When each market has dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of alternative solutions, you can’t expect customers to take the time to compare your product’s features against your competitors.
How positioning statements used to be done
This is what positioning statements used to look like:
For [your target customer], our product is a [product category or type] that provides [reasons to buy]. Unlike [competitor product], our product has [these key features]…
Positioning used to be about highlighting your product’s best features and explaining why it’s better than your direct competitors’. “Ours is faster than theirs.” “Ours is smaller than theirs.” “Ours has more features than theirs.” This product-focused positioning won’t cut it today.
To succeed in the modern, saturated marketplace, you have to position your product against the status quo. You have to create a story that convinces your target audience to change. You have to show them what their life can be like once they make a change, and how your brand gets them to that promised land.
The new positioning framework
When you create a positioning story, instead of just a positioning statement, your brand’s promise becomes more memorable, relatable, and attention-grabbing. With your positioning story, you’re trying to get people to search for you, instead of searching for what you do.
How Drift created a Market of One
For example, Drift, the chat tool, positions itself against forms instead of competitors. In its positioning story, Drift explains the old way marketing was done, how slow it was, how many steps it took, and how awful forms are. Then, it introduces a better world called conversational marketing, where there are no evil forms, it takes much less time, and marketers are happy now. With this positioning story, Drift became a successful company in a self-created Market of One.
A positioning story has at least eight parts, which are defined in the Positioning Framework. To create your story, use this framework as a guide and identify your answer to these elements:
Best Customer
Your Best Customer is the hero of this story. They are the one who buys the fastest, buys the most, understands you the best, or is most loyal. This is your target audience.
Demand Type
Your demand type gives you a better understanding of your market, so that you can craft a story that fits your market conditions. The three demand types are New Concept, New Paradigm, and Established Category.
Change and Stakes
How has the world changed? What happens if someone doesn’t change? People don’t want to be left behind when the status quo changes. For Drift, the shift to conversational marketing was the change that their customers should adopt or else they’ll get left behind.
Villain
The villain is not your competitors. It’s the thing that is standing in the way of change.
Promised Land
The promised land is the happy result for your customers. It’s what happens when they make the change, defeat the villain, and choose your brand as the solution.
Simple Promise
This is the one-sentence statement that promises transformation. It’s what your target audience’s life will look like after they buy your product or service.
Superpowers
Here, it’s finally time to talk about your product’s key features. How does your product get your customer to the promised land?
Proof and results
People want to do what others like them are doing. People crave community and want to do what people they identify with are doing. You need to show proof that your product or service has helped other people like them transform and thrive.
What Does a Positioning Statement Do for My Brand?
Positioning statements go beyond differentiating your products from competitors. Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, said, “The company story is the company strategy.” Your positioning story is a strategy that your whole company should believe in and embrace.
Benefits of a strong positioning story
With a powerful positioning story, you can:
- Unify your team under the same story
- Guide decisions as a company
- Become more efficient in decision-making
- More effectively differentiate your brand from the status quo and from competitors, without relying on “us vs. theirs” comparisons
Work through the steps in the new positioning framework to create a powerful positioning story and dominate your market.
