How do you decide to purchase clothes from a particular fashion brand? How do you decide which laptop to buy? This essentially depends upon your previous experiences with the product, your thoughts about how the product is, and the things you have heard from others regarding it.
What is product positioning?
Product positioning is the way in which you want to project your product in the market. It is the way in which your target audience sees how your product is solving their needs and how it is performing against the competitors. It is the thing that builds an image of your product in the customers’ minds. A successful brand positioning would be one that the customers feel is a valuable one.
Consider examples of successful brands like Apple and Emirates Airlines. These brands are successful because they have presented themselves and are thought by their customers in a certain good way. Of course, the brand positioning will mean nothing if the product itself is not that valuable.
Why is product positioning important?
Simply, products are sold to humans at the end. And it is human nature to judge things. How you behave in the society creates your image. Your brand. And a good image is always respected. So is for a product’s image in the minds of the customers.
Product positioning also defines how your product is doing better than the competitors. This is also a continuous check for a company to keep an eye on the competitors. It can be a guiding principle regarding how to update or build new products as the competitors get updated and the competition gets strong.
How do you build your product positioning?
Know your customer segment
The first step is to have in-depth knowledge about your customer segment and customer persona. Identify the persona in the most low levels of detail. It can be done only by primary research by directly interacting with the target customer. It will help you in knowing about their choices, goals, influencers, and fears. Only after knowing the customers in detail will you be able to decide on the way to communicate your message.
Know your competitors
To position yourself in the market, it is essential to know about your competitors. If possible, it is recommended to use the competitors’ products. This helps to understand their strengths and weaknesses and decide where can your product perform better against them.
Craft a unique value proposition
After studying your competitors and finding where can your product perform better in a positive way, the next step is to actually put forth the value proposition of your product. An effective value proposition defines the benefits of the product to the target customers in a clear and transparent way.
Put out the messaging
After the value definition, it has to be communicated with the customers via different mediums. This is a case-dependent way which depends upon the type of customers and product. A consumer product might communicate the message through television advertisements. A real estate property might be communicated via newspaper advertisements. An e-commerce brand might do it through social media. This is where the first step of knowing your customer segment comes into the picture.
Get feedbacks
It is a difficult task to position your brand successfully in the first go. It is necessary to test your hypothesis continuously. Keep a continuous check on how well is your positioning working and adapt with the feedback.
Brand positioning examples
Emirates Airlines: Premium and luxurious flight experience
Apple: Premium and state-of-the-art technology
DMart: One-stop shop with the most affordable pricing