AMA: LogDNA Director of Product Marketing, Alissa Lydon on Competitive Positioning

When I am looking for messaging and positioning validation from outside the org, I find that people engage more with a story than with a static framework. And as far as stories go, everyone much prefers pictures to reading dense Powerpoint slides! To that end, putting together a solid "marketecture" is a great place to start. This allows you to paint the picture of not just your product, features and functions, but you can also start assigning value and differentiated messaging to each of them. ...Read More

At its most basic, messaging is about answering 3 key prompts: What is the problem facing the market today? What solution (generally) will help solve this problem? What does your product do to help solve it? To me, competitive falls squarely underneath that third bullet point. It's one thing to list the entire list of features for your product, but the real exercise in messaging is to find the differentiating features (i.e. what makes your product different from "the other guys"). Therefore, it' ...Read More

Two words: customer stories! Product Marketers need to make sure that everyone is united in telling the same story about our product and its value. I always think of it like internal selling. And just like in the field, one of the most compelling ways to convince people is to use customer proof points to validate your position. Whenever I am enabling teams on positioning, I try to incorporate a customer story that revoleves around a few key points: What challenges was the customer trying to solv ...Read More

I am hoping that some of my other answers have made this clear, but in case they haven't - market research, just like everything else in Product Marketing, is a team sport. The more you can show the value of this kind of research (i.e. how it will help sales win more deals), the easier it will be to recruit sales to join that team. From there, you can find a process or cadence that works for everyone to ensure that you are getting the engagement you need without stepping on any toes. But there i ...Read More

I think with anything you do in Product Marketing, you first have to understand what your goals are to avoid being completely consumed by the task at hand. This includes understanding who your audience is, how the information will be used, and most importantly how you will measure success. The same goes with market research. Doing that little bit of prep work and reflection beforehand can really help focus your efforts so you're getting the most out of it. When I am approaching market and compet ...Read More

Market and competitive analysis can sometimes feel overwhelming. With so many sources to keep track of, and new competitors popping up all the time, it can be a full time job! To avoid feeling overwhlemed, it's important to prioritize the competitors and channels that are the msot relevant to your messaging and GTM strategy. What competitors are your sales team coming up against the most? What industry publications does your leadership team (especially product) look to for insights and inspirati ...Read More