Why analyst briefings deserve more than a rushed deck
Analyst reports shape a lot of software purchases. A buyer at a mid-sized company who is shortlisting security tools or data platforms will often start with a Gartner Magic Quadrant, a Forrester Wave, or a market guide, and the vendors named there get the first calls. If you sell to that kind of buyer, being absent from those reports costs you deals you never hear about.
The analysts who write them learn about vendors mostly through briefings. A briefing is a short call, usually thirty to sixty minutes, where you tell an analyst what your company does, who buys it, and why it's winning. Gartner and Forrester both take briefings from companies that aren't paying clients, so a startup can start here before it spends anything.
The trouble is that briefings are rare, and rare things get prepared at the last minute. Someone reuses the sales deck the night before, the analyst hears a pitch instead of a market view, and the call ends without the details they needed. Meanwhile the deadlines that matter more, such as the window to be considered for next year's evaluation or the due date on a vendor questionnaire, pass quietly because nobody was tracking them.
That combination of slow-moving research, scattered dates, and a high-stakes document every few months is a good fit for an AI agent. Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. For analyst relations, that means knowing which reports to aim for, keeping the dates in front of you, and making sure each briefing is ready well before the call.
How Kite prepares you for analyst briefings
Kite starts with what it already knows about your company. During onboarding it researched your positioning, products, customers, and competitors and saved them to your team's knowledge base, so it doesn't need a fresh brief to understand what you sell.
From there, Kite works out which analyst firms and which reports cover your category, and which of those your buyers actually read. It builds a calendar of each report's research timing, inclusion criteria, and deadlines, and it keeps checking those sources so the calendar stays current. When a briefing is booked or an evaluation is about to open, Kite prepares the material: the narrative, the deck, the proof, and the answers to the questions the analyst is likely to ask. After the call, it records what happened and drafts the follow-up, and that record makes the next briefing better.
- Which analysts and reports should you aim for?
- How do you keep track of analyst evaluations and their deadlines?
- What should go into an analyst briefing deck?
- Prepare for the questions the analyst will ask
- Record what the analyst said and follow up
Which analysts and reports should you aim for?
The right analyst reports are the ones your buyers read when they're building a shortlist, and those vary a lot by category. Some markets are shaped by one Magic Quadrant, while others rely more on Forrester Waves, IDC MarketScapes, or a smaller firm that specializes in one industry.
Kite researches this the way a careful marketer would. It reads the public pages each firm publishes about its research in your category, finds the reports that mention your competitors, and identifies the analysts who wrote them. For each analyst, it looks at their public professional profile, their recent posts, and the topics they've written or spoken about recently. It also checks where your competitors appear and how they're described, which tells you how the analyst currently sees the market.
The result is a short list rather than a long one. Kite ranks the reports by how likely your buyers are to read them and how realistic your inclusion is right now, and it explains each choice with sources. A young company that doesn't yet meet a Magic Quadrant's published inclusion criteria might aim first for a market guide or a smaller firm's report, and brief the larger firm's analyst so they know the company before it qualifies.
How do you keep track of analyst evaluations and their deadlines?
An analyst calendar records, for each report you care about, when the research starts, when vendors are asked to take part, when questionnaires and demos are due, and roughly when the report is published. Most of those dates are set months before publication, which is why they slip when nobody owns them.
Kite builds this calendar from the firms' public research pages, past publication dates, and anything you tell it from your own conversations with the firms. It marks which dates are confirmed and which are estimates drawn from earlier years. It keeps the calendar as a report page you can open from a link and limit to people at your company, or in a Google Sheet or Notion page your team already uses.
You can ask Kite to check the calendar on a schedule, for example on the first Monday of every month. Each check looks for changes to the firms' research agendas, new reports in your category, and deadlines coming up in the next ninety days. Kite then tells you what changed and what needs preparing, so a questionnaire due in six weeks shows up while there's still time to gather customer references.
What should go into an analyst briefing deck?
An analyst briefing deck should explain your market and your place in it, not sell your product. Analysts want to know who buys from you and why, how you're different from the vendors they already cover, where the company is heading, and what evidence supports all of it.
Kite writes the briefing around the specific analyst. It starts from your positioning and the customer research in your knowledge base, then compares it with what the analyst has already published about your category. If the analyst has argued that buyers are consolidating onto platforms, for example, the narrative takes that view on directly and explains where your product fits. Kite also uses the evaluation criteria the firm has made public, so each part of the story maps to something the analyst will score.
A strong deck usually covers these points:
- The market problem as your buyers describe it, and how the market is changing.
- Your customers: who they are, why they chose you, and the results they've had.
- How you're different from the competitors the analyst already covers.
- Your product direction for the next year or two.
- Company facts the analyst will ask about, such as size, growth, funding, and where you sell.
Kite builds the deck in your brand's colors, fonts, and voice and publishes it as a link you can present from. It uses only facts from your knowledge base, the research it did, or material you provide. When a slide needs a number Kite doesn't have, such as your customer count or growth rate, it asks you for it or rewrites the slide so it doesn't need one.
