This discussion explains why you need a thorough understanding of the 3Cs - your channel, your customer and your competition - to effectively position your B2B technology product. It's called the "3Cs of successful positioning," and like positioning is the foundation for successful marketing, your 3Cs research is the foundation for a positioning strategy that sets you apart from the competition. Lawson Abinanti explains why your knowledge of the 3Cs is a critical success factor in developing a positioning strategy that is unique, important and believable. About the Speaker: Lawson Abinanti is co-founder of Messages that Matter, a consulting firm that helps B2B software and technology companies create positioning and message strategies that build awareness and demand. Messages that Matter provides training, coaching and consulting that helps clients develop message strategies that differentiate company, products and services from those of the competition. We have taught hundreds of marketers and product marketers a business process for positioning we have evolved since the firm was founded in 2001. Lawson is a professional journalist with 25 years of executive management experience in the software industry. He has been responsible for marketing or product marketing at several B2B software companies including Navision, Applix, TM1 Software, Timeline and Prime Factors. He can be reached at lawson@messagesthatmatter.com. Upcoming Events Would you like to lead innovation efforts within your company? Attend upcoming product innovation courses. Visit: http://bit.ly/CILCourse Want To Certify Your Team? If you have a product team of 10 or more that you want to certify, contact AIPMM at certification@aipmm.com. About AIPMM The AIPMM is the trusted authority in product management. It is where product professionals go for answers. With members in over 75 countries, it is the worldwide certifying body of product team professionals. It is the world's largest professional organization of product managers, brand managers, product marketing managers and other product team professionals who are responsible for guiding their organizations, or clients, through a constantly changing business landscape. AIPMM's certification programs are internationally recognized because they allow product professionals to demonstrate their expertise and provide corporate members an assurance that their product management and marketing teams are operating at a high competency level. Visit http://www.aipmm.com. Call For Speakers: http://bit.ly/1b006vm Subscribe: http://www.aipmm.com/subscribe Articles: http://www.aipmm.com/html/newsletter/article.ph Membership: http://www.aipmm.com/join.php

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Today’s Speaker
Moderator:
Hector Del Castillo, CPM, CPMM @hmdelcastillo
Presenter:
Lawson Abinanti
Principal
Messages That Matter
lawson@messagesthatmatter.com
www.messagesthatmatter.com

6. Lawson Abinanti

7. 7© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
B2B marketers must have an in-depth understanding of the 3 C’s
What are the 3Cs?
 Customers
 Competition
 Channel

8. 8© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• You can’t successfully position your B2B product unless you
have a thorough knowledge of the 3Cs
• Like positioning is the foundation for all your marketing
communications, your 3Cs research is the foundation for your
positioning strategy
• Your 3Cs research provides the rationale for your positioning
strategy; it’s the evidence that helps you converge on the right
position for your product.
Why are the 3Cs important?

9. 9© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• What is positioning?
• What is a positioning strategy?
• What is a message strategy?
• What is a positioning statement?
• What are support points?
Terminology I’ll be using in the presentation

10. 10© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
a) How your product is situated relative to its competitors.
b) How your product is situated in the minds of customers and target
audiences.
c) It’s what you do well.
d) It’s what sets you apart from the competition.
e) It is the same as an elevator pitch.
What is positioning?

11. 11© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
What is a position?
A position is…
a ‘mental space’
 You can occupy this space with the statement of
a compelling idea that has meaning to audience

12. 12© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• A rationale document presents the evidence – your 3Cs
research – that supports your message strategy.
• A message strategy:
– A positioning statement (12 words or less)
– 3 to 4 support points
A positioning strategy includes

13. 13© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• A compelling statement of one benefit that addresses the target
audience’s No 1 problem
• A conceptual statement…not necessarily copy
• Supported by 3 additional benefit claims
• Satisfies 4 evaluation criteria:
– Important
– Unique
– Believable
– Usable
What makes a positioning statement?
A positioning statement is:

