Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It

by April Dunford

Positioning is the act of deliberately defining how you are the best at something that a defined market cares a lot about.

If we fail at positioning, we fail at marketing and sales. If we fail at marketing and sales, the entire business fails.

Positioning is a secret superpower that, when harnessed correctly, can change the way the world thinks about a problem, a technology or even an entire market.

Customers need to be able to easily understand what your product is, why it’s special and why it matters to them.

When customers encounter a product they have never seen before, they will look for contextual clues to help them figure out what it is, who it’s for and why they should care. Taken together, the messaging, pricing, features, branding, partners and customers create context and set the scene for the product.

Trap 1: You are stuck on the idea of what you intended to build, and you don’t realize that your product has become something else.

The customer’s point of view on the problem you solve and the alternative ways of solving that problem. The ways you are uniquely different from those alternatives and why that’s meaningful for customers. The characteristics of a potential customer that really values what you can uniquely deliver. The best market context for your product that makes your unique value obvious to those customers who are best suited to your product.

These are the Five (Plus One) Components of Effective Positioning: Competitive alternatives. What customers would do if your solution didn’t exist. Unique attributes. The features and capabilities that you have and the alternatives lack. Value (and proof). The benefit that those features enable for customers. Target market characteristics. The characteristics of a group of buyers that lead them to really care a lot about the value you deliver. Market category. The market you describe yourself as being part of, to help customers understand your value. (Bonus) Relevant trends. Trends that your target customers understand and/or are interested in that can help make your product more relevant right now.

Customers, however, have often never purchased a solution like yours before. They are approaching the solution to their problem with a clean slate and little knowledge of what “state of the art” in your domain looks like. You may worry a lot about an up-and-coming startup in your space, but your customers have likely never heard of them. In business software, the most common competitive alternative is a combination of general-purpose business software (spreadsheets, documents, presentations) and manual processes.