Positioning Your Company So That Your Customers "Get" What You Do

Is your company successful at getting your customers and your clients to understand what you do for them? Is your advertising message capturing the essence of what it is your niche market is demanding and expecting from your company? 


You cannot expect this outcome to magically happen for your company. It requires more than putting a few buzzwords together into a catchy but random phrase. And to create that compelling favorable image of your company, you cannot turn the task over to a trendy PR firm. They do not know the core values and vision of your company half so well as you and your employees do. You will only discover the mantra... the phrase that captures the essence of your mission, in everyday, street language, only after you have invested a considerable amount of time in clearly defining what you want to say. When you can do that, than you par the message down to the minimum number of carefully chosen words. 


Guy Kawasaki gives us some great examples of some major corporations have fielded this problem. Consider the following examples from his book, The Art of the Start.


Impersonal/Ineffective: "Reduce the size of the ozone hole.
Personal/Compelling: "Prevent you from getting melanoma."


Impersonal/Ineffective: "Dozens of airplanes flying in a hub-and-spoke pattern around the United States."
Personal/Compelling: "You are now free to move about the country."


Impersonal/Ineffective: "Increasing the mean test scores for children in your school district."
Personal/Compelling: "Ensuring that Johnny can read."


Why is the second statement, the Personal/Compelling statement so much more effective than the first one in each set? The second statement succeeds because it overcomes the "So what!" attitude on the part of potential customers. The first statement makes a bland, uninteresting explanation of what is being done by the company. The customer may well say, "Okay. So what!" The second statement lays out in unequivocal and 100% understandable terms what a company's products/services will mean to the public or to the consumer of that service or product. 


Now, when I am watching television or reading a magazine, I study these carefully worded phrases that have so effectively enabled major companies to positively position themselves to keep and expand their market share. 


On television, Hyundai runs an ad in which folks who have never driven a Hyundai give one a test drive and are wowed by the cars handling and performance. Their testimonials attest to the wonderful qualities of the car. Hyundai frames all of these positive response to their product under the heading of: "Hyundai: Uncensored." As Joe Friday, from  the early TV show, Dragnet used to say: "Only the facts, sir. Only the facts." If as clients we hear something we can accept as factual, as the truth about a company and it's products, that company has crafted the specific psychological cue that will turn potential clients into actual clients. 


AARP ran a television ad in which a series of over-60's people tell the audience what they are going to do when "they grow up." One wants to start a rock band. A woman wants to take her 1 year old grandchild on his first flight. These are people who clearly feel like they have a lot of living yet to do. Retirement is not even on their radar yet. AARP's carefully crafted phrase is: "Together, we will figure out what comes next." That message will certainly resonate with the over 60 crowd.


The First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama has worked to create a national campaign to combat childhood obesity by encouraging more physical activity and a better diet, among today's kids. That campaign has been aptly named: the Let's Move national campaign. Two words which cut to the chase, imply fun, get the job done and effectively get across exactly what it is she is trying to do for these kids. (WebMD magazine, Mar-Apr 2010, page 80.)


Why are these position statements successful examples of what works out there in the world? Why do they get the message out for these causes and these companies in a compelling way? 

• They are positive statements. They speak to what is possible. These days, people are desperately looking for such positive statements of encouragement.
• They focus on your customers. They address what your customers have told you what is important to the market niche they occupy.
• They are empowering to your customers. For your customers, the message reinforces the sense that the customer base can accomplish their goals and can be be successful utilizing your product or services..
• They are self-explanatory and very specific. The message is clearly stated and very specifically zeros in on hot-button attitudes and issues of your core market.
• They convincingly speak to what you do best as a company.
• They express a message that has a long shelf-life and will be as relevant fifty years from now as it is today.
• What you are saying is fresh and clearly stands out from all the other positioning statements in the marketplace. 
• It works to firmly establish/solidify your firm's presence within the market niche in which your company has chosen to focus its advertising efforts.

Which people in a company need to understand how that enterprise is positioning itself? Everybody in the company from the CEO or the owner all the way down to the janitor who sweeps the floor. At one point another, every employee of the company will be the "face" of the company to a customer or a supplier and how they conduct business in the name of the company must be consistent with the  way the positioning statement is laid out to the public. 

Positioning a company emerges as a critical endeavor for any commercial enterprise. Those charged with doing this must do so intelligently and craft the message with great care, so that the company's positioning statement they create will serve the company well and bring about increased client loyalty and continued company growth.