How to Sanity-Check Your Positioning Against the Market
Five Outside Checks Before You Rewrite Anything
Short answer
Sanity-check positioning by testing it against outside evidence, not internal agreement. Run five checks: is the claim already made by rivals, do buyers use your words, is your named alternative the one they compare, can you prove the claim publicly, and is anyone looking for it. Each failed check points to a specific fix.
1. Why is internal agreement not enough to test positioning?
Internal reviews test whether a statement is clear and whether the team believes it. They cannot tell you whether the market already hears the same claim from three rivals, or whether buyers describe the problem in different words.
- Positioning sanity check
- A structured comparison of a positioning statement against outside evidence, such as competitor claims, buyer language, search behavior and public proof, to find the parts the market will not accept.
- Also known as: Market reality check, Positioning audit
Most positioning work happens in a room with people who already know the product. Everyone in that room understands the claim, so it reads as sharp. The buyer reads it next to four competitor homepages, with a different vocabulary and a different alternative in mind.
That is why the checks below all use evidence from outside the company. They are not a replacement for testing the statement in sales calls or on a landing page, which the guide on writing positioning from competitor data covers. They come first, because they are cheaper and they catch the failures that live testing takes weeks to surface.
2. What are the five checks?
Occupancy, language, alternative, proof and demand. Each one tests a different slot of the positioning statement, so a failure tells you which slot to rewrite rather than sending you back to a blank page.
| Check | Question it answers | Evidence source | Slot it tests |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Occupancy | Do rivals already publish this claim? | Competitor homepages, pricing pages, live ads | The differentiator |
| 2. Language | Do buyers describe the problem in these words? | Reviews, sales call notes, community threads | The category and the problem |
| 3. Alternative | Is the alternative we named the one buyers actually compare? | Lost deals, switching language in reviews, comparison searches | The competitive alternative |
| 4. Proof | Could a stranger verify the claim today? | Your public pages, reviews, case studies, demos | The evidence |
| 5. Demand | Is anyone looking for this outcome? | Search tools, forums, inbound questions | The target buyer and outcome |
3. How do I check whether the claim is already taken?
Copy the headline claim from the homepage, pricing page and current ads of five alternatives into one column, then put your claim next to it. If two or more say the same thing in different words, the ground is occupied.
- List five alternatives, including doing nothing. Three direct competitors, one adjacent tool buyers use instead, and the manual workaround. The workaround matters because it is often the alternative that wins the most deals. April Dunford's positioning method also starts from the competitive alternatives buyers would otherwise choose [s5].
- Copy each claim verbatim. Take the homepage hero line, the pricing page headline and the most common promise in their live ads. The Meta Ad Library and the Google Ads Transparency Center show what they are paying to say right now [s1] [s2].
- Strip the wording and compare the promise. Rewrite every claim as a plain promise ("saves time on scheduling"). Wording differences hide identical promises, and the buyer notices the promise, not the adjectives.
- Apply the rival test to your own line. Ask whether your closest competitor could publish your claim tomorrow without lying. If they could, it is a category description, not a position.
A worked example: say your company sells booking software to independent physical therapy clinics. Your draft claim was "the easiest way to fill your appointment book". Veltrix, the biggest and loudest rival, says "fill every slot". Norvane, the cheap and simple app, says "more bookings, less admin". Three companies, one promise. The occupancy check fails, and the fix is in the differentiator, not the whole statement.
4. How do I check whether buyers use our words?
Read fifty reviews and your last twenty sales notes, and count how often buyers use your category word and your problem phrase unprompted. If they almost never do, the positioning is written in vocabulary the market does not search for.
Reviews are the best free source of buyer vocabulary, because nobody writes a review in marketing language. Read your own reviews and the reviews of your competitors, especially the five star ones, where customers explain in their own words why they stayed. The guide on competitor review monitoring covers how to read them without drowning.
Write down three things for every review or note:
- The noun they use for the product type. Your draft said "practice growth platform". Clinic owners said "booking system" in almost every review.
- The problem phrase. Your draft said "revenue leakage". Owners said "no-shows" and "empty slots on Monday mornings".
- The outcome they name. This is usually more concrete than anything on your site, and it is often your best headline material.
Search tools help confirm the direction. Google Trends shows relative interest in two phrases over time on a 0 to 100 scale, which is enough to see which term the market prefers without knowing absolute volumes [s3]. Keyword Planner gives monthly search estimates, but it needs a Google Ads account with billing set up [s4].
