@aprildunford is the leading authority on Product Positioning, and an author of a book on the same topic - "Obviously Awesome". She recently was on @lennysan's podcast and shared gyaan on "How to nail your Product Positioning".
I used @AskThePod to summarize the video 🧵 🧵🧵
What is Positioning?
Positioning defines how your product is best in the world at delivering some value that matters to a set of customers in a market.
It helps differentiate you from competitors and explain to customers why they should choose it over other options.
April shares a step by step process for coming up with the positioning.. Here it is -
1. Assemble a cross-functional team: The cross-functional team should include marketing, sales, product, customer success, and founders. To do it right, you need alignment across the org.
2. Identify Competitive Alternatives: This is different from competition. This also includes status quo - excel sheet, interns etc. Identify all your competitive alternatives, what they do, and how they differ from your product. Know what your positioning against?
3. Determine Differentiated Capabilities: What capabilities that I have as a product or as a company that the alternatives don't have? Determine the unique features and strengths of your product, how it stands out from competitors, and what value it delivers.
4. Identify Value Themes: Translate capabilities into "So What" for customers to come up with Value. Group these into buckets. Because you did Step3, that means these value themes are differentiated for your company/product and not something that any other alternative can claim
5. Determine who cares about this differentiated value: What are the characteristic of the target account that makes them care about this differentiated value that I can offer? Which segments in the market care more about what I offer?
6. Label the Market Category: What's the context that I position my product in such that the value is obvious to the customers.
7. Create Sales Narrative based on the positioning: Targeting the customers that we identified earlier in Step #5. The narrative should focus on the value proposition and differentiators of the product. Marketing can create messaging based on this, Product team can plan roadmap.
8. Validate the narrative with customers - Sales usually drives this. Marketing, Product can sit in on the calls for the first few pitches to see if the customers are getting it. If the new pitch works with prospects, then marketing should reflect the same story.
9. Adapt over time - Your product shifts, Markets shift, so your Positioning also shouldn't remain static over time. You should revisit your positioning every 6 months or so and adpat it.
@aprildunford and @lennysan go into a lot more detail in the video and share a number of examples to make things concrete. Do watch the full video at -
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