What do you think we do?
Re-listening to a book called Obviously Awesome by April Dunsford. It's all about positioning and how important it is to use the right words - and not end up lumping yourself into a category that negatively impacts your go-to-market strategy.
Analogy - are we a boat? A plane? A car? Or an amphibious vehicle with wings?
Even more challenging is creating a new category of product that doesn't exist.
So my ask:
- what do you think we do?
- what existing products do you think we compete with?
- what do you think the demographic or persona is of our target user?
- can you get a sense of what our secret sauce is?
- do the graphics (in particular the overlay image at the bottom of the image) help or could we lose those and the copy would still communciate?
Thanks!
This looks like something I can’t afford lol.
Honestly - wonderful feedback. It is why positioning is so important.
If I associate this with something that folks see as cheap (or even free - like a spreadsheet) then it creates one type of reaction.
If I associate it with something expensive - like enterprise level business intelligence software - then folks will see dollar signs.
And if I claim to do the high end, expensive type of services but my price point is too low - folks will doubt the product's capabilities.
I looked two times. No idea. Then read the comments below. Interestingly, I didn't see the skateboard or the rocket until I had read the comments mentioning them. But the graph caught my eye right away. At first I thought about Crunchbase, not Quickbooks, when I saw the green logo - but that's prolly on me. I had no idea what you were doing, at all, until I saw the QB logo much later. The QB icon helps a lot to attach your message to something concrete that I can relate to.
I like how you phrase this question and how you seem honestly interested in the feedback you get. Very cool 🤘
Thanks - one of the things that I've learned over the years is that if something isn't obvious - then it is a miss. If I had given any additional context to our product or approach in the question then I wouldn't get the non-biased feedback that I need.
Given that we've been living and breathing this product for a long time now, we are so/too close to it to judge whether the way we describe it resonates with the market.
I've read that book, it influenced me a lot.
Honestly, this may not be helpful, but i didn't understand what you're offering at all. Too much jargon. That makes it hard to offer insight on positioning. That said the target audience may understand the offering. They then, would be best placed to provide the feedback you need.
Personally, I can offer help on the value proposition, copy and communication more generally - if i had more insight in what you're trying to communicate - but that's not what you asked for, so i'll leave it there.
Completely helpful.
I've had versions of this in the past that are much more simple in the positioning - like "Make bigger business decisions. Better." but those also feel really generic and don't differentiate or speak to the how (which I can tackle in my h2 line).
Also reminds me that April talks about the positioning statement and the marketing statement being two separate, but related things, so I might be mixing up my audiences and approach here.
Thanks!
Right, yes, that's a fair point, one i had forgotten to a degree, it is easy to mix things up. I think if you clarify your positioning, where you want to sit in the market first, who your target audience is etc, maybe don't try and write a positioning statement for your landing page, write it for yourself (taking the pressure off) - if that makes sense, then use that to inform your marketing/value proposition statement.
This: https://landingpagehub.net/value-proposition-statement-guide-ffw-1-5-1/
... is not about positioning so much, but if you have your positioning clear, it might help integrate those elements int a statement for your landing page.
Yep - 100% on point here. Working up some marketing copy to test instead:
Make bigger "what if" business decisions. Better.
Create financial and strategic clarity.
Ask and answer business questions - in seconds - with our visual, code-free, "what if" scenario simulation tools designed for Founders and SMBs.
Not quite right yet but working on it....
Yeah, I can see you're putting the effort in mate , but I'm really struggling to "get this" tbh. I'm obviously biased as a copywriter, but I think you could save yourself a lot of time and effort with some help.
You can book a free 30min call with me here if you're interested: https://landingpagehub.net/services/
To evaluate this, I looked at the image for a bit and then scrolled down to provide feedback. I've purposely not scrolled back up to look at the image so I could answer the questions from memory and not detailed analysis.
So, to answer your questions:
I think you provide a business simulator. I assume that's some sort of software/webapp.
