An effective positioning statement includes four things:
1) Your customers
2) The problem you’re going to solve
3) Why you’re different
4) Your competition
A positioning statement is for internal use only. It is not a “mission statement,” a “tag line,” an “elevator pitch” or anything for selling purposes. Those materials require language intended for external audiences. This is for internal audiences only.
A positioning statement is used to provide guidance during a marketing campaign. Every company and every product will have its own positioning statement. It ensures everyone is working from the same page and toward the same goals.
A positioning statement must be credible. It is not hopeful thinking; it is grounded in truth.
Define Your Customer
Your ideal customer is the person who you can help best, and in return, will receive maximum benefit from your products or services. Who are you trying to serve with your business?
Define What Your Customer Wants or Needs
People will pay a fortune to solve an immediate problem, but will hardly invest a dollar to prevent a problem from happening. What is the urgent desire or pain point that your ideal customer is experiencing right now that you can make better immediately. What is the compelling reason that customers buy from you?
Define Your Product Category
Be clear about who you are—and who you are not. If you don’t, your customers will decide for you, and it may work against you!
Remember, the human mind will categorize things. Your customers will label you in their minds, and they can only remember one thing about you at a time.
Tell your customers how you want to be remembered. Make it something familiar and easy to remember. Otherwise they will reject your label and come up with their own substitution. Be strategic and simple.
Define Your Key Benefit
Make sure your key benefit addresses the true needs and desires of your target customer. Look beyond the obvious. What secret hopes, dreams, fears or frustrations are your customers really dealing with?
Define Your Competition
Who do your customers think of when they think about your product or service category? Who do you lose the most sales to? This might be a single entity, or an industry. If you’re a local provider, you might need to distinguish yourself from larger, more well-known brands. Be specific.
What Makes You Different?
Tell your customers what sets you apart, and make sure that reason resonates with the reasons they need or want your product or service.
Now, tie it all together. Finalize your positioning statement. Sit on it for a couple of days, then look at it again. Are you being clear about who your customers really are? Are you able to succinctly define your key benefit? Does the value you provide align to the needs and desires of your customers? Are you able to explain what makes you different from the competition.
Download my Product Positioning worksheet to help you through this process. Or, leave a comment below with your questions or suggestions.
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Julie Ziemelis and I met with 80 Big Island small businesses and provided hands-on training in social media marketing.
Now you can attend the same training on your time–in the office, at home, even on your smartphone!
This is the exact same content that was delivered live on the Big Island in the Spring of 2011. You’ll get to attend both 1-hour classes, plus download your own personal copy of the Social Media Marketing Workbook.
Here’s What You’ll Learn:
The real value of using social media marketing in your business
Why inbound marketing is necessary in 2011
Why “interuption marketing” is dead and what you can do about it
Practical steps for radically improving your visibility
How to spend 60% less to get better-quality sales leads
Questions you should ask yourself before getting started
The 4 Steps to a successful social media strategy
The cultural shift marketers must make in their online approach
Easy ways to get started: basic tools, including blogging and SEO
How Google works, and why recent changes will actually HELP your efforts
Why inbound links are the “currency of the Web” (and what that means!)
Examples of real Big Island businesses being successful with social media
PLUS:
Real-life case studies taken from Facebook, Twitter, Yelp!, WordPress and FourSquare to show you what effective engagement looks like,
Examples from Facebook:
Hilo Bay Cafe
Body Glove Cruises
Kahua Ranch
Mauna Lani Bay Hotel & Bungalows
Kona Brewing Company
Examples from Twitter:
Huggos on the Rocks
Lava Rock Realty
Shops at Mauna Lani
Examples from Yelp:
Kona Kids
Peaberrry & Galette
Examples from WordPress:
MacArthur Realty
Big Island Real Estate Blog
Examples from FourSquare:
Ultimate Burger
Cost is just $97
In addition to the 22-page workbook, you’ll get the Lifestyle Real Estate Marketing e-book and a 5-page worksheet to guide you through the process of creating a buyer persona. You’ll also get a list of valuable resources where you can go to learn more for FREE.
Because it’s recorded, you can watch it any time you want–as many times as you want. You’ll get access to these recordings, workbooks and handouts for two years.
Depending on your business, your customers probably aren’t hearing from you as often as they need to.
That’s because for most people, “out of sight is out of mind.” So remind customers about the value you bring to their lives on a regular basis.
You wouldn’t go more than two weeks without talking to your good friend, so why go several weeks without talking to your best customers?
