What’s product positioning? Examples, methods, and template

The best positioning can remodel a struggling product into one which flies off the cabinets. That’s as a result of positioning is about notion; calibrating the appropriate notion of your product is paramount to conveying the worth it brings over its opponents.

Desk of contents

What’s the definition of product positioning?

Product positioning is the act of defining the place your product matches out there relative to its opponents as perceived by your prospects.

Let’s break down this definition of product positioning:

• “… wright here your product matches out there …” — What’s your product and what’s it not?
• “… relative to its opponents …” — Who’re your opponents and the way does your product examine to theirs?
• “… as perceived by your prospects …” — This final one is especially necessary; product positioning is rather more concerning the notion of your product than any form of bodily differentiation

Product positioning vs. differentiation

Product positioning is just not differentiation. A product’s positioning should work with its differentiation, however the will not be the identical factor.

Right here’s easiest strategy to describe the excellence between product positioning and differentiation:

• Differentiation is tangible
• Positioning is perceptual

In different phrases, a product’s differentiation is (as a rule) the tangible distinction. For instance, does your product supply higher options than your opponents?

Let’s say you’re evaluating the options obtainable in a Toyota Camry versus a Ferrari:

As you possibly can see, the Toyota is superior in the event you’re solely involved about performance and practicality.

Positioning, however, is perceptual. It has little to do with the precise options and performance.

How is your product perceived? Is it seen as a luxurious? Excessive-end or price range? Is it seen as being of upper high quality than your opponents? Or, is it perceived as enjoyable and extra revolutionary?

Let’s look once more on the instance of the Toyota and the Ferrari:

That’s product positioning — how your product is perceived by the market relative to your opponents.

Now that you just’ve decided your product positioning, you need to use it to distinguish your product. The 2 must go hand-in-hand, however the essential distinction is that positioning is about notion, not bodily differentiation.

Why is product positioning necessary?

Product positioning is necessary as a result of, whereas bodily differentiation is nice, choices are sometimes made based mostly on how a product is perceived.

For instance, buying a luxurious automobile or purse is emotional — not due to the way it seems or its design or measurement, however due to the way it’s perceived.

In spite of everything, no person decides in opposition to shopping for a Ferrari as a result of it doesn’t have a heads-up show or wi-fi charging ; they purchase it (at exorbitant value factors) as a result of it’s a Ferrari!

The product and model are positioned such that they carry a sure notion, one that’s extremely fascinating no matter precise bodily options. Leveraging the ability of notion can scale back the necessity for bodily differentiation and allow you to demand the next value level.

Defining your product positioning technique

The next parts ought to affect your product positioning technique:

Market evaluation

The primary and most necessary step to defining your product positioning technique is knowing your market.

Whereas there isn’t a single strategy to conduct market evaluation, some core questions you would possibly discover embrace:

• Who’re the core demographics in your market? Are they college students? Prosperous households? Retirees?
• What rules and legal guidelines do you’ll want to contemplate?
• What are the market traits? Is the market rising o shrinking? Maybe present process a serious transformation or a interval of disruption?
• How a lot is the market impacted by exterior forces? What are the political, geographical, and financial impacts?
• What the assumptions, dangers, and uncertainties concerning the market and its future?

Aggressive panorama

Product positioning is all about how your merchandise are perceived in relation to their direct opponents. Subsequently, it’s paramount to have an excellent understanding of your opponents.

In fact, you need to construct a deep understanding of your opponents, their strengths and weaknesses, and differentiation. Equally importantly, you need to analyze your opponents’ technique and the way they’re positioned out there.

Constructing a holistic image of the aggressive panorama may also help you determine positions out there which may be saturated or underserved. An excellent device for that is perceptual mapping (extra on that later).

Goal market section

Defining your goal market section is core to product positioning. For instance, let’s say you need to place your product as a luxurious merchandise, however your core goal market are youngsters. Evidently, few of them are possible to have the ability to afford your product.

One other instance could be a B2B product geared toward early-stage startups versus one which targets massive enterprises. The latter could be extra centered on being perceived as protected, safe, and succesful. The previous could be extra involved with positioning itself as youthful and enjoyable.

Firm and model values (and positioning)

Your product’s positioning shall be closely influenced by your organization model and its present positioning.

For instance, Apple positions itself as revolutionary and artistic and seeks to focus on that market. For a very long time, Apple leveraged this fame to distinguish itself from different pc manufacturers and seize a buyer base of artistic professionals, from musicians to artists and the like.

As such, Apple’s merchandise additionally reside and breath this ethos: they’re aesthetically pleasing, usually colourful, and carry a design that’s not like any of their opponents.

Product imaginative and prescient and worth proposition

Lastly, your product imaginative and prescient and worth proposition play a key function in product positioning. Understanding the important thing differentiator — your moat — is core to defining what makes your product distinctive out there. An efficient product place will hone in on this and amplify it.

