Hi.
The time to speak about positioning.
Positioning is the basis of the marketing plan and the core of the branding and
strategy.
So what is positioning?
Position is the process through which we design the company offering
to attend to a segment or a pool of segments with a value proposition
which is going to be relevant for them.
The term positioning was coined by two advertisers Ries and
Trout in their book, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind.
The idea was that in a society flooded with communication messages,
the customer was unable to absorb all the messages.
[LAUGH] So the only way to move forward was to create a clear
image able to penetrate the mind of the customers.
In the beginning, it was pretty focused on communication and
explain how through marketing communications you could occupy
a distinctive and unique place in the mind of the target group you were targeting.
However, the concept was later incorporated into the marketing strategy
as one of the elements that enables us
to define very precisely who's going to be our target group and
what is going to be the value proposition required to convince them.
In this regard, the positioning consist of developing, a valid proposition for
a specific target group.
As discussed, the role that positioning plays in the marketing process is clear
and crucial for defining a target group we are going to go for.
And what are we going to offer to that target group?
And, of course, this is going to be the basis for
the rest of the marketing actions we may take.
On the other hand, if we define our positioning correctly,
it will help us to clarify our brand essence, understand the customer, and
how we can make the difference by offering something unique for that customer.
The positioning goes hand in hand with the target group we have selected.
We need to define precisely what the needs we are covering.
[LAUGH] And what is so special about our product that the customer will choose it
over other options available.
When going ahead with a successful positioning,
our marketing will become more efficient and effective.
It will be more effective for we will be able to reach out and
convince to our target group to acquire our product.
And it will be more efficient, as long as we will control and
optimize our resources.
Having said that, what is not positioning?
There is a big misunderstanding around positioning.
To start with, positioning is not what we believe it is, but
what the target group really believe it is.
Along these lines, positioning is not what the general market perceives, but
what the target group we aim for thinks about us.
Moreover, positioning is not what we communicate in our advertising.
Nor, what our target group in other markets think about us.
[LAUGH] The positioning is the result of what the target group we are aiming at
is perceiving.
We might be aligned or not with what we planned initially.
The positioning is always alive and
can change as long as it's preferences evolve, a new customer steps in, etc.