What is Positioning in Marketing and Why Marketing Position is a Must-Have for B2B Businesses?
Have you taken a moment to think about how two companies producing a product that serves the same purpose have their products in the same store, and yet a customer picks one ahead of the other? Sometimes, you would see a chunk of a brand’s product on the shelf, and find only one of the competing brands’ products remaining. This is not a coincidence.
The successful company must have done something that makes customers choose their products ahead of the other company. The trick is “Market Positioning.”
Every customer has a pain point and because of that, they are in search of a solution. So, they go for products that appeal to their utmost need. And the only way your company’s product can be bought is if you have a strong market positioning. Market positioning does not just guarantee your increase in sales, it also affects other core areas of your marketing strategy.
In this blog post, we’ll be revealing to you everything you need to know about market positioning – what it is, the importance, the types, and how to create an effective market positioning strategy.
Stick to this post as a lot of things will be unearthed.
What is Market Positioning?
“Market position” is the thoughts that come to a consumer’s mind when he sees a certain brand. However, you have to put things in place so that your company will be easily differentiated from another company.
In simple terms, market positioning is the strategic process involved in making a perfect picture of how you want your brand to be viewed. For example, in the midst of several companies producing clothes, you could come out as a company that manufactures clothes only for kids.
An important question you need to ask yourself is: what does my brand stand for? What do they know me for? When people think of my product, what comes to their mind?
If you don’t take hold of the narrative by having a strong market position, your business won’t strive. You need to stand out amongst your competitors.
For instance: Nike is known for producing sports boots, clothes, and other sports equipment. BMW is known for manufacturing sports cars. Tesla is known for manufacturing expensive electric cars. Chanel is known for producing luxury designers. Joola is known for producing quality table tennis.
All these companies have become authorities in their industries because they are known for what they do. If a consumer needs a product pertaining to any of these industries, he considers them first. That’s why they are more successful.
Also, market positioning is more than you displaying what you do on your website, or declaring the main category of people your product is focused on. You must live and breathe your claims. Your product must be as you said it is, it must be able to perform the things you said it can. Only by that will consumers stick to your brand.
Importance of Market Positioning
There are several reasons why you need to inculcate market positioning in your business strategy. When you have the right market positioning strategy for your company, you can take charge of how your external business environment operates. You become the main director of affairs in your industry.
Below are a number of benefits you get when your company is well-positioned.
Brand Awareness
The reason why some brands are not known is that there are a lot of people in the niche/industry that they operate. To be known, you have to be distinct. With the right market positioning, your brand will easily be communicated to the public. More people get to know what you do, and your brand name rings in their ears anytime they are in need. Marketing positioning puts your brand in the limelight.
Competitive Advantage
With the right market positioning, your business will have more edge over other businesses. Once the public knows you for your specialty, you begin to rank high in the competition pyramid, thus reducing the number of businesses you have to compete against in the market.
Introduction to Loyal Customers
One of the beauties of market positioning is that you get more customers without openly canvassing them. Customers want what solves their problems and fulfill their desires. Once they see you as a solution, they will stick to you. All you have to do is to be an expert and deliver quality products/services, and they will flock in. Just ensure you meet the needs of your audience, and more loyal customers will find you.
Increase in Sales
This is where every marketing strategy leads, but you can achieve it faster with a good market positioning. Every profit organization wants their sales to increase so that they will get more revenue which in turn leads to more profit. But to be able to get all these, consumers must view and think of you as someone who can satisfy their wants and needs.
A good market positioning guarantees you an increase in sales. Your business will break the chain of sales it used to have if you have a more relevant solution and communicate it to the public. It will result in new clients and an increase in sales.
Better Customer Relationship
When you know the specific people you are producing products for or render service to, your customer relationship will improve. You won’t have to assume that the whole public is your market; you have a limited number of people to focus on. You can efficiently explain the important benefits of your product, the proper way of using them and give them updates on recent developments.
Also, you get to interact with all of them. This can be done by asking and answering questions in your social media comments. You can respond to all comments with Socialays. The AI-Based Assistant groups them in classes to help you know the emotions behind the engagements.
