Positioning simplified the fast track to positioning success (part 1)

AIPMM Webinar Series
Positioning Simplified:
The Fast Track to Positioning Success
Part 1

Lawson Abinanti
Co-Founder of Messages That Matter
Our Speaker

© AIPMM 2014 www.aipmm.com
© 2018 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
Can you relate to any of these problems?
Positioning seems complex and time consuming;
there’s not enough time to do it right
Everyone complains about marketing
effectiveness
Marketing thinks sales doesn’t follow up on all the
wonderful leads it creates
Sales thinks the “leads” marketing generates are
useless

Can you relate? Is there hope?
There’s always a debate about what to say in the
next marketing campaign or new product launch
It takes too long to create content for the next
marketing campaign or new product launch
It’s hard to have confidence you have the right
message for your new product or product version
You’re not sure how to claim a position in
your market
(This is common in B2B marketing!)

A little background before we start
Started out as a sports journalist
Discovered positioning in mid 90s
Worked for several B2B software companies including Applix TM1,
Navision and Timeline
At Navision, fine tuned the process I teach
Messages that Matter founded in 2000
Worked with many B2B software companies including ADP Canada,
Microsoft (FRx Software), Pitney Bowes (MapInfo) and others
“Neuromarketing” proves the importance of effective positioning

Terminology I’ll be using
Positioning
Positioning
strategy
Message
strategy
Positioning
statement
Support
points

Tell us a little bit about you
• What is your role:
– Product management
– Product marketing
– Marketing
– Sales enablement
– Sales

What is a position?
A position is…
a “mental space”
You can occupy this space with the statement of a
compelling idea that has meaning to your audience

Question
• Does the definition of positioning make sense to you?
• Do you agree with the definition?
• If you don’t agree, what is your definition?

10© 2017 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
A rationale
document
Presents the
evidence – your
3Cs research – that
supports your
message strategy
A message strategy
A positioning
statement (12
words or less)
3 to 4 support
points
A positioning strategy has 2 main components

A compelling statement of one benefit that addresses the
target audience’s #1 problem
A conceptual statement…not necessarily copy
Supported by 3 additional claims
Satisfies these 4 evaluation criteria
What makes a positioning statement?
Important
Unique
Believable
Usable

Your message strategy is foundation for everything
you do in marketing
Message strategy
Employees & investors
Strategic partners
Distribution partners
Key accounts
Analysts
Media
Customers

Today’s goal
Fine tune your
positioning skills while
discovering the fast track
to positioning success

Why positioning is important
Commercial messages
overwhelm prospects
Prospects are increasingly
skilled at screening them out
If your prospect won’t listen,
you can’t sell
5000
10000
2005 2014
Daily messages

Question
• Are you responsible for positioning?
• If you aren’t responsible for positioning, who is
responsible for it in your company?

4 tools unclog the pipeline to fast positioning success
Importance
Create a
positioning
statement
that is
important
Uniqueness
Test for
uniqueness
Message
Create a
message
strategy—
positioning
statement
with 3-4
support
points
Execution
Execute
consistently
—use the
power of
repetition

Importance
Create a
positioning
statement
that is
important
Uniqueness
Test for
uniqueness
Message
Create a
message
strategy—
positioning
statement with
3-4 support
points
Execution
Execute
consistently—
use the power
of repetition
Get a list of customer problems
Stack rank the problems
Create a positioning statement that is important
Does it explain what you do and why the target audience
should care?

Importance
Create a
positioning
statement
that is
important
Uniqueness
Test for
uniqueness
Message
Create a
message
strategy—
positioning
statement with
3-4 support
points
Execution
Execute
consistently—
use the power
of repetition
Shortcut
Start with customer research already done by the Product
Management or Product Marketing (if available)

Talks directly to the prospect using 2nd person
pronoun: you/your
Addresses the audience’s biggest problem
Builds trust that you understand audience needs
Creates a sense of urgency
Important
Important
Unique

Prospects are experts at filtering out
unimportant messages
Get through the filter with a benefit statement
that addresses the primary concern that keeps
your prospect awake at 2 am
Your target audience will listen when you
demonstrate an understanding of their
problem, and…
Clearly communicate the benefit your product
offers to solve the problem, and keep
repeating it over and over
How to get your prospects to listen

