7 Reasons to Re-think Your Positioning

By Deborah Henken and Mary Haderlein of the Hyde Park Group

Are you the leader in your market?
Or are you a Me Too product? Positioning is finding a way to differentiate your company for competitive advantage in a selected market segment that maximizes your ROI. By finding a competitively differentiated place in a market, which is relevant and compelling to a customer segment, your company can gain a dominant position in that segment. The retail toy market, for example, has a luxury segment, which F.A.O. Schwartz targets. On the other hand, there is a segment of the market that gives up high end, unique toy selection for broad selection and reasonable prices. Toys R Us dominates this segment. Two market segments in one market, two different companies. Because each found a market segment to dominate, each captured leadership positions in their segment. Why be a leader? Leaders can establish follow-me pricing; leaders have lower costs of sales; leaders have disproportionate shares of publicity and leaders have access to decision-makers.

Once you dominate in one segment, you can leverage your leadership to expand into other market segments. Ultimately, you want to lead in your segment. Do you?

If not, positioning can identify market segments and niches in which you can be the leading player.

1. Are you entering an emerging market?
   Positioning can help you be the Trailblazer*. Positioning will allow you to identify the best target markets for your product, understand what factors are important to them and create the messaging that resonates with the target market, leading to leadership, ownership of the emerging market and increased sales.
   
2. Have you successfully created a new market and competitors are knocking?
   As a Trailblazer*, revisiting your positioning ensures you continue to have a compelling competitive differentiation, letting you rise above the noise and continue to offer a meaningful, differentiable value proposition to the market. Don't let your competitors take away your market share, make sure you understand what they are saying to customers and that you meet the customer needs better than they do.
   
3. Have you captured a market segment and now want to expand to new markets to sustain growth?
   As you move to new markets, it is critical that you ensure your position and messages reflect your new target's needs and desires and stand out from the new competition in this market.
   
4. Are you in a rapidly expanding market?
   Are you capturing the large share you desire? It's Beat The Clock* time. Capturing market share is the name of the game in a fast growing market. If you are having problems capturing and growing your market share, you must revisit your positioning to make sure the benefit you communicate differentiates you from your competition and is meaningful to the market.
   
5. Has the market gone through huge growth and it is now a market share war between you and your competitors?.
   You want to ensure you take market share. In these highly competitive War Games*, you must fight in a crowded market by finding market segments which you can make your own, and creating products, services or messages that meet their exclusive needs.
   
6. Is your product or company focused in a stagnant market?
   Positioning can find areas of needs that no one else has targeted, enabling you to Leapfrog* over the competition, creating new product features, services, positioning and messaging which allow you to stand out and change the actual market dynamics.
   
7. Is your market in decline?
   You can Leapfrog* over your competition, find a fresh, new position, by finding product features and customer needs which have not been met by competitive offerings in the past and are important to customers. By simply stressing new features that are unmet benefits desired by customers, you can re-position and change the game.

 
Deborah Henken, President of Highland Team and Mary Haderlein, President of Hyde Park Group offer Positioning Workshops for companies who are Trailblazers*, in Beat The Clock* markets, involved in War Games* and looking to Leapfrog* the competition.