Obviously Awesome

April Dunford argues that positioning — the act of defining how your product is the best in the world at delivering something a well-defined set of customers cares about — is the most under-appreciated lever in marketing. Products fail not because they are bad but because customers cannot figure out what they are, who they are for, and why they matter. Dunford provides a practical, repeatable methodology for finding the context in which your product obviously makes sense. Her ten-step process starts with identifying your best customers, listing your true competitive alternatives, isolating the unique attributes only you have, and mapping those to the value customers actually want. She then shows how to pick a market frame of reference that makes your strengths obvious. For B2B companies in crowded or novel categories, this book is the antidote to vague, me-too messaging — it is the positioning discipline we apply before any campaign.