Mastering Positioning: The Key to Outsized Impact in B2B Marketing

Did you know 8 out of 10 buyers have already decided on their shortlist of vendors before they even start Googling? (Source: Bain)

Let that sink in for a second. In today’s B2B world, being the best at what you do isn’t enough. It’s about being seen as the best—before the buyer even starts their search. That’s why positioning is everything.

Positioning isn’t just a marketing buzzword or a fluffy concept. It’s your unfair advantage in a noisy, crowded market. It’s the reason brands like Salesforce dominate despite fierce competition. It’s the secret sauce that allows small teams with limited budgets to outshine the big players.

Mastering positioning could be the game-changer that sets your B2B go-to-market apart. We’ll break down exactly what positioning is, why it matters, and how to execute it with precision. Today we aren’t just sharing theory. We’re giving you actionable advice with real-world examples, and of course some handy frameworks to execute it yourself!

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Why Positioning is Critical in B2B Demand Generation

So as we said at the outset, 8 out of 10 buyers already have a shortlist of vendors before they even hit Google. Let that sink in. By the time most buyers are searching for solutions, they’ve already decided who they trust to solve their problem. So, if you’re not on that list, you’ve lost the game before it even starts.

Here’s the kicker: being the best doesn’t always mean you’ll make the cut. Buyers don’t always choose the best product—they choose the safest one. There’s an old saying in B2B that “Nobody got fired for buying IBM”. This highlights the idea that making a “safe” choice in business—one backed by a reputable, established company—protects decision-makers from potential criticism or blame if something goes wrong. It’s a nod to IBM’s dominance in the tech industry during its peak and how its strong market reputation made it a default, risk-averse option for buyers.

It’s about trust. Buyers go with the brand that feels like a sure thing, even if there are better options on paper.

Take Salesforce, for example.

Why? Because their positioning as the market leader keeps them front of mind. They’re the “safe choice,” and when you’re in a crowded space, that’s often what wins.

For smaller B2B teams, the path to competing with these giants isn’t by outspending them. It’s by finding and owning a niche. You need to carve up a smaller segment of the market that they’re not focused on and dominate it with your limited time, budget, and resources. We’ll share examples of how to do this shortly in this article.

So then positioning becomes about more than just marketing; it’s about building trust. Buyers know they’re taking a risk when they don’t go with the incumbent market leader. Positioning bridges that gap. It helps you earn a place on their shortlist and gives them confidence in choosing you.

The bottom line? Your positioning isn’t just a part of your strategy—it’s the foundation. You need to nail it.

The Role of Positioning in Competitive Markets

Let’s face it: some markets are so crowded they feel impossible to break into. Take the CRM market, for example. There’s roughly about 1,700 CRMs available. That’s a staggering amount of competition, yet some brands thrive while others struggle to survive. Why? Positioning is a big factor.

The big players—Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive—don’t just compete on features. They own their lanes. Generally speaking, the enterprise market is dominated by the likes of Salesforce, the mid-market by Hubspot, and the entry level by newer players like Notion and Monday.com. Each of these companies has carved out a distinct segment of the market based on who they serve best.

Let’s look at Pipedrive. They’ve zeroed in on sales-led organizations. Their tagline says it all: “The first CRM designed by salespeople, for salespeople”. When you land on their homepage, they speak directly to sales teams, addressing their pain points like lead nurturing and pipeline management. That’s positioning in action—it’s clear, specific, and speaks the language of their ideal customer.

This isn’t just about clever branding. It’s about tailoring your business to the unique needs of a segment.

In competitive markets, positioning is your differentiator. It’s what ensures your ideal customer knows you’re not just another player—you’re the perfect fit for their unique needs.

The Big Fish, Small Pond Approach

When it comes to positioning, trying to be everything to everyone is a fast track to being no one to anyone. That’s why the Big Fish, Small Pond strategy is a game-changer for most businesses. Instead of spreading yourself thin across a massive market, you zero in on a smaller, targeted segment and dominate it. For most businesses, the big fish, small pond method works very nicely because it allows you to allocate your limited resources in a market that gives you an outsized impact.

The trick here is finding the right-sized pond. It has to be big enough to make an impact but small enough to own. This means you need to find your minimum viable market to target. It can’t be too small that it won’t serve your business goals. But it also can’t be too big. Otherwise, you forego the advantage that positioning gives you.

A key to this approach is making sure that the way you position your company should be genuinely defensible, and something that runs throughout the DNA of the company. Your positioning cannot just be ‘after-thoughts’ to say that you serve a particular market. It should have features and benefits that are a unique advantage to that segment.

Take Pipedrive as an example. Their focus on sales-led organizations makes them the perfect tool for that audience. They didn’t try to compete head-on with enterprise-focused CRMs like Salesforce. Instead, they tailored their product, messaging, and positioning to resonate with their niche. And it worked.

Here’s the best part about this approach: it’s scalable. Once you’ve dominated one segment, you can expand into adjacent ones.

By focusing your resources on a small, specific market, you gain clarity and momentum. Instead of fighting on every front, you position yourself as the go-to solution in your chosen pond. That’s how you win big, no matter your size.

Practical Steps to Define Your Positioning

Positioning isn’t something you guess at—it’s something you define with precision. If you’re serious about owning your space in the market, you need a practical framework to get it right. Here’s how we approach it.

1. Step one is simple but powerful: go back to your 80/20 analysis to find your best customers. This analysis identifies the 20% of your customers driving 80% of your revenue. These are your dream customers, and understanding who they are is where everything starts.
   
