Positioning your product or service

relative to its competition

Positioning with differentiating characteristics of your product will help you

to stand out from the crowd of products that are similar to yours. You can

differentiate your product or service in three ways:

 ✓ You can position directly against a competitor. You do this by claiming

that your product is better than your competitor’s. In today’s market

an effective positioning strategy focuses on specific competitors. This

approach is similar to positioning according to product benefit, but in

this case the competition is within the same product category.

 ✓ You can position yourself away from the competition. This strategy is

useful if you can’t compete with the competition because it’s a strong

and well-established player. To position away from the competition,

look for consumer needs or market niches that position you elsewhere.

Doing so helps position you away from the competing noise.

 ✓ You can position yourself according to type of benefit. This strategy of

positioning has to do with positioning your product against others. The

product categories aren’t exactly the same, but the products all provide

the same class of benefits. An example would be the positioning of air-

lines, trains, and buses. They don’t provide the same means of transpor-

tation, but they do provide the same service — transportation

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