5. How do I check the alternative, the proof and the demand?
Check the alternative against lost deals and switching stories, the proof against what a stranger can verify on your public pages, and demand against whether people ask for the outcome without being prompted.
Is the named alternative the one buyers compare?
Look at the last ten lost deals and the switching stories in reviews ("we moved from", "we used to use"). If the same name or workaround keeps appearing and it is not the one in your statement, the positioning is arguing against the wrong opponent. In the example, your draft named Veltrix, but most lost deals went to a paper appointment book plus text messages.
Could a stranger verify the claim today?
Open your site in a private window and look for evidence of the differentiator: a number, a named customer, a screenshot, a review that says it. If the proof only exists in the sales deck or in the founder's head, the claim is not yet usable in public, and it should stay internal until it is.
Is anyone looking for this outcome?
Check whether the outcome appears unprompted in inbound questions, community threads and search suggestions. A differentiated claim nobody asks about is a hobby. Demand does not need to be large, but it has to be visible somewhere other than your own planning documents.
6. What should I change when a check fails?
Change the slot the check tested, and only that slot. A failed occupancy check means a new differentiator, a failed language check means new words for the same idea, and a failed proof check means building evidence before publishing.
| Failed check | What to change | Size of change |
|---|---|---|
| Occupancy | Pick a narrower claim, a segment or a refusal rivals will not copy | Medium: one slot rewritten |
| Language | Swap your category and problem words for the buyer vocabulary | Small: same idea, new words |
| Alternative | Rewrite the statement against the alternative that actually wins deals | Medium: changes the argument |
| Proof | Keep the claim internal and collect evidence for a quarter | Small now, real work later |
| Demand | Revisit the target buyer or the outcome. This one can mean repositioning | Large: see when to reposition |
The result for your company after one afternoon: occupancy failed, language failed, the alternative was wrong, proof passed and demand passed. The rewrite kept the buyer and the proof, changed "practice growth platform" to "booking system", and moved the differentiator from ease to the thing paper appointment books cannot do: automatic reminders that cut no-shows, with the reminder rate shown in the app. Two slots changed, not the whole position.
If demand fails, or three or more checks fail together, the problem is probably bigger than wording. The guide on when to reposition covers how to tell a real trigger from a symptom.
7. How often should I rerun the checks?
Rerun the occupancy check every quarter and whenever a competitor changes its homepage or ad angle. The language, alternative and demand checks move slowly enough for twice a year.
Occupancy decays fastest because rivals rewrite their copy without telling you. A claim that was open in January can be on three homepages by June, and the first sign is usually a sales call where the prospect says "they said that too". The competitor homepage message history guide covers how to keep a dated record so you can see the drift rather than guess at it.
Oppira runs this comparison continuously for the competitors you track. The Playbook starts from a Market Reality Check, and when a rival changes its landing page or ad angle, the agent proposes an edit to the affected part of your positioning with the signal that caused it. You accept or decline, and the change history keeps the evidence.
Key Takeaways
Agreement is not evidence
Internal reviews test clarity and belief. Only outside evidence tells you whether the market will accept the claim.
Five checks, five slots
Occupancy, language, alternative, proof and demand each test one slot of the statement, so a failure tells you what to rewrite.
Compare promises, not wording
Strip every competitor claim down to a plain promise. Different adjectives often hide the same offer.
Reviews carry buyer vocabulary
Customers name the product type, the problem and the outcome in words your team would never choose, and those are the words buyers search for.
The real alternative is often a workaround
Lost deals and switching stories show what buyers actually compare you with. It is frequently a spreadsheet, a paper appointment book or doing nothing.
Occupancy decays every quarter
Rivals change their copy without notice, so the occupancy check needs rerunning quarterly and after any competitor message change.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sources
- Meta Ad Library Meta Platforms, September 2026.Shows ads currently running across Facebook and Instagram for any Page.
- Ads Transparency Center Google, September 2026.Shows ads served through Google by verified advertisers.
- FAQ about Google Trends data Google, September 2026.Explains that Trends values are normalized and scaled from 0 to 100, so they show relative interest, not volume.
- Use Keyword Planner Google Ads Help, September 2026.Monthly search estimates. Requires a Google Ads account with billing information.
- Obviously Awesome April Dunford, January 2019.Positioning built from competitive alternatives, unique attributes, value, best-fit customers and market category.
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