E90: What marketers should know about positioning with April Dunford

We have the brilliant & talented April Dunford on the podcast today. She’s a much sought-out international speaker on the topics of Positioning, Market Strategy and New Product Introduction. April is a positioning consultant. 7 successful technology startups and 3 global tech giants, over 16 products and more. She knows how to make magic happen & she’s sharing these secrets in her new book called ‘Obviously Awesome - how to nail product position, so customers get it, buy it and love it!”

 

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Episode Overview:

This episode is really for everyone. We all need to learn how to position products, services and ourselves!  April has launched a book called ‘OBVIOUSLY AWESOME’

April and I get down deep to talk about:

The inspiration for the book The real value behind positioning - Positioning is the strategic underpinning of everything we do in sales and marketing and yet it is very misunderstood and rarely done well What positioning is & What positioning is NOT If you thought branding and messaging, you weren’t alone. I thought that too until...this book The pitfalls of Pitch competitions How writing a book is so hard. We both have definitely underestimated the amount of work, in creating it.   And so much more

I’ll do a separate Q&A for anyone that joins my Book Launch team, for Connect the Dots, turning strangers into meaningful network relationships. For those that want the behind the scenes - the good/bad & the ugly.

 

April's Book:  Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It 

 

What makes this a Canadian Innovation or Innovative thinking?

 

April spent 25 years as an executive at a series of successful Canadian startups, 6 of which were acquired by larger U.S. companies so she also was an executive at IBM, Siebel Systems, Sybase, etc. Across my career I launched 16 products into market. I have always been fascinated by what makes some products very successful while others, even some that had clearly better technology, failed. 

 

The past few years I've transitioned to doing consulting work and my focus is specifically on Positioning. Positioning is the strategic underpinning of everything we do in sales and marketing and yet it is very misunderstood and rarely done well. I've developed a methodology for doing Positioning that I've validated with dozens of tech companies and I've just released a book that will help any company do it for themselves.

 

 

Connect with April:

 

Website: AprilDunford.com

Twitter: @Aprildunford

LinkedIn: April Dunford