If Your Positioning is Weak, Your Messaging Won’t Save You

By David Ronald  

What is a common reaction to slowing growth?  

It’s, "We need to fix our messaging."  

And this is often accompanied by a variety of actions that include reviewing the website, brainstorming a new tagline, and a demand for better content.  

Yes, there's nothing wrong with improving your messaging.  

After all, clear, compelling messaging is essential because it helps customers understand who you are, what you do, and why it matters.  

The problem is that messaging often gets blamed for issues that actually stem from weak positioning.  

And, if customers don't understand why you're different or why they should choose you, no amount of polished copy is going to change the outcome. 

In this blog post I examine how to ensure your positioning will enable you to create compelling messaging, along with an impactful website and great content. 

Positioning Comes First

Positioning and messaging are closely connected, but they're not the same thing.  

Positioning answers the big strategic questions: Who are we trying to help? What problem do we solve better than anyone else? Why should customers choose us over the alternatives? What makes us different?  

Messaging takes those answers and translates them into language your customers understand.  

You can think of positioning as deciding what you want to be known for, while messaging is how you communicate it.

If you skip the first step, the second becomes little more than guesswork.

Signs Your Positioning Needs Work

The good news is that weak positioning is usually easy to spot. 

In my experience, it tends to show up in the same ways across companies, regardless of industry or company size. 

You Sound Like Everyone Else

Spend a few minutes browsing the websites of companies in your market.  

You'll probably come across phrases like "best-in-class," "trusted by leading brands", "AI-powered," and so on. 

They're so common that they've lost much of their meaning.  

The real question is whether your messaging would still make sense if someone swapped your logo with a competitor's.  

And, if the answer is “Yes”, your positioning probably isn't strong enough.  

After all, buyers don’t remember companies that stand for something specific.

Sales Leads With Features

When positioning isn't clear, sales teams naturally fall back on what they know best: the product itself.  

Conversations become feature-by-feature demonstrations instead of discussions about business outcomes, competitive advantage, or solving meaningful problems.  

Yes, features certainly matter…but they're rarely the reason customers buy. 

Buyers are looking for confidence that your solution will solve an important problem better than the alternatives. Strong positioning gives sales that story before the product demo ever begins. 

You're Constantly Rewriting the Website

I've seen companies redesign their homepage every year hoping it will improve conversion rates.  

While better design and clearer copy can certainly help, they're often addressing the symptom rather than the cause.  

If visitors don't immediately understand why your company is different, changing the headline isn't going to solve the underlying issue.  

Great websites amplify strong positioning, and they rarely create it.

Prospects Forget You

One of the clearest indicators of weak positioning is simple: prospects struggle to remember what made you different.  

After evaluating several vendors, everything starts to blur together because everyone makes similar claims. 

Companies with strong positioning are much easier to remember: they occupy a distinct place in the customer's mind, making it easier for buyers to explain internally why they're worth considering. 

Strong Positioning Makes Everything Easier

One of the reasons I enjoy working on positioning is that its impact extends far beyond marketing.  

When positioning is clear, marketing knows exactly who it's speaking to and what message will resonate. 

Sales has a compelling story instead of a long list of features, and product teams have a better understanding of which investments will strengthen differentiation.  

And the benefits don't stop there.  

Customer success reinforces the same value customers were promised before they purchased, leadership communicates the company's vision more consistently, and recruiting becomes easier because candidates understand what makes the company unique. 

Positioning isn't a marketing exercise, but a business strategy that creates alignment across the organization.

Weak Positioning Is Expensive

Weak positioning creates costs that often go unnoticed at first. 

Marketing spends more to generate awareness, sales cycles become longer, win rates decline, discounting becomes more common, and product teams chase features instead of sustainable differentiation.  

Individually, those issues may seem manageable – collectively, they slow growth and make it increasingly difficult to compete in crowded markets.

Building Better Positioning

There's no shortcut to building strong positioning. 

It comes from understanding your customers, your competitors, and the market you're trying to serve. 

That means talking to customers, interviewing lost prospects, listening to sales conversations, and looking for patterns that reveal why people choose, or don't choose, your company. 

The strongest positioning also requires making difficult choices. Trying to appeal to everyone usually results in messaging that resonates with no one. The companies that stand out are the ones willing to define exactly who they're for and why they matter.

Stop Starting With the Product

One mistake I see repeatedly is companies trying to build positioning around product features. 

That's understandable because teams invest years developing capabilities they're proud of. The challenge is that customers are buying better outcomes, not features. 

