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.

“Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different.” MICHAEL PORTER

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

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.

As product creators, we need to understand that the choices we make in positioning and context can have a massive impact on our businesses—for better or worse.

Trap 2: You carefully designed your product for a market, but that market has changed.

Sometimes a product that was well positioned in a market suddenly becomes poorly positioned, not because the product itself has changed, but because markets around the product have shifted.

Great positioning takes into account all of the following: 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.

THE TRADITIONAL POSITIONING STATEMENT FOR target buyers, your offering IS A market category WHICH PROVIDES competitor’s benefits UNLIKE primary competitor WHICH PROVIDES competitor’s benefits

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.

The competitive alternative is what your target customers would “use” or “do” if your product didn’t exist.

Your unique attributes are your secret sauce, the things you can do that the alternatives can’t.

Value is the benefit you can deliver to customers because of your unique attributes.

If unique attributes are your secret sauce, then value is the reason why someone might care about your secret sauce.

Your target market is the customers who buy quickly, rarely ask for discounts and tell their friends about your offerings.

Declaring that your product exists in a market category triggers a set of powerful assumptions.

Your market category can work for you or against you.

Market categories help customers use what they know to figure out what they don’t.

Used carefully, trends can help customers understand why your offering is something they need to pay attention to right now.

Trends are important because, as customers, we want to learn about new, interesting and potentially disruptive technologies or approaches. Nobody wants to be left behind when a shift happens, so we’re constantly looking out for new developments that might have an impact on us and our business.

Your best-fit customers hold the key to understanding what your product is.

Customers don’t always see competitors the same way we do, and their opinion is the only one that matters for positioning.

Understand what a customer might replace you with in order to understand how they categorize your solution.

Your opinion of your own strengths is irrelevant without proof.

Feature: Something your product does or has Benefit: What the feature enables for customers Value: How this feature maps to a goal the customer is trying to achieve 15-megapixel camera Sharp photo images Images can be zoomed in or printed in large format and still look sharp. All-metal construction A stronger frame that resists damage The frame lasts five times longer, allowing savings of $50,000 per year on frame replacements. One-click reports Fast, easy report generation Every part of the organization can make better decisions based on accurate, up-to-date metrics. 24-hour support Support that is always available Global operations have access to help across every time zone.

Remember: this positioning exercise is not about highlighting every little feature and attribute that our customers love. In positioning a product, we’re taking the most critical things that make us special and worth considering, and bringing the resulting unique value to the front and center.

An actionable segmentation captures a list of a person’s or company’s easily identifiable characteristics that make them really care about what you do.

Best-fit customers are easiest to sell to and retain.

Head to Head: Positioning to win an existing market You are aiming to be the leader in a market category that already exists in the minds of customers. If there is an established leader, your goal is to beat them at their own game by convincing customers that you are the best at delivering the solution. Big Fish, Small Pond: Positioning to win a subsegment of an existing market You are aiming to dominate a piece of an existing market category. Your goal is not to take on the overall market leaders directly, but to win in a well-defined segment of the market. You do this by targeting buyers in a subsegment of the broader market who have different requirements that are not being met by the current overall market leader. Create a New Game: Positioning to win a market you create You are aiming to create a new market category. Your goals are first to prove to customers that a new market category deserves to exist, then to define the parameters of that market in the minds of customers, and lastly, to position yourself as the leader within it.

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Word-of-mouth marketing happens most naturally in tight market subsegments.

there needs to be clearly definable groups of customers with unique needs that are not addressed by the market leader.

Positioning canvas Product name and one-line description Market category (and subcategory) The macro market and submarket (if applicable) that you compete in Competitive alternatives What would customers use if your product did not exist? Unique attributes What features/capabilities does your product have that the alternatives do not? Value What value do those attributes enable for customers? Who cares a lot What are the characteristics of a customer that makes them care a lot about the value you deliver?

New technology can suddenly change what is possible in a market. Once customers understand it, purchase criteria can shift very quickly.