Product Positioning Statements
An essential foundation for product marketing is a clear and widely accepted product positioning statement. While the format looks simple, it is often hard to get the organization to agree on priorities and wording. It is therefore essential to craft these statements carefully and socialize them repeatedly inside the company.
The format:
For <target customer persona>, who need to <customer problem>, <product> is a <describe product type in a way that the customer would understand> which provides <2-3 key benefits for the customer>. Unlike <most important competitor category>, <company>'s solution <state core USP>.
This statement covers a few essential elements:
- The target customer persona. If the company addresses multiple customer personas, there should be a specific statement for each.
- Description of the product type. Think of this as a simple articulation of the product category that you're selling.
- Key benefits. These are not features or technical advantages that the product might have, but customer benefits that benefit the customer directly.
- Competitor category. This names who the most important competitors are that the company typically goes up against. Normally this should be a category, but it also can be a specific competitor if there is a dominant one.
- Core USP. This should explain the one most important differentiator that the product has vs. the stated customer.
Example:
"For senior data scientists who need to keep track of ML experiments,
Neptune is a lightweight experiment management tool,
which provides easy logging, monitoring and retaining of all experiment results.
Unlike MLflow and other open source tools, Neptune enables sharing and backup of results without changing the usual workflow."
Useful Resources
General Marketing Tools
See further useful tools that overlap with product marketing under Marketing Frameworks and Tools
Dunford: Obviously Awesome
Getting your product positioning right and communicating it effectively is one of the greatest challenges in a startup. This step-by-step guide walks you through the process of shaping your positioning.
