Positioning Workshop for Agorapulse, December 14, 15, 17, 2020
Part 1 – Positioning
Our focus in part 1 is on working through the individual component pieces of positioning.
Competitive Alternatives
Notes: We had a good discussion about the competitive landscape and what customers would do if Agorapulse didn't exist. We agreed that a good percentage (somewhere between 30 to 50%) of clients used the native tools offered by the social networks with a combination of general-purpose business software (google docs and sheets) to manage reporting, scheduling, and workflow. Some clients would move up from there to try to use free tools like Tweetdeck or, in some cases, a tool like Buffer, mainly for scheduling. There is a category of low-quality, low-priced tools that are more suited to consumers or very small organizations. Once the customer starts to manage a larger number of accounts on a platform and/or manage a presence across a larger number of platforms, they begin to look at professional-grade cross-platform tools. Today the main competitors are Hootsuite and Sprout Social. Lastly, Agorapulse will sometimes see churn in accounts adopting “platforms” like Zendesk or Hubspot that have some low-end functionality. Still, these are rarely seen as true alternatives in a regular purchase cycle.
Native platform tools, manual effort, general-purpose business software, free tools
Creator Studio for Facebook and Instagram
Logging in individually to Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube, etc.
Spreadsheets – for manually reviewing, approving, scheduling.
Documents with screenshots for reporting
Free tools
Tweetdeck
Hootsuite free version
Others
Low-end “consumer-grade” tools
Social Pilot
eClincher
Zoho Social
Swello
Cross-Network Solutions
Sprout Social
Hootsuite
Sendible (but seeing less of these folks)
Buffer – mainly for publishing (not so for listening, managing replies, etc.)
“Platforms” (sometimes see churn to these)
Zendeck (for customer service inbox)
Hubspot (because all in one and already a hubspot customer)
Differentiated Capabilities/Features
Notes: The team discussed a list of differentiated features that Agorapulse offers. We started with a discussion of what Agorapulse has that differentiates it from the platforms' free tools. We then cross-referenced that with features that differentiate it from cross-network tools, in particular Sprout Social and Hootsuite.
Manage multiple profiles on a network using a single tool
Manage across multiple social networks using a single tool
Collaboration – workflow across a team
Reporting – across all accounts and networks
Publishing
Publish across all channels in one action
Add labels to search and sort posts.
Create different versions of a post per network
Scheduling
Queue categories
Set up intervals to repeat publish
Inbox – view and manage all communication across all networks.
Templated replies
User Relationship Management – see all engagements with a user.
Manage ad comments
Labels – for searching and sorting.
Dynamic ad support
Inbox emphasizes new incoming content.
Automation – automatically delete bad comments, assign to support, hide spam or junk comments, etc.
Threaded comments
Activity tracking – track exactly who has done what and when
Social listening – for keywords, hashtags, user mentions
Support
Fast support response times – median support time is 30 minutes
24/7 support
User satisfaction with support is very high (93%)
Pricing – particularly vs. Sprout Social – MUCH less expensive
Value
Notes: In this discussion, we took the features we discussed in the previous session and mapped them to customer value. We landed on a set of themes. Note that this isn't necessarily the exact copy we would use to talk about these value points – the marketing team should make refinements to this placeholder copy.
1/ A Powerful Platform that lets you effortlessly manage social media everywhere at scale
An elegantly designed inbox – that lets you quickly view and manage every interaction from a central place.
Automation – automatically delete bad comments, assign to support, hide spam, etc.
Manage ad comments, including support for dynamic ads
Inbox emphasizes new incoming content.
Flexible Cross-Network Publishing – a wide array of publishing options to help you organize your content streams
Schedule at a specific time, frequency, or interval
Everything can be viewed in a calendar. Shared calendars allow you to collaborate with clients on scheduled content.
Easy, Beautiful Reports – make it easy to find out what’s working and what isn’t
Create and save customized reports.
Automatically generate and send reports weekly or monthly.
Publishing insights – for example, best day and time to post, what hashtags are driving the most engagement, are included out of the box.
Collaboration – get your team working together efficiently.
Inboxes can be shared across teammates. Real-time collision detection shows teammates who is working on what right now.
Assign roles to clarify tasks. Easy item delegation.
See who has done what and when. Track and download reports on team activity
Social Listening – monitor trends, hashtags, and influencers without the clutter of newsfeeds or streams of irrelevant content.
