| name | product-positioning |
| description | Define or critique product positioning from competitive alternatives, differentiated capabilities, customer value, best-fit segments, and market category. Use when customers do not understand a product, sales and marketing tell inconsistent stories, a launch needs context, or the user asks for positioning before messaging. |
Product Positioning
Establish the market context that makes the product's differentiated value obvious to the customers who care most. Write messaging only after this context is decided.
Inputs
- Product and intended use
- Current customers and best outcomes
- Competitive alternatives, including doing nothing and manual workarounds
- Differentiated capabilities with evidence
- Customer segments and buying context
- Category expectations and relevant market shifts
Workflow
- List what customers would use if the product did not exist.
- Identify capabilities those alternatives cannot match or deliver as well.
- Translate each differentiated capability into an outcome or value for the customer.
- Identify customers who urgently care about that value and the situation that makes it important.
- Choose a market category that makes the value understandable and sets useful expectations.
- Add a relevant trend only when it strengthens urgency without becoming the positioning itself.
- Test the positioning against customer evidence, sales objections, and disqualifying segments.
- Derive a concise positioning narrative and supporting proof.
Output contract
Return:
- Competitive alternatives
- Differentiated capabilities
- Capability-to-value mapping
- Best-fit customers and triggering context
- Chosen category and rejected categories
- Supporting evidence
- Positioning narrative
- Messaging implications and open risks
Quality gate
- Alternatives reflect customer reality, not only named competitors.
- Value is a consequence of a real capability.
- The best-fit segment is narrow enough to guide choices.
- Category choice clarifies rather than inflates.
- Evidence supports the differentiated claim.
Avoid
- Starting with a tagline
- Claiming “easy,” “innovative,” or “AI-powered” as differentiation
- Describing features without customer value
- Choosing the largest possible category by default
- Trying to appeal equally to incompatible segments
Source grounding
Operational synthesis informed by April Dunford's positioning sequence in Obviously Awesome.
