If your SaaS brand isn’t positioned effectively, you’re invisible.
In a saturated market where countless products solve similar problems, your competitive positioning is the only thing standing between you and being a commodity. Yet, many B2B SaaS companies struggle to differentiate themselves, which leads to stalled growth and lost deals.
Sound familiar? You’re not alone.
The key to standing out is being perceived as the only choice for your ideal customer.
In this article, we’ll cover two proven competitive positioning strategies that will help you define your unique market advantage and attract your best-fit customers.
At ves. Through these two exercises, you’ll flush out your true strengths and nail what makes your product unique.
Want expert guidance on positioning your SaaS brand? Book a free discovery call today to see how we can help you own your market.
Brand positioning shapes how your audience perceives you. The best B2B SaaS companies don’t compete on features; they own a space in the minds of their customers.
A positioning strategy is how you shape that perception. It’s the strategic decision to lean into your strengths, differentiate from competitors, and define why your product is the best choice for a specific audience.
When done right, positioning influences every aspect of your marketing—from messaging to branding to sales enablement.
Think about the companies you admire. When you hear Slack, you think of effortless team communication. When you think HubSpot, inbound marketing comes to mind. These brands have built crystal-clear positioning that sets them apart.
Without a solid positioning strategy, you risk being:
A winning positioning strategy removes the guesswork for your audience. It tells them exactly why they should choose you, what you stand for, and how you’re different.
Your positioning is your strategic foundation. It affects how you price your product, who you sell to, and how your team talks about your company.
Many SaaS companies make the mistake of trying to be everything to everyone. But as Seth Godin says, if you try to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one. Instead, the best SaaS brands narrow their focus and own a category.
By positioning yourself clearly, you attract the customers who truly need what you offer and repel the ones who aren’t a fit (saving your sales team from chasing bad leads).
Sales teams love companies with strong positioning because the value is obvious. If your positioning is murky, sales has to convince prospects why they should care. But if your positioning is sharp, prospects already believe in your value before they even hop on a demo.
A strong positioning strategy keeps your entire company aligned. Your product roadmap, pricing model, and go-to-market strategy all become crystal clear because you know exactly what you stand for and who you serve.
Without positioning, you’re marketing in the dark. With it, you become the obvious choice.
Positioning isn’t done in a vacuum. If you want to stand out, you need to know who you’re up against. You need to identify the white space that only your SaaS can own.
Start by listing the 5-10 companies that compete most directly with you. These are the SaaS brands that potential customers are comparing you to when making a decision.
Now, dig into their websites, ads, and content. Look for:
This will help you see patterns in how competitors position themselves.
Now, look for the white space. What aren’t competitors saying? What strengths are you uniquely positioned to own?
Ask yourself:
If all your competitors are positioning themselves as “the most feature-rich”, you can stand out by focusing on ease of use, customer support, or a unique methodology.
You must position your product as the best at something that truly matters to your audience.
At first glance, this framework might seem simple. But you’d be surprised how many SaaS companies get it wrong. They fail to carve out a clear market position and end up lost in the noise.
The Best, Better, Only framework helps your team zero in on the attributes that truly set your product apart. It’s the foundation for crafting your messaging, defining your value proposition pillars, and ensuring you’re not just another SaaS competing on features.
Start with the core strengths of your company; the things you do so well that customers keep coming back. What makes your product consistently great?
Picture yourself catching up with an old friend. When they ask, "What’s so great about your company?", what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
Your "Best" doesn't need to be something completely unique. It just needs to be so strong that it’s worth talking about.
For example, Apple builds robust, high-quality products. That’s not necessarily unique. Other companies like Samsung and Google make high-quality products too. But Apple still dominates in this area because they’ve built a reputation for relentless attention to detail, premium materials, and a seamless ecosystem.
Now, let’s bring competitors into the mix. What is the one thing your company outperforms everyone else on? If your category were the Academy Awards, which headline category would you win?
To figure this out, visualize a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being market-leading excellence. Which attribute of your product would land you at a perfect 10, while competitors struggle to keep up?
Apple doesn’t just make good-looking products, they make the most beautifully designed consumer electronics, period. Other companies can make sleek devices, but Apple owns the aesthetic space in a way that competitors can’t match.
This is where your real differentiation happens. What can only your company do? What is the one thing that no competitor, no matter how hard they try, can replicate?
Not every company has an “Only” right away—and that’s okay. But if you can define just one or two, it becomes the core of your competitive advantage.
Looping in Apple once again, the one thing only Apple can offer? MacOS. No competitor can replicate its seamless integration across devices, fluid UI, and the unique Apple ecosystem. While others can try, MacOS remains Apple’s unshakable competitive moat.
For your SaaS company, the Best, Better, Only framework forces you to get specific about where you win.
Owning the right differentiators cements your place in the market. Nail this, and you’ll have a competitive positioning strategy that actually sticks.
After using the Best, Better, Only framework to clarify what makes your SaaS stand out, take the next step: framing that differentiation in a way your audience immediately understands.
This is where Seth Godin’s Positioning Grid comes into play. By strategically choosing the right positioning vectors, you can place your brand in a space where you’re playing to your strengths while avoiding direct competition.
If you like sports analogies, think of positioning like playing basketball. You want to position yourself on the court where you can get an open shot, somewhere defenders (your competitors) aren’t already standing.
Different players excel in different spots. Some are sharpshooters from the three-point line, while others dominate in the paint. The key is knowing where you have the highest chance of scoring without being blocked.
