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Does Positioning Get the Attention it Deserves at Your Company?

My answer would be "no" based on most of the companies I’ve worked for and with over the years.  What is your gut response before reading this article?

All marketers learn about the original "Four Ps" of marketing and use them in all aspects of marketing strategy, planning, development and execution:

1. Product – deals with the dimensions of the product being marketed.  This applies to all types of 'product' – whether it’s tangible, intangible, service, practice, etc.  The product dimension addresses characteristics such as the branding, functionality, design, quality, safety, packaging, warranty, etc.
2. Price – deals with the dimensions of pricing decisions such as pricing strategy, suggested selling price, discounting, wholesale pricing, seasonal pricing, bundling, flexibility, price discrimination, etc.
3. Place – deals with the dimensions about how the product reaches the customer.  Marketing decisions on place include distribution channels, coverage, channel members, inventory strategy, order processing, logistics, etc.
4. Promotion – deals with the dimensions of promoting the product including decisions on promotional strategy, advertising, campaigns, promotions, selling, public relations, publicity, marketing communications, etc.

Al Ries and Jack Trout introduced the concept of Positioning as a key marketing strategy during the 1970’s and popularized Positioning as a core marketing discipline with their seminal book; Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind.  Since then many marketing practitioners and academics have included Positioning as the 5th P of marketing.  However, doing some quick checking around while writing this article, I was surprised to see many recently published materials, some from reputable sources, still referring to the original "Four Ps" without mentioning Positioning.  In spite of these surprising omissions, it does appear that most university curricula do include Positioning as one of the updated "Five Ps" of marketing.

So why is positioning most important?

Positioning deals with what you want to do in the mind of the prospect – i.e. how do you want prospects and customers to uniquely perceive your product in their minds regardless of exposure or familiarity with other similar or competing products – e.g. "safe vehicle" = "Volvo".  Positioning is the promise of the value you create for your customers.  Positioning cuts across the other 4 Ps and determines how you develop the specific dimensions of the other 4 Ps within the overriding positioning.

Positioning dictates what you do with a product and/or how you develop a product.  Pricing decisions must support the positioning.  Place is determined from positioning to define how to take a product to market.  Promotion is how you consistently communicate the positioning to the mind of the prospect.  If any of the 5 Ps are out of sync, your marketing strategy and execution will not produce good results.

According Philip Kotler of the Kellogg School of Management, all good marketing planning starts with Research, which reveals potential customer Segments, which determines the Targeting of specific segment(s) a company can serve better than anyone else.  The next step from this process is Positioning which must be done before considering Product, Price, Place & Promotion of marketing planning and execution.

A previous article discusses why positioning should take precedence over branding.

Where does Positioning fit in your business planning and marketing process?  Do senior management and other functional areas in your company understand and appreciate the importance of positioning before everyone runs off to build, market and sell product?  Your comments are always welcome.
Copyright © 2010 The Marketing Mélange and Ingistics LLC. http://marketing.infocat.com

Targeting B2B Buyers with Occasion-based Marketing

Mention occasion-based marketing and most marketers think about B2C holiday marketing –the special offers and promotions for Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Christmas and other real or fabricated holidays.

Most businesses and marketers want to improve their marketing response and conversion rates – i.e. the number of responses to a marketing campaign and subsequent conversions to a sale.  Occasion-based marketing is a proven tactic to boost response rates – people are more receptive to buy something related to a relevant occasion.

Occasion-based marketing is more than just doing promotions around holidays.  Think about the definition of occasion in broader terms:

• A particular time when something happens.
• A chance or opportunity to do something.
• A cause or reason for something.
• The need for something.
• The need to do something.
• An important or special event.