Types of Market Positioning Strategy
To be successful in business, you have to be the best in an area. Customers must seek you when there is a particular need. You must have a Unique Selling Point (USP) i.e., something only your brand offers. It could be that your services are flawless, or your products have the highest quantity, or you give the longest warranty. Something must definitely stand you out. And sometimes, you might be positioned as number one for more than a reason. For example, Apple is known for luxury and quality.
Quickly, we’ll be examining different strategies that can stand you out amongst your competitors.
Price Strategy
This is the best strategy that works for growing businesses as the higher number of the world's population are not very wealthy. People have a lot of needs and want that they would like to meet at the same time, so they look for products that are of low price but satisfactory. To have more customers to sell to, you have to make products that are of quality and at the same time, come at a considerable price.
Most people seek to live the best of life, they seek to buy that Chanel bag they see on their celebrity, they seek to own the latest car, but they are limited by their finances. So, you can attract a lot of them by manufacturing products of a high quality that comes at an affordable price.
In many product categories, the companies that offer the lowest-priced products with a fair level of quality frequently prevail. This is because more people get satisfaction from them.
Quality Strategy
This is another form of a market position that you can choose. As much as some people care about reduced prices, some people are after the quality of the product. They want a product/service that will last them for a long time. All that they are after are durable goods, a product that has proven to have a high quality. For example, there are several types of table tennis, but Joola, over the past 60 years, has stuck to producing quality table tennis and as a result, they became an official sponsor of the United States of America Table Tennis (USATT) team.
Most pricing and competition battles can be avoided by focusing on quality. Quality can define how well your business strives. If your product/service is of exceptional quality, use it as your positioning, stick to it.
Sometimes, some businesses also do well because they produce luxury items. Consumers associate quality with luxury, thereby, positioning a product as a luxury will naturally lead them to feel it is of greater quality than their competitors.
Differentiation Strategy
This market positioning strategy deals with venturing into aspects of the industry that has no participant i.e., introducing your personalized/unique selling point into the market.
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Differentiation is the attributes of your business’ products/services that distinguish it from your competitors. Competitors won’t be of a threat when you produce products or render services that are very distinct from theirs. For instance, Tesla ventured into the automobile industry and started making grounds. Why?
Well, the reason is this: they did not put their feet in the overcrowded automobile sector. They started manufacturing electric luxury cars, rather than the conventional cars that other companies make.
The same thing applies to BMW, there are a lot of car companies, but the BMW emblem stands out because, over the years, the car company has been producing high-performing sport-like cars. Even though their cars are expensive, they have powerful engines, and their components are of good quality.
Convenience Strategy
This strategy is applicable to every human. Everybody wants a stress-free life; we want to get things done at the snap of our fingers. Therefore, we chase after things that offer us such feeling and satisfaction.
As a brand, you can utilize this strategy. Offer things that give pleasure and ease to potential customers. Have an easy and relatable market strategy. Make goods that can be easily used; customers shouldn’t start looking for you to know how well they can utilize your product. Make their life easy!
Also, offer services that can be reached anywhere. Your services shouldn’t be location-bound. For example, banks that have transitioned to being available in most strategic places get more customers. But banks that have developed smartphone apps have created easy access to their services, thereby getting more customers than other banks. In fact, some of them don’t charge transaction fees not until you’ve exceeded your number of free transactions. All these attract more customers, thereby establishing the feet of your brand.
Customer Care Service Strategy
Humans love friendly relationships. If you relate with them well, they unconsciously and consciously register you in their mind. This strategy is very important and applicable to all kinds of business. An example of an industry that always utilizes this strategy is the banking sector. At the entrance, you’d be welcomed and while leaving you’d be thanked for your patronage. This simple act cements a ground of relevance in the heart of the customers. They would want to come again because of the nice gesture.
This strategy also includes having a smiling face and being a friendly person to relate to your customers. The personnel must be able to create friendly and helpful interactions. It is also applicable to online businesses, and reliable help is Socialays – it reads your customers’ dispositions, analyzes them, and reacts in real-time for you. Customers always want a fast reply.
How to Create an Effective Market Positioning Strategy?
