Startups are new businesses, full of ambition, aiming a disruptive growth backed up by a meaningful purpose. This whole startup idea is captivating not only because we have great examples in the market but also because their communication, speeches, and pitch decks are powerful. One of the most important exercises to do to align communication is defining your positioning statement.
In this post you will:
- Understand what is a positioning statement;
- Learn the steps to create your statement;
- See real examples and be ready to create your own!
What is a positioning statement?
A positioning statement is a short paragraph combining key aspects of a business, conveying a brand’s value proposition to its ideal customer. Before creating any communication piece, or advertisement, or defining your strategy to stand out from the crowd, you must understand deeply who you are as a company, and what and how is the market you are entering to.
Positioning statements ensure marketing efforts are aligned with the brand.
The key elements for creating a positioning statement are:
- Your target market: who are you selling to?
- Your brand name: who are you?
- The competitive set: what do you do?
- Your points-of-difference: what is your unique benefit?
- Reasons to believe: why should your target market choose you?
Defining your positioning statement is much more than just writing a paragraph about your brand, it requires a study, time invested on understand first who you are, then who you’re selling to, and last but not least, how they truly benefit from what you have to offer.
The secret success of startups that are now huge corporates (Uber, Canva, Klarna…) have something in common; they all know strongly who they are, who they sell to and the benefits they are able to fulfill for those people.
It is highly recommended for startups to go through the exercise of finding their niche market, understanding their products, and studying competitors before defining any marketing strategy. Once all the studies to answer the previous 5 questions are completed, it is time to create the positioning statement following this simple framework:
For [target market], [brand name] is the brand of [category] that offers [point-of-difference/unique benefit] because [reason(s) to believe].
Examples of a positioning statement
“Mailchimp (brand) is an all-in-one Marketing Platform (category) for small businesses (target market). We empower millions of customers around the world to start and grow their businesses (point of difference) with our smart marketing technology, award-winning support, and inspiring content (reasons to believe).”
“Slack (brand) is the collaboration hub (category) that brings the right people, information, and tools together to get work done (point of difference). From Fortune 100 companies to corner markets (target market), millions of people around the world use Slack to connect their teams, unify their systems, and drive their business forward (reasons to believe).”
Note that the allocation of the key points might be different, but they are always there. There are many different templated to build a positioning statement and most of them out there might fulfill the need to align the brand’s communication.
A few months ago I had the opportunity to work on a positioning statement for an IndTech startup back in Brazil, where the goal was to reposition the startup by shifting from an IT market to a more exclusive niche, AI for manufacturing. After several meetings, brainstorms, and deep conversations we came up with the following statement (note this one contains extra fields):
For medium and large manufacturing industries (target market), IndustriALL – Industrial Artificial Intelligence (brand) designs intelligent and customized solutions acting over complex problems (category). In an increasingly digitized sector and where data is generated continuously (context/tension) IndustriaALL has experience with large national and international companies, developing solutions that generate knowledge and add predictability to your process, helping in decision making and cost reduction (benefits functional) generating value for all stakeholders by providing a positive organizational environment, cultivating a long-term partnership relationship with customers and encouraging the development of new technologies in the national territory (emotional benefits), IndustriALL – drive industries into the future (purpose).
As said before, it is not a simple exercise of writing a paragraph – it requires, time, study, and real dedication to understanding not only your business but where your business is at, who benefits from what you have to offer, and how.
Ready to create your own positioning statement?