Positioning our Brands in the Market

September 3, 2020 6:44 pm

Daily, we are relentlessly bombarded with information. In our efforts to handle this information overload, we create shortcuts to help us retain the relevant and discard the trash.

The most common way we retain information is by relating it to info we’ve already stored. We look for the appropriate pigeonholes to store the information.

FedEx gets pigeonholed as a delivery service, it’s further pigeonholed as an overnight delivery service then within the overnight delivery service pigeonhole, as the most dependable overnight delivery service and subsequently by many as the #1 overnight delivery service. This last step, the ranking, is called positioning, whereby products and services are ranked in an imaginary hierarchy within the imaginary pigeonhole filing system in our minds and the minds of prospects and customers.

How do you find out how your customers and prospects position you vis-a-vis your competitors? Your annual survey. Why do you care how they position you?

Because once you know where you stand compared to your competition, you know which benefits to tout, which of your competitors’ weaknesses to exploit, or possibly where you need to strengthen your offerings.

Not knowing your position is like swinging blindfolded at a pinata.

Knowing your position allows you to lead with clear-eyed confidence.