How To Set Your Business Apart from Your Competition
By Razelle Janice Drescher
In a nutshell, your Marketing Positioning Strategy is the way to establish your uniqueness in your marketplace. The real opportunity is to think about that early on when you are first thinking about the vision you have for your business. Why would customers choose your business versus another one that is similar? Paying attention to setting your business apart in your marketplace has broad implications for success going forward.
What is a Marketing Positioning Strategy?
Marketing Positioning Strategy has the potential to give your business an advantage over your competition because it targets your customers specifically so you can offer them the promise of emotional gratification that they are seeking. The buying decision happens at an unconscious level. Your customers are really buying an emotion rather than the product or service you are offering. What emotion are you selling? Once you understand that, you can shape the way you talk about your products and services to match your customer profile(s).
The Components of the Marketing Positioning Strategy
When you ask a business owner who their target market is, some say ‘everyone.’ A better way is to target your customers so you can speak to them in a way that matters to them. Building the demographic and psychographic profiles of your target market(s) is the essential starting point for building your Marketing Positioning Strategy.
Demographics refer to who your customers are, things like age, gender, location, education, income, etc. Psychographics are what give you even more valuable information about that unconscious promise of emotional gratification that your customers are seeking. Psychographics define why they buy. Knowing this information can give you the leverage you need to set your business apart from your competition. Once you have identified your target markets, it’s helpful to get specific about where you will focus your marketing dollars. It makes sense to focus on your most profitable ones). But other factors can come into play here from your business vision. As you sell your products and services, it’s important to track your financial information so you can understand where to put your focus.
Identify what emotion you are ‘selling.’ This takes a bit of a shift in thinking! For example, a builder might be selling reliability. An insurance agent might be selling peace of mind. A new medication might be selling hope.
Build your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). A USP is a short phrase that contains the promise of an unconscious emotional gratification that your customers are seeking. It’s the most powerful aspect of your Marketing Positioning Strategy. The one I have for my business is ‘Empowering relationships’ because that is the promise my clients are seeking. The words used in this phrase are vague, not specific to your product or service but focused on the emotion you are ‘selling.’ Once you know about this piece of the strategy, it’s fun to start noticing how other companies use their USPs to advertise their services.
Build your Positioning Statement. This piece of the strategy describes a bit more about what you are offering. It can also be on the vague side or a bit more specific because your marketing positioning speaks to the unconscious of your customers since that’s where the buying decision is made. The positioning statement I use is on the specific side “Business Coaching and Leadership Programs.” But my USP (Empowering relationships) and the name of my company (Intentional Leaders) carry the promise of emotional gratification. An intentional leader is what many of my clients want to be. But they often don’t feel like a leader when they begin working with me. They often don’t know what to do or say as the leaders of their company. Building and implementing the marketing positioning gives the business owner a way to think and talk about their business that attracts their target market. It’s a powerful tool.
The last element is the Positioning Paragraph. Once you have defined your demographics and psychographics, and built your USP and Positioning Statement, you are ready to write a brief paragraph that embodies the essence of what your company offers. It includes your company name, your USP and Positioning Statement, and a few sentences about the products/services you offer and the experience your customers will have that sets your business apart from its competition.
Having a Marketing Positioning Strategy gives you an edge over your competition. Your positioning can and should be threaded through your sales process, your marketing activities, your customer service process, and your daily operations, including company leadership. Sharing your positioning with your employees informs them of the ‘promise’ that they are delivering to your customers and how to talk to customers in a way that is inviting.
I’ve helped hundreds of business owners build their positioning over many decades. If you’d like help building yours, you are welcome to contact me at 707-326-5681 or sign up for a free consultation to get started.