Write a product positioning document and messaging framework

Product Positioning Doc Skill

This skill produces a complete product positioning document following the April Dunford positioning methodology. Output covers category definition, target customer, unique attributes, proof points, and a messaging hierarchy — ready to align GTM, marketing, sales, and product teams.

Required Inputs

Ask the user for these if not provided:

• Product name and what it does
• Target customer — who is it for? (role, company type, size)
• Problem it solves — what pain or goal does it address?
• Key alternatives — what do customers use today instead? (not just direct competitors — include status quo, spreadsheets, DIY)
• Differentiation — what does this product do that alternatives cannot? (not features — capabilities that produce different outcomes)
• Proof points — any customer data, case studies, metrics, or validation?
• Business goal — is positioning for a new category, expansion into new segment, or repositioning away from a declining category?

Output Structure

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Positioning Document: [Product Name]

Version: [1.0] Owner: [PMM / Founder / Marketing lead] Date: [Date] Status: [Draft / Reviewed / Approved] Approved by: [Names — this document must be signed off by product, marketing, and sales leadership before use]

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1. Background & Context

[2–3 sentences describing why positioning is being done now. Is this a new product, a pivot, a segment expansion, or a rebrand? What triggered this work?]

Positioning objective: [e.g. Move from being perceived as a reporting tool to being the category leader in revenue intelligence for mid-market SaaS]

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2. Market Category

What category does this product compete in?

This is the frame of reference your customer uses to understand what the product is. Choose the wrong category and everything downstream — competitors, value, messaging — is wrong.

Category: [e.g. Customer data platform / Revenue intelligence / No-code automation / Modern data stack]

Why this category, not [alternative category]? [1–2 sentences on why this framing serves the customer's understanding better than adjacent categories]

Category maturity:

• New category (we are creating it — high education burden, high upside if it works)
• Growing category (fast-growing segment — compete on differentiation)
• Mature category (well-understood — must disrupt with clear superiority or narrower niche)

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3. Target Customer

Be precise. Vague targeting produces vague positioning.

Dimension	Description
Primary buyer / decision-maker	[e.g. VP of Revenue Operations at B2B SaaS companies with 100–500 employees]
Primary user	[e.g. Revenue operations analysts and sales ops managers]
Company profile	[Industry, size, growth stage, technology stack]
Business context	[What is happening in their world that makes them a buyer right now?]
Trigger event	[What just happened that makes them start looking for a solution? — e.g. Sales team grew past 20 reps, forecast accuracy became a board question]

Who this is NOT for: [Be explicit about who to exclude — this sharpens the positioning for those who are a fit]

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4. Competitive Alternatives

What do buyers use today when they don't have your product? List all real alternatives — not just direct competitors.

Alternative	Who uses it	Why buyers choose it	What they sacrifice
[Direct competitor — e.g. Gong]	[Enterprise sales teams]	[Market leader, strong brand, sales coaching features]	[Price, complexity, implementation time]
[Adjacent tool — e.g. Salesforce reports]	[CRM-native users]	[Already have it, no additional cost]	[No AI analysis, manual reporting, siloed data]
[Status quo — e.g. spreadsheets + manual tracking]	[SMB, early-stage]	[Free, flexible, no change management]	[Time-consuming, error-prone, not scalable]
[Build in-house]	[Tech companies with data teams]	[Custom to their exact needs]	[Engineering cost, maintenance burden, 12+ month timeline]

Key insight: [What does this competitive landscape tell you about what your positioning must emphasise? e.g. "Every alternative either costs too much or requires too much manual work — positioning must nail 'fast time to value' and 'right-sized for mid-market'"]

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5. Unique Differentiated Attributes

These are the features or capabilities your product has that alternatives genuinely cannot match — or cannot match at the same level. Do not list features that competitors also have.

Attribute	What it is	What it enables (outcome)	Why competitors can't match it
[e.g. Real-time CRM sync]	[Bidirectional sync with any CRM in <5 min]	[Reps see clean data in the tools they already use — no toggle between systems]	[Legacy competitors require 3-month integration projects; Salesforce-native tools only work in SFDC]
[e.g. Natural language querying]	[Ask questions in plain English, get data visualisations]	[Anyone on the revenue team can answer their own questions without SQL or waiting for an analyst]	[BI tools require analyst training; direct competitors have rigid dashboards]
[...]	[...]	[...]	[...]

The core differentiation thesis: [1–2 sentences that unite the above attributes into a single "why we win" statement — this is internal language, not customer-facing yet]

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6. Value Proof Points

Back up the differentiation claims with evidence:

Claim	Proof point	Source
[Fastest time to value]	[Average customer is live in 4 hours vs 3 months for legacy alternatives]	[Customer data — average across [X] accounts]
[Better forecast accuracy]	[Customers achieve X% improvement in forecast accuracy within 90 days]	[Case study: [Company Name] — link]
[Loved by operators, not just managers]	[NPS of X among end users; 4.8/5 on G2 for ease of use]	[G2 reviews, internal NPS survey]

Proof gaps: [Are there claims you're making that you don't yet have evidence for? List them — they are either research projects or risks to the positioning]

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7. Positioning Statement

The classic positioning template — internal only, never used verbatim in marketing:

For [target customer] who [trigger event or problem statement], [Product name] is a [category] that [primary differentiated value — the outcome, not the feature]. Unlike [primary alternative], [Product name] [the key thing that makes you different and better].

Draft positioning statement:

For [VP Revenue Ops at B2B SaaS companies with 50–500 reps] who [struggle to forecast accurately as the sales team scales], [Product Name] is a [revenue intelligence platform] that [gives every rep and manager accurate, real-time pipeline visibility without any analyst overhead]. Unlike [Salesforce dashboards and manual reporting], [Product Name] [syncs automatically, surfaces risks before they become missed quarters, and needs no configuration by IT or data teams].

