GlobalEnvironment

International Marketing 70-480, Session 8Lloyd Corder, Ph.D.

Positioning

Slide 1

Corder’s Questions

1. What’s the best positioning strategy?

Believe in the power of feedback.

8. PositioningInternational Marketing 70-480Lloyd Corder, Ph.D.

Slide 2

Positioning• How you position your company,

product, service or idea will dramatically impact the number of people who want to buy it.

• It will also help others decide if you’re the same or different from your competitors.

• Positioning helps you overcome the greatest single obstacle to selling your product, service or idea:• Your inability to communicate what

you do and who you do it with best.

8. PositioningInternational Marketing 70-480Lloyd Corder, Ph.D.

Slide 3

Positioning Strategies• Titles

• Doctor, printer, consultant, banker, architect, plumber, etc.

• Product/services• Printing, legal services, banking, clothes,

accounting, insurance, software, etc.• Concept—the outcomes of what your

product, service or idea does for clients• Very, very difficult to do• Easy to overcomplicate it

8. PositioningInternational Marketing 70-480Lloyd Corder, Ph.D.

Slide 4

Power of Concept Positioning• Example:

• Title: Consultant• Products/services:

• Business planning• Financial management• Selling strategies• Human resources• Marketing, advertising and promotion

• Concept: “I work with people who want to start a business and small business owners who want to grow their business.”

Adapted from Mark LeBlanc, Growing Your Business!

Sounds like everyone else

Different

8. PositioningInternational Marketing 70-480Lloyd Corder, Ph.D.

Slide 5

Getting to Concept Positioning

• Language (8th grade, simple)• Conversational tone (answers what you do)• Attraction (must attract your market segment)• Dream-focused (focuses on the “dream” of your

prospects)• Contains What and Who (outcomes and who is

best served by working with/buying from you)• Dual-focus (use two outcomes for a wider

audience)• Repeatability (someone else can repeat it back)

7 Guidelines for concept positioning

8. PositioningInternational Marketing 70-480Lloyd Corder, Ph.D.

Slide 6

Elevator Presentations• Help shape other people’s perceptions about

you, your product or your ideas by controlling how you introduce yourself (defining statement)

• Questions to help develop content:• Who are you?• What do you do?• What makes you interesting/special?• What one-liners, stories, body posture, etc. can

you use to make other people like being around you?

• Develop, practice, refine… to manage perceptions

8. PositioningInternational Marketing 70-480Lloyd Corder, Ph.D.

Slide 7

Differentiation Positioning• Path to failure

• Quality• Customer service• Creativity• Price• Breadth of line

• Path to success• Being first• Attribute ownership• Leadership• Heritage• Market specialty• Preference• How a product is made• Latest• Hotness

Easy for competitors to duplicate your strategy

More difficult for competitors to follow

Adapted from Jack Trout, Differentiate or Die

8. PositioningInternational Marketing 70-480Lloyd Corder, Ph.D.

Slide 8

Corder’s Conclusions• Insert Here

8. PositioningInternational Marketing 70-480Lloyd Corder, Ph.D.

Slide 9

Slide 10

8. PositioningInternational Marketing 70-480Lloyd Corder, Ph.D.