How do you avoid over-positioning your product or service?

1 Understand your market

Before you position your product or service, you need to understand your market and your customers. You need to conduct market research to identify the needs, preferences, pain points, and expectations of your target segments. You also need to analyze the competitive landscape and the trends that affect your industry. This will help you find a gap or an opportunity in the market that you can fill with your offering.

2 Focus on your core benefit

Once you have identified your market opportunity, you need to focus on your core benefit. This is the main reason why customers should choose your product or service over others. Your core benefit should be relevant, distinctive, and credible. It should also be easy to understand and communicate. Avoid adding too many features, benefits, or messages that can dilute or contradict your core benefit. Instead, use supporting points or evidence to reinforce it.

3 Segment and target your customers

Not all customers are the same, and not all customers will value your product or service equally. You need to segment and target your customers based on their characteristics, behaviors, and needs. You need to create customer personas that represent your ideal buyers and their motivations, goals, and challenges. You also need to determine how to reach them and what channels and platforms they use. This will help you tailor your positioning to different customer groups and scenarios.

4 Test and validate your positioning

Before you launch your product or service, you need to test and validate your positioning. You need to get feedback from your potential and existing customers, as well as from your internal and external stakeholders. You need to measure how well your positioning resonates with your target audience and how it differentiates you from your competitors. You also need to monitor the results and outcomes of your positioning strategy and adjust it as needed.

5 Be consistent and coherent

Finally, you need to be consistent and coherent with your positioning. You need to align your positioning with your brand identity, vision, and values. You need to ensure that your positioning is reflected in all your marketing activities and touchpoints, such as your website, social media, advertising, content, packaging, and customer service. You also need to maintain your positioning over time and avoid changing it frequently or arbitrarily.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?