Choosing the Right Competitive Advantages
Imagine a company is fortunate sufficient to discover several potential competitive advantages. Now it must choose the ones on which it shall build its positioning strategy. It ought to decide how much difference to promote and which ones.
I. How Many Differences to Promote?
Various marketers think that companies should aggressively promote just one benefit to the target market. Each of brands should pick feature and tout itself as "number one" on that attribute. Therefore, Crest toothpaste constantly promotes its anti cavity protection. A company which hammers away at one of these positions and constantly delivers on it perhaps will become greatest known and remembered for it.
Other marketers believe that companies might position themselves on more than one differentiating factor. This can be necessary if two or more firms are claiming to be the most excellent on the same attribute. Nowadays, in a time while the mass market is fragmenting into various small segments, companies are attempting to broaden their positioning strategies to appeal to more segments. Generally, a company have to avoid three major positioning errors. First is under positioning- failing to ever actually position the company at all. Some of companies discover that buyers have just a vague idea of the company or that they do not actually know anything special regarding it. Second error is over positioning-providing buyers too narrow a picture of the company.
II. Which Differences to Promote?
Not all of brand differences are meaningful or worthwhile; not each difference makes a good differentiator. Each difference contains the potential to make company costs as well as customer benefits. so, the company have to carefully choose the ways in which it will differentiate itself from competitors. A difference is significance establishing to the extent that it satisfies the following criteria:
- Important: The difference delivers extremely valued benefit to target buyers.
- Distinctive: Competitors don't offer the difference, or the company could offer it in a more unique way.
- Superior: The difference is superior to other ways that customers may get the same benefit.
- Communicable: The difference is noticeable and communicable to buyers.
- Preemptive: Competitors can't effortlessly copy the difference.
- Affordable: Buyers may afford to pay for the difference.
- Profitable: The Company may introduce the difference profitably.
Various companies have introduced differentiations that failed one or more of these tests.