Katharine Gregorio

The short answer is it depends. I tend to be pretty anti personas as it often ends up being a fancy exercise no one really uses. What I prefer is to have a matrix that can flex to multiple audiences as necessary of what the key messages are that I’m trying to land. Keeping the audience in mind for this - eg who in the company needs to digest this messaging - execs for approval, an agency turning this into a video, etc - informs how to package this information out. As far as mentioning the competition, it’s a slippery slope. I try not to name competition in messaging and use other tools like side by side competition pages (this also often helps for SEO) or assets for sales to help them handle questions.

Positioning is an internal artifact. Messaging is externally facing and brings this positioning to life in various contexts. I have usually found it very helpful to have a positioning and messaging evergreen document that is dated and encapsulates the following: 1) the positioning for the company/product 2) how to talk about the positioning for the company/product in 25, 50 and 100 words as it might appear at the bottom of a press release for examples 3) any relevant messaging pillars and themes that help enable other stakeholders and agencies on how to bring the messaging to different contexts (web page copy, social copy etc). But from what you’re asking about “how to go to market with a particular segment” that sounds more like a GTM strategy that typically I organize by Goal, Strategy, Tactics, Dependencies, Timelines in a Google Doc and then translate the tactics to a spreadsheet of activities, owners, links to artifacts and dependencies to track progress against execution.

The way to get people bought into positioning is to make sure that positioning is a cross functional exercise in the beginning. Positioning is not just a marketing or product marketing activity and when it is the output often fails.

Generally there are two elements to this answer. First is that the sales team had qualified the lead with the appropriate discovery questions to ensure that the target for the deal is a good fit for your company’s solution. Assuming that is the case, then spending time with the sales team in training and creating cheat sheets for them on typical faqs that come up in conversation about specific use cases or features can be helpful.

Positioning is what your company uniquely provides a specific audience in a particular market. Pricing and packaging are an output of go to market strategy. If price is a differentiator, which is always tricky in my experience, I would encourage you to look for other differentiators or you and the competition will end up in a race to the bottom. Even commodities differentiate with services.

Positioning reflects what your company uniquely provides a specific audience in a particular market. It shouldn’t require multiple facets like general and competitive positioning. That said if you are finding that your audience is comparing you against one competitor in particular you can find ways to do comparisons on value, features, pricing, ROI, time to value, and other metrics in a direct comparison chart, through case studies or calculators, or with enablement to your sales team. But you could be doing more harm than good in pursuing this as you’re giving competitors air time.

The BIGGEST mistake companies make with positioning is not including the entire company in the exercise and making it just a marketing exercise. The next mistake I’ve seen is not talking to customers and keeping the positioning discussion internal.

Positioning is what your company uniquely provides a specific audience in a particular market. As market dynamics change, it needs to be updated, but it should be durable enough to stand some test of time. If you’re finding your positioning is constantly out of date because competitors are shipping new products and features that you likely have not dug deep enough to truly understand your differentiation.

This is one of the most important (and most common) questions so thanks for asking it! At the simplest - positioning is an articulation of what your company or product offers a target audience that differentiates it in the market it plays and is internal language while messaging brings this positioning to life in a compelling way that will (hopefully) make your target take a specific action. So they're both important. Here's a bit more detail on how positioning and messaging differ/build on one another: Positioning * Addresses what your company/product can do for someone relative to a context that differentiates you from other choices * Is internally facing so the language isn't customer facing * Should involve a broad cross functional group to form it as it impacts everything a company does. * Usually doesn't change for 12-18 months, depends on how active the category/market in which a company plays * Typically you don't really test this but you use insights to inform it and push your team that the positioning isn't differentiated by seeing if any other company could claim what you have written Messaging * Describes the positioning in a way that resonates with the audience you're trying to reach * Is therefore externally facing. * Created by marketing * Can be iterated frequently * Can and should be tested - I usually find doing this in context of a landing page is easiest - by talking to current users, utilizing a customer advisory board or user research tools like User Testing and Maze Both positioning and messaging should be grounded in deep customer insights but while you can (and in my opinion should test messaging with users) this isn't true for positioning.

Let's zoom out a little first. I'd encourage you to first answer two questions before writing anything, especially sales enablement: 1. Who is it for? 2. What is the goal of the asset you are creating? Once you answer these two questions then you want to write to support the action you are trying to get the target audience to take. So for example in this instance, without knowing your specific answers I'd think about 1. Audience - is this for prospects or current users 2. Goal - is this to drive new business, close business, expand business, retain business? Depending on the answers you would then craft the story to deliver on your objective. So for closing new business you might talk about the ROI someone had before and after using your company/product and lead with that. If someone is considering switching to a competitor then you might lead with why the customer you had chose you all over someone else. I'd encourage you to be crisp and focused on the asset otherwise you risk it being super vanilla and not achieving any objective because it's too general.