Product positioning strategy

The ability to spot a positioning opportunity is a sure test of a person's marketing ability. Successful positioning strategies are usually rooted in a product's sustainable competitive advantage. The most common basis for constructing a product positioning strategy are: In marketing and strategic management, sustainable competitive advantage is an advantage that one firm has relative to competing firms. ...

    * positioning on specific product features
    * positioning on specific benefits, needs, or solutions
    * positioning on specific use categories
    * positioning on a reason to choose an offering over the competition
    * positioning on specific usage occasions
    * positioning against another product
    * positioning through product class dissociation
    * positioning by cultural symbols

Product positioning process

Generally, the product positioning process involves:

    * 1 identifying competing products
    * 2 identifying the attributes (also called dimensions) that define the product 'space'
    * 3 collecting information from a sample of customers about their perceptions of each product on the relevant attributes
    * 4 determine each products' share of mind
    * 5 determine each products' current location in the product space
    * 6 determine the target market's preferred combination of attributes (referred to as an ideal vector)
    * 7 examine the fit between:
          o the positions of competing products
          o the position of your product
          o the position of the ideal vector
    * 8 select optimum position

The process is similar for positioning your company's services. Services, however, don't have the physical attributes of products - that is, we can't feel them or touch them or show nice product pictures. So you need to ask first your customers and then yourself, what value do clients get from my services? How are they better off from doing business with me? Also ask: is there a characteristic that makes my services different? One of the main objectives of Advertising and promotion is to establish what is called mind share (or share of mind). ...

Write out the value customers derive and the attributes your services offer to create the first draft of your positioning. Test it on people who don't really know what you do or what you sell, watch their facial expressions and listen for their response. When they want to know more because you've piqued their interest and started a conversation, you'll know you're on the right track.

Positioning concepts

More generally, there are three types of positioning concepts:

    * 1 functional positions
          o solve problems
          o provide benefits to customers
    * 2 symbolic positions
          o self-image enhancement
          o ego identification
          o belongingness and social meaningfulness
          o affective fulfillment
    * 3 experiential positions
          o provide sensory stimulation
          o provide cognitive stimulation

Measuring the Positioning

Positioning is facilitated by a graphical technique called perceptual mapping, various survey techniques, and statistical techniques like multi dimensional scaling, factor analysis, conjoint analysis, and logit analysis.