In the fast-moving world of tech scaleups, having a great product isn’t enough. Without strong positioning in marketing, even the most innovative solutions can get lost in the noise. Many scaleups struggle to articulate their unique value, leading to customer confusion, misaligned teams, and missed revenue opportunities.
So, what does effective market positioning look like? It’s more than just crafting a tagline or tweaking your messaging. It’s about ensuring that your positioning strategy aligns with customer needs, internal teams, and competitive differentiation.
For startups entering the scaling phase, positioning often becomes an afterthought. Many companies assume that their product’s features will speak for themselves. However, as competition increases and customer expectations shift, a clear product positioning strategy becomes essential for growth.
Here are some common challenges scaleups face when defining their market positioning strategy:
🔹 Lack of differentiation — If your product sounds like every other solution in the market, prospects will struggle to see why they should choose you over competitors.
🔹 Misalignment between teams — When sales, marketing, and product teams operate with different understandings of the product’s value, it leads to inconsistent messaging and lost deals.
🔹 Evolving customer needs — As your company scales, so do your customers. Without revisiting your positioning strategy, you risk becoming irrelevant to your most valuable audience.
🔹 Competitive pressures — If a competitor suddenly repositions themselves as the category leader, your company may find itself forced into a reactive stance rather than controlling its own narrative.
One of the best ways to understand the power of positioning is through real-world case studies. That’s the topic of today’s Product Marketing Maestros episode featuring Vladimir Nikolic with Babelforce. Let’s take a closer look at Babelforce, a fast-growing CCaaS company, and how it leveraged positioning to clarify its value proposition.
When Babelforce introduced its first-ever Product Marketing Manager (PMM) role, there was initial uncertainty — what exactly does a PMM do? Internally, teams recognized that there was a gap in how the company communicated value, but they weren’t sure how to bridge that gap.
Through structured knowledge-sharing, deep market research, and breaking down silos, the PMM role became the bridge between product, sales, and marketing. This approach clarified Babelforce’s product positioning, ensuring that every team — from customer success to engineering — understood how to communicate value effectively. The result? A refined market positioning strategy that strengthened internal alignment and improved market impact.
A well-defined positioning strategy isn’t just for Fortune 500 companies — it’s a must-have for tech scaleups looking to scale effectively. Here’s what strong company positioning includes:
✅ Clear differentiation — Your product must have a unique and defensible position in the market. Identify what makes you different and amplify that message.
✅ A compelling value proposition — Can you explain, in simple terms, why your product matters? Your positioning should be rooted in customer outcomes, not just product features.
✅ Consistent messaging across teams — Whether a prospect engages with your sales team, visits your website, or reads an email, the messaging should reinforce the same core positioning.
✅ A data-driven foundation — Positioning shouldn’t be based on gut feelings. Use customer insights, win/loss analysis, and competitive intelligence to inform your strategy.
Positioning is not a one-time exercise — it’s an ongoing process. As your company scales, your positioning strategy should evolve to reflect market shifts, new customer needs, and competitive dynamics. Here are some key steps to refine your positioning:
Are you creating a new category or competing in an existing one? Understanding where you fit within the market landscape is the first step to crafting a strong market positioning strategy.
Who are your best customers? What are their pain points? Strong product positioning begins with understanding your audience and tailoring your messaging to their specific challenges.
Positioning isn’t just about what you say — it’s also about how you compare to others in the space. Conduct a competitive analysis to identify white spaces where you can stand out.
Your positioning strategy should be embedded into every aspect of your go-to-market approach. This means training sales teams, updating marketing materials, and ensuring that product teams build features that support the core positioning.
Positioning isn’t set in stone. Test different messaging approaches, gather feedback from customers and prospects, and refine your strategy based on real-world performance.
Tech scaleups that invest in positioning in marketing set themselves apart from the competition. Instead of being seen as “just another option,” they become the clear and compelling choice for their target audience.
Want to master positioning and drive real growth? Learn from real-world case studies in my Amazon bestseller, Product Marketing Wisdom: http://ProductMarketingWisdom.com.