Hello, and welcome. My name is Tracy Evans, and I will be speaking to you about fact based product marketing in tech with DIKW. Hope everyone can hear me.It's hard to tell. So here's where I work. Open Strategy Partners or OSP is a b to b content marketing agency for tech product and service companies. We focus on this gaping chasm, this problem of buzzword bingo, particularly around marketing in tech. You might have heard this phrase, developers are allergic to marketing. Our counter to that, is this communication framework we use at OSP, which is based on the three tenets of empathy, clarity, and trust. And we call that model authentic communication. The idea is that we write and speak clearly and accurately about tech. We produce a lot of content. We do a lot of writing about technology, technical solutions, features, products, and services. And we know that we need to understand the tech.

We use empathy to understand our tech audience and to know what their challenges are, and that builds trust. Trust is important if you want to be a credible authority and if you want people to take action, which is basically what marketing is all about. We have four main bodies of work that we do for our clients, communication and marketing strategy, content planning, content production, and writer enablement. And here's today's agenda. So we're gonna cover why fact based marketing, how not to do positioning, stakeholder perspectives, the OSP value map, how to create a value map, what a value map is used for, and we're gonna talk about tag lines and positioning statements. So why do we care about fact based marketing? Well, first, it builds trust with technical audiences. So engineers, developers, and tech buyers reject hype and scrutinize claims, and demonstrating clear accurate, accurate value builds long term credibility. Second, it aligns internal stakeholders.

So a shared factual foundation ensures that marketing sales and products speak the same language, reducing confusion and conflict. Third, it enables clearer, more effective messaging. So messaging grounded in facts like features, challenges, benefits, is easier to understand, more persuasive, and more relevant to specific audiences. Number four is that it accelerates the the buyer's journey. So clear articulation of what your product does, who it helps, and why it matters, reduces friction and speeds up decision making. Number five, it reduces waste and inconsistency. So fact based content avoids rework, misalignment, and vague messaging. You stop reinventing the wheel every time a new asset is needed. And six, it supports scale and repeatability. So with a single source of truth, you can create more, create you can create content more efficiently, train new staff faster, and launch campaign campaigns consistently.

So what you don't wanna do is top down, throw it against the wall, and see what sticks positioning. It's not a very effective way to to connect with your audience. You also don't want buzzword bingo filled with hyperbole and vague concepts. You don't want product positioning based on trendy buzzwords and hyperbole that don't actually communicate the value of your tech, and that also repels skeptical but pragmatic, tech savvy audiences. You also don't want an endless list of features. The value of which is more, the value of which the the more technical among us think should be self evident. This is what we call feature frenzy. This is quite common when technical people need to produce content. They often forget to connect those features to value. Your audience needs to not only understand what features your product has, but also what challenges it solves for them and what benefit that produces.

So we are not Kevin Costner. If we build it, they might not come without strong and fact based communication. In order for people to adopt your product, they need to understand the value of your complex technology delivers for them. So communication is key. Product or feature launches can flop when people don't understand the value of your new shiny thing. Potential adopters need to know why is this important and what's in it for me. Understanding then communicating the value of your complex technology can be as hard as building the darn thing. Different stakeholders can have completely different views about your product and tell different stories, maybe even false ones.

So clear, compelling product mark, product communications are at the center of product adoption. To do it right, you need to start with a strong, clear, consensus based technical foundation. You need a holistic view of your product. So what happens when we do it right? You get unified fact based positioning based on substance and technical truth that will resonate with your audience. It will help you, create clear product messaging, enabling all stakeholders to communicate consistently, accurately, and compellingly. Stakeholder consensus is one of the key variables in building a value map. It's critical that you gather the perspectives of all your stakeholders. So marketing, sales, leadership, product management, and engineering. You can do this through interviews or workshops. And how to build this, consensus based technical foundation? It's a value map.

Your value map is a living library and canonical inventory of accurate up to date product information stored as interconnected entities such as features, benefits, challenges, and personas. It is the single source of truth that gives you agreed upon terms, language, and concepts that feed your overall positioning and strategy. It's also ready to use for product pages on your website, brochures, sales resources, and more. It's an unsiloed technical truth available to everyone, so accurate descriptions of features and the value that they deliver. So how do you create a value map? What you wanna do is to conduct a deep structured analysis of your product, collecting granular, comprehensive, structured data about your product's features. At this step, you are collecting the features and facts about your product.

You can do this by conducting interviews or workshops with your key stakeholders, scraping any existing marketing or technical content, and also by examining, competitor content for inspiration. You then want to distill and organize this information into logical functional groups called feature areas. These clusters of features get a feature name, a tagline, and a value case. A value case is made up of three statements, benefit, challenge, and solution. So here's an example. This feature area, beautiful admin interface, has a tagline, don't waste your admin's precious time with a with an awkward UI. The value case is made up of the three statements below, the benefit, challenge, and solution followed by the list of features. So this is just the the feature area. If you have a lot of feature areas, which many products will, the next step is to group the feature areas into feature categories.

The feature categories get their own tagline and value case as you can see in this little diagram next to us. So here's an example of a feature category with a tagline and value case. The, the feature category name is interactive digital experiences. The tagline is build compelling interactive digital digital experiences with Zulu, and you can see the benefit challenge solution statements below it. And, this right here is what the structure of a feature category looks like. You'll see that the feature category you'll see the feature category at the top, with the three feature areas below it. So once you have the feature areas and feature categories done, it's time to create the overall positioning, so the pink part at the top.

