Competitive Positioning Strategies

Do you know your unique selling point or your customer’s reason to buy? You should. Knowing how you compare to the competition and stand out is essential for strong positioning. Positioning is essential for every product and service for which the customers have an alternative. It means identifying which valuable characteristics your offerings have compared to the main alternatives. Without positioning, customers have no reason to buy from you. After all, if you don’t stand out positively in any way, why would they buy from you? There are many approaches to positioning, Michael Porter’s Five Forces Framework and Generic Strategies being the most famous of them. While Porter’s approach helps finding out WHAT your positioning could or should be, there is little information as to HOW to do it. This is where April Dunford’s approach to positioning comes in. In her book, “Obviously Awesome” she lays out a practical, five-plus-one-component approach to positioning. The components are: 1. Competitive Alternatives If you didn’t exist, what would customers use? 2. Unique Attributes What features/attributes do you have that alternatives do not? 3. Value What value do the attributes enable for customers? 4. Customers that Care Who cares a lot about that value? 5. Market you Win What context makes the value obvious to your target segments? 6. Relevant Trends (Bonus)  What trends make your product relevant right now? There’s a couple of things I like about Dunford’s approach: 👉 It doesn’t start with thoroughly analyzing the customer’s needs and not even start with the product or market. 👉 It starts with how customers currently fulfill their needs. Whatever the problem, customers have some solution right now (otherwise the problem wouldn’t be a problem they would need a solution for…). 👉 It only moves to the product or service category in component 5. This means that picking what you call the product or service comes after establishing its unique and value-adding attributes. 👉 It helps bringing in current trends at the right place. Not at the start, which would merely lead to chasing hypes, but as a way to enhance the product or service’s relevance for the customer right now. While seemingly simple, this makes it one of the more intelligent approaches to positioning out there. Time to look at your positioning. Do you use all six components, and do you use them in the right order and way? #targetaudience #marketingdevelopment #productdevelopment

Most copy fails because of the lack of positioning. (Here's why & what you can do about it →) I have worked with 50+ founders across different niches. From fintech to healthcare and AI. But one thing remains constant. I often see that startups try to juggle too many messages, features, taglines, audience segments and USPs. They spend money on ads and thousands on marketing, wondering why there's no conversion. The problem? A lack of strategic narrative. 🚫 Messy positioning looks like: • Saying too much, and standing for nothing • Messaging changes every quarter • Website copy full of fluff, not clarity • Customers can’t explain what you do ✅ Strategic positioning hits different: • Your core message is sharp and simple • Every word reinforces your edge • Customers “get it” instantly • Your team sounds aligned (because they are) Here's how I'd suggest you get started: 1. Agitate the Problem Start with the pain. Position around what’s broken—not just what your product does. 2. Research Extensively Understand the market. Find your distinct edge. Why you, and not the next tab? 3. Clarify the Who Get specific. Who exactly are you for? Know their pain, context, and current alternatives. 4. Define ONE Core Proposition Don’t sell everything to everyone. Pick a lane. Lead with one sharp, clear promise. 5. Kill Your Darlings Drop the buzzwords. Cut complexity. If it doesn’t land in seconds, it’s not working. 6. Test & Optimise Real positioning lives in the wild. Ship it, learn fast, and refine as you go. Clear positioning leads to confident copy. Copy that gets you clients. What else would you add? P.S. If you need help turning content into sales calls, DM me "positioning". I'd be happy to share how we can map this out for your business ;)

