#2: Userlist’s co-founder, Jane Portman, meticulously examines an already stellar understanding of customers and markets through April Dunford’s positioning framework, and returns with “thrilling” clarity. (Source)
April outlines three possible positioning strategies in her book:
1. Head to Head: Positioning to win an existing market.
2. Big Fish, Small Pond: Positioning to win a subsegment of an existing market.
3. Create a New Game: Positioning to win a market you create.Our answer is clearly the “big fish, small pond” strategy for Userlist, with the general existing market dominated by Intercom. This general market category is “customer messaging tools” — that’s how Intercom calls themselves, and it’s easy for people to understand.
Previously, our market category was “email automation tools” which clearly didn’t work. People started comparing us with Drip, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, etc. — and we struggled to explain why we’re better.
Email automation tools have way more advanced features that we’re not planning to implement soon (rich visual templates, A/B testing, visual workflow builders, analytics). While “customer messaging tools” don’t require these features, and align fantastically with our plan to introduce in-app notifications.
Our “small pond” would be a subcategory of SaaS companies who need a focused, less complex messaging tool (see step 7 for their characteristics).
We decided to stay “open” about this sub-category and fine-tune it later, as we grow and learn more from our paying customers. For younger companies, April says, it’s okay “to cast a wider net” and then refine positioning later.
Calling out competitors by name. Previously we were also afraid to call out competitors by name. Intercom was “the elephant in the room” but saying it out loud didn’t feel right. April’s book taught us that this can be a highly effective thing to do; and we also received similar advice from other people.
Josh Garofalo pointed us to the work he did for Tom’s Planner:
“They are a Gantt chart/project planning tool. Their audience needed something more sophisticated than spreadsheets but less intimidating than MS Project. These tools were mentioned over and over again. So I didn’t beat around the bush. I called out those products as ok for certain people, but positioned Tom’s Planner in the middle of the two. Signups are way up and they’re converting quickly because they see themselves in this positioning strategy.”
Marc Köhlbrugge of BetaList recommended the same:
“Have you considered calling out Intercom by name? We all know that’s your biggest competitor, and you’re clearly differentiating from them on their two main drawbacks: complexity and pricing. IMO it’s worth being a bit more brazen in telling why Userlist is the better choice.”
We followed their advice and called out both of our primary competitors (DIY and Intercom/Customer.io) in the following positioning statement: “More efficient than building it yourself; less complex than Intercom or Customer.io.”