The real reason why differentiated product positioning works..
Our brains are constantly bombarded with a vast amount of information. To manage this the brain filters out information deemed less important or irrelevant to us. This process allows us to focus on information that is more pertinent to our needs, goals, and survival (this process is called cognitive filtering).
If you are not communicating your product aligning to needs, goals or survival, the brain will filter it out. Simple…
Here is a good example of this in practice:
Nature’s Glow is a tiny company with 28 employees making $5M per year in ultra competitive markets with massive incumbents.
Positioning Statement: For (target audience) environmentally conscious women aged 30-40, (product) "Nature’s Glow" offers (product category) a skincare line that lets you glow naturally with (unique selling proposition/point of difference) skin-friendly, earth-friendly ingredients. Unlike (competitive frame of reference) other brands, our products are made with (reason to believe) certified organic ingredients and come in fully recycled packaging.
1 Aligning to demographics peaks interest
2. Skincare reference aligns the message to their needs
3. Environmental reference - to their values
4. Glowing naturally - to their their goals
5. Reasons to believe - explain why the above is true
But aligning to these requires a deep understanding of each element as it relates to your audience, which comes through deep customer and market research and customer conversations. I was a part of a P&G academy and we spent days visiting customers in their homes, asking every conceivable question about their routine, context, needs and product usage patterns (toothpaste). This is what it takes to create a positioning that works.
Beware of messaging tear downs and advice in real time from “experts”. They lean on best practices not customer insights, basically guessing your product positioning and messaging.
Our brains are constantly bombarded with a vast amount of information. To manage this the brain filters out information deemed less important or irrelevant to us. This process allows us to focus on information that is more pertinent to our needs, goals, and survival (this process is called cognitive filtering).
If you are not communicating your product aligning to needs, goals or survival, the brain will filter it out. Simple…
Here is a good example of this in practice:
Nature’s Glow is a tiny company with 28 employees making $5M per year in ultra competitive markets with massive incumbents.
Positioning Statement: For (target audience) environmentally conscious women aged 30-40, (product) "Nature’s Glow" offers (product category) a skincare line that lets you glow naturally with (unique selling proposition/point of difference) skin-friendly, earth-friendly ingredients. Unlike (competitive frame of reference) other brands, our products are made with (reason to believe) certified organic ingredients and come in fully recycled packaging.
1 Aligning to demographics peaks interest
2. Skincare reference aligns the message to their needs
3. Environmental reference - to their values
4. Glowing naturally - to their their goals
5. Reasons to believe - explain why the above is true
But aligning to these requires a deep understanding of each element as it relates to your audience, which comes through deep customer and market research and customer conversations. I was a part of a P&G academy and we spent days visiting customers in their homes, asking every conceivable question about their routine, context, needs and product usage patterns (toothpaste). This is what it takes to create a positioning that works.
Beware of messaging tear downs and advice in real time from “experts”. They lean on best practices not customer insights, basically guessing your product positioning and messaging.
