What It Is
April Dunford's 10-step positioning process is a systematic method for defining how a product is perceived relative to alternatives. Rather than starting with a tagline or mission statement, it begins by identifying what customers would do if your product did not exist, then builds outward through unique value, best-fit customers, and market category. It was introduced in Obviously Awesome (2019).
When to Use It
- When your product exists but customers frequently misunderstand what it does or who it is for.
- When you are entering a new market or repositioning after a pivot.
- When sales cycles are long or confusing because prospects compare you to the wrong alternatives.
- When marketing messaging feels vague and interchangeable with competitors.
- Not for pre-product ideation — you need a real product with real customers to run this process.
How It Works
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Form a positioning team. Include founders/leadership, product, marketing, and sales. Positioning is a cross-functional strategic decision, not a solo copywriting exercise.
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List your competitive alternatives. What would customers do if you did not exist? This includes direct competitors, spreadsheets, manual processes, hiring an intern, or doing nothing.
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Identify unique attributes. What features or capabilities do you have that the alternatives lack? Be specific and honest — list only what is genuinely different.
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Map attributes to customer value. For each unique attribute, answer: "So what? What does this enable for the customer?" Translate features into outcomes (saves time, reduces risk, increases revenue).
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Identify your best-fit customers. Which customer segments care most about the value you mapped in step 4? These are the people for whom your unique strengths matter the most.
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Find your market frame of reference. What market category makes your value obvious to your best-fit customers? Choosing the right category sets buyer expectations and determines which alternatives they compare you against.
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Layer on a relevant trend (optional). If a credible market trend makes your positioning more compelling and urgent, reference it. Do not force this — a fake trend weakens credibility.
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Capture the positioning. Document it in a positioning statement that includes: competitive alternatives, unique attributes, value, best-fit customers, and market category.
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Share with the broader team. Present the positioning to the full organization. Everyone — support, engineering, executives — needs to understand the strategic context.
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Translate into a sales narrative. Turn the positioning into a story structure for sales conversations: start with the market context, introduce the problem, present your unique approach, show proof, and close with the offer.
Key Principles
- Positioning is context-setting, not messaging. It determines the frame through which customers evaluate you. Messaging and taglines are downstream outputs.
- Start from competitive alternatives, not your vision. Your positioning exists in the customer's mind relative to what else they could do. If you skip this step, you are positioning in a vacuum.
- Best-fit customers first, then expand. Nail positioning for the segment that loves you before trying to appeal to everyone. Broad positioning is weak positioning.
- Market category is a strategic choice. You can often position the same product in different categories. Pick the one that makes your value most obvious.
- Revisit when context changes. New competitors, market shifts, or major product changes all warrant re-running the process.
Common Mistakes
- Starting with a tagline. Writing a clever tagline before doing the analytical work produces positioning that sounds good but does not resonate with buyers.
- Choosing a market category based on aspiration. Putting yourself in a category where you cannot credibly compete (e.g., calling yourself an "enterprise platform" when you have five customers) confuses buyers and invites unfavorable comparisons.
- Doing it alone. Positioning done by marketing in isolation gets ignored by sales and misunderstood by product. It must be a cross-functional exercise.
Source
April Dunford, Obviously Awesome (2019), Chapters 5-10. Each chapter covers one or two steps in detail with examples from B2B and B2C companies.
