An important part of marketing and maximizing profits is understanding how a brand or product affects customers. One way marketing professionals do this is through positioning statements. Learning how to create a positioning statement can help you better understand the product you’re marketing to present it more effectively to your audience. In this article, we review what a positioning statement is, why it’s important, and how you can make one, along with examples.
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What is a positioning statement?
A positioning statement is a summary statement marketing teams create to explain how a product or service differs from its competition. It helps explain to customers the values, ideals, and benefits of a team’s specific brand as opposed to alternatives. Creating a positioning statement helps confirm what kind of product you’re advertising and emphasizes the core values of a company’s investments.
Similar to a product summary, a positioning statement can have two kinds of orientations. One may be toward a customer to help persuade them to buy a product. Another is a marketing orientation, in which a positioning statement helps marketing teams better understand their product or the marketing tactics they use. You can use it to explain the product to different audiences and help develop or sell a product.
Why is a positioning statement important?
A positioning statement is important for some of the following reasons:
It establishes your brand
Positioning statements help establish all the fundamental concepts of a brand, product, or service. It tells customers the value points of your concept, establishing why they should buy it instead of other alternatives. By doing this, a statement may emphasize differences or similarities between our product and others on the market. For a brand, a positioning statement can help establish new items that might not be an existing feature of the company, such as when it enters a new industry.
If the company you work for as a marketing professional enters a new industry, positioning statements can help better associate products with customers and other employees. Products may require different marketing tactics, summaries, and emphases than products a team previously advertised. Customers may be more receptive to a product after hearing an introduction that summarizes key points, resulting in possible increased sales.
It emphasizes values
A positioning statement can be important for a product because it helps emphasize why customers should use or buy it. Most positioning statements work to emphasize the benefit a product has for a customer and may attempt to persuade them to purchase it. A positioning statement also can highlight key values for the marketing team, showing them what aspects of a product can be valuable for advertising efforts in the campaign’s future.
It develops a pitch for your customers
Creating a position statement is important because it helps you build an effective pitch for your customers. By emphasizing its positives and differentiating its aspects, a marketing team can list many reasons a customer should buy its product. Because position statement marketing requires key points and differentiation statements, these marketing tactics may result in higher sales than campaign-exclusive marketing business tactics.
It helps differentiate a brand
Position statements help show an audience the difference between this product and a similar one a competitor creates. While some terms may be synonymous with the value statements of a product, some differentiations may be neutral attributes that provide a positive to the target market. For example, in social media, customers may consider privacy a requirement rather than a feature of products. So a marketing team explaining its social media program has more privacy than competitors may not be a value statement, but it’s a valuable differentiation from other options.
It can help advertise new products
A position statement can help advertise new products by explaining features, advantages, and values to customers. If a company creates a new product, a position statement about it can show old and new customers the benefits of purchasing the product. If a position statement helps orient a new product toward customers, it may help increase initial sales.
These statements also can help introduce new products to a marketing team, so creating one for your team can help them make more effective advertisements later in the product’s campaign. A position statement that summarizes a product’s best qualities can help marketing teams outline and understand what can lead to success in their advertising.
Positioning statement examples
If you want to create a positioning statement, review the examples below and the focus of each statement:
1. Expertise and outreach
Below is an example of a positioning statement that emphasizes the expertise and outreach of a company:
For businesses that work with steel in many contexts, River Valley Steel helps provide tested, cut, and rolled steel. With quality testing lines and dedicated professionals in quality, loading, and testing stages, River Valley provides a quality supply for companies worldwide.
2. Unique aspects
Here’s an example of a positioning statement that focuses on the unique aspects the company offers compared to its competitors:
To help customers purchase outstanding products from creators around the world with quick delivery services and a reliable market, Greenvalley is a unique shopping service that advocates for creative artists and what they want. Greenvalley Market hopes to give all artists across industries a chance to show their work while gaining a substantial profit.
3. Product benefits
This example emphasizes the personal aspects and benefits of the company:
Everything we do at RiverTech Global is to help your company succeed. With 24-hour support seven days a week, consider us your always-available support and guidance employees for your efforts in marketing and website success.
4. Customer needs
The example position statement below creates a pitch for customers based on their needs as an audience:
ValleyRiver is your place to find literature for all your needs. From hardbacks of more than a generation ago to today’s contemporary writers, ValleyRiver provides more than just a bookstore for its customers. With an exceptional delivery service that proceeds on time each day, customers can rely on ValleyRiver to receive books on request at any time.
5. Unique services
The position statement below for this company helps emphasize its services and what makes it unique from other similar companies:
Greenway Water seeks to provide its customers with more than just exceptional drinking water. As a committing force toward environmental safety and preservation, Greenway Water pledges its resources, policies, and employees toward environmentally safe and conscious actions as a company.
6. Introduction to customers
The position statement example below helps introduce the company to a potential customer:
At Greenvalley River INC, we strive to create a more sustainable future for individuals and their families as an electric company. With our reliable service, quality control, and safety principles, Greenvalley River is a company you can trust, both for work and when at home.
7. Convenient products
The position statement example below for Pocket Valley seeks to introduce the company’s product line to the customer and state conveniences they may find valuable:
Pocket Valley hopes to revitalize the modern technology you use every day by bringing the most high-performance technology to your living space. Through phones, TVs, and gaming systems, Pocket Valley wants to help make life a little more fun for everyone.
8. Customer pitch
The position statement below for River Central Park seeks to apply personal wording to a company introduction and as value statements for the pitch to the customer:
At River Central Parks, we understand that the guest matters. With our robust safety policies, active employees, and evolving entertainment plans, you can look forward to an even better experience at any River Central Park than you had last time.
Tips for writing effective position statements
If you want to create an effective position statement, consider these tips:
Demonstrate values through empathy
If you use empathy for the customer to learn your product’s values, you may learn what they value in products. This can include empathy for another demographic, age group, or profession. Studying a profession, sport, or field of interest can help marketing employees further understand the standards of their target audience.
Develop reasoning through customer understanding
As you seek to better understand a customer group, try to use your knowledge of it to develop patterns of reasoning. The patterns you develop from a customer’s perspective can help you read and edit your statement with a new perspective. The more your marketing team understands its target audience, the more reliably they can create statements that target them as possible customers.
Remain brief to keep customers interested
Another tip for developing position statements is to keep it brief. Short statements can help maintain interest with little commitment to read for very long. Consider keeping your statement within just a few sentences to help it be more readable to a wider audience and to ensure you focus on only the most important details.
Be transparent to maintain customer loyalty
Being honest can help encourage loyal customers, so consider being transparent about your product in your position statement. For example, try not to oversell the benefits of your product and instead be genuine about its limitations and what it can do. This can help you deliver the service you promise, which can improve brand loyalty and customer retention.
I hope you find this article helpful.
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