Hi ,

We’ve analyzed 100+ sales opportunities we generated in 2020-2021. Here is the #1 reason why our prospects pass up most deals:

"Our leads do not fully understand the value of our product and how it is different from our competitors".

In a marketing language, this translates into the following: "Our positioning is weak and we don't have a unique value proposition".

If you also face this challenge, then it doesn't matter what marketing campaigns you are running — you'll keep losing most of your deals.

To help you prevent that, we will break down in this newsletter the art and the science of market positioning.  

Specifically, you will learn:

• The most common positioning mistakes B2B companies make without even realizing it;
• Five components of positioning you should know and use;
• How to validate your positioning and make sure it emphasizes your unique value and resonates with customers;
• Fullfunnel.io’s 6-step framework to create a killer positioning

Before we dive in, here are some remote positions from our job board that might pique your interest or that of someone around you.

TRENCHES JOB BOARD

TYK IS HIRING A HEAD OF BRAND EXPERIENCE

This role should make Tyk famous. How?

• By creating creative and compelling brand messaging, campaigns, events, and activities all-year-round;
• By ensuring Tyk is seen as a thought leader in core spaces
• Develop supportive and strategic relationships with tech influencers, national/international broadsheet media titles, relevant industry bodies (CNCF, OAS, GraphQL Foundation, etc), analysts (Gartner, Forrester, etc)

Learn more about this role and apply here.

INTEGRATE IS HIRING A Sr. GROWTH MARKETING MANAGER 

Your mission? 

• Humanize all things marketing (and have fun while you’re doing it).
• Lead and operationalize Integrate’s category-leading Precision Demand Marketing (PDM) approach. 
• Orchestrate connected buying experiences by segment (solution, persona, industry, etc.) for some of the world’s leading brands including Adobe, Red Hat, Slack, and VMware.

Learn more about this role and apply here. 

Now let's get to the meat of the matter.

What are the most common positioning mistakes B2B companies make? 

B2B companies usually fall into what April Dunford calls “default positioning”. 

It is not uncommon to come across companies that only cling to their usual and standard practices and say things like “we're email people, that’s what we do”. They fall into default positioning and never check on it again. Funny enough, they don’t even think it’s possible to change that. 

Meanwhile, the whole market is shifting. Rapidly. We no longer just have emails. We have live chat, discord, team collaboration tools, and the like. 

So, there is drift in the market and the product itself but nobody ever comes back to look at the positioning. 

As a result, new prospects and customers are confused because of the huge disconnect between the way the product is seen internally and the way they see it. 

Sometimes, they will give you comments like: Oh, now I get what you do. But I just don't get why I’d pay for that. Can't I just do that in Excel? Can't I just do that with my accounting or ERP program that I've already got? 

Such comments clearly show that customers don't figure out what you are and what your value is. And unfortunately, this will take the Reps a lot of time, energy, and effort to get prospects over that hump. 

Yet, when you talk to existing customers at the same time, you realize that they are loving and enjoying your product. 

So, this gap between what a customer that's using your product knows and what a new prospect sees when they're just exposed to your marketing and sales, is what a good positioning will close. 

Here’s how.

Five components of positioning you should know and use

Positioning is made up of five key component pieces. 

1. Competitive alternatives 
2. Your differentiated capabilities or features 
3. The value you can deliver for customers 
4. The customers you’re targeting 
5. The market you intend to win

All these five components are interconnected. 

If we pick "differentiated features" for instance, it is the source of the unique “value that your product can deliver to customers”. In fact, you don't just make the value up. It comes from what your product can do. 

Also, your differentiated features are only differentiated if you compare them to a “competitive alternative”. 

On the other hand, your “best-fit customers” are by definition, the customers that really care a lot about “the value you can deliver”. 

And last but not least, your "target market" is the context in which you position your product so that the value you provide makes perfect sense to those customers. 

So, everything on the wheel has a relationship to everything else. You have to work through it in a very specific order because of that dependency. 

How to validate your positioning and make sure it emphasizes your unique value and resonates with customers?

The first thing would be to test the positioning. To do this, you need to craft it and map it into a sales narrative or sales pitch. 

Then, take your best sales reps, train them on that pitch, and then take it out and try it with some qualified prospects. 

