01.Messaging

Narrowing your market can actually grow it

Insight from Devon Reynolds, Growth Strategist at Demand Curve.

Most startups are reluctant to narrow their positioning.

They’re worried about turning away potential customers. So they write messaging that appeals to everyone.

The problem is that, in most cases, broad messaging doesn’t give anyone a good reason to pay attention.

Consider two headlines for a hypothetical AI product:

Option A: “Use AI to grow your business.”

Option B: “Turn more of your SaaS demo requests into paying customers.”

The first could apply to millions of businesses. But it doesn’t tell any of them much about what the product actually does.

The second speaks to a smaller group, but those people immediately understand what problem the product solves and why they might want it.

That’s the difference between reaching a large audience and being relevant to one.

A few ways to make your positioning more specific:

• Focus on a particular customer. Instead of “marketing software for businesses,” try “marketing software for independent accounting firms.”
• Focus on a particular problem. Instead of “improve your sales process,” try “stop losing qualified leads between the demo and the proposal.”
• Focus on a particular situation. Instead of “helping startups grow,” try “helping SaaS founders find their first repeatable acquisition channel.”

Here’s an exercise we do with all of our Story Systems clients.

Show your homepage headline to someone unfamiliar with your business, then ask them three questions:

1. Who is this product for?
2. What problem does it solve?
3. Why would someone choose it over the alternatives?

If they can’t answer all three clearly and quickly, your positioning needs work.

And if you’re worried about narrowing your audience too much, remember that your positioning isn’t permanent. You can start with the customers most likely to buy, establish a foothold, and expand from there.

02.Positioning

Change the axis you’re competing on

Insight from Nick Costelloe, Content Lead at Demand Curve.

One of my favorite things to do is study big, established companies.

But I don’t care much about what they’re doing now. They’re already big, and most of them grow (or fail) despite what their marketing teams do.

I care about what they did in their early days. The stuff that actually got them traction.

So let’s talk about the cycling brand Rapha. Everyone’s dunking on them right now for nine straight years of losses.

But they built a £200 million brand selling wool jerseys and... pain? And there’s an early positioning lesson in here worth learning.

Look at the photo below:

In 2004, every cycling brand was selling the same thing: speed.

Lighter, faster, tighter. Neon kit covered in sponsor logos, the same kit your favorite pro raced the Tour in.

Problem is, most riders will never be fast. (I ride bikes. I’m one of those riders.) You can buy the fastest-looking kit and still get dropped. Every new launch raised the bar and reminded you that you’d never clear it.

And all of it was, in my humble opinion, ugly.

Rapha’s founder saw that. So in July 2004, they launched with a photo exhibition in an old London brewery. It was called Kings of Pain.

This was a new angle. Riders sweating, grimacing, so wrecked they look ready to quit. Black and gray, old school, nothing like the neon riders had been sold for decades. And it made suffering look good.

The product was just as stubborn. In a sport that weighed everything in grams, Rapha’s first jersey was wool.

It shouldn’t have worked. Instead, Rapha blew up into one of the defining cycling brands of the 21st century.

What happened? They changed the axis they were competing on.

Everyone else competed on speed. Rapha made it about devotion. Did you go out in the rain? Did you keep going when it got hard? They moved the competition to something their rider was already doing and getting no credit for. How fast did you ride? → How many times did you ride last week?

Not every rider is fast, but every rider can choose to ride when it hurts. Sell speed and the jersey reminds most riders they’re slow. Sell devotion and it’s proof they showed up. And since no other brand was leaning into that, the angle was Rapha’s for the taking.

Importantly, Rapha kept the traditional “hero.” They still revered the pros. They didn’t change WHO you aspired to be. They changed WHAT about the pro you were emulating.

Positioning was one piece of it. Product design, pricing, direct distribution, and the clubhouses all reinforced each other, and the five fits still have to be dialed. The story is what tied them together.

Whatever happens to Rapha next, it’s worth appreciating what they did early to get traction.

So how do you use this? If your whole category is pointing at the same hero and claiming the same thing about them, find the part of that hero nobody’s claimed yet.

Everyone selling fast? Sell devotion.

03.Pricing

Offer a “take-back program” and charge more

Insight from Science Says, via the Journal of Marketing, written by Neal O’Grady.

You've just moved.

So you've decided to get rid of your old Poäng chair from IKEA (yes, we both know you've had one at some point) and upgrade.

You could sell it on Marketplace, but... people are so flaky it’ll take days, maybe weeks. And you’d feel bad if you just threw it out.

Then you discover that IKEA has a sell-back program, so you can ditch the old one while you’re grabbing the new one anyway.

Score. And they’ll fix it up and sell it again.

It also makes you more likely to buy that new chair from IKEA. And it raises what you’ll pay for it by 12.2%.

(Note: Apple also does this with Apple Trade-In. They either resell the device or recycle the materials to use in new devices. And they charge a lot of money.)

This works with a simpler take-back program too, where the brand responsibly disposes of your old mattress or electronics instead of buying them back.

Researchers found people were willing to pay:

• 39.1% more for a pen with a take-back program (versus a regular pen)
• 12.2% more for an IKEA circular program armchair (versus a regular armchair)
• 9.2% more for a backpack, but only when buying it for themselves, not others

They also found:

• 65.3% of people chose the more expensive shirt ($11.90 vs. $10.15) when it came with a take-back program.
• Return programs increased brand loyalty by 19.4% for a clothing brand and 13.3% for IKEA.

Takeaway: If you sell a physical product, consider offering a take-back or buy-back program. It can increase loyalty and the perceived value of your products. And with extended producer responsibility legislation gaining momentum, it’s smart to consider circularity early.