What makes a positioning statement?
A short, declarative sentence that expresses a
benefit that solves a significant target
audience problem
A conceptual statement…not necessarily copy
It makes it easy to understand what your
product does and why a buyer should care

What is it? (Category)
What does it provide?
(Description)
What does it deliver? (Benefit)
Ask 3 “What” questions to converge on potential positioning
statement options
This is a potential
positioning statement

Importance
Create a
positioning
statement
that is
important
Uniqueness
Test for
uniqueness
Message
Create a
message
strategy—
positioning
statement with
3-4 support
points
Execution
Execute
consistently—
use the power
of repetition
How do you stand out?

Is your proposed positioning statement unique?
Your competitors do positioning in public (so
do you)
Evaluate competitors’ website home pages
Look for a claim that stands out like “sell
faster” or “better decisions” or “transformation”
Quickly check other pages to confirm the
position you’ve identified on the home page or
product page

Important
Unique
No other product is making the
claim
Makes your product inherently
desirable
Raises significant competitive
barriers
Differentiation helps brain
make a decision faster
How do you determine uniqueness and what’s the benefit?

To differentiate, determine how your
competitors are positioned

Did you know Xerox is the 2nd largest benefits and
pensions administrator globally? It’s just one of
the surprising ways Xerox is helping companies
simplify how work gets done…
Human
Resources
Did you know Xerox has 175 customer care
centers globally, staffed with over 46,000 agents?
It’s just one of the surprising ways Xerox is helping
companies simplify how work gets done…
Customer care
Did you know Xerox has over 24,000 professionals
operating in over 90 global service centers? It’s just
one of the surprising ways Xerox is helping
companies simplify how work gets done…
Finance &
Accounting
…surprising ways Xerox is helping companies simplify how work
gets done…

THE problem – no differentiation
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind
by Al Ries and Jack Trout
“Yet too many companies embark on
marketing and advertising as if the
competitor’s position did not exist. They
advertise their products in a vacuum and are
disappointed when their messages fail to get
through.”

Avoid “me too” marketing – use perceptual mapping
Position IBMCognos Yellowfin Pentaho Qlik Pyramid BirstSisenseLookerBoard Oracle Tibco Microsoft Alteryx SAS Tableau Info Builders Panorama SAP MicroStrategies
Make your data make an
impact
X
Transform your business X
Gets you to whyfaster X
Most secure, centralized &
state of the art BI
X
Easilytranslate data into value X
Better decision. Better
business.
X
INSIGHTS for better
decisions/outcomes
X X X X
Easy, comprehensive,
valuable, powerful, actionable,
deeper INSIGHTS
X X X X X X
No position X X X X

Business Intelligence
competitive
landscape, 2018
Avoid “me too” marketing – use perceptual mapping
Make your data make an impact
Transform your
business
Gets you
to why
faster
Most secure,
centralized& state of
the art BI
Easily translate
data into value
Better decisions.
Better business.
INSIGHTS for better
decisions/outcomes
Easy,
comprehensive,
valuable,powerful,
actionable,deeper
INSIGHTS
No position
Tableau
MicroStrategies
Yellowfin
Panorama
Pentaho
Board
Qlik
Oracle
Tibco
Microsoft
Sisense
Looker
Alteryx
SAS
Info Builders
IBM
Cognos
Pyramid
Birst

A more detailed look at insights
Easy insight from
complex data
Insights for
every
department
Insight to make
faster, more
informed decisions
Faster answers.
More insights.
Better outcomesFaster insights,
better decision-
making
Better decisions
start with better
business insights
Deeper
insights
faster than
ever
Powerful insights
Gain valuable
insight
Sisense
Info Builders
Looker
Oracle
Qlik
Tibco
Microsoft
Alteryx
SAP
SAS
Turn data into
actionable
insights
Gain
valuable
insight

• Is anyone responsible for evaluating competitors’ positioning on
a regular basis?
– Yes
– No
– Not sure
Question

Talk differently from your competitors; avoid popular
words like…
Transform Empower Holistic Leverage Agile
Insight Cutting edge Innovation
Game
changer
Unified
Single
version of
the truth
Big data Synergy ...

