At his blog, CRM Mastery E-Journal, Jim Berkowitz discusses the differences between positioning a product in the market versus the ever popular notion of branding. Branding is making customers aware of a product name so they grab that product based on this name awareness. Positioning entails making customers aware of the attributes of your product during the actual decision making process for a purchase. Positioning is usually much less costly and works much more quickly.
Assume you have developed and sell a software product. To brand this will likely take extensive advertising in media your potential customers will watch. Awareness of a name takes repetitive and consistent promotion to engrain it in customers’ minds so that when they get ready to sell, they think of your software by name and think of no other product. The ultimate goal is to make the name synonymous with the type of software that you sell.
Positioning has the goal of reaching the customer at the time of decision making so that you can inform them about your product at that point in time. This could be done for the software business through personal selling or a web site that customers go to when they need information for a purchase they are considering. The attributes of the product are highlighted to position this product among the array of options the customer is evaluating.
This article raises some important considerations for entrepreneurs operating small or medium enterprises as they develop their marketing plans and strategies. Marketing budgets are always tight for smaller businesses, and positioning a product is much more cost effective for creating sales than a focus on building a brand. It is simply a more realistic approach within their budgets. Real branding takes large, consistent expenditures, which most small businesses just don’t have at their disposal.