How New Relic’s VP of Product Marketing, Pallavi Vanacharla, Positions New Products in Competitive Markets

Context

About Cisco Jasper (Cisco IoT)

Cisco Jasper was a leading Internet of Things (IoT) platform that offered a cloud-based solution for managing and connecting IoT devices. Cisco Jasper played a crucial role in the IoT industry, providing enterprises and service providers with a scalable and efficient solution to monitor, control, and analyze connected devices. 

In 2017, Cisco Jasper introduced a new solution, Cisco Enterprise Mobility Platform — catering to those needing a streamlined solution to manage employee mobile devices and services. With an increasing number of organizations adopting mobile technologies for their workforce, the market presented significant opportunities. 

To seize these opportunities, we recognized the importance of crafting precise and customer-centric positioning to effectively communicate the value of our product to potential customers. But we were entering a crowded and highly competitive market. And so we faced the critical challenge of establishing a unique and compelling positioning strategy to differentiate ourselves in the market.

Goals

As with any product positioning, our goal was to capture a space in the customer’s mind that a) could meet their unmet needs, b) was uniquely differentiated, c) would drive a preference for our solution and d) would be sustainable for at least a few years.  

If you have dabbled with positioning or read anything about it, you know positioning is what the customer thinks of your product/solution in their mind. And so, naturally, the success of your product’s positioning can really only be determined well after the product launch — Do customers talk about your product the way that you thought they would? 

Please keep that in mind as you think about the timeframe for measuring your success. 

Framework

The framework we built analyzes 1) what purchasing criteria customers use, 2) what product and business strengths aim to meet those, and 3) how competitors rank against it all. The framework includes a simple worksheet that synthesizes all of this information: 

This worksheet, when completed, creates a strengths and weaknesses comparison chart that helps to ground everyone in a common understanding of the current market reality. And it provided a clear direction on the vectors that should be considered for effective positioning of the offering. The worksheet could easily be easily edited to adapt to product changes and market dynamics, allowing us to remain relevant over the long term as well. 

• In my opinion, for most products, positioning should be revised at least once every year, and messaging should be revised ideally every quarter.

This worksheet was only one piece of the puzzle. The positioning process itself was, and is, a bit more comprehensive.  

5-Step Process to Position a New Product in a Competitive Market

Our product positioning process followed five key steps:

1. Gather customers’ decision criteria: Conduct in-depth interviews with customers. Understand their pain points, goals, preferences, and most importantly, their decision criteria, as critical inputs into the positioning exercise..

2. Identify the right competitive set: Analyze competitors' products, market trends, and business capabilities to define the competitive set to evaluate competitors on. 

3. Evaluate the competitors: Analyze the competitors against the above competitive set to gain a clear understanding of each competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for market differentiation. 

4. Build the positioning matrix with stakeholders: Build the positioning matrix that highlights the product’s core differentiated strengths, and seek the diverse perspectives of key stakeholders to ensure alignment and clarity.

5. Craft the Positioning Statement: Craft a compelling positioning statement that resonates with the target audience and effectively sets the company apart from competitors.

Diagram: 5-Step Process to Position a New Product in a Competitive Market