If sports isn’t your thing, think of positioning like playing to your company's strengths. In the digital age, where every company is shouting for attention, many get lost in the noise by trying to compete on the same factors as everyone else. The real winners? They compete on the vectors that truly matter to their audience, and where they have a clear advantage.
Let’s cite Seth Godin again:
“If you attempt to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one.”
This is why it’s critical to narrow your focus and define your Minimum Viable Audience; the smallest possible group of customers who will benefit the most from your solution. Your job? Become their champion.
The best positioning strategies don’t try to compete on everything, they choose a few key factors that truly matter to their audience and dominate those spaces.
So, how do you decide which factors to compete on? Here’s the good news: You’ve already done most of the work.
Using the Best, Better, Only framework, you’ve identified what makes your SaaS product stand out. Now, you need to pick 3-5 positioning vectors that:
Ideally, you’ll have enough strong “Only” attributes to fill these vectors, but if needed, you can pull from the “Better” category as well.
Here are some common positioning vectors for B2B SaaS companies:
Choosing the right positioning vectors ensures that your SaaS brand owns a space in the market where competitors struggle to compete.
Once you’ve selected your top 3-5 positioning vectors, it’s time to map them out against your competition.
The simplest way to do this is by using a scatter plot, where you compare two key variables at a time. This helps you visually position your brand in a way that makes differentiation clear.
In This is Marketing, Seth Godin presents a great example of how strategic positioning creates market advantages.
Imagine a company that specializes in transporting goods from Point A to Point B. If you compare all the competitors purely on transportation capability, they’d all look pretty similar.
But what if you change the comparison?
Each company wins on different vectors, and that’s what allows them to coexist in the market without directly overlapping.
Now, it’s time to apply this thinking to your business.
This exercise forces you to look critically at your market, understand where competitors are strongest, and identify where you can dominate.
Winning in SaaS means being the best at something that truly matters.
With the Best, Better, Only framework and Seth Godin’s Positioning Grid, you now have a crystal-clear roadmap to define your SaaS brand’s competitive edge.
Now, it’s time to put this positioning into action in your messaging, marketing, sales enablement, and product strategy.
Because when you own your positioning, you own your market.
Seth Godin’s Positioning Grid is an excellent way to map out your brand’s differentiation based on two key vectors. But what if you need to analyze your competitive landscape across more than two dimensions?
To get a fuller picture of where your company stands, here are additional tools and frameworks that can help you visualize your competitive position and refine your strategy.
Each of these tools provides a different way to compare yourself against competitors, helping you identify opportunities for differentiation:
Want to see how these tools work in action? Check out this guide: 5 Charts Used for Competitor Analysis.
A SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) can also be a powerful way to assess your current positioning and identify gaps.
If you haven’t done a SWOT analysis for your SaaS brand recently, now is a great time to revisit it.
Want to go even deeper into B2B positioning? Here are some must-read resources to refine your strategy:
Use these tools and resources to stay ahead, refine your strategy, and own your market.
A strong positioning strategy isn’t set in stone; it’s a living, breathing part of your business. The best B2B SaaS companies track their positioning continuously, ensuring they remain relevant, competitive, and top-of-mind for their audience.
So, how do you know if your positioning strategy is working? Here are the key success indicators and signals that it might be time to pivot.
Your brand’s positioning should be crystal clear to your audience. If prospects and customers can’t articulate what makes you different, your positioning isn’t sticking.
How to measure:
If your positioning is strong, your sales team won’t need to work as hard to explain your value because prospects already get it.
How to measure:
If your positioning is working, you should see an uptick in competitive wins.
How to measure:
Weak positioning leads to churn. If customers don’t see your unique value, they’ll jump ship for a cheaper or more well-known alternative.
How to measure:
A strong positioning strategy magnetically pulls in your ideal customers. If you’re constantly getting leads outside your ICP, your positioning might be too broad.
How to measure:
Even the best positioning strategies need adjustments over time. Here are some red flags that indicate it’s time for a repositioning effort:
If you see these signs, it’s time to revisit your Best, Better, Only framework and refine your messaging to ensure you own your unique space in the market.
Even the smartest B2B SaaS founders make mistakes when it comes to positioning. Here are the five most common traps, and how to avoid them.
Trying to appeal to every potential customer instead of carving out a clear niche. If your positioning is too broad, you’ll struggle to stand out—and competitors with sharper messaging will win.
Fix this by:
Positioning your product based on features, not outcomes. Features can be copied. Value is what makes you irreplaceable.
Fix this by:
Looking at your competitors and thinking, “We need to say the same things.” If you sound just like your competitors, prospects have no reason to choose you over them.
Fix this by:
Marketing says one thing, but sales says another, creating confusion. If your team isn’t aligned, your positioning won’t stick.
Fix this by:
Positioning isn’t a one-time project—yet many SaaS companies treat it like one. The market shifts. Customers evolve. If your positioning stays stagnant, you risk becoming irrelevant.
Fix this by:
Your SaaS brand is selling a unique position in the market. By defining what makes you the best, better, or only, and by tracking your positioning over time, you set your company up to win more deals, attract the right customers, and charge a premium for your value.
Your SaaS positioning shouldn’t be an afterthought, it should be your competitive edge.
But getting it right is hard. If you’re struggling to differentiate, you’re not alone.
At Kalungi, we’ve helped B2B SaaS founders like you build market-leading positioning strategies that drive growth.
Let’s chat about how you can own your market. Book a free discovery call today.
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