WKC Alternative Strategies

Identify based on market size, revenue, or other financial metric.
Identify based on customer metrics (i.e. largest customer base, customer reviews) or industry awards.
Identify based on repeat expert mentions - be sure to include these lists in your RS and base off more than one list.
NOTE: If THE top cannot be identified, it is always the next step to expand to “some of the top.”

Identify lists by multiple experts and compare across those lists. Include lists in RS.
Identify major competitors in the field and compare what the competitors are doing to see if best practices can be identified.
Identify industry awards and see what companies are being awarded for. Best practices can be gleaned from these.
As necessary, expand to a broader industry. For example, if looking for best practices for e-commerce marketing, you may need to expand to marketing in general. Always expand to the next-smallest market.

Craft a case study by looking for successful examples - these could be companies that are noted as best by experts, companies that have won industry awards, or companies that are new entrants to the market and are gaining a lot of traction (i.e. customers/funding/revenue). Then, look for each specific data point/info to make a full case study.
Expand to the next-smallest industry. For example, if a case study of successful toilet paper companies doesn’t exist, expand to successful consumer paper goods companies, or successful CPG companies.

N/A - check the usual sources - company blog, ad databases/financial databases, etc.

DO NOT rely on sites like Zoominfo for competitors.
Look for news covering the industry/topic, as these occasionally identify competitors.
Check for competitor mentions on review sites such as G2, etc.
Look for market reports or lists of the best/leading companies in each industry.