Refine parameters by using boolean operators, setting excluded terms, and setting location and language parameters
Audience Insights – understand your followers and fans.
Identify and label passionate fans and followers and segment your audience.
Click on a user to see their entire history of interactions with your brand.
2/ Easy enough for any user, backed by the best support in the business
A modern, elegant User experience that even inexperienced teammates will love
Support you can depend on – median support response times are 30 minutes. Support is available globally 24/7. User satisfaction with Agorapulse support is 93%
3/ Priced for Growing Teams
Agorapulse’s pricing model makes it affordable for small teams with plenty of room for growth.
Characteristics of an Account that Cares a Lot About our Value
Notes: Here, we discussed what characteristics might indicate that a target account might be a particularly good fit for our solution. This is meant to be a starting point for marketing and sales to investigate where they could target their outbound efforts to find good-fit customers for Agorapulse. In this case, I think it’s clear that Agorapulse would benefit from some tighter targeting. In particular, eCommerce as a target looks both attractive as well as a potentially very good fit for the solution.
More than 20 customer engagements per day
More than ten profiles managed.
At least one person full time working on social media
Companies running dynamic ads (eCommerce would be an example)
Companies with larger teams but that still have to worry about budgets (Universities, government both fit in this category, growing eCommerce brands)
Franchises where headquarters wants to maintain oversight of franchisee activity
Market Category
Notes: We had a good start to a discussion around the market category. Market Category is essentially the answer to the question, "What is Agorapulse?" It is also the definition of the market you intend to win. The default market category would be “Social Media Management.”
The only downside of this category is that it is clearly dominated by Sprout Social currently. In this case, however, Agorapulse is positioning itself as a challenger, and therefore that category does the job.
Social Media Management Platform
Part 2 – Sales Narrative
The second part of the exercise involves taking the positioning we have agreed upon and translating it into a customer-facing "story" or "narrative." The structure of this narrative is a suggestion for one potential way to structure the story. The intent is to use this story with customers who meet our definition of "good fit" and are early in the sales process. This narrative can be used as a structure for a first sales meeting or used in marketing materials such as an explainer video or a product overview sheet. The sales narrative doesn’t need to be used in this exact format or with this exact flow.
1/ Social Media Marketing is Booming as Companies Accelerate their Shift Toward Engaging Customers Online
Notes: This step of the narrative sets the frame of reference for the conversation you are about to have with the customer. This step should frame a problem that any customer would readily agree that they have. The problem statement can be backed-up with research data or other supporting evidence if it needs it. In this case, I don't believe it does.
2020 was a year that saw companies dramatically accelerate their shift to digital marketing channels and engaging their customers over social media. As a result many marketing teams are struggling to manage an increasing amount of engagement across a large number of accounts and networks.
2/ Solutions for Managing Social Media Involve Trade-offs between Power, Usability, and Cost
Notes: This step in the narrative is where we explore alternative ways of solving the problem. The goal is to show a gap in the solutions – a gap that we are perfectly designed to fill. We should frame this discussion as "This is what we see in the market – tell us what your experience is." to discover approaches the customer has taken to-date and where they feel challenged. You can tune this narrative to reflect what you already know about the prospect. For Agorapulse, this table is a placeholder - this could also be represented as a diagram or a graphic that shows all the alternatives today, highlighting the breadth of functionality, support, and pricing models.
Social Media Management Solutions tend to fall into two categories. Many tools are easy to use and free but have limited cross-platform capabilities. Others are all-in-one platforms that are powerful yet difficult for new users and not priced for growth.
Title
Title
Title
Solution
Advantage
Disadvantage
Native tools, with spreadsheets and manual work
Free
Managing multiple accounts in these tools is difficult.
Managing multiple tools across social networks is cumbersome and difficult.
Cross-network reporting is manual.
No support
Narrow or Specialized tools (that either focus on a particular subset of networks or focus on a particular task such as publishing)
Examples – Buffer or Meet Edgar for publishing, Tweetdeck, etc.
Low cost or free
Easy to use
Managers are still working across multiple tools for multiple networks.
Cross-network reporting is manual.
Lacking advanced features for interactions, scheduling, collaboration, insights or listening.
