Nailed Product Positioning? Now Make It Usable
Most positioning projects fall flat. Not because the positioning is wrong—but because it never makes it out of the strategy doc. It doesn’t show up in sales calls, on the website, or shape the product roadmap. It just sits there, unused.
There’s plenty of advice on how to do positioning. What’s missing is how to make it stick—how to turn it into tools the team actually uses, and how to tell if it's working. That’s what this guide is for.
We’ll break down the key outputs that bring positioning to life—like the sales deck, website, and GTM playbook—and the outcomes that show it’s working: sharper sales conversations, faster closes, and better alignment across teams.
Positioning Outputs: Turning Positioning Into GTM Execution
April Dunford’s framework—Competitive Alternatives, Differentiated Features and Their Value, Best-Fit Customers, and the Category You Win—gets you to clear positioning. But clarity isn’t enough. You need to make it usable.
The next step is turning it into tools your GTM teams will actually use. These are the tools that matter most:
1. Sales Deck
This is the front line of your positioning. It’s how your product shows up in the real world—across pitches, demos, and early prospect calls. It’s the tool sales uses to explain what you do, why it matters, and why it matters now. Your sales deck should follow this structure
Outline a clear market shift—what’s changing and why it matters.
Make clear the opportunities for those who adapt to this shift and the risks for those who don’t.
Show why adapting is hard without your product.
Introduce your product—what it does, its value, how it’s different, and where it fits into the customer’s workflow.
Add proof: results and credibility.
End with why you
Keep it tight—under 15 slides. But make it flexible by adding an appendix so the sales team can mix and match to suit the way they tell the story of your company and product value.
This isn’t a handoff project. The sales deck is where positioning becomes real. Build it as part of the positioning process, with product marketing leading, but input and review from sales, product, and customer success. Everyone should see themselves in the story.
Once it’s final, drive internal adoption by getting each GTM function leader present it to their own team. That’s what turns it from a deck into a shared narrative.
2. Website
Your website is your face to the world. It’s where buyers and users start their journey—and where your positioning gets tested first. Real people, short attention spans, plenty of alternatives. Your site needs to land the message quickly and clearly across four core pages:
Homepage – What is your product, who is it for, and why does it matter right now?
Product page(s) – Your product packaging should reflect how customers use and get value from it. Each product page should cover: what the product is, who it’s for, how it works, how it fits into their workflow and tech stack, and what makes it different.
Use case or industry pages – These pages make the product tangible. Use cases show what the customer can build with your product. Industry pages show how the product can solve challenges in specific verticals.
Pricing page – Your pricing should align with how customers actually use and grow with your product. It should feel like a logical extension of product packaging, with each tier tied to customer maturity and value—not arbitrary feature gates.
These pages should mirror your sales deck—same language, same narrative, same proof points. Save the longer story for brand and demand campaigns. Your website isn’t for storytelling—it’s for clarity.
3. GTM Playbook
Your GTM product playbook is your single source of truth. It’s what keeps positioning from drifting as time passes and your teams grow. The format doesn’t matter—Notion, Confluence, slides are all fine. What matters is clarity and brevity. Structure it around the key questions:
What market are we in, and what’s changing?
Who’s the customer, and what do they care about?
What’s our product’s value, and how do we talk about it?
What are we up against, and how are we different?
How do we price, sell, and launch?
Link out to deeper docs where needed. The goal isn’t to say everything—it’s to make the positioning usable across teams. Keep it updated. Embed it in onboarding. Circulate it.
4. Product Roadmap
Positioning should influence your roadmap. Strong positioning reveals real gaps—unresolved pain points, missing features, and underserved segments. Product marketing’s job is to turn those signals into something actionable. Use a Market Requirements Document (MRD) to capture:
Who’s asking
What they need
How it helps them do their job
The opportunity
Keep it focused. You’re not telling product what to build—you’re showing where the demand is and why it matters. Product owns the product. But positioning shapes what is prioritised.
5. Content Strategy
This is how positioning shows up in the day-to-day—blogs, videos, case studies, webinars, social, and sales collateral. It’s where consistency is built or lost. Split your content into two streams:
Brand Content – Speak to the market shift and your point of view through thought leadership.
Demand Content – Focus on customer pain, product features, and differentiated value through explainers, tools, and enablement materials.
Product marketing owns the throughline—not by writing everything, but by making sure the product narrative stays consistent across every channel.
Positioning Outcomes: How to Know if Your Positioning Is Working
Positioning takes time to land. It’s not a switch you flip—it’s a bet you make. But it only works if the whole company commits. When teams stay half in, half out, they usually revert to old habits.
One of the first questions I get is: how do we know if the new positioning is working? These are the signals I look for.
Leading Indicators (First Month)
Team Alignment – Are sales, marketing, product, and CS telling the same story? Skip the survey—listen to how people talk about the product. Real alignment shows up in day-to-day decisions and handoffs.
Stronger Prospect Conversations – Ask sales what’s landing. Are prospects engaging? Are you getting fewer blank stares and more “that’s exactly our problem”? Early feedback will be messy, but that’s how you refine it.
Improved Conversions – You should see upticks on key actions: form fills, demo requests, signups. Don’t track everything—just focus on the signals that show people get what you do and want to learn more.
Lagging Indicators (3–6 Months)
Faster Sales Cycles – If the story’s clearer, deals should move faster. Watch average lead-to-close time.
Higher Win Rates – Look at closed-won rates before and after the rollout. This is one of the strongest signs your new positioning resonates.
Better Fit Customers – Are you attracting more of the customers that match your ideal customer profile—and fewer that don’t? Strong positioning should filter out bad fits and pull in the right ones.
Lower Churn – Clearer positioning attracts the right customers. They onboard faster, get value quicker, and stick around longer.
Positioning isn’t one-and-done. It needs reinforcing. Without it, teams drift. It’s on product marketing to make sure the message stays tight across every channel, every conversation, and every new hire.
