November 29, 2023
Product positioning is all about finding a delicate balance. Going too broad can lead to more exposure but less relevance while going too narrow might overlook market potential and limit growth. In the saturated sales intelligence market, Databook was struggling to hit the sweet spot.
The company was framing itself as a “customer intelligence platform.” Their chosen category was too broad, making it difficult to cut through the noise and explain their unique value.
The positioning challenge extended beyond messaging and affected internal alignment. Kassidy Bird, VP of Marketing, noted: “You couldn’t ask two employees what the company did and receive the same answer.”
Databook made the call to revamp its positioning for a competitive edge.
As Kassidy explained: "There are thousands of companies, and all say they do the same thing. And there are some pretty well-defined categories within the sales-tech industry, led by behemoths. Now the market's shifting and reorganizing, so we found our opening.”
Databook underwent a repositioning strategy in two phases. Phase 1 involved establishing a baseline and improving messaging, while Phase 2 brought about a deeper transformation.
During Phase 1, they used Wynter to test messages with different audiences to identify which resonated most. The results of these baseline tests confirmed their fears: nobody was able to understand what Databook offered or its true value.
Kassidy decided to go deep into qualitative research, surveying Databook’s buyers through Wynter to better understand their pains and expectations. Those survey insights led to Databook doing a smaller repositioning into strategic enablement:
“We didn’t do a full repositioning, but we likely repositioned in Sales only as strategic enablement. In the sales conversations, that has moved us forward immediately.”
The results of Phase 1 made a measurable difference in both message clarity and retention during sales calls. “People understood what we said and could repeat it back to us by 38%”, Kassidy reported.
The messaging improvements weren't enough to move Databook forward.
Internal discussions revealed the need to reassess the company's vision and gain a clearer understanding of what they aimed to disrupt within the marketplace.
Wynter supported this decision-making process with a series of preference tests to get stakeholder feedback on their options:
“Once we had figured out our point of view, we used the preference test to get reactions. That process gave us enough qualitative insights into where we actually landed on the category redefinition we chose to go with.”
Databook's new positioning as the first platform for Strategic Relationship Management (SRM) inspired a website revamp.
Within two weeks of the relaunch, conversions increased by 67% and qualified leads increased tenfold. Post-launch testing also revealed a greater alignment of messaging and recognition among their ICPs.
“The category relaunch has been probably the most impactful thing to our pipeline and the trajectory of our company. Now everybody is actually talking about our company in the same way, in the way that we want them to,” Kassidy concluded.