Instead of asking, "What makes our product unique?" ask questions like: “What business problem do we solve best?” “Which customers benefit the most?” “Why do customers choose us instead of the alternatives?” “Why do some prospects decide not to?” 

Those questions almost always uncover stronger positioning than another internal brainstorming session.

Different Is Better Than Better

Almost every company claims to be "better."  

The problem is that every competitor says exactly the same thing, making the claim difficult for buyers to believe. 

Being different is far more powerful than simply saying you're better.  

Perhaps you serve a specific industry, deploy in days instead of months, or solve a problem your competitors overlook.  

Those differences help customers quickly understand where you fit and whether you're the right solution for them.

Conclusion

When growth slows, it's tempting to assume the solution is better messaging. 

A new tagline, a redesigned homepage, or another campaign can feel like tangible progress because those changes are visible and relatively easy to execute.

Before rewriting the words on your website, though, ask a more important question: Are we struggling because our messaging isn't clear…or because our positioning isn't?

When your positioning gives customers a compelling reason to choose you, great messaging simply amplifies that story.

But if the positioning is weak, no amount of copywriting will be enough to overcome it.

Thanks for reading.

Are you interested in improving your positioning? If so, feel free to get in touch. My email is david@alphabetworks.com – I look forward to hearing from you.

Creating a Newsletter that People Actually Read

By David Ronald

Many marketers that I’ve spoken with believe that a newsletter is essential for their business.

But the truth is, many newsletters miss the mark.

In fact, I rarely read them.

My inbox is filled with newsletters that all look the same.

They announce company news I don't care about, summarize blog posts I've already seen, or try to sell me something in every issue.

Yet I still believe newsletters are one of the most effective marketing tools available to small and medium-sized businesses.  

In this blog post I explore How to create a newsletter that provides value and that people actually want to read. 

Focus on Helping, Not Selling

The first step is to stop thinking of your newsletter as a marketing vehicle and start thinking of it as a resource.

Every edition should answer a question, solve a problem, or teach your audience something they can use immediately.

If readers finish your newsletter feeling smarter than when they opened it, they'll look forward to the next issue.  

When your newsletter consistently helps your audience succeed, sales become a natural byproduct rather than the primary objective. 

Know Who You're Writing For

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is trying to write for everyone.

A local accounting firm shouldn't send the same content to startups, nonprofits, and retirees. A software company shouldn't write the same newsletter for executives, developers, and end users.

The more specific your audience, the more relevant your content becomes.  

Readers are far more likely to engage with content that feels like it was written specifically for them. 

Consistency Beats Frequency

Many businesses launch with ambitious plans to publish every week, only to run out of ideas after a month.

A monthly newsletter is often the better choice. It gives you enough time to create thoughtful, high-quality content while establishing a publishing schedule your audience can count on.  

Keep in mind that our readers would rather receive one outstanding newsletter each month than four mediocre ones. 

Keep the Format Simple

A successful newsletter doesn't need elaborate graphics or complicated layouts.  

A simple format often performs best: 

• A short introduction
• One helpful article
• One practical tip readers can apply immediately
• A link to a useful resource
• A brief call to action

Using the same structure for every issue makes the newsletter easier to produce and easier for readers to consume. 

Share Your Expertise Freely

Too many business owners worry that giving away advice will reduce demand for their services.

In reality, the opposite usually happens.

When people consistently learn something valuable from your newsletter, they begin to trust your expertise.  

And when they're ready to hire someone, they'll naturally think of the company that has been helping them all along. 

Measure What Really Matters

Open rates and click-through rates provide useful information, but they don't tell the whole story.  

Pay attention to the responses that demonstrate genuine engagement: 

• Readers replying to your emails.
• Customers mentioning an article during conversations.
• Prospects requesting meetings after reading your content.
• Referrals generated by newsletter subscribers.

These interactions often reveal far more about your newsletter's effectiveness than analytics alone. 

Final Thoughts

A newsletter shouldn't feel like another item on your marketing checklist. It should become an ongoing conversation with your customers and prospects.

If every issue educates, informs, or inspires your readers, they'll welcome it into their inbox instead of sending it straight to the trash.

The goal here is to become the one newsletter your customers actually look forward to reading.

Thanks for reading.

Are you interested in improving the impact of your newsletter? If so, feel free to get in touch. My email is david@alphabetworks.com – I look forward to hearing from you.

