Today the market is full of goods, companies and services, and it is difficult for the consumer to navigate in this diversity. In order to help him choose a product, marketing positioning is carried out. As a result, a certain distinctive property of the product and service is formed in the perception of the consumer, which helps him make a purchase decision. Let's talk about what positioning is, how and why it is carried out, what are its types and strategies.
The concept of positioning
Meeting different objects, a person assigns to them peculiar labels by which they can differ: tasty, expensive, functional, etc. This allows people to differentiate objects and phenomena. Marketing is designed to help the consumer navigate the world of goods and services. And on this path, the marketer has to think about positioning the product on the market. That is, he must choose a certain niche,difference that would distinguish a product or service from competitors. And then the question arises: what is positioning? And this is the marketing task of forming in the perception of the consumer a certain set of distinctive characteristics of the product, in which it differs from its competitors.
Battle for Minds
The concept of "positioning" appeared in 1980, when marketing gurus J. Trout and E. Rice published the book "Positioning. Battle for minds. In it, they substantiated this concept of a position and characterized the process of its formation. In their opinion, a position is an image, a representation of a product in the minds of the consumer. Usually this image is built on 1-2 distinguishing features. Positioning, respectively, is the process of forming a position, it is necessarily associated with a focus on competitors. That is, a position is not an image, but a set of differences from competitors. A man comes to the store and sees 4 brands of milk. He knows, ideally, why each is special: one is expensive and tasty, the other is cheap, but also relatively tasty, the third is natural and expensive, the fourth is fashionable. And based on these characteristics and their needs, a person makes a choice. The process of choosing a position and its formation is not as simple as it might seem, it is associated with costs and you need to understand why resources are being spent.
Functions
Competent target positioning of the product allows you to achieve marketing goals, while it performs the following functions:
- allows you to break through the information noise,created in the market by competitors;
- contributes to the memorability and recognition of the product;
- simplifies the formulation of promotional offers;
- ensures the integrity of marketing communications.
Advantages and disadvantages
"What is positioning and why do I need it?" the business owner thinks. And it is necessary because this is the most effective means of extracting maximum profit. This is the main advantage. In addition, positioning allows you to take a leadership position in relation to competitors, which again leads to increased sales. A stable position in the minds of consumers is a guarantee of stable sales, which are not affected by seasonality and other market fluctuations. Positioning also has disadvantages. First of all, this is a high intellectual cost of this process. Second, there is a shortage of staff. Where to find a marketer who can come up with or discover a position that is guaranteed to bring profit? This is a question to which there is no answer. But with the joint efforts of a team of professionals, the task can be solved, and it is worth working on it.
Positioning steps
The positioning process may vary from product to product, but in general it must include the following steps:
- analysis of competitors, identifying their strengths, weaknesses, evaluating their products and positioning them;
- analysis of goods, identifying the mostsignificant attributes and comparing them with the positioning of competitors' products;
- analysis of the target audience, assessment of consumer perception of the attributes of goods on which the competitor positioning device is based;
- determining the current position of the promoted product;
- creating a map of desired states and positions of goods;
- positioning development and implementation;
- evaluating the effectiveness of embedded positioning.
Goals and objectives
Product positioning is necessary in order to stand out from the competition. Differentiation in saturated markets is extremely important, as the consumer does not want to delve into the nuances of the differences between similar products, but will take a simple and understandable product. This is a top priority. It is also necessary to determine the position in order to attract the consumer. It is important to form the image of the product in the perception of the consumer, and this image must necessarily be associated with certain attributes of the product. And it is not even so important whether the product has these properties in reality. The main thing is that the consumer perceives it in the right way. The tasks of positioning are to influence the perception of the consumer, inspire him with the necessary ideas about the product, as well as the formation of understandable, easily reproducible characteristics of the product in the minds of consumers.
