If you have competitors, how do customers see you in relation to them?
Whatever the answer, this is your market position.
What do customers think you do?
What do they think you deliver?
What do they think of your enterprise?
What are you well known for?
What words do they associate with your brand?
If I rang some of your customers and asked them these questions, what would they say to me?
How should you position your brand?
For example, should you go upmarket or go downmarket?
Should you be seen as reassuringly expensive or as cheap as chips?
Are you focused on customer service, product excellence, price or something else?
These are strategic business and marketing decisions.
Every decision that you make affects your market positioning.
Your actions speak louder than words, when it comes market positioning.
Every time that your customers engage with your brand, their perception of your market positioning is either affirmed or challenged.
Besides products and services, a key issue is human interaction.
You can buy a great product and feel let down by the way that you have been treated when it comes to after sales service (or the lack of it).
It is of no use to simply do what your competition does, positioning wise.
All too often, enterprises in any given sector appear to be clones of each other, from the customer’s perspective.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” ~ Albert Einstein
In order to decide on your market positioning, you need to think deeply about your enterprise and what it stands for.
You need to consider the space in the market that your brand operates within.
Positioning can be seen via a chart with an X & Y axis.
Think about supermarkets and how they range from low cost / no frills through to up-market operators.
If you looked at price versus service, the first type of supermarket would be bottom left on the chart and a premium supermarket would be top right.
Positioning as a marketing strategy works if thought is put into the process and action is taken.
It is a worthwhile exercise to produce a strategic plan and Nigel Temple offers marketing plan training.