14. 14© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
Ideal reaction to a positioning statement: “that’s interesting, tell me more.”
Support points
 Support points unfold the story in more detail
 Reinforce uniqueness & believability
 Convey secondary advantages/benefits
 Provide basis for feature detail and description
 Can be readily demonstrated or proven

15. 15© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
Your message strategy should be the central theme for everything you
do in marketing
Marketing Plan
Employees & Investors
Strategic Partners
Distribution Partners
Key Accounts
Analysts
Media
Customers

16. 16© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
a) One person figures it out.
b) It’s dictated by the management team.
c) Marketing does it.
d) Product marketing does it.
e) We don’t do it.
How do you do positioning?

17. 17© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• Let’s make sure you can spot a positioning statement
• We’ll look at how the following vendors and how they are
positioned:
– Xerox
– Workday
– Navision Web Shop
Before we get into the 3Cs…

18. 18© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.

19. 19© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
Human Resources
• Did you know Xerox is the 2nd largest benefits and pensions
administrator globally? It’s just one of the surprising ways Xerox
is helping companies simplify how work gets done…
Customer care
• Did you know Xerox has 175 customer care centers globally, staffed
with over 46,000 agents? It’s just one of the surprising ways
Xerox is helping companies simplify how work gets done…
Finance & Accounting
• Did you know Xerox has over 24,000 professionals operating in
over 90 global service centers? It’s just one of the surprising ways
Xerox is helping companies simplify how work gets done…
…surprising ways Xerox is helping
companies simplify how work gets done…

20. 20© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.

21. 21© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.

22. 22© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
The proposed positioning:
“Navision Web Shop is an Internet commerce solution that
allows you to set up and maintain an online storefront directly
from Navision Financials.”
Navision Web Shop example

23. 23© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• You can lower the cost of sales by doing fast paced
business on the Internet.
• You will increase customer satisfaction
• You can capitalize on new business opportunities
Web Shop actual positioning statement
Navision Web Shop gives you a profitable new way to reach out
to customers.

24. 24© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
a) We don’t do any research because we don’t have a process.
b) We have a process but we don’t do any research.
c) Our research is limited.
d) We do some research but probably not enough.
e) We do extensive research over an extended period of time.
How much research do you do during your positioning
process?

25. 25© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• Commercial messages overwhelm prospects
• Prospects are increasingly skilled at screening them out
• If your prospect won’t listen, you can’t sell.
Why positioning strategies?
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
2005 2014
Estimated Messages per day

26. 26© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• Markets & audiences
• Demographics & Psychographics
– Demographics describe structural attributes of a market
and its audiences
– Psychographics describe behavioral and attitudinal
characteristics of a market and its audiences
Your Customer

27. 27© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
Customer profiling

28. 28© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• Know your customer at least as well as you know your own product
• Interview customers to identify their most pressing problems, and
then stack rank the results.
• You can’t successfully position your product unless you know the
answer to this basic questions:
– “What is my target customer’s most pressing problem?”
– Focus on THE problem, not problems
What’s keeping your prospect awake at night?

29. 29© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• Prospects are experts at filtering out unimportant messages.
• You can get through the filter with a benefit statement that
addresses the primary concern that keeps your prospect awake at 2
am
• Your target audience will listen when you demonstrate an
understanding of their problem, and…
• Clearly communicate the benefit your product offers to solve the
problem
How to get your prospects to listen

30. 30© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
Pain points for a Corporate Performance Management (CPM) mid-
market solution:
1. Over reliance on Excel as the main platform for forecasting, reporting
and analytics
2. Difficulty in gaining a single version of the truth for reporting and
analytics
3. Making management decisions based on incorrect or out-of-date
information
4. Reducing the manual process of creating and presenting reports to
internal and external stakeholders
5. Eliminating the risk of misstatements in management and external
reporting
6. Access to timely and accurate information to make informed decisions
Example of stack ranking problems

31. 31© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• Strengths and weaknesses
• Distribution strategies
• Most important:
– HOW THEY ARE POSITIONED by evaluating:
• Web sites
• Marketing brochures
• Press releases
• E-mail campaigns
• Webinars
• Banner ads
• Google Adwords
• Any other form of marketing communications
What you need to know about your competitors