Five Principles for Resolving Competing Product Priorities

By David Ronald

Product leadership is ultimately the discipline of making difficult choices, because opportunities will always outnumber available resources.

For example, customers want new features, sales teams want capabilities that help close deals, and executives want initiatives that support strategic goals.

The result is a constant battle for prioritization.  

The problem is rarely a lack of ideas. No, because most companies have too many ideas. 

The real challenge is deciding which ideas deserve investment, which should wait, and which should be eliminated entirely. 

Companies that struggle with competing product priorities often fall into predictable traps such as allowing the loudest stakeholder to win, prioritizing short-term revenue over long-term strategy, or building features simply because competitors have them. 

Effective product leadership requires a disciplined approach to prioritization, one that balances customer needs, business objectives, market opportunities, and technical realities. 

In this blog post I examine five principles for resolving competing product priorities. 

1. Align Product Priorities With Business Strategy

The first step in resolving competing priorities is ensuring everyone understands the company’s strategic objectives.

Without strategic alignment, every request appears equally important.  

A sales leader may argue that a specific feature is critical because a large prospect requested it a customer success leader may argue that reducing onboarding friction is the highest priority and engineering may believe investing in infrastructure is essential. 

All of these perspectives may be valid. 

The question is not: “Which request is most important?” The better question is: “Which initiative best supports our current strategic goals?” 

For example, if the company’s goal is entering a new market segment, product investments should prioritize capabilities that help win and retain customers in that segment. If, on the other hand, the goal is increasing expansion revenue, product teams should focus on features that improve adoption, engagement, and upsell opportunities. 

If the goal is reducing customer churn, improving reliability, usability, or customer experience may take priority over launching new functionality. 

A strong product strategy acts as a filter. Every initiative should answer: 

• What business objective does this support?
• What customer problem does this solve?
• How will success be measured?
• Why is this more important than other opportunities?

If an initiative cannot clearly connect to strategy, it probably should not be prioritized. 

2. Move From Feature Requests to Customer Problems

One of the biggest mistakes companies make is prioritizing solutions before understanding the underlying problem.

A customer says, “We need a dashboard”: A sales team says, “We need Salesforce integration”; and a competitor launches an AI assistant, and suddenly everyone wants an AI assistant.

But product teams should not prioritize features. They should prioritize problems.

A feature request is only one possible solution to a customer need.

So, instead of asking, “Should we build this feature?” instead ask “What customer problem are we trying to solve?”  

For example: 

• A customer requesting a dashboard may actually need better visibility into performance.
• A customer requesting an integration may actually need a smoother workflow.
• A customer requesting an AI assistant may actually need to reduce the time required to complete a task.

By identifying the fundamental problem, product teams gain flexibility. They can explore multiple solutions and select the one that delivers the greatest impact.

This approach also prevents companies from becoming a collection of custom requests.  

Building every requested feature creates complexity, increases maintenance costs, and often results in a product that tries to satisfy everyone but delights no one. 

3. Establish a Transparent Prioritization Framework

Many product conflicts happen because teams lack a shared methodology for making decisions.

Without a framework, prioritization becomes subjective, and the person with the strongest opinion, or loftiest title, often wins.

A transparent scoring model creates alignment by evaluating initiatives against consistent criteria.  

Common prioritization criteria include: 

• Customer Impact – how many customers will benefit? How significant is the problem? Does solving it improve retention, adoption, or customer satisfaction?
• Business Impact – will this initiative generate revenue, reduce costs, improve competitive positioning, or support strategic goals?
• Market Opportunity – does this capability help the company enter a new market, differentiate from competitors, or establish category leadership?
• Implementation Effort – how much engineering investment is required? Are there technical dependencies or risks?
• Strategic Alignment – does this support the company’s long-term vision?

Frameworks such as RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort), weighted scoring models, and opportunity scoring can help teams compare initiatives objectively.

The framework itself matters less than consistency.  

The goal here is to create a shared language for making difficult decisions. 

4. Balance Short-Term Needs With Long-Term Innovation

One of the hardest product leadership challenges is balancing immediate business needs with future growth.  

Short-term priorities often come from revenue pressure: 

• A large customer needs a feature.
• Sales needs functionality to close deals.
• Competitors are gaining attention.
• Leadership wants faster growth.

Long-term priorities often involve: 

• Platform improvements.
• New market opportunities.
• Emerging technologies.
• Product differentiation.

Both short-term and long-term priorities are important. Companies that focus exclusively on short-term requests become reactive. Companies that focus exclusively on innovation risk building products that customers do not need.

