3 Common Mistakes Founders Make in Analyst Relations

If you are taking a cookie cutter approach to Gartner, Forrester, IDC, Frost, etc then you are doing more harm than good to yourself and the industry.

Analyst relations is not a tick in the box, or one time activity or even a self-centered discussion. It is a bridge to meet the buyers' problem statements, challenges with the solution you are selling and building. And of course, to establish your edge over other competitors in the market, how they perceive you against your competition.

Standardizing your approach is the easy way out and often the most dangerous one in the long run. The difference between talking to the analyst like a broadcast channel and truly building a relationship sets you apart, especially in a market like cybersecurity where clarity triumphs over capabilities.

Post Gartner, I have had the opportunity to advise multiple cybersecurity founders on how to build meaningful and impact-led analyst outreach programs.

Mistake 1: The founders assume all the analyst firms are the same.

Reality 1: All the analyst firms and their priorities are different:

Gartner - is more end-user focussed and has qualitative buyers insights
IDC - is more technology vendor focussed and has quantitative insights
Forrester - focusses on end users too and usually starts coverage of newer technology sooner than Gartner
KuppingerCole - focuses on end-users too but mostly on research rather than advisory. Plus they are more prominent in the European region
Frost - is mostly research driven too.

Mistake 2: The founders execute the briefings the same way for all the analyst firms.

Reality 2: The briefings approach should be different

Gartner:

Plan a series of engagements rather than dumping everything in one call/ briefing
Start with the problem statement, use-cases, differentiators of the product, GTM strategy, etc
Product demos - focused on the core use-cases and non-core use-cases
Follow up with supporting evidence in terms of reports, customer case
All in separate engagements rather than just one call

Forrester:

Focus more on the product capabilities rather than GTM pitch
Plan at least 2 calls to go over the product and its differentiating capabilities in depth

IDC:

Focus on field data based on your customer base and insights
Walk through your entire portfolio of services and products
All of the above can be packed in a single call

Frost:

They often take a research driven approach
Map the technical requirements of the research paper with your product demo for better outcomes

Mistake 3: Not focussing on adjacent markets and coverage, founders only speak with the analysts of the market their product belongs to, sometimes reaching to a wrong constituency.

Reality 3: Understanding the analysts' coverage area

In Gartner, the analysts' coverages for markets are well defined, a team of analysts would cover EDR, another group could cover SIEM, etc.
If you are an EDR vendor, it makes sense for you to speak with EDR analysts as primary and CNAPP and SOC analysts as secondary too.
Secondly, Gartner TSP and ITL analysts, ITL analysts are a lot more focussed on end-users buyers, you should treat ITL analysts as your primary set of analysts for end-user insights and TSP analysts for market gaps and expansions
Forrester generally has multiple markets mapped under a single analyst, so covering those use-cases in one single call is possible.
IDC also has multiple markets mapped under a single analyst

Because of lack of understanding these nuances of analyst relationship, founders after investing a year or 2 in building the relationship, give up because of no or negligible results.

It's almost like joining a gym and randomly working on gym equipment without the right technique and expecting great results at the end.

If any of this feels uncomfortably familiar, it’s fixable.
If you disagree with any of the analysis or have a better recommendation, I will vet and share the recommendation with everyone, please reach out to me at prateek@fieldciso.com