As a positioning nut from back through the ages, I'm delighted with the work you're doing. However, I tend to keep it simpler - using the Al Ries/Jack Trout positioning methodology of looking at where I can be #1 in the customer mind. In other words, I see what's in the customer's mind as a series of ladders, and I chose a ladder where I can dominate.
I think, for better or for worse, that ultimately good positioning comes by a) having people understand that there is such a concept, b) having people well-versed in the positioning theory out there (like yours and Al and Laura Ries') and c) sitting with one or two other people and just working it hard, back and forth, until you get the the ideal positioning tagline. In hotly competitive fields, there's always a way to carve out a niche for yourself.
Key, however, is understanding how the mind of the customer works and where you fit into it. Mercedes - luxury; BMW - performance; Volvo - safety; Chevy - value; and so on. These analogs work very well in thinking through how you can win.
And in the end, massive amounts of customer survey/research to get the gleanings. I've found that doing customer research is the single most important factor in getting these insights. It's really hard to be smart in a vacuum.
I'm a big fan of the Ries and Trout stuff too. I started there and I think everyone should, to be honest. I also agree that your Market Category has to clearly define the market where you win - that has to be the end goal of this work.
My biggest beef with the Ries and Trout stuff, however, was that as a VP Marketing selling software to businesses, getting a tagline and a market category isn't my only goal. I need to get real clarity and alignment across the team on who our real competition is, what our differentiated value is, what the exact definition of a good-fit target prospect is. Their work just didn't give me a way to get the clarity and alignment across the team that I need when we weren't selling consumer stuff.
On that same topic, I think the need for massive amounts of customer research is very different in B2B. If I have a sales team that is directly involved with customers in the purchase process, we know what status quo is in our accounts, we know what other solutions end up on a shortlist, and we know who we win against and who we lose against. Product and marketing might not agree with what salesfolk see in the field but sales knows what the reality on the ground is. If I can get the right people in the room, I can pull this information out of the team (with a little help from our CRM).
Where there is no sales team involved, I agree, we can't do this work because all we have is opinions and those aren't worth anything.
I appreciate that. As an anecdote to highlight the customer research aspect in B2B, many years ago I launched an antivirus product into a very crowded market (VIPRE). We did intensive research on business customers who were using competitive products - we surveyed a wide swath of IT managers and asked them what they were running and then asked them what they liked/didn't like about the product.
A key finding was deep frustration with the performance of the incumbent product - slow, bloated, etc. So, we launched ourselves as the "high performance" antivirus product, using aggressive taglines like "kiss your bloated antivirus goodbye" and offering competitive upgrades to replace the incumbents.
The growth trajectory was astonishing - it's like we touched a magic button and we went right into the tornado - no interim stop. Our biggest mistake was selling the business, frankly, as the new owners decided, bizarrely, to change the positioning of the product.
So I do believe you can get the customer insights that can guide your marketing efforts. If you can't get it through traditional means, what you did at SQL Anywhere works - just calling customers. As they say in Pragmatic training - Nothing Important Happens in the Office.
Anyway, I really appreciate all the work you do to get this important subject known and also really appreciate your responding to my comment. I was delighted.
Oh don't get me wrong - when you are building something new, I think customer research is critical and nobody should be building without that. The nuance here is that if we are attempting to position something that is already in the market, with a reasonable amount of traction, we already know why we win.
The case of SQL anywhere is an interesting example where the research didn't tell us the truth. We interviewed potential prospects before we build the product and everyone told us they wanted "Microsoft Access that runs SQL" - but when we delivered that, and they had it in their hands, they didn't really find a use for it. What the interviews of the existing customers told us (and what a sales reps would have known, had we had them) was that there was an alternative use of the product that we hadn't considered and didn't come up in our interviews because we weren't interviewing those types of buyers for that use case.
In the work I do, the focus is trying to get clear, concise positioning for a product that is already in market so that we can accelerate growth. What we are not doing is trying to figure out what product or features to build next. That's an important distinction. This process isn't going to give you a strategic direction for the product - for THAT you absolutely need to do some customer research.
I've liked the Customer-Centric Methodology. It's a good way to narrow the set of customers that get the most value of a product. It also shows that there is no need put a plenty-of-features product on the market. 1 well-differentiated feature can be enough to find the best positioning.
I'm having a hard time distinguishing the difference between her customer-centric methodology and arbitrary starting point in the section above it.
Wouldn't the customer-centric methodology run into the same problem of other teams being in a holding pattern? In steps 3 and 4 (the value and customers that care), aren't these just hypothesis' until proven correct? You would still have to test the value you think you bring and the customers that resonate with that value prop.
