B2B marketers, repeat after me: A position is not a positioning
There’s a bit of a debate in B2B tech positioning circles (okay, LinkedIn fe…
There’s a bit of a debate in B2B tech positioning circles (okay, LinkedIn feeds) these day…
Read moreOwn a position in their minds
Our positioning process
Positioning
As a B2B company, you need to be able to tell a compelling story about the unique value you bring to your target audiences.
In other words, you need to communicate what your brand or product does that no competitor or alternative solution can. And you need to be known for this difference by the right people, at the right time. If you aren’t, all that uniqueness will go to waste.
The elements of your story need to be defined and refined during a positioning phase. This is important work. Positioning is the foundation on which all your brand and marketing work should be built.
Talk to us about positioningCustomer and market research
The first step of Beneath Agency’s positioning process is to put in the work to understand you and your customers’ worlds. We’ll interview your leaders and experts, your partners and customers – everyone with useful insight.
And if there’s a need (and the budget) to supplement our desk work with original research, we can set up focus groups or design, commission and analyse a study of your target audiences globally.
Segmentation, targeting, positioning
Beneath can help you gain focus and clarity on the fundamentals: what exactly your company or product is, who your perfect customers are, what they need, how you do it for them, and why you’re better than everyone else at it.
Often, customer segmentation and targeting is pretty much tied down before our clients come to us for help with positioning. But if we need to review this work, challenge it, or start from the beginning, we will.
Messaging
After we’ve defined what you want your audience to think about you, and what you should stand for in their minds, our messaging process will develop what you want to say – to your various personas, about various topics.
Only then will we be ready to have some fun working with you on how you sound and look, by creating your visual identity and verbal identity.
More on our positioning framework and approach
Who we do positioning work for
Beneath Agency works with B2B companies at various stages on their positioning, branding and marketing journeys. Sometimes we help younger, growth-stage startups to strengthen their positioning and brand, or to build out the foundations of their marketing operations. Sometimes we partner with very large enterprises with industry- or product-specific positioning challenges, or PE-backed companies repositioning after an acquisition or merger.
Once the research and discovery phase is over, we begin sharing our findings with you. We do this quite early and often so our process is transparent and collaborative, and everyone’s confident it’s going in the right direction. In other words, we show our working.
Sound good? Get in touchOur positioning framework: six questions
At the heart of the process is our positioning framework, which gives us six questions to answer as concretely and concisely as possible. The six key positioning questions are below, and there’s a blog post about it here if you want to dig deeper: Define your B2B brand positioning in six questions
- Why must your story be told now?
- What market category do you want to be in?
- What defines your ideal customer?
- What do you help them achieve?
- What are your competitive alternatives?
- What makes you better than the alternatives?
Once we’ve answered them, we want to agree on which answers provide the most differentiated, ownable, interesting territory in which to play.
Then, with the focal point of our positioning strategy agreed, we can translate this into a brand narrative and messaging outputs (value proposition, key pillars and proof points, tagline, elevator pitch, and so on).
Seven kinds of B2B story
Side note on the translation of a positioning (which is like the back end of your strategy) into a story (the expression of your brand that the world actually sees): depending on which elements of your positioning are stressed (using the questions above), you can end up with seven common kinds of B2B story and messaging. See below for the list, and read this blog post if you fancy more context.
- Zeitgeist-first
- Category-first
- Customer-first
- Use case-first
- Value-first
- Alternative-first
- USP-first
At Beneath Agency, as well as defining your positioning, articulating your messaging, bringing it to life in a story – not to mention creating your visual identity and design systems, hand-in-hand with your positioning and verbal brand – you also get the benefit of our creative exploration in terms of concepts and copywriting. This part of our process is fun, but it also creates an extremely effective feedback loop for testing ideas, wording and tone of voice.
Yes, we do tone of voice work for our clients, but our approach is quite pragmatic and no-bullshit. We believe your style should emerge with the substance of your positioning, so we make sure to nail down the ‘what’ and your distinctive POV before we get to the ‘how’. And yes, we have a blog post about this too, if you want to read more: Substance before style: B2B tone of voice should be emergent.
The next steps
Sometimes Beneath acts as a plug-in marketing agency for tech scale-ups. Sometimes we support B2B giants with global campaigns. Get in touch to find out whether we’re a good fit for you.
Testimonials
Get a taste of our positioning know-how
Yes, we can’t! Yes, we won’t! Two powerful positioning mantras for B2B companies
There’s a dusty old book of Received Marketing Wisdom on a shelf somewhere w…
There’s a dusty old book of Received Marketing Wisdom on a shelf somewhere with a load of…
Read more