What’s a perceptual map?

One in every of my go-to instruments for understanding the market to search out the perfect product positioning is a perceptual map.

Perceptual mapping, also called market mapping, is a diagrammatic method used to visualise the relative positioning of aggressive merchandise. Usually within the type of a 2×2 matrix, perceptual maps search to map out direct opponents’ positioning relative to one another.

Perceptual maps may also help you determine gaps out there, crowded positioning, and when it might be time to reposition.

The axis on a perceptual map will range relying in your market, merchandise, and prospects.

For instance, you would possibly map your merchandise based mostly on whether or not they’re perceived as:

• Low cost <> Costly
• Low- <> Excessive-quality
• Youthful <> Mature
• Enjoyable <> Critical
• Small <> Massive
• Frequent <> Uncommon

There’s no good science to making a perceptual map. Nonetheless, a perceptual map must be knowledgeable by analysis — specifically, aggressive evaluation and buyer analysis. Utilizing this knowledge, you will have to find out what attributes are necessary in your prospects and the way they understand merchandise out there.

If you want, you can too validate your perceptual map by way of perception-based questions as a part of buyer interviews.

Examples of profitable product positioning

In her ebook Clearly Superior, April Dunford shares a private story concerning the influence that the appropriate positioning can have.

Working in a startup for a B2B database product, the corporate have been fighting gross sales. Though the product was superior to its opponents, the corporate discovered that prospects usually didn’t perceive the worth the product would carry over their present database resolution. Lastly, Dunford’s crew met with a prospect who argued that the product was not a database in any respect, however a enterprise intelligence device.

By repositioning the product as a enterprise intelligence device, the gross sales crew noticed speedy outcomes. As soon as prospects stopped evaluating the product to their current database, they started to know the issue the product was designed to unravel and the worth it might carry.

As you possibly can see, positioning your product appropriately could be a sport changer. Apple, Nike, Lush, and Patagonia are all examples of corporations which have carried out product positioning exceptionally properly.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into every product positioning instance.

Apple (MacBook)

Apple positions itself towards artistic people by leveraging its fame as an revolutionary firm. It dominates this place out there so properly that you’d be hard-pressed to discover a designer who doesn’t use a MacBook.

This positioning interprets into all features of the MacBook — from the purposes geared toward artistic industries, akin to Remaining Minimize Professional for video modifying and Logic Professional for music, to its smooth design and distinctive options that problem the norm.

Nike footwear

Nike positions itself as model for elite athletes. From its tagline, “Simply Do It,” which fashions its positioning to push the boundaries of human efficiency, to the merchandise themselves, that are incessantly the go-to alternative for athletes.

Lush

Lush is known for his or her handmade, animal- and chemical-free merchandise. They place themselves as a sustainable and moral firm that doesn’t do animal testing and creates merchandise that aren’t solely good for you however for the atmosphere too. This interprets to Lush’s distinctive store designs and the merchandise themselves.

For instance, you will see no packaging in a Lush retailer moreover being wrapped in recycled paper at fee. The merchandise themselves are imperfect and fragile, usually sporting blemishes. This doesn’t detract from the product; the truth is, it performs properly into its positioning, selling the truth that merchandise are handmade and chemical-free.

Patagonia

Patagonia made headlines a few years in the past after they launched an advert marketing campaign Black Friday titled “don’t purchase this jacket.” The marketing campaign was a foyer in opposition to quick vogue and to advertise sustainability.

Patagonia’s firm mission leads the corporate to take part in activist and sustainability work. This interprets into their services and products, from 100-percent recycled materials to their free repairs service.

Product positioning template

Defining your product positioning technique begins with vital consideration across the following parts:

• Your product imaginative and prescient
  • What’s the long-term imaginative and prescient in your product?
• Business/market class
  • What’s the body of reference for the product?
  • What business does it belong to?
  • In what class inside your market/business does it sit?
• Aggressive options
  • Who’re your direct opponents?
  • What are their strengths?
  • How are they perceived?
• Goal market section
  • Who’s your goal market section?
  • What are some key attributes of that section that your product will faucet into?
• Distinctive attributes/benefit
  • What attributes are distinctive to your product?
  • What’s your product’s worth proposition?
  • How do you plan to distinguish your product?
• Firm model
  • What’s your organization identified for?
  • What are the important thing attributes that your model is related to?

Obtain a customizable Google Sheets model of the product positioning template beneath:

Conclusion

Product positioning could make or break your product. In case your place is poor out there, your product will sink.

Keep in mind that to acquire the appropriate positioning, you’ll want to have an excellent understanding of your market, prospects, and opponents. An excellent device that will help you visualize this is called perceptual mapping. It could possibly show you how to determine saturated positions out there and underserved ones, serving to you discover the perfect positioning in your product.