Marketing for Startups: Some thoughts and views on product/service positioning for B2B startups.

1. Srihari Palangala
March 2013
Views and thoughts expressed here are entirely mine and strictly personal.

2. • Early stage/Incubatee software product or service venture
targeting Enterprises/Businesses, for example, in the areas of
Mobility, Security, Cloud, Infrastructure
• You are close to/ready with v1.0 of your product; Now you are aiming to
grow your customer wins in the market!
• You are working on product positioning issues, like:
• What your marketing message should convey
• Whom to target with your messaging
• How to effectively reflect your marketing message in your collateral
• If you said ‘Yes’, the content in the deck may be useful for your
venture
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3. • As the entrepreneur you already
have most of the answers, you
probably just need the right
questions asked to help frame the
positioning
• In my previous deck (“Necessary
Elements of Digital Marketing for
Startups”), we talked about digital
marketing tactics. Now we discuss
what your content should be
talking about as you execute the
tactics. For this, “Positioning” is the
first order of business. 3

4. 1. Provide a wedge to open doors
• An Elevator pitch version
• A Longer version
2. Highlight product differentiators vs. the direct
and indirect available alternatives
• Overarching differentiators (e.g., “we support ALL
platforms”) are better than trying to get into nitty-gritty
feature comparison at the outset
• Lower price is not a sustainable differentiator
3. Create some FUD about other solutions
4. Create an inbound pull, people start seeing you
as the answer to an oft repeated question (or
pain point) 4

5. • At the Customer
• Technology beneficiary (Segment of people who
experience a tangible impact because of your
technology)
• This defines the set of industry vertical segment(s)
you target
• The more you refine this, the better your targeting
– so try to get as specific as possible in identifying
this group (e.g., End users doing ABC & working in
ABC vertical & company size > ABC with globally
distributed offices etc.)
• Influencer (Person(s) in the account who emerge as
your champions)
• Buyer (People who make decisions and sign the check)
• It is possible that the same people are playing one or more
of these roles in the customer account
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6. • The Partner
• Go to market partners
• Reseller partners
• The Investor
• The people who back you
• Key external stakeholders - the Partner and Investor, complete the
gamut to be addressed
• Clear positioning is also helpful to attract the right talent, but we
will not get in to that here
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7. • At the Customer
• Technology beneficiary – How does it improve my
workflow?
• Influencer – How does it make my job easier/more
effective?
• Buyer – What is the ROI? Is there a strategic impact?
• The Partner
• Is this mutually beneficial?
• The Investor
• What is the opportunity?
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8. • At the Customer
• Influencer,
• Establish trust, credibility and confidence since you are a new player; Co-
Marketing and References are helpful here
• Access to, and showcase detailed technology benefits, including feature matrix
(Industry awards also help)
• Have a compelling set of collateral to help your Sales win against competition
• Technical (before & after) comparison studies – e.g., Whitepapers;
• That this is quickly becoming an industry best practice with business benefits
• Answer FAQs;
• Show how it makes their job easier – for e.g., fewer things to do; fewer
decisions to take; fewer trouble tickets; ease of setup/deployment and
maintenance etc.
• At the customer, establishing and winning the Influencer is the first
step
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9. • Customer
• Technology beneficiary,
• Improved productivity benefits;
• Easier to use than what you are accustomed to;
• Show how their peers are benefiting – through case studies; If relevant,
how other departments in the organization also benefit
• Drive the urgency – why should they have the technology now?
• Buyer,
• Show the business benefit in the investment;
• Third party validation voices (e.g., Analyst);
• Partner
• Content to show the interlock, i.e., how the technologies complement each
other
• Content to help them make the sales pitch (for resellers)
• Investor
• Your (& team) conviction, backed with data
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10. • Like everything in your venture journey, it is “never
a done deal”
• You have placed a stick in the ground, but be ready to
pivot where necessary in terms of refining the messaging
and content
• Be particularly ready to iterate and refine the
‘technology beneficiary’  Segment, Segment, Segment
– your success around customer acquisition velocity
largely depends on nailing this
• Build your first version of the positioning and collateral
after you have the first few (4-6) customers – so you have
some external validation & input
• Your marketing collateral (blogs, whitepaper, data sheets,
website etc.) should continuously reflect your positioning
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11. • Once you have a positioning and
message that resonates, start to turn Patterns,
the dial up (more content & marketing Lead Gen
spend)
Co Mktg
• When you turn the dial up, your
objective would be to start creating
awareness among the target segments Trials/POCs
• Two logical ‘next steps’ would be to Positioning
drive more Trials and establish Co-
marketing opportunities – we will talk
more about that in a future
session/deck
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12. • spalangala@gmail.com
The content in the deck is what I am sharing based on my experience and learning over the years; I
hope it helps you in your startup journey as you distil some of the information and apply some of
the points in your own context(s).
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