2022 Year-End Review: Top 3 Trends in Product and Service Positioning
by Ellie Victor, CEO
2022 concludes our 24th year in business! At the end of every year, we like to stand back and assess what we learned.
This year, three trends bubbled to the top across a range of B2B, B2B2C, and B2C clients. From analytics automation to cloud platforms, CX orchestration to equity management and smart data capture to customer communications, strong positioning accelerated launches, simplified marketing, and shortened the sales cycle.
Every step of the way, we love learning the (sometimes subtle and not-so-subtle) ways words matter.
Trend One: Positioning leaders stopped being constrained by the “experts” and defined their hill.
“I don’t look at Gartner. I look at companies that use them, use cases and things of that nature.”
In her poem, Wind-Wafted Wildflowers, Muriel Strode writes, “I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail.” More than ever, our clients choose to define their hill rather than forcing their positioning into analyst-defined categories.
“Analytics Automation Platform sounds robust and interesting, and something that I would spend money on as either a layer above or a replacement for some of the other tools. The idea of having a uniform platform is compelling.”
In 2022, not a single client relied on an analyst-defined category. Instead, they decided to create their category – which is both risky and powerful. Choosing autonomy helped these leaders break free of conventional constraints, allowing innovation to free reign.
CEOs and CMOs sought to blaze their path for three critical reasons:
Creating and potentially owning a category naturally fits many technology solutions better, giving creators the power to highlight differentiation and define the future outside a generic wave or quadrant.
Buyers know analysts “pay to play,” The lag accompanying this approach slows adoption and delays sales.
Technology buyers trust peer references, reviews, and proof of concept; this is true in both B2C and B2B.
Trend Two: Buzzwords and Marketing Hype Were Expunged
“I’ve got way too much on my plate to be sitting here reading buzzwords and a bunch of extra fluff. I got bored with the words halfway through.”
A typical day at ZOOM means talking with executives and practitioners at leading brands like Apple, Amazon, FedEx, JPMorgan Chase, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Pfizer, and Walmart. We learn what technology they’re buying, what problems they're solving, and how different marketing messages resonate with them.
We heard two themes loud and clear.
“That’s marketing BS buzzword bingo, it doesn’t tell me anything.”
First, use plain English, not buzzwords. This was a massive trend in the late 90s as legalese infiltrated the online community and consumer purchasing. Simplified communications were heralded - and even legislated - to protect consumers (aka end-users) from drowning in legal parsing.
That trend has returned with a vengeance, but it is wisely focused on marketing this time. Our clients have learned that customers and prospects ignore anything that sounds like a marketing promise that is too good to be true. Absolutes like “best,” “trusted,” “fastest,” and “easiest” are instant turnoffs.
Second, authentic communication establishes and maintains your relationships with your customers. It’s safe to assume prospects may distrust marketing messages because customers are accustomed to being let down by hype. Instead of making promises, give concrete and tangible examples of how you stand out.
In the best circumstances, buyers feel distrustful; at worst, they feel insulted. Buzzwords like “cloud,” “customer-centric,” and “actionable insights” are overused and easy to ignore. Instead, focus on genuine, beneficial, demonstrable, and differentiated. Authenticity is essential.
Trend Three: Investments in areas that improve customer relationships delivered results.
At ZOOM Marketing, we look for ideas that generate energy from customers and prospects to inform our recommendations. Recently, several of our clients have been increasing customer satisfaction and retention by delivering outstanding support and community. Focusing on the customer relationship gave our clients more room to take risks.
Salesforce found that if a company’s customer service is excellent, 78% of consumers will do business with them again after a mistake. But that’s just the beginning. Bain and Company found that increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by between 25% and 95%. This research confirms that making the right investments in customer relationships has significant benefits.
In the weeks ahead, we’ll dig into these trends and take a closer look – with examples – that we hope will encourage you to take more risks and break free of the marketing constraints holding you back.