My experience is that most teams will attempt to start an exercise like this by having a conversation about either features or value. If you start with value, it really tends to be a war of opinions. Sales has an opinion about value but they are often heavily biased toward the most recent deals they have closed. Marketing tends to be biased toward value that "sounds good", product is biased toward what is objectively differentiated against all possible competitors, etc.
If we start with competitive alternatives then it gives us a place that is grounded in reality as a starting point (assuming we understand what the TRUE alternatives to our solution are). If we understand what we have to beat, then we can really understand what features are differentiating. Once we understand what features are differentiating we can get to our differentiated value. Value doesn't appear from anywhere, it has to be rooted in our capabilities. Of course we then have to turn that value into messaging and that messaging has to be tested, but we generally don't end up with completely different value points through testing unless we made a mistake on the competitive alternatives.
Yea that makes sense! In preparation of analyzing competitive alternatives, would you also use the Jobs To Be Done frame work to better identify the true alternatives to your solution?
JTBD influenced my thinking a lot when it comes to this step. The thing we have to keep in mind is that the output of this positioning work is a clear definition of who we compete with in the market from a customer's point of view, how we are different and better, what prospects care the most about what we can uniquely deliver and then what market we intend to win. Most of the application of JTBD that I see is trying to answer the question "what should I build" or "what should I build next." Positioning is very rooted in what we have right now and who we are competing against right now. With that in mind, we want a true picture of what customers see as alternatives. When we are talking about B2B software that means two groups of competitors - the status quo and the competitors that actually land on a shortlist with us. That's it. Our positioning needs to clearly communicate how we are better than what they already see as alternatives to what we do.
In B2C I think JTBD interviews could uncover a lot about alternatives that customers might not even be conscious of and/or alternatives that you aren't considering because you don't have salespeople talking to customers every day. On the B2B side, however, we generally have a good handle on alternatives, we just often fail to consider status quo in our positioning, or we are attempting to position against many edge-case alternatives that we don't actually see in deals. For a long time, I struggled with where to start a positioning exercise. Jobs theory is what convinced me that we had to start with alternatives, but those alternatives are a little different from what we generally are looking for in typical Jobs interviews.
Got it! Thanks for your insight April. I think I was definitely thinking too much like a product manager and not from sales/marketing perspective. We're always thinking about the next thing on the road map ;)
Going through positioning work for my startup now and this is fantastic
If you want more, don't miss the podcast with April: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdjlCLb9Hl8
And obviously, her book.
Loved this!
I think this is one of the best content pieces I've read from your newsletter. Keep it up! It was really helpful for me :)
As a positioning nut from back through the ages, I'm delighted with the work you're doing. However, I tend to keep it simpler - using the Al Ries/Jack Trout positioning methodology of looking at where I can be #1 in the customer mind. In other words, I see what's in the customer's mind as a series of ladders, and I chose a ladder where I can dominate.
I think, for better or for worse, that ultimately good positioning comes by a) having people understand that there is such a concept, b) having people well-versed in the positioning theory out there (like yours and Al and Laura Ries') and c) sitting with one or two other people and just working it hard, back and forth, until you get the the ideal positioning tagline. In hotly competitive fields, there's always a way to carve out a niche for yourself.
Key, however, is understanding how the mind of the customer works and where you fit into it. Mercedes - luxury; BMW - performance; Volvo - safety; Chevy - value; and so on. These analogs work very well in thinking through how you can win.
And in the end, massive amounts of customer survey/research to get the gleanings. I've found that doing customer research is the single most important factor in getting these insights. It's really hard to be smart in a vacuum.
I'm a big fan of the Ries and Trout stuff too. I started there and I think everyone should, to be honest. I also agree that your Market Category has to clearly define the market where you win - that has to be the end goal of this work.
My biggest beef with the Ries and Trout stuff, however, was that as a VP Marketing selling software to businesses, getting a tagline and a market category isn't my only goal. I need to get real clarity and alignment across the team on who our real competition is, what our differentiated value is, what the exact definition of a good-fit target prospect is. Their work just didn't give me a way to get the clarity and alignment across the team that I need when we weren't selling consumer stuff.
On that same topic, I think the need for massive amounts of customer research is very different in B2B. If I have a sales team that is directly involved with customers in the purchase process, we know what status quo is in our accounts, we know what other solutions end up on a shortlist, and we know who we win against and who we lose against. Product and marketing might not agree with what salesfolk see in the field but sales knows what the reality on the ground is. If I can get the right people in the room, I can pull this information out of the team (with a little help from our CRM).
Where there is no sales team involved, I agree, we can't do this work because all we have is opinions and those aren't worth anything.
I appreciate that. As an anecdote to highlight the customer research aspect in B2B, many years ago I launched an antivirus product into a very crowded market (VIPRE). We did intensive research on business customers who were using competitive products - we surveyed a wide swath of IT managers and asked them what they were running and then asked them what they liked/didn't like about the product.
