Identify your product positioning once you have found your ideal Target Market (Market Segmentation) part of the Marketing Strategy, a crucial element of the Marketing Plan section of the Business Plan.
Positioning
Once you have identified your target market, you will need to think about your marketing approach. Will you be advertising to the mass market or a niche market?
- Are you going to advertise to the mass market?
- Are you going to market to a specific segment of the market for each of your products? That is, each different product is targeted to a different segment of the population.
- Are you going to market to a Niche Market – a small but hopefully profitable sector of the market.
To position your product to the market you have chosen you will need to decide on your image (this should be appropriate for the market segment you have chosen).
Decide also if you are going to differentiate from your competitors or go for head to head marketing against your competitors.
Look at your products positioning from the point of view of the customer.
Think about things such as product features, consumer characteristics, benefits sought, price and quality.
Where does your product sit? For example, is your product:
- High Price – Expensive image.
- Low Price – Cheap image
- Average Price – Affordable and reliable image.
What is your product positioning? For example, Porsche are high price, quality image, very exclusive. Nike are highish price, quality image, sporting image (top athletes promote these products.
A THOUGHT FOR A SMALL BUSINESS
For a new small business it can be difficult to compete directly with an established company in your chosen product range, therefore, initially it may be good to look at differentiating your product.
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