In the positioning, you're distilling all of the data points below it into overarching statements. You'll create a tagline, a positioning statement, and a product value case. We'll go into tagline and positioning statements just a little bit later. So, the D I K W or data information, knowledge, and wisdom framework applies to the OSP value map. The OSP value map turns raw product David data into structured insight and ultimately into powerful fact based messaging follow, following the path of the DIKW from complexity to clarity. You can see it applied here. You could see that how it overlays, the value map structure using the DIKW framework. So let's take a closer look at the d I k w framework. So data is your feature inventory.

It's raw facts about the product, technical specs, individual features, and capabilities. Information is your organized features and challenges. Structured data is where your features are categorized and linked to their challenges. They show relevance and utility, not just functionality. So and knowledge is your benefits mapping. It's applied understanding where clear articulation of how solving those challenges deliver specific benefits. It basically moves from what to why. And wisdom is applied to your messaging content and positioning. So the strategic application is that the structured knowledge is translated into consistent and effective messaging. The result of the value map is a data sheet filled with your features, challenges, benefits, solutions, taglines, and positioning. It's a go to resource as a foundation for all your communications that allows anyone creating communications to have a single source of truth for your product.

So as you can see here, the value map can be used for a plethora of communications. So product pages, content briefs, sales decks, documentation, go to market plans, and so much more across marketing, content, sales enablement materials, customer success content, and strategic internal alignment. So you can see, the mass amount of, of content that you can, use or that you can generate based on your value map. So the product communications framework takes the view that any given communication asset, like product pages, data sheets, etcetera, should be created based on the summation of component parts, like taglines, positioning statements, feature statements, etcetera, that are themselves based on a factual, technical, and strategic foundation.

You can see an example here of how we can extract components from the value map and transfer them directly into a content brief. Product communication components are the micro types of statements that play an essential role in communication assets, like the value map, product data sheet, product pages, service pages, persona pages, and more. Product communications components include taglines, positioning statements, benefit statements, challenge statements, solution statements, feature statements, value cases, and calls to action. So here is an example of how we can take these micro statements to build a product page. Each statement has a very specific function to to fulfill. And here's a closer look at one section on the product page. This is one of the feature areas made up of a benefit challenge solution and feature. So you can see how, how we can take those, components and turn that into, well structured website copy.

This is, an example that we did for a client, type of three e CMS. We were helping them with their, with their website pages, and we did a value map for them, and use that to help us generate, the copy for their, for their website. So let's take a look at two of the most important statement types, the tagline and the positioning statement. Here's an example from our own home page. So the tagline is your tech is complex, your message shouldn't be. And the positioning statement is OSP is an open source and b two b tech marketing agency. We align marketing strategy and content with your vision and technical truth to generate leads, win customers, and gain advocates. So just to tell you a little bit about taglines, they are short sentences or fragments typically found at the top of the page or as or as section headers meant to grab attention while introducing content that follows.

They're often the most verbally playful and brand driven statements. So their characteristics should be action oriented, brevity and simplicity, rhythmic, aspirational. They should highlight contrast, and they should demonstrate, your brand character. So here's an example of some great taglines out there in the wild. So source a, a talent platform. Their tagline is one portal, a world of talent you can trust. There's Platform SH, which is a hosting platform. Their tagline is deliver your applications faster at scale. And Docker, which is a container based application development tool, their tagline is to develop faster and run anywhere. And then edit together, which is a collaborative editing tool, their tagline is edit better, edit together. So now let's break down our positioning statement. So open strategy partners helps me to be an open source tech companies is the target market and audience, and then align marketing strategy and content explains the market category that we're in, with your vision and technical truth.

That's one of our USPs or unique selling proposition. And to generate leads when customers and gain advocates is the the benefit or what's in it for you. So now let's talk about the positioning statement best practices. So you need to, first of all, you need to keep the key benefits very clear. You need to create credibility by demonstrating empathy with user pain points. You need to highlight outcomes like measurable results. You also need to use clear and simple language, but no jargon, to ensure accessibility, and you need to demonstrate a specific value proposition. So what's in it for you? First, you get consistency through all your marketing and messaging at all journey and funnel stages. You get factual sales materials free from hyperbole, and you get technical communications supporting the rest.

Then you get fact based positioning with consistent messaging resonating as clear and honest the further along the the journey someone goes. Next is clear communication, so delivering faster, stronger conversion decisions where prospects see if their problems and your solutions align. You're setting expectations about benefits and features prospects will encounter. And, the value map and product communications framework, provides you with a single source of truth with agreed upon terms, language, and concepts that are ready to use for product pages on your website, brochures, sales, resources, and more. It gives you an unsiloed technical truth available to everyone with accurate descriptions of features and the value that they deliver. So you get consistency, back based positioning, clear communication, and a single source of truth. So thank you so much for your time and attention. I hope you will be I hope you were able to take away some insights that will help you with your own marketing and product positioning.

I was, done a little bit faster than I than I thought. So we've got lots of time for questions, and I'm happy to jump in. So let me just check the chat here. So there's a question from, Francisca. Hi. I have one question. Do you think it is possible to use the value map approach also for services instead of a product? For example, if you provide software development services. Yes. Absolutely. And this is something that we've done for clients in the past. So we, we have several clients who work, who are digital agencies, and we have, and we've done value maps for them, for each type of service that they do. So, one example is, a company that is, specialized in, digital governance, and we did a value map for them.

They tend to be a little bit smaller in size than than product, based, value maps, but the framework definitely still applies. Great. And I have some nice compliments from Karen and Janine. And, yeah, you're welcome, Francisca. Are there any other questions for me? No questions. Okay. I guess that's that's everything then. Thanks everyone for for joining me. And, yeah, feel free to connect with me on, LinkedIn. And, yeah, have a wonderful day. Thanks, everyone.