5 Ways to Solidify Your Market Positioning – Image Matters

When your customers or prospective customers think about you and your company, what is their impression? What would you like them to think about? How do they perceive you compared to the competition? Is there a keyword or phrase by which you want your company to be known? Do your customers think of that when they think of you? Essentially, your marketing techniques determine your market positioning within your industry. Therefore, you must take active strides to keep it strong or to make it stronger.

Podcast Time Index for “Market Positioning”

00:28 – Market Positioning
04:46 – How is the Business Positioned?
06:51 – Surveying the Market
08:08 – Internal Survey
09:36 – External Survey
10:19 – Putting the Steps in Motion
12:26 – Keys to Solid Positioning
18:42 – So, how well positioned is your Business?

Surveying Your Market

You see, you’re playing a figurative chess game with one of your competitors. One of you will “checkmate” the other in the marketing battle. So within this game of business, are you on the offensive or the defensive? Do you know the caliber of your opponent? Have you surveyed that business’s strengths and weaknesses? Have you surveyed your own? To determine your marketing position in comparison to other companies, you must take two types of surveys.

Do an Internal Market Survey

First, you want to look internally. Start with the leaders of your company.

• Do they fit the keyword or phrase by which you want your company to be known?
• Do they exemplify integrity, innovation, compassion, diligence, efficiency, or whatever keyword describes your company?

What about your rank and file employees?

• Are they men and women of integrity, innovation, compassion, diligence, or efficiency?
• Since you know that your team members are at the front line of your marketing campaign, are they modeling the behaviors and traits for which you want your company to be known?
• Do their traits or behaviors reveal your company’s keyword?

Do an External Market Survey

After you perform a self-assessment of your company and its employees, it’s time to get feedback from your team members and your customers. Let others tell you what they value about your business. Survey customers.

• Ask them what brings them to your company versus a competitor’s company.
• Do they see your company as compassionate or cutting edge?
• What do your team members think about your company?
• Is there a word that describes your company that stands out to them?

Send out actual surveys to your customers to find out what customers think about when they think of your company. Read the testimonials left on Google and in social media. Positive reviews can suggest the strengths you can build on. Negative reviews can offer you ways your company needs improvement.

Ultimately, you are surveying others to determine what they think about your company and to figure out how you are positioned within your marketplace. What makes you stand out from amidst your competition? Do team members and customers think about you the way you want them to think about you? Do you have a solid footing within your marketplace, or are customers still trying to figure out what you do best?

5 Ways to Solidify Your Market Positioning

If you’re not sure where you stand within your marketplace, you can take steps to fix that. You can make your current position stronger, or you can claim a position by doing the following things:

1. Have a positioning statement. Write out and share your mission statement or what you’re trying to accomplish as a company.
2. Understand your competition’s offerings. Know what marketing moves they’re making so you can make offensive movements rather than defensive movements.
3. Actively communicate with your customers. Get your company and its offerings in front of your customers in multiple ways and multiple times a year.
4. Survey your customers. Ask consumers for feedback. What do they want to see from you? How many times would they like to hear from you?
5. Find ways to enhance your customers’ experiences. Constantly be on the lookout for ways to make your customers’ experience better.

So with that, let me ask you – have you defined the exact experience you want your customers to have? Start by writing it out in story form. Remember, market positioning is a proactive process. It’s not a defensive mechanism or position. In order to set yourself apart in the marketplace, you must create your image. You are responsible for how others see you, and that all goes back to marketing. Your customers’ view of your company directly relates to your company’s sales.

For more information on this topic, be sure to subscribe to all the Business Growth content on podcast! You can find it on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and all other major channels. And don’t miss our next article in the Marketing series: The Four C’s – Branding for Small Businesses