Effective Product Marketing Rule #7

This is the seventh in a series of posts on Pragmatic Marketing’s Effective Product Marketing Rules.

Effective Product Marketing Rule #7: Don’t confuse product positioning with program strategy and messaging.

I’ll take this in two parts.

The first part  - don’t confuse positioning with program strategy - is pretty clear and straightforward.

Knowing who the audience for your product is, where your product fits and why it fits there, is absolutely necessary for creating a successful program strategy, but is absolutely not sufficient. Positioning should include everything you need to know about your audience. Who they are. What their role is. What their needs are. How your product will satisfy those needs.

The more you know about that audience, the better you’ll be able to reach them - and reach them effectively. But how to actually get to them is another story, and that’s where your program strategy comes in.

The program strategy will lay out the combination of touches that will make your audiences aware of your product, make them interested in your product, and make them knowledgeable enough about it to want to buy it.

Frankly, I’ve never seen anyone confuse product positioning with program strategy.

But I have seen plenty of instances in which the program strategy was confused with positioning. In these cases, the program strategy ends up dictating the positioning. E.g., we have a program in place to reach financial institutions, therefore our product must be well-positioned for them.

Uh-uh.

This sort of program strategy - targeting verticals, different sized companies, specific buyers, geographies, whatever - can lead you to all sorts of places you don’t want to be.

What’s the point of having a program that “goes after the enterprise”, when your products are only suited for SMBs?  What’s the point of advertising on national TV if your audience is very narrowly defined? What’s the point of aiming all your guns at the “C-Level” executive, if you have absolutely nothing of interest for them - and if the purchase decision is made at a different level?

Here’s what happens when you “go after the enterprise” with a product that’s really only suited for SMBs: you’ll find yourselves expending all kinds of wasted effort on leads that will turn out to go nowhere when the potential buyer finds out that the offering doesn’t scale.

Here’s what happens when you buy national TV advertising when the audience you really want to reach are, say, the partners of major consulting firms: you’ll waste an awful lot of money and have nothing to show for it.

Here’s what happens when you aim for those C-Levels (just because it sounds more high-falutin’ to sell to them): they’ll either have their gatekeeper shut you out completely, or they’ll refer you down to the appropriate level. This latter outcome may sound good - you’ll get to use Mr. or Ms. Big’s name, won’t you? Yeah, well, that only goes so far. It doesn’t take long for the appropriate level people to figure out that Mr./Ms. Big really doesn’t know or care anything about you, and that Mr./Ms. Big really isn’t trying to influence the purchase decision. Sure, sometimes you’ll get a sale this way, but mostly you’ll look dumb. (Which is not to be confused with having product positioning that incorporates the C-Level in an indirect way…)

As for part 2 - don’t confuse positioning with messaging - I’m a little confused here, myself.

For one thing, I always include messaging with positioning. The messages may not be 100% internal facing, but whenever I create a positioning document, I outline who the audiences are, why they’re of interest, how our product meets their needs, etc.  Sometimes those messages need to be pumped up or tweaked when they’re incorporated in a program, but the core messages should be part of your positioning.

As with the program example, the meaning here may be not to confuse having messages with having positioning.

I can create all sorts of cool messages that have no bearing whatsoever on the reality of our product. These cool messages may get your foot in the door, but once your audience figures out the disconnect between your message and what your product does, you and your foot will be escorted - often not so gently and politely - out the door. So, if your product requires a PhD in neuro-biology to use, then you probably shouldn’t be using messages that tout ‘ease of use.’ Instead, use the ones that talk about how robust and deep your product is.

All in all, Rule #7 is a good one to keep in mind, especially if you turn it around a bit:

DON’T EVER CONFUSE HAVING A PROGRAM STRATEGY AND MESSAGES WITH HAVING PRODUCT POSITIONING.

You will NEVER have an effective program strategy, nor have effective messages, if you don’t get your positioning straight first.

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