Why Positioning Matters
So having just finished the book "Positioning" by Al Ries  and Jack Trout my thoughts this week have naturally been on this subject.
The general lesson in the book is understanding what currently exists in the mind of your prospect or customer, and what gap are your either aiming to or actually serving.
This got me thinking about what market i ideally want to serve and can serve best. My software company Virally needs to own a space in the market and to do that needs a really clear gap in our ideal clients mind.
Competing against what i thought was our competitors (Leadpages and Unbounce) was a possibility but would have been a major battle and not something worth doing. Those two companies are really strong and have outstanding products and marketing as well as amazing leadership. These guys own the landing page space.
However what I realised is we are in fact very different. Instead of competing on that battlefield, we can re-position ourselves and they are not competitors all and in fact could be partners.
So that is exactly what we are going to do, niche down and own a small space. Yes we could offer more but competing against these guys would be crazy. Ebooks and Whitepapers is the space we are going to own, our product is going to develop to enable content marketers to think of Virally when then think of either of those items.
They say that the money is in the niches and I believe that to be true.
What space do you own in your customers and prospects mind? Is this something you have considered how do you stand out from your competitors?
Most companies who have lots of competitors will all ways tell you that they offer a better service. Every one of them.
We all strive to offer a better service but is that really a unique enough reason to stand out?
Maybe you compete on price? That can work for a while until someone finds a way to be cheaper than you. This becomes the race to the bottom.
If you are not sure where your position is and would like to get a better understanding I would recommend the book or the audible version. But be aware the book is quite old although still relevant. The examples may seem a little dated but i found that quite interesting. I am told there is a modern version of the book but I went with the audio version and enjoyed it.
So even in this digital first world I feel that understanding your position in the market is a really useful exercise maybe even an essential one.
Thanks to Ash Lawrence for recommending the book and in turn i recommend both the book and working with Ash.
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Author- Speaker - Consultant. Passionate about all things digital.