pmalliance/product-marketing-skills/positioning-map

Positioning Map

What this does

Reads the public positioning of your competitors and your own, and lays the whole field out side by side. For each player it captures the category they claim, the audience they target, the value they lead with, and the proof they lean on. Then it shows two things: where the field is crowded (claims many players are making, where you will not stand out) and which credible angles no one is currently making.

Looking at one competitor at a time hides the pattern. Seeing them together is what tells you where the room is.

Why this is a Fable-recommended job

An honest read of the field means holding many competitors' full messaging in view at once and comparing across all of it. Claude Fable 5 can take the whole set - every rival's homepage, product pages, and category language plus your own

• in a single run and compare across it, which is what surfaces both the crowding

and the openings.

If Fable is not available or the budget is spent: capture each competitor's positioning into a short standard profile one at a time, then load the profiles together for the comparison pass. The profiles are smaller than the raw pages, so the final comparison fits a smaller model.

Evidence to gather first

• Each competitor's homepage, product pages, and category or "why us" pages
• Their pricing pages, if public
• Their recent launch or announcement copy
• Analyst or review-site category language (G2, Gartner summaries)
• Your own equivalent pages

Read .agents/product-marketing-context.md first if it exists, for your current positioning and the competitor set that matters.

Process

1. Confirm the competitor set and that you want your own positioning included

(you usually do - it shows where you overlap with the field).

1. For each player, build a positioning profile: claimed category, target

audience, primary value, top three claims, proof used, and tone.

1. Lay the profiles side by side. Identify the claims and angles multiple players

share (the crowded ground).

1. Identify credible angles no player is making, and note for each whether you

could actually support it with your product and evidence - an unclaimed angle you cannot back is not an opportunity.

1. Produce the map.

Output format

• Summary - players analyzed, the crowded claims, the most promising

unclaimed angles.

• Positioning profiles - one compact profile per competitor and for you.
• Crowded ground - the claims and angles multiple players share, with who is

making each.

• Unclaimed angles - credible positions no one is taking, each with a note on

whether your product and proof can support it.

• So-what for us - where you currently sit, and the two or three directions

the map suggests are worth testing.

The evidence standard

Every profile and every claim about a competitor must cite the page or source it came from, and quote their actual language where it matters. Do not characterize a competitor's positioning from memory or assumption - only from what is on their pages. Mark an unclaimed angle as an opportunity only after checking whether you can support it; otherwise label it "open but unsupported."