AMA: Cisco Product Marketing Leader, Elizabeth Grossenbacher on Competitive Positioning
September 17 @ 10:00AM PT
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👋 Elizabeth Grossenbacher
👋 Hi everyone! I'm Elizabeth ("Elle") Grossenbacher, located near San Francisco!
💼 I'm just about to expand my role at Cisco where I'll lead Product Marketing for the Secure Routing portfolio.
👀 Top of mind for me right now: Positioning! "Reinventing" or "Reintroducing" your portfolio.
🤝 I can help others on all things competitive/market intelligence, customer insights, AR for PMM work, PMM Carer coaching, and messaging/storytelling.
🍦 Favorite ice cream flavor: Baskin Robins Love Potion! They only have it in February, it's amazing.
How do you fight a price war with positioning/messaging? Can you even?
Often my sales team goes up against competition that undercuts our pricing and heavily so. The buying decision quickly comes down to "who's proffering the cheapest price" -- platform value communication is rarely successful. How does one navigate this situation/How have you?
Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
There are many reasons why a price war could happen, and without more context into the market/players, it would be hard for me to say. It’s true that for nearly all trans...
4623 Views
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Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
The fundamentals of customer-first competitive positioning do not change with the business model. All competitive positioning should use the following framework: What’s t...
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How do you separate out your competitive positioning for two different plans of your product, while keeping a unified view, if the plans serve different customer segments?
For example - Shopify Plus and Shopify (core)
Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
The answer to this is all about segmentation and understanding what customers in that segment care about and what their unique pains are relative to other segments. Once ...
1090 Views
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Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
Competitive analysis should be a priority in the following environments: When you’re actively losing market share or your win-loss rate is decreasing. When your sales tea...
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Is competitive positioning an output of a feature or a marketing story?
I see a lot of battles between start-ups about similar features/products; I myself have tried to position our product with a differentiated story not always backed by features.
What's the ideal approach? Where does one draw the line?
Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
Everything is a marketing story when it comes to communicating with customers. ;) Competitive positioning should be an output from competitive analysis. If you’re not see...
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Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
This question blends market strategy with competitive strategy. Yes, it’s common to pursue industries that align with your GTM strategy. (Pro-Tip! Check out my AMA on GTM...
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Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
Market intelligence + competitive intelligence = a full picture of how your organization fits in a market. Market intelligence is tells us what's driving decisions, actio...
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Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
Both competitive positioning and general positioning start with the customer in a specific target market and the problem they face. Dig deep into the problem and understa...
1086 Views
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Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
Remember to use data from the sales team and customer conversations to determine which competitors to focus on. Your positioning should be based on how each vendor attemp...
1004 Views
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Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
Competitive positioning should not be “seen” in the market. The positioning is meant to be an internal guidepost for your own company. However, your marketing team may wa...
1166 Views
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Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
I’ve seen product teams and sales teams get so beaten down by focusing too much on competitors. Here are the top 3 biggest mistakes I’ve seen. Companies get too caught up...
1106 Views
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Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
Customer interviews! Happy customers are very willing to spend time with PMMs and share what they have learned about competitors. Listening to sales calls. In addition to...
1335 Views
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Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
First, take a step back and understand why you would need to participate in AR activities. Is it for PR? Product validation? Make sure you partner with your AR/PR team to...
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Fmr Product Marketing Leader, Cisco | Formerly Twilio, Cisco, Gartner • 1y
Here are my top 3 go-to's for this one... Recruit a top salesperson to record some sound bites leveraging your positioning. Take the recording and make it available on yo...
1181 Views
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