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8. Messaging Hierarchy

Translate the positioning into customer-facing language at three levels:

Tagline (5–8 words)

[The simplest possible statement of what you do and for whom. Used in ads, hero sections, email signatures.]

Options to test:

1. [e.g. "Revenue intelligence for scaling sales teams"]
2. [e.g. "Forecast with confidence. Close with clarity."]
3. [e.g. "The revenue platform your whole team will actually use"]

Value Proposition (1–2 sentences)

[Used in the hero section of the website, email subject lines, and sales decks. Must be instantly clear.]

[e.g. "[Product Name] gives revenue teams real-time pipeline visibility and accurate forecasting — without spreadsheets, custom reports, or waiting for an analyst. Get live in 4 hours, not 4 months."]

Full Description (3–5 sentences)

[Used in PR, partnership briefs, longer sales emails, and About Us pages.]

[e.g. "[Product Name] is the revenue intelligence platform built for mid-market SaaS teams. Unlike legacy BI tools that require analyst configuration or CRM dashboards that only show what's already happened, [Product Name] automatically syncs your entire revenue stack, surfaces AI-driven risk signals, and lets any rep or manager ask questions in plain English. [X] customers use [Product Name] to call their quarters with confidence. Average time to live: 4 hours."]

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9. Persona-Specific Messaging

The core positioning is the same, but different buyers care about different aspects:

Persona	Their primary concern	Lead message	Proof point to use
VP Revenue Operations	Forecast accuracy, board credibility	"Call your quarter with confidence"	[X% improvement in forecast accuracy across N customers]
Head of Sales	Rep productivity, pipeline visibility	"Your reps close more, not admin more"	[X hours/week saved per rep]
CEO / CFO	Revenue predictability, cost	"Stop being surprised by quarters"	[ROI: £X saved vs X headcount required to replicate manually]
Sales Rep	Ease of use, not adding to workload	"It works in the tools you already use"	[Ease of use NPS, G2 reviews]

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10. Messaging Do's and Don'ts

Do say:

• [Specific, outcome-focused language — what the customer achieves]
• [Comparative language grounded in evidence]
• [Language your target buyer uses to describe their problem — not language you invented]

Don't say:

• ["Best-in-class", "innovative", "cutting-edge", "game-changing" — unless followed by evidence]
• [Feature lists without outcome context]
• [Jargon your buyer doesn't use themselves]
• [Claims your competitors could also make]

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11. Distribution Plan

Positioning only works if it's implemented consistently:

Team	What they need	Format	Owner	When
Marketing	Tagline, value prop, messaging hierarchy	This doc + messaging playbook	PMM	[Date]
Sales	Competitive positioning, objection responses	One-pager + deck	Sales enablement	[Date]
Product	Category definition, target customer	Shared doc + roadmap input	PMM + PM	[Date]
Leadership	Full positioning narrative	This doc	PMM	[Date]

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Deeper Materials

This skill ships with support files — use them when they are available:

• references/category-choice.md — Choosing Your Category: the Highest-Leverage Positioning Decision. Apply it while producing the output; it carries the calibration and judgment calls the method summary above compresses.
• templates/positioning-canvas.md — a fill-in version of the deliverable with the quality gates inline. Offer it when the user wants to work the document themselves rather than have it generated.

Scoring Rubric (0–40)

Score any output of this skill before handing it over; 32+ is ship-quality.

Dimension	0	5	10
Differentiation specificity	Positioning could describe any competitor; attributes are feature names	Some genuinely unique attributes, but mixed with table-stakes features and no "why competitors can't match it" reasoning	Every attribute is an outcome, provable, paired with why alternatives can't copy it, and traceable to one primary claim
Category & alternatives honesty	Category asserted without justification; alternatives list only named competitors	Category justified, but status quo/DIY missing from alternatives or the key insight is generic	Category argued against a named adjacent category, alternatives include the status quo, and the key insight visibly drives the messaging
Evidence discipline	Proof points are unsourced claims ("customers say…")	Most claims sourced, but proof gaps unacknowledged and stale data undated	Every proof point cites a dated source, and gaps are listed with what sales may not claim until they close
Persona message fit	Same headline for every persona, written in company jargon	Personas differ but wording is internal vocabulary, or the "not for" section is missing	Each persona has a distinct lead message in the buyer's own words with a matched proof point, and "not for" works as a qualification tool

Quality Checks

• Positioning statement has exactly one A — the product is accountable to exactly one primary differentiated claim
• Competitive alternatives include the status quo — not just named competitors
• Differentiated attributes describe outcomes, not features
• Every proof point cites a source — not "customers say…"
• Persona messaging uses the buyer's language, not the company's
• At least two people from product, marketing, and sales have reviewed and approved

Anti-Patterns

• Do not write positioning that could describe any competitor — differentiation must be specific, provable, and hard to copy
• Do not mix category design with category entry — know whether you are creating a new category or competing in an existing one
• Do not create persona messaging that uses the same headline for all personas — each persona has different priorities
• Do not include proof points that are claims without evidence — every proof point needs a supporting data point or reference
• Do not skip the "not for" section — defining who this is not for sharpens targeting and prevents off-persona deals

Example Trigger Phrases

• "Write a positioning document for [product]"
• "Build a messaging framework for our B2B SaaS tool"
• "Define our product positioning — who is this for and why should they care?"
• "Create a positioning statement and messaging hierarchy for [launch]"
• "Help me articulate our differentiation vs [Competitor]"