Developing a Positioning and Differentiation Strategy requires an in-depth understanding of two things: PROSPECTS and COMPETITORS.  

It seems obvious the more you know about your targeted prospects, the better the chances of achieving your Growth Objectives. Yet it’s amazing how little time businesses spend on finding out everything they need to know about their prospects. Why is this the case? Because we’re so immersed in what we do, so busy dealing with everyday issues, that we lose sight of what’s important – understanding what the customer wants and giving it to them.

This newsletter explains what you need to know about your prospects to make absolutely certain your products, services, business practices and marketing strategies and tactics are right on the mark.

1)         How Prospects Feel About Your Industry?

How do prospects feel about your industry? What sort of a reputation does your industry have?

How you position yourself will depend on attitudes about your industry. As an example, if you operate in an industry with a bad reputation, simply stating what you do isn’t enough because you’re painted with the same brush as your competitors. Your marketing challenge in this instance is to convince prospects that you do things differently.

2)         Where Are Your Prospects On the Educational Spectrum?

Prospects are in one of three stages in any given target market:

1. They’re currently not looking to buy what you sell.
2. They’re currently investigating/researching a buying decision.
3. They’re ready to buy now.

The position your prospect occupies on this spectrum defines your marketing challenge.

As an example, if you’re a financial advisor, chances are most of your prospects already have an advisor and aren’t looking “to buy”.  When prospects aren’t investigating, your job as a marketer is to get them to question their current situation – “is my advisor really doing a good job?”

The Educational Spectrum is such an important marketing concept that we’ll cover it in detail in our next newsletter.

3)         Hot Buttons

All of us make buying decisions based first on emotion, then on logic. Think of when you’re considering the purchase of a new vehicle. First the emotional factors come into play – the look and style, how it reflects your personality or social status, how tired you are of your current vehicle, the colour, the bells and whistles....

In a marketing context, we use these emotional factors – HOT BUTTONS – to capture our prospect’s attention. Hot buttons make prospects want to listen to what we have to say because they’re personally relevant and invoke an emotional response. In marketing, getting prospects to want to listen is “job one” – if your prospects won’t pay attention, you won’t end up with a sale.

4)         Decision Making Criteria

These are the logical factors upon which the buying decision is ultimately made.

In the buying a new car example, these are issues such as gas mileage, safety, budget, warranty, word of mouth experience, reliability, etc.

Our positioning and differentiation strategy will be based on what our prospects deem most important when making a decision. We use these logical factors to build our case, so it’s extremely important we understand, in priority sequence, the prospect’s decision making criteria.

5)         What Information Does the Prospect Require

Prospects require information to make an informed decision – DECISION FACILITATING INFORMATION.

It’s critical to understand what information prospects require, and incumbent upon you to provide it. Don’t leave it up to the prospect to find this information on their own - they may end up going to your competitor to get it.

6)         How the Decision Is Made

Next we need to understand the decision making process. This will vary considerably depending on whether it’s a complex or simple purchasing decision, whether it’s a business to consumer or business to business situation, the number of choices available, how well educated the typical prospect is about what you sell, etc.

You need to understand the decision making process so you can build your marketing and sales process accordingly. As an example, if the decision takes a long time – has a long sales cycle – you’ll have a greater opportunity to provide decision facilitating information to “wire” the sale.

7)          Where Prospects Go for Information

You must understand what sources your prospect uses to gather information about what you sell. This determines where you’ll direct your lead generation tactics.

As an example, if most of your prospects do internet searches to find potential suppliers, you’d better have a web site that’s optimized for search – or they won’t find you.

These are the fundamentals of prospect analysis - the insight you gain will be used to build your positioning strategy, your marketing and sales processes and your marketing communications tactics.

In our next newsletter, we’ll discuss the Educational Spectrum, a foundational tool to understanding your marketing challenge.

About our Newsletters

Core Marketing’s newsletters are designed to take you through a step by step process to build a marketing system. If you want to review prior versions, simply click here or visit our web site at www.coremarketingstrategies.com and go to Free Marketing Resources.