What to do
Step by step.
- Choose the benchmark set on Your Competitors: usually three to six names you actually lose deals to. They must also be on the full competitor list.
- Read the scoreboard across, not down. Each column is one measure for every company in the set, you included.
- Look at own site cited. A competitor that is named often and cited from its own pages has pages that answer the questions. That is usually the gap to close.
The benchmark set turns the competitor list into a scoreboard. You pick the few companies you want to be measured against, and each is scored from exactly the same answers as you, by exactly the same rules.
That is the point of it. A benchmark only means something when nobody gets extra credit, including you. The answers are read the same way whoever they name, so the gaps on the scoreboard are gaps in the answers, not in how they were counted.
How to read it
What the screen is telling you.
- Visibility is the average answer score, shown out of 100. Each answer scores 0 absent, 1 referenced, 2 listed, 3 recommended, plus one when the answer features the business. Every company gets the same scale.
- Share of voice is the share of your panel questions where the company is named by at least one engine.
- Prominence is how the business appears when it is named: 1 in passing, 2 described, 3 featured.
- No company gets extra credit, including you. The answers are read the same way whoever they name.
Questions
People ask.
- What is the difference between the benchmark set and the competitor list?
- The competitor list is every business the engines name in your answers, so share of voice is counted fairly. The benchmark set is the few you want scored side by side. Every name in the set is also on the list.
- Can a company in the set be a business the engines never name?
- Yes. It will score zero, and that is a finding: the rival you worry about is not the one the engines send buyers to.