How To:, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Techniques

Marketing Strategies: the Ultimate Benefits of Positioning

Positioning is one of the simplest marketing strategies to implement, and yet is one area that is often not even properly considered.  This article takes a closer look at why you should carefully consider how your brand is to be positioned in the marketplace.

The benefits of positioning

The ultimate benefits of positioning your business effectively are huge.  During any purchasing process, the customer is looking to be guided to a product/service/brand of “best fit”.  Sometimes it may not always be crystal clear from the outset what they are looking for exactly.  However, they will have a need, and a rough idea of what may be the solution to fill that need.

Why positioning is one of the most important marketing strategies is that if we do not stand apart (in the mind of the customer) from such competitors, then it makes the buying process much more difficult.

The following few paragraphs will help guide you to understand where you are currently positioned, where you want to be positioned, and what you need to do to make it happen.

Positioning Marketing Strategies – Step 1 – Identify the market

Before you can attempt to analyse where your business is currently positioned, you must first identify the market you are positioned within.  For some businesses this will be really easy, and for others much less clear.  Why this is critical is because unless you have clarity on this element, you cannot really understand who you are competitively positioned against.

Competition concept with businessman beating competitors

Let’s take a look at an example to show the impact that this could have.  Let’s say for example I run a small Yorkshire animal welfare charity.  Before I can truly undertake this positioning exercise, I need to ascertain whether I consider my marketplace to be local charities within Yorkshire, or alternatively, animal charities. 

In order to arrive at my decision, I may well look at my existing supporter base and, perhaps, even speak to them.  Do the majority of supporters start with wanting to support a local charity first, and then select the cause – or vice versa?

Once we are clear on this, we can move to stage 2.

Positioning Marketing Strategies – Step 2 – Identify the competitors

Now that we know the market we can start to consider who our major competitors within this marketplace are.

However, we often find with most clients we work with, there are a number of other competitors that they are not even aware of.  These are the dangerous ones.  After all, if you don’t know your enemy, how can you create marketing strategies to overcome them.

Once you know who the competitors are, you can start to plot the landscape of the market.

Positioning Marketing Strategies – Step 3 – Plotting the current landscape

So, we now know the market we are operating within and the key competitors within the marketplace.  Now we need to understand where we currently fit in the overall competitive landscape.

Irrespective of whether you have ever consciously positioned your business before or not, you will be positioned somewhere in the mind of prospective customers. 

To plot the current landscape, you need to draw an intersecting vertical line half-way along a horizontal line so that you have four equal quadrants.  Now at the end of each axis, label them as two ends of the same scale.   What the scale actually represents is up to you and the key drivers within your target audience.  Examples could be….

Traditional – Modern

Safe – Edgy

Economical – Expensive

Value – Quality

Luxurious – Basic

Healthy – Indulgent

Fun – Serious

Utility – Performance

National – Local

Premium – Mass Market

Older Market – Younger Market

Fitness – Fashion

Ethical – Convenient

100% natural – 0% natural

Simple – Technical

Creative Led – Results Led

Retainer model – Project Model

Positioning Marketing Strategies – Step 4 – Spotting the Opportunity

We do not feel that such obsession is overly healthy.  After all, how can you carve your own in niche in the marketplace if you are just following somebody else? You merely become part of the noise, another sheep in the flock.

However, competitor analysis, particularly when used in conjunction with positioning marketing strategies, can prove to be highly beneficial.  What this exercise does is enable you to take a helicopter view of the marketplace and spot huge gaps of untapped potential.

Positioning Marketing Strategies – Step 5 – Planning the best course of action

When analysing the competitive landscape is important to consider the strength of the brands who sit in close proximity with you.  Are you wanting to distance yourself from them, or are you happy enough to be in the same space as them?

This will largely determine whether you may want to consider repositioning the business.  This could be a slight tweak, or a major move to take advantage of current market forces.

A note of caution

Remember you cannot reposition a business overnight.  It takes time.   Also, it is worth remembering that your positioning matrix is only ever a single snapshot of time.  Whilst you are reviewing where you sit in the grand scheme of things, so may your competitors be.  

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Ian Kirk

Founder at Opportunity Marketing

Ian is the founder of Opportunity Marketing marketing, with over 18 years of experience in successfully setting up marketing departments, creating marketing strategies and implementing these strategies across a wide number of SME companies in both the B2B and B2C sectors through a variety of channels.

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