Creating a Unique Marketing Position for Your Start-Up Online Business
When you start a new web business, there are so many things to do that it is easy to overlook or postpone addressing some of the most important aspects of marketing. One of the decisions that you can’t afford to omit from your early planning is your business’ positioning.
While the word positioning seems like just an example of marketing jargon, its importance can’t be stressed too much. Positioning is simplyidentifying what there is about your business that makes it stand apart from all of your competitors.
-Service – Almost every business claims they have great service. If you can offer exceptional service compared to your competitors, your customers will remember you. I remember calling a sour handyman to try to get him to come to my house for an emergency on a weekend. He acted like he didn’t want my business and then told me it was going to be $200 for him just to show up. I told him “never mind” and hung up. I called roto-router who gave me tremendous service, a guarantee, and the bill was less than the other guy’s service call fee. I now use that company for all my plumbing, whether emergency or not.
-Extraordinary Features and Benefits – Positioning is not just about what makes you different, it’s also about what you emphasize. Folgers announces to the world that it’s “mountain grown coffee” ( a feature). Guess what? All coffee is mountain grown. Folgers just claimed this feature first. What is there that none of your competitors are talking about, yet?
-Price Point – This doesn’t necessarily mean you have the lowest price. You may be the most expensive in town, and that’s OK if you convince your customers you’re worth it.
-Negative Features – People probably find some things at your competitors annoying. Maybe they feel that they have to wait too long to get an answer to their questions. If that’s a good angle for you, try not phrasing it as a special positive feature, but frame it as a negative that they don’t have to worry about with your business. For example, you might say, “You’ll never have to wait for an answer to your questions with us.”
-Credibility – Many companies tout how long they’ve been in business. All of these things build trust in the mind of the consumer. What trust-building factors do you have that the competition does not?
-Others – Whatever you can think of that allows you to demonstrate that you are different from your competitors (in a good way, of course) is useful. That’s really all positioning is. Spend some time thinking through each phase of your business to see what you can point to in order to stand apart.
You will spend a great deal of time later developing your online business. You may even make subtle modifications to your positioning as you test what is working for you and what isn’t. Immediately, though, you must start working on your marketing positions. They are too important to postpone.