Over the last 12 months, 1000+ people have asked me how to grow on LinkedIn. The truth? I grew from 50k to 575k in 12 months & here is the exact formula: LinkedIn is becoming more competitive.  More and more creators are flooding the platform. Meaning that for 95%: - Reach is down - Follower growth is stagnant - Engagement is lower than ever before. (H/T LinkedIn Annual Report by Richard van der Blom) Be in the top 5% today.  Steal my Ultimate LinkedIn guide for growth: 1. Study the top creators  ↳ The top creators grow for a reason - they understand the platform ↳ Spend time checking out their: Topics, formats, hooks etc 2. Go broad and then niche down ↳ Reach the masses with content that’s sharable ↳ Use 20% of your posts discussing your niche 3. Put 25% of your time into creating a strong hook ↳ A strong hook = stops scroll = more likely to read your content ↳ Intrigued by a post? Ask yourself: What about this made me stop? 4. Post type that drives the most followers ↳ Don’t fight the algorithm. Use the format that convert the most 5. Ensure everything is optimised ↳ Clean profile photo, actionable banner and short yet powerful headline ↳ CTA’s on posts to “follow” and drive traffic back to profile 6. Warm Up & Nurture your posts: ↳ Before you post, spend 15 minutes engaging yesterday's post ↳ Engage new posts for 30 minutes and ask commenters questions. ↳ This can result in 30% more reach 7. Utilise your own data ↳ If a post performs well for you. Repurpose slightly and repeat. ↳ Pre-validated content performs again 95% of time 8. Always drive value ↳ Give value and people will follow ↳ Provide deeply researched resources in a digestible format ↳ Longer, in-depth posts far outperform short viral posts for follower conversion 9. The “Jab Cross” strategy ↳ Combine high virality and impressions with high-converting posts ↳ Increase the impressions on your account with light sharable content ↳ Deliver high follower conversion posts when impressions are high 10. The 30/30/30 rule for engagement ↳ 30% big creators ↳ 30% clients or customers ↳ 30% industry ↳ 10% smaller growing accounts 11. Be relentlessly consistent ↳ Post every single day. The commitment will pay off. ↳ The practice of this will make you understand the platform. Don’t complain about the algorithm.  Adapt, study and act fast. For me, LinkedIn is still one of the best places to grow organically.  You just have to know the right formula. Interested to know more?  I’m now offering consulting calls. Limited slots so grab your place now:  https://lnkd.in/e-3rnfTt ♻️ Repost this to help others in your network grow on LinkedIn  And follow Chris Donnelly for more content like this. 📌 Want a high-resolution PDF of this sheet?  Try my free newsletter Step by Step. Join 100,000+ people and subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/eVCiGdBU You'll get 30+ high-value leadership, business and personal resources.

Your customers aren’t loyal. They’re just conveniently sticking around until they find something better. That hit hard? Well... We all like to think our customers are loyal because they love our brand or our service. But the reality... is somewhat different! They’re with you because, right now, you’re the most convenient option. And that can change. In an instant... At all times keep in mind - customers have more choices than EVER BEFORE! The minute something better comes along - whether it’s a competitor offering a better product, a lower price, or just a smoother experience - they’ll be gone. No second thoughts. No looking back. So, what do you do about it? Stop relying on the assumption of "loyalty" and do these 👇🏻 1) Add Real Value: It’s not enough to just meet expectations anymore. You have to exceed them. Ask yourself, what can you do today to make your product or service truly indispensable? How can you go beyond what’s expected and deliver something that your customers can’t find anywhere else? 2) Innovate Continuously: The market doesn’t stand still, and neither should you. I am not talking about big, flashy changes... just constantly refine and improve the customer experience. Don’t wait for your competitors to catch up. 3) Engage and Connect: If you’re treating your customers like just another transaction, don’t be surprised when they leave without a second thought. Build real, meaningful relationships. Listen to their feedback. Understand their needs and show them that you genuinely care about them. 4) Deliver Consistently: One slip-up can undo years of hard work. Consistency is key. Every interaction, every touchpoint should reinforce why your customers chose you in the first place. Make sure that your service is reliable, your product is dependable, and your brand is trustworthy. Loyalty isn’t something you can assume. It’s something you have to earn every single day. If this hit home, hit ‘Follow’ for more no-nonsense insights on keeping your business ahead of the game.

Just as with may of my industry peers, we are moving from how to optimize on an existing TA strategy to how do we rethink the entire purpose of our function.  We all know more than ever that it's not about filling roles fast-  it's about strengthening organizational capability.  Talent acquisition is moving faster than ever from a fulfillment function into a strategic talent engine. The metrics that matter are changing: organizations are moving away from time-to-fill and cost-per-hire and toward actual business outcomes. Josh Bersin's latest research emphasizing talent density is THE point. In practice, that's combining efficiency with effectiveness. It's precision workforce planning — sharing data and intelligence across HR, TA, and the business to understand where talent is best deployed, not just where there's an open req. It means moving beyond filling requisitions to optimizing the health and strategic value of the entire talent pool. Here's what that looks like operationally at ServiceNow: we're designing approaches to strategically move talent across the business to where it's most needed. Not defaulting to external hiring. Not settling for misalignment. Building organizational capability by placing the right people in roles where they can have the highest impact. ServiceNow University gives people the skills foundation. And talent density compounds when you're deploying those capabilities strategically at enterprise scale - solving transformation problems for 8,800+ customers, where the impact of strategic placement ripples company-wide. That's when talent becomes genuinely valuable. The organizations that emerge transformed won't be the ones who hired the fastest. They'll be the ones who optimized for talent density and who strengthened enterprise capability by moving talent with intention. #TalentStrategy #TalentAcquisition #WorkforceStrategy #LeadershipDevelopment #FutureOfWork #ServiceNow 

