# Positioning Pressure Tests

Replace anything in [brackets] with your own details.

## Test the foundation

- Here is our positioning statement: [paste]. Score it from 1 to 10 on clarity, specificity, credibility, and difference. For any score below 7, explain why and suggest a stronger version.
- If [product] disappeared tomorrow, what would our best customers use? List the realistic alternatives, including spreadsheets, agencies, in-house teams, and doing nothing. Then tell me which alternative our messaging should be written against.
- Here are our homepage headline and subhead: [paste]. Swap in our top competitor's name, [competitor]. Would it still read as true? If yes, rewrite ours until it could only describe us.

## Argue the other side

- Act as the head of marketing at [competitor]. Write the three-point argument you would use in a sales call to beat us. Then tell me which of those points our current messaging leaves unanswered.
- Act as a skeptical [buyer role] at [company type] who has been burned by a vendor like us before. Read our positioning: [paste]. Tell me what you do not believe and what proof would change your mind.
- Here are three positioning options: [paste options]. For each, describe the customer it attracts, the competitors it puts us against, the price it supports, and the biggest risk. Recommend one and explain why.

## Check the evidence

- Here are our best-fit customers and why they bought: [paste notes or win reasons]. Find the patterns. Does our current positioning match why people actually buy? Where does it drift?
- List every claim in this copy: [paste]. For each claim, mark whether we can prove it today, prove it with work, or cannot prove it. Suggest a provable replacement for each claim in the last group.
- Write the one-sentence description we want ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI answers to give when someone asks "What is [product]?" Then list five places on the web where that exact description should appear.
- Summarize our positioning as a one-page brief a new hire could read in two minutes: who it is for, what we replace, what makes us different, the proof, and the category we compete in.

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From the AI Marketing Lab: https://derekfrancis.net/lab/