Last Night I was taking to my friend about his business and we had a discussion about proper product positioning strategies: Today I will give you some secretes that you should know about:
Let’s start with a small story.
“A door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman in a remote zone manages to bully his way into a lady’s house. When dumping a bag of dirt over the lounge floor, he exclaims, “This machine is the greatest ever!” The lady expresses concern that it may not all come off, so the salesperson responds, “If this machine doesn’t totally clear all the dirt, I’ll lick it all off myself. ” “Would you like ketchup on it?” she asks, adding, “we haven’t yet been wired for electricity!”
That’s where the importance of proper product positioning strategies in Marketing comes in. To be competitive, a sales placement must complement the features of the goods and how they are presented in the marketplace. You risk confusing your consumers and losing revenue if your product placement and marketing campaigns do not complement each other.
In 1969, a brilliant marketer called Jack Trout exposed the world to the idea of brand placement. He was the first to bring a name to a highly effective publicity strategy. He and Al Ries wrote the landmark book: “The Fight for Your Mind” a few years back, and the rest is well-known history.
Nearly half a century later, the idea of product positioning strategies is still applicable — if not more so — to businesses. Today’s product and services industry is much bigger and more crowded. Buyers have a bewildering number of corporations to choose from, and with the growth of the Internet, local businesses are competing with businesses from all over the world. The importance of product positioning strategies is rising as well with the expanding global market.
You might have put in hundreds of hours and endless meetings to refine your product and define your name. You’re proud of your staff, and it’s clear to your clients that you care. Despite your best intentions, the rival receives all of the attention, and you find it difficult to stand out. Should you raise or lower the prices? Do you want to add a new feature? Raise more funds? Consider the product positioning strategies of your goods before going back to the drawing board. Product positioning strategies in Marketing also need to develop correctly to make the business successful.
What are Product Positioning Strategies?
When it comes to launching or rebranding products and services, your product positioning strategy is one of the most critical marketing campaigns you’ll face. In a sentence, brand positioning is the method of distinguishing your product from your rivals in such a manner that your target customer develops a preference for you. It aims to align your product with a positive concept or idea in the minds of potential clients.
Have a look at a couple of examples.
When you hear the words “soft drink” or “pop,” what comes to mind? Did you think about Coca-Cola or Pepsi? These two beverages are expected to dominate the soft drink market.
Let’s try a service now. What business comes to mind when you hear “overnight shipping”? Although other firms have overnight shipping, FedEx controls the segment and has based its entire branding and operations on it.
This is where the concept of product positioning strategies comes into play. It elegantly illustrates how consumers see the markets and prescribes a strategy for your products to carve out a position in customers’ minds.
Importance of Product Positioning Strategies:
Positioning is one of the most critical aspects of marketing, both for consumer and B2B goods (Business to Business). A brand’s positioning refers to how it provides value to its consumers in a unique way. Firms use positioning to imbue a target audience with a picture of a brand’s product or service. Positioning describes how the brand’s product is distinct and how it benefits consumers. Proper product positioning strategies in Marketing influence customers’ perceptions of a brand’s goods or services.
There are many benefits to having a well-defined position for your product. Positioning can serve as a strategic framework for the brand, marketing messages, resources you deliver, and also pricing structure.
Here are some of the most important advantages of product positioning strategies:
It helps you to focus on a single sector: Your marketing becomes more efficient and successful when you provide a limited range of services to a limited audience. You’re taught to be a valuable expert.
It explains what sets you apart from the competition: You’ll actually understand what makes your company special, and you’ll be able to speak about it in a way that piques prospects’ interest.
It demonstrates how to acquire new customers: The positioning provides critical arguments for the business development team to use in the nurturing and closing processes.
It influences innovative actions: You will make innovative choices while making the product positioning strategies until you understand the central message you need to convey to clients. Your product positioning strategies shape your visual brand’s DNA.
It influences product and service production and pricing: Knowing how you stack up against your rivals will help you determine when and what new services to deliver. Are you recognized as a provider of cutting-edge services? Is there a low-cost provider? Is it better to be a specialist or a generalist? The answers to these questions will have an impact on the services you provide and how you charge for them.
