Competitive Positioning Addresses Customer Needs

Effective Competitive Positioning Addresses Customer Needs

Often times companies get caught up in telling all about the bells and whistles of their products and services and neglect to talk about the most important element of all…how their solutions address their customers' needs. After all, isn't that what we are all in business to do? If we aren't then we have a big problem!

Effective competitive positioning is all about describing the value your products and services provide to your target customer. Yes it is important to some degree to describe what it is you are selling, but it is most critical to focus primarily on the value you are providing, through value-based competitive positioning. Many businesses fall into this trap of focusing too heavily on their products and services (features) and not enough on the problems they solve (benefits), through competitive positioning statements.

Let me give you an example:

Standard "feature" competitive positioning: Our all-in-one fax/printer/copy machines feature fast, high-resolution printing and color copying.

More powerful "customer-value" competitive positioning: Our all-in-one fax/printer/copy machines feature everything you need to efficiently produce high-quality, professional looking business documents that will impress your clients.

The first example above focuses heavily on the product's features while the second version effectively addresses the customer value. Positioning your solutions according to customer benefit, rather than product features, will help you surely distinguish yourself and your solutions from your competitors.

I strongly believe this approach to competitive positioning should be pervasive across all of your sales and marketing communications channels, including in your brochures, sales presentations, website copy, press releases, articles, white papers, etc.

A good rule of thumb for crafting effective competitive positioning messages is to ask yourself: "What does this mean for my customer?"

I'll leave you with this final thought: It isn't about the solutions provided. It is, however, about providing solutions.