A key finding was deep frustration with the performance of the incumbent product - slow, bloated, etc. So, we launched ourselves as the "high performance" antivirus product, using aggressive taglines like "kiss your bloated antivirus goodbye" and offering competitive upgrades to replace the incumbents.
The growth trajectory was astonishing - it's like we touched a magic button and we went right into the tornado - no interim stop. Our biggest mistake was selling the business, frankly, as the new owners decided, bizarrely, to change the positioning of the product.
So I do believe you can get the customer insights that can guide your marketing efforts. If you can't get it through traditional means, what you did at SQL Anywhere works - just calling customers. As they say in Pragmatic training - Nothing Important Happens in the Office.
Anyway, I really appreciate all the work you do to get this important subject known and also really appreciate your responding to my comment. I was delighted.
Oh don't get me wrong - when you are building something new, I think customer research is critical and nobody should be building without that. The nuance here is that if we are attempting to position something that is already in the market, with a reasonable amount of traction, we already know why we win.
The case of SQL anywhere is an interesting example where the research didn't tell us the truth. We interviewed potential prospects before we build the product and everyone told us they wanted "Microsoft Access that runs SQL" - but when we delivered that, and they had it in their hands, they didn't really find a use for it. What the interviews of the existing customers told us (and what a sales reps would have known, had we had them) was that there was an alternative use of the product that we hadn't considered and didn't come up in our interviews because we weren't interviewing those types of buyers for that use case.
In the work I do, the focus is trying to get clear, concise positioning for a product that is already in market so that we can accelerate growth. What we are not doing is trying to figure out what product or features to build next. That's an important distinction. This process isn't going to give you a strategic direction for the product - for THAT you absolutely need to do some customer research.
And thanks so much for the thoughtful comments!!
Clear, detailed, understandable. Thanks!
I've liked the Customer-Centric Methodology. It's a good way to narrow the set of customers that get the most value of a product. It also shows that there is no need put a plenty-of-features product on the market. 1 well-differentiated feature can be enough to find the best positioning.
Mind Blown :)
don't agree with category pioneer as a loser at all
There would be No Amazon if Jeff thought of it that way
I'm having a hard time distinguishing the difference between her customer-centric methodology and arbitrary starting point in the section above it.
Wouldn't the customer-centric methodology run into the same problem of other teams being in a holding pattern? In steps 3 and 4 (the value and customers that care), aren't these just hypothesis' until proven correct? You would still have to test the value you think you bring and the customers that resonate with that value prop.
My experience is that most teams will attempt to start an exercise like this by having a conversation about either features or value. If you start with value, it really tends to be a war of opinions. Sales has an opinion about value but they are often heavily biased toward the most recent deals they have closed. Marketing tends to be biased toward value that "sounds good", product is biased toward what is objectively differentiated against all possible competitors, etc.
If we start with competitive alternatives then it gives us a place that is grounded in reality as a starting point (assuming we understand what the TRUE alternatives to our solution are). If we understand what we have to beat, then we can really understand what features are differentiating. Once we understand what features are differentiating we can get to our differentiated value. Value doesn't appear from anywhere, it has to be rooted in our capabilities. Of course we then have to turn that value into messaging and that messaging has to be tested, but we generally don't end up with completely different value points through testing unless we made a mistake on the competitive alternatives.
Does that make sense?
Yea that makes sense! In preparation of analyzing competitive alternatives, would you also use the Jobs To Be Done frame work to better identify the true alternatives to your solution?
JTBD influenced my thinking a lot when it comes to this step. The thing we have to keep in mind is that the output of this positioning work is a clear definition of who we compete with in the market from a customer's point of view, how we are different and better, what prospects care the most about what we can uniquely deliver and then what market we intend to win. Most of the application of JTBD that I see is trying to answer the question "what should I build" or "what should I build next." Positioning is very rooted in what we have right now and who we are competing against right now. With that in mind, we want a true picture of what customers see as alternatives. When we are talking about B2B software that means two groups of competitors - the status quo and the competitors that actually land on a shortlist with us. That's it. Our positioning needs to clearly communicate how we are better than what they already see as alternatives to what we do.
In B2C I think JTBD interviews could uncover a lot about alternatives that customers might not even be conscious of and/or alternatives that you aren't considering because you don't have salespeople talking to customers every day. On the B2B side, however, we generally have a good handle on alternatives, we just often fail to consider status quo in our positioning, or we are attempting to position against many edge-case alternatives that we don't actually see in deals. For a long time, I struggled with where to start a positioning exercise. Jobs theory is what convinced me that we had to start with alternatives, but those alternatives are a little different from what we generally are looking for in typical Jobs interviews.
Got it! Thanks for your insight April. I think I was definitely thinking too much like a product manager and not from sales/marketing perspective. We're always thinking about the next thing on the road map ;)