• Does your company use common buzzwords in marketing
communications?
– Yes
– No
– Not sure
Question

TM1 – transform your planning cycle

Importance
Create a
positioning
statement
that is
important
Uniqueness
Test for
uniqueness
Message
Create a
message
strategy—
positioning
statement with
3-4 support
points
Execution
Execute
consistently—
use the power
of repetition
Create a message strategy that
consists of a positioning statement
and 3 - 4 support points
Explain how you deliver the claim
made in the positioning statement
Present the evidence that makes your
positioning statement creditable

Support points unfold the story
in more detail
Reinforce uniqueness &
believability
Convey secondary
advantages. Not benefits!
Provide basis for feature detail
and description
Can be readily demonstrated
or proven
Support points
That’s interesting, tell
me more.

Sample message strategy
Product Name
Positioning Statement
3 Supporting Points

Question
• Does your positioning approach include creation of
something like the message strategy just explained?
– Yes
– No
– Not sure
– We don’t do positioning in a formal way

Importance
Create a
positioning
statement
that is
important
Uniqueness
Test for
uniqueness
Strategy
Create a
message
strategy—
positioning
statement with
3-4 support
points
Execution
Execute
consistently—
use the power
of repetition
Consistency means sticking to your position as the central
theme in all of your marketing communications
Being consistent means delivering your message strategy
accurately in all media, all channels, and all markets
Repetition means communicating your message over and
over and over and over until you are sick of it, and then
keep repeating it

Keys to successful positioning management
Consistency
Consistency
Consistency
Repetition
Repetition
Repetition

Business Intelligence competitive landscape 2014

Change is not your friend when it comes to
positioning
BI market 2015

Change is not your friend when it comes to
positioning
BI market 2016
See and understand
your data
Better, faster, smarter,
more informed, more
confident, meaningful
decisions
Empower
employees to
make informed
decisions
See the whole story
to answer your most
important questions
Guides you
to faster
results
Powerful insights; drive
insight discovery;
quickly uncover insights
Empowering
data analysts to
deliver deeper
insights in
hours, not
weeks
Easily
translate data
into value
No position
Tableau
Info Builders
Tibco
Oracle
Microsoft
Qlik
IBM
SAS
Tibco
Oracle
Alteryx
Pentaho
SAP
Panorama
MicroStrategy

Change works against effective positioning
BI market 2017
Guides you to
faster results
Easily translate
data into value
See the whole story to
answer your most
important questions
Trusted
insights
Trusted insightsand
better decision
Insightto make
faster, more
informeddecisions
Helps you quickly
uncover insightsfor
better decision-making
Better
decisions start
with better
business
insights
Deeper insights
in hours, not
weeks
Powerful
insights
No position
IBM
Cognos
Pentaho
Qlik
Pyramid
Analytics
Birst
OracleTibco
Microsoft
Alteryx
SAS
MicroStrat
Tableau
Info Builders
Panorama
SAP

Question
• Do you have a structured way to do positioning?
– Yes
– No
• Is your positioning statement important and unique?
– Yes
– No
– We don’t have a positioning statement

The best example of repetition I’ve ever
encountered

Happiness is everywhere….

Beqom makes customers happy

Your target audience's most
pressing problem is the focus of
your positioning statement
Problem
Perceptual mapping insures that
your positioning statement is
unique and differentiates
Mapping
No other competitor is making the
claim - and it addresses the target
buyer's No. 1 problem
Unique &
Important
A unique, important claim won’t
resonate unless it is repeated over
and over until you are sick of it
Repetition
Key takeaways

White paper – Positioning: How to talk so the market will listen:
http://www.messagesthatmatter.com/ebook-on-positioning/
Why differentiate and how to do it:
http://www.messagesthatmatter.com/why-differentiate-and-how-to-do-it/
All marketing should be based on your message strategy
http://www.messagesthatmatter.com/all-marketing-should-be-based-on-your-message-strategy/
Positioning depends on repetition and consistency
http://www.messagesthatmatter.com/positioning-depends-on-repetition-and-consistency/
Three What’s of successful positioning
http://www.messagesthatmatter.com/the-three-whats-of-successful-positioning/
Resources

Positioning simplified the fast track to positioning success (part 1)

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Positioning simplified the fast track to positioning success (part 1)