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Business Loan InformationPositioning in Small Business Marketing
by:
J D Moore
Copyright 2005 J D Moore
Positioning is another one of those marketing jargon words that everybody throws about and is important to understand. It's besides important to understand how positioning specifically applies to your small business marketing.
Basically a marketing position describes your unique place in the market. The key word here is unique. What does you some from your competitors? What features and benefits do you offer your target market that the another players don't?
Here are a few things that may go into your positioning:
-Price Point - This doesn't necessarily mean you have the lowest price. You may be the most big-ticket in town, and that's OK if you convert your customers you're worth it.
-Service - About every business claims they have great service. If you can provide exceptional service compared to your competitors, your customers wish remember you. I'll ne'er
forget career a ugly pipe fitter to try to get him to my home for an emergency on a weekend. he acted like he didn't want my business and then told me it was going to be $200 for him simply to show up, no thanks. I called roto-router who gave me amazing service, a guarantee, and the whole bill was less than $200. I now use them for all my plumbing.
-Features and Benefits - Positioning is not simply just about what does you different, it's besides simply about what you emphasize. Folgers announces to the earth that it's "mountain full-grown coffee" ( a feature). Guess what? All coffee is mountain grown. Folgers simply claimed this feature first. What's thing
that none of your competitors are talking about?
-Credibility - Legal Seafood's clam soup
is served at every presidential inauguration. Galore products get celebrity endorsements. Galore companies tout how long they've been in business. All of these things build trust in the mind of the consumer. What trust-building factors do you have that the competition does not?
-Negative Features - Is there thing
you don't have that annoys customers of your competitors? I'm not expression use negative advertising, but simply mention the feature and tie it to a benefit. I'm annoyed once
I have to pay for parking to go buying at Mall. Instead of touting free parking, a mall that wants to speak to me mightiness declare, "you'll ne'er
have to pay for parking". This drives home the pain of buying with a rival without going negative.
-Anything Else - Virtually
thing
that differentiates you from your competitors can be part of your positioning strategy - your location, your hours of operation, the way your office smells. Small business owners need to think creatively here.
In a great article by John Jantsch he states that a positioning strategy must answer the question, "why should I buy from you?" This is brilliant in it's simplicity; it cuts through all the strategic junk that complicates marketing. If you can't answer this question, your client is not going to do the activity to numbers out an answer on his own.
Just simply about the author:
Makes your small business marketing stink? Let's Fix it! J D Moore is a small business marketing coach. See his web log at http://marketingcomet.typepad.com
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