What is positioning?
Positioning refers to the activities that a brand or company performs to occupy a position in the mind of the consumer and in the market. The most important aspect in positioning is the degree of distinction from the competitor’s products and services.
What is positioning?
Positioning refers to the activities that a brand or company performs to occupy a position in the mind of the consumer and in the market. The most important aspect in positioning is the degree of distinction from the competitor’s products and services.
Positioning is different from working on brand awareness. This involves strategically placing a brand or company in relation to other brands and companies, using strategic tools such as a SWOT analysis.
To distinguish products or services, companies often use their distinguishing features. What is the product? What does the product do? Who benefits from the product?
They also try to create a suitable image about the brand when it comes to the type of user. Is it a cheap or premium product? Utilitarian or luxurious? These matters are usually incorporated into the marketing mix.
In general, the positioning strategy of a brand or product is determined based on:
Positioning is one of the most important marketing concepts today. Originally, positioning focused on the product itself. Later, Al Ries and Jack Trout considered a product’s reputation, including the ranking of the competitor’s products and brands.
They also came up with the idea that positioning is primarily about positioning a brand in the mind of the target audience.
The more firmly a product or brand is positioned, the more difficult it becomes to change this positioning. After all, the image is stuck in the mind of the consumer.
There is a lot involved in developing and executing a positioning strategy. Fortunately, many methods and techniques are available to support this, such as the MDC model. The process of a positioning strategy is briefly described below.
During the first phase of the positioning strategy, it is mainly about understanding a product. Try to identify the product’s unique features that make it significantly different from competitors’ products. Compare the product with the products of others and describe how the differences can become a strength.
The second step involves identifying the current market position, if the product is already on the market and adjusting the positioning strategy. It also determines exactly how the new positioning strategy will help differentiate it from the competitor’s products.
The third step in the process involves analyzing the competitive environment. Examine the competitor’s position, offering, differences in offerings and pricing, and the degree of influence competitors have on each other.
Also note:
The last step involves defining concrete actions and measures that can be taken to make the positioning of a product as favorable as possible.
Include the value of the product or brand in the materials you distribute and communicate the marketing position with all stakeholders. Consider using materials that stand out, for example because the competitor isn’t using them.
Proper use of positioning strategies and methods increases the effectiveness of marketing efforts and can lead to the successful launch of new brands. This is partly due to the following advantages of the implementation of positioning strategies:
Positioning influences how people perceive a brand or product. If the materials distributed as a result of a positioning strategy put a brand in a positive light, customers will associate with it, which can lead to more purchases.
More purchases naturally lead to higher sales figures, which is the main goal of a commercial brand or product. Growing a brand or product can in itself also attract new people.
A clearly developed positioning strategy ensures that the necessary knowledge is available to make well-informed decisions. Good decisions lead to positive results and close customer relationships.
The articles linked to the tag positioning are about topics that are linked to the positioning of a brand or company in the market. It also includes various marketing techniques and methods to support a brand manager in a company’s activities and to optimize the marketing strategy.
