Positioning

Positioning is how your customer understands why your product exists and why it matters. Messaging translates positioning into words that customers hear. Without clear positioning, your GTM message becomes noise in a crowded market. With positioning, you own a category.

Positioning is the unique place your product occupies in your customer’s mind relative to alternatives. It answers who this is for, what problem it solves, and why is it better than alternatives. A strong position is defensible, credible, and motivates purchase decisions.

Positioning is not the same as features or target audience alone. Two email tools targeting freelancers have different positions if one positions as simple email and the other as email that sells. Same audience, different psychological space in the mind.

April Dunford’s positioning framework

April Dunford’s framework forces clarity by defining positioning across six dimensions.

Competitive set showing what category your product belong to like email tool, sales tool, or revenue tool. Target customer showing who benefits most from this positioning like B2B SaaS founders or enterprise sales teams. Unique attributes showing what capabilities do you have that competitors lack like API-first, real-time data, or privacy-first. Value drivers showing which attributes matter most to your target customer like speed, compliance, or cost savings. Proof points showing what evidence supports your claims like customers, case studies, benchmarks, or research. Why now showing what changed in the market to make this solution relevant now like new regulations or changing buyer behavior.

Use this framework to build positioning that is internally consistent and defensible. If you cannot articulate all six dimensions, your positioning is not yet clear.

Positioning vs messaging

Positioning is your strategic truth as the core claim about why you are different and why it matters. Messaging is how you communicate that positioning to different audiences. One positioning can generate many messages.

Example positioning is revenue operations platform that removes silos between sales and marketing. Messaging for CFOs is control revenue leakage through unified forecasting. Messaging for sales leaders is enable reps to close faster with real-time market data. Same positioning, different messages.

Category creation strategy

Category creation is the art of defining a new market category and owning it. Instead of competing in existing categories where customers already know how to evaluate you, create a category where you define the rules.

Steps to create a category

First, identify a meaningful customer problem that is not solved by existing categories. Second, give the category a name that signals the problem and solution like revenue operations versus sales analytics. Third, teach the market why this category matters. Use content, analyst relations, customer advocates, and earned media to establish the category in market consciousness. Fourth, position yourself as the category leader.

Category creation requires investment but yields outsized returns. Slack did not invent team messaging. It created the business messaging category. Figma did not invent collaborative design. It created the collaborative design platform category. Owning a category means owning a large share of the market.

Building a messaging matrix

A messaging matrix maps positioning to audiences and stages of the customer journey. Create a 2×2 or 3×3 grid with personas on one axis and funnel stages including awareness, consideration, and decision on the other. Fill each cell with the key message for that persona at that stage.

Awareness stage leads with a big idea or insight that resonates emotionally. Problem-focused messaging works best. Consideration stage contrasts your solution against alternatives. Feature and value-focused messaging works. Decision stage addresses objections and provides proof. Social proof, case studies, and ROI calculations drive decisions.

A cohesive messaging matrix ensures your team including marketing, sales, and product speaks a consistent language while tailoring messages to audience. This prevents contradictory messages from confusing customers.

Competitive positioning

Competitive positioning maps your solution against alternatives on dimensions that matter to customers. A 2×2 matrix showing your position versus competitors reveals white space where you can own unique territory.

Example showing Y-axis as ease of use from low to high, X-axis as power from low to high. Plot yourself and competitors on this 2×2. If you occupy the easy and powerful quadrant and competitors occupy hard and powerful or easy and weak, you own clear differentiation.

Avoid positioning directly against larger competitors on their terms. If they own most powerful, do not claim more powerful than them. Instead, own a different dimension where you win like most user-friendly or fastest to value.

Positioning testing methodology

Test positioning by showing different positioning statements to prospective customers and measuring which resonates most. Measure resonance through likelihood to purchase, clarity showing can you explain the positioning to someone else, differentiation showing is it clear why this is different from alternatives, and relevance showing does this address my problem.

Run positioning tests with at least 50 prospective customers per positioning variant. Use online surveys or user interviews. Test iteratively by starting with 2-3 positioning variants, select the winner, then test refinements against the winner.

When to reposition

Reposition when your current positioning no longer reflects market reality or customer needs. Reposition if competitors enter your category and claim your positioning, if customer problems shift like from cost to compliance, or if you have entered a new market with different needs.

Uber repositioned from luxury car service to any ride, whenever, wherever as the market scaled. Slack repositioned from a better way to chat to where work happens as the product expanded. Repositioning signals evolution and keeps you relevant.

Common positioning mistakes

Feature-focused positioning. We have AI or We have 50 integrations are features, not positioning. Position on the value those features enable like close deals 30% faster or eliminate manual data entry.

Trying to be everything to everyone. A positioning that appeals to every persona appeals to none. Pick your beachhead customer and position for their most urgent problem. Expand positioning later.

Ignoring competitive positioning. If you claim easiest to use but your competitor already owns that position, customers will not believe you. Own a positioning you can credibly defend.

Messaging that contradicts positioning. Positioning says enterprise-grade security but messaging talks about consumer ease-of-use. The contradiction creates cognitive dissonance and weakens both.

About upGrowth

upGrowth is a growth marketing agency specializing in SEO, GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), and AI-first digital strategies. With 40+ documented growth case studies and proprietary frameworks, upGrowth helps brands build visibility across both traditional search engines and AI-powered discovery platforms. These entity pages are part of the upGrowth Entity Hub, a definitive reference library for modern search and AI optimization concepts.