Product Positioning: Definition, Examples, & Strategies

Product positioning is a strategic marketing tool trusted by many successful businesses. Employing product positioning can be remarkably beneficial for your brand, as it can help you to discover new ways of improving your product.

It is virtually a form of market research that will assist you in providing your target audience with an innovative product that ticks off all the essential components, such as design, quality, and price, needed for a successful product.

If you haven't heard of product positioning before, don't worry as the PicStudio team has you covered! To help make product positioning a walk in the park, we have broken down all the basics about product positioning, so once you have read this article, you will be a pro, just like us!

The Definition Of Product Positioning

A product positioning strategy is a marketing method that helps to locate a product within its given market. Most companies will use this tool to identify how a specific product benefits its target audience so that marketers can tailor their materials to these factors.

In order to successfully carry out product positioning, your marketing team should conduct a series of market research, such as focus groups and reviewing customer feedback from surveys, in order to gather customer perceptions of your product.

This will allow your researchers to locate the key elements that make your product desired by consumers, so that they can easily determine which aspects to focus upon when tailoring your marketing messages to your target audience.

The Importance Of Product Positioning

Most business owners will advocate that product positioning is an indispensable part of any marketing plan. But why?

Product positioning offers incredibly effective measures that can connect consumers with your product. By understanding the specific components that make your product desirable, you can adequately tailor your product or service to your target demographic.

To help paint a clearer picture of how this tool can benefit your business, we have listed some of the key benefits that product positioning can provide you with:

• Identifying Your Competitive Advantage: Product positioning will unveil your product's unique value proposition, which can then be communicated to your prospective customers. A unique value proposition, also known as a 'unique selling point', concerns the main characteristics that distinguish you from other competitors.

• Catering To Customers: Once you identify what draws your target market to your product, you can use this information to your advantage by fine-tuning your marketing materials to match your target customers' needs.

• Strengthens Your Competitive Advantage: Defined product positioning will elevate your marketing strategies, such as your positioning statement, in turn, boosting your market position to exceed your competitors.

Product Positioning Examples

If you have read this far, you should be starting to get to grips with what product positioning is. In order to clarify what product positioning looks like, we recommend taking a look at some existing case studies. Here are a few noteworthy examples of successful product positioning:

Clinique

Clinique is a leading cosmetic brand that grounds its products in cutting-edge formulas designed to improve its customers' complexions and signs of ageing. One of their best-selling products is their 'Dramatically Different™ Moisturizing Gel'. Clinique intelligently marketed this as a dermatologist-formed face gel, making consumers trust that they are receiving an expertly designed product.

Alo Yoga

Alo Yoga has taken the lifestyle and fitness industry by storm in recent years. They have wisely curated a range of unique clothing items designed to double up as both everyday basics and yoga wear. They promote their 'studio to street' motto with all their products and have labelled their range as 'yogi-approved', making their customers more inclined to buy their items with confidence.

Wholefoods

For decades Wholefoods have filled the fridges of healthy eating enthusiasts. In keeping with its natural aesthetic, this organic food supermarket uses minimalist, compostable and recyclable packaging, which adheres to their ethos of responsibly sourcing their products. They label all their foods as 'fresh' and 'organic' which fits what their target audience wants.

Product Positioning As An Independent Business Owner

At PicStudio, we have a wealth of experience working with small business owners and understand that independent brands won't have the same resources available to them as larger companies do. Don't be overwhelmed if you happen to be a small business, as there are many tactics you can adopt to create a strong product positioning strategy.

If you don't have the time or money to conduct a focus group, you can alternatively review your existing sales data and organise a series of free surveys via your social media platforms such as Instagram polls, and through your mailing lists. You can also host an internal assessment by asking your team of employees for their thoughts on your products.

Product Positioning Strategies

There are several ways that you can use product positioning to better understand your product. The way in which you choose to utilise this tool is subjective to the type of product that you are selling and how you want to define it in your brand's market.

There are several fundamental aspects of product positioning that you shouldn’t ignore. The start to any successful product positioning begins with these 5 strategies:

1. Lifestyle-Based Positioning

As a brand, you may choose to focus on the benefits that your product poses to your consumers' lifestyles. For example, you may choose to link a specific usage or application of your product to a daily task and emphasise how your product can conveniently serve a buyer.

2. Price-Based Positioning

A simple and effective way that you can overtake your competitors is by offering customers a lower price for a similar product. Price-based positioning is one of the oldest tricks in the book that can drastically change where you sit within your given market.

3. Quality/Prestige-Based Positioning

Prestige-based positioning is a fantastic way of showing consumers that your brand offers a better product than your competition. Instead of beating the price of neighbouring brands, you will be exceeding their quality. This may involve increasing your prices to demonstrate to buyers that your product is of a superior quality.

4. Competitor-Based Positioning

With the help of thorough competitor research, you can position your product above your competitors, as this strategy involves highlighting your product's unique advantages in order to distinguish it from rival brands.

5. Character-Based Positioning

Heavily dependent on associative purchasing, character-based positioning is concerned with promoting a specific feature of your product that draws in consumers. The novelty, design, aesthetic, performance, and so forth, all contribute toward the characteristics of your product.

Discover Our Boutique Marketing Agency

We would like to thank you for reading this article, and we truly hope that now you feel informed and confident about product positioning. If you are the owner of a beauty, fashion or lifestyle brand we warmly invite you to explore PicStudio today.

Our boutique marketing agency offers a wonderful range of bespoke marketing services tailored to help you enhance your business and fortify a successful brand. Feel free to contact us if you have any enquiries. You may also discover more about what we do here at PicStudio on our site.