Many SaaS companies struggle to establish a differentiated point of view in the market (it's one of the most common GTM challenges). Whether you're a new entrant trying to create a new category or an incumbent competing in an existing space, it can be challenging to stand out from the crowd. Often, companies end up sounding just like their competitors, parroting the same messaging as industry analysts or an obvious contrarian take from the market.
For example, I once attended an industry event in the HR tech space where every vendor made the same claims about "revolutionizing the employee experience" and "learning in the flow of work." It was a sea of sameness, language in the middle, with no clear differentiation or unique perspective. The goal is to create a non-obvious strategic narrative.
The Typical Approach
In an attempt to solve this problem, companies often take one of three approaches:
- Analyst-Driven Approach: They look at what the industry analysts say and craft a similar viewpoint. They then task their marketing team with a lengthy project to develop a strategic narrative or "differentiated" messaging.
- Vision-Driven Approach: They assume that their differentiated point of view will naturally emerge from their company's vision and mission. While this can work, it's not a guarantee.
- Marketing-Driven Approach: The strategic narrative is created internally and in a vacuum (with customer testing). I did this a few times!
Or you hire a specialist like Andy Raskin (who is awesome).
These traditional approaches can be time-consuming and may not always result in a truly differentiated point of view. The market is saturated with similar messaging, and it can be challenging to cut through the noise.
Here's how AI can help you create a strategic narrative. You can use AI to get outputs to test in a short time. Here are the steps to create a more efficient, AI-powered approach to crafting your strategic narrative:
- Create a Prompt: Develop a prompt that covers the most common topics in your market, the shift from the old mindset to the new, and the specific pain points and gains of your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
- Generate Contrarian Views: Use AI tools like Perplexity, ChatGPT, or Claude to generate a list of contrarian views to the obvious narratives in the market, either from analysts or other vendors. Ask AI to give you non-obvious problems linked to the narrative, linked to Obvious solutions.
- Refine and Test: Refine the AI-generated ideas into a more specific, differentiated point of view. Then, test this with your customers to see if it resonates.
By leveraging the power of AI, you can create a differentiated strategic narrative in hours rather than weeks or months. This approach can help you stand out in a crowded market and better connect with your target audience.
Here's what to do next:
1. Develop a prompt that covers the critical topics in the industry, vertical, your ICP, and the shift in mindset you believe needs to happen.
2. Use AI tools to generate a list of contrarian views of the common discussions in your industry.
3. Refine the AI-generated ideas into a concrete, differentiated point of view.
4. Test your differentiated point of view with your customers to ensure it resonates.
5. Iterate and scale into a "Leading Expert" content strategy.
Following this AI-powered approach, you can quickly and effectively craft a strategic narrative that sets your SaaS business apart from the competition.
I hope you’ll give this a try!
See you next week.
