Podcast Summary: Social Media Marketing Podcast

Episode: Positioning Strategy: How to Ensure Your Message Connects
Host: Michael Stelzner
Guest: Jackie Hermes (Founder, Accelity Marketing)
Release Date: August 28, 2025

Overview

This episode dives deep into the art and science of positioning strategy for marketers and business owners. Michael Stelzner interviews Jackie Hermes on how brands can refine their positioning, validate messaging hypotheses, and ensure their value propositions truly connect with audiences, leading to more qualified leads, trust, and sales. Practical, actionable frameworks for research, analysis, and buy-in are shared alongside real-world anecdotes and techniques.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Jackie’s Background and Entry into Positioning

[04:02–08:43]

• Jackie is unusual in having both studied marketing in college and worked in it her entire career, including at GE Healthcare and a fast-growing, private equity-owned software company.
• The challenge of integrating messaging and positioning during acquisitions drove her strategic focus early on.
• Her agency, Accelity, grew from solo consulting to a full team, expanding into B2B, nonprofit, and purpose-driven work, specializing in helping lean marketing teams with everything from foundational strategy to execution.

“You need the basics. You need to know how to reach your audience.” (Jackie, 04:42)

The Importance and Upside of Positioning

[08:43–11:18]

• Positioning is about defining who you’re speaking to and what makes you different—not just touting features.
• Most companies fail here, adding to market noise instead of standing out.
• Effective positioning leads to trust, education, and audience engagement—growing web traffic, building a following, and making audiences care before asking for a sale.

“If you don't know who you're talking to and how you're different and a lot about your competitors, you're really just adding to the noise.” (Jackie, 09:15)

Positioning Starts with Hypotheses: The Research Process

[11:34–18:00]

• Begin with a hypothesis about what your market believes about your category, your company, or your competitors.
  • E.g., “Marketers want to learn together about AI to become more valuable to their employers.”
• Each hypothesis should be tested, refined, or disproved.
• Research includes:
  1. Online research: Forums (Reddit, Quora), social conversations, and deep dives beyond standard articles.
  2. Interviews with internal teams: Structured conversations to draw out assumptions, perceptions, and gaps.
  3. Stakeholder interviews: Current/lost customers, past prospects, and even those who chose competitors.

“We create a hypothesis... and then you get to develop more as you do research as well.” (Jackie, 15:21)

Research in Action: Gathering and Analyzing Data

[17:10–22:16]

• Be creative with where and how to research—look for candid conversations and unfiltered language in niche communities.
• In interviews, balance structured guides with more open-ended, creative questions (“Write a eulogy for your company”), which can unlock emotional insights and deeper motivations.
• Sampling matters: Segment by role, company size, and background for patterns and outliers.

“It's actually really crazy how many assumptions are made by a company that are sometimes not true...” (Jackie, 17:55)

Synthesizing Data & Proving/Disproving Hypotheses

[28:04–32:49]

• Use AI tools (like ChatGPT) for thematic analysis of transcripts and responses. Prompt with context, client background, and clear instructions.
• Look for consistencies and outliers:
  • One strong dissenting view may be an outlier—understand their profile before overcorrecting based on their input.
  • Segment responses to see if context or background explains differences.
• False positives and biases: Don't assume a hypothesis is disproven by a few responses. Examine the “why” behind divergent answers.

“It's tempting to say...a couple people made a really strong case against this, so it's disproved. And that's not always right.” (Jackie, 30:50)

Real-World Examples of Hypothesis Validation

[33:10–37:37]

• Technical sales: Hypothesis—maybe decision-makers want technical details upfront. Research shows most want value-focused messaging initially, with technical details reserved for later.
  • Outliers may reflect special backgrounds or multiple roles and should be interpreted accordingly.
• Scheduling software: Hypothesis—nursing managers at long-term care facilities will value an automated scheduling tool over informal tools like WhatsApp groups.
  • Research validated the hypothesis, particularly when moving to new verticals.

“We had to go in with the hypothesis that people would rather use an app that made it simple than just be pinged every time.” (Michael, 37:24)

Internal Buy-In—Presenting Findings & Navigating Resistance

[38:14–42:09]

• Build buy-in throughout the process, not just in a final presentation:
  • Watch for non-verbal cues in meetings and address concerns immediately.
  • Identify and partner with internal champions for dry runs and strategic feedback before sharing with larger groups.
  • Customize presentations: Highlight internal influencer quotes that match your conclusions, align insights with stakeholder priorities.
  • Make ideas feel collaborative, reflecting contributors' feedback and suggestions.

“Helping people feel like the ideas are theirs. So always bringing it back to, ‘Hey, Josh, in this meeting, we heard you say this…’” (Jackie, 41:53)

Storytelling & Emotional Resonance

[42:09–43:10]

• Use storytelling to connect findings with the emotional core of the business and its people.
  • Example: Insurance underwriters see themselves as “second responders” after disasters—a powerful insight to influence messaging and engagement.

“You have to paint a picture and tell a story that is emotional and kind of pulls them in.” (Jackie, 42:16)

Implementation & Ongoing Validation

[43:10–44:16]

• Buy-in is not a one-and-done event; it requires ongoing internal communication, training, and adaptation.
• Roll out new positioning in stages:
  • Sales scripts and conversations
  • Website and landing pages
  • Ad campaigns
  • Testimonials and content
• Track results via metrics (time on site, bounce rate, ad performance, etc.) and be prepared to revalidate and pivot as needed.

“You keep testing, you go out and get market validation... and if things go the other way, then we have to make changes.” (Jackie, 43:26)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On positioning vs. features:
  “It’s not the features of what you do...it’s a lot higher level than that.” (Jackie, 09:04)

• On managing bias in research:
  “You have to really look at the context to understand does it really prove or disprove?” (Jackie, 32:25)

• On emotional insights for messaging:
  “They feel like they’re not responders, but they’re second responders...and those people actually have like a really kind of altruistic reason for doing their work.” (Jackie, 42:16)

• On the iterative nature of buy-in:
  “You have to keep selling yourself over and over and even as an employee you have to keep selling yourself.” (Jackie, 43:26)

Key Timestamps

• 04:02 — Jackie’s entry into B2B marketing and positioning
• 09:04 — Why positioning matters more than features
• 11:34 — Starting with hypotheses and information-gathering
• 15:21 — Validating/disproving hypotheses in research
• 17:10 — Examples of internal and external market research
• 24:21 — Internal team interviews and creative question techniques
• 28:04 — Using AI to analyze qualitative research data
• 32:49 — Managing false positives and outliers in research analysis
• 37:24 — Case study: Scheduling software in long-term care
• 38:14 — Preparing for and presenting to stakeholders for strategic buy-in
• 42:16 — The power of storytelling in positioning
• 43:26 — Implementation and ongoing validation of positioning

Final Thoughts

Jackie Hermes provides a step-by-step roadmap for marketers to re-examine and validate their positioning—beginning with hypotheses, leveraging broad and deep research, and synthesizing insights into actionable messaging. The critical ingredients: embracing feedback, segmenting audiences, involving stakeholders, and iterating over time.

For further learning or engagement, Jackie prefers connections on LinkedIn (“thejackiehermes”) and more about her agency at accelitymarketing.com.

For detailed show notes and resources, visit: socialmediaexaminer.com/681

(Ads, intro, and outro segments have been omitted from this summary.)