Constructing Your Positioning Statement

Here is the template for a positioning statement. You can do this yourselves, but it's much more effective on the heels of competitive positioning/market research.

I've spent nearly full days holed up in a conference room with executive teams, trying to get them all to agree - so don't take this lightly. You need to have consensus on all the elements, minimally among the sales head and spokespeople. Don't let the CEO dictate positioning just because she's :-) in charge. You can vet the statement with a few investors, or even department heads, but it's really up to the leadership team because too many cooks can = an uncooked statement.

Here are the components of the core statetment:
X company provides X product or service to X types of companies (size, type, market) enabling them to/so that they can achieve X and X key business benefits.

Here is the 2nd part, which does not make it into your press release boilerplate, but is critical for marketing and sales, and for press and analyst briefings:
Unlike X or X category of competitor, which do X or fall short in X way, our products or solutions (name) can be deployed in X timeframe/deliver X  very unique value, so that companies can achieve X (secondary message) home-run benefit that screams addressing an urgent problem.

Once this is baked, marketing uses the statement to help with branding and the tagline, PR uses much of it to draft the first half of the company boilerplate (last paragraph in press releases) and all of it for pitching, and sales gets to actually name those competitors in their sales decks. Yes, you can revisit it - but it should last you at least 1.5-2 years.

Important tips:

1) Be visionary about the statement. Leave room, but not too much that you are too broad, for company growth. For instance, I work with a company that sells software to the insurance sector, and I started using "insurance software" vs. for "x specific function platform for X type of carriers," up front (higher SEO ranked) in their press releases. Why? Because this fast-growing company will ultimately sell to other types of insurers and may also broaden their types of offerings. Chances are, your company will expand as well...

2) Do your market research about the terms your publics - customers, prospects, press, analysts, partners, and investors - are using to find the types of solutions you offer. You might want to create a category, but that's not wise for companies with marketing budgets smaller than those of Google to Microsoft. Minimally, check out Google adwords (research is free). In my client's case, it showed me that no vendor had "insurance software" locked up yet for paid search, yet the term was commonly searched. So, we had a shot to try to own it with organic (vs. paid) search if we used it frequently and consistently with wired press releases, site content etc. Since this company was largely creating a category, and insurers had not budgeted for what they offer, it could only benefit us to have prospects stumble on content and learn about the amazing platform we offered that tackled real challenges in a new way, and with impressive early ROI, yadda yadda. 

Are you ready for PR?

This is a tricky question, but an important one. Most of my experience has been working with emerging or mid-size companies in the technology sector, so I'll start there. You only get one chance for a first impression, so you want to make sure that your positioning, messages, spokespeople, and sales teams are prepared. Yes, eventually, once the "PR sales cycle" starts to take, you might get some inbound interest. If you're a boot-strapped start up, I highly recommend spending some money on having a savvy marketing pro review your press-worthy sales deck (this differs from any PPT's used for investors) and partner with a PR person to ensure that you're buttoned up before a debut.

You should have a good Web site that includes an "About Us" page with the leadership team's bios, as well as a Fact Sheet of sorts, if your company overview is not on your home page. The About Us should include references to how the company is funded and should clearly state your product or service's unique value propostion and the (already established) market/category it most closely fits into. How does your service benefit X audience - and what are the long-term market drivers? It's also very helpful to have a few paying customers on your roster - even if you can only refer to them generically, such as "one of the top 3 regional banks in New England," or "a top university in Boston." Even better if one has agreed to speak with 2-3 press. As painful as it might be in the sales process, offering a discount you can bear, in return for a customer reference to be used selectively, is worth every penny of the investment. (It's better to have a customer agree to 2 brief press interviews about how your company is helping them achieve X, than to just get a static quote for a press release.)

If you don't have these core components lined up, and don't have a competing company nipping at your heels to get there first, then sit tight and focus on sales and advertising first. It's very tough for a tiny private entrant to get media attention with these pieces in place, and even harder without them - so don't exhaust effort or budget on a PR launch until the time is right. Once you start the publicity engine, you need to keep it going. It can take months of repeat news and buzz to finally get a target reporter to write about, or include, your company in a story. Remember, there is a PR sales cycle and turning the faucet on and off is unwise.