The Power of positioning
How to distinguish yourself from the competition to be sure you have a preferred place in your target customer’s mind.
Summary
Positioning is the process of distinguishing yourself from competitors in specific ways in order to be the preferred provider for certain market segments. It is making a unique perception to the customers mind. If you don’t make a differentiated perception to the customers, the customers don’t know whether to buy from you, whether you have the knowhow it seeks, or whether you’ll follow through and meet its needs. Knowing who yourself is important, however in marketing, letting the customers know who you are is more essential. Here are the five steps to improving your company’s positioning.
1. Assess where you are right now
It is important to assess your own company but that isn’t enough. You should ask customer, competitors and journalist for the three adjectives they would use to describe your company, products and overall image.
2. Determine how you want to be perceived
Because when you made up your decisions and begin to take action, it will be too late and cost much to change the direction. You need to determine the specific position you want to take , and what kind product marketing messages and image you want to convey and reinforce.
3. Select your target customers.
In this step you need think about the following questions. ‘Will you benefit from making your image more exclusive and inaccessible of more of a commodity and more accessible? How does your target market define value? How do those people choose among vendors?’
4. Factor in current trends.
There is a well-known expression in this field. “If you want to be a market leader, find a parade and jump in front of it.” If you want to jump in front of a current trend parade, you need to know the trend first. These days numerous companies are jumping in front of the environmental movement with “green: products and service
5. Formulate your four levels
Your business objective drives your business strategy which drives your market strategy which drives your positioning strategy.
Opinion
In class, we learned about the STP strategy which stands for, Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. Though this article out a lot of stress on Positioning, you need to go through two steps before you actually take the positioning step. Though the three steps are inseparable, we can explain separately. In segmentation, you need to check the strategy and goal of the company first and think about the possible segment. In targeting, you should evaluate the attractiveness of each segment and based on this evaluation, you should choose a sement. And at last, like in this article, considering the five steps that the article is providing, you can position your company.
Annotation :Christine Comaford-Lynch, ‘The power of positioning’, businessweek, June 2, 2008URL http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jun2008/sb2008062_723641.htm
How to distinguish yourself from the competition to be sure you have a preferred place in your target customer’s mind.
Summary
Positioning is the process of distinguishing yourself from competitors in specific ways in order to be the preferred provider for certain market segments. It is making a unique perception to the customers mind. If you don’t make a differentiated perception to the customers, the customers don’t know whether to buy from you, whether you have the knowhow it seeks, or whether you’ll follow through and meet its needs. Knowing who yourself is important, however in marketing, letting the customers know who you are is more essential. Here are the five steps to improving your company’s positioning.
1. Assess where you are right now
It is important to assess your own company but that isn’t enough. You should ask customer, competitors and journalist for the three adjectives they would use to describe your company, products and overall image.
2. Determine how you want to be perceived
Because when you made up your decisions and begin to take action, it will be too late and cost much to change the direction. You need to determine the specific position you want to take , and what kind product marketing messages and image you want to convey and reinforce.
3. Select your target customers.
In this step you need think about the following questions. ‘Will you benefit from making your image more exclusive and inaccessible of more of a commodity and more accessible? How does your target market define value? How do those people choose among vendors?’
4. Factor in current trends.
There is a well-known expression in this field. “If you want to be a market leader, find a parade and jump in front of it.” If you want to jump in front of a current trend parade, you need to know the trend first. These days numerous companies are jumping in front of the environmental movement with “green: products and service
5. Formulate your four levels
Your business objective drives your business strategy which drives your market strategy which drives your positioning strategy.
Opinion
In class, we learned about the STP strategy which stands for, Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. Though this article out a lot of stress on Positioning, you need to go through two steps before you actually take the positioning step. Though the three steps are inseparable, we can explain separately. In segmentation, you need to check the strategy and goal of the company first and think about the possible segment. In targeting, you should evaluate the attractiveness of each segment and based on this evaluation, you should choose a sement. And at last, like in this article, considering the five steps that the article is providing, you can position your company.
Annotation :Christine Comaford-Lynch, ‘The power of positioning’, businessweek, June 2, 2008URL http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jun2008/sb2008062_723641.htm
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