Given what buyers can learn about your company and products without ever speaking directly to you, B2B positioning is more important than ever. The problem is that many companies look around them at their competition and model themselves after the company they want to emulate. But that's "me too" stuff that doesn't differentiate your company.
Rebel Brown [my great friend and colleague] has written a terrific E-Book about positioning that will help you begin to spin your own story in ways that are uniquely yours. She says,
"Anyone who says there's a one-size-fits-all approach to strategy and positioning simply doesn't get it. Great positioning is as unique as each situation. Strategic positioning is as much an art as it is a science. And each and every situation offers a blank canvas."
In It's Not About You Anymore Rebel shares her positioning matrix to be used as a foundation. She discusses how you can evaluate your market, company and solutions in order to create a clear, relevant message for each one. And then she shows you how they can all work together to differentiate your company from any other.
When Rebel and I work together, her ability to create a compelling positioning platform sets me up perfectly to develop e-marketing strategies and nurturing programs that do what they're supposed to — generate demand and sales-ready buyers.
Why? Because everything works together in a consistent way based on the insights and nuances she's helped the company uncover and then woven into their go-to-market approach. She also ensures that the positioning platform is an organic foundation with plenty of room for flexibility as your markets evolve in real time.
Go download the E-Book and see for yourselves. Your company may look very different to you after you read it.
With so many new technologies and media a-buzz these days, it can be easy to forget that as marketers we must always keep the basics in the forefront of our mind - a la positioning! Thanks for the recommendation!
ps...looking forward to your new book.
Posted by: Christopher Doran | June 24, 2009 at 03:37 PM
Thanks, Christopher!
E-Marketing Strategies for the Complex Sale will be out in October.
And you're right. The basics feed everything else - regardless of how exciting the new stuff seems.
Ardath
Posted by: Ardath Albee | June 25, 2009 at 11:05 AM