How to position your product ?
How to identify the core messaging of your product
How to position your product ?
Positioning needs to uniquely highlight product’s strengths and immediate utility for the user. For this to happen you need to understand who are the product’s real competitors in the minds of customers. The question you need to ask is "what would the customers do if we didn’t exist?"
Sometimes the alternatives are a spreadsheet, getting an intern to do it or using pen and paper.
Best way to identify customers to speak to
The way to identify the best customers is to focus on your best customers or super users. People who love the product are best placed to influence the positioning of the product. I met a customer who loved the product we are developing and helped us fine-tune the positioning of the product. Ways to identify such users is to send a survey to users and identify the users who say they would be crushed if your product went off the market. Alternatively, analyze the product usage patterns and identify the users who massively utilized your product.
How to talk to customers
Before talking to these users understand the click stream patterns using tools such as Mixpanel, Amplitude etc. Talk to these users and understand how they use the product, what alternatives they would seek in your absence. Confirm what the user said about their usage patterns on tools that track click stream data. The confirmation step is important because at times customers can be polite or not realize they aren’t pointing out directly the real value add to them.
❓ What are your experiences while identifying the product positioning ?
References:
Obviously Awesome by April Dunford
Experience in the field :)