Positioning is the very crux of marketing strategy and proper positioning is the right potion for successful marketing management. Product positioning is a crucial decision that a marketer needs to implement to establish a distinctive and strong image of its product/brand as against its competitors, in the mind of the target consumer. Very often, a product fails because of wrong positioning.
How to Create a Strong Positioning Strategy
It is important for a marketer to bear in mind the following essentials before formulating and executing his positioning strategy.
- Gather from the market, the current position of the brand or product or service, in the target consumer's mind.
- Clear thoughts on the achievement of the desired position in the market
- The competitors to be dealt with while establishing that position
- Availability of adequate resources to occupy and sustain that position.
- Relevance of sticking with a particular positioning strategy
- Perfect matching of the creative approach with the chosen positioning strategy
Different Types of Positioning Strategies
Leveraging on Existing Brands' Strategy: It is a common tactic employed by marketers to leverage on the names of the firm's existing and established brands for extending the product line or venturing into another product category. This kind of brand marketing helps the firm to indirectly clarify queries in the consumer's mind like the identity of the new product and its credibility in the market. An established brand automatically helps the firm in its brand positioning strategy of new products or services.
Corporate Brand Positioning Strategy: Here the marketer uses his company name/identity for brand extensions.
Product Features and Benefits Positioning Strategy: A consumer buys a product when he/she perceives some promised benefit that would satisfy the need and that the offer is better or enticing as against other competing brands. This positioning strategy is implemented by differentiating the brand from its competitors on the basis of its features and benefits offered. This is known as Unique Selling Proposition or USP. Often brands cluster two to three related benefits for positioning their product.
Price-Quality Positioning Strategy
- Often the price of the product is kept high owing to its high quality and the product is positioned in a way that the super quality of the product justifies its high price. This is very true in the case of designer perfumes, watches, fancy cars and designer clothes.
- Here positioning is done by focusing on the affordable/low price of the product and its superior quality. Here the consumer experiences a feel good factor since he's obtaining a quality product at an economical price.
Product Category Positioning Strategy: This strategy is used when an existing product category is too congested and the new brand is positioned as belonging to another product category.
User Positioning Strategy: Products can be positioned according to their user bases. For instance, beer marketers often position their products as light and strong beers. Again Kellogg's has cornflakes for cereal users, weight- watchers and kids. This is a smart way of doing niche marketing.
Positioning is all about finding the right path to create a significant and unique place amidst a crowd of different competing brands. A marketer can adopt from different strategies like leveraging on existing brands, leveraging on corporate name, product features and benefits, price-quality positioning, competitive positioning,product category positioning and user positioning.
References:
Sengupta, Subroto. Brand Positioning Strategies for Competitive Advantage. India. Tata McGraw-Hill, 1990.
Keller,L, kevin. Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring and Managing Brand Equity. India. Dorling Kinderseley (India) Pvt. Ltd, 2007.
Paulami Roy - Paulami Roy, is a freelance writer. Having attained her double masters in International Relations and MBA with specialization in ...
Join the Conversation