Part 3 – The “WHO [has this specific pain or problem]” element from the positioning statement
Pain, problem, need or desire
Continuing the series of blogs looking at the elements of the positioning statement I’m going to look at the customer pain or problem section.
In this entry I will look at the pain, problem, need or desire that we believe that target customer is looking to resolve. So just so we have a the context for the discussion, here is the positioning statement format that Lustratus uses.
FOR [the ideal customer] WHO [has this specific pain or problem] OUR [product name] IS A[product category] THAT PROVIDES [this main benefit and reason to buy] UNLIKE [the primary alternative or competitor] OUR PRODUCT [has this unique selling proposition].… Continue reading
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Leave a commentPart 2 – The “FOR [ideal customer]” element from the positioning statement
The Ideal Customer
As mentioned in the previous blog entry on the positioning statement, I’m going to continue to flesh out the details of the seven other positioning elements.
This time its the ideal target customer, so let’s first revisit the format of the positioning statement just to give us a context.
FOR [the ideal customer] WHO [has this specific pain or problem] OUR [product name] IS A[product category] THAT PROVIDES [this main benefit and reason to buy] UNLIKE [the primary alternative or competitor] OUR PRODUCT [has this unique selling proposition].
The ideal customer allows the organisation creating the positioning statement to express the characteristics of their ideal target customer for the… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, esb, ideal customer, job roles, marketing, Marketing Strategy, positioning, product marketing, prospects | competition, competitive, Danny Goodall, esb, ideal customer, Lustratus, marketing strategy, positioning, positioning statement, product marketing, REPAMA, Strategic Marketing, strategy | Leave a commentPart 1 – The positioning statement
Positioning
Happy 2009! I’ve been in debate with a number of correspondents about the layout and format of the positioning statement that we use in the Lustratus REPAMA-based research. So I’m going to dedicate the next few blog entries to the positioning statement. I hope to answer the following questions.
- What is the positioning statement?
- Why use a positioning statement?
- What is the value of a positioning statement?
- What is the format of a positioning statement?
The first thing to say is that over the years, having worked with some of the best product marketing people in the industry, I’ve seen many different approaches to positioning and equally many different formats for positioning statements. Each of them,… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, ideal customer, marketing, Marketing Strategy, pain, positioning, product category, product marketing, product name, reason to buy, usp, Vendor-Related Posts | alternative, benefit, competition, competitive, competitor, Danny Goodall, ideal customer, Lustratus, main benefit, marketing strategy, oracle, pain, positioning, positioning statement, product category, product marketing, product name, REPAMA, Strategic Marketing, strategy, tibco, usp | 1 Comment2009 Guidance for CMOs
I think Michael Gerard is spot on with his views on the need for different priorities and strategies for CMOs in 2009. He talks about the need to remove the disconnect between sales and marketing, decentralisation of both the marketing function and budgets to the region and also about the importance of sales enablement. These are all hobby horses of mine. It’s well worth a read, I hope CMOs are listening.
Danny Goodall
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Audience strata mismatch
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If I were to write in this blog
“18th century art has always been my passion. It’s my belief that mid-18th century, art, as captured by oil on canvas, has never been surpassed in terms of quality.”
You may ask what on earth that has to do with you – a visitor to a blog about high-technology marketing. You’d be right to question it because I’d obviously written the wrong thing to the wrong audience. My message may have been exactly what I wanted to say but I chose the wrong audience to deliver it to. As it happens, I’m afraid I’m a bit of a philistine when it comes to art appreciation – but hopefully… Continue reading
Posted in All Blog Categories, communication, Competition and Competitive Intelligence, marketing, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tactics, positioning, product marketing | audience, competitive, Competitive Marketing, Lustratus, messaging, product marketing, REPAMA, strata, Strategic Marketing | Leave a commentBook recommendation
I’d like to recommend a book today. I came across it a couple of weeks ago and whilst I don’t know the author, it felt like it was written by someone I knew. It’s well worth a read if you’re in product marketing, product management or strategic marketing planning. It’s called quite simply “Product Marketing for Technology Companies” and it’s written by a guy called Mark Butje.
If you’re in a hurry then it’s a simple as that. Go buy the book. You won’t regret it. If you want to know why I recommend it. Read on.
I’ve been developing marketing strategies for many companies for many years. … Continue reading
The company doth protest too much, methinks
…or Shakespeare and Cuban heels.
Apologies to those fans of the Bard for the bastardisation of the famous line from Hamlet but it’s a phrase I’ve come to use for early market software vendors that are trying just a little too hard to convince prospects that they are bigger and more credible than they really are.
Claiming, front and centre on your web site and in the copy of your press releases that you are the “global leader” in somethingorother appears to be the fashion in marketing communications. In fact we see phrases like “global”, “market-leading” or “leading provider” so often now that I think we’ve actually stopped thinking about the meaning of these words and whether we… Continue reading
Ab initio
Welcome to the Lustratus REPAMA blog from Lustratus Research. I’ve never been a fan of mission statements for the sake of mission statements. I guess that is because most that I read are painted in the blandest shade of beige or taste of vanilla. This tends to make them less of an “inspiring, rallying-call” type of mission statement and more of “a collection of boring indisputable facts that we think the CEO won’t fire us for putting down on paper” type of mission statement.
Mission?
That said, I think it’s worth setting out a plan for the type of material that we’ll be covering in this blog in future editions. So here goes. I want… Continue reading
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Recent Comments
May 12, 2011 (12:01) The Goodall Technology Reading Ease Index - How Complex is Your Marketing Copy? Hmm. I really do like the name Sarah but what about my ego? If I were to call the index 'GoodRead...
May 12, 2011 (11:36) The Goodall Technology Reading Ease Index - How Complex is Your Marketing Copy? I suggest calling it the GoodRead Index. Maybe it's over-reaching a bit, but you'll just have to ...
October 14, 2010 (4:19) Truth Denied? The Software Appliance Revisited. I hope you could tell that I was being more than a little flippant here Jacques. Perhaps I should...
October 13, 2010 (1:56) Truth Denied? The Software Appliance Revisited. Allow me to disagrre. At a customer, we have used Datapower for years to process XML (BTW, it is ...
June 7, 2010 (4:38) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Pete,Thanks for your comments, and those of your colleague. I think Danny has answered the 'mar...
June 4, 2010 (4:03) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Hi,I'd very much like to develop a point made in the report where it is asserted that software ...
May 6, 2010 (12:35) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Thanks for your comment Blake. This is a marketing-focused blog that looks at different vendors' ...
May 5, 2010 (1:23) New Report From Lustratus Research: A Competitive Review of SOA Appliances Hello There - It seems that this is a very provocative report, especially with respect to the sta...
April 14, 2010 (2:57) The Decision Making Unit for Cloud Computing Nice Technology Related Blog. Will visit again.
October 16, 2009 (5:56) The Decision Making Unit for Cloud Computing Very interesting point of discussion. I would be very interested to hear your results.