Successful product organizations create a portfolio approach. 

For example: 

• A percentage of resources dedicated to customer commitments.
• A percentage focused on improving the existing product experience.
• A percentage invested in strategic innovation.

The exact allocation depends on the company’s stage and market conditions, but the principle remains the same: product teams need room to deliver today’s value while creating tomorrow’s opportunities. 

5. Make Prioritization a Company-Wide Conversation

Product prioritization should not happen in isolation.

While product leaders ultimately own the roadmap, the best decisions come from collaboration across the organization.
 

Collaboration, however, doesn’t mean every stakeholder gets an equal vote – a common mistake is creating a “democratic” prioritization process where every team votes on roadmap decisions.

Product leadership requires making tradeoffs.

The goal is not to satisfy every stakeholder. The goal is to make the decisions that create the greatest value for customers and the business. 

Strong product leaders listen broadly but decide clearly. 

The Role of Product Marketing in Resolving Product Conflicts

Product marketing plays a critical role in helping organizations make better prioritization decisions.

Product marketers bring the outside perspective that product teams often need.  

They help answer questions such as: 

• What problems matter most to customers?
• How does the market define success?
• Where are competitors creating pressure?
• Which capabilities create meaningful differentiation?
• Which investments will strengthen positioning?

Product marketing also helps ensure that product decisions translate into market value. 

A product feature only matters if customers understand why it matters.

Building the wrong capability wastes resources. Building the right capability but failing to communicate its value limits adoption.  

Product marketing connects product strategy with customer outcomes. 

Conclusion

Ironically, the hardest part of product leadership is often making choices, not generating ideas. Every “yes” represents a tradeoff. Resources invested in one initiative cannot be invested elsewhere.

Great product organizations are not defined by how many features they launch. They are defined by their ability to focus on the initiatives that create the greatest impact.

 Resolving competing product priorities requires: 

• Connecting decisions to business strategy.
• Focusing on customer problems instead of feature requests.
• Using transparent prioritization frameworks.
• Balancing immediate needs with long-term innovation.
• Creating alignment across teams.

The companies that win are not necessarily the ones that build the most. They are the ones that build what matters most.

Thanks for reading.

Do you need assistance resolving competing product priorities? If so, feel free to get in touch. My email is david@alphabetworks.com – I look forward to hearing from you.

How AI is Improving Account-Based Marketing

By David Ronald  

Account-based marketing has long been one of the most effective ways for B2B organizations to engage high-value prospects.  

Rather than casting a wide net, account-based marketing (ABM) focuses campaign efforts on a carefully selected list of target accounts, delivering personalized experiences that increase engagement and improve conversion rates.  

While the strategy itself isn't new, artificial intelligence is transforming how organizations execute ABM.   

In this blog post I explore how AI enables marketing teams to identify the right accounts faster, personalize outreach at scale, and optimize campaigns in ways that were previously impossible.

Smarter Account Selection

One of the biggest advantages AI brings to ABM is improved account selection.  

Traditionally, marketers relied on firmographic data such as company size, industry, and revenue to build target account lists. 

AI expands this process by analyzing hundreds of additional signals, including buying intent, technology adoption, hiring trends, website behavior, funding announcements, and competitive activity.  

This allows marketers to prioritize the accounts most likely to enter the buying cycle.

Personalized Engagement at Scale

Personalization is one of the defining characteristics of successful ABM programs, but it has historically been difficult to scale. 

AI changes that by analyzing customer data, previous interactions, and industry trends to recommend messaging tailored to individual stakeholders within each target account. 

Instead of creating a handful of customized campaigns, marketing teams can now produce highly relevant content for hundreds of accounts while maintaining consistency and quality.

Better Alignment Between Sales and Marketing

AI also strengthens collaboration between marketing and sales teams. 

Predictive models identify which accounts are demonstrating buying intent and recommend the next best actions for engagement. 

Marketing can automatically launch personalized campaigns while sales receives insights into which prospects are most engaged, what content they're consuming, and which topics are generating interest. 

This shared intelligence enables both teams to focus their efforts on the opportunities most likely to convert.

Continuous Campaign Optimization

Traditional campaign analysis often happens after a campaign has ended. 

AI makes optimization continuous by analyzing engagement data in real time across channels. It can quickly identify which messages, offers, and content formats are performing best, allowing marketers to make adjustments while campaigns are still running. 

This leads to better performance, faster learning, and more efficient use of marketing budgets. 

