Positioning
Make the marketing manager/project manager the superhero
- What do marketers want to feel?
- What do they need? What is the emotional state of your customers?
- What are their hopes and dreams (Joseph Campbell the Hero’s journey)
- How do you want people to feel?
- How do you generate pleasant surprise?
Remember: People buy with emotion and rationalise with logic https://saashacker.substack.com/p/amazons-ad-copy
What Not To Do
If you’ve ever described your product as:
- Easy-to-use
- Fast
- Saves time/money
- Powerful
- Has a robust feature set
….. you’re making a mistake. These descriptions are not only interchangeable with your competitors, but they’re also interchangeable with completely different product categories.
If your positioning isn’t more specific, customers won’t know how you’re better – or even different – than any other product in your category.
Example
If you are a banker, which CRM would you rather buy?
- A great CRM
- A great CRM specialised in the banking industry
That’s the power of segmentation.
Kieran Flanagan
Some info on positioning from https://twitter.com/searchbrat
For example – Positioning
I love the topic of positioning. What’s striking is how much you can learn about positioning by reading books written 40 to 50 years ago on the subject. It’s something that’s been at the core of the most successful companies for a long time.
There are many layers to correctly positioning products for your market:
1. What is your product, why should I care
Why should people care about your product?
Imagine if Zoom’s positioning statement was:
“A faster, better, more efficient video platform for meetings.”
Ok, I’m purposely creating a terrible positioning statement to prove a point, but every product is faster, better, more efficient, and whatever other superlatives you can add-in.
Instead, Zoom’s positioning statement was “Make Meetings Happy.”
As someone who spends most of their days on video calls, the thought of happy meetings with no technology glitches makes me care about the product.
Your product position should be clear, articulate your value, and let customers know why they should care.
2. Who is your enemy? What are you not?
One of the reasons HubSpot’s gained so much traction is because they positioned against outbound marketing. It helped them to create a tribe, a band of marketers who wanted to be better than their interrupting counterparts.
When growing a new product, it’s easier to help people gravitate towards your brand by telling them what you’re not.
– HubSpot was not for outbound marketers.
– Salesforce was not for companies who wanted to stay with on-premise software.
– Zoom isn’t for people who want crappy, glitchy meetings 🙂
Think about all of the soft drinks branded as sugar-free.
The first automobile was called a “horseless carriage.”
Excellent positioning makes it clear who your product isn’t for.
3. Connect your product to an already established belief
All of the above leads me to my last point.
It’s HARD to change someone’s mind today.
I mean, consider what’s happening with politics. No matter what politicians do, people rarely reconsider their allegiances.
Those allegiances are the result of long-held beliefs on how their country should be governed. Few beliefs are changed by new information.
If that’s true, how can we marketers change beliefs through short advertisements, someone skimming our website, or reading a blog post?
The truth is, we can’t.
Instead, excellent positioning connects your product to an already held belief within your ideal customer’s minds.
Maybe you believe
– Collaboration should be better (Slack)
– Meetings should be easier (Zoom)
– Accepting payments online shouldn’t be a barrier to my growth (Paddle)
Your positioning should be simple, clear, concise, and will instantly make connections inside of your customer’s brain.
It’s not rocket science, but it’s also incredibly easy to create positioning that means nothing.
I give you Splunks current strapline:
“The Data-to-Everything Platform”
Don’t try to be something to everyone; be something to the people who care about the problem you solve.