Creately: Visualizing Your Market Category
Type: tool
Stage: Stage 2: Positioning Proof
Difficulty: intermediate
A diagramming tool for plotting competitors on a 2×2 positioning matrix — visually identifying the open territory your product should own before committing to a market category.
Overview
A positioning map translates competitive analysis into a visual format that makes gaps visible. Instead of reading a list of competitor features, you plot every competitor on two axes — and the white space in the resulting chart is your positioning territory. Creately provides pre-built positioning map templates that make this exercise fast and shareable.
How a positioning map works
A positioning map (also called a perceptual map or competitive map) places competitors on a two-axis grid where the axes represent the attributes most important to your target customer.
Common axis pairs for Stage 2:
• Price (low → high) vs. Simplicity (simple → complex)
• Audience specificity (generic → niche) vs. Feature depth (shallow → deep)
• Setup time (fast → slow) vs. Customizability (rigid → flexible)
• Consumer focus vs. Enterprise focus, on one axis; self-serve vs. sales-led, on the other
You choose the axes that matter most for your specific category. Plot every competitor you've identified. The cluster where competitors concentrate is the crowded center. The open quadrant is the positioning opportunity.
Setting up a positioning map in Creately
Creately's positioning map template is pre-built with a 2×2 grid and competitor icon placeholders. To use it for Stage 2:
1. Open the template at the URL above
2. Define your two axes based on the attributes most relevant to your niche
3. Add a shape for each competitor you've identified — including informal competitors (spreadsheets, manual processes)
4. Place each competitor on the grid based on your research
5. Plot your proposed positioning on the same grid
The resulting map shows you:
• Where competitors cluster (avoid these quadrants unless you have a clear differentiator)
• Where the map is empty (potential positioning territory)
• Where your proposed positioning sits relative to the competition
Choosing your axes
The axes you choose determine what the map reveals. Choosing axes that don't matter to your customer produces a map with no useful insight.
Good axis choices:
• Axes that represent real purchasing criteria for your target customer
• Axes where you have verifiable data (not subjective impressions)
• Axes where there's actual variance — if all competitors cluster on the same point on one axis, that axis doesn't help you find a gap
A reliable method: take your five strongest positioning interview findings and look for the two attribute pairs that generated the most emotional response. Those are the axes your customers actually use to evaluate options — and the ones that will reveal the most meaningful gaps.
What to do with the map
The positioning map is a diagnosis tool, not an answer. Once you've plotted the competitive landscape:
1. Identify the open quadrant where no competitor sits — that's the positioning hypothesis
2. Ask: is there a real customer in that quadrant? Does anyone want what lives in that white space?
3. Validate the hypothesis with your search intent data (Keywords Everywhere) and 5-second test results (Lyssna)
4. If the quadrant has demand evidence and no incumbent, you've found your positioning territory
Share the map with five potential customers and ask where they'd plot the product they currently use, and where they wish a product existed. The delta between those two points is your positioning opportunity — stated in the customer's own frame of reference.