Accelerating Content Creation

Creating personalized content for dozens of target accounts has traditionally required significant time and resources. 

AI helps marketers produce account-specific emails, landing pages, digital ads, sales enablement materials, and social media content much more efficiently. 

While human marketers still provide strategic direction and editorial oversight, AI significantly reduces production time and allows teams to execute campaigns faster. 

Scaling ABM for Greater Impact

Perhaps the greatest benefit of AI is its ability to help organizations scale their ABM programs without proportionally increasing headcount.  

Marketing teams can manage larger account lists, deliver more personalized experiences, and analyze more customer data than would be possible through manual processes alone.  

The result is a more efficient, data-driven approach that increases engagement and accelerates pipeline growth.

Conclusion

As AI continues to evolve, ABM will become even more intelligent, predictive, and automated.

Organizations that combine AI-driven insights with strong marketing strategy and close collaboration between sales and marketing will be better positioned to identify opportunities, engage decision-makers, and drive revenue growth.

At the end of the day, AI is making the principles that underscore ABM smarter, faster, and more scalable than ever before.

Thanks for reading.

Are you interested in leveraging AI to improve your account-based marketing? If so, feel free to get in touch. My email is david@alphabetworks.com – I look forward to hearing from you. 

A Practical Guide to Product Messaging Aignment

By David Ronald  

Product messaging alignment sounds straightforward.  

In practice, though, it’s one of the most common sources of friction inside growing organizations.  

Product talks about features. Leadership communicates strategy. Marketing tells one story, while sales tells another.  

Individually, none of these perspectives are wrong. Together, they can create confusion that slows growth and weakens buyer confidence.  

The companies that win are not necessarily the ones with the most creative messaging. They are the ones that create alignment around a shared narrative that every team can confidently deliver.  

In this blog post I present valuable tips on achieving alignment around product messaging.

1. Recognize That Messaging Alignment Is a Growth Initiative

Many organizations treat messaging as a marketing exercise.  

In reality, however, messaging affects every customer-facing interaction.  

When prospects hear different explanations of what a company does, why it matters, and how it is different, trust begins to erode. AS a result, buyers may spend more time trying to understand the product and less time evaluating its value. 

Viewing messaging alignment as a growth initiative rather than a marketing project helps secure the cross-functional support necessary for success.

2. Understand Why Messaging Breaks Down

Most messaging problems are not caused by incompetence or poor communication.  

No, they happen because teams naturally optimize for different objectives. 

Product teams focus on capabilities and innovation. Sales teams adapt language based on customer conversations. Marketing teams seek compelling narratives that scale across audiences. Customer success teams emphasize implementation and outcomes. 

The challenge is not that these perspectives exist but that they typically evolve independently. 

Without a coordinated framework, organizations end up telling multiple versions of the same story.

3. Build a Foundation Before Writing Messages

Before discussing taglines, positioning statements, or website copy, leadership teams should answer three foundational questions:

• What market category are we competing in?
• What urgent problem are we solving for customers?
• Why do we win against alternatives?

These questions create the strategic foundation for every messaging decision that follows.  

Without this clarity, teams often spend weeks debating wording when the real issue is a lack of agreement on the underlying strategy.

4. Define the Customer's “Why Now”

Many companies spend way too much time explaining what they do and not enough time explaining why customers should act today. 

The most effective messaging creates urgency by helping buyers understand why the problem deserves attention now rather than later. 

Whether the driver is competitive pressure, operational inefficiency, rising costs, regulatory change, or market disruption, the "why now" should be clearly articulated and consistently reinforced across all customer touchpoints.

5. Create a Messaging Architecture Instead of Chasing the Perfect Tagline

One of the biggest mistakes organizations make is believing alignment depends on finding a single perfect phrase.  

Strong messaging is actually built as a hierarchy. 

A typical messaging architecture includes:

• A core narrative that explains what the company does and why it matters.
• Three to five supporting pillars that reinforce the narrative.
• Proof points that validate each pillar with evidence, outcomes, and examples.

This structure allows different teams to communicate at different levels of detail while still reinforcing the same overall story.

6. Involve Cross-Functional Teams Early

Messaging initiatives frequently fail because they are developed in isolation and then presented to the rest of the organization as a finished product.  

People are far more likely to embrace messaging when they have participated in its creation. Sales teams contribute customer objections and competitive insights. Product teams contribute roadmap context and technical expertise. Customer success teams provide examples of real-world outcomes. Marketing teams bring structure and narrative discipline. 

