← The Marketing Station ~ dish 09 of 10 · the marketing station

Strategic Positioning Audit

The station can read your site, your competitors' sites, industry coverage, and tell you what it sees. The Chef decides if the analysis is true.

The job

You want to know where you’re crisp and where you’re generic. Where the lane is open. What your competitors claim that the market doesn’t actually believe. What you claim that’s invisible. The station can do the reading. It can summarize what’s on the surface. But the Chef has to validate it. The Chef knows the market. The Chef knows which claims are real and which are just words. The station drafts the audit. The Chef writes the conclusion.

This is the highest-touch dish on the Marketing Station. The station is a thinking partner, not a factory. You’re in DECIDING. The station does the legwork. You make the call.

The recipe

All seven ingredients still apply. But the build-note ingredient is different. This dish isn’t about training the station on a recipe. It’s about your stance toward the work.

The Chef stays in DECIDING the whole time. The station reads your site, three competitors’ sites, the last six months of industry coverage about your category. It pulls out the claims each competitor makes. The language they use. The positioning they’ve taken. The station surfaces the data.

Then the Chef reads the station’s analysis. The Chef knows the market because the Chef works in it every day. The Chef knows which positioning moves are real and which are theater. The Chef knows what the customer actually values and what the competitor is just saying. The station drafted. The Chef writes the conclusion.

How to build it

  1. Gather the audit scope. Your site. Three to five competitors. Industry coverage sources. Analyst reports if you have them. Six months of coverage minimum.
  2. Define what you’re looking for. Where are you crisp. Where are you generic. Where’s the lane open. What are competitors claiming that customers don’t believe. What are you claiming that’s invisible.
  3. Ask the station to read your site and the competitor sites. Pull the claims each makes. The language. The positioning. Organize by theme.
  4. Ask the station to scan the last six months of industry coverage. What positioning moves are people talking about. What claims are getting air. What’s being ignored.
  5. Ask the station to surface the data. A table. Claims by competitor. Where they’re strong. Where they’re generic. Where they agree.
  6. Review the station’s audit. Read it. Check it against your knowledge of the market. Does the station see what’s actually there or what’s on the surface.
  7. The station’s findings are the draft. You write the conclusion. Based on the audit and your market knowledge, what should you actually do about this.
  8. The conclusion is what ships. Not the station’s analysis. Your analysis of the station’s analysis.

What breaks it

  • Chef skips the validation. The station drafts the audit. The Chef doesn’t check it against reality. The conclusions are based on surface-level reading. The recommendations miss the actual market dynamic.
  • Station goes too deep. The station spends a week on the audit. The Chef gets a 50-page document. It’s overwhelming. Audit is best when it’s tight. Crisp. Data-dense but concise.
  • Chef writes the conclusion without reading the audit. The Chef has opinions about positioning. The Chef doesn’t actually read what the station found. The conclusion is the Chef’s existing thinking, not informed by the audit.
  • Confusion about the output. Is this a competitive analysis or a positioning recommendation. Better to separate them. The station analyzes. The Chef recommends.

When it’s working

The station delivers a tight audit. Twenty to thirty pages. Competitor claims organized by theme. Language analysis. Coverage themes. The Chef reads it. Validates it against market knowledge. Then the Chef writes the conclusion. Where you’re strong. Where you’re weak. Where the lane is. What you should do. By month two, you have an updated positioning strategy based on the audit and the Chef’s market knowledge.

The signal that the recipe is sharp: you read the station’s audit and it shows you things you knew intuitively but never articulated. The Chef reads it and says “that’s exactly right” or “that’s wrong because…” Either way, the Chef can respond intelligently.

Monday Move

Gather the scope. Your site. Three competitors. Assign the station to read them. Pull claims. Language. Positioning. Ask it to organize by theme. Give you the data clean. You review the station’s audit. You check it against your knowledge. You find the gaps. You find the patterns. Then you write the conclusion. Not the station’s conclusion. Yours. Based on the station’s draft and your market knowledge. By week three, you have a positioning audit that informs strategy.

Dish 9 of 10 on the Marketing Station. Build-note leverage: Four D’s stance (DIALING). Station drafts; Chef writes the verdict.