Examples of Positioning in Marketing

What’s the difference between Lidl and Waitrose? BBC and Netflix? Audi and Volvo? It could be service, offering, price point, accessibility, quality… but in reality, from the perspective of a potential buyer, the difference can be distilled down into just one word – positioning.

Positioning in marketing defines where your product or service stands in relation to similar products and services in the marketplace, as well as in the mind of the consumer, to make it stand out.

Why is your brand unique?

To discover what your positioning should be, you need to start with what makes you different. Without a clear idea of what makes your brand unique, it’ll be far harder to determine how and where to position your business, as well as missing out on the opportunity to create successful campaigns and target the right audience. Remember to be brutally honest with yourself here! If you desperately want your selling point to be unique, but it isn’t actually unique at all when analysing your closest competitors, you’ll set yourself up to fail before you’ve even begun. Find out what you do differently (or what you genuinely do better) and shout about that.

What value do you offer customers?

You also need to consider the benefits of your product or service to your customers. The key element here is benefits, not features. For example, the camera on an iPhone might be 12 megapixels, but it’s the ability to easily take high quality photos wherever you are and capture memories on the go that consumers really care about.

Why should customers care?

Another thing to consider for successful positioning in marketing is why your customers should care about your products or services. The key to really maximising your ROI for your marketing and sales efforts is to find a compelling reason for customers to care about what you do, and the reasons why you do it. A top tip for identifying your ‘reason to believe’ is to think about pain vs pleasure motivations. If you are solving something that’s a pain, or providing something that can give pleasure this appeals to basic human motivations and should be relatively easy to distill into your business argument for ‘why care?’. Customers who care about your brand and your values are more likely to make quicker purchasing decisions, and less likely to wait for discounts.

4 examples of positioning in marketing

Value Positioning

One of the ways to position your brand is to focus on the value you offer your customers, such as value for money. Many companies who favour value positioning over other strategies usually price their products or services at, or below, industry averages, and therefore appeal to consumers of a low to middle income, or those who are conscious of their spending. Therefore, value positioning sets the business up as a reasonable exchange of money for a level of quality or quantity.

Demographic Positioning

Another way to position your marketing is to focus on the demographics of your customers. This involves positioning particular products or services to particular demographic groups; unlike value positioning, which is primarily focused on customer income. Depending on what you are offering, you may decide to narrow down your demographic focus to attract customers based on age, gender, location, or interests. The only downfall of demographic positioning is that you end up excluding, or even alienating, potential customers who aren’t part of the target demographic.

Quality Positioning

A quality positioning strategy may be used when a business provides high-end products, or a speciality service. For example, businesses such as designer stores, fine dining restaurants and hotels, and jewellery stores usually opt for a quality positioning strategy. The quality could be in terms of materials, workmanship, service or aftercare. The most successful premium brands manage to package all of these things into their strategy and ensure it’s conveyed at every point: whether that be the packaging of their product, or the in-store experience. These businesses tend to focus on targeting and attracting customers who value durability, expert service, or luxury materials over price point.

Competitive Positioning

In certain industries in which positioning is too diverse for value, demographic or quality positioning, another option would be to focus on the service you provide, that your competitors don’t. A competitive positioning strategy relies on positioning the brand based upon its differentiators, particularly in terms of the value it provides in ways its competitors cannot. Essentially, it’s about being known for a certain ‘something’ and carving out a specific place in your industry’s landscape. This strategy tends to work best for businesses offering specific products or services, who also take time to understand the needs of their customers, and have a particular strength over their competitors. It requires an in depth competitive analysis and a strong understanding of why people would come to you over any other business in your industry.

Looking for more advice on positioning in marketing? Why not call the Focus7 team for a no obligation chat on 01462 262020, or simply email us at [email protected].