2. Next, talk to them. Conduct customer interviews to find out what that group of best customers love most about your product. Why did they choose it over the competition? Why was it an easy sell? These conversations are goldmines for uncovering what truly resonates with your audience.
   
3. Once you’ve gathered that intel, it’s time for step three: map it out. List all the key features and benefits mentioned by those customers, and score yourself in how well you execute those relative to the competition. This step isn’t just about understanding your strengths—it’s about recognizing how those strengths stack up in the eyes of your customers.
   
4. Step four is where you write your positioning statement, combining who you exist to serve, and what outcomes you provide for them.

An example template for this is:

For [specific niche], [product] is the only [category] that delivers [specific benefit].

Pipedrive Example: For Sales-led teams, Pipedrive is the only CRM built for sales teams that simplifies pipeline management and helps you close more deals efficiently.

5. Finally, test it. The best way to test? Put your positioning back to your best customers, and ask if it resonates with them. Feedback is critical—there’s no point in rolling out positioning if it doesn’t reflect how your audience sees you. Iteration is your friend.

When you approach positioning with a structured framework, you take the guesswork out of it. These steps not only help you define your place in the market but also ensure it’s one your dream customers will value—and remember.

Positioning Lessons from The B2B Incubator

When we set out to refine our positioning for our Demand Gen Course, The B2B Incubator, we knew it wasn’t about guessing who we wanted to serve—it was about deeply understanding who truly needed what we had to offer. That’s why we started with an 80/20 analysis. As Kev explained,

But knowing who you want to target isn’t enough. You have to get inside their heads. So, we spoke to over 50 B2B marketers to figure out what they loved most about working with us—and what they didn’t. This feedback gave us the clarity we needed to sharpen our positioning and tailor our program to their specific needs.

One thing became crystal clear: our sweet spot was small teams with big ambitions. These were marketers who didn’t have unlimited resources but still needed to deliver outsized results—and our framework gave them the tools to do just that.

Of course, the real test of positioning is whether it resonates with your audience. So we tested our positioning by sending that out to our best customers to make sure that it resonated with them. Their feedback confirmed we were on the right track, ensuring our program was built around what they truly needed, not just what we thought they needed.

Finally, we learned that positioning isn’t just a marketing exercise, it’s a business-wide initiative.

From marketing and sales to onboarding and post-sale support, our entire team aligned on serving these marketers better than anyone else could.

This is how we built a program that not only meets our ICPs needs, but exceeds them. This in turn leads to positive testimonials, case studies, referrals, and drives the whole business forward.

Good positioning goes way beyond marketing!

The Organizational Importance of Positioning

It should become clear that positioning isn’t just a catchy one-liner for your website. It’s the foundation of how your business operates. Without alignment across your entire organization, even the best positioning strategy will fall flat.

When your teams aren’t on the same page about who you serve and how you serve them, it creates confusion. Marketing might attract the right customers, but if sales and customer success don’t align with that vision, those customers quickly lose faith. Everyone should be aligned to who you are serving, to the exclusion of others. Consistency is key, not just for landing customers but for keeping them.

A great example of this came from a positioning agency called FletchPMM, headed up by the very clever Anthony Pierri. Check out their image below showing how positioning goes into everything you do on the marketing, sales and customer success side. Your positioning should guide how every department interacts with customers, ensuring a seamless experience at every touchpoint.

Leadership buy-in is also critical. Often, leaders worry that narrowing your focus means ignoring too much of the market. But here’s the truth:

Positioning is a scalable strategy—it helps you dominate one segment first, and then expand when the time is right.

At the end of the day, positioning isn’t just a marketing exercise—it’s the thread that ties your entire organization together. When everyone is aligned, from leadership to post-sale teams, you don’t just attract customers; you build trust and loyalty that lasts. That’s how you win, not just today, but for the long haul.

Overcoming Leadership Resistance to Positioning

When it comes to convincing leadership that the business needs to reposition itself, the key is to show leadership that positioning isn’t about exclusion—it’s about focus. Start with a niche you can dominate and build from there. April Dunford has some great exercises in her book Obviously Awesome to work through as a team.

It’s also worth noting the other advantages to positioning.

• It makes your go-to-market more efficient, because you can allocate time and budget where your resources will have the most impact
• It’s a competitive advantage because you avoid going head-to-head with the incumbents, and you carve out a space where you can win

You then reinvest the fruits from this labour into chewing off the next segment of the market.

When leadership sees positioning as a phased growth strategy rather than a limiting one, it’s easier to get buy-in and ensure consistent execution across the organization.

Your Positioning Playbook: Focus, Align, and Dominate

Positioning isn’t just a marketing tactic, it’s the foundation of your business’s success. When done right, it helps you stand out in crowded markets, build trust with your audience, and align your entire organization toward serving your ideal customer. But it’s not something you can afford to wing.

Here’s your playbook to get started:

1. Focus: Use tools like the 80/20 analysis to identify your best customers and niche down to dominate your space.
2. Align: Ensure that positioning isn’t just a marketing effort—it should flow through sales, customer success, and leadership. Consistency is key.
3. Test and Adapt: Engage with your best customers to validate your positioning, and don’t be afraid to refine it based on feedback.

Remember, you don’t need to conquer the entire market to succeed. Start by becoming the best in a small pond, and as you gain momentum, scale to the next segment. Leadership, teams, and resources will align when the vision is clear, and that’s when the real magic happens.

If you need help putting your positioning strategy together, we cover this in-depth in our 12 week B2B Demand Generation Course, The B2B Incubator. Check it out here.