Goals to achieve from good product positioning strategies:
The majority of professional product and service companies have weak product positioning strategies. They feel that by extending their doors to everyone, they will be able to attract more clients; the wider their scope, the more companies will float into their embrace. However, this is not the case. Buyers have nowhere to turn when they see oddly splayed arms all over the place.
That is why it is important to have a product positioning plan. It gives plenty of prospects to be excited about, and it will eventually persuade them to purchase from you. And as you can show that you have the advanced experience they need, your target client would find you much more interesting than a generalist company. Moreover, as a professional, you can charge more than others.
Well-planned and successful product positioning strategies achieve the three main goals.
- It sets the product apart from other similar products on the market.
- It refers to essential principles and parameters that consumers consider when making purchases.
- It determines the distinguishing features of the product or the business that manufactures it.
To achieve these goals, you can use a variety of specific techniques, with the following being some of the most common:
Directly competing with a rival: This strategy usually depends on competition or proof of dominance over a market leader or main competitor.
Positioning yourself as distinct from rivals: Another strategy is to present yourself as different from competitors in order to attract consumers who are tired of hearing the same old story.
Putting the focus on the positive aspects: What unique benefit does your product have to offer to customers? What is it in your commodity that makes it superior to the competition? In the marketing plan, emphasize these aspects.
Concentrating on the product’s features: This strategy recognizes the standards that matter to the consumer market and places the product as focusing on those values.
Taking care of consumers and users: What conditions do your goods work well in? Who is going to continue to use them? You may develop an extremely case-specific or user-specific marketing approach by addressing these questions.
When the commodity you’re selling has distinguishing features, these tactics are easy. However, there are tens of thousands of consumer goods on the market that are almost identical. What kind of product placement technique would you use in these situations to influence customer buying behavior?
According to marketing experts, the solution is to differentiate a product even though it shares certain qualities and characteristics with competitors. This necessitates your creativity and, on occasion, a gimmicky approach, but it helps you to establish a sense of distinction.
Product Positioning Strategies For Your Company
There are several different ways to think about and build a positioning strategy. It can be derived from the product’s characteristics, market rivalry, functionality, the types of customers involved, or product category. All of these characteristics reflect a distinct approach to designing a positioning strategy, despite the fact that they all share the same goal of projecting a positive image of your product in the marketplace.
There are seven different ways to approach product positioning strategies:
1. Select a unique design.
Packaging can be just as important as the product itself, if not more so. Apple is a good example of this. It may be mistaken for another laptop computer under the surface. It’s built with silicon chips and hardware components that are nearly identical to those used in competitors’ products. Apple’s presentation — the sleek design, the iconic logo — is what sets it apart. In its marketing messages, the organization has been extremely effective in using these characteristics. Product positioning strategies in Marketing also part of creating a selective and unique content Design.
2. Adopt a Different Selling Proposition
A product’s or service’s USP (Unique selling proposition) is determined by how well it is positioned in the market. A USP is an attribute or trait of a company that sets it apart from competitors. You can make your product stand out in a modern competition crowded with similar benefits options.
McDonald’s is a good example of a company that uses a unique selling proposition to put its name better. They are the most well-known fast-food chain in the country, and they compete with hundreds of other fast-food restaurants. They don’t want to market themselves as the quickest, simplest, or best-tasting. Instead, they pride themselves on being a family-friendly establishment. They offer free toys for a child’s meal and have playgrounds in restaurants. They put themselves in a position to target families.
- Go beyond functionality and advantages.
“If Dove, a soap bar, can find an amazing way to tell a tale of true beauty, there is literally no brand on the planet that can’t find their impressiveness, their sort of inner sense, and figure out how to tell their story,” says GE CMO Linda Boff.
When you tell a convincing tale, you help shift the focus away from functionality and incentives and explain the final outcome the solution offers.
A good story features a villain and a well-defined plan to save the day. Former T-Mobile CEO John Legere effectively used the villain angle to deal with AT&T, the company’s greatest competitor.
