How to create the perfect positioning statement

What is the secret to stand out in a crowd?

As my quest for the perfect positioning statement continues I decided to share my thought process and the way to develop the best position statement for any business.

A position is what people think of you. The cold truth of what people think. A positioning statement on the other hand is what we want people to think of us. How we want our company to be perceived. 

So why do we need positions and positioning statements?

Well it’s quite simple really. Positioning statements will make your word of mouth so much more powerful. For example if you operate a cleaning services company in Perth, people will not give a rats bum that you operate a services company in Perth.

If you have a powerful positioning statement such as that you are Australia’s original cleaning services company or Perth's Original Services Company then you have a much more power behind you and people will be more inclined to use you. It shows that you are serious about cleaning. You have been around. So when people are looking for cleaning services – who are they more inept to hire? The cleaning services company or the original cleaning service company? 

Here are my tips for creating the best positioning statement strategy.
1. Who
2. What
3. For whom
4. What need
5. Against whom
6. What’s the difference
7. So…

Ask yourself this and have seven good answers.

Samples: This is what most companies use as their positioning statements as viewed by their customers. (Dont' use this as your template to follow as I write this sample to illustrate the point how most service companies are perceived by their clients.)

1. Who? “ABC Oil and Gas Engineering”
2. What? “is a small oil and gas engineering services firm”
3. For whom? “that serves smaller clients who want pretty good quality but cannot pay, or do not want to pay for services of larger firms”

4. Against whom? “Unlike its bigger and better known companies”
5. What’s different? “ABC Oil and Gas Engineering is smaller, less experienced, and not as outstanding (remember this is what other people think. The hard cold blooded truth.”
6. So… “but because of that, they charge less, so you save money.” 

Hopefully this will help you with your own branding and how to create the perfect positioning statements. I am off to keep working on my own branding strategy in Perth for this new company that I can't really reveal yet. :)

  

Branding Strategies - Positioning Statements

Heads down in branding and sales at the same time. Oh… right… plus running the sales and marketing strategy for a new company. :)

Lessons learned:
1. Evaluation: what I have to work with
2. Aligning our efforts
3. Who we are and what we want the world to think of us?
4. Sales. Sales. Sales.

It’s interesting that we need sales and revenues to grow but we can’t grow if we don’t understand who we are and what we stand for. If I can’t explain it then how can my sales team communicate it to customers?

I started with a classic branding dilemma that most companies have;
"What do people think of us and what do we want the world to think about us. Position versus Positioning Statements."

In other words; A positioning statement is what we want the world to think. A statement of position, by contrast, admits the truth. Now lets narrow the gap.

With any company we need to get revenues thru the door so I am a firm believer to test test and test some more and practise along the way to re-fine it. So we set out to test our positioning statements and it’s interesting to see that people think we sell advertising. Ok - -we do but that’s not all that we do. We actually help people get more customers by improving not only their advertising channels – we improve their entire strategy of HOW to actually get more business. And it’s free advice.

Next lesson was the word FREE. (I have to admit I kinda suspected this was the case)

We sell advertising but as soon as we started to offer free advice to clients our value proposition decreased and our clients wanted more for free. More and more and more but would not buy advertising space. So we started to charge for our advice. Guess what? We got more clients instead.

This is a classic example of Positioning versus Position Statements. We were perceived as an ad sales company but we thought we are perceived as advertising experts helping companies get more business.
The hard part is to shift this perception so that not only can we sell more advertising spots but also sell our strategic services at a premium rate. That is my challenge over the next few months as we launch across Australia because our product is the only product in Australia.

Next post will be about how we will align ourselves in the Social Media Space to get more business. This is going to be a tricky exercise because I can't be "social" if I don't know what my clients are looking for. Hmmmm :)

Heads down in research for podcasting revenues

I admit. I have been sloppy at posting the last little while. Lots of stuff on teh go and this has been the last thing on my mind.

Digital rights in the music industry is really starting to give me a head ache. With our music company we are pulling lots and lots of downloads. Our music is free so I'm not concerned about pirates per say.

What I am concerned about is the Ad revenues from episodes downloaded.

The CPM model with podcasts is (in my opinon) not feasible. So what is? How to do ensure an advertiser gets the biggest bang from advertising while we earn good ROI on our shows?

I might have an answer that I have based on the traditional radio model but I need to test it first. Hmmm... gotta love this social media stuff but the trick is to find the revenue model that works! lol

Marketing Planning - 8 Hot Tips

Marketing Planning - 8 Hot Tips


1. Research your customer


•How are your customers redefining value? Price elasticity is changing. Consumers are taking the time searching. They are willing to postpone purchases.

2. Focus on family values


•When times get harder we retreat to our villages (Home & Office). Look for home and family scenes to replace extreme sports, adventure, and individualism. Uncertainty prompts us to stay at home but connected with friends and family. They connect via the Internet. Ask yourself if you prepared to grab customers from the Internet?


Don't say - "Yes, I am prepared because I have a web site."


Do say - "How can I improve my current online presence to get more leads and sales?"

3. Maintain marketing spending


•This is the time not to cut advertising! ** A McGraw Hill study researched over 600 businesses during 81-82 slowdown and findings showed that businesses that increased their advertising spending had higher sales growth during slow times – of those companies that maintained or increased advertising had an increase of 256% more sales.


•If you have to cut marketing just maintain frequency. If you do TV ads, go from 30 seconds to 15 seconds or go to a smaller ads, just maintain a regular presence.


If you are online, do it smarter.

4. Adjust product portfolios


•Consumers want brands that are associated with quality and longevity.


•Consumers will favour multi function over specialized products and services.


•Weaker product lines should be eliminated.


•Industrial consumers will want products unbundled and priced separately.


•Gimmicks are out but you should still do some "schwag" like t-shirts and pens.


•New products should still be put out, but advertising should stress price and performance. Your advertising should be thru profitable channels. Don't confuse this with "What has worked in the past will work again". Expand, test and measure.

5. Support Distributors


•Offer early buy allowances.


•Offer extended financing and generous return policies (especially true for new unproven products).


•Drop weaker distributors and expand your sales force.
6. Adjust pricing tactics


•Customers are shopping for best prices.


•Offer more temporary price promotions, reduce thresholds for quantity discounts, extend credit to long-standing customers, and price smaller pack sizes more aggressively. Be creative. Be smart.


•Offer special discounts to offer temporary lower pricing.

7. Stress Market Share


•Know your cost structure – any cut backs should never impact the customer.


•Companies with strong positions and productive cost structures can expect to gain market share.


•Maybe its time to acquire competition?

8. Emphasize Core Value


•Team Leaders, Managers and especially CEO's should cement loyalty with employees by assuring them that the company has survived tough times before and that maintaining quality rather than cutting corners is most important.


•CEO's must spend more time with employees and customers.

SUCCESSFUL COMPANIES DO NOT ABANDON THEIR MARKETING STRATEGIES -

THEY ADAPT THEM.

In the next issue you will learn ground breaking growth strategies, why the old ways of marketing no longer work and how to adopt the “new” way of selling.


Until then, stay tuned, stay hot.