‘Positioning the Product’ means creating a place for one’s product in the market by highlighting its features to make it unique or different from competitor’s product.
Positioning is what the consumer thinks about the company and its product in relation to other products.
A brand is established over the years through various promotional tools like advertising, publicity, and also word-of-mouth.
Positioning can be done by using both tangible feature like Fridge with door cooling technology or non-tangible feature like Dermi-cool powder as Thanda-thanda, cool-cool.
A company can effectively use its Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for positioning. Even product
differentiation can form a very effective basis for positioning.
Positioning Strategies/Bases of Positioning
- On the basis of product features or customer benefits:
In this case, the marketer tries to position his product on the basis of the benefits derived by the customer from the product.
Sometimes, a firm can use two or three benefits as well but in that case the company has to be very careful as it can lead to confused image of the product.
- Positioning on the basis of price:
Many marketers try to position themselves on the basis of ‘economy’ provided by them to the customers.
- Positioning on the basis of quality:
Quality and price are related to each other. All big brands keep their prices exceptionally high to show that their product is of very good quality.
- Positioning on the basis of user:
Another basis is to associate a product with a user. Various bollywood actors have been associated with some particular products.
- Positioning on the basis of symbols or illustrations:
Various symbols or illustrations are used to create a distinctive image in the market e.g. ZooZoo of Vodafone. It is helpful in case the target audience is illiterate.
- Positioning on the basis of different product class:
Marketers create their own product class e.g. Peanut butter is not a category of butter but is different from it.