How to Nail Your Product Positioning with April Dunford

Markets are incredibly crowded, as exemplified by Scott Brinker's Marketing Technology Landscape, which has grown from 350 companies in 2012 to 7,000 products in 2018. The challenge is to stand out and help customers understand a product's value proposition in the midst of numerous options. Customers use market categories and trends to make sense of new products. Market categories frame the context of what something is, while trends answer the question of why it's important now. Positioning a product deliberately in a market category triggers assumptions that influence how customers perceive the product, its competitors, pricing, and features. To choose the best position for a product, focus on unique strengths (special features), draw a circle around the market that contains these strengths, and overlay relevant trends to create a compelling and urgent narrative