What Is Product Positioning? 5 Steps to Position a Product

Product positioning is a critical step for a business to establish its place in the market. It is even seen as the fiercest battleground in marketing. To understand what product positioning is, read the article below from Mona Media .

What is product positioning?

The concept of

Product positioning is the process of determining a product’s position and influence in consumers’ minds. It includes market analysis and competitors’ positions, and researching and defining the position of a new product in the market. From there you come up with improvement solutions or a message. The goal is to make the product distinctive and give it a foothold in the market. This gives the product its own image in customers’ eyes. In other words, it is determining a product’s position in the market. This can be done by finding what sets it apart from products directly competing with it, and from there winning a certain share of customers. In short, positioning is like driving a nail deep into the customer’s mind, whether a feature or a quality of the product, so that when customers decide to buy, the product’s image appears in their head right away. For example, when people talk about Honda, they think of durable, good-looking, fuel-efficient motorbikes. Or when they need a smooth shampoo, many people think of Rejoice right away. Today, companies can position products through media channels, price or quality, which makes the product stand out and easy to recognize.

What are the benefits of positioning a product correctly?

It affects a lot in each business’s long-term marketing plan. So product orientation in marketing is essential and brings many advantages:

• A business can identify the competitive advantage of its product over competitors. It might be quality, cost and the ability customer care.
• Helps raise the brand image: more credible and trustworthy, attracting more customers and also staff.
• Correct positioning also helps define what sets you apart in the market.

Product positioning should be based on the benefits it brings, who the customers are, and what competitors’ products are like.

Factors that help position a product

To position effectively, you need to know these basic and important factors:

Based on attributes

Typically, for products, target customers will care about a certain characteristic benefit. For motorbikes, for example, it is durability, fuel economy and a fair price. For internet service, it is high speed, good price, attentive customer care… To position on attributes, a business must understand the product benefits customers want to get. It also needs to know how customers perceive these attributes in directly competing products on the market.

Competitors

A competitor’s product position is used as the yardstick for the new product. The company can position its own product relative to it, higher or lower. To position above a competitor, the product must be truly superior in some area. Only then can it compete and even overtake the competitor. See more: Analyzing competitors in 7 steps

Product quality and price

Quality and price are always two important criteria for positioning a product. From them, a company can adopt specific positioning strategies as follows:

• Businesses positioning at a high price usually want to build a luxury brand.
• Businesses that use low prices must have a cost advantage or use good-quality products. That creates a chance to enter the market and win market share better than competitors

Positioning by a specific consumer segment

This is a classic tactic aimed at a specific group of people. Many businesses use this strategy. For example, among premium car brands, Ferrari positions its products around sports lovers, while BMW focuses on products for successful businesspeople. Positioning by user makes a brand feel closer, because it shows the product starts from the research of a specific group’s needs and wants. However, to apply this successfully, a business must understand and assess its customer segments accurately.

4 product positioning strategies

“More for more” positioning strategy

This strategy is for businesses that decide from the start to make higher-quality products and price them higher than competitors. It is usually tied to markets with developed economies, with wealthy customers as the target.

“More for the same” strategy

This strategy offers a price on par with competitors but with higher quality. If there are too many competitors in the market, your company should use this strategy.

“More for less” strategy

The “More for less” strategy offers a lower price than competitors but higher quality. However, it is not a long-term strategy, because the costs are higher, which means lower profit.

“Less for much less” strategy

If the target customers have low incomes, “Less for much less” is a fairly suitable strategy. With it, product quality is lower and the price is as low as possible, because low-income people usually care about and use only cheap products.

5 steps to position a product for a business

Step 1: Build a customer persona

First, when starting to position, a business needs to build a customer persona. This helps the business define positioning criteria and understand customer needs precisely. A business can also use the 5W formula, which includes:

• Whо: Who will buy the product? Or who is the product bought for?
• Whаt: What can customers find in the product? What product do they want to buy?
• Why: Why do customers want to buy that product?
• Whеrе: Where do customers live? What class are they in? Where will they buy?
• Whеn: On which occasions will customers buy the product?

Step 2: Research competitors

To position a product successfully, competitor research is essential. Study competitors’ strengths and weaknesses to give your brand a new angle. That raises your business’s competitive advantage over competitors.

Step 3: Research the product

Every factor affects a user’s thinking about buying. So when positioning, a business should research carefully. From the product’s external attributes (color, design, packaging, logo, labels, …) to internal ones (flavor, scent, features, …) and the accompanying benefits (promotions, warranty, customer care, …), all must be planned in advance. Focus on finding the “gap” competitors have not seen. From there you can pick the most important attributes to stand out.

Step 4: Build a product positioning map

Setting up a map and placing the product at the most suitable spot on it is something a business must do. To draw a positioning map, you can:

• Find where the product currently stands on the map.
• Place the product where you want it on the map.
• Where your competitors currently stand on the map.
• The business’s capability and financial resources.
• The time needed to reach the desired position.
• The strategies for reaching the desired position.

Step 5: Make a product positioning plan

After researching customers and competitors in the 4 steps above, marketers need to plan and build effectively. Choose suitable media channels and ways to make an impression on customers about the product. Above is all the information about what product positioning is. We hope it helps you position your site correctly and get the best results for your business.