You have created a product with good performance, high quality materials and an innovative feature. All this is very important and it will be of great help to you when it comes to getting rid of the competition, but you must reach the buyers. A positioning campaign will help you to be in the point where you want your company to be. Depending on the product in question, your competitors and the needs of the market in which you move, you should choose a specific type of positioning.
What is product positioning?
When positioning a product, it is necessary to follow a series of techniques embodied in a strategy, which they make a product occupy a place privileged in the minds of users and thus manage to stand out above the other products of the competition.
How to position a product?
Differentiation
Positioning by differentiation, as its name suggests, consists of positioning your product by highlighting a feature that sets it apart of the competition. It may be used for the same use as other products from your opponents. However, its design has a special characteristic, purely aesthetic or functional. The design may not differ, but the materials your product is made from make it more durable or resistant to certain environments, such as being waterproof. Is the design the same and are the materials the same? You can also differentiate yourself by a specific feature of its use, such as the portability it offers.
The important is put the spotlight on that innovative feature that makes your product unique. The rest of the product's properties are not new to consumers, they have seen them before in other brands.
Benefit
If your product offers an advantage to the consumer over the rest of similar items from the competition, position it with the help of that benefit. The added value for the consumer is very important. In their mind, your company is caring about their needs and problems and providing them with the best solution on the market.
For example, you are a technology products company and you want to position wireless headphones. The first ones that made this type of headphones practically all they had to do was show their product to the public. However, today there are many companies that offer this type of product for sale. How are you going to position your wireless headphones? Perhaps they have a higher autonomy than those of the competition, which allows consumers not to worry about charging and enjoy 48 hours of uninterrupted music.
Market niche
If you have discovered a market nicheYou already have everything practically done. Taking into account that you have carried out a previous study and that this niche really counts with sufficient demand and with little or no competition, your product is a novelty in itself. When a product is positioned by market niche, it does so simultaneously in all types of positioning, whether for differentiation, benefit or strategically. You are providing a solution to an audience with needs that the market before you had ignored.
Competitive
Positioning a product through the competitive method is very effective, but also risky. You will make your product stand out in the market through comparison with the competition. First of all, whatever you communicate to the public you must make sure that it is true. You don't want to get into a cold war with your competitors and have them expose you, affecting with growing the credibility of the brand. However, if these comparisons are based on the reality of your product and those of your competitors, exploit that advantage.
competitive positioning It is very common in the health and beauty sector. Ads for toothpastes or razors comparing usability, the sensation of use or the results with "other brands of toothpaste" or with "the rest of the razors on the market" are very common.
Strategic
This type of positioning is only possible if your brand occupies a prominent place in the market. When this happens, the simple symbol or name of your firm implies a benefit in itself for the consumer and a clear differentiation. In the fashion industry this happens daily. There are big brands that offer products with identical characteristics to those of the rest. Same quality in manufacturing and identical design. However, people prefer them, because their logo can be seen on their sweaters, sneakers or pants, which in turn brings prestige to the consumer.
Steps of the strategy to position a product
Stay up to date with the news in your market
The market is constantly changing, is renewed daily and incorporates new requirements to stand out. If you want to position your product, the first thing you should do is get to know the market sector in which your company operates. Doing research your area of expertise, you will know what customers will value about your product or service. When researching the market, two factors are particularly important: your future customers and the competition.
Study of future clients
to understand What does your target audience want and how do they want it?, you will have to carry out an in-depth study. First of all, do surveys. They are a great way to get into the mind of the consumer. It is important that the writing is clear and simple.
Also, when you ask the questions, try not to persuade the respondent with a correct answer. If you tip the balance towards the answer that suits you best, the only thing you will be doing is capturing in the client what you want it to be and not what it really is. It is also crucial that you choose the people you are going to survey well and that these enter within your target.