32. 32© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• Business Intelligence competitive landscape
Avoid “me too” marketing – use perceptual mapping
Fast, easy way to
understand your data
Better, faster, more
informed, innovative
decisions
InsightEasily translate
data into value
Comprehensive,
can't outgrow
Tableau
Qlik
SAS
SAP
IBM
Info Builders
Alteryx
Panorama
Microsoft
Tibco
Oracle
Pentaho
Microstrategy

33. 33© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
We’ll create the perceptual map
• Adaptive Insights
• IBM
• SAP
• Host Analytics
• SAS
• Oracle
• Longview
• Infor
• Tidemark
• Tagetik
• Prophix
CPM competitive market scan

34. 34© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
Summary of claims
Position Adaptive Insights IBM SAP Host Analytics SAS Oracle Longview Infor Tidemark Tagetik Prophix
No position X X X
Transform your enterprise
into a high-performing
organization
X
Better performance,
Improved performance X X
Gives you insight to act with
confidence X
Helps you understand what's
happening, why and take
action
X
Gives you visibility to make
smarter, faster decisions X
More time to analyze,
optimize and expand your
business
X
Gives you more value X
Note: Insert or delete the rows and/or columns between the orange borders.
After you click "Create Star" a perceptual map will appear on a new worksheet.

35. 35© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
Perceptual map
No position
Transform your
enterprise into a high-
performing organization
Better performance,
Improved performance
Gives you insight
to act with
confidence
Helps you understand
what's happening,
why and take action
Gives you
visibility to make
smarter, faster
decisions
More time
to analyze,
optimize
and
expand
your
business
Gives you
more value
Adaptive Insights
IBM
SAP
Host Analytics
SAS
Infor
Oracle
Tidemark
Longview
Tagetik
Prophix

36. 36© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
a) We don’t pay attention to how competitors are positioned.
b) Not sure.
c) Pretty sure but we don’t evaluate competitors’ product positions.
d) We are making a unique claim.
e) We aren’t making a unique claim.
Do you know whether the positioning of your
product is unique?

37. 37© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• Start your 3Cs research with the channel because it gives you fast
access to a wealth of information you need to position for success:
– Customer problems
– Competitive intelligence
– Ideal customer profile
– The purchase process
– Why you win and lose
• What’s really happening on the battlefront guides decisions
throughout the positioning process
Your Channel

38. 38© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• Information gathering
• Consensus building
• Execution
Your channel should be involved in three
stages of your positioning process

39. 39© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• Nurture your channel on an on-going basis will provide timely
information and feedback about the effectiveness of your
positioning strategy.
• Mid-course correction for FRx Software – 50%+ opportunities
resulted in no decision
• FRx budgeting application targeted at mid-market
• Prospects were comparing it to enterprise solutions that were more
expensive and complex
• Changed the positioning statement to address the problem
Channel feedback

40. 40© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• Start your 3Cs research with your channel whether you sell direct or
through partners
• Learn what's really happening in the channel, and you gain insights
into the details of purchase processes, demographics,
psychographics, sales strategies, and customer concerns.
• Know your customer as well as you know your product.
• Your target audience's most pressing problem needs to be the focus
of your positioning statement.
Key takeaways

41. 41© 2014 Lawson Abinanti. All Rights Reserved.
• Pay close attention to how your competitors are positioned; uncover
their position by analyzing their web sites and marketing materials.
• Perceptual mapping helps avoid "me too" positioning
• Most importantly:
– Your positioning statement needs to be unique - no other competitor is
making the claim - and important - it addresses the target buyer's No. 1
problem.
Key takeaways

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Q & A
Moderator:
Hector Del Castillo, CPM, CPMM @hmdelcastillo
Presenter:
Lawson Abinanti
Principal
Messages That Matter
lawson@messagesthatmatter.com
www.messagesthatmatter.com

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