Minimal support
All-in-One Platforms
Hootsuite
Sprout Social
Most complete functionality across networks
Hootsuite is the “legacy” all in one social management platform. The UI isn’t as modern as other alternatives, and new users find it difficult to use. Hootsuite's support is too slow to rely on in the case of emergencies. They are slow to innovate.
Sprout Social's pricing structure of per-seat pricing makes it difficult for teams to scale, presenting the real problem of potentially having to switch platforms in the future.
3/ Social Media Managers Want Power Without Having to Sacrifice User Experience or Room to Grow
Notes: This step lists what we have learned about solutions from looking at what works and doesn't work in the market. In essence, this step proposes a set of purchase criteria for any new solution a customer might consider in this space. Of course, these criteria should point a good-fit customer in our direction.
What do we really want in a modern social media management platform?
We want the power to control everything across all of our accounts and networks.
Consolidated inbox that makes it easy to stay on top of every customer interaction
Publishing features that make content distribution across all networks fast and easy
Beautiful and flexible reporting to help me share my results
Collaboration features that let the team organize their work efficiently
Social Listening that makes it easy to monitor our brand, our interests, and more
Audience insight that lets us understand our fans and influencers
We want that power to come with an easy, intuitive user experience that even non-skilled users can quickly adopt. We want fast, expert support there is there when I need it.
We want a pricing model that lets teams give access to everyone that needs it and allows my team to grow without breaking my budget.
4/ Introducing Agorapulse
Notes: Here is where you give an overview of the company and the range of solutions you offer. You don't want to go into too much detail here – we cover features in-depth in the next step, where we frame them in the context of the value they enable. In this case, you may want to include a one-slide overview of what you do before you move to the Value section.
Introducing Agorapulse – a powerful social media management platform for growing teams.
5/ The Value Agorapulse Delivers
Notes: This is the stage of the narrative where you get into the details about your offering and why customers should care. Instead of giving customers a long list of features, we want to talk about features within the context of the value that those features enable for customers. This narrative stage is often done using a demo or a combination of a demo plus slides.
1/ A Powerful Platform that lets you effortlessly manage social media everywhere at scale
An elegantly designed inbox – that lets you quickly view and manage every interaction from a central place.
Automation – automatically delete bad comments, assign to support, hide spam, etc.
Manage ad comments, including support for dynamic ads
Inbox emphasizes new incoming content.
Flexible Cross-Network Publishing – a wide array of publishing options to help you organize your content streams
Schedule at a specific time, frequency, or interval
Everything can be viewed in a calendar. Shared calendars allow you to collaborate with clients on scheduled content.
Easy, Beautiful Reports – make it easy to find out what’s working and what isn’t
Create and save customized reports.
Automatically generate and send reports weekly or monthly.
Publishing insights – for example, best day and time to post, what hashtags are driving the most engagement, are included out of the box.
Collaboration – get your team working together efficiently.
Inboxes can be shared across teammates. Real-time collision detection shows teammates who is working on what right now.
Assign roles to clarify tasks. Easy item delegation.
See who has done what and when. Track and download reports on team activity
Social Listening – monitor trends, hashtags, and influencers without the clutter of newsfeeds or streams of irrelevant content.
Refine parameters by using boolean operators, setting excluded terms, and setting location and language parameters
Audience Insights – understand your followers and fans.
Identify and label passionate fans and followers and segment your audience.
Click on a user to see their entire history of interactions with your brand.
2/ Easy enough for any user, backed by the best support in the business
A modern, elegant User experience that even inexperienced teammates will love
Support you can depend on – median support response times are 30 minutes. Support is available globally 24/7. User satisfaction with Agorapulse support is 93%
3/ Priced for Growing Teams
Agorapulse’s pricing model makes it affordable for small teams with plenty of room for growth.
6/ Proof
Notes: This is a placeholder for a set of case studies or other proof that backs up the value outlined in the previous section. Proof could take the form of case studies, quotes, a customer logo slide. Ideally, you provide proof that you can deliver the value you promised in the previous section. In this case, Agorapulse could focus on case studies with clients. In particular, you would want to emphasize the platform's power, but you also might want to choose customers who have switched from Hootsuite and/or folks that worried about the pricing model of Sprout Social.
7/ The Ask
Notes: A good sales narrative ends with an ask – it could be asking for the next meeting, asking for a proof of concept or trial, or asking for the sale. You will want to finish the narrative by explicitly asking the customer to take the next step. In this case, we want the customer to start a trial.