Positioning simplified the fast track to positioning success (part 2)

Positioning Simplified:
The Fast Track to Positioning Success
Part 2

Lawson Abinanti
Co-Founder of Messages That Matter
Our Speaker

© AIPMM 2014 www.aipmm.com
© 2018 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
What are the 3Cs?
Customers
Competition
Channel

Question
• Did you attend or watch the first webcast?
- Yes
- No

Why are the 3Cs important? Before I explain…
Positioning
Positioning
strategy
Message
strategy
Positioning
statement
Support
points

Questions
• Are you responsible for or involved in positioning?
– Yes
– No

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

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

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.

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

My background before a deep dive into
the 3Cs
Sports journalist by trade
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

Why are the 3Cs important?
You can’t successfully position your B2B product unless you
have a thorough knowledge of the 3Cs
As your message strategy is the foundation for all your
marketing communications, your 3Cs research is the foundation
for your message strategy
Your 3Cs research provides the rationale for your message
strategy; it’s the evidence that helps you converge on the right
position statement and support points

What 3Cs research should you do?
An ideal position is
important and unique
• Important means it
solves a serious
Customer problem
• Unique means no other
Competitor is making the
benefit claim you are
making
What do these factors
tell you?
• Know your Customer as
well as you know your
product
• Pay close and regular
attention to your
Competitors’ positions

Start your 3Cs research with the channel
Fast access to a wealth
of information you need
to position for success
What’s really
happening on the
battlefront guides
decisions throughout
the positioning process

Markets &
audiences
Demographics &
Psychographics
Demographics describe
structural attributes of a
market and its audiences
Psychographics describe
behavioral and attitudinal
characteristics of a market
and its audiences
Your Customer

Customer profiling
Demographic/structural Psychographic/behavioral
Market • Industry codes
• Industry organization
• Distribution channels
• Size
• Market trends
• Customer pressures
• Technology trends
• Industry issues
Audience • Job titles
• Job functions
• Responsibilities
• Management structure
• Key concerns
• Decision factors
• Purchase processes

Know your customer at least as well as you know your
own product
Interview customers to identify their most pressing
problems, and then stack rank the results
You can’t successfully position your product unless
you know the answer to this basic question: “What is
my target buyer’s most pressing problem?”
Focus on THE problem, not problems
What’s keeping your prospect awake at night?

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

1. Over reliance on Excel as the main platform for forecasting,
reporting and analytics
2. Difficulty gaining a reliable set of data for reporting and
analytics
3. Access to timely and accurate information to make informed
decisions
4. Reducing the manual process of creating and presenting
reports to internal and external stakeholders
5. Eliminating the risk of misstatements in management and
external reporting
Stack ranking problems: Pain points for a Corporate Performance
Management (CPM) solution

• On-going; we’re always seeking customer intelligence
• Recently (last few months)
• Last six to 12 months
• More than a year ago
• I don’t know
Question: When was the last time your company interviewed customers to
find out what caused them to become a buyer?

Strengths and weaknesses
Distribution strategies
HOW THEY ARE POSITIONED:
Websites
Marketing brochures
Press releases
E-mail campaigns
Webinars
Banner ads
Google Adwords
Other marketing communications
What you need to know about your competitors

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.”

Important
Unique
Believable
Usable
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?

“Neuromarketing” explains the importance
of differentiation
Differentiation helps the brain
make a decision faster
The brain is hard wired to pay
attention to, and respond
favorably to, contrast
Examples
“Only XYZ
streamlines and
accelerates …”
“Messages that
Matter is the only ….”

