Positioning techniques

Companies apply various positioning techniques in market so that they are always ahead in competition. Some of the techniques used for positioning are:

1) Perceptual Mapping:

When we define Perceptual mapping we say that it is basically a technique to represent what people think about products or services, people or ideas. Technically they are all objects. It is a spatial representation of the perceptions about the brands on the parts of different individuals. If you perceive the brands to be similar then you are getting them closer in the perceptual space, and if you perceive them to be dissimilar then you are putting them apart. In short, I can say that it represents both brands and people.

As everyone knows that the environment is turbulent so it changes fast and calls for frequent changes in positioning. At times a company can lose its position due to change in technology, consumer attitudes, competitive activity both in the economy and amongst creative executives. That is the reason why a company should be in touch with the market place, and reposition itself before it suffers in terms of products, image and revenue.

2) Positioning a product to specific segments:

Positioning a product to specific segments is the next logical step. Thus positioning involves sacrifice – we have to sacrifice a few segments of the market. We cannot afford to give ‘all things to all people.’
When we are discussing about positioning, we have to decide as to who all are our competitors. Then there is a need to develop a core strategy that runs as a common thread through all pieces of planning. Core strategy basically tells us why customers buy our product and how we shall compete with others. Different segments need different core strategies. Core strategy is broader than USP because it considers both external and internal factors.

3) Communication Process:

When we are discussing about planning activity, we consider the offer, which consists of product, services, price and the way it is represented to the customer through a communication message. Communication helps the marketer to builds up image of the product. Image build up is influenced more by the effectiveness of the communication than by the communication budget.Most of the organization creates value through this offer.

When we are discussing about the total marketing budget it is spent on advertising, sales promotion, sales management and distribution acts basically to enhance the value created by the offer, and accordingly they delivers the same value to the customer. These are infact marketing support activities. By this they are trying to market the offer in an attractive manner to their marketing intermedi-aries and customer.
All of us know that a product has attributes and features. But these must be related to perceived benefits preferences and selection.

4) Positioning Map: 

Now lets us see the discussion on Products or services, which are ‘mapped’ together on a ‘positioning map’. This allows them to be compared and contrasted in relation to each other. This is the main strength of this tool. Marketers decide upon a competitive position, which enables them to distinguish their own products from the offerings of their competition. The marketer would draw out the map and decide upon a label for each axis. They could be price (variable one) and quality (variable two), or Comfort (variable one) and price (variable two). The individual products are then mapped out next to each other Any gaps could be regarded as possible areas for new products.