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February 2006

Positioning Your Product
By Kay Paumier, Communications Plus

One of the most important steps of any communications program is developing your positioning statements, which describe how you want the market to perceive your product or service. This process can be time-consuming and even frustrating. However, it is essential.

First, you need to know the following about your product / service, target customer, market and competition. This may require some research, but positioning cannot be done in a vacuum.

1. Know your product or service.

For example, know its:

Purpose
Target customers
Features and benefits
Strengths and weaknesses
Price and availability
Product roadmap and/or product family
Service and support.

2. Know the target customer.

If at all possible, do some primary research, directly connecting with target customers to discuss topics such as:

What is their "pain?"
What keeps them up at night?
What do they worry about?
What do they want (the "gain")?
What is important to them? What are their priorities?
What motivates them?
Who influences them?
What are the obstacles to their success?

If you can't do primary research, at least read the publications that target your audience to get an idea of their most important issues.

Remember, a product is only as good as the customers' willingness to buy it.

3. Know your market and your place in it.

For example, you'll need to answer questions such as the following:

What is your target market?
How big is it?
Is it growing?
Is it well-established or emerging?
What does the market need?
What are its major trends?
Who are the trendsetters in this market?

You may need to do some research here or get some industry reports.

4. Know the competition.

You’ll need to answer questions such as:

Who is the competition?
What do their products and services do?
How are they different from yours?
What do they do better than you?
What do they do worse?
How do they position themselves in the marketplace?
How are they actually positioned in the marketplace?
Where do their products "belong" in the overall market? For example, are they high quality and high price, low cost and high volume, or something in between?

5. Develop a competitive feature matrix.

Having collected this information, develop a matrix with your product and the competition along one side and the key features along the other. Add information accordingly, as in the example below.

6. Analyze all the information you've gathered, especially the data in the matrix.

Look for the holes, the niches that no one else fills. Specifically, look for:

Your strengths
Your competitors' weakness(es)
Areas with little or no competition.

During this part of the process, it helps to develop a grid, placing each product on an axis using two differentiating elements at a time. For example, the grid below compares price and performance.

Analyzing the chart, it's clear our product:

Is the best-value high-performance car
Has better performance than the other cars in its price range
Is 25% less expensive than cars with equivalent performance.

7. Develop your positioning statements.

Now develop the positioning statements, which describe how you want your product or service to be perceived. The statements should define your targeted place in the market. They must differentiate and distinguish you from the competition. They must present your product or service in such a way that the features and benefits appear unique or at least unusual. They must make it clear how you reduce the customer's pain or enhance his or her gain. And they must do all that in one or two sentences.

In our example, some possible positioning statements are:

"Our Car gives you the best performance for the money."
"Our Car is the lowest-priced, high-performance car on the market."
"Our Car has the best resale value in its class because of its standard features and competitive warranty."

8. Test the positioning statements.

Ask key people in your company to review the positioning statements and evaluate whether they are:

Simple
Straightforward
Defensible
Original
Available
Differentiated from competition
Compelling, attractive or desirable, and
Focused on customer benefits, either alleviating the pain or enhancing the gain.

Refine or redo the statements as needed.

Summary

Developing positioning statements takes patience, insight and perspective. Because detachment and focus are critical, it can help to work with an outsider during this process. An independent consultant can often bring the detached, "outside-in" viewpoint essential to success.

In any event, do not skimp on this process. Carefully crafted positioning statements can help ensure the consistency, longevity and integrity of your communication program.

For more information, see the classic book, Positioning: the Battle for Your Mind, by Al Ries and Jack Trout, McGraw Hill, 1996.

Kay Paumier is president of Communications Plus, a public relations and communications firm serving small to mid-sized organizations in the technology, healthcare and not-for-profit areas. Clients include Fujitsu, Novell, American Camp Association and a host of startups. For more information, phone 510-656-8512, email kay@communicationsplus.net or go to www.communicationsplus.net.