• Organically Grown – Sometimes people think positioning is a silver bullet that will solve everything. Positioning is simply a promise that needs to be extracted and then articulated in a succinct, relevant and distinctive way to tell customers what you’re all about and why they should care. When developing positioning talk to people who touch and reach your customers every day (key people in sales, pre-sales, marketing, marcom agency, inside sales, PR, partners, etc.), those who know the magic of your products (product development, engineers) and those gathering competitive intelligence . And don’t forget to talk to any industry sages or evangelists inside the company; often a company will have at least one person who fits this description. What do these folk know about your promise and your perception in the market? What they know about competition? When you talk to them the answer will emerge – organically. The advantage is this answer will be based in reality, take advantage of years of learning in the company and will help avoid false starts. There is another very important advantage of following such a process that I talk about in #2 below. Positioning is a very powerful weapon in your marketing arsenal but it’s not something that should be artificially bestowed from outside. That’s why clever taglines – based on a couple of superficial interviews with you – simply do not work.
• Alignment – This is everything. It’s related to point #1 above. Make sure that the key stakeholders are bought into the positioning (output). Key stakeholders include not just the management team but also key people in functions that touch customers (see above). These are people you should have talked to when you were creating it (see “organic” above) – this is hugely helpful in assuring buy-in later. If they don’t agree with your conclusions, that is usually a bad sign. You need to understand why (is the positioning not credible, too aspirational, undifferentiated?) and you also need to work on getting their buy in potentially by addressing their concerns (or getting help in doing so). If not, you can be sure your message will be lost in translation. Getting buy in does not mean reaching a mindless consensus. That’s not a win. It does mean making sure that your work is rooted in reality and you’re working off relevant and current data – and are not missing some obvious blind spots. Not everyone may buy in at the end – some because they are naysayers and some because of some other unfathomable agenda. But you have to make sure you’ve given them a good listen before you make your recommendations – and be prepared to defend them. One of our clients was very happy with the positioning exercise we conducted but I think the real value they got was when we came in and helped them sell it in to the key teams internally. We had already talked to and learned from these teams and that made the “sell in” that much easier.
• Truth be Told – How do you communicate to customers that your offering is genuinely valuable and different. The key word here is “genuinely”. Positioning is not about tricking customers with fancy words or worse, falsehoods. That’s the realm of crooks, not marketers. What does your product or your company or the whole experience offer that’s meaningful or different? That’s what you should talk about. It’s OK to be somewhat aspirational vs. where you are today but then you have to be committed to working on getting there. But don’t promise something you are not and have no intention of being. Not only will it not work but it will destroy trust and the possibility of customers believing you when you do have something genuinely exciting to offer. And there is another problem – you will have a tough time implementing such a falsehood because internally no one will believe it either. The good news is that there is usually something meaningful you offer – product feature, benefit, proof-point, services, experience, legacy, company history, location, alliances, incumbency, … – and people in your company even know what it is; it’s just a matter of extracting it and articulating it well. If you really think there is absolutely nothing to promise to customers then you have a different problem (innovation?) which is a whole other subject for discussion.
• Work the Workflow – Once a client called me in to help reposition their products. Half way into the exercise I was told (yes silly me for not having asked before) that the packaging, the online copy and the retail decks had all been done so I could not influence those communication vehicles. My work, they told me, was “valuable” nevertheless since it would go in the next round of “change management”. Needless to say it never did because a few months after my work was done all the owners changed. It was frustrating. So now when I am asked to do similar work, I want to first know the timing for all communication and how the repositioning exercise timeline will mesh with their workflows. I tell clients to save their money and not hire me if my work is going to be too late for packaging or retail or online or any other communication. Honest it’s the best advice I can give in such a situation.

• Cross-functional Deployment and Delivery – So now you’re probably seeing the pattern that all these pointers are inter-related. This one is related to all of the above but is so important that it merits its own number. When your positioning is done you need to make sure two things: a) that it’s DEPLOYED cross-functionally – so key stakeholders get it, are aligned and can execute on it. I don’t think I need to say more here except that this point is crucial for DELIVERY (my next point), and b) that it can DELIVER cross-functionally – what this means is that whatever your promise, make sure it’s delivered at all consumer touch-points. Here are a few examples:
  
  • If you’re promising your customers that you’re fast and efficient, make sure your legal contracts don’t take months to complete
  
  
  • If you’re promising value, make sure your implementation does not cost them an arm and a leg in IT resources
  
  
  • If you’re promising peace of mind, make sure you’re payment terms reflect that as well
  
  
  
  

Get the gist? You have to deliver on your promise – across the board. Get all the functions involved to help make sure this happens.

Yes positioning exercises are not simple. They take work and thoughtful analysis. But they also take pre-planning and post-selling & delivery so that they can be successfully implemented. That’s when positioning can have an impact and moves the needle. This is the kind of positioning that belongs in the category of “marketing that matters”.

Please write and tell me what your experience has been and if you agree or disagree with what I’ve found.

Excellent insights on branding and positions...I particularly appeciated the importance of gathering information from people who touch customers and aligning that thinking with key stakeholders.

Posted by: John Gillett | April 7, 2008 10:55 AM

Thanks, John - glad you enjoyed it. Yes what you picked up on is the crucial aspect and sets you up for success in the organization; otherwise the work has a hard time being accepted. Thanks for your comments.

Posted by: Reena Kapoor | April 7, 2008 3:03 PM