Components of Effective Positioning: 5+1

Good positioning is the difference between failure and success. If your customers can’t tell the difference between your product and the hundreds of alternatives, why would they choose you?

Positioning is defining how you are both the best and only option at something.

1. Competitive Alternatives: “If you didn’t exist, what would customers use?” Customers don’t know as much about the market as you do. It’s crucial to understand what they compare your solution with, because that’s what they will use to define what’s better. The most common alternative is general-purpose software combined with manual processes.

2. Unique Attributes: “What features do you have that alternatives do not?” We often think only of technical features, but your unique attributes can be found in your delivery model, business model, specific expertise, and relevant experience. Whatever they are, they need to be real from the customer’s perspective.

3. Value (and Proof): “What value do the attributes enable for customers?” Value has to be fact-based and quantitative. It needs to be provable objectively. Your opinion of your value does not count as proof; the opinion of your customers, reviewers, and experts does.

4. Market Characteristics: “Who cares a lot about that value?” Unless you have an unlimited marketing budget, your efforts should focus on the customers most likely to buy from you. Find the customers whose lives your product will truly improve. Find the ones who’ll be obsessed with you.

5. Market Category: “What context does your product fit into?” Market category is a shortcut to set the right context in your customers’ minds. It triggers assumptions about what your product should do, who your competitors are, and what the pricing is like. Be careful—these can work for and against you.

BONUS
Relevant Trends: “What trends make your product relevant right now?” Trends can make the need to purchase more urgent and significantly raise the relevancy of your product in your customers’ minds. But use them wisely. Jumping on the wrong trend can leave you very out of place.

Finding answers to these questions will make or break your business. Nail your positioning.

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