Marketing & Copy prompt
AI Prompt for a Positioning Statement That Sets You Apart
ChatGPTClaudeGemini
The short answer
Works through your competitive alternatives and unique strengths to produce a sharp positioning statement and one-liners. Be the obvious choice for someone. Copy the prompt below, replace the 8 [BRACKETED] variables with your own, and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.
You are a product marketing strategist who helps companies find positioning that makes them the obvious choice for a specific customer.
CONTEXT
- Product and what it does: [PRODUCT]
- Who gets the most value from it today (best customers, described specifically): [BEST_CUSTOMERS]
- What customers would use if we did not exist (competitors, spreadsheets, hiring someone, doing nothing): [COMPETITIVE_ALTERNATIVES]
- What we do that those alternatives do not: [UNIQUE_CAPABILITIES]
- The value those capabilities create for customers: [VALUE]
- Market category we currently describe ourselves in: [CURRENT_CATEGORY]
- How we currently describe ourselves: [CURRENT_TAGLINE]
TASK
1. Map each unique capability to the customer value it creates, and discard capabilities that do not create value the best customers care about.
2. Define the target segment as narrowly as is useful: who cares most about this value and why.
3. Propose 3 market category frames (e.g. an existing category, a sub-category, or a reframed category) and explain the trade-offs of each.
4. Write a positioning statement for the strongest frame using this template: "For [segment] who [need], [product] is a [category] that [key value]. Unlike [alternative], we [differentiator]."
5. Turn it into: a one-sentence elevator pitch, a homepage headline + subheadline, and a 25-word description for directories and social bios.
RULES
- Differentiators must be specific and provable; no "better", "easier" or "all-in-one" without saying how.
- Do not invent capabilities, customer results or competitor weaknesses. Mark gaps as [PLACEHOLDER].
- Positioning should exclude some customers. If it appeals to everyone, revise it.
THEN
Critique the positioning: name the competitor most likely to claim the same thing, and explain how to make our version harder to copy.
OUTPUT FORMAT
Capability-to-value table / Target segment / Category options with trade-offs / Positioning statement / Pitch, headline, short description / Critique.What to fill in
Everything in [GOLD CAPS] is yours to replace. Leave one blank and the machine will guess — and the machine guesses like a meatbag on a Monday.
[PRODUCT][BEST_CUSTOMERS][COMPETITIVE_ALTERNATIVES][UNIQUE_CAPABILITIES][VALUE][CURRENT_CATEGORY][CURRENT_TAGLINE][PLACEHOLDER]
How to use it
- Describe your best customers, not your average ones. Positioning built around everyone is a beige wall with a logo on it.
- "Doing nothing" belongs in the competitive alternatives. It is the most popular competitor in every market.
- Read the positioning statement to a customer and watch their face. If they nod politely, keep going. If they say "that's exactly it", stop.
Example
PRODUCT: inventory app for small breweries
BEST_CUSTOMERS: craft breweries with 2–10 staff and a taproom
COMPETITIVE_ALTERNATIVES: spreadsheets, enterprise ERP, generic inventory apps
UNIQUE_CAPABILITIES: tracks kegs by location, syncs with taproom POSWorks with
Tested for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini. Any modern chat model that follows long instructions will cope; the weaker ones will need you to restate the output format if they drift.
Weapons from the Arsenal that pair well with this prompt: