What is positioning in marketing? WTF marketing jargon busting 021

What is positioning in marketing? WTF marketing jargon busting 021

Hello there, my name is Martin Henley, this is the what the series and in episode number 21 we’re answering the important question what is positioning in marketing?

What will we be covering in this marketing positioning definition?

In addressing the question what is positioning in marketing there are six things we’ll be sharing with you. We are of course going to answer the question what is positioning; we’ll be answering the question why positioning in marketing is so important; who needs to be thinking about positioning in marketing; how you do positioning in marketing; what the components of positioning in marketing are and when to do your positioning in marketing.

Let’s get this started Sonny.

Did we find a positioning in marketing definition?

As always when we come to explain these marketing jargon terms we are looking for a definition and we found this definition at wikipedia.com. What they tell us is that “positioning refers to the place that a brand occupies in the minds of the customers and how it is distinguished from the products of the competitors and different from the concept of brand awareness. In order to position products or brands companies may emphasise the distinguishing features of their brand (what it is, what it does, and how ,etc.) or they may try to create a suitable image (inexpensive or premium, utilitarian or luxurious, entry-level or high-end. etc.) through the marketing mix. Once a brand has achieved a strong position it can become difficult to reposition it.

Positioning is one of the most powerful marketing concepts.”

Now that last sentence I agree with 100%. Positioning is probably one of the most important marketing concepts; but I’m not entirely happy with this definition because it sounds to me a little bit like branding, which, absolutely, is part of positioning but it’s not all of it.

So I went looking for another definition and I found this one, would you believe it, at corporatefinanceinstitute.com. What they say is that “market positioning refers to the ability to influence consumer perception regarding a brand or product relative to competitors. The objective of market positioning is to establish the image or identity of a brand or product so that consumers perceive it in a certain way.

That doesn’t sound very different to me, the two of these definitions aren’t quite as broad as I need them to be. The reason I’m sharing this corporate finance definition with you is because they go on to talk about types of positioning strategies; product attributes and benefits; product price; product quality; product use and application; as well as competitors.

So this is starting to get a little bit more interesting, they’re starting to think a little bit more broadly about this. I don’t understand why this is five strategies, for me this should all be one strategy, which is how you go about positioning your business not only in the minds of your customers but in the minds of your prospective customers, in the minds of your competitors, in the market. For me positioning is a much much broader thing

Why is marketing positioning in marketing important?

Which brings us to the question why is positioning in marketing so important?

Let me tell you positioning in marketing is critically, critically, important and I’m going to give you three good reasons why you might want to get motivated about investing more in your positioning.

The first reason is that this absolutely works and in true marketing fashion I have a case study for you. The case study is a brand that you will have heard of, the case study is about Dove the soap people. What you might not know is that in 1957, when Dove launched their new products, soap was largely targeted at males with filthy hands; soap was an exclusively, almost exclusively, male product it was exclusively about cleaning. What happened in 1957 is that Dove came on the market and they included moisturiser in their soap and now they could market it to women as this would have a skin health benefit. What they did, immediately that they came onto the market in 1957 is position themselves slightly different and target a whole new market which was effectively women. In the 1960s Dove positioned themselves alongside the female empowerment movement, positioning themselves again, closer to women. In the 1980s they broadened their product range to include shampoos etc. and in the 1990s they broadened their international reach.

What they did that you will probably know about in 2004 is launch their real beauty campaign. What this campaign was about was going to war with fake beauty, going to war with the photoshopping of models. This is interesting because this campaign is credited with taking Dove from 2.5 billion dollars a year in turnover to 4 billion a year and that was achieved in the way that dove the soap company have achieved everything in their history by positioning themselves extraordinarily well. So, reason number one that you want to be investing in your positioning is because this absolutely, categorically, works.

Reason number two that you want to be investing in your positioning is because this is incredibly, incredibly, efficient. You might remember way back in video number two we defined marketing as finding, winning and keeping customers profitably; I still believe that’s a great definition of marketing. The issue here is that if you don’t have to find customers, if your customers are finding you, then that does away with 33.33 of our definition. Clearly this is much more efficient. If your customers are finding you, or your prospective customers are finding you, that makes them motivated buyers. They are not hoping and dreaming that they might have a solution to their problems at some point in the future, they are proactively looking for that solution now and they are finding you. That makes them much, much, much better prospects than the prospects you might find for yourself; there is a world of difference between you phoning somebody up and saying you don’t know me but I’m hoping I can help you, to somebody phoning you up and saying I really hope you can help me. It is absolutely 33% more efficient if your customers, your prospective customers are finding you because they are looking for a solution through your positioning. That they can find you and what they find when they find you is critically, critically, important and hugely, hugely, efficient.

The third reason that you want to be investing in your positioning is because you are 100% in control of the way that you position your products, your services, and your business. 100% in control. You might not believe that at this stage but stick with me I’m going to demonstrate exactly how you can take charge of the way that you position your business.

Who needs to be thinking about positioning in marketing?

Which brings us to the question – who needs to be thinking about positioning?

If you’ve heard what I’ve just said about how important positioning is, I would say anyone who is interested in finding, winning and keeping customers more profitably, anyone who’s interested in being more successful in their marketing, more successful in their business should absolutely be investing some time, some energy, and some money in thinking about the way that their products and services, and their business, are positioned.

