Strategic Communication: How to Develop Strategic Messaging and Positioning

This article covers the essentials of strategic communication. The goal is to explain why it is critical that companies understand strategic messaging and positioning. In addition, we will discuss some practical and actionable approaches to help you design strategic messaging and product positioning.

Classic marketing concepts and strategies that often get forgotten and seem impractical today are very relevant when it comes to tech companies and software products. It’s a totally different world now, but the basic principles of positioning and marketing apply to software companies today just as much as they did 50 years ago to companies selling things such as bars of soap. As the number of products in every SaaS category continues to grow ever more rapidly, positioning and strategic messaging are becoming more important than ever before.

What exactly is strategic communication, strategic messaging, and positioning? With so many related buzzwords, it’s often not clear how each specific term is used, how it is defined, and what it stands for. The terms ‘strategic communication’ and ‘strategic messaging’ are used interchangeably throughout this article. Feel free to use the term you identify with most.

Chapters

• Why care about strategic messaging and positioning
• Is your messaging effective?
• What is strategic messaging?
• What is positioning?
• How to design strategic messaging
• How to implement new messaging in organizations
• Summary