The Science of Marketing

There are two granite compasses in my backyard.  One is aligned with true north; the other is aligned with magnetic north: 15° west of true north.  This summer someone asked me "why? who cares?"  Well, someone using a map to hike from here to there would care about the magnetic north compass and someone drawing a map would care about the true north compass.  Same thing, positioned two different ways for two different audiences.  This concept holds true for B2B marketing: the same companies, products and services must be positioned differently for different audiences.  This is especially true in the high tech B2B world where there are multiple audiences with diverse issues in the middle of the buying cycle.

Positioning and differentiation (more on this next week) are the two foundations on which messaging is built.  But, many high tech B2B companies often rush to develop messaging without mapping out positioning and, as a result, may ignore key audiences.  To avoid this, start positioning by identifying the key audiences involved in the buying decision.  In the high tech B2B, these audiences can be broken down into four broad categories:

• Technology evaluation - what does this do better than what we have?
• Operations management - how will it fit into my current environment?
• Business decision - will this help me make or save money?
• Risk assessment - will this company be around in a year?

Positioning should be thought of in terms of these audiences.  Remember many of these audiences have the same concerns, although their level of interest may vary for each issue.

The best way to pull the positioning together and document it is to map out a  positioning matrix as below.

This matrix gives a quick and easy read of three positioning statements, their supporting benefits and enabling product or service features correlated with the level of interest for each audience (H = High Interest, M = Medium Interest, L = Low Interest).  Beyond developing messaging, the matrix can be used by a company’s entire ecosystem for a basis of relevant and consistent outbound communications, whether it’s a piece of collateral or a personal conversation.

Could a little thought and a positioning matrix help your communications efforts?

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