Strategic planning just got an AI upgrade – and it's a game-changer. Thrilled to share my latest #Fortune column, co-authored with some of my former colleagues at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The reality: Even the best strategic planning suffers from human limitations – our biases, groupthink, and tendency to anchor future scenarios in past experience. When volatility rises, these constraints become dangerous blind spots. The breakthrough: Multi-agent AI platforms that simulate complex strategic scenarios with human-like behavioral patterns, but without human cognitive limitations. Think of it as having a boardroom full of AI agents – each playing regulators, competitors, customers, and other stakeholders – stress-testing your strategy 24/7 at a fraction of traditional costs. What we're seeing in practice: AI simulations identifying the same strategic moves as human workshops – plus new options humans missed entirely "Unknown unknowns" becoming "known unknowns" through expanded scenario modeling Strategic planning becoming more frequent, scalable, and accessible across organizations Leaders building confidence through pattern recognition across multiple simulation runs This isn't about replacing human strategic thinking. It's about augmenting it with tools that can explore a vastly wider range of futures, faster and cheaper than ever before. In an era where resilience drives outperformance, the organizations that upgrade their strategic planning capabilities first will have the advantage. Read the full piece: https://lnkd.in/eUNDT2WZ #AI #StrategicPlanning #BusinessStrategy #Leadership #GenAI #ScenarioPlanning #DigitalTransformation Leonid Zhukov, Ph.D, Maxwell Struever, Alan Iny Elton Parker David Zuluaga Martínez

The real battle in food delivery isn’t speed. It’s customer ownership. McDonald's is quietly reshaping its delivery strategy - and the numbers show why. The company is encouraging customers to order directly through its own app instead of third-party platforms such as Uber Eats and Wolt. The goal is ambitious: * 30% of all McDonald’s delivery orders to come through its own app by 2027 * Loyalty sales reached approximately US$40 billion in 2025 * Active app users increased from 150 million in 2023 to 210 million today A recent benchmark by FoodDataLab (by Doubledata) across 76,648 price points in 1,366 McDonald’s restaurants in Germany found that a Big Mac McMeal costs around 26–27% more on Uber Eats and Wolt than in the McDonald’s app. Why it matters This is no longer just a pricing strategy. It is a customer acquisition strategy. Every order placed through the McDonald’s app gives the company direct access to valuable first-party customer data, strengthens loyalty, reduces dependency on aggregators, and protects long-term margins. Third-party delivery platforms remain essential for customer reach and convenience. But once consumers have been acquired, brands increasingly want the relationship to continue on their own digital channels. The same trend is playing out across retail, grocery, and quick commerce: Own the customer, own the data, own the economics. Background Founded in 1940, McDonald’s operates more than 43,000 restaurants across over 100 countries, making it the world’s largest restaurant chain by systemwide sales. The global online food delivery market is expected to exceed US$1 trillion in gross merchandise value over the coming years. As delivery matures, competitive advantage is shifting from logistics toward customer ownership, loyalty ecosystems, and first-party data. The future of food delivery may not be decided by who delivers the fastest. It may be decided by who owns the customer relationship. #retail #fmcg #foodservice #restaurant #qsr #mcdonalds #ubereats #wolt #delivery #fooddelivery #loyalty #customerdata #firstpartydata #digitalcommerce #ecommerce #marketing #pricing #omnichannel #retailtech #consumerbehavior #innovation #sales #branding #platformeconomy #quickcommerce #germany #europe #usa #mobileapp #customerexperience

