What is positioning
Positioning is the process that helps you find your unique value and expose it to your customers.
The overlooked importance of testing in positioning
Testing is often overlooked when doing positioning, especially when working with agencies, which is ridiculous because if your messaging doesn’t work, nothing else will work, so why wouldn’t you test that?
Well, because for agencies, it’s difficult to sell, as they would get the objection: “Am I not paying you to know these things?”
But the answer to that question is: “No.” because even experts can’t predict with 100% accuracy what will work and what will not, just like you can’t know whether an ad will work or a business idea will work.
“We will sell people furniture they have to purchase in pieces and mount themselves” sounds like a stupid idea, but that’s IKEA for you.
Does your positioning work in the real world?
Anyway, as experts, we will get closer to the right answer faster, but you still need to test whether your new positioning works in the real world.
The companies themselves don’t test because testing isn’t sexy, plus there is that psychological barrier that what you just did, the whole positioning process, has been a wasted effort (= basically, you don’t want to hear “No” as an answer) and you feel good about the new message because it’s new.
Mentality of a positioning process
So, for me, one of the first things to do when starting to work with a client is to get them to adopt the mentality of a process. This is a process; building your positioning is a process. We iterate positioning just like we iterate the product.
But there are proven ways we can test positioning in a relatively short period of time, so don’t listen to LinkedIn gurus who tell you positioning can’t be tested quickly.
How to test your positioning and get more clients almost immediately
B2B enterprise
If you are selling B2B software to enterprise clients, the fastest way to test your positioning is to actually create an offer and reach out to potential clients either via LinkedIn, cold calling, or email, depending on where your strengths are.
How we do this with my clients:
We create a message that’s based on your new positioning. -> typically in at least 2 variants in the beginning so we can split test them.
Next, you create a context document, basically mapping out what you need to tell the clients when you talk to them. So this would be who you are, what you do, why they should speak to you, and potentially some testimonials and USPs, depending on the assets that you have.
- For LinkedIn, you can then create a campaign in Dripify or similar software, and you spread that context from the document you created in 5 or so follow-ups, so the user gets all the information but in several messages.
- For cold calling, you create a script.
- For email, you create a series of emails.
You target users who are your buy-ins into the company and execute.
On LinkedIn, you can measure whether the positioning works. What you are looking for is at least a 35% connection rate, so 35% of people should connect with you after receiving your message.
You can measure whether the context works with the same numbers, so you should be receiving responses or replies from 35% of the people that you message.
The goal is to get them on a call, so you measure that as well. Usually, around 10% of people actually come to the call, and these are already serious MQLs that you can convert.
When we tried this approach with a client, we regularly got to 2-3 good conversations a week, so that’s a pretty good number for high-ticket sales.
B2B PLG
If your startup is for Mass Market, let’s say, a CRM that you sell to small teams or something similar that you are selling for a few hundred dollars a year, the test can be easily done through a landing page test.
What you do is:
From your new positioning, you create a Google display ad. Display ads are great for testing because they are cheap, so they allow you to do more testing for the same price. That ad leads to a landing page, which is basically an expanded ad, so you give the users the same message but more context – read more about how to structure your website here – and then you put on a button that converts users into your product or gets them on an email list.
Again, you test the click-through rates from ads to the landing page and compare it to your industry standard or previous ads; on the landing page, you measure conversions.
If your click-through rate is low, it means the message isn’t working. If the landing page conversions aren’t happening, it means the problem is either in the solution or the context you are giving them, but you now know where to look for the problem.
When we tested this with a client, we got 12 times more people into the product through new positioning, so this can have a pretty massive impact on your marketing & sales numbers. Read that case study here.
Be objective so you can trust the results.
Anyway, the important thing is that the tests remain objective so that you can trust the results, and if you do your positioning correctly, you’ll see a massive improvement in your results.
And if you need help, do reach out.
May your customers love you and understand your products.
