THE SWEET SPOT: Market Positioning Made Easy
When I tell startup teams that we offer a software solution for market positioning it’s not uncommon to see a few blank faces. And hey, I get it - if you’re not an experienced marketer you probably haven’t spent much time thinking about market positioning. But, as a startup you should be obsessed with your positioning. Here’s why…
Over 35% of startups fail due to poor marketing strategy and losing to the competition.
Think about that. Over 1-in-3 startups die because they fail to develop an effective strategy for talking to customers. Which means they can’t convince customers they’re better than the competition. Which means they die. Or, to put it another way, more than 1-in-3 startups screw up their market positioning.
Obviously, this is a big problem. How do startups avoid this cause of death?
For starters, it helps to simplify the idea of market positioning.
Enter the Sweet Spot…
The Sweet Spot
Simply put, market positioning is the practice of identifying the sweet spot where your company and/or product connects with your customer and your competition cannot. Can you position elsewhere? Yes, but you are now competing with your competition. When positioned in the Sweet Spot, your competition is not invited to the party. You’ve got your customer’s attention all to yourself. For this reason, we always encourage early-stage startups to seek the sweet spot.
So, what actually goes in the sweet spot?
The short answer is anything that you and your customer share. In marketing terms, this includes any shared values, personality traits, desired functional and emotional outcomes… you get the idea. Find what you share and focus on that when talking to customers. That’s it.
Probably my favorite example of a market positioning hitting the sweet spot was GEICO’s famous Cavemen ad campaign. It all started with a late-night 10-second commercial…
It’s so easy a caveman can do it
This short, silly ad spurred one of the most famous ad campaigns in modern history. A TV sitcom. And a 10% increase in market share for GEICO. And it’s really about market positioning.
But first, a little context…
In the early 2000s, insurance was scary. Messaging around insurance was all, “prepare for the worst” and “protect your loved ones”. It was dark and gloomy. People dreaded dealing with insurance reps. It wasn’t fun. Another scary thing in the early 2000s for most Americans was the internet. Most folks were using email but there was still much skepticism surrounding the security of the world wide web. For a lot of America, the internet, like insurance, was a necessity. But it wasn’t fun. It is into this environment that GEICO launched the Cavemen.
So, now let’s break down those first 10 seconds…
GEICO.com (product feature)
Getting a quote online means no talking to a sales rep; something most Americans dread.
“It’s so easy, even a Caveman can do it” (functional benefit)
GEICO.com makes life simpler, so easy that yes, even you can use the internet to get a quote online (remember, the internet was not an easy thing back then)
Insurance doesn’t have to be uncomfortable (emotional benefit)
By having a laugh and putting the television anchor in an uncomfortable position (rather than you, the viewer) GEICO invites you to see insurance in a new, lighthearted, er, light.
GEICO is funny, dude (persona)
At a time when every insurance company in the country was dead set on embodying the persona of the Grim Reaper, GEICO dared to be the Jester; the fun and easygoing antithesis to the traditional insurance rep.
When viewed through the context of market positioning and the Sweet Spot, it’s obvious in retrospect that GEICO would experience massive success with the Cavemen. But at the time, it was a bold move (which is probably why they started by airing this late at night in order to test audience perception). And that’s the point: when you are your authentic self and bravely embrace your true positioning, you’ve got a shot at doing something remarkable.
While the concept of the Sweet Spot is easy to understand, actually identifying the foundational brand elements that populate the promised land is much more difficult. It takes a deep understanding of your own business as well as a solid grip on the competition. It also takes at least a strong hypothesis of who your customer is and what they desire. This is what BLUPRNT delivers in just a few hours: a deep understanding of your position in the market and the insights you need in order to communicate your unique value proposition to customers. Best of all, with BLUPRNT it’s quick and easy to experiment with your positioning; allowing you to test various value propositions, personas and more in order to identify your Sweet Spot where you and your customer are like one.