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Messages that Matter Workshop Overview
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"Effective Positioning: How To Talk So The Market Will Listen"
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You can have the most fantastic business-to-business (B2B) software, but it's not going to win in
the market until it wins its own unique position in your prospects' minds.
Learn a proven methodology that will help you own a special position with real meaning
to your target market.
Messages that Matter, positioning and message strategy specialists, offers competitive positioning
workshop on-site or via the Web that gives your company the knowledge and tools to develop a
winning position in your market. Sign up for the web workshop now.
"Effective Positioning: How To Talk So The Market Will Listen" presents a proven process for
developing positioning strategies that creates awareness and demand for your B2B software or
service. The benefits of effective positioning include:
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- Increased sales, market share and profit
- Stronger preference for your company's brands
- Higher competitive barriers
- Committed, lifetime customers
- Marketing efficiencies
- Greater shareholder reward
In the workshop, taught by Messages that Matter co-founder Lawson Abinanti, you learn how to create
compelling, unique product positioning strategies. Learn how to create benefit-oriented message
strategy that address your target markets' most pressing concerns, and the importance of executing
it consistently in all marketing communications.
On-site workshops start with a morning session detailing the issues, techniques and processes of
positioning, followed by an afternoon session in which teams apply what they have learned.
The morning session and the Web workshop presents a methodology that clarifies the assumptions,
procedures, questions and evaluation criteria needed to develop effective positioning for your
product. It includes:
- Three Key Assumptions to start the process
- Analyzing the Three Cs - customers, competition and channel
- Three Questions to ask during the message development process
- The Three "Whats" - What is it? What does it do? What does it deliver?
- The Four Criteria for evaluating your positioning
- Validating potential positioning strategies
The methodology addresses several problems commonly found in high technology marketing, such as:
- Me-Too Marketing - Competitors often employ virtually identical message strategies in communicating to prospective customers;
- So What? - The message does not matter to the target audience. Marketing campaigns fail because they are not carefully
targeted nor do they communicate a compelling benefit.
- No Way! - Claims that fail any reasonable test of credibility;
- "I Need More Time to Think" - Long sales cycles due to market confusion; i.e., unclear, me-too marketing;
- Product is Hero - The mistaken belief that positioning is about the product and its features.
- The Blunderbuss - a shotgun approach that usually misses the target by claiming multiple, so-what benefits instead of a single,
compelling benefit message.
The morning and Web session concludes with a discussion of how to develop supporting claims for the positioning statement, how to
manage your message, and the benefits of an effective message strategy.
During the afternoon hands-on breakout sessions, your marketing and product marketing professionals apply
what they have just learned in the morning session. Topics are tailored to specific client needs and can include:
1) an analysis of competitors' positioning strategies;
2) assessment of your existing positioning and message strategy;
3) positioning a new product. In each case, small groups work independently and then present and defend their findings
in front of the group. Participants receive a workshop booklet, and supporting materials that describe the methodology
in detail so you can apply the process to your own marketing situation.
Workshop participants learn to create well-documented message strategies that serve as the foundation for all marketing
communications. By creating a message strategy, you can more easily deliver the same message across all marketing media
including Web sites, brochures, advertisements and presentations to investors, industry analysts and prospects. By
consistently repeating your message, you'll create the awareness and demand that will give your product or service
the position you want in your market.
Recent Effective Positioning Workshop attendees:
Professionals from the following companies have learned the Messages that Matter methodology: ADP Canada,
Fair Isaac, ESRI, FRx Software and RightNow Technologies.
About Messages the Matter:
Messages that Matter specializes in helping B2B software and services companies develop positioning and message
strategies that create awareness and demand through clear differentiation.
Co-founder Barry Briggs, a software marketing professional since 1984, began developing the firm's proven
methodology in 1991 after leaving Microsoft, where he managed a marketing team for launching several strategic products,
including Windows 3.0, SQL Server, Visual Basic, C++, Word for Windows, Flight Simulator, and many others.
Lawson Abinanti, co-founder, was director of corporate product marketing at Navision a/s in Denmark, a mid-market
ERP vendor now part of Microsoft Business Solutions. His previous experience as vice president for marketing at
Timeline and director of marketing at Applix has given him in-depth understanding of the B2B category.
Since 1999, Briggs and Abinanti have refined the Effective Positioning methodology, and have been teaching
the process in on-site workshops for client companies and also in sessions open to the public.
Register for the Workshop |
Let's Get Started
Call us at (425) 688-0104 or email us to discuss how we can assist.
We offer workshops at your company’s location and via the Web.
We also offer a free newsletter – sign up today.
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