What's the difference between messaging and positioning?

Positioning is a strategic internal exercise to define how your offering is uniquely differentiated relative to market alternatives. Positioning informs all messaging.

Messaging is external language crafted to communicate and reinforce your positioning. Messaging is dependent on well-researched, clearly defined positioning.

Together positioning and messaging provide strategic guidance to align internal stakeholders on how to talk about your offering externally.

Positioning and messaging both help you explain the value you deliver. I've always thought of positioning as something that lives internally within a company to help the organization contextualize their product or service within their category. It's the strategy by which you choose to communicate your value. The messaging is the words they use to explain this to the outside world. The two are very related and in some companies with a mature offering, they may be mostly the same. For companies that are earlier stage, your messaging may reflect the immediate nature of where you are while your positioning captures where you plan to go.

This is a fun one that I've spent many hours chatting about with folks. Positioning is more of a high level concept about where you fit into your target audiences head in a different way than anyone else, Messaging is more about how you say that position to the target audience.

Let's take a made-up example: Let's say I market an organic dog food that has no processed ingredients and sustainable packaging. (there's an eating your own dogfood joke here but i digress)

Positioning = The only dog food made of all organic ingredients and sustainable packaging.

Messaging = Your best friend deserves only the best. All Organic. All Substainable.

Great question - the difference can often be confusing to even marketers as well. I view positioning as the foundation to messaging. Your positioning should cover the following:

• Your target customer

• How your product fits into the market

• How your product differs from competitors

• Why it works

Once you've researched and crafted the positioning to your product, your messaging is an extension and amplification of that core statement. Messaging then, should differ based on where it's landing (ads vs. website vs. email vs. press release etc.), who you're talking to (different personas, roles: buyers, influencers, decision makers, etc.), and all that should be tested and refined based on efficacy.