Extraordinarily Successful Market Positioning

by Sherman Titens

Visit Google and type “Positioning” in the search window. You’ll get 17,600,000 entries. Narrow the search to “Market Positioning” and only 4,830,000 entries come back. Enter “Successful Market Positioning” and 1,290,000 replies pop up. But if you look for “Extraordinarily Successful Market Positioning” only 265 entries return.

Clearly, “Positioning” is an established tool of marketers, but relatively few fully understand and use it well. Let’s examine how organizations can use the technique to achieve extraordinarily successful results.

Let’s say your marketing objective is to position your product or service in the mind of the prospective customer to help create more than a sale, to encourage the formation of a relationship with an emotional bond that will encourage the customer to buy and/or to return for more.

Positioning helps build your unique place in the market. In so doing, it overcomes several important environmental issues:

• Marketplace dynamics no longer allow traditional approaches to work.

• Consumers are more savvy and have more knowledge available with the growth of technology.

• Winning the competitive battle of alternatives for your customer is a full- time effort.

Think of a ladder with your product or service on one of the rungs and every product or service with greater market share on a different rung above you and every product or service with lesser share on rungs below you. Positioning helps you move up the ladder without getting knocked off by any of your competitors.

To succeed with your positioning strategy, you must work to understand the customers’ minds, what they want, what they need and why. You work to become “top of mind” when your customers make their choices.

Positioning helps give prospective customers the “reason to buy” or “reason to believe.” Market research can play a critical role in understanding the customer, and establishing and implementing your positioning strategy.

Your customers have alternatives. Customers establish a mental hierarchy of values they want and need to use as a basis of comparison before a final decision is made.

It is essential to develop loyalty and acceptance. In a world where the customer has many options, positioning is one of the keys to establishing and retaining customer loyalty and acceptance.

Three positioning issues must be resolved. Taken together, they can be characterized as the “Keys to Extraordinarily Successful Positioning.” Consider using tag lines to reinforce ideas or positioning statements to provide insight into the marketing strategy being employed or to provide an emotional component that takes the customer beyond the functional attributes of the brand alone.

Business Positioning. How do you want your business to be perceived in the competitive market? For this, you may decide to develop and consistently communicate a positioning statement or theme, “We bring good things to life;” (GE) or one of my favorites, “More Than Money” (Gold Bank).

Market Positioning. How do you achieve the perception that your product or service is the right one? You need to understand the customers, their needs and their requirements and consistently communicate your ability to meet those needs. “When it absolutely has to be there overnight” (FedEx) and “The Power of Caring” (United Way of Johnson County.)

Positioning Strategy. How do you identify and communicate your strengths in the relevant terms of the customers? Customers want to deal with successful businesses, especially where a strong relationship has been built, “When you care enough to send the very best.” (Hallmark)

Positioning is one of the five pillars of extraordinary success in marketing, along with Strategy, Differentiation, Branding and Marketing/Sales Communications. Positioning is about establishing your position from your customers’ point of view. You must know what rung on the marketing ladder you occupy today and where you want to be tomorrow.

Seek a persuasive, unoccupied position your organization can seize. And strive to achieve extraordinarily successful positioning in your marketing program to win that next rung.

Sherman Titens is the Principal Consultant of The Titens Consulting Group specializing in marketing and communications planning. He may be reached at 913-593-6306 or sherman.titens@gmail.com