Competition study
If you want to position a product and stand out from the competition, clearly you will have to know who are they and what are they doing. Only in this way will you be able to convince consumers that your option is the best. Luckily, you have all the data you need at your fingertips. With the advent of the Internet, it is very easy to find valuable information about your competitors. The only thing you should be clear about is the questions that you want to solveBecause with the vast amount of data you'll have access to, if you don't know what you want to know, the process can be quite a challenge.
First of all, focus on the competition that really interests you. To do this, do a search with a specific keyword that helps you filter your competitors. You just want to get to know those who take the lead and who surpass you.
Make an analysis with its weak points and its strong sources, this will also help you to understand your target audience. You may see that the web page has a very attractive design, but somewhat disorganized content. In this way you will know what your target cares about.
Meet the consumer
The consumer is the great protagonist, the one who must decide if he prefers your product or that of another. Therefore, it is very important to understand his behavior, how it works and how it consumes. Depending on the culture, the social context and the time, consumer behavior will change.
The consumer of the present time is characterized by a series of peculiarities.
- Go online: When faced with any problem, doubt or question, the consumer goes to the Internet to look for an answer. The autonomy of this has grown in recent years, making the help of third parties unnecessary. For this reason, more and more companies have a blog in which they resolve issues related to their field of action. Thus, they get position yourself as an authority and gain the trust of your audience.
- Avoid intrusive advertising: A few years ago, advertising was the way companies had to sell. These techniques are very annoying for today's consumer. Unlike other times, this You can choose what you want to consume and what not. Therefore, they do not have to wait for your ad to end to continue watching the series they want. Inbound marketing is the methodology that adapts to the wishes of the consumer and achieves customer acquisition through the creating and publishing valuable content for him. It is an absolutely invasive strategy that forgets about the brand and focuses on the customer as a person with needs and desires.
- Make comparisons between different brands: Before, you had to go from store to store to evaluate each product and decide which one was better. However, today you only need a mobile device. Consumers look for comparisons, use pages that deal with this issue and look for information in forums. They are exquisite, they want a quality product, practical, durable and with a reasonable price.
- Purchase speed: Eliminate unnecessary forms and endless processes. The current consumer gives priority to immediacy. Technological advancement is one of those responsible for this behavior, causing society to have the things it wants in the blink of an eye. Make sure that your website is fast, that it has a responsive design and that it allows you to make purchases without despairing the customer.
- Collective feeling: consumers want to feel part of a community. Therefore, all the messages and actions you issue should help him to achieve it.
- Trend fan: they want to be the first to test what's new on the market. Being up to date has never been so fashionable.
Define your value proposition
The value proposition is a description that details the benefits that your product or service brings to customers and that makes it different from the competition. Ultimately, it is a strategy used to increase demand.
The value proposition achieves spark interest in the minds of your potential customers, letting them see that an aspect of their life can improve significantly with the arrival of your product or service. In addition, it makes it stand out from others with similar characteristics and uses.
On the other hand, with a value proposition you will be addressing especially your target audience, focusing your efforts and your strategy on your potential customers, who are the ones that really interest you.
How to develop a value proposition?
- Choose he point to highlight: Make a short list with the attributes of your product that stand out the most and choose one of them for the value proposition.
- Highlight interest: You must tell your target audience the interest they have in your product or service.
- Emphasize the result: With the consumption and use of your offer, the client will be able to obtain an unbeatable result compared to another brand.
- Globality: try to ensure that the value proposition is not only useful in one area, but that it makes sense anywhere.
Branding awareness and brand positioning
Often, they are two terms that are very confused and that are usually considered synonymous. However, each has an independent meaning. branding awareness or brand recognition refers to a series of techniques and necessary measures for a brand to be recognized by their consumers. The ultimate goal is that consumers when thinking about a product category, remember the brand.
Regarding brand positioning, this is the responsible for ensuring that the brand occupies a privileged place in the mind of the consumer. For this, the brand has to be recognized by the user. However, recognition does not imply positioning.
Now you know all the necessary steps of the recipe for success to position your product. Make a product that meets the needs of your target and that unseats the competition.
