Having a strong product position in the mind of the consumer is key to sales success. Simply defined, a product’s position is its location alongside those of the competition in the mind of customers. It’s the way your customers perceive your product in relation to your competitors. The better your position, the greater your sales.

A lot has changed in the way companies strive to improve their product or service positions. In the early days of advertising and marketing, businesses embraced a mostly tactical approach to product positioning, one that typically involved gimmicks or special offers—what amounted to simply being the loudest in a room with few competitors. 

Today’s highly competitive marketplace is cluttered and noisy and requires a much smarter approach to product positioning. Arranging for a product to occupy greater mindshare requires either accepting customer attitudes as they are and tailoring the product to fit these attitudes or changing attitudes. Creating a strategic positioning directed at an existing customer attitude or need can serve as a smartest foundation for formulating a product’s positioning.

It’s all in the mind — the customer’s mind
To effectively position products, companies must define their target audiences and then get to know them intimately. An organization may have more than one market segment for its products, which is acceptable, but it must have an individualized rationale for each.

Knowing what a market audience values will then help steer positioning strategies. Strategies can be related to a product’s attributes or the benefits it offers, or may be all about price or perhaps focused on quality. 

One thing that hasn’t changed over the years is that a company or its product cannot be everything to everybody. Too many businesses still hold fast to the hope that if they canvas the entire population with their product, maybe they’ll land even a small percentage of sales. But by trying to be everything to everyone, they’ll inevitably end up being nothing to anyone.

Getting inside customers’ heads can begin with discussions with sales people, field engineers and product marketing. Collecting and reviewing secondary research is also helpful. But there’s no substitute, especially in a highly competitive market, to going straight to customers, either through focus groups or surveys and direct conversations.

These efforts will reveal what positioning exists in the customer segment’s mind and allow a business to determine which of those it has the best chance, based on its product strengths, of occupying mindshare.

Once a strong positioning has been identified, the positioning strategy requires a clear message that’s consistent throughout the company’s promotions and product packaging. It must also be authentic and believable to customers, as well as competitive by offering something of value or benefit that competitors do not.

Take a grander approach — position the company, too
Customers don’t just consider the product’s position in their minds when purchasing a product. What resounds with buyers is not only why the product is the right one for them, but also why a company is also the right choice as well. That belief and rationale comes in the form of promises delivered upon, not merely promotions.

Whatever a company’s key promise—innovation, or fast delivery, or financial strength—it must be authentic for customers to embrace it. It must further resonate with employees who then demonstrate it in daily actions and interactions.

By positioning your company as well as your product—authentically—to meet your customers’ needs, you’ll offer value that will keep them coming back.