This will give you a lot of signals and show you if your prospects are getting excited or not. Also, you’ll get to know if they are confused and you’ll see the things you need to tune and tighten up.

After this validation stage, you can take the sales pitch and the positioning you worked on, craft the messaging and make sure the home page matches the story you're telling in your sales meetings. 

Fullfunnel.io’s 6-step framework to create a killer positioning

If you ever want to create or update your positioning, here are the practical steps you need to take

Step 1: Choose your focus go-to-market segments

Imagine you’re scaling a SaaS company and searching for a CRM. You’re looking at two options:

• A CRM that gets your sales organized
• A specialized CRM that helps you organize your sales, track recurring revenue and the churn rate

Which one will you choose? The second one seems like a natural choice for a SaaS company.

That is the power of market segmentation.

Most B2B companies skip this step and create a customer avatar that’s essentially the lowest common denominator of their potential customers. This leads to two most common mistakes that rob B2B companies of revenue: one-size-fits-all positioning and broad targeting.

Step 2: Develop an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Your ICP will help you capture the information you need to target and qualify prospects that are more likely to convert, stay longer, generate more revenue, and give you the best referrals, testimonials, and case studies.

It is a list of characteristics that your best customers from a specific market segment have in common.

It describes who they are, their challenges and goals, the value they get from your product, their buying process, the objections and purchase criteria, and why they choose your product instead of competitors’.

Check out our detailed guide on how to develop an ideal customer profile.

Step 3. Analyze your competitors' positioning and marketing message

Positioning is about how your customers perceive your brand or product in relation to the competitors they compare you to.

Here's how our step-by-step guide on how to analyze your competitors:

• List competitors that you’re coming up against in your sales
• In your ICP interviews, include questions like: What have you tried in the past to deal with the challenge you’ve just described? What did you find lacking – and what do you think the right solution should have been? (and why did you choose us)?
• Analyze the competitors’ marketing positioning strategy: Do they have a niche focus? How do they differentiate themselves? What arguments do they highlight on their main web pages? What do their customers really like about them and what are their main complaints?
• Make a SWOT analysis: Considering what matters to your ICP the most, what are your Strengths and Weaknesses, where do the competitors fall short (Opportunities) and how do they beat you (Threats)?

Step 4: Pick your positioning category

Leverage one of our 11 positioning strategies (check them here).

5. Develop a Unique Value Proposition: be different in a way that matters

The value proposition is a key marketing message that communicates why you are different and worth buying. Essentially, it communicates why your positioning matters to your ideal customers.

Note the two elements: differentiation, and relevance to your ideal clients.

6. Update your marketing message and all marketing assets with new positioning

At a bare minimum, you should update the key marketing and sales materials:

• Your homepage, about us page, and product/services pages
• Your company’s social media profiles, and LinkedIn profiles of your founders, sales and marketing people
• Your sales presentation and proposals

But changing the way the company thinks about itself brings about a new sense of purpose and creates a new momentum and energy.

You'll likely take inspiration from your product roadmap, how you serve your customers, and sometimes the business model as well.

B2B MARKETING SUMMIT

Below is the list of the scheduled events. CLICK on the events you are interested in to save your spot.

 

• How to power B2B marketing strategy with the right content, Amanda Natividad, VP of Marketing at SparkToro - Wed. 30 mars, 17:00 - 17:45 UTC+1
• How Crafty Marketers Use Buying Triggers to Outsmart Their Competition, Katelyn Bourgoin, 4X founder turned customer whisperer, Thu. 31 mars, 14:00 - 14:45 UTC+1
• From Leaky Funnel to Revenue Flywheel - Why You Lose more than 50% of your inbound marketing pipeline, ​Nicolas Vandenberghe, Co-founder & CEO of Chili Piper - Fri. 1 avr., 16:00 UTC+1  

Questions from fellow Trenchers

Let's help each other. If you can contribute or answer any question below, just click the link and share your thoughts.

• Hello all, what is your best advice and resources to identify a PQL?
• Has anyone used a survey service for market research that you thought was cost-effective and reliable?

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See you in Trenches 😉

Adechina D. Odjo,

Content Editor @Trenches