AI Field Guide: Product Positioning Documents

A step-by-step tutorial and prompt template to speed up your workflow

When launching a product - whether it’s a new feature or an entire company, it’s imperative to know how to talk about it. In my career as a product manager, I’ve learned that creating a Positioning Document is a great way to not only clarify my own understanding of the product, but also help others learn how to talk about it and effectively communicate with customers. The Positioning Doc outlines what the product does, who it’s for, and how it’s different from the competition.

AI, of course, is a prime candidate for providing creative ideas and speeding up the process of making these types of documents. I’ve easily spent 5-10 hours writing the perfect copy from scratch, but with ChatGPT helping me generate first drafts and clarify my thoughts, I’ve found that I can write an effective Positioning Doc in 2-3 hours, saving me tons of time. Let’s walk through how to make one.

Initial prompt

For the initial prompt, we are going to give ChatGPT the background of our business and what we want to share about our product or company. Here’s a prompt template you can use, filling in your information in the brackets:

I'd like you to act as an expert branding strategist and marketer. You specialize in [eg. consumer apps for millennials and gen-z]. I'd like you to help me write a Positioning Document for a new company I am building. In a minute, I am going to tell you about the product. Please remember your target audience and use a brand voice that is [eg. young, fun, authentic, and human-sounding]. [Add any caveats - eg do not use emojis]. This should be a collaborative process and I want you to always ask me questions if you need any clarifying information before giving a response.

Explain your product

Now, you’ll want to tell ChatGPT everything you can about the product that you can. The beauty is that this doesn’t have to be well-written, polished marketing copy. It can be just clear, straightforward bullet points - the more the better. We want to give the AI as much information as we can to shape its output to our liking. You might want to include a description of what you do, how you stand out, your general audience, etc. Here’s an example of what you might provide:

  • The product is an AI profile photo generator app.

  • We are different because we have optimized our model for the most photorealistic headshots, as well as a range of outfits that are actually fashionable and in-season compared to the terrible options offered in other apps.

  • We're tailoring our marketing for women in business, and men who are fashion forward.

Iterate

You can take this first draft and refine and copy-edit as you see fit, or go back and correct mistakes the model made. You can also ask for additional information, such as to create personas for your target users, and list out the specific relevant problems they have and how your product offers a solution to help you better target your marketing.

Validate Assumptions

Finally, I like to “reverse-engineer” my Positioning Doc to see if the AI thinks it describes the product I’m building. For example, I might start a new chat with ChatGPT and upload the Positioning Doc it's just generated - particularly focusing on the target users and their problems. Then I’d ask it to describe a product that helps solve these problems, and see how closely it matches to what I’m building (and if it comes up with ideas that I hadn’t thought of yet, that I can add to my roadmap). I’ll validate how closely the product and the messaging tie together and use any discrepancies as opportunities to improve.

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