Positioning and segmentation
Efficiency and accuracy of positioning depend on how correctly the target audience is chosen for the impact. That's whysegmentation is always the downside of positioning. Segmentation is the process of dividing a consumer market into groups with common characteristics: socio-demographic and psychographic. This process is the first stage of positioning and consists in choosing the target audience that will bring the greatest profit at the lowest communication costs. Segmentation is necessary in order to focus the company's marketing efforts on the consumer groups that are most profitable in a given market segmentation. This may not always be the most marginal segment, as these parts of the market are usually highly competitive. Segmentation allows you to identify target audiences that can bring additional profit due to the fact that competitors did not direct their marketing efforts to these groups. So, for example, once marketers decided to sell razors not only to men, in this segment everything was already crowded with competitors, but also to women. These segments were very free at that time. Positioning is based on knowledge of what the needs and characteristics of the consumer are in order to offer him relevant product attributes.
Basic principles of positioning
Marketing is an activity to meet the needs of target audiences, but before you start using its tools, you need to do some research and make important strategic decisions, which include positioning. What is a strategy? It's a long term go althe company to which it aspires and moves, applying various tactics. To achieve these goals, you need to adhere to certain principles. In relation to positioning, they are:
- Sequence. The formation of a position is not a quick process, the main thing here is not to change the chosen direction and not to confuse the consumer, saying one thing or another.
- Simplicity, expressiveness, originality. The position should be quickly understood by the consumer, he will not waste efforts to figure out what the manufacturer wants to tell him. The position should be captured quickly and without tension, while it should be original so that the consumer remembers it.
- All parts of the business, not just marketing communications, should express the chosen position.
Views
Since there is an almost infinite number of goods, a lot of their images have been invented. Theorists distinguish the following basic positionings:
1. By nature. In this case, positioning can be based on technical innovations, for example, some new development has been introduced in the product and this immediately distinguishes it from competitors. So, TVs based on LED technologies had a well-remembered position at the beginning of their distribution. Or marketing innovations can be used for positioning, unusual ways of distributing a product, its promotion can be invented.
2. In accordance with the intended purpose. In this case, positioning is used based on the specific way in which the product is used, or manufactured, on thebenefits from its acquisition, on solving a problem. Shampoo Head & Shoulders can be considered an example of this type of positioning.
3. Depending on the attitude to competitors. In this form, positioning is built in opposition to the qualities, characteristics and positions of a competitor. In this case, attributes are selected in which the product is superior to competitive products, or they are given a different interpretation. An example of competitive positioning is Pepsi-Cola, which constantly emphasizes its position as opposed to Coca-Cola.
Strategies
During the existence of marketing, many positioning strategies have been invented and tested. In the specialized literature, you can find a variety of classifications, and all of them will be convincing and justified. Since the strategies take into account the specifics of companies, and each time in practice each of them turns out to be at least a little, but new. For example, there are such types of positioning strategies:
- based on the best product quality;
- based on the benefits the consumer receives when purchasing the product;
- problem-solution based;
- focused on a specific target segment;
- based on the separation of goods from a certain product category;
- based on differentiation from competitors.
There is a classification according to certain attributes, in this case one speaks of price strategies (cheap or expensive), consumer lifestyle,expertise or specialization, innovation, safety, environmental friendliness. And so - ad infinitum.
Unique Selling Proposition
The most productive positioning strategy, according to R. Reeves, is the development of a unique selling proposition (USP). It is based on the fact that the product has certain qualities that the competing products do not yet have. So, for example, chocolate makers M&M'S declared that it "melts in the mouth, not in the hands", and secured this unique position. The USP should be reflected in all marketing messages to the consumer. At the same time, it should be significant for the consumer so that he notices and remembers it. A unique selling proposition can be natural, that is, the product really has some unique property, or artificial, when such a quality is invented. For example, once marketers of one brand came up with the idea that there is no cholesterol in vegetable oil, and this became the USP of this product. But soon all oil producers began to say this about themselves, and the USP lost its power.
Methods
In marketing practice, a whole list of different positioning methods has been formed, they can be divided into the following groups:
- Associative, when the product is associated with some character, situation, object.
- Against a product category, when the product is taken out from under the pressure of competitors. So it was with M&M'S, who decided not to fight other brands of dragees, but to go into the category of chocolate.
- To solve the problem.
- Againsta certain competitor. So, Burger King is constantly attacking McDonald's.
- According to the target audience, when the product is addressed to a specific segment. For example, cigarettes for women.
