How to find your ideal product category message

📩📩📩 By using 3 messages

↳ AT THE SAME TIME 🤯

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👉 What is this tactic?

Instead of choosing a single product category in your positioning message…

Use 3 variations at the same time.

And listen for signal on which one works the best.

🎙️ The core idea of this testing approach is to get into open conversations with prospects regarding your potential categories.

This will help you understand which category message works best — And WHY it works for a given segment.

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👉 When to use?

This method is useful for seed or series A startups that:

→ Don’t fit neatly into an existing category

(Are doing something truly novel)

→ are in GTM experimentation mode

(Trying to craft messaging for best-fit segments)

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👉 How to build the 3 category messages?

Using Airtable as an example.

The first 2 are easy.

Pick the top 2 categories that are the closest to your product.

↳ And add a differentiated modifier.

In the early days of Airtable, they were between a spreadsheet and a database.

So their early category messages would be:

1️⃣ A more powerful spreadsheet.

2️⃣ A database anyone could use

For the 3rd category message, the idea is to add several cross-over products to communicate what your product might do.

For Airtable, it might have looked like this:

3️⃣ “We’re a mix between Google Sheets, Zapier, and a Notion database.”

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This triple product category message mimics a conversation with a friend when they ask…

“What is Airtable?”

And in conversation you’d respond…

“It’s like a spreadsheet on steroids, but is also like an easier to use database.  Imagine if Google Sheets and Zapier and SQL had a baby”

More than likely, one of these product category messages is going to resonate the most.

🔴 So when applying this tactic, make sure you are having open conversations with prospects regarding the multiple categories.

Your customers will unlock the best category to use.

🔥 Listen for patterns and converge as you tune your positioning and GTM.