Competitive Positioning Strategy

In what ways does your brand stand out from all the others? What’s the value of choosing your brand over your competitors? Competitive positioning is a marketing strategy the refers to how the brand will do just that. The goal of the competitive positioning strategy is not only to increase sales but can guide your brand with purpose. So, in what ways can your brand make itself stand out?

1.     Excellence /Value

2.     Leadership

3.     Niche

4.     Customer service

The benefits really speak for themselves when winning over your customers through positioning but how do you create a good strategy to do so? Here are some point to help you get started.

1.     Study the competition: see how they perform, what are they lacking that you can offer? Perform SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)

2.     Market research: can help understand size, scope and demographics.

3.     Define your goal: What are the company short and long-term goals? Decide what your brand goal is and this will help the positioning strategy.

4.     Map it out: we mean this literally actually. Create a perceptual graph with two axis and four quadrants. Each line represents an attribute. Remember those x, y axis graphs you used back in algebra. It’s like that. No number though thankfully. Let’s look at an example. One line is for quality and the other price. The positive axis for quality is high quality. The positive for price is high pricing. The negative portion of the axis for quality is equal to low quality and the negative for price would be for low pricing. You can do this to find holes in your particular market niche.

 Ultimately, you started your brand because you knew there was something lacking in your field so finding your niche shouldn’t be too difficult. Mapping out a plan to get others to believe in your dream is another story. It will take planning and time. Make sure to set deadline and goal dates to stay on track. It’s also very motivating for you and your team to see achievement. Happy planning.

Marketing to Older Populations

Did you know that older generations 50-years and above make up 51% of consumer spending? They also spend more time online than most people think. They are not much different than other groups to market to honestly, but they do have some qualities that differ and it will require some adjustments on the brands marketing strategy. Since they take up half of the consumer spending it’s important you get it right or you’re losing out on some big moola. Here are some ways to ensure that your senior marketing strategy will not be lost.

1.     Use language they understand: don’t use catchy, trendy jargon when trying to market to them. They won’t understand it and they won’t care. They just want to know how your product/service is going to improve their life or solve a problem they have.

2.     Make it easy: although a large portion of seniors are online that doesn’t mean they’re really tech savvy. Confusing choices when making purchases online or even while scrolling your website is a great way to frustrate and lose them. Make the process easy and clear.

3.     Personalization is a must: these groups of individuals remember a time when buying was between the merchant and the customer personally. They like to be regarded as an individual. Not only should your message speak to their age group, if you can get a person on the phone with them or name them directly in emails that’s even better.

4.     This generation is LOYAL AF: they are very unlikely to change brands if you get there first. Research shows that actually, “90% of seniors will keep you as their digital go-to if you provide them with their informational needs first“ (Search Engine Journal).

5.     Use multichannel marketing: although this generation is online they still respond well to offline marketing efforts, such as catalogs, T.V. commercials, billboards, etc.

These are our top five but there are so many more ways to effectively market to the senior populations. It should also be noted that there are different categories of seniors and each must be treated slightly different. There is the group of 50-62, 63-74 and 75 and over. Now, everywhere you look these will be divided slightly differently but as long as they’re similar the grouping won’t matter much if it’s a year or two off. This makes sense though if you think about it, you won’t market to your mom the same way you would market to your grandmother, right? Exactly. If your brand involves selling to the senior population it will require a competent amount of research into the best marketing strategies in order to reach them.