“Neuromarketing” explains the importance of
differentiation
Powerful, unique claims attract prospects
because they highlight the difference, gap,
or disruption the brain is seeking to justify a
quick decision
Contrast is often needed to trigger the
reptilian brain to make a decision
Without clear-cut choice or differentiation,
confusion leads to a delayed decision or no
decision at all

Perceptual mapping takes the guess work out of
differentiation
Position IBM Cognos Yellowfin Pentaho Qlik Pyramid Birst Sisense Looker Board 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 why faster X
Most secure, centralized &
state of the art BI
X
Easily translate 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
Lack of differentiation in the Business Intelligence market
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
SAP
IBM
Cognos
Pyramid
Birst
Panorama

Repetition and consistency = a position

…help organizations transform using the power of data

…transform into an Intelligent Enterprise

About page – transform with a different twist

Question: What is your reaction to MicroStrategies
transform claim?
• Right on; I like it
• It’s good because it is unique
• It’s unique to BI, but everyone is transforming everything
• It’s overused in B2B marketing and rarely substantiated

Explaining what you do isn’t positioning

Next panel – more about Pyramid

New page – more focus on me (Pyramid)

Finally a benefit? Pyramid helps you make smarter
decisions

A more detailed look at “insight”
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

Talk differently than 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 ...

TM1 – transform your planning cycle

Why start 3Cs research with your channel?
It may be the only
research you have
time to do
Sales hears about
customer problems
when the pain is the
greatest
Sales can provide the
unvarnished truth
about your product
Sales is always
gathering competitive
intelligence and it’s
coming from the
battlefront
Sales knows in real-
time what’s working
and what isn’t
Critical to identify
problems/challenges
in the sales cycle

Your channel is a good place to start no matter what
Fast access to a wealth of information you need
to position for success:
No. 1 Target buyer
Customer problems
Competitive intelligence
Ideal customer profile
The purchase process
Why you win and lose
What’s really happening on the battlefront guides
decisions throughout the positioning process

Information
gathering
Consensus
building
Execution
Your channel should be involved in three stages of your
positioning process

Ask key stakeholders what
they think are the most
pressing problems
• Does the stakeholder list of
problems align with the channel?
• If not, you’ve got an internal lack
of reality problem
Now ask customers what
caused them to buy
• If there is no alignment between
internal perception of problems
and what you hear from customer
and prospects….
• Believe your customers. Educate
stakeholders and sales – help
them face reality
Identifying customer problems – test what the channel tells you

Nurture your channel on an on-going basis
Will provide timely information and
feedback about the effectiveness of
your positioning strategy
Allow you to change the positioning
statement to address the problem

Channel feedback example
50%+ opportunities resulted in no
decision
FRx budgeting application targeted at
mid-market
Prospects were comparing it to
enterprise solutions that were more
expensive and complex
Mid-course correction for FRx Software
changed the positioning statement to
address the problem

Benefits of involving your channel in your positioning
efforts
Sales knows why buyers buy – information you need!
Establishes alignment with sales (your Channel)
• No more complaints about lousy leads
• No more complaints that sales isn’t following up on leads
• Sales actually uses presentations created by product marketing
• Sales isn’t embarrassed to give prospects marketing collateral
Sales can tell you in real time how your positioning strategy is doing

Start your 3Cs research with your channel
whether you sell direct or through partners
Channel
Learn what's really happening in the channel, and you gain
an understanding of the details of purchase processes,
demographics, psychographics, sales strategies, and
customer concerns
Understanding
Know your customer as well as you know your product
Customers
Your target audience's most pressing problem needs to be
the focus of your positioning statement
Problem
Key takeaways

Pay close attention to how your
competitors are positioned; uncover
their position by analyzing their web
sites and marketing materials.
Competitors
Perceptual mapping helps avoid "me
too" positioning
Mapping
No other competitor is making the claim
- and it addresses the target buyer's
No. 1 problem
Unique &
Important
Key takeaways

Upcoming Webcast
April 6, 2018
Winning Share of Culture: Designing Beyond the Target Audience
WWW.AIPMM.COM/AIPMM_WEBINARS
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Positioning simplified the fast track to positioning success (part 2)

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Positioning simplified the fast track to positioning success (part 2)