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Small
Business, BIG Marketing™
by Will
Dylan ©2007
“Positioning”
your Small Business for Success
“A
product or service that tries to appeal to everyone
winds up appealing to no one.”
-
Legendary marketing authors Al Ries and Jack Trout
Many
small business owners spend a lot of time focused on the
tactical elements of their marketing campaign. They
stress over what color they should use in their latest
local newspaper ad, or whether they should change their
tagline for next month’s radio campaign, or how many
flyers they can print on their home computer for
distribution this weekend.
We’ve all
been there. And in this book, we’ll spend some time
talking about tactical marketing issues.
But….before
we get into the “what” of marketing for your small
business, it’s important to cover the “who”…
Who
do you want to be in the eyes of the market?
That
question hits at the very core of business strategy
itself. Who do you want to be? What is your “market
position”? If you haven’t spent some time
sweating over this issue, you should. Deciding “who
you want to be” is the most important decision
you’ll ever make about your small business. It will
often determine whether you succeed or fail.
Market
Position Defined…
Your
“market position” is essentially the space you
occupy in the market, as perceived by your clients.
-
Volvo is the
“safe” car
-
Wal-Mart is the
“low-price” retailer
-
Coke is “the
real thing” in colas
In
the case of Volvo, there are other cars on the market,
and many car makers spend a lot of money promoting their
“5-star” crash test ratings. But if I asked you to
name the safest car on the road, you’d probably say
Volvo. That “market position” belongs to them thanks
to years of engineering safe cars and an aggressive
marketing campaign to promote the safety of their cars,
back when auto safety was an emerging issue.
The same
goes for Wal-Mart. Major retailers run sales every week,
and I have occasionally found an item elsewhere on sale
that costs less than it does at Wal- Mart. But if I
asked you who the low price leader was in retail, you
would say Wal-Mart. They own that “market position”.
It’s entrenched in the minds of consumer. Volvo means
safety. Wal-Mart means low prices. They’ve defined
their market position very effectively, and thanks to
that fact, people know what they’re going to get when
they buy products or services from those companies.
Continue
>>
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