When these perspectives are incorporated early, adoption becomes significantly easier.

7. Run Workshops Focused on Customer Reality

Messaging workshops often become brainstorming sessions filled with buzzwords and hypothetical positioning statements.  

A more productive approach is to focus discussions on customer reality. 

Ask questions such as What do prospects consistently misunderstand? What objections appear most frequently during sales cycles? What outcomes matter most after implementation? How do customers describe their problems in their own words? 

These conversations typically reveal far more useful insights than debating slogans or taglines.

8. Establish a Single Source of Truth

Even the best messaging framework will eventually drift if teams do not have a central reference point.  

A messaging source of truth should include:

• Core narrative.
• Messaging pillars.
• Audience-specific variations.
• Approved terminology.
• Competitive positioning guidance.
• Channel-specific examples.
• Language to avoid.

The most effective messaging documents are living resources that teams actively use rather than static PDFs that are forgotten shortly after launch. 

A centralized framework creates consistency while still allowing teams to adapt messages for different audiences and contexts.

9. Embed Messaging Into Daily Workflows

Alignment becomes real only when it shows up in execution. 

The strongest messaging programs are woven directly into everyday activities, including sales presentations, website content, and marketing campaigns. 

Organizations should also reinforce messaging through regular training, call reviews, campaign retrospectives, and launch debriefs. 

The goal is repetition, not enforcement – the more consistently teams encounter the same messaging framework, the more naturally they adopt it.

10. Measure, Refine, and Evolve

Messaging alignment should never be treated as a one-time project. After all, markets change, customer needs shift, and competitors reposition themselves. 

The best organizations continuously evaluate whether their messaging remains effective by examining signals such as sales call recordings, win-loss analysis, onboarding interviews, and so on. 

One of the clearest indicators of alignment is consistency in how customers describe the company and its value. When customers begin repeating your language back to you, it is often a sign that the messaging is resonating. 

Regular reviews ensure that new insights are incorporated intentionally rather than creating unplanned messaging drift.

Conclusion

Driving alignment around product messaging is not about finding the perfect words. It is about creating shared understanding across the organization. 

When teams operate from a common narrative framework, customers experience a more consistent story regardless of whether they are talking to a salesperson, reading a marketing campaign, attending a product demo, or working with customer success. 

The benefits extend far beyond better communication. Strong messaging alignment can improve positioning, increase conversion rates, accelerate sales cycles, strengthen brand recognition, and create a more cohesive customer experience. 

Thanks for reading. 

Are you interested in achieving better alignment around your product messaging? If so, feel free to get in touch. My email is david@alphabetworks.com – I look forward to hearing from you.

Location Matters More Than Most Marketers Realize

By David Ronald

Marketers spend a lot of time talking about who our customers are and not nearly enough time talking about where they are.

Marketers have become experts at segmenting audiences by demographics, firmographics, industry, job title, and buying stage.  

Those attributes are important, but they only tell part of the story. 

Location provides context. 

In this blog post I explain why location matters more than most marketers realize and examine how to use location-based marketing to accelerate your growth. 

Why Location-Based Marketing Matters

Think about two people with the same job title working for similar companies:

One commutes into a major city every day. The other works remotely from a suburban neighborhood. Their daily routines are different. The challenges they face are different. The events they attend are different. Even the products and services they buy may differ.

Yet many marketing campaigns treat them exactly the same.

For years, location-based marketing was primarily associated with geotargeted advertising.

Companies would display ads to people within a specific city, state, or zip code. While that approach still has value, today's technology allows marketers to go much further.  

Modern analytics, AI, and customer data platforms can help organizations understand how location influences behavior, interests, purchasing decisions, and engagement patterns. 

Instead of simply knowing where someone lives or works, marketers can gain insights into how a person's environment affects what they need and when they need it. 

The result is more relevant marketing and better customer experiences. 

How to Implement Location-Based Marketing

The first step is to identify which location signals are most relevant to your business.

Depending on your market, this could include city, region, climate, proximity to physical locations, commuting patterns, or even attendance at local events.

Next, analyze how customer behavior differs across locations. 

Do prospects in large metropolitan areas respond differently than those in smaller markets? Are certain products more popular in specific regions? Do buying cycles vary by geography? 

These insights often reveal opportunities that broad audience segments miss. 

Once you understand those differences, tailor your messaging accordingly. 

