This is the second article in my series about advantage stacking, a technique I use to help companies add dimension and depth to positioning.
Here’s a quick rundown of what advantage stacking is all about.
In B2B tech marketing, most positioning work focuses on product capabilities alone. We think we win or lose based on what our product does or doesn’t do.
My thesis is positioning is more nuanced than that. I think companies and products win based on four factors: product capabilities, credibility, convenience, and cost. And if you look closely at the final three “Cs” in addition to your product capabilities, you’ll have a more durable and defensible positioning strategy.
The first article in this series offered an overview of the entire framework.
Now, I’m going to focus on just one “C,” credibility.
Commerce can only happen if people trust us who don’t know us well.
That’s what makes credibility so interesting to me. In the context of positioning, I think of it as the sum of all the reasons potential buyers have for believing what sellers are about to tell them.
It’s a precursor to trust.
Because positioning is all about shaping broadly held perceptions in the minds of category buyers, you can’t sleep on credibility.
But when you limit your positioning conversation to only focus on product capabilities, that’s what happens. A clear explanation of what your product is and does is a good thing, but buyers won’t listen to it if they don’t think you’re credible to tell it.
I have personally worked with companies ranging from startups fresh off their first wave of growth to decades-old businesses with many thousands of customers, all of whom were leaving credibility advantages on the table.
You can avoid that trap. That’s what this article (and the entire idea of advantage stacking) is all about.