Using these broader definitions, think about what occasions would make your prospective B2B buyers more receptive to buy and/or respond to your marketing campaigns:

• News – look at current news topics and who is paying attention.  Is there any relevance for your offer and the audience that you can leverage?  For example, if a group of businesses are paying attention to carbon tax legislation, do you have relevant products or services to position and offer to take advantage of this news and attention?
• Events – there are all sorts of events happening all the time – which of these events may make buyers more receptive to buy or consider your product/service/solution?
• Holidays – although this is most visible in B2C, consider where your product/service/solution may fit in the value chain.  For example manufacturers have to supply distributors who supply retailers in anticipation of a future holiday promotion.
• Associative – we drink orange juice with breakfast, wine with dinner at restaurants and sports drinks when we exercise or play sports.  Why?  Because marketing has made us associate these products with these occasions.  Are there opportunities to associate your product/service/solution with an occasion?
• Business Cycle – businesses have cyclical occasions that present occasion-based B2B opportunities.  For example, when they do budgeting is a good occasion to get your product/service/solution in their budget plans for the following year.
• Customer Occasions – such as management changes, mergers, acquisitions, new product introductions, business expansion, etc. are opportunistic marketing and sales events.

This is not an exhaustive list of all occasion-based marketing opportunities.  The key to successful occasion-based marketing is to find targeted and relevant occasions when prospective buyers are more receptive to buy your product/service/solution and respond to your marketing campaign or promotion.

Cyclical versus ad-hoc or unplanned occasions – it’s straightforward to schedule marketing campaigns and promotions for cyclical occasions.  Do you have the means to respond quickly and appropriately to relevant ad-hoc or unplanned occasions?

Consider occasion-based marketing as an overlay to your previously established market and customer segments – it adds timing and positioning dimensions for executing campaigns and promotions when buyers are more motivated and receptive to buy.  Try a test to compare response rates between a regular schedule-based approach versus occasion-based for the same marketing campaign or promotion.

Have you had success or otherwise with occasion-based marketing in B2B situations?  Your comments are always welcome.
Copyright © 2010 The Marketing Mélange and Ingistics LLC. http://marketing.infocat.com

How Much Should Analyst Surveys Shape Your Marketing Strategies?

I recently reviewed the results of the 2010 Gartner Executive Programs (EXP) survey of CIOs who influence $126bn of IT spending in 41 countries and 27 industries.  Besides the headline that IT budgets in 2010 will be at 2005 levels, there are some interesting changes and trends that B2B IT and business software vendors and marketers should consider.

Enterprise applications (ERP, CRM and others) is not a Top 10 business or technology priority in 2010 – this is a startling finding and dramatic change from previous years.  Enterprise applications were the #2 technology priority since 2007.

After being the #1 technology priority since 2006, business intelligence applications have dropped to #5.

Business process improvement continues to be the #1 business priority – this has been the #1 CIO business priority every year on this survey since 2006 (the earliest edition of this survey I could find).

Virtualization, cloud computing and Web 2.0 are the top 3 technology priorities in 2010 – while this may not be a big surprise to most people in the industry, it is the first time any of these technologies have appeared in this Top 10 survey.

So this got me thinking about the relevance of these surveys for influencing product, marketing and sales strategies:

• Are vendor marketers paying attention?  Given that ‘business process improvement’ is the #1 business priority for CIOs since 2006, one would expect this to have some prominence for relevant vendor marketers.  Looking through the websites, collateral and marketing campaigns for several business software vendors, there’s scant direct attention to the business process improvement value proposition.  While it is mentioned within other propositions and contexts, it doesn’t have the headline attention or prominence for vendors that one would expect for the #1 business priority of potential buyers.
• Should vendor marketers pay attention?  Considering the scope of this survey and the influence of the respondents on buying decisions, it would seem logical that marketing and selling to these priorities would yield better results.  Although the reality for actual buyers that transpires during the forecast period may not exactly match what they indicated in a particular survey, the priorities and trends in surveys provide good directional information for connecting with buyers relative to their top-of-mind interests.
• Which survey(s) do you pay attention to?  While this is a good survey from a reputable source, it is just one of dozens or possibly hundreds of good surveys from many reputable sources published each year.  Relevance to your markets and industry are obviously critical.  Aggregating results across multiple relevant surveys may provide a more balanced perspective.

While these types of surveys do provide valuable insights for market trends and what concerns potential buyers, they should be considered as just one of a number of inputs for shaping marketing plans.

How do you use surveys to shape your marketing strategy, campaigns and programs?  Have you seen beneficial results from paying attention to these surveys?  Your comments are always welcome.
Copyright © 2010 The Marketing Mélange and Ingistics LLC. http://marketing.infocat.com