Fundamental question: How is positioning different from messaging? I have attended so many PMM talks and the lines seem to blur between the two. Would love to understand how they are different/the nuances. Thanks!

Good question and I’m sure everyone has a slightly different take on this. From my perspective: 

Positioning = How you solve customers needs and sit in relation to the wider competitive market 

Messaging = How you bring your positioning to life in market 

I like to think of messaging as the tactical way that your positioning comes to life. Your positioning is your foundation and the messaging is the particular angle you’ll take when launching a campaign. Messaging will be used to creatively bring your product's position in market to life. 

I’m so glad you asked this, because it’s actually one of my favorite topics to get on the soapbox about! :)

I think April Dunford defined positioning best when she wrote, “positioning describes the specific market you intend to win and why you are uniquely qualified to win it.”

I'll add my two cents which is that strong positioning means identifying and deeply understanding the most strategic target audience(s) you want to acquire, and picking out a place in their mind where you are the clear winner. All your marketing actions are then designed to successfully achieve that position in that target audience’s mind, influencing them to consider and adopt your product.

Positioning shapes the brand strategy, pricing, naming, product roadmap, partnerships strategy, marketing/advertising campaigns, and more. Which means that positioning is the lynchpin of marketing strategy. If you have weak positioning, even the best marketing execution in the world won’t be successful.

So if positioning is the strategy, messaging is the execution. It’s how you articulate and communicate your positioning, bringing it to life in a way that resonates with the target audience. The focus is on the language — how you describe your unique position in the market, phrasing it in a way that:

• Clearly articulates your unique differentiation
• Uses language that the target audience easily understands and/or uses themselves
• Makes the prospect think or feel positively towards the product/company

the simplest answer -

Positioning - where you sit in the market relative to competitors and adjacent tech. I.e. what does your company actually do.

Messaging - why you’re different. I.e. why customers should care about what you’re doing.

Of course there are nuances that fall under each of these. For example, positioning also includes category creation and how analysts view your company. Messaging includes business value metrics, key features.

A good question - there are many definitions around. What matters the most is to align your own organization with those definitions.

Here are the definitions we agreed on in my organization:

• Value Proposition is a simple statement that describes the overarching promise of a product, service or company. In other words: what your offering is.
• Positioning is a more elaborate form of Value Proposition highlighting benefits and differentiators to a specific market segment/persona --> why it is relevant to your target buyer and how do we position it consistently towards them.
• Messaging is an outline of narrative that defines how we communicate a Value Proposition to the market --> How we want to talk about it. Guides the creation of creative briefs, copy and content.

That’s a great question and some great answers already on this thread! Here’s a short and sweet take on this. 

• Positioning is the unique place you want to acquire in the mind of your target audience. This takes into account your product truth, problem it solves and how it compares to competition. 

• Messaging on the other hand is how you bring this positioning to life. Same positioning can be articulated in various ways and refreshed from time to time. It can also be a sequence of messages that build up to the overall positioning