Here are some more tips for what’s working best in e-mail marketing right now:
Frequency:
Send some type of communication every 10 to 14 days, as long as it makes sense for your business. If you sell mattresses, furniture or cars, monthly or quarterly communication will make more sense.
Remember, it’s not just your customers that you’re communicating to, but also their family and friends. So even if someone just bought a car from you it still makes sense to stay in touch, because soon that person will be talking about their purchase with their friends and colleagues.
Most businesses send their newsletters out monthly, but research shows you’ll get better results if your prospects hear from you more often. But be realistic about what you can sustain over time. You can brainstorm a list of topics to write about based on the content needs of your customers. Just remember, shorter is better. If you are feeling overwhelmed with information, then your customers are too!
Content:
The ideal mix is a blend of educational and branding content mixed in with a promotion to support sales (coupons, giveaways, sweepstakes, etc.). Your educational and branding information should outweigh promotional content by a ratio of 8:2 or 9:1.
Remember to include information about your upcoming events. Your ultimate goal is to inform and entertain (and in most cases people want to be entertained more than they want to be informed!) You can also include surveys or encourage customers to submit questions that you’ll answer in a future newsletter.
If you’re struggling for ideas about what to write about, keep a list of questions that many customers ask you about on a regular basis. Ask your staff about the most common topics customers ask about, or keep a manila folder nearby to drop ideas into when they come up during the day. If they have an interesting conversation, that could be a topic for the newsletter. Listen to your customers for ideas. You can also look in online forums and online discussion rooms about topics relating to your industry. LinkedIn Answers is a great resource for finding industry topics that people are talking about.
Tone:
It’s okay to write your newsletter like a personal e-mail. Remember, value is not just useful content. People get value from being able to connect to other people on a personal and meaningful level. Especially in this technology age. People enjoy stories. Real value comes from learning who you and your company are as people. The personal connection becomes the most important element of “value”.
E-mail is a personal, one-to-one communications channel. Most newsletters focus too much on providing “value” but forget to add in the personal aspect. Make the personal aspect part of your unique brand.
Format:
The trend these days is away from long newsletters and toward shorter, more frequent blog posts. Are you suffering from information overload? Well, your customers are too! Instead of sending out monthly or quarterly newsletters with 1,500 words or more, consider if you could chunk your content down into shorter, more frequent e-mails instead. Or better yet, consider if your “newsletter” could be a short personal update with link to your latest blog article.
Graphics:
It’s good to have at least one picture to capture and draw interest in your content, just make sure your logo doesn’t dominate the entire e-mail preview pane window. Make sure your text at the top of your newsletter includes the name of your business and the first few lines of your content so that recipients can see your most valuable information first.
Text-only format works extremely well, too, and has been found to be the most compatible across all e-mail platforms.
“From” and “Subject” Line Fields:
The first two questions people ask themselves when they get any e-mail is: 1) Do I know this person? and 2) Do I care? Make sure your “from” and subject line fields answer both questions convincingly.
Use your real name and company name in your from line, as in, “Dr. Charles Kaempen, KUSA Industries.” Then, grab attention and tell your customers what the value will be in opening your message. “How to save 40% or more on your next installation.”
For more information about successful newsletter design, check out these resources:
How does West Hawaii compare to mainland U.S. when it comes to using social media for business marketing? More than 100 West Hawaii residents responded to the first annual West Hawaii Social Media Survey in April. The results are presented below in a 19-page report with 10 charts and interpretive analysis.
This is the first look at how West Hawaii uses the Internet and social media tools for marketing businesses.
Previously, this data did not exist. In this report you’ll learn:
The percentage of West Hawaii marketers using social media to promote their businesses
How much time West Hawaii marketers spend on social media
The benefits most associated with social media
The relationship between time invested and results
The most popular tools, and which tools are best for what purpose
If you’re a marketer in West Hawaii and sometimes wonder if your efforts will pay off, these results will guide you!
If you’re already investing in social media, this report will let you compare what you’re doing to those that have the most success.
The purpose of the survey is to understand who is using social media in West Hawaii! I will also be comparing local and national trends to see how Hawaii compares to mainland U.S. Every response counts, and I especially need folks from West Hawaii to participate. So please help me get the word out. You can help me promote this on Twitter with something like:
“West Hawaii: Enter to win a $50 Costco Cash card by taking this 5-minute survey: http://conta.cc/hK3yct [please retweet!]“
Also, use the Share buttons below. Participants will get a copy of the results in about 3 weeks.
