors that your prospects are likely to consider or encounter. This way, you can show how your software stands out from the crowd, how it solves the problems that your competitors can't, and how it offers a better value proposition. You can use market research, customer feedback, or competitive intelligence tools to identify and analyze your main competitors and their strengths and weaknesses.

5 Use visuals and stories

A final tip to use product comparisons effectively is to use visuals and stories to make your product comparison more engaging, memorable, and persuasive. Visuals, such as charts, tables, graphs, or screenshots, can help you present your product comparison in a clear, concise, and appealing way. They can help you highlight the differences, similarities, or gaps between your software and your competitors' software, and make your product comparison easier to understand and remember. Stories, such as case studies, success stories, or customer stories, can help you illustrate your product comparison in a realistic, relatable, and emotional way. They can help you show how your software helped real customers overcome real challenges, achieve real results, or experience real benefits, and make your product comparison more relevant and compelling. You can use visuals and stories to complement your product comparison and reinforce your message and value proposition.