A company selling productivity software might emphasize commuting-time savings in urban markets while focusing on remote-work collaboration in suburban areas. The product remains the same, but the value proposition changes based on context. 

Location can also improve timing.

Regional business cycles, local events, weather patterns, and seasonal trends can all influence when prospects are most receptive to marketing messages. 

Campaigns that align with local conditions often outperform those that rely on a one-size-fits-all schedule.

Finally, combine location data with other customer signals.  

The most effective personalization strategies don't rely on geography alone. They blend location with behavioral data, engagement history, purchase intent, and customer preferences to create a more complete picture of the individual. 

The Future Is Context-Aware Marketing

The future of marketing is understanding the context surrounding your buyers.

Location is one of the most powerful contextual signals available because it influences how people live, work, buy, and interact with the world around them.

The marketers who embrace location as a source of insight rather than just a targeting mechanism will be better positioned to create relevant experiences, stronger engagement, and ultimately better business outcomes.

In an era where personalization is becoming the standard, understanding where your customers are may provide a competitive advantage that many organizations continue to overlook.

Thanks for reading.

Are you interested in utilizing location-based marketing to accelerate revenue growth? If so, feel free to get in touch. My email is david@alphabetworks.com – I look forward to hearing from you.

A Competitive Intelligence Program That Drives Sales

By David Ronald  

Competitive intelligence has long been one of the core responsibilities of product marketing. 

Yet, despite significant investments in tools, analysts, and research, many competitive intelligence programs fail to achieve their primary objective: helping sales teams win more deals. 

The problem, as we all know, isn't a lack of information because many organizations have access to an overwhelming amount of competitor data – product marketers collect feature comparisons, monitor competitor websites, subscribe to analyst reports, and gather feedback from customers and prospects. 

A successful competitive intelligence program is measured by whether sales teams use it and whether it helps them close business, not by the volume of data it produces. 

Too often in my experience competitive intelligence becomes an academic exercise.  

In this blog post I present a program that uses a different approach, a program that sales teams actually use.

Why Most Competitive Intelligence Programs Fail

The biggest mistake companies make is focusing on competitors instead of customers.  

Competitive intelligence teams frequently become obsessed with tracking every product update, feature release, executive hire, funding announcement, and pricing change. 

While this information can be useful, it rarely helps a sales representative navigate a live conversation with a prospect. Buyers are purchasing outcomes, not a feature list. 

So, when sales teams engage with prospects, the real challenge is understanding why a buyer may choose one vendor over another and how to position their solution against competing alternatives. 

Another common problem is information overload. Product marketing teams often create comprehensive documents that contain dozens of pages of research. While thoroughness may be appreciated internally, sales representatives rarely have time to consume lengthy reports before a customer call.  

The reality is that sellers need concise, actionable guidance. They want to know how competitors are positioning themselves, where they are vulnerable, what objections they commonly raise, and how successful customers evaluate alternatives. 

Without this practical focus, even the most detailed competitive intelligence program will struggle to gain adoption.

Start With the Questions Sales Teams Actually Ask

The most effective competitive intelligence programs begin by understanding the needs of the sales organization. 

Instead of asking, "What do we know about our competitors?" product marketers should ask, "What information would help our sales team win more deals?" 

The answers are often surprisingly consistent. Sellers want to understand why prospects choose competitors, which objections arise most frequently, and how successful sales representatives position the company's strengths during competitive evaluations. 

Listening to sales calls can provide invaluable insight, as can interviewing account executives, sales engineers, customer success managers, and solution consultants. 

These frontline teams interact with buyers every day and often have a clearer understanding of competitive dynamics than any report could provide.  

By grounding competitive intelligence in real-world selling situations, organizations create content that directly addresses the challenges sales teams face.

Creating Battlecards That People Actually Use

Battlecards remain one of the most popular competitive intelligence tools, but many organizations overcomplicate them. 

A battlecard should not attempt to capture everything known about a competitor. It should, instead, function as a quick-reference guide that helps sellers prepare for conversations and respond to objections. 

The most effective battlecards focus on buyer concerns rather than product features. They explain how competitors position themselves in the market, what strengths prospects perceive, where weaknesses exist, and how to reframe competitive discussions around customer outcomes. 

Clarity matters more than completeness. A concise two-page battlecard that sales representatives consult regularly creates significantly more value than a twenty-page document that remains unread. 

And the best battlecards also evolve continuously. Competitive markets change quickly, and static content becomes outdated. Consequently, product marketing teams should establish processes for regularly collecting feedback from sales teams and updating materials based on actual field experience. 

