Why does Positioning matter?
Customers cannot evaluate anything without a frame of reference, and if you do not supply one they will invent it, usually by filing you next to the most familiar product in the vicinity, which is rarely flattering. Positioning is the highest-leverage cheap change available: the same product positioned differently can move from a crowded comparison it loses to an obvious choice it wins, with no engineering work at all.
What does Positioning look like in practice?
Positioned as "scheduling software," you are compared against every calendar tool on price and features, and you will lose to whichever is cheapest. Positioned as "the front desk for independent dental practices," the comparison set becomes hiring a receptionist, a much more expensive alternative, and a frame in which your price looks small. Nothing about the product changed.
What are the common mistakes with Positioning?
- Confusing positioning with messaging. Positioning is the frame; messaging is the words inside it.
- Positioning against a category you cannot credibly win in.
- Positioning for the founder's ambition rather than for the customer's current understanding.
- Never revisiting it as the product and market change.
Where the term comes from
Al Ries and Jack Trout introduced the idea in a three-part series in Advertising Age in April and May 1972, "The Positioning Era Cometh", nine years before the book. The word was a second draft: Ries originally called the thing a brand needed a "rock", and Trout, then one of his account executives, suggested calling it a "position" instead.
Ries on the history of positioning ↗Related concepts
- Competitive MoatA structural reason your advantage survives a well-funded competitor deciding to copy you.
- Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)A description of the specific kind of customer your product serves best, precise enough that you can tell whether any given company or person qualifies.
- Jobs to Be Done (JTBD)A way of describing what a customer is trying to accomplish, independent of any product, on the premise that people do not buy products, they hire something to make progress on a problem.
- Messaging vs. PositioningPositioning is the strategic claim about where you sit relative to alternatives; messaging is the specific words you use to make that claim land with a given audience.
- Tagline vs. Value PropositionA value proposition states what a specific customer gets and why it is worth switching for; a tagline is a short memorable phrase built on top of it. Writing the tagline first produces slogans that decorate a decision nobody has made.