Pragmatic Marketing Rule #17

This is the seventeenth in a series of posts on the Practical Product Management rules from Pragmatic Marketing.

Pragmatic Marketing Rule #17: You need a positioning document for each type of buyer.

In the beginning of technology marketing, when it came to communicating about our products, we mostly spoke techinese. We emphasized the features, and sometimes forgot all about the benefits.

Then someone uttered those famous last words, “People don’t buy features, they buy benefits.”

And it was off to the races with benefits statements.

Unfortunately, all benefits statements started to sound alike: Use our product to save time and money, increase productivity, and grow your revenues.

You could read these benefits statements and come away with no idea whatsoever whether someone was trying to sell you a mainframe or a spreadsheet.

This all came about, I’m afraid, because as marketers we often failed to think through exactly who our buyers were in terms of all of the constituencies who might be involved in a purchase decision.

We jumped right from thinking only about the techies, and their need to know the gritty product details, to thinking only about the vaunted “C-level” decision makers who wanted to know what the payback was. (Don’t bother me with the details…)

A positioning document for each type of buyer is an excellent remedy for the problem.

With separate positioning work, you’ll have the essential messages you need to communicate your products, and its values to all of your audiences.

• For the technology buyer, your positioning document should be heavy on the features and the technical details. In my experience, the technology buyer has often already made the decision to buy something by the time they’re looking at your product. They need to know what differentiates your product from the other guys. They also want to know how your features translate into benefits, of course, but mostly they want to know how it works, what it’s made of, and what it’s going to take to implement and support. When they’re looking for high level benefits, they’re probably looking for what they need to sell up in the organization.
• For the end user, they mostly want to know what it does for them, how it’s going to change the way they work, and how easy it’s going to be for them to learn to use. End users, like misery, tend to love company: they want to know who else is using your product. While they may not want to be the jump-up-and-grab early adopters, they don’t tend to want to be laggards, either. (Do you really want to be the last person on earth using clear plastic “foils” for your presentation, when everyone else is using PowerPoint?)
• For the manager, the positioning document can be lighter on the details than it is for the tech buyer and end user, but it still needs info on how it’s going to make life better for their people and for them, and not be a burdensome hassle to implement. It’s a this level, that the positioning starts shifting gears from being predominantly feature-oriented (with benefits tied to those features) to a bit more benefits-oriented.
• For the executive/economic buyer, your positioning document has moved more squarely into the benefits camp. But still, you need to make sure that the positioning communicates what the product is and does  - not just that it will yield an ROI of 200% in the first year. There’s no need for all kinds of feature detail - trust me, these cats really don’t care. Still, even the most remote of executives or economic buyer, needs to know whether they’re okaying purchase of accounting software or a storage drive.
• Don’t forget vertical positioning, either. Most industries have their own peculiarities and lingo. If you can point out why your product is ideal for regional banks or pharmaceuticals, don’t hold back. Just make sure that when you’re out there communicating, you’re not emphasizing the banking features and benefits (”…handles all required Federal and state reporting”) when you’re talking to pharma. (”Oops, I meant to say there’s a module that’s useful for clinical trial info…”)

Having these positioning documents on hand can save you a boatload of effort when you’re creating sales tools, collateral, and program material. You’ll know what to say, and you’ll make sure you’re saying the right thing to the right people.

But, as I implore marketing folks everywhere, please, please, please make sure that no one goes away without knowing what the your product actually is and does. (As my friend, and marketer par excellence, Valerie always says when she’s just read something that’s less than clear, “But what do it do?”)

---

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically each day to your feed reader. If you don't have a feed reader, you can always have these articles delivered to your email inbox every day. Click here to sign up.

The Opinionated Marketers | Powered by WordPress | ElegantBlue is a custom theme by Nathan Rice