Getting Product Positioning Right
Whether you’re marketing a product, an idea, or even yourself, your message starts with positioning. Before you can decide what to say about your product, you must determine where it fits in relation to your audience, their world, and the greater market landscape. This “location” in the minds of your prospective customers and in the marketplace is your “position.” And it is something that you should actively define rather than allow to emerge by default.
Identify the right message for the right buyer
Effective positioning--the kind that wins sales, customer loyalty, and industry accolades--is the result of matching the right product with the right buyer, and of communicating that relationship with the right message. No matter how innovative, time-saving, beautiful, or durable your product might be, it is only as good as your buyer perceives it to be.
You must therefore identify the ideal customer for your product, the person who will most appreciate its value. If this ideal customer is also the person making purchasing decisions, then congratulations! You’ve found your target buyer. However, if the user and buyer for your product category are different people, then you need to consider the needs of not only the user but also of the person holding the purse strings.
Positioning informs messaging
Positioning and messaging are terms that are often used together, or even used interchangeably. While inextricably linked, they are two discrete concepts. Positioning is about what and who. What does the product do, What problem does it solve, Whose problem does it solve, and Who else might benefit from using it? are questions that you answer with your product positioning. Messaging expands on positioning to describe how and why. How does the product solve the problem, Why is this an important problem to solve, How is this product different from others, and Why should the buyer choose your product? are questions you address through your messaging.
Take an outside-in approach
No product exists in a vacuum. Your prospective customers are human beings with their own challenges, triumphs, joys, and sorrows. When it comes to finding solutions for their problems, they can feel burdened by choice or inertia. There may be many competing solutions in the market, and the market itself may be changing as a result of economic turmoil or disruptive technology. You must consider this broader context when crafting your messaging.
As you think about your product, repeatedly ask yourself Who cares?, So what?, and Why does this matter? By anticipating the objections of your target audience, you can eliminate the static preventing your core message (Choose our product!) from getting through.
Speak to your customers in their language
In order to connect with your audience, you need to speak to them in their language. That means that when you describe your product, you should use the same vocabulary as your prospective customers. You can conduct focus groups as part of this research, do a survey of industry publications, or even look at frequently used Google search terms. This can be especially important in defining your product category for the market.
Revisit your positioning
You should plan on revisiting your positioning at various stages of your product lifecycle, and as the market landscape changes. How do you know when it’s time to revisit positioning? The simplest answer is, when you aren’t achieving your goals. Once you’ve confirmed that your product does in fact meet the needs of the market (product-market fit), then you should plan to reconsider your positioning whenever there is a change in your buyer, market, product, or portfolio.
Buyer: Has their urgency to buy changed? Are they solving their problem another way? Are they facing financial constraints? Do they no longer have purchasing authority?
Market: Has a new technology or competitor emerged? Have economic factors changed?
Product: Have you added a new capability or feature to your product?
Portfolio: Do you need to define an existing product in relation to a new one?
Conclusion
Product positioning is one of--if not the--most critical elements in the success of the launch and lifecycle of a product, and of any associated marketing for that product. While we might not all have the luxury of developing positioning before the product makes it to the market (which happens with many startups while they are finding product-market fit), it should be our top priority once we identify our ideal customer. Because while the best time to position an existing product may have been yesterday, the next best time is today.
If you are thinking about how to position a product, idea, or even yourself, I have a free template to help you get started.