I only know of one other product in this space: https://www.cesim.com/ so I assume you're a competitor of that
I assume you're targeting someone looking to get clarity on business decisions, though I don't know how many people are looking for that
No idea of the secret sauce. I don't recall anything
I remember the image being interesting though not directly tied to the problem; a guy with a rocket on his back is looking to move quickly. Someone doing a business simulator seems like someone more analytical.
Hope this helps!
Awesome - thanks - great to get your feedback. In the past, I've made the mistake of explaining the product alongside the landing page - which was biased and influenced the answers.
Much appreciated!
You build rocket back-packs for skate-boarding business travelers who like to bird-watch. 🤭
This answer wins the door prize!
My honest feedback as an interested user:
It seems like you provide an AI prediction of how business metrics and KPI’s would change if a given variable changes. Such as, increasing piece, lowering churn, changes in Burn, etc. It does this by connecting to your current accounting system, like an admin panel or QuickBooks.
I'm not familiar with other products that do this.
I think your demographics consists of new startups and companies that don't have a great grasp of their metrics, as well as start ups who are possibly about to raise or need to figure out how to become profitable.
If it has to done with predictive AI, it could potentially alert a company when one of their metrics are out of wack, or leading to failure.
I don't think the graphics help. I think you’d need a visual explained for this. Even if its animated.
Seems like an interesting concept, especially since I'm not great with numbers.
Boom.
Almost spot on - simulating "what if" business scenarios like "whatifi" hire Bill or Sue, raise prices in June, have a churn of 3% or 5%, lease an office or have the team work remote. There isn't an AI component (yet) but we're engineering towards that.
Not any other product doing this that way we are (using a decision-tree like UI) - which is half the challenge when trying to position the tech.
Demographic is correct.
It does have KPIs and metrics in it so you can see which scenarios net out well and which ones don't.
Building lots of integrations - like Quickbooks and Xero and importing from Excel - so that the source data for each scenario is constantly updating.
that's really awesome! I can definitely see something like that being used in the startup community
"do the graphics (in particular the overlay image at the bottom of the image) help or
could we lose those and the copy would still communciate?"
If you mean the icons - i think there are too many and they are totally confusing. If you removed them, you would lose nothing and gain something (a little space and less distraction).
"what do you think we do?"
"what existing products do you think we compete with?"
"what do you think the demographic or persona is of our target user?"
"can you get a sense of what our secret sauce is?"
"do the graphics (in particular the overlay image at the bottom of the image) help or could we lose those and the copy would still communciate?"
Thanks! Definitely planning a revised explainer video on the site. One of the reasons I am going through this whole branding and positioning exercise is to really zone in on a specific use case (and not pitch ourselves as a catch all tool - yet) - before we redo the video. A lot of work and don't want to be building for the wrong audience.
Good point on the imagery - been testing some other ones but can't easily post a contact sheet or carousel of images on IH. Good point about NOT drawing focus away from the explanation.
I would say it is a tool to simulate scenario and how they would affect your business ?
Not sure at all though, it feels like I am guessing.
The text is a bit vague as of what it does, I think something more practical (an exemple or a particular thing the tool does) would help.
The bottom graphic definitely helps.
An ignorant over-simplification: Monte Carlo simulation with a web interface
Thanks - am leaning towards a more user-friendly description - like this - that communicates better - instantly. Thanks for this.
Looks fancy , try make it look affordable you can have a look here criov.com
Hi Jon,
I don't know your product and I am not trying to bash on your business, I am just saying what I think based on the landing page.
Try to sell a product that's based only on buzzwords and has actually zero content. Most likely promising to give accurate estimates of some sorts that are actually as good as random.
No idea, I don't understand what the product does and "what if" actually means.
Enterprises, decision-making people in those companies
Buzzwords
I don't recognize many of the icons, so it's unclear what they represent, but it looks like a graph of sorts
Thanks - looks like I've got some work to do. Appreciate the input!
Have toyed with swapping "business intelligence" with "business analytics" as well. Do those terms feel like they mean the same thing - or do they imply a very different end product?