When you are starting up an online business it is critical that you pay close attention to your market position. This will be achieved through a market positioning strategy, which is all of the activities and actions that you will take in an effort to put you in an ideal, highly visible position within your specific niche.
Placing your online business in the perfect market position for your company has several goals:
- Become highly visible on the internet.
- Appeal to the appropriate potential audience.
- Differentiate yourself from your competitors.
There are several steps that you can take to develop a highly effective strategy for achieving your ideal market position. These steps include:
Plan for Differentiation
This is the first step in preparing to take your market position will actually be identifying your specific niche and your target audience. It is critical that you find the right niche for your online business rather than focusing your marketing activities on a larger market that will include consumers that would not be interested in the products and services that you offer. After you have done this you will move on to differentiation.
This step involves planning out how you as a company can stand out from your competition in ways that will prove valuable for your customers. It is important that you find out ways you can be different so that potential customers will be drawn to you. In order to do this you will need to delve into the needs of your target audience and configure your marketing plan to specifically address those needs.
Plan for Positioning
Once you have decided how you will stand out from your competitors you will plan your positioning strategy. This involves designing your product in such a way that it justifies your market position. This means that you cannot simply market yourself as addressing specific needs, you must actually address them. In order to clarify this strategy you can use what is known as a “positioning statement”. This statement organizes specific information regarding your product and your competitors so that you can build your strategy more fully.
To create your positioning statement you can simply fill in the blanks in this statement:
For______who_____our product is a _______that provides_____unlike____our product/solution.
This statement will address each aspect of your market position so that it is simplified and clear. For example, if you sell flameless candles in your online store, your positioning statement may read:
For customers that love the beauty and fragrance of candles who worry about the dangers that may be presented by lighting candles, our product is a safe, flameless alternative that provides the realistic look of a flickering candle flame along with rich fragrances. Unlike Candle Company B, our product looks realistic, is created with real wax ,and have a wide range of fragrances.
Question Yourself
In this step you will review your positioning strategy to determine if it makes sense for your company. You will check through your positioning statement to see if your logic is there and if you feel that this form of marketing would be effective in pulling in the type of customers that you desire for your company.
Think of your strategy as if you were a customer. If you were looking for the types of products and services that you offer, what niche would you consider them to be a part of, and how would you define this niche? What problems may you have that you hope to be addressed by the products and services, and do you feel that this market positioning strategy adequately transmits the information that your company will address these needs?
Kasper Rugholm has a Master’s Degree in Business Management and Economics and is an eager writer of articles about online business touching on topics about effective market position, how earn more per customer and much more at http://www.startitupnow.com.