| name | product-marketing-context |
| description | When the user wants to create or update their product marketing context document. Also use when the user mentions 'product context,' 'marketing context,' 'set up context,' 'positioning document,' or 'ICP document.' |
| allowed-tools | Read, Write, WebSearch, WebFetch, AskUserQuestion |
| model | sonnet |
Product Marketing Context
Expert knowledge for creating a complete product marketing context document — the foundational reference that all marketing work is built on.
Why a Marketing Context Document
Every marketing asset — ads, emails, landing pages, case studies, sales decks — should be built from a single source of truth. Without it, each piece of content uses slightly different language, targets slightly different personas, and makes inconsistent claims.
A marketing context document is that source of truth. It should be:
- Short enough to actually use (2-4 pages maximum)
- Specific enough to make decisions from
- Updated quarterly or after major positioning shifts
Document Structure
Section 1: Product Overview
What we build:
One paragraph, plain language. No jargon. A new employee on day 1 should understand what you do after reading this.
What problem we solve:
The customer's problem, in the customer's language. Not "we enable organizations to leverage AI-driven workflows." Instead: "Marketing teams spend 6 hours/week pulling numbers from five different tools — then another hour building the report that should be automatic."
The specific outcome we deliver:
One sentence with a measurable result. "We give marketing teams one live dashboard so the Monday morning report is ready before they sit down."
Section 2: Positioning Statement
Use the April Dunford methodology. This is the most rigorous positioning framework available.
Positioning template:
For [Target customer]
Who [have a specific need or are dissatisfied with something]
Our [product/service]
Is a [market category]
That [key benefit / compelling reason to buy]
Unlike [primary competitive alternative]
We [key differentiator]
Filling this in requires making hard choices:
- Who is the target customer (not everyone)?
- What market category do you want to compete in?
- What is one key differentiator (not five)?
- What is the primary competitive alternative (not all competitors)?
Example (real):
"For growth-stage SaaS companies (50-500 employees) who are building their first marketing analytics stack and are frustrated with piecing together data from 5 separate dashboards — Marketing Context Pro is a marketing analytics platform that shows all your campaign data in one place, automatically. Unlike spreadsheets and manual reporting, we connect directly to all your data sources and deliver the Monday report you're currently building by hand."
Section 3: ICP Definition
Define your Ideal Customer Profile precisely enough to use for targeting decisions.
Firmographic dimensions:
- Industry (be specific — not "tech" but "B2B SaaS, $5M-$50M ARR")
- Company size (employees or revenue range)
- Geography (if relevant)
- Business model (B2B vs B2C, self-serve vs enterprise, recurring vs transactional)
Technographic dimensions (if relevant):
- What tools they currently use
- Tech stack maturity
- Buy vs build orientation
Psychographic dimensions:
- Priorities and success metrics of the buyer
- Risk tolerance
- Decision-making style
The trigger event:
What specific situation makes a company actively look for a solution like yours, right now? This is the most important and most often omitted ICP element.
Example trigger events:
- "Just hired their first marketing manager and need visibility"
- "Missed a quarterly target and can't diagnose why"
- "Preparing for a Series B and investors are asking for metrics"
- "Just onboarded a second paid channel and lost visibility across them"
The negative ICP (who you don't serve well):
Be explicit about who is not a good fit. This saves sales time and reduces churn.
- Too small (under X employees) → don't have the volume for our insights to be useful
- No paid channels → not enough data sources to differentiate from spreadsheets
- Data engineering team → will build in-house; we don't compete with that
Section 4: Competitive Landscape
Primary alternatives:
Not just direct competitors — include the alternatives customers actually consider.
For each alternative:
- What they are
- Why customers consider them
- Why customers choose us over them
- Why customers choose them over us (be honest)
Primary competitive alternatives:
- Spreadsheets + manual process (often the real competition)
- [Named competitor A]
- [Named competitor B]
- Build in-house with a data engineer
Differentiation pillars:
3 things we do meaningfully better than the above alternatives. Not marketing claims — real, demonstrable, defensible differences.
For each pillar:
- The claim (what we do better)
- The proof (specific, verifiable evidence)
- Why it matters to the ICP (the customer outcome)
Section 5: Messaging Hierarchy
Your positioning creates a core message. The hierarchy organizes how it cascades down.
Primary message (elevator pitch):
One sentence. The thing you say when someone asks "what do you do?" at a conference.
Secondary messages (value pillars):
3-4 messages that support the primary. Each one must:
- Be provable (not a claim)
- Map to a customer pain or desire
- Be differentiated from competitors
Proof points:
For each secondary message, list 2-3 specific, verifiable evidence items:
- Customer quote (verbatim, named)
- Data point (specific number, source, date)
- Third-party validation (review, award, analyst mention)
Section 6: Use Cases
List the 3-5 primary use cases your product serves.
For each use case:
- The scenario: Who is doing what, and what problem are they facing?
- How we help: What specifically does the product do?
- The outcome: What changes for them?
- ICP match: Which ICP segment does this use case serve?
Use cases map to your feature marketing, case study strategy, and vertical content plan.
Section 7: Objections
Document the most common objections in the sales process, with the best response to each.
| Objection | What they really mean | Best response |
|---|
| "It's too expensive" | "I don't see enough value" | Reframe to value delivered: "At $X/month, you need to save Y hours/week to break even. Here's how our customers typically get there..." |
| "We're not ready yet" | "This isn't a priority" | Identify the trigger: "What would make this a priority?" |
| "We can just use [alternative]" | "I'm not convinced you're meaningfully better" | Direct comparison: "Here's specifically what our customers say after switching from [alternative]" |
| "We need [missing feature]" | Depends — validate if real blocker | Is it on the roadmap? Is there a workaround? Are 80% of their needs met? |
| "We're too small" | Size concern | "Our smallest customers are [X] — here's how they use it..." |
Section 8: Tone and Voice
3-5 adjectives that describe your brand voice with a one-line description of each.
Format:
- [Adjective]: We [specific behavior]. We don't [opposite behavior].
Example:
- Direct: We say what we mean without hedging. We don't bury conclusions in qualifications.
- Specific: We use real numbers and real examples. We don't use vague claims like "saves significant time."
- Human: We write like a knowledgeable colleague, not a corporate press release. We don't use jargon unless the customer uses it first.
Maintenance Schedule
- Quarterly review: Is the ICP still accurate? Any new use cases? Competitive landscape change?
- After major product releases: Update use cases, differentiation pillars, and messaging
- After customer research rounds: Update ICP, trigger events, and objections
Common Rationalizations
| Rationalization | Reality |
|---|
| "We know who our customer is — we don't need to document it" | If three people on the team describe your ICP differently, it's not defined. Documentation creates alignment. |
| "Our positioning is too nuanced to fit a template" | Templates reveal the gaps in your thinking. If you can't fill in the positioning statement, you haven't made the hard choices yet. |
| "The context doc will be outdated immediately" | Out-of-date > non-existent. Schedule a quarterly update rather than using volatility as an excuse. |
| "This is marketing's job — sales and product don't need it" | The context doc is the shared language between marketing, sales, and product. If sales uses different language, deals get harder to close. |
| "Documenting our negative ICP will limit our TAM" | Knowing who you don't serve makes you better at serving who you do. The constraint is a feature. |
Verification
