M3.L1 · Positioning, Brand & Offers
Positioning: the context that makes value obvious
What you'll be able to doAnalyse the competitive alternatives the ideal customer genuinely weighs — including the non-purchase options — and identify candidate frames of reference, with every claim traced to Module 2 evidence.
Learn
The customer files you somewhere, instantly
When someone meets your business for the first time, they don't study it. They file it. Within a few seconds it goes next to something they already know: "another physio clinic", "like that big software we looked at once", "handmade stuff, so probably pricey". The filing happens whether you take part or not, and it decides nearly everything downstream — what feels expensive, what feels trustworthy, and which of your features register at all.
Positioning is the act of choosing that filing deliberately: setting the context in which your business is understood, so that your particular strengths become obviously valuable to your particular customer. The definition is April Dunford's, and the emphasis matters. Positioning is not a slogan, a tagline or a logo refresh. It is a decision you make before any of those, and it usually never appears in public word for word. If your last "positioning exercise" produced a sentence for the website banner, it wasn't positioning. It was decorating an unexamined filing.
The frame of reference decides what counts as a benefit
Here is the practical core of the lesson, and it's worth reading twice.
Take one of Ostara's €34 plates. File it under tableware, and the customer compares it with a chain-store plate that costs a few euros. In that frame, €34 is expensive. "Handmade" reads as irregular, fragile, precious. Shipping worry is a defect. Every true fact about the plate works against it.
Now file the same plate under wedding gift. The comparisons change: a voucher, a marketplace seller, a design brand priced well beyond most gift budgets. In that frame, €34–€120 sits comfortably inside what people expect to spend. "Handmade" reads as shows you tried. Insured gift packaging with a handwritten card stops being a logistics footnote and becomes the headline.
Same plate. Same price. Same facts. What changed is the frame — and with it, the meaning of every fact.
That is the rule to carry through this whole module: the frame of reference determines what counts as a benefit. An attribute is not a benefit or a defect by itself. The frame makes it one or the other. Which is why this lesson makes you map alternatives and frames before Lesson 3.2 lets you write a single claim.
Your real competitor is a spreadsheet, or nothing
A competitive alternative is not the same thing as a competitor. The alternative is whatever your customer would actually do if you didn't exist. Sometimes that's a rival firm. For most SMEs, most of the time, it's something far less glamorous: doing nothing, putting up with it, a spreadsheet, a cousin who "knows computers", a voucher instead of a real gift.
You already have this list. Your ICP from Lesson 2.6 has an alternatives line, and it was required to include the non-purchase option. That line is the input to today's exercise — positioning starts from what your customer would do without you, not from a list of companies that annoy you.
Taking the alternative seriously has two hard consequences. First, "doing nothing" costs zero and requires no decision, so you cannot beat it on price — you beat it by making the cost of inaction visible and the first step small. Second, if you position against a rival your customer was never weighing, you win arguments nobody is having. You'll produce comparison pages against the market leader while your actual prospect closes the tab and goes back to Excel.
Storkflow, filed three ways
Lena lists what an accountancy-firm buyer genuinely weighs, from the pack's evidence:
Email + Excel + a shared drive. Attracts: free, familiar, already there. Fails: chaotic at exactly the moment a new client should be impressed. A large international onboarding suite. Attracts: far more features than Storkflow. Fails: enterprise pricing, an implementation project measured in months, support in English only. The half-built intake module in their practice-management software. Attracts: already paid for. Fails: clunky, usually left switched off.
Her desk research adds a language finding: in reviews and forums, accountants write "client intake" and "chasing documents" — almost never "onboarding automation", which is the industry's phrase, not the customer's.
Now watch the frame do its work. In the frame "onboarding automation platform", Storkflow is compared with the big suite — and it's the small one with fewer features. Its true facts count against it. In the frame "client-intake software for small Dutch and Flemish practices", the comparison becomes email-and-Excel — and suddenly Storkflow's true facts are benefits: set up in one afternoon on a self-serve trial, support in Dutch, €89 a month. Nothing about the product changed between those two paragraphs. Only the filing did.
Notice also which enemy the frame picks. Storkflow's real rival is the spreadsheet, not the suite. That's where 41 trial starts a month are coming from, and it's the fight Storkflow can win.
Every claim traces back to Module 2
One discipline separates positioning from wishful thinking: evidence linkage. It's easy — pleasant, even — to write your competitor's weaknesses from hope. "Their support is probably slow." "People must find it complicated." Comfortable fiction, and the market corrects it expensively.
So today's exercise carries the same source tags as your ICP. What attracts people to each alternative, and where it genuinely fails, each get a tag: interview, review mining, survey, own data — or assumption, which is allowed but stays visible. Breakage complaints in marketplace reviews are evidence. "IKEA is soulless" is an opinion until a customer says it. If every weakness you list is tagged assumption, you are not ready to position yet; you're guessing, and your Module 2 swipe file almost certainly knows better. Reopen it.
Frames are chosen, not invented
Two guardrails before you start. First, positioning is a choice among honest options: the same business can truthfully occupy different frames, and you're choosing the battlefield where your true strengths win — not inventing strengths. A frame you can't back up isn't positioning; it's a claim waiting to be found out.
Second, run the "so what" test on every strength: it counts only if your beachhead segment cares. "Family-run since 1987" moves a trust-led local service; it does nothing for software uptime. "Fires at 1240°C" matters to a potter, not to a nervous wedding guest.
Today you list the frames you could honestly claim. In the next lesson, the exclusivity test decides between them.
Do
Exercise 3.1.1 — Alternatives and candidate frames
List the 2–4 alternatives your ideal customer genuinely weighs — including doing nothing or the DIY workaround — and be honest about why each attracts them. Then name the frame a stranger would file you under today, and the frames you could honestly claim instead.
