How to draw a positioning map with your own customers
Two axes, a handful of competitors and one honest dot for yourself (sample note).
Find the ground your competitors left open
Open Ground Strategy (sample) is a marketing strategy consultancy for growing companies. We map where customers place you and your competitors, choose the position you can own, and plan the campaigns that move you there.
Four senior strategists, no juniors on your account. Projects from six weeks (sample).
Made slowly, by hand
Quick and handy
Everyday price
Special-occasion price
Sourdough micro-bakeries
Patisseries
Farmers’ markets
Coffee-chain pastries
Supermarket bakery aisle
Station kiosks
Our client before
Where they could stand
How to read it: each olive dot is a competitor, placed where 420 surveyed customers put it. The ring is our bakery client before the project, the raspberry dot the position we chose together, the hatched oval the ground nobody held (sample).
Signs you are standing in the crowded middle
Most companies drift there without deciding to. These are the four things owners tell us in the first call.
Customers compare you on price first
When nothing else separates you, the cheapest offer wins the argument and your margin pays for it.
Your website could be a competitor's
Swap the logo and nobody would notice. That is a positioning problem, not a design one.
Every campaign starts from a blank page
Without an agreed position, each brief reinvents what the company stands for, and each agency guesses.
Sales are flat while the market grows
Somebody else is winning the new customers, usually with a clearer promise than yours.
Three ways we work with you
Each piece of work ends with something your team can use on Monday: a map, a written position, a plan or a quarterly report.
Positioning
Customer interviews, a survey and a competitor audit, turned into a positioning map, one positioning statement and the message rules your team and agencies write from.
Go-to-market plans
For a launch, a new market or a relaunch: who to reach first, through which channels, with what message and budget, month by month for the first six months.
Brand tracking
A short customer survey every quarter that re-plots your position on the same map, so you see whether the move is working before the year is out.
Example prices.
Moves we have made
Three projects, each on its own map. The ring is where customers placed the client before; the raspberry dot is where they placed them a year later.
By hand
Quick
Everyday
Special
Before
After
Twelve neighbourhood bakeries
From one more bakery to the early, handmade bakery at everyday prices. Opening at 6:30 became the headline.
Springfield, 2024 (sample)
For racers
For commuters
Sells bikes
Keeps you riding
Before
After
An independent bike shop
From selling racing bikes against online stores to keeping commuters riding: same-day repairs and a service plan.
Two shops, 2023 (sample)
Sold on saved hours
Sold on features
For any business
For one trade
Before
After
Scheduling software
From a feature list for any business to the hours it saves one trade: dental practices.
40 staff, 2025 (sample)
How a positioning project runs
Four steps in this order. Most projects take six to eight weeks to the plan; tracking runs on after that.
1
Map the market
Weeks 1 to 3
Twelve customer interviews, a survey of 300 to 500 buyers and an audit of up to eight competitors.
2
Choose the ground
Week 4
A one-day workshop with your leadership team. The map goes on the wall and we pick one position together.
3
Plan the move
Weeks 5 and 6
The positioning statement, message rules and the first campaigns, channels and budget.
4
Track the move
Every quarter
The same short survey, re-plotted on the same map, with a one-page report.
The positioning workshop
One day, your leadership team and the map on the wall. By five o’clock you have chosen one position and agreed what you will stop saying.
- Who comes: the owner or managing director, sales, marketing and one person who talks to customers every day
- What you bring: nothing; we send the research summary a week before
- What you leave with: the chosen position, the open questions and who answers them
What it costs
Strategy call, 30 minutes
Free
Positioning project
6 to 8 weeks: research, workshop, statement and message rules
From $18,000
Positioning workshop on its own
One day, with your own research
$4,500
Go-to-market plan
4 to 6 weeks
From $14,000
Brand tracking
Per quarter, survey of 300 customers
$2,800
Example prices, before tax.
Every project includes
- A fixed price agreed before we start
- The same two strategists from first call to final plan
- All research data, interview notes and the map files
- A check-in call three months later
Strategy notes
Why the crowded middle feels safe, and what it costs
Standing for a little of everything avoids arguments inside the company and loses them outside it (sample note).
Five questions to ask before you brief an agency
If you cannot answer these, the agency will answer them for you (sample note).
Book a 30-minute strategy call
Tell us what is stuck. We will say plainly whether positioning is the problem, and if it is not, who could help. The call is free (sample).