Brand facts and the competitive set

Name the competitors buyers name

The competitive set you track should be the one buyers actually mention, not the one your positioning deck aspires to. These are frequently different, and the difference matters because share-of-voice against a set that does not reflect the real consideration set is a number that cannot inform any decision.

The quickest way to get this right is to ask a few recent buyers what else they looked at, or read the alternatives your own sales calls surface. Then add anyone an answer engine names when asked about your category, even if you do not consider them a real competitor — if the engine names them to buyers, they are in your consideration set whether you like it or not.

Brand facts versus Corporate Context

Corporate Context is the narrative substrate. Brand facts are the discrete, checkable statements you want available for grounding — the specific numbers, dates, capabilities, and claims.

Keep them separate in your head: context teaches an engine who you are, facts give it things it can quote. Facts can be extracted from documents and URLs and then curated, which is usually faster than writing them from scratch, but curate them properly — an extracted fact that is stale or out of context is a wrong answer waiting to be repeated.

Where this lives in SolCrys

• Competitors are configured on the workspace, alongside the brand you are tracking.
• Brand facts have their own workspace surface, with extraction from an uploaded document or a crawled URL, then manual confirmation.
• The onboarding checklist tracks whether competitors have been added — it is one of the three setup steps it watches for.

Lab: Set the competitive frame

Needs a free SolCrys account (no credit card). No quota consumed.

1. Create your workspace if you have not already.
2. Add three to five competitors — the ones buyers name, not the ones you wish they named.
3. Optionally seed brand facts by extracting from your own pricing or product page, then confirm each one is current.

Still no runs. The next module is where the budget starts.

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Check yourself

• Are the competitors you listed the ones buyers name, or the ones your deck names?
• Is there a company answer engines mention in your category that you left off because you do not respect them as a competitor?
• What is the difference in role between Corporate Context and a brand fact?

Go deeper

This lesson is the spine. These guides are the depth.

Continue

• Previous: Writing your Corporate Context
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