How do you test your positioning hypotheses?

1 Identify your hypotheses

The first step is to identify the key hypotheses that underlie your positioning. These are the assumptions you make about your target market, their problem, your solution, your unique value, and your competitive advantage. You can use a template like the Positioning Statement or the Value Proposition Canvas to articulate your hypotheses clearly and concisely. For example, a positioning hypothesis for a productivity app could be: "Busy professionals who struggle with managing their tasks and projects need a simple and intuitive app that helps them organize their work, prioritize their goals, and track their progress, unlike other complex and expensive apps that overwhelm them with features and integrations."

2 Choose your methods

The next step is to choose the methods you will use to test your hypotheses. You can use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, depending on your goals, resources, and stage of development. Qualitative methods are useful for exploring customer needs, motivations, preferences, and feedback. They include interviews, surveys, focus groups, user testing, and customer reviews. Quantitative methods are useful for measuring customer behavior, satisfaction, retention, and conversion. They include analytics, experiments, A/B testing, and benchmarks.

3 Design your tests

The third step is to design your tests according to your methods and hypotheses. You need to define your research questions, your sample size, your data sources, your metrics, and your success criteria. You also need to plan how you will conduct your tests, how you will analyze your data, and how you will report your findings. For example, if you want to test your hypothesis about your target market, you could design a survey with questions about their demographics, behaviors, challenges, and preferences, and distribute it to potential customers through email, social media, or online platforms.

4 Run your tests

The fourth step is to run your tests and collect your data. You need to follow your plan and execute your tests with rigor and ethics. You need to ensure that your data is reliable, valid, and representative of your target market. You also need to monitor your tests and make adjustments if necessary. For example, if you want to test your hypothesis about your unique value, you could run an A/B test with two different landing pages that highlight different aspects of your product or service, and measure the click-through rate, bounce rate, and conversion rate of each version.

5 Analyze your results

The fifth step is to analyze your results and compare them with your hypotheses. You need to use appropriate statistical tools and techniques to interpret your data and draw conclusions. You need to look for patterns, trends, outliers, and anomalies. You also need to evaluate the significance, relevance, and impact of your results. For example, if you want to test your hypothesis about your competitive advantage, you could analyze the customer reviews of your product or service and compare them with the reviews of your competitors, and identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of each offering.

6 Update your positioning

The final step is to update your positioning based on your results. You need to validate or invalidate your hypotheses, and refine or revise your positioning accordingly. You need to communicate your findings and recommendations to your team, stakeholders, and customers. You also need to implement your changes and monitor their effects. For example, if you want to update your positioning based on your results, you could create a new positioning statement or value proposition canvas that reflects your validated hypotheses, and use it to guide your marketing strategy, messaging, and campaigns.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?