Write these down — in your plan document, or on the worksheet at the end of this lesson. Tag every claim with its source: interview · review mining · survey · own data · assumption.
| What to write | Guidance |
|---|---|
| The alternatives — two to four | Start from your ICP's alternatives line. For each, note its type: direct competitor · DIY/workaround · do nothing · different category. At least one row must be DIY/workaround or do nothing — the non-purchase option is usually your biggest rival |
| Why each one attracts them | What is genuinely good about it, in the customer's eyes — no straw men. Tag the source |
| Where each one really fails | Its real weakness — from evidence, not hope. Tag the source |
| Your current frame | One line: what category would a stranger file you under after five seconds on your site? Be honest, not aspirational |
| One to three candidate frames | Honest category slots only — you'll choose one in the next lesson. For each: inside this frame, which of your true strengths become benefits? |
Keep your ICP's alternatives and watering-holes lines open beside you — the exercise is a conversation with them. Aim for at least half your tags to be something other than assumption, and if every "where it fails" is tagged assumption, you are guessing your competitors' weaknesses; your Module 2 swipe file probably knows better.
Where this goes: section 4.1 — Competitive landscape — of your Marketing Plan. Your candidate frames are the options you'll choose between in M3.L2.
Check
Quiz
Four questions. Pick an answer to see whether you were right.
1. For Herzog Physio, which is a competitive alternative that is NOT a competitor?
- a) The other physio clinic across town
- b) A chiropractor
- c) "Wait for the pain to pass, with a foam roller and ibuprofen" ✔
- d) A hospital physiotherapy department
Why: an alternative is whatever the customer would actually do instead — and for back pain the commonest choice is waiting it out. A clinic that only positions against clinics never addresses the rival that takes most of its market.
2. Why does the frame of reference matter?
- a) It's required for trademark registration
- b) It sets who you're compared with, what feels expensive, and which of your strengths count ✔
- c) Google ranks businesses by category
- d) It only matters for large brands
Why: the same €34 plate is overpriced tableware or a well-priced wedding gift. Facts don't change with the frame — their meaning does.
3. Lena drafts positioning against the big international onboarding suite. Her evidence says new trials come from firms currently running onboarding in email and Excel. What's wrong?
- a) Nothing — you should always position against the largest player
- b) She's answering a comparison her buyers aren't making — the real alternative is the spreadsheet ✔
- c) Suites can't be alternatives because they're too expensive
- d) She should wait until Storkflow has more features
Why: position against what the customer would actually do without you. Beating the suite in an argument nobody is having wins nothing; beating email-and-Excel wins 41 trials a month.
4. Ostara's €34 plate reads as "expensive" next to chain-store tableware and "well within budget" as a wedding gift. What does this show?
- a) The plates are overpriced and should be discounted
- b) Gift-buyers don't pay attention to price
- c) The frame of reference determines what counts as a benefit or a defect — the facts stay the same, their meaning doesn't ✔
- d) Handmade products shouldn't be compared with anything
Why: this is the central mechanism of positioning. Choose the frame, and you choose which of your true attributes work for you rather than against you.
Advance
You now know what you're really up against — including the spreadsheet and the shrug — and you know it from evidence, not folklore. You also hold two or three honest frames you could claim.
Next: M3.L2 — Differentiation and the positioning statement. You choose the frame and compose the one internal sentence that every future headline, page and ad must agree with. It's the first third of the Module 3 Project: positioning statement, value proposition, offer.
Mark your own work
| Good | Not yet | |
|---|---|---|
| Alternatives are real | What the customer would actually do, including a non-purchase option | A list of companies you resent |
| Attractions are honest | Each alternative's genuine appeal, stated fairly | Straw men you can knock down |
| Weaknesses are evidenced | where_it_fails carries non-assumption tags where it matters |
Competitor flaws written from hope |
| Frames are honest | Categories you could truthfully occupy, where true strengths win | A frame you'd have to grow into first |
| Traceable to Module 2 | Rows visibly descend from your ICP's alternatives line | The ICP never entered the room |
Worksheet
THE SCHOOL OF NET MARKETING
Lesson 3.1 — Positioning: the context that makes value obvious
STEP 1 — THE ALTERNATIVES (2–4, incl. one non-purchase)
Tag every claim: I interview · R review mining · S survey
O own data · A assumption
1 Alternative: ________________________________
☐ competitor ☐ DIY/workaround ☐ do nothing ☐ other category
Why it attracts them: _______________________ tag ___
Where it really fails: ______________________ tag ___
2 Alternative: ________________________________
☐ competitor ☐ DIY/workaround ☐ do nothing ☐ other category
Why it attracts them: _______________________ tag ___
Where it really fails: ______________________ tag ___
3 Alternative: ________________________________
☐ competitor ☐ DIY/workaround ☐ do nothing ☐ other category
Why it attracts them: _______________________ tag ___
Where it really fails: ______________________ tag ___
No non-purchase row? Look again — doing nothing
is usually the biggest rival on the list.
STEP 2 — THE FRAMES
Where a stranger files us today:
_______________________________________________
Frames we could honestly claim:
1 _____________________________________________
In this frame, our true strengths that count:
_____________________________________________
2 _____________________________________________
In this frame, our true strengths that count:
_____________________________________________
SELF-CHECK
☐ Alternatives from my ICP, not from resentment
☐ One row is doing nothing / DIY
☐ Attractions stated fairly, no straw men
☐ Weaknesses tagged — hope is not a source
☐ Each candidate frame is honestly claimable
Next: Lesson 3.2 — Differentiation and the positioning statement.
theschoolofnetmarketing.com/learn/differentiation-and-the-positioning-statement