To create an effective market position that will transition your business to customers minds, you must do the following in order to position yourself effectively:
Know Where You Currently Stand
The first thing is to know what position you currently occupy. Know how customers currently view your products. By doing this, a lot of hidden truth will be revealed, and you’ll be able to make a great decision on how to solve your sales problems. Analyze your current strategy and look out for possible loopholes that could be making your business not do well.
Also, assess your business like a competitor. Criticize your brand just as a competitor would. Ask yourself these questions:
Also, you have to be sure if consumers understand your pattern of communication. Words sell before products/services. The best way to market a product is to speak in the same language as your audience – use the same jargon and terms as them. Establish a connection with them. Only then will they pay attention to whatever you have to sell.
Examine Your Competitors
After fixing all the loopholes in your current market position, it is vital that you have an added advantage before going to the market. To have more sales, examine your competitors.
The first thing to do in this stage is to carry out research. Know all your competitors. The research could be done through a survey – simply ask consumers about their best brand and why they prefer it to others. You can also make use of social media platforms – study consumers’ views and opinions on brands’ products. Another way to know your competitors is to ask your sales and marketing team about the other brands they come against when they go out.
After you’ve known who your competitors are, it is essential that you do deeper research on how they operate. You have to know why their businesses succeed more than yours. Know their positioning, how they convince consumers into choosing them ahead of you and other brands. Also, check out for the category of people their products appeal to more.
Find out about anything that they have and you don’t – their strengths and weaknesses.
Create a Unique Position
After you have assessed your current position and have amended all the loopholes, note down the advantages you have over your competitors. No matter how insignificant they are, note them down.
Also, while examining your competitors, take note of their strengths and weaknesses as you will need to capitalize on them while creating your unique position.
If the two previous steps were effectively done, by now, you would have noticed a number of things that can be done differently. You would have seen your strengths and the weaknesses of your competitors when you compare your product to theirs. Take advantage of this. Leverage on their incompetencies. Offer customers what they are not getting from your competitors.
Also, while creating your new position, you can come up with new ideas that no business in the industry offers. Include them in your new strategy, and you will automatically welcome new customers.
Whenever you are pitching or advertising your business, make sure these unique offers are stated boldly. They should be the focus of your marketing. Let your target customers know that you have what they need.
Create a Strong Positioning Statement and Slogan
After creating a unique market position, you need to summarize everything in a statement. The statement will consist of one or two sentences and it must be very concise detailing who your customers are and what you offer. The statement should contain facts and strike a chord in your audience in order to attract more customers.
After creating your positioning statement, you will have to craft a very short slogan, which is also known as a tagline. It’s a shorter version of your statement. It can be used when you are doing other marketing activities like periodic sending of emails to your subscribers. The slogan can also be used as a trademark for your product; it can always accompany your logo. The positioning statement won’t be appropriate in all cases, so you would have to input the slogan.
Sometimes you could have more than one slogan just like Starbucks. But as a brand that is trying to gain ground, make use of only one slogan. It would be detrimental if your customers start confusing you for other brands. Stick to a slogan!
Test Your Market Positioning
After creating your positioning statement and slogan, you are set to go. Give your new position a trial. Put it out into the market. Spend time on testing and getting feedback from your customers to see if it achieves its aim. You can effectively do this through surveys, interviews, polls, comments, etc. Ensure you get the take of your customers on how they view you.
If there are any changes to be made, make the amendments immediately. Keep on testing until the results are positive.
Final Thought
Nobody buys a product/service because it is absolutely wonderful; people buy because they believe it will be of benefit to them – health-wise, intelligence-wise, popularity-wise, etc. Businesses only get customers because their products or services satisfy the needs of their audience. So, what’s the point of any business if it’s not about satisfying the customers? If you don’t satisfy them, you won’t get sales.
Also, the only way they will keep your brand’s name in their head is if you are worth chasing after. Humans always want to add value to themselves. Make your audience the center of your marketing strategy, and they will make you the focus of the satisfaction of their needs.
This article has explained the importance of market positioning and how it determines the success of a business. It has also explained how an effective market positioning can be created. Read through again and again, then apply all of the facts stated, and your business will go BOOM!