Prepare for the questions the analyst will ask
Most of a briefing's value comes from the conversation, so preparing answers matters as much as preparing slides. Analysts ask direct questions about your weaknesses, your pricing, the deals you lose, and how you compare with the vendors they rate highly.
Kite drafts a set of likely questions with suggested answers. It draws them from the analyst's published work, the criteria in the evaluation you're aiming for, and what customers and competitors say about you in public reviews and discussions. If a competitor's customers keep praising a feature you don't have, Kite expects the analyst to ask about it and drafts an honest answer that explains your approach.
Kite also lists the customer references and case studies that support your main claims. Analysts often ask to speak with customers, especially during an evaluation, so knowing in advance which customers you'd put forward saves a scramble later.
Related pages
- Write a founder bio for press: Prepare the short biography analysts and journalists ask for before a call.
Record what the analyst said and follow up
What an analyst says during a briefing is some of the most useful market research you'll get, and it's easy to lose. Their questions show what they doubt, their pushback shows how they see the market, and their requests tell you what they need before the next report.
After the call, give Kite your notes or the meeting transcript. Kite records the analyst's main points, the questions you couldn't fully answer, and anything you promised to send, and it adds the analyst's view to your competitor and market research. It then drafts a thank-you email with the follow-up material attached or linked. Kite shows you the email first, and once you approve it, it sends it from your team's address or a connected email account.
That record carries forward. The next briefing with the same analyst starts from what they asked last time, and Kite can show you how their view of your company has changed across several conversations.
Related pages
- Run a media outreach campaign: Pitch your news to journalists and trade press alongside your analyst work.
What you get
A short list of target reports and analysts
The reports your buyers read, the analysts who write them, and a sourced explanation of why each one is worth your time now.
An analyst calendar
Research timing, inclusion windows, questionnaire deadlines, and expected publication dates for each report, with confirmed dates marked separately from estimates.
A briefing deck for each call
A presentation in your brand, written for the specific analyst and the criteria they evaluate, published as a link you can present from.
Prepared answers
The questions the analyst is likely to ask, suggested answers, and the customer references that support your claims.
A briefing record and follow-up
What the analyst said, what you promised, and a drafted follow-up email ready for your approval.
How to get started
You can work with Kite in your browser or in Slack. Start by telling Kite what you want in plain language. You might ask, "Which analyst reports should we be in, and when do they close?" or "We have a Forrester briefing in three weeks. Help us prepare."
Kite replies with the reports and analysts it thinks are worth pursuing and the dates it found, and you can adjust the list before it builds the calendar. For a specific briefing, Kite asks for the date, the analyst, and anything you already know about the agenda, then works back from the call so the deck and answers are ready a few days ahead.
Kite can do this work without any connected accounts, because its research tools are built in. If your existing decks, customer stories, or product plans live in Google Drive or Notion, connect them so Kite can use that material too. You can also put the calendar check on a schedule so Kite comes back to you each month without being asked.
Integrations used to prepare for analyst briefings
Kite's built-in research covers most of this work. Connecting the tools where your team keeps documents gives Kite more of your own material to draw on and a place to save what it produces.
Research analysts and their reports
Use the material your team already has
Common questions
Do you have to pay Gartner or Forrester to be included in their reports?
No. Inclusion in a Magic Quadrant or a Forrester Wave depends on meeting the inclusion criteria the firm publishes for that evaluation, not on being a client. Both firms also take briefings from companies that don't pay them. Being a client does give you more access to analysts, such as advisory calls where you can ask for feedback, so many companies become clients later once analyst coverage matters more to their sales.
How should a startup start doing analyst relations?
Start by finding the two or three analysts who cover your category most closely and asking each one for a briefing. Use the first briefing to help the analyst understand your company and to learn how they see the market, rather than to push for a report placement. Then keep them updated a couple of times a year with real news, such as a major launch or a well-known customer. Kite can find those analysts, prepare the first briefing, and remind you when there's news worth sharing.
How far ahead should you prepare for an analyst evaluation?
Plan on several months. The firms usually set an evaluation's scope and inclusion criteria well before they contact vendors, and the questionnaire, demo, and customer reference requests then come with deadlines of a few weeks. Briefing the analyst before the evaluation opens means they already know your company when it starts. Kite's calendar shows these windows ahead of time, so you can plan the briefing and line up customer references early.
Can Kite keep confidential information out of a shared deck?
Kite publishes each deck as a link, and anyone who has the link can open it. Analysts often hear roadmap details under a non-disclosure agreement, so it's usually best to keep that material out of the deck and cover it in the conversation. Tell Kite which topics are confidential, and it leaves them out of the slides and puts them in your prepared answers document instead.
Can Kite talk to the analyst for you?
No. The briefing itself is a conversation between the analyst and someone at your company, usually a founder, a product leader, or the head of marketing. Kite prepares everything around that conversation: the research, the calendar, the deck, the answers, and the follow-up. It can also draft the email requesting a briefing, which it sends only after you approve it.