How to position your business for sales by addressing a specific market demand
Veronika Noize
The Marketing Coach
Of all the "P’s" in marketing (I’m talking Product, Price, Positioning, Place and Promotion), the "P" that stands for positioning is the one that causes my clients the most trouble.
Your positioning determines how your prospects, clients and colleagues see you, and especially how your business compares to your competition. There are various ways you can position yourself.
Price. Your product or service can be higher, lower or the same as everyone else.
Unique product attributes. These include"secret ingredients" or proprietary processes. Specific benefits. Location, speed of service, and so on, fall into this category.
Users. This is why so many products use celebrity endorsers that imply status by association.
Occasions. This means marketing your product especially for weddings, birthdays, holidays and so on.
Against other competitors.
But what do you do when your business isn’t significantly distinct from your competitor’s? That’s the situation one of my clients found himself in when he bought a used car lot at the end of his town’s "auto mall."
As a used car dealer, he did not specialize in any particular make or model, nor did he offer especially high-end (or even low-end) vehicles. He sounded very discouraged when he talked to me, saying that no matter how much he advertised, he believed that his ads simply drove his prospects to the other lots on the mall, because his was the last lot at the end of the street.
When I asked him what was most important to his customers, the used car buyers, he noted that pricing was a factor, as was financing, but quickly added that his options were essentially identical to the other used car lots on the mall. The only difference was that his lot was at the very end of the mall. Probing further, I asked him what else concerned his customers, whether or not he (or his competitors) addressed the issue.
He sheepishly admitted that the biggest issue in his experience was the fear of buying a lemon, but that should not be an issue since his state had a "lemon law" that mandated repairs or replacement. That gave me an idea.
After confirming that he was willing to guarantee his used cars against major defects for the first 48 hours, I suggested that he run an ad with the headline: "No Lemons Here!" He did, and his ad campaign mentioned that to get the best price on a used car that was guaranteed not to be a lemon, all one had to do was drive to the end of the mall, and check out the cars on his lot. He guaranteed his cars weren’t lemons, and offered a two-day "love it or leave it" window in which the vehicle could be returned if it was found to be a lemon.
Although his competitors were not particularly pleased with his campaign, his customers were. They flocked to his lot, and his sales rose sharply because his positioning addressed an unmet need for reassurance in the used car market.
When determining your own positioning, keep in mind that while your business may be very similar to others in your field, there could be subtle differences. My advice is to turn those lemons of similarity into lemonade. Since most businesses try to be all things to all people, or simply don’t make a point of how they are different, you can become the best choice for a specific segment of the market by making your positioning clear, and earning yourself more attention, credibility, and business.
Veronika (Ronnie) Noize, the Marketing Coach, is the author of "How to Double Your Business in 30 Minutes a Day." For free articles and valuable marketing tools, visit www.VeronikaNoize.com.