Mining companies once defined success by extraction volume. The largest operations with the biggest reserves won, as physical capacity set the pace for decades. Now the constraint has shifted. In 2026, Global Mining Review notes, leaders aren't always the biggest; they're the ones connecting geological, operational and financial data. That integration enables quick decisions on maintenance and costs. Smaller miners, unburdened by legacy systems, adopt AI faster and outpace larger rivals by avoiding technical debt. I see the same pattern outside mining as well. Manufacturing, energy, logistics. The companies still measuring success by output volume are optimizing an old metric. The ones measuring how fast trusted data reaches a decision-maker are building a different kind of advantage. Data leadership now matters more than scale. Turning raw information into operational insight beats simply having more assets, because integrated data drives better decisions than isolated reports. 🔹 Investors are evaluating digital maturity alongside project potential. Companies producing accurate, data-driven performance and ESG compliance reporting are earning greater credibility and better funding terms because transparency has become a prerequisite for capital. 🔹 People stay central, but their roles are shifting. Forward-thinking firms are investing in workforce development that blends engineering knowledge with data interpretation because the next generation of operators needs both. Predictive operations replace scheduled routines. AI spots maintenance needs, boosts energy use, and forecasts better than schedules ever could. The companies approaching AI to improve predictability rather than replace experience are finding the most durable value. The ones still measuring leadership by volume alone will keep spending more to achieve less. Every industry built on physical assets is facing the same inflection point. The question isn't whether data integration matters. It's whether your organization can move faster than the legacy systems holding it back. #Mining #EnterpriseAI #DataIntegration #AssetManagement #OperationalExcellence #AIAdoption #DigitalTransformation #Sustainability #IndustrialAI #Leadership #BusinessStrategy #COO

If you’ve done Dubai you’ve definitely seen - if not visited - an Americana restaurant without realising it. Think KFC, Pizza Hut, Hardee’s, Krispy Kreme, Baskin Robbins and more - all operated across the Middle East and North Africa by Americana Restaurants, the region’s biggest food service companies. The scale is huge. Americana runs over 2,600 restaurants in 12 countries, serving millions every week. In 2024, despite adding more than 200 new outlets, profits fell 39% to $159million as consumer boycotts of US brands spread in response to the Gaza conflict. That’s when Americana pivoted. Rather than cut jobs, they drove cost efficiencies, stayed debt-free, and doubled down on regional expansion. First-half 2025 results show: revenues up 15.6% year-on-year to $1.2billion, LFL up 12.4%, EBITDA up 17.9%, and FCF up 151%. But Americana is also shifting strategically. Chair Mohamed Alabbar is now pursuing local fast-food brands to reduce reliance on Western franchises, aiming to tap into a $33billion dining market growing at ~9% annually. And it’s not just Americana. Big US names are under pressure too. Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Starbucks and McDonald’s have seen regional sales dented by anti-US sentiment. In some markets Coke sales are down over 20%, while historic local sodas like Egypt’s Spiro Spathis have seen sales surge a whopping 300%. A powerful reminder of the importance of developing and developed markets alike. Growth will keep coming from emerging economies, but only if brand strategies fit local sentiment, politics, and culture. Americana’s story is a live case study of how to adapt fast, build resilience, win in complex markets, in a complex world. #RegionalGrowth #ConsumerTrends #BrandStrategy #FoodIndustry #MiddleEast #ConsumerProducts #Luxury #Retail #Americana #QSR FYI: Helle Valentin - Lula Mohanty

I have spent years in the highs and lows of the consumer goods industry but never seen a pricing climate quite like this. Manufacturers are getting squeezed from every direction-tariffs, skyrocketing raw material costs, and relentless supply chain disruptions. The old playbook of raising prices to cover costs? That’s dead. Why? Because consumers are feeling the pressure too. A 2024 Nielsen report makes it clear: today’s shoppers are scrutinizing every dollar they spend, and brands that aren’t strategic about pricing risk losing market share fast. Here’s what I’m seeing from top CPG brands that get it: 1️⃣ Walmart is investing heavily in AI-driven pricing models to keep costs competitive-e-commerce now makes up 18% of total revenue. 2️⃣ PepsiCo is doubling down on pack-size innovation, offering smaller, affordable options to maintain volume without excessive discounting. 3️⃣ Luxury brands are using price elasticity models, testing demand thresholds before rolling out increases-avoiding consumer pushback. 4️⃣ Supply chain resilience is non-negotiable. Companies are shifting manufacturing away from China, despite short-term cost spikes, to avoid future geopolitical risks. The smartest brands aren’t just reacting. They’re rethinking. They’re moving toward Revenue Growth Management (RGM) frameworks that help them: ✅ Optimize pricing and promotions (because blanket price hikes are a losing game) ✅ Focus on margin-smart growth, not just revenue ✅ Leverage data analytics to make smarter, faster pricing decisions Brands that don’t evolve risk eroding profitability or pricing themselves out of the market. CPG leaders who master strategic pricing, operational efficiency, and consumer-driven value creation will own the future of this industry. Are you adjusting your strategy, or just reacting to rising costs? Because in 2025, only the most adaptable brands will win. #CPG #FMCG #PricingStrategy #RevenueGrowth #ConsumerGoods