In other situations, promoting the individuals behind the goods rather than the products themselves may make better sense. Consider the latest trends in the produce industry, which put an emphasis on local sourcing. A peach is a simple peach if it’s not a locally grown peach from a small family-owned orchard only a few miles down the coast.
4. Determine who the best clients are and learn from them.
Rather than wasting hours in meetings or staring at spreadsheets, reach out to your most loyal clients to see why they want you. Although it can be tempting to interview everybody, the top clients always provide you with the most useful information.
Customer interviews are an excellent source of information. Your top clients may give you insight into how your competitors view you, which could be somewhat different from how you see them internally. Here are some issues to consider:
- What made you decide on us?
- Have you recommended us to others? What is the reason for this?
- What other options, if any, did you consider before coming to us?
- Why did you turn from a competitor?
- Did a single marketing strategy persuade you to make a purchase?
- What feature of our product or service do you enjoy the most?
Remember, the aim of consumer interviews is to learn about your capabilities, not to sell them anything.
5. Make a simple commitment.
If consumers believe in you, what can you promise them? In the simplest terms, how do you communicate that?
ConvertKit, a well-known email service provider, excels at this. “Audience creation for creators” is their clear pledge. ConvertKit isn’t known for its functionality. They don’t pretend to have the most sophisticated email automation or to be suitable for businesses. The pledge is straightforward and targeted to a particular demographic.
Another excellent and possibly more well-known example is Geico’s claim that “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on auto insurance.” They set goals and pledge meaning in a single sentence. Product positioning Strategies in Marketing also a fact to make simple commitments for the customers.
6. Make a statement on the Product Positioning:
It’s now time to transform the differentiators into a compelling tale that explains your strategic edge. A positioning statement is a brief paragraph that summarizes the main selling points. It’s an internal message that shouldn’t be used verbatim on the website or in marketing communications due to its small size. Instead, think of it as a resource you should refer to if you need ideas for describing your company or persuading customers to buy from you.
A constructed paragraph or a prompted comment may also be used to make a product branding statement. It takes more creativity and patience to craft a well-crafted paragraph, but some businesses feel that it converts more quickly into marketing communications. A prompted statement is easier to put together when the team fills in the blanks with relevant facts.
7. Competitor-based positioning
In some situations, the firm’s positioning strategy is dominated by reference rivals; the firm either uses the same or equivalent positioning strategy as the competitors, or the advertiser develops a different strategy based on the competitors’ positioning strategy.
Colgate and Pepsodent are good instances of this. Colgate concentrated on family security when it first entered the industry. Still, when Pepsodent entered the market with an emphasis on 24-hour protection and mostly for children, Colgate shifted its focus from family protection to children’s teeth protection, which was a positioning tactic introduced due to competition.
Use your current positioning to its full potential. No plan, no matter how well-intentioned, can be effective if it is not appropriately implemented. You’ll need the right messaging resources in order to promote the latest message you’re sending. And that may necessitate a re-evaluation of the entire product positioning strategy. At the very least, you can update your marketing materials and websites to demonstrate your current positioning.
In the end, your product positioning strategies decide how it compares your products to rivals in the industry. One of the most important things you will do for your company is to develop strong product positioning strategies in the marketing sector and not only focus on other alternatives. It’s a component of marketing that should be handled with the utmost urgency and priority since it can make the difference between being a runaway hit and being yet another also-ran.
As Dunford says, “Positioning is a secret superpower that, when harnessed correctly, can change the way the world thinks about a problem, a technology or even an entire market.”
Strong positioning begins with a rethinking of existing methods and the use of real-time customer input and interaction. You’ll never be fully satisfied with your positioning. There is never a shortage of jobs to be completed. A good method, on the other hand, means that improvements are made on a regular basis.
Take heart if the products of your company aren’t in a position to draw high-end customers reliably. You’re not the only one who feels this way. Every company can improve its product positioning strategies in marketing to gain a strategic edge. To take the first step, all it takes is a little confidence.
