Positioning: What Makes You Unique?

In this era of world wide competition, giant retailers, and rapidly changing markets, positioning yourself as a unique entity in the marketplace, is essential. Lack of differentiation accounts for up to 88% of the product failures in this country. And if you think about it for a minute, it makes sense. Why would someone change brands, or suppliers of any product or service, if they weren’t going to receive something different or better.

If you assume that your product or service has established competitors, why would someone want to change from an existing relationship to a new, unproven one?

The answer lies in the perceived benefit they might get from making that change. Will they get a better mousetrap? Better service? Personal shopping? What do you (or can you) do different from all your competitors that will make your company and its products unique in the eyes of the marketplace?

Positioning, the battle for the minds of your market, is an extremely important aspect in a "strategic" marketing approach.

Your "position" in your marketplace must be unique from your competitors. And, to win your positioning battle, you must constantly remind your market of your uniqueness. If you don’t, you’ll become one of the "missing in action" and you’ll miss all the action.

No matter what products or services you offer, you can differentiate them from those of the competitors.

If you think about it for a minute, there probably isn’t much more of a commodity product than rice. A few innovative rice growers and packagers, eager to grab a larger market share, used packaging to differentiate themselves. Remember when the open bag of rice would spill all over your cupboard? Zip-lock bags not only prevented the problem, but also attracted greater market share for those innovators of this rice packaging.

Hence, your job in positioning starts with determining what makes your products or services unique to your marketplace.

For organizations without a long track record, positioning starts with its product(s). Even if you offer a product that is virtually identical to others in the market, you can differentiate your product based on "soft" factors or "added values" that are almost always unique to an individual organization. Do you offer a better service policy, an extended warranty, or other intangibles or hidden attributes? In what ways do you increase the value of your products or services? Are there other characteristics that differentiate your product?

Consider these and the following suggestions when determining a position for your product or organization:

8 Ways to Position Your Products & Services

1. Position on Specific Product Features
This is a common approach for industrial and some consumer products that have achieved commodity status. For instance, auto makers and computer hardware manufacturers often position their products on features. The market has pretty much accepted the fact that they will own an automobile or computer, now it’s just a matter of which one. Feature positioning works well in this type of marketing scenario.

2. Position on Benefits
Related to positioning on features, but generally more effective. Pharmaceutical products are frequently positioned in benefits. Studies show that physicians are interested in the benefits of a given drug (fewer side effects, easier administration, etc.) and not very interested in the chemical ingredients that lead to the benefit.

Similar conclusions have been reached in a number of other consumer and business studies. For example, Craftsman Tools positions itself on the benefits of its excellent warranty, "tool replacement anytime it breaks."

3. Positioning for Specific Use
This method is related to benefit positioning. Consider Campbell’s positioning of soups for cooking. Arm and Hammer Baking Soda suddenly became deodorant, toothpaste, refrigerator deodorizer, and other specific products.

4. Positioning for User Category
Examples include: "You’ve come a long way baby," "the Pepsi Generation," and the "Breakfast of Champions."

5. Positioning on Another Product
This is a comparison with a direct competitor aimed at attracting customers from the compared brand usually the category leader. The pain reliever business pioneered this type of positioning, and cereals and laundry detergents soon followed suit. Long distance carriers are in a great name calling battle these days as well.

6. Positioning on Price (story)
Unless you buy in huge quantities so you have a profitable margin even at low sale prices, positioning on low price isn’t for you. It’s the domain of the big discount houses like WalMart ("Always The Low Price Leader, Always"), though it may be tempting to try.

For smaller organizations, however, this approach can be extremely dangerous. Before you consider positioning on low price, have your accountant do a detailed analysis to determine whether it is economically feasible.

Besides, price is seldom the reason people chose to "buy." Several studies have shown that price is usually the fifth factor consumers evaluate when making purchase decisions. The perceived quality of the product and the level of service, are more significant factors in the decision to buy.

But positioning on price doesn’t always mean low price. A food dehydrator manufacturer that makes the top-of-the-line product in performance priced his new, state-of-the-art dehydrator using a cost-plus formula. He wanted to double his money from the cost of production. By pricing in this fashion, his food dehydrator went on to the market at the exact same price as another manufacturer’s model that had far fewer features. The better model just sat there on the shelf. Buyers simply couldn’t believe that another model could have so much more for the same price. When the manufacturer raised the price $50, his product started selling like hotcakes!

Another good example of positioning on high price is Curtis Mathis Televisions. Their commercials went something like this: "You’ll pay more for a Curtis Mathis TV than any other kind, but it’s worth it."

7. Product Class Disassociation
This type of positioning is somewhat less common; it is particularly effective when used to introduce a new product that differs from the typical products in an established category. SevenUp, the UNCola is a good example. Lead-free gas and tubeless tires are other products that, when first introduced, were positioned against "older" products.

8. Hybrid Basis
Given the variety of possibilities, consider a hybrid approach that incorporates elements from several categories.

Use worksheets 5, 6, and 7 to help you determine the best position for your organization and its products.

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