Positioning is about how you differentiate your product or service in the mind of your prospect.

The Essence of Positioning

Positioning is a new approach to communication, advertising and marketing.  It is an organized system for finding a window in the mind of your prospect in order to position effectively over there a product – a merchandise, a service, a company, or a person – against its main competitors. This system is based on the concept that communication can only take place at the right time and under the right circumstances. The mind accepts only that new information which matches its current state. It filters out everything else. In other words, positioning is a process by which a psychological "anchor" has been placed into the minds of prospects so that they come to choose one specific person or company over another.

Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect – you look for the solution of your problem inside the prospect's mind. Anyone can use positioning strategy to get ahead in the game of life.

Research-based Exercise

Positioning a company is a difficult task. While advertising is a creative task, company positioning must be developed from careful research about your brand. You must find out:

Positioning should be a foundation for action to design, manage and defend your brand. It should inform everything you do: what customer value you create, what you value, what's your sustainable competitive advantage, how you conduct your business, how you communicate and interact with customers.

Use the Right Colors in Your Promotional Materials

Analyze what colors your competitors use. Avoid using colors already associated with your competitor if you wish to position your product effectively in the mind of your prospects... More

 Case in Point  Ten3 Business e-Coach

Launched in 2001, the new-to-the-world Ten3 Business e-Coach had customers in 80+ countries by 2004. In the jungle of educational web sites, Ten3 Business e-Coach created and took the lead in the niche focused on helping people build their cross-functional excellence, entrepreneurial creativity and systems thinking and inspiring innovation and business synergies. To differentiate its services from other e-learning resources, Ten³ Business e-Coach used the following positioning slogan , "We don't teach – we inspire!"

 Case in Point  Unisys: Repositioning the Company

In 1998, Larry Weinbach joined Unisys from Anderson Worldwide. When he joined Unisys, Weinbach immediately said that the Unisys brand was tarnished and decided to rebuild it... More