The answer to the question; who needs to be thinking about positioning in marketing, is you if you want to be successful.

How do you do positioning in marketing?

I really hope you’re hearing me, and I really hope that you’re getting excited and motivated about the prospect of improving the position of your products and services and your business to realise the benefits of positioning in marketing. But you’re probably asking me how do you actually do positioning in marketing.

What you need to do is remember that you are positioning yourself within your market so you need to do your market research, we covered that in video number seven. You need to know that your products and services are the start of everything in marketing; you need to make sure that the products and services that you’re offering are what your market wants. We looked at offering assessment in video number nine. You need to know that your customers, those people that are happy already buying your services hold the keys to your marketing success; they know exactly the value that you’re offering. We looked at customer analysis in video number 14. What you’re actually doing here is positioning yourself as opposed to your competitors we looked at competitor analysis in video number 16. So actually, all these things are all the keys, all the components, not quite the components, but all of what you need to inform your positioning, we have covered in earlier videos.

Check out market research in video number seven; offering assessment in video number nine; customer analysis and customer satisfaction in videos 14 and 15 and competitive analysis in number 16 and you will be well equipped to start thinking about how you position your business.

What are the components of positioning in marketing?

Which brings us then to question number five which is what are the components of positioning in marketing?

For me there are seven components. The components of positioning in marketing are number one; the products and services that you provide, clearly everything in sales and marketing starts with what it is that you’re offering; what it is that you’re marketing, what it is that you have to sell, so component number one is your products and services. Component number two is your pricing, you are 100% in charge of what you charge for your products and services and if you don’t believe me, if you don’t believe me come along for video number 23, I’m going to demonstrate that that is exactly the case. The way you price your products and services will have the biggest effect on the success of your business. Component number three is who you decide to sell to. Component number four is your brand. Component number five is who you associate your products and services and your business with. Component number six is your messaging and the way you evidence the success and the value that you deliver for your customers. Component number seven is huge, it’s placement, it’s about where you actually put your products and services.

Clearly i’m not going to get this done in 15 minutes today, so what you need to do is subscribe to make sure you don’t miss at least the next seven videos, because we’re going to be going through each of these components in details to put you in charge of the way that you position your business so that you can enjoy the success that you deserve.

When should you do positioning in marketing?

Today’s final question, question number six, is the question when do you do positioning in marketing. I sound like a broken record, I know I do, I don’t care, I’m going to tell you every single time the very best time to do your positioning in your marketing is before you even start. Then you need to do positioning regularly and I will tell you why; because change is the human condition. What will happen in your market, what happens in every market is that the terminology people use, the trends, and fads, and fashions will change and you need to make sure that your your business, your products, your services are continuously positioned in the way that you want them to be positioned.

I have, perhaps, a surprising example of this. The example I’m going to demonstrate is digital marketing. You might think that digital marketing has been around at least since the beginning of the internet, but I’m going to surprise you and let you know that digital marketing didn’t really start happening until 2013 when the internet was already 20 years old. I can demonstrate this for you. What was happening before 2013 is that people were using terms like internet marketing, or web marketing. You can see here, in February 2004, it’s all about internet marketing, internet marketing was what people were talking about if they weren’t talking about web marketing. All of a sudden, in December 2012, January, February of 2013, digital marketing started to take over. I have experience of this. Now if you’re talking about marketing online 90-95% of people are using the term digital marketing. People still talk about internet marketing, they still talk about web marketing, but 95% of the time, when we refer to these things, people are talking about digital marketing.

What’s interesting about this is that I stopped marketing my business in 2014 and when i went back to my website recently I saw that I was still marketing internet marketing services and internet marketing training. You can see, in the last six years in the last five, six years, my website has become completely irrelevant because I wasn’t on top of my positioning. The answer to the question when do you need to be thinking about your positioning is that you need to keep an eye on this all the time because the danger is, if you’re not on top of your positioning, then the world might move on and you might be left behind and you will no longer be positioned as the business that people want to be doing business with.

What did we cover in this marketing positioning definition?

If you are still with us well done, you now know exactly what positioning in marketing is; you know why positioning in marketing is so important; you know who needs to be thinking about positioning marketing, it’s you if you want to be successful; you know how to do positioning in marketing; you know what the components of positioning in marketing are and you know when to do positioning in marketing.

What should you do if you have found this positioning in marketing definition useful or interesting?

If you have found this positioning in marketing definition interesting or useful please take a second to like, share, subscribe, maybe comment, maybe there’s a piece of marketing jargon that you would like to see to find in this fashion. If you have found it really interesting or useful then why not head across to The Effective Marketing Company blog and subscribe there, and you will get this marketing jargon, bullshit busting goodness in your inbox every single day.

We are done here Sonny.

Martin Henley

Martin has built a reputation for having a no nonsense approach to sales and marketing and for motivating audiences with his wit, energy, enthusiasm and his own brand of audience participation. Martin’s original content is based on his very current experience of running effective marketing initiatives for his customers and the feedback from Effective Marketing’s successful and popular marketing workshops.