Positioning Your Online Business as Part of Your Internet Marketing Plan
Web Marketing Today, May 1, 2000
At the risk of you concluding that I am a few bricks short of a full load, I must confess that most Saturday nights I listen to Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion (http://prairiehome.org) on Public Radio International. There -- now you know. But, I must quickly add that I listen it to learn more about marketing in general, and positioning in particular -- and, of course, to laugh.
Prairie Home Companion
Two regulars to the show are Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery and The Ketchup Advisory Board. Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery can be found downtown in the mythical northern Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon. The name positions it pretty clearly. It's not excellent, nor poor, nor gourmet, nor produce only, but "pretty good." You may not have thought about it, but your online business has a place in the e-business pecking order, a certain position in people's minds. But if your company's mind position is only "pretty good," the chances are that visitors will never return. My dad, an art teacher, hung a sign in his classroom, "Mediocrity deserves no praise." "Okay," and even "pretty good" don't define your site. You need something more.
Now to The Ketchup Advisory Board. Garrison Keillor's team writes different radio skits each week. Usually they involve a couple of people getting testy or downright unglued. Then one of them says, usually the wife, "Honey, maybe you need more ketchup. Its natural endorphins help you feel mellow." Then the theme song begins:
"These are the good years in the golden sun,
A new day is dawning, a new life has begun ...
Love is flowing ... like ketchup on a bun."
The announcer does a voiceover: "Ketchup. For the good times..." And the song fades off: "Ketchup ... ketchup ... "
I know it sounds pretty corny in print, but when you hear it on Saturday night, it makes you want to run down to the corner store -- "What was the name of that grocery store, dear?" -- and buy a bottle of thick, red ketchup. What Keillor has succeed in doing is positioning ketchup among the foods, fruits, and vegetables who have hired ad agencies to represent them. How would you position ketchup with its natural endorphins, in relationship to orange juice that is said to prevent heart attacks? Or "the incredible, edible egg" or "pork, the other white meat" or "got milk?" or "beef...," or dancing raisins, or any of the other foods vying for your attention?
Positioning Your Business
"Those industries spend millions of dollars to position themselves," I can hear you saying. "How can I positioning my business with little or no marketing budget to work with?" Very effectively, it turns out. All this relates closely to two concepts you've heard about before:
- Unique Selling Proposition (USP) -- It defines what makes your business unique from every other competitor in your field. It spells out the precise niche you seek to fill, and how you aim to fill it. If you can't tell who you are in two sentences, then your USP is too fuzzy to succeed.
- Brand Name -- "Any word, 'device' (design, sound, shape, or color), or combination of these used to distinguish a seller's goods or services."[1]
The idea of a "brand" is bigger than the brand name itself. It is the feeling or impression the consumer has about your product evoked by seeing the product or the brand name. To produce this feeling or impression marketers invest a great deal of energy -- and often money. Let me give you an example in terms of retail store brands.
Set up a grid with four quadrants. The horizontal axis is "value added" (a high value added would include elements such as good location, reliability, prestige, etc.). The vertical axis is "breadth of product line" (narrow vs. broad). Now let's consider which brands belong in each quadrant.[2]
|
Kmart |
Nordstrom |
|
Kinney Shoes |
Tiffany |
Other types of positioning grids might be Business Strength on one axis and Industry Attractiveness on the other. Or Market Growth vs. Market Share. Or Price vs. Quality. Or customer service vs. price. Or convenience vs. price.
You've Got to Take a Stand
"Would you please describe the suspect you saw running from the convenience store?"
"Medium height and weight. Face was average. Hair color wasn't too dark, but it wasn't too light either."
"Age?"
"Middle aged, I guess."
"What color were his clothes?"
"Oh, I don't know. They didn't really stand out."
The witness did a great job positioning the robber, didn't he?
Recently, I spoke on the phone with a Vice President of one of this year's crop of Dot-com start-ups. As he told me about his company, I immediately thought of other competing companies and mentioned one that's been getting a lot of media attention lately. "How do you compare your service in relation to Company X," I asked, in as non-threatening a way as possible.
He said, "We've studied that company, and they have a very good product."
Good start. Positioning yourself by running down your competitors cheapens your company. I waited to see how he would positioning his new start-up.
"Well," he finally said. "If someone were to try Company X's product, and then try ours, I think they'd like ours better."
I was still waiting for a positioning statement. "Ours is easier to use for computer-phobic small business people, and you can do more with it." Okay. Finally a positioning statement that relates to ease-of-use. In all fairness, this new Dot-com hasn't launched quite yet, and is still working out the final details. But unless they can instantly position themselves with their competitors in the public's mind, they have little chance of carving out their own marketshare. Here are some words that are sometimes used in positioning statements:
|
Bigger |
Makes a fashion statement |
You get the idea. You have to have something memorable, something that sets you apart, or you'll never rise high enough to be on anyone's radar. Positioning yourself clearly in the consumer's mind in relation to your competitors is absolutely vital. You don't have to mention your competitors by name, but you need to set yourself apart. One of my favorites is Michael Tchong's Iconocast newsletter (http://www.iconocast.com) that uses the tag-line, "More concentrated than the leading brand." Hmmm. :-)
Points of Difference
R.G. Cooper and E.J. Kleinschmidt studied 203 new industrial products to find the factors that most affected the product success rate. What they found was that having significant points of difference, a uniquely superior product, was most important.[3]
As you are very well aware, there is a lot of competition for what e-mail newsletters you'll actually read. In the area of marketing you'll find some excellent offerings, including Iconocast. When it came to position Doctor Ebiz (http://doctorebiz.com), I had to find some distinctives. Here's what I came up with:
- Small business concerns vs. enterprise level problems.
- Short and quickly read, vs. long, and time-consuming.
- Practical and focused on real problems vs. theoretical.
- Question and answer format vs. articles.
- Weekly vs. daily or monthly
- Free vs. paid subscription
I want to position Doctor Ebiz (http://doctorebiz.com) in the small business person's mind as the "Dear Abby of the e-business world." No single point of difference distinguishes Doctor Ebiz, but taken together, Doctor Ebiz is unique among e-mail newsletters. And because I have clearly defined its points of difference, I am able to market it much more effectively than if it were "Ralph's Pretty Good Newsletter."
What are the points of difference that make your product or service unique from your major competitors on the Web? With this knowledge you may not be able to overtake the leader, but you stand a good chance of carving out your own solid niche from which you can gradually increase marketshare.
With hard work and some ingenuity you might be able to reposition your business from a negative to a positive -- such as from "a few bricks short of a full load" to "the spark of off-the-wall genius that sets him apart." Good luck. :-)
Exercise: For your Internet Marketing Plan write two paragraphs that list your company's points of difference, and then write one, or at the most two, sentences that position your business, beginning with the words: "Our company holds a unique position on the Web in that we ...."
Notes
. References are to Eric N. Berkowitz, Roger A. Kerin, Steven W. Hartley, and Richard D. Irwin, Marketing (Fifth Edition; Irwin, 1997) http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/007234783X/wilsoninternetse- p. 329
- This retail positioning matrix was developed by the MAC Group, Inc. a management consulting firm, Ibid., p. 482.
- p. 299, cited from R.G. Cooper and E.J. Kleinschmidt, "New Products -- What Separates Winners from Losers?" Journal of Product Innovation Management (September 1987), pp. 169-184.
