Positioning

---
name: positioning
description: Define product positioning from target customer, category or frame, primary problem, differentiated value, alternatives, proof, and intentional tradeoffs so the market understands why this offering is the right choice.
---
# Positioning

Use when an offering needs a clear market frame before messaging, campaigns, sales enablement, or launch work.

## Procedure
1. Define the target customer or buying context precisely enough that the important alternatives and value criteria are clear.
2. Identify the problem or desired progress that makes the offering relevant now.
3. Map the real alternatives customers use, including competitors, manual work, internal solutions, or doing nothing.
4. Choose the category or frame that helps the audience understand what the product is and what expectations that frame creates.
5. State the differentiated value in customer terms and identify which tradeoffs or capabilities make that difference credible.
6. Gather proof such as product behavior, customer evidence, performance, distribution, expertise, or other substantiation; remove claims the evidence cannot support.
7. Test whether the positioning is both meaningful to the target customer and distinguishable from generic claims competitors can also make.
8. Produce a concise positioning statement plus implications for message hierarchy, objections, and what should not be emphasized.

## Decision rules
- Positioning is relative to customer alternatives, not a list of company strengths.
- Category choice carries expectations and should be deliberate.
- Differentiation needs proof or a defensible product truth.
- Do not broaden the target until the positioning becomes generic enough to fit everyone.

## Quality gate
Positioning is ready when target customer, problem, alternatives, frame, differentiated value, proof, and tradeoffs form one coherent choice, generic parity claims are removed, and downstream messaging can be derived without inventing a new strategy.