Online Business Adviser

The Forum For Online Business Success

This morning I was sitting in a sales meeting, and as I looked around I noticed everyone had a coffee. But what struck me was the fact that everyone had the same cup, from the same place.

Around my office, there are a handful of coffee shops. So why has everyone chosen the buy from the same one? Does it taste better? Hard to say, it’s a matter of individual taste. Is it cheaper? Not really, the others charge the same. The answer is in their location. The one everyone buys from is inside the doors of the foyer, in front of the lift. Their positioning makes them the convenient and easy choice for the staff, and so they sell more.

While this is a physical example, it’s an interesting analogy for the positioning of your product.

What sets your product or service apart from your competitors? Remember that you don’t necessarily have to be selling something different from them, you just need to position it better. For the consumer, they see value in a combination of financial, functional and psychological benefit. Look at what benefits your competitors are touting and there you have their value. Change one of these benefits positively from how your competition does it, and you are in front.

It doesn’t have to be price based. In fact in some cases lowering the price for a comparable product can make yours seem inferior. Instead, look at how your product makes the user feel. This is an incredibly powerful factor when it comes to buying – it’s the reason why people will spend a fortune on jeans or shoes – they fit perfectly (functional benefit) and they make the wearer feel good (psychological). In these cases, both of these factors outweigh the financial benefit.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to set up my coffee cart outside the door to the foyer.

Related posts:

1. How Small Touches Make Big Differences
2. Jamie Oliver Case Study – Revenue From Free Content
3. Starbucks, Balmain and Knowing Your Market
4. Competitive Advantage – The Extra .01%

Tags: benefits, product positioning, value

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 9:18 pm and is filed under Marketing, Value Propositions, product positioning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.