Determining the Relative Position of Our Product or Service in the Customer’s Mind
Whenever a customer decides to buy something, she considers many alternatives of that product or service. Unless it is a very new product being introduced in the market for the first time, for each such alternative, she has some existing opinion or belief which she has built through her own or others’ experiences.
Within a group of similar products and services, each one has a unique place or position inside the customer’s mind. The customer considers one product better or superior than the other. There is a clear ranking of all products in her mind. It is her personal ranking. This ranking may be biased by the customer’s own personality, perceptions and psychological traits. A company’s product or service is positioned in the customer’s mind as per this ranking. Whether the offering company likes it or not, this position is always created.
E.g. there could be different models of mobile phones available at a price point of Rs. 5,000, all of different brands from different companies. One phone can have a very good set of features, another could have a rugged built and long-lasting quality, the third may have excellent after-sales support and the fourth may have excellent battery life or camera. Due to these differences, each phone has a unique position in the customer’s mind.
So, these four phones, although at the same price range, attract different set of customers. Each discerning customer will generally buy a phone based on the position attribute important to her.
- Just like this, every product or service finally occupies a position in the customer’s mind.
- This unique position is created either automatically or by careful design, planning and execution by the company.
- The company’s own conscious efforts can be useful in guiding the customer’s opinion and perception about its products.
- If the company is not aware and conscious about creating the right perception and position to occupy in the customer’s mind, some position gets automatically created by chance and the company finds it difficult to change that perception later.
- Sometimes, such automatically created position severely damages the reputation of the company’s products or services and it takes a long time to recover from that damage.
- In order to be more effective in marketing, we need to determine the position we wish to occupy in the customer’s mind.
- If this position is decided in advance, it makes the company’s marketing efforts easier and more focused.
- All the efforts of marketing and branding exercise should be directed towards creating and maintaining this right position.
