Coming soon · Book Profile
Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It
A practical 10-step methodology for deliberately positioning products by setting the right market context so customers instantly understand why a product is uniquely valuable.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
Obviously Awesome argues that great products fail not because they're bad but because they're poorly positioned—placed in a context where customers can't perceive their value. Drawing on April Dunford's 25 years repositioning sixteen products as a startup VP of marketing and her work consulting with dozens of tech companies, the book reframes positioning as deliberate 'context setting' rather than the useless fill-in-the-blank positioning statement. It breaks positioning into five-plus-one components (competitive alternatives, unique attributes, value, target market characteristics, market category, and trends) and provides a field-tested 10-step process for finding the market frame of reference that makes your strengths obvious to your best-fit customers. With memorable examples—from cake pops to Joshua Bell to a database repositioned as a data warehouse—it shows founders, marketers, and salespeople how strong positioning shortens sales cycles, reduces churn, supports premium pricing, and supercharges every marketing and sales tactic.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A founder, marketer, or salesperson at a startup or tech company who wants prospects to quickly understand and buy their product.
- The problem
- Customers can't figure out what the product is, compare it to the wrong things, and don't buy. They feel frustrated and confused, blaming sales or marketing while sales cycles drag and churn rises.
- The plan
- Identify your happiest best-fit customers
- List the true competitive alternatives they'd use without you
- Isolate your unique attributes and map them to provable value
- Determine which customers care a lot about that value
- Choose a market category and positioning style that highlights your strengths
- The payoff
- Prospects quickly understand and want your product · Shorter sales cycles, higher close rates, lower churn · Ability to charge a premium
See our guide
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Additional reading
- Marketing 3.0: From Products to Customers to the Human Spirit · Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya, and Iwan Setiawan
The book discusses the evolution of marketing to a more values-driven, human-centric approach, which aligns with the textbook's emphasis on social responsibility and holistic marketing.
- Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind · Al Ries and Jack Trout
Referenced in the textbook as a foundational work on the concept of brand positioning, a core topic of marketing strategy.
- The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference · Malcolm Gladwell
The book's concepts of 'Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen' are discussed as a way to understand how ideas and trends spread through social networks, relevant to word-of-mouth and viral marketing.
- The Long Tail · Chris Anderson
Discussed in a 'Marketing Insight' box, this book proposes that the internet enables profitable selling of a large number of niche products, challenging traditional retail and market segmentation strategies.
- Marketing Management · Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller
The book mentions this text as the 'most widely used marketing textbook in graduate schools of business worldwide,' co-authored by the primary author of this book, suggesting it as a more advanced follow-up.
- Blue Ocean Strategy · W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
The book explicitly references and explains this strategic framework for creating 'uncontested market spaces,' presenting it as an alternative to head-to-head competition.
- Competitive Strategy · Michael Porter
The book recommends this text for readers who wish to explore the vital subject of competitive strategy in more depth, which is an essential prerequisite to setting appropriate marketing objectives.
- The Marketing Audit: translating marketing theory into practice · Malcolm H. B. McDonald
Mentioned in the preface as a companion text to this book, containing exercises designed to provide a practical bridge between marketing theory and practice for managers.
- Marketing in the Service Sector · John M. Rathmell
Cited frequently throughout the book as a foundational text that helped establish services marketing as a distinct field of study in the 1970s.
- Breaking Free from Product Marketing · G. Lynn Shostack
This seminal 1977 'Journal of Marketing' article is referenced by many authors in the proceedings for its powerful argument that services require a fundamentally different marketing approach and for introducing conceptual tools like 'molecular modeling'.