Positioning Marketing

Positioning Marketing
In marketing, positioning has come to mean the process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its brand, product, or organization.

De-positioning involves attempting to alter the identity of other competing products, relative to the identity of your own product, in the collective minds of your target market.
Re-positioning involves altering the identity of a product, relative to the identity of other competing products, in the collective minds of your target market.

The original work on Positioning Marketing was more consumer marketing oriented, and not focused on competitive products as much as it was focused on cutting through the clutter of the ambient "noise band " and creating a moment of real contact with the intended target recipient. In the well known example of the car rental company, Avis ads claiming "No.2, We Try Harder", the point they made was shocking - it cleared space in your brain and made you forget all about who was the #1 company, and made a point about being "hungry" for your business.

The growth of high-tech marketing has had much to do with the shift in these definitions towards more competitive positioning.
Definitions

Although there are different definitions of Positioning Marketing, probably the most common is: identifying a specific market niche for a brand, service or product utilizing traditional marketing placement strategies (such as price, distribution, packaging, promotion and competition).

Positioning Marketing as a concept in marketing which was first popularized by Al Ries of Atlanta and Jack Trout in their bestselling book " Positioning - a battle for your mind".

This definition differs from the context in which the term was first published in 1971 by Jack Trout in his paper on "Positioning" is a game people play in today’s me-too market place" in the popular publication Industrial Marketing, where the case is made that the a typical consumer is over-whelmed with unwanted advertising, and develops a natural tendency to filter out all information that does not immediately find a comfortable (and vacant) slot in that consumers mind. They expanded this into their first book called, "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind", in which they defined Positioning Marketing as "an organized system for finding a window in the mind. Based on the concept that communication can only take place at the right time and under the right circumstances."

What most will agree on is that Positioning Marketing is a perception that in the minds of the target market. It is the aggregate perception that the market has of a particular business, service or product relative to their perceptions of the other competitors in the same category. It happens independent of a company's management. Whether it is proactive, reactive or passive about the process of evolving a market position. A company can and should positively influence these perceptions through strategic positioning marketing actions.

Product positioning process

Usually , the product positioning process involves:
Defining the market in which the brand or product will compete (who the actual buyers are)
Collecting information from surveys of customers about their specific perceptions of each product
Determine each product's location in the product space
Determine each product's mind share
Identifying the features that define the product space
Examine the congruency between:
The position of your product
The position of the ideal perception vector
Determine the target market's preferred combination of attributes
Position.

This process is similar for positioning your business's services. Remember that services, don't have the physical attributes of products - we can't feel them or touch them or show nice product pictures of them . So you must first ask your customers and then yourself too, what value do your clients get from your services? How are they better off, after having done business with me? Also ask if there is a characteristic that makes my services different?

Describe the value customers derive and the attributes your services offer to create a first draft of your positioning. Then test it on potential prospects who don't really know what you do or what you sell, carefully watch their facial expressions and listen for their responses. If they want to know more because you have piqued their attention and interest and started a conversation, you'll know for sure that you're on the right track.

Helpful Positioning Marketing concepts

More generally, there are three types of positioning marketing concepts:

Better Functional positions
- Provide specific benefits to customers
- Solve their problems
- Develop favorable perception by investors and lenders
Self-image enhancement
Symbolic positions
- Belonging-ness and social meaningful-ness
- Ego identification
- Provide sensory stimulation
- Provide cognitive stimulation
- Affective fulfillments
Experiential positions

Measuring Your Marketing Positioning

Positioning Marketing is facilitated by a graphical techniques like perceptual mapping, survey techniques, and some recent statistical techniques like multi dimensional scaling process, factor analysis mapping and conjoint analysis.

Repositioning a company

In today's volatile markets, it can be necessary - sometimes even urgent - to reposition an entire company, rather than only one product line or brand name. Case in point - When Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley suddenly shifted from investment banks to commercial banks. The expectations of their investors, clients, employees and regulators all needed to shift. Every business needs to influence how these perceptions change toward them. This involves repositioning the entire firm.

This is is vital for small and medium-sized firms, which often lack strong brands for individual product lines. In an extended recession, business approaches from healthy economic times often become ineffective. It becomes necessary to change a firm's positioning in the market. Upscale restaurants, for example, which previously flourished plentifully on expense account dinners and lavish corporate events, may now need to stress value as the sales call.

Repositioning a whole company involves more than just a marketing challenge. It usually involves making hard decisions about how a market is changing and how a firm's competitors will react to that. Usually these decisions are made without the benefit of sufficient information, because the definition of "volatility" is that change becomes difficult or impossible to measure or even predict.

Positioning Marketing News

Jun

2013-06-17

May

Inferno: A Novel (Robert Langdon)

2013-05-13

Amazon Exclusive: Inside Inferno Explore the sights of Inferno alongside Robert Langdon in this exclusive first look at Dan Brown's latest thriller. As Langdon continued on toward the elbow of the square, he couldsee, directly ahead in the distance, the shimmering blue glass dial of the(read more)

Jan

The Yiddish Policemen's Union (P.S.)

2012-01-23

For sixty years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end. (read more)

Sep

The Lincoln Lawyer: A Novel (A Lincoln Lawyer Novel)

2005-09-30

List Price: $7.99This #1 bestselling legal thriller from Michael Connelly is a stunning display of novelistic mastery - as human, as gripping, and as whiplash-surprising as any novel yet from the writer ... (read more)

Jun

Conquer Your Love

2013-06-05

List Price: $7.99The sensual romance that started with the New York Times and USA Today Bestseller Surrender Your Love continues...Meeting Jett was like bad luck. Dangerous. Unpredictable. And better avoided. In his game, the stakes are high. But are they worth the risk?Brooke Stewart, a realtor in New York, finds forgetting is hard, but forgiving is harder. When the man she trusted, betrayed her, the only way to forget is to move on. Brooke is determined to start a n(read more)

Jun

Forever Too Far

2013-06-07

List Price: $7.99The final novel in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestselling Fallen Too Far series. ... (read more)

Jun

Indoor Location Market Worth $2.60 Billion by 2018

2013-06-17

DALLAS, June 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Report " Indoor Location Market [Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN); Indoor Mapping; Indoor LBS; Indoor Analytics; By Positioning Systems (Network-based, ...

Jun

Drillinginfo Appoints Maria Carballosa as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer

2013-06-11

Drillinginfo Inc., the leading SaaS-based decision support platform for the global upstream exploration and production industry, announces the appointment of Maria Carballosa as ex

Jun

iJento Adds Marketing Technology Veteran Paige O’Neill as CMO

2013-06-10

iJento, a leading provider of customer intelligence technology to marketers, today announced that Paige O’Neill has joined the company as chief marketing officer . O’Neill has held senior marketing positions for Teradata , Oracle and PHH Arval, where she was also CMO.

Jun

Royal Caribbean International Names New Senior Vice President of Marketing

2013-06-14

MIAMI, June 14, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Royal Caribbean International today announced the appointment of Carol Schuster to Senior Vice President of Marketing. Ms. Schuster joins the global cruise line with ...

Jun

Samsung analysts ask hard questions as S4 marketing charm wears off

2013-06-16

By Miyoung Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - Analysts fell under Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's marketing spell when they made what they now admit were hopelessly optimistic forecasts for its smartphone sales. Samsung's huge share of the high-end smartphone market also persuaded some analysts to downplay industry data pointing to a fast-saturating segment, a reality that is already eating into sales of Apple ...