About this document: There are literally thousands of books written on the topic of best practices for positioning and value proposition. This is our cheat sheet. Questions? Alice Lankester, [email protected] ​ Startup Guidelines: Positioning / Value Proposition Best Practices Table of Contents Summary of this section This document provides guidance for understanding how Introduction to approach brand, product positioning, a value proposition, and components of a digital marketing plan. The Messaging Architecture How do I get started? Or Checklists and Templates restart? The Positioning Statement Digital Marketing Plan Template, SmartInsights ​ Template for a positioning Managing a Digital Market Plan Toolkit, SmartInsights statement ​ The Value Proposition Reference sites Positioning and Value Statement Creating a B2B Digital Marketing Plan for 2016 Examples (InfoGraphic) SmartInsights The Tagline Introduction to Building a Sales and Marketing Machine, ​ The Brand David Shok The Marketing Plan B2B Buyer Personas: Top Challenges, Tactics, and Uses, ​ Step 1: The Strategy MarketingProfs Step 2: The Tactics, Activities B2B Buyer Journey Mapping Basics, Forrester and Actions ​ Four Critical Components of Your Customer Journey Map, Step 3: Measure and Attribute ​ MarketingProfs Product Naming Resources for building buyer personas, MarketingProfs Made up words ​ 30 definitions of ‘brand’ by leading brand experts Heidi Real words ​ Team naming techniques Cohen The Three Cs Of Successful B2B Positioning (Channel, ​ Customer, Competition) MarketingProfs The Ten Cs of B2B Marketing SmartInsights ​ SOSTAC: The Guide to your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan PRSmith Books For Further Reading Get to Aha! Discover your positioning DNA and dominate your competition Andy Cunningham ​ Absolute Value: What Really Influences Customers in the Age of (Nearly) Perfect Information Itamar Simonson & ​ Emanuel Rosen Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want Osterwalder, Alexander and ​ others Introduction Before embarking on any new marketing initiative, there must be agreement on the statement about the company’s brand, positioning and value proposition. These are ideally put ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ together into a messaging architecture. Why? Because without these, there is no agreed direction on how to talk about the company, and its product and services, to customers and media. Teams will ‘make it up’ as they go along, which will present an inconsistent and confused message to the buyer. Not only that, but the marketing plan itself will be directionless. When the architecture statements are consistently agreed, every conversation and marketing material can consistently reflect the message. The goal of this essay is to answer: ● Why you must build a messaging architecture, and what it is ● How to get started, or restarted, with a messaging architecture ● How to define, and write, a positioning statement ● How to define, and write, a value proposition ● Real world examples of positioning statements and value propositions ● How to craft a marketing plan The Messaging Architecture This article touches on brand, positioning statements, value propositions, vision, mission, and taglines. These all, very often, get conflated and confused. But when a company has a messaging architecture in place, things (almost) magically become clearer. A messaging architecture gives your team everything they need to talk about the company clearly, consistently and confidently. Done right, the components of the architecture can feed sales scripts, playbooks, and sales messages, and gives outside vendors the direction they need to springboard top quality deliverables. Here are the components of a simple message architecture. You probably have all these materials in place somewhere. Pulling them all together into an internal handout for everyone can be really useful. Vision Your vision is the difference you want to make in the world of your customers, and the world at large. It’s timeless. It’s often out of reach. The world will be a different place because of your vision. Mission Your mission is what you do every day to service your vision. Every day you and your team should go home knowing that they’ve somehow advanced to business towards your mission. Target market The market you are serving now with your product or service. Customers and potential customers. Differentiator(s) What makes you most clearly stand out from your competition. Your secret sauce. The ‘thing’ your competitors wish they had, and don’t. Could be a short bullet list of things. Category The recognized group of peers you belong in. Positioning The differentiated place you have in the category, and industry, and statement your customer relevance. (read more) ​ ​ A template: Not always for public consumption, but For [insert target market] the [insert your product/service/brand] is the private [insert point of differentiation] among all [insert frame of reference] understanding. because [insert reason to believe]. Sometimes appears in the “About” area, Another template: as in XYZ company [Product name] is for [target user] who needs to [problem to be solved] is... an feel [emotions generated] while they do it. [Product name] is based on the [adjective] idea that [unique insight]. It will win because [reasons]. Value proposition The key benefit(s) you offer your most important customers, and the (read more) primary reason a customer chooses you over any other. ​ ​ These value propositions will dictate the content you create. Key messages The top three to five key bullets that need to be driven home in every conversation about your company. Arm everyone with these. Elevator story The brief pitch you say out loud when someone asks “so what does your company do?” Often easily derived from your positioning statement and value proposition. Every single person in the company should be able to sing this out loud on demand! Brand : drivers and How and why the customers value and trust you, and your services. ​ values The personification of your traits. The promise of what you are making to your customers. The characteristics you want to be known for. Tagline The one key, short phrase that usually appears alongside your name / (read more) logo. Different from your elevator story, positioning statement or value ​ ​ prop. But is derived from them, as it distills why you’re in business. How do I get started? Or restart? You may feel that your current architecture isn’t fitting right, isn’t fully agreed upon, or needs another look. How do you get started? Here’s my agile, five-step, startup friendly process: 1/Conduct stakeholder interviews Stakeholders are: ● Founders ● Employees ● Investors / board Get feedback on what they think the product is for, why it’s great, what makes it fly above the competition. What does your brand ‘mean’ to them? What is your brand’s personality? Value system? Set of beliefs? 2/Conduct customer interviews This is the most critical step! Don’t miss this one! Segment customers into most relevant groups. Interview them, in person, on the phone, or virtually. If they know and love you, they’ll do it for free. You can also remunerate them for their time with an Amazon gift card or similar, or a donation to charity. Ask them all the same questions! What motivated them to engage with you? How did they ‘find’ you? What gets them coming back? 3/Conduct workshops Organize all your findings above, and bring together your brain trust as a working group. Work through what you’ve learned. Look for patterns and themes. Use the workshop to draft your messaging architecture / framework. ​ ​ 4/Conduct qualitative research Not everyone has time, or budget, to do steps 4 and 5. But they can be very useful. Qualitative research asks questions about how the brand appears, feels, and the emotions it generates. Sometimes it asks what kind of ‘person’ the brand feels like. (These are examples shared with me by the person working on branding for Thumbtack: Craigs’ List -- a rather untrustworthy fellow in a trenchcoat Angie’s List -- a somewhat boring lady in pearls and beige twinset Thumbtack -- a helpful, cheerful, capable looking fellow who walks in the door of your home with his toolbox) 5/Conduct quantitative research Test the value proposition against similar cohorts. If you got a result of 80% preferring one thing over another, you can at least feel validated in testing that proposition in the market. 6/Crystalize the product description and messaging, differentiators and personality This leads back to the messaging architecture / framework discussed earlier. ​ ​ The Positioning Statement When someone asks “What does your company do?” Everyone in the company should be able to answer in terms that are understandable, free of jargon, and not burdened with confusing ‘insider’ terms. Your positioning statement impacts absolutely everything. If you’re not clear, everyone is working without guidance. Your positioning statement is the differentiated place you have in the category, and industry, and your customer relevance. We ran positioning workshops at Balderton in 2019. Here are detailed notes from those ​ workshops. A S.W.O.T analysis is extremely useful to start the planning, and help guide the positioning ​ ​ statement. Template for a positioning statement For [insert target market] the [insert your product/service/brand] is the [insert point of ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ differentiation] among all [insert frame of reference] because [insert reason to believe]. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Another