When sellers see their input reflected in competitive content, adoption naturally increases.

Building a Continuous Intelligence Network

Competitive intelligence should never be the responsibility of a single individual or team. 

Organizations that excel in this area create networks of contributors across the business.

• Sales representatives provide feedback from active opportunities.
• Customer success teams identify competitor activity during renewals.
• Product managers track market trends.
• Executives share insights gathered from customers, analysts, and industry events.

When competitive intelligence becomes a company-wide discipline, the quality and timeliness of information improve dramatically.  

Technology can support this process, but culture matters more. Employees should feel encouraged to share competitive insights whenever they encounter them.

A simple mechanism for capturing information often proves more effective than a sophisticated platform that nobody uses.  

The goal is to create a continuous flow of intelligence that helps the organization respond quickly to changing market conditions.

Monitoring Competitors Without Expensive Tools

Many organizations assume they need costly software platforms to build an effective competitive intelligence program. 

While specialized tools can be valuable, they are not prerequisites for success, especially as a surprising amount of competitive insight is publicly available.

• Competitor websites reveal positioning changes, product launches, and messaging priorities.
• Earnings calls provide information about strategic direction and business performance.
• Customer reviews on software review sites often highlight strengths and weaknesses that prospects are discussing internally.

Additionally, industry events, webinars, podcasts, and social media channels can also provide valuable signals.  

Frankly it’s amazing how many companies share their priorities openly if organizations take the time to listen carefully.  

The key is consistency. Rather than attempting to monitor everything, establish a structured process for reviewing key sources and sharing relevant findings with stakeholders. 

Over time, these small efforts compound into a rich understanding of the competitive landscape.

Turning Insights Into Messaging

Collecting intelligence is the first step – the real value comes from translating insights into messaging that influences buyer decisions. 

This is where product marketing can have the greatest impact. Competitive insights should inform positioning, differentiation, sales enablement, and content strategy.

If competitors consistently emphasize a particular strength, organizations should evaluate whether they need to address that narrative directly or shift buyer attention toward a different set of priorities. 

The objective is not to attack competitors, especially as direct comparisons can sometimes strengthen a competitor's position by reinforcing their relevance.  

Instead, effective messaging helps buyers understand why your solution is uniquely suited to their needs – this shifts conversations away from feature comparisons and toward business outcomes, strategic priorities, and long-term value. 

When competitive intelligence informs messaging, the entire go-to-market organization benefits.

Measuring Competitive Intelligence Success

One of the biggest challenges facing competitive intelligence programs in my experience is demonstrating value. 

Traditional metrics often focus on outputs such as the number of battlecards created, competitors tracked, or reports distributed. 

While these measurements may indicate activity, they do not necessarily indicate impact.  

A stronger approach is to focus on business outcomes. 

• Are sales teams using competitive content?
• Are competitive win rates improving?
• Are sellers reporting greater confidence during evaluations?
• Are objection handling conversations becoming more effective?

Organizations should also monitor engagement with competitive resources and gather qualitative feedback from the field. Understanding what sales teams find useful can guide future investments and improvements. 

Ultimately, the purpose of competitive intelligence is not to create information. It is to influence decisions and improve business performance. 

The Future of Competitive Intelligence

The rise of artificial intelligence is changing how organizations collect, analyze, and distribute competitive information.

AI tools can monitor websites, summarize content, identify emerging trends, and accelerate research activities – tasks that once required hours of manual effort can now be completed in minutes.  

Technology, however, does not eliminate the need for strategic thinking. 

Competitive intelligence remains fundamentally about understanding buyers, markets, and positioning. AI can help organizations process information faster, but human judgment is still required to determine which insights matter and how they should influence go-to-market strategy. 

In my opinion, and tell me if you think I’m wrong, the companies that succeed will combine the speed of AI with the expertise of product marketers, sales leaders, and customer-facing teams. 

Conclusion

Competitive intelligence is most effective when it is viewed as a revenue-driving function rather than a research project, and its primary goal is to help sales teams win more business.

Organizations that focus on practical insights, create usable content, encourage company-wide participation, and connect intelligence directly to messaging and sales execution will build programs that generate measurable impact.

The winners will not necessarily be the companies with the most information. They will be the companies that turn information into action.

Thanks for reading.

Are you interested in discussing how to build a competitive intelligence program your sales teams actually use? If so, feel free to get in touch. My email is david@alphabetworks.com – I look forward to hearing from you.