Most product teams cannot clearly explain what makes their product different. Sales conversations require too much explanation. Marketing messages fail to resonate. Executives, product managers, and sales directors describe the value proposition differently when asked.
The root cause is unclear positioning.
Geoffrey Moore’s positioning statement template from “Crossing the Chasm” solves this problem by forcing you to make explicit choices about who you serve, what problem you solve, and why customers should choose you. Product managers and marketing leaders use this template to align internal teams around a single strategic narrative before creating sales materials or product roadmaps.
What Is Moore’s Positioning Statement Template?
Moore’s positioning statement template requires you to complete six distinct components in a single statement:
For [target customer]
who [statement of need or opportunity],
the [product name] is a [product category]
that [key benefit, compelling reason to buy].
Unlike [primary competitive alternative],
our product [statement of primary differentiation].
This template functions as an internal alignment tool rather than customer-facing marketing copy. Teams use it to make strategic positioning explicit before creating sales materials or product roadmaps.
Why Product Teams Use Positioning Statements
The positioning statement works because it forces specific choices. You cannot complete the template without deciding who you serve, what problem you solve, and why customers should choose your solution over alternatives.
Target Customer
This component requires specificity about your buyer. You need a concrete description of the person making the buying decision and their motivations. Early-stage companies often discover their actual customer differs from their initial assumption after testing positioning with real buyers.
Statement of Need
This section identifies the specific problem or opportunity your product addresses. Strong positioning anchors your product to real market conditions rather than features your team finds interesting. The need should reflect what customers already recognize as a problem worth solving.
Product Category
This component defines what market you compete in. Choose a category customers already understand so your sales and marketing teams can quickly establish context. Established categories give buyers a frame of reference for evaluation. Creating an entirely new category requires educating the market about why the category exists before you can explain why you’re the best choice within that category.
Key Benefit
State the primary value proposition in terms of outcomes, not features. “Teams resolve issues in hours vs. days because everyone works from the same information” describes a benefit. “Our product has real-time collaboration” describes a feature. The discipline of choosing one primary benefit forces clarity about what matters most to customers.
Primary Competitive Alternative
Your competition extends beyond direct competitors. Customers might currently use manual processes, spreadsheets, or choose to do nothing. Understanding what buyers use today reveals the real barriers to adoption and helps you position against the actual status quo.
Primary Differentiation
This explains specifically why your approach delivers better results than the alternative. Weak differentiation uses vague claims like “better user experience.” Strong differentiation points to measurable advantages tied to the key benefit.
Understanding these six components is straightforward. Applying them correctly is where most teams struggle.
Common Positioning Statement Mistakes
Most teams struggle with this exercise because it reveals unclear thinking about product strategy.
Being too broad with the target customer. Generic descriptions like “mid-market companies” or “technical professionals” provide no useful direction for product development or marketing decisions. You need to identify the specific role and decision-making authority. “Parents of toddlers who struggle with consistent bedtime routines” gives your team something concrete to build for.
Confusing features with benefits. Feature lists describe what your product has. Benefits describe what customers achieve. ‘Our app has a customizable sleep timer’ describes a feature. ‘Parents get their toddler to bed in 15 minutes instead of an hour because the app creates a predictable routine’ describes a benefit. The positioning statement demands benefits that matter to your target customer.
Avoiding the competitive alternative. Some teams claim they have no competition. This signals incomplete market understanding. Every customer has a current way of handling the problem, even if that method is imperfect.
Listing multiple benefits or differentiators. If you identify three key benefits, you have no key benefit. The template forces prioritization. That constraint produces clarity.
How to Apply Your Positioning Statement
Create your positioning statement before writing marketing materials, building sales decks, or planning product features. The statement serves as a filter for decision-making.
When evaluating a new feature, ask whether it strengthens your primary differentiation. When reviewing customer-facing messaging, check if it translates your key benefit into language customers understand. When considering new market opportunities, assess if they match your defined customer.
The exercise also surfaces alignment problems within your team. If your CEO, product lead, and sales director produce three different positioning statements, you have strategic disagreements that will undermine every product, marketing, and sales decision.
Positioning Statement Examples
Example positioning statement for Sleepy Time (hypothetical product):
For parents of toddlers
who struggle with consistent bedtime routines,
the Sleepy Time is a bedtime app
that gets toddlers to sleep in 15 minutes instead of an hour.
Unlike reading different books each night,
our product uses the same story structure and sleep cues to create the predictability toddlers need to wind down.
Example positioning statement for an Analytica platform (hypothetical product):
For marketing directors
who cannot demonstrate ROI on campaign spending,
the Analytica is a marketing analytics platform
that connects ad spend directly to revenue within hours.
Unlike Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics,
our product integrates with CRM systems to track the complete customer journey from first click to closed deal.
These examples demonstrate specificity in customer definition, clear problem articulation, concrete benefits, and focused differentiation.
When to Revise Your Positioning Statement
Positioning statements change as your product and market evolve and your understanding of who you serve and how you create value for them.
Positioning statements evolve as you learn more about your market. Initial positioning reflects your hypotheses. After customers validate or disprove those assumptions, you revise. Established products may refine positioning when entering new markets or responding to competitive pressure.
Monitor these signals that indicate positioning needs revision:
- Sales conversations require extensive explanation of what your product does
- Customers consistently misunderstand your product category
- Win/loss analysis reveals you’re losing to unexpected alternatives
- Multiple stakeholders describe your value proposition differently
When you spot multiple signals simultaneously, prioritize based on revenue impact. If customers misunderstand your category but you’re still winning deals, that’s less urgent than stakeholders describing different value propositions during sales calls.
How to Create Your First Positioning Statement
Gather your core team. This typically includes product, sales, and marketing, but adjust based on who makes strategic decisions in your organization. Set a time limit to prevent overthinking. The goal is capturing current assumptions, not crafting perfect language.
Compare the results. The differences reveal where assumptions diverge and where you need deeper strategic conversations. If your CEO identifies enterprise buyers while your product lead describes startup founders, you have a fundamental alignment problem that will undermine every subsequent decision.
For components where the team disagrees, validate with your target market. Talk to people who match your target customer profile. Present your positioning elements in conversational language: describe the target customer, the problem, and potential benefits. Ask which benefits would matter most in their decision and what alternatives they currently use. Their reactions reveal both where your team should focus and whether your positioning matches how the market thinks about the problem and solution space.
Expect to iterate multiple times based on this feedback before your positioning statement accurately reflects customer reality.
Conclusion
Moore’s positioning statement template has endured for decades because it transforms vague ideas about product positioning into specific statements that guide decisions. The hard part is not filling in the template. The hard part is doing the research and making the strategic choices the template demands.
The positioning statement forces you to answer questions most teams avoid: Who specifically are we serving? What problem matters enough that they’ll pay to solve it? Why should they choose us instead of doing nothing? These questions have clear answers only when you understand your market and can make explicit strategic choices about where to compete.
Related Product Strategy Frameworks
Positioning statements work best alongside complementary frameworks for understanding customers and defining value. The Value Proposition Canvas helps you map how your products create value by analyzing customer jobs, pains, and gains. Customer personas provide the behavioral context and specific scenarios that make your target customer definition concrete. The Jobs to Be Done framework reveals why customers hire products and what progress they seek, informing both your statement of need and competitive alternatives.
For teams building product management capabilities across multiple frameworks including positioning, customer research, and strategic planning, the Building Innovative Products Workshop provides hands-on practice with these tools in an integrated learning environment.