Positioning

"Positioning now has a central role within modern marketing, providing a bridge between the company and its target customers, describing to customers how the company differs from current or potential competitors. Positioning therefore becomes the actual designing of the company's image so that the target customers understand and appreciate what the company stands for in relation to its competitors."
(Hooley and Saunders 1993, 'Competitive Positioning')

Please read the above definition carefully and think about how closely the market segmentation and positioning exercises are related. Clearly a market can be segmented in any of a wide range of ways - see the page on market segmentation. The segments you zone in on will be informed by the product/service you are offering and your ideas about the target market for it. In turn, once you have identified these specific groupings within the market to which you want to direct your appeal, you must 'position' your product/service (and/or your company, branding etc.) to make maximum effect there. So positioning is also closely connected with brand strategy, advertising, communication style, corporate image and all of those activities which inform the customer's perceptions about you and your product. How you deal with these issues is critical in differentiating yourself from competitors. If you are not differentiated in a way that's meaningful to customers, there is no particular reason why they should do business with you.

Positioning can be a slightly difficult concept to get your head around because it is not self contained but is achieved through other things. Thus a hotel which wants to position itself to cater to the 'rich and famous' market segment does so through high quality facilities, premium service, premium pricing, expensive advertising in glossy magazines and so on. A hotel which wants to position itself to cater to the budget end of the market looks, serves, communicates and charges quite differently.

Should you focus on company or product positioning? It depends. Where the company, brand and product are pretty much synonymous, as in Coca Cola, you can go for a corporate positioning style. But you might have a number of products with different target markets, needing different positioning styles. Here's an interesting table for you!

Here's another market positioning statement:

"Broadway & Seymour is now FOCUSED on being the leading provider of information technology-enhanced solutions for customer service, the financial and professional services industries and other select markets worldwide.

" Sometimes Market Repositioning is appropriate. Xerox used to position themselves as King of Copiers before competition glutted that market and Xerox repositioned as 'The Document Company' thereby assuming a more broadly based identity and mission.

What about your business? Does your positioning strategy tie in consistently with your product and market strategy? Does it reinforce or weaken them?