Brand and Product Positioning Agency

Rethinking Positioning: Why Listening to Your Customers Isn’t Always the Answer

Positioning is often oversimplified in the business world. Many experts suggest that you should “talk to your best customers, see what they say, and then build your positioning based on that.” While this approach may seem like common sense, it often fails to capture the true essence of effective positioning.

In reality, your best customers today may not represent the customers who will drive your business forward tomorrow. Let’s explore why listening to your customers may not always be the answer and how positioning is more about anticipating future trends than simply responding to the present.

1. Positioning Is More Than Just Customer Research

The advice to base your positioning on customer feedback is undoubtedly valuable. After all, customers’ pain points, needs, and desires should influence your product and messaging. But reducing positioning to customer research alone can be limiting.

The truth is, your true best customers may not even be in your current customer base. The people who will elevate your business may not have interacted with you yet, or they may be completely outside your current target demographic. Positioning is about creating an identity for your brand that appeals to these future customers, even if they’re not here yet.

2. Sometimes You Have to Alienate Your Best Customers

Positioning isn’t about staying comfortable with your existing customer base. Sometimes, it’s about making bold decisions to pivot towards a different market segment, even if it means alienating your best customers temporarily.

A real-world example of this comes from the founder of a company that was eventually acquired by Spotify and became the basis for Spotify’s podcast feature set. At one point, this company made a strategic decision to deliberately alienate their existing best customer set in order to appeal to a different, more strategic customer group.

By doing this, they created a massive growth opportunity. Later on, after achieving success in this new market, they circled back to the original group and garnered another jump in growth. This proves that sometimes, you must take risks and focus on a different audience to unlock exponential growth.

3. Positioning Is a Bet on the Future

Effective positioning is less about where your business stands right now and more about where it's headed. It’s about identifying emerging opportunities and choosing to skate to where the puck is going, not where it is.

Positioning, in its truest form, is strategic foresight. It’s about making informed bets on what the future of your industry will look like and aligning your business to meet that demand, even if it’s not fully visible yet.

Sometimes, this means doubling down on your current customer group and providing them with even more tailored value. Other times, it means stepping outside your comfort zone and pursuing an entirely new segment. The key is recognizing when it’s time to evolve, pivot, or even leave your current customer base behind.

4. The Nature of B2B Business: Adaptability is Key

The world of B2B business is inherently dynamic. What works today may not work tomorrow, and businesses that refuse to adapt will be left behind. This is why positioning is such a critical part of long-term strategy in B2B.

In B2B, you're not just selling a product or service; you're positioning your company as the solution to a bigger problem that your target market will face in the near future. Understanding your current position is important, but anticipating market shifts and aligning your business accordingly is what will ultimately determine your success.

Positioning Isn’t Static, It’s Evolving

While customer feedback can certainly help inform your strategy, positioning is ultimately a proactive, future-focused process. It’s about positioning your business for the future, even if that means stepping away from your best customers or rethinking your approach entirely.

Remember: Positioning is not about where you are today; it’s about where you want to be tomorrow. So, skate to where the puck is going—and not where it is.

Rethinking ICP and Competitive Alternatives: A Strategic Approach

In marketing, particularly in B2B, the question “Who is our product for?” is fundamental. It helps define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and guide your messaging. However, what many overlook is that both use cases and competitive alternatives are integral to defining your ICP. In fact, these two elements play a key role in narrowing down the specifics of your target audience. Let’s dive into how these components interact and why choosing the right segmentation strategy can make or break your campaign.

1. Use Cases and Competitive Alternatives as Part of ICP

At first glance, the ICP might seem to be a broad definition of who your ideal customer is—perhaps age, industry, job role, or geography. But there’s another layer to this: use cases and competitive alternatives. These two factors refine the answer to “Who is our product for?”

• Use cases are specific scenarios where your product can provide value. These are typically tied to problems your target customers face.
• Competitive alternatives refer to what customers are currently using to solve that problem—whether directly or indirectly.

Both define who your product is for but in different ways. The use case narrows the scope, and the competitive alternative further sharpens the audience by adding context to the decision-making process.

2. Case Study: OpenAI and ChatGPT's Ideal Customer

Let’s say OpenAI is launching a marketing campaign targeting its ideal customer for ChatGPT. They have identified that their largest group of users is students. Now, we can segment this large group further by focusing on specific use cases and competitive alternatives.

Step 1: Segment by Use Case

Let’s say OpenAI decides to segment students based on the use case of doing research. The use case here is clear: students who need a tool to help them with their academic research.

Now, we have a more refined ICP:

• Students doing research.

Step 2: Add Competitive Alternatives to Define the "Who"

Next, OpenAI needs to define the competitive alternatives that students are currently using for research. This helps refine the ICP further by making a direct comparison to existing options.

Option 1: On-Campus Library DatabaseIf OpenAI positions ChatGPT as a better tool for research than the on-campus library database, the ICP becomes:

• Students doing research using the on-campus library database.

This is a segment where ChatGPT can stand out as a more modern, efficient tool, offering a superior user experience or more relevant information in real-time.

Option 2: ClaudeAlternatively, if OpenAI positions ChatGPT as a better tool than a competitor like Claude, the ICP narrows to:

• Students doing research using Claude.

This group is more specific—students who are already using a competitor for research—making it a more niche audience.

3. The Difference in ICPs: Broader vs. Niche Audiences

These two segments—“students doing research using the on-campus library database” and “students doing research using Claude”—are very different “who’s”. The first group is likely much larger, potentially encompassing every student in a university setting, while the second group is narrower, consisting only of students who specifically use Claude.

• The first segment could be a broader audience, meaning more reach and potentially more opportunities but also greater competition.
• The second segment is smaller, but it allows for more targeted messaging and could be more effective if OpenAI’s goal is to displace a competitor like Claude in this specific use case.

In both cases, OpenAI is answering the question of “who is our product for?” but in two distinct ways—one with a broad appeal, and the other with a focused, competitor-oriented approach.

4. Why Does This Matter?

The way you segment your ICP can influence the goals of your campaign and the type of messaging you use. Here’s why it’s important:

• Broader segmentation (like students using library databases) might be beneficial for brand awareness, leading to a larger user base and more visibility.
• Narrower segmentation (like students using Claude) may be ideal for conversion-focused campaigns, where the goal is to displace a competitor and attract a highly relevant group of users.

5. Conclusion: Strategic ICP Segmentation Drives Campaign Success

Positioning isn’t just about identifying your product’s audience. It’s about deciding which audience you want to speak to based on how you define use cases and competitive alternatives. Both these factors refine your ICP and dictate the direction of your campaign.

Whether you’re targeting a broad or niche segment, understanding the interplay between these elements is crucial for shaping an effective marketing strategy. Choose your use cases and competitive alternatives carefully, and make sure they align with your campaign objectives—because the “who” you focus on today can shape your brand’s future success.