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Postioning Your Company In Changing Markets

Written by: Joe Love

Article Overview: The ultimate marketing battleground is the mind. Successful marketing implants in the the mind of the consumer a clear, specific identity for a certain product or service. If you want to be successful in today's changing markets you have to position your product or service in its most favorable light.

Postioning Your Company In Changing Markets

The ultimate marketing battleground is the mind. Successful marketing implants in the mind of the consumer a clear, specific identity for a certain product or service. Your goal should always be to help consumers see your product or service in its most favorable or appealing light.

Positioning isn’t easy, especially in the Information Age. More information and data are being thrown at consumers today that at any point in history. Remember, the positioning battleground is the mind and that battleground is more crowed than ever. Consumer’s minds are under attack from an overwhelming barrage of information.

It’s important to understand that your product or service will always seek whatever lowest common denominator level is the easiest for the market to embrace. But that’s not always the most profitable. Therefore, it is not the most powerful position for your business to be in, nor does it help your customer get the highest benefit from your product or service. You owe it to yourself and your customers to give your product or service the greatest positioning advantage you can possibly establish.

Before you can begin the process of positioning your product or service, you need to ask some important questions, “Who is the real prime customer for your product or service?” “What’s the greatest benefit your product or service can provide?” If your product or service has multiple benefits, what’s the greatest single benefit?

Positioning is identifying where your product or service can get the greatest competitive advantage. For some products or services, positioning is most advantageously achieved when you find and carve out a niche in the market than has not be recognized or exploited.

You don’t want to be a rudderless boat going down the current of competition. If you do that, you’ll be lucky if you don’t get crushed in the rapids or on the rocks. You’ve got to consciously establish the best positioning or multiple positioning for your products or services, and a plan of action that will establish the benefits and desirability of your product or service over your competition.

Ask yourself, “If I could own 100% of one market that I already deal with, what would that market be?” “What would be the greatest benefit that my product or service would provide for that market?” Until you decide what you want your business to be, you can’t position it correctly.

How do you position your product or service? Start by looking at your customer list and identifying who your main customers are. Then analyze what you typically sell to them. For example, you might sell 20 different products or services, but a very high percentage of your customers tend to buy one product or service more than all the rest.

Then, ask yourself if there is a unique use for one of your products or services that a large number of your customers have found. The answers to these questions will show you which positioning base or niche you should give the most attention to in the future.

Positioning is simply presenting your product or service in its best light to your best prospective customers. Good positioning can be a major competitive advantage once you start to realize that you have the right and the obligation to help your most qualified prospects and customers appreciate, understand, and desire, the benefit or result your product or service can bring to their life or their business.

On the flip side, if you don’t position properly, you’ll be relegating your business to a commodity. You’re constantly going to be reacting and will never be able to focus on the best use or application for your product or service. You more than likely will end up spending at least 90% of your time approaching the market the wrong way.

Here are three questions that will help you to know if your product or service is positioned properly:

1. Is there a certain segment of your customer base that you sell more to than any other segment?

2. Is there a specific product or service that you sell more than any other?

3. Is there a reason why people are buying or using your product or service that you have never really concentrated or focused on?

When you answer these questions, you will have a better idea if your product or service is positioned right.

Once you have settled on a position for your product or service, you have to get your message out. The more detailed your marketing message is, the less chance it has of standing out and being noticed. You have to keep it simple. Complexity leads to confusion and then to rejection. People will simply turn off your message.

Consumers not only reject complicated products or services, but also complex concepts that don’t make simple sense. The best way to get your position into the minds of consumers is to oversimplify. When you’re trying to communicate your message, don’t tell the entire story. Just focus on one attribute and drive it into the mind of the consumers.

Once you have that one idea or benefit stuck in a consumer’s mind, you have successfully positioned your product or service.

Copyright©2006 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. He is the founder and CEO of JLM & Associates, a consulting and training organization, specializing in personal and business development. Through his seminars and lectures, Joe Love addresses thousands of men and women each year, including the executives and staffs of many of businesses around the world, on the subjects of leadership, achievement, goals, strategic business development, and marketing.

Reach Joe at: joe@jlmandassociates.com

Read more articles and newsletters at: http://www.jlmandassociates.com

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