How Vena Closes Deals Using Competitor Comparison Content
The financial planning and analysis (FP&A) software space is crowded and competitive, making it hard for potential customers to differentiate between platforms. Nicole Bennett and Campfire Labs built a strategy that took control of the narrative and closed deals.
Key results
Insights from
Services
Challenge
Taking back the narrative from competitors
The financial planning and analysis (FP&A) software space is crowded and competitive, making it hard for potential customers to differentiate between platforms. Several of Vena's competitors were already publishing comparison content that framed the conversation—sometimes with misleading information about Vena's offerings.
"We've been told before that 'you guys are too nice, your content needs to engage [with competitors] a little bit,'" says Nicole Bennett, Senior Content Marketing Manager, at Vena.
Nicole knew Vena needed to take control of their own narrative through direct competitor comparisons, but her small team faced significant constraints. Creating high-quality, research-intensive comparison articles required substantial time and specialized expertise that they simply didn't have.
"We wanted to make sure that the way we approached the content was fact-based, and everything that was included could be backed up with a source or came directly from customer reviews," explains Nicole.
Solution
Becoming the authority with strategic comparison content
Nicole partnered with Campfire Labs to develop a series of competitor-comparison articles that would position Vena as the authority in their space while providing crucial information to prospects.
The collaboration followed a streamlined process:
- Nicole gathered intelligence about key competitors with support from Vena’s product marketing team, who run the competitive intelligence program
- Campfire Labs analyzed the insights to identify notable differentiations, strengths, and weaknesses
- The Campfire Labs team verified all claims with facts and customer reviews to ensure accuracy and fairness
- Campfire Labs created drafts that highlighted Vena's advantages without misrepresenting competitors
"I feel like a lot of companies find it uncomfortable to reference competitors directly, but if your customers are doing the research, why not make it easier for them, and directly show how you compare to the other solutions that they're considering?" says Nicole. Research bears this out: 83% of software buyers say they make changes to their initial vendor list after doing research, according to Gartner's 2025 Tech Trends Survey.
The resulting content addressed readers' most pressing questions: how Vena's platform compared overall to competing platforms, key use cases, integrations, AI capabilities, and underlying technology.
Results
Multiple deals assisted in just a few short months
The impact of the competitor-comparison content was both immediate and significant. The content became a powerful tool throughout the buyer's journey—particularly in the final decision-making stages when prospects were choosing between Vena and competitors.
"Since we started the initiative, everything that we've achieved has happened in a relatively short timeframe. We have had several deals in which we closed on a client, and they engaged with the content at some point in their journey," Nicole reports.
The content proved especially valuable in complex buyer evaluations, with Nicole noting one case where "three different contacts [from one company] engaged with a piece of content," demonstrating how comparison content becomes a shared resource during team evaluation processes.
Beyond sales enablement, the content has generated substantial traffic and positioned Vena as a transparent, customer-focused solution provider in their market.
"Campfire Labs has done a great job understanding and articulating how our technology works in these product-focused comparison pieces. That’s no easy feat in our particular space," Nicole says.
