Find category narrative gaps from competitor pages, reviews, and analyst language

Start in Notion with the strategic decision this research must support, such as a homepage rewrite, launch narrative, campaign theme, analyst response, or sales positioning refresh. Define the category, competitor set, buyer segments, regions, products included, and products excluded. Add proof boundaries so the team knows which claims are defensible with product capability, customer evidence, usage data, implementation proof, or leadership conviction. Create fields for research question, business decision, competitor list, buyer segment, internal proof source, legal sensitivity, stakeholder owner, and review status. QA the scope with PMM, sales, product, and leadership before collecting data so the research does not become an unfocused scrape.

Create a Google Sheets or Notion database that separates competitor claims, buyer review language, analyst or market framing, and internal proof. Use fields for source type, company or source name, URL, date captured, exact quote, theme, claim or pain, proof type, buyer segment, confidence level, and reviewer notes. Require every row to include either an exact phrase or a source link so later synthesis can be traced. Add a confidence level such as strong, medium, weak, or context-only. Review the first 20 rows for source diversity before doing full synthesis; if all evidence comes from vendor pages, the analysis will overfit to competitor messaging.