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Positioning can be a potent marketing tool. Positioning is a consumer’s opinion of your product or service compared to your competition’s product or service. And you have the power to influence the consumer’s opinion of your product and your competitors’ product. By marketing to a target audience with an effective message, you can make their opinions about your product favorable and their opinions about your competitors’ product unfavorable.
Use the following tips to evaluate your marketing materials – everything from your brochures to your custom business cards – to see if you can improve your positioning technique.
1. Be specific in your message. This means you need to pick out a few of your product’s top benefits and use those over and over again to tout your product.
To be as specific as possible, you need to know who your target market is. If you own a business card printing company, then your target will be professionals who need business cards. But you can narrow that down even more: Do you cater to professionals in certain industries? Do you offer online business card printing services for those across the country?
If you think you can reach more consumers and clients by keeping your message broad, you’ll actually get no one’s attention. If your marketing materials are too broad, no one will say “Hey this company is talking to me” so no one will pay attention.
You also need to be specific about how your product will benefit the consumer. If you don’t tell them, they’ll move on to another company, which will tell them and not make them infer their marketing message. You can have a different set of specific benefits for each target market – you’ll just need a new set of marketing materials for each target market. But think how effective your custom business cards will be when your prospect sees your list of benefits on the back that solves his specific problem!
2. Use clear language in your marketing materials. Prospects won’t take the time or energy to decipher your jargon-filled copy to learn how your product can help them. Although industry lingo and acronyms may seem impressive, really they just alienate or confuse most people. Unless you are marketing to a very specific audience, such as doctors, don’t use jargon.
3. Don’t only rely on positioning. If your product isn’t very good, it doesn’t matter what kind of positioning techniques you use, once people actually try your product, your positioning won’t be as good as your competitors that have better products. This means don’t over promise and under deliver. Let’s go back to the business card printing company. If your company can’t deliver business cards as quickly as an online business card printing company, and you say it does and fail to deliver that promise, you’re going to lose customers – current and potential customers. Current customers will tell potential customers not to do business with you and then you’ll lose sales before you even had a fighting chance with those prospects. Don’t take this risk!
If you find that as you’re writing your marketing materials you have to exaggerate your benefits, ask yourself if your product is the best it can be. Take the time to revise your product because no amount of positioning will make it better. If anything your situation will be worse once people find out you didn’t deliver on your promise.
When done correctly, product positioning can increase sales and can increase your satisfied customer base. Just be sure that you clearly state your benefits and that you can deliver what you promise.
Use the following tips to evaluate your marketing materials – everything from your brochures to your custom business cards – to see if you can improve your positioning technique.
1. Be specific in your message. This means you need to pick out a few of your product’s top benefits and use those over and over again to tout your product.
To be as specific as possible, you need to know who your target market is. If you own a business card printing company, then your target will be professionals who need business cards. But you can narrow that down even more: Do you cater to professionals in certain industries? Do you offer online business card printing services for those across the country?
If you think you can reach more consumers and clients by keeping your message broad, you’ll actually get no one’s attention. If your marketing materials are too broad, no one will say “Hey this company is talking to me” so no one will pay attention.
You also need to be specific about how your product will benefit the consumer. If you don’t tell them, they’ll move on to another company, which will tell them and not make them infer their marketing message. You can have a different set of specific benefits for each target market – you’ll just need a new set of marketing materials for each target market. But think how effective your custom business cards will be when your prospect sees your list of benefits on the back that solves his specific problem!
2. Use clear language in your marketing materials. Prospects won’t take the time or energy to decipher your jargon-filled copy to learn how your product can help them. Although industry lingo and acronyms may seem impressive, really they just alienate or confuse most people. Unless you are marketing to a very specific audience, such as doctors, don’t use jargon.
3. Don’t only rely on positioning. If your product isn’t very good, it doesn’t matter what kind of positioning techniques you use, once people actually try your product, your positioning won’t be as good as your competitors that have better products. This means don’t over promise and under deliver. Let’s go back to the business card printing company. If your company can’t deliver business cards as quickly as an online business card printing company, and you say it does and fail to deliver that promise, you’re going to lose customers – current and potential customers. Current customers will tell potential customers not to do business with you and then you’ll lose sales before you even had a fighting chance with those prospects. Don’t take this risk!
If you find that as you’re writing your marketing materials you have to exaggerate your benefits, ask yourself if your product is the best it can be. Take the time to revise your product because no amount of positioning will make it better. If anything your situation will be worse once people find out you didn’t deliver on your promise.
When done correctly, product positioning can increase sales and can increase your satisfied customer base. Just be sure that you clearly state your benefits and that you can deliver what you promise.
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