The positioning of your product or service in your chosen market - niche is of paramount importance if you want to succeed. Your product/service positioning depends on the niche and market you have chosen as well as the research you have done in order to take advantage of market trends. Mostly, once you have figured this all out, your product - service positioning will depend greatly on how your product/service is viewed by its target market. This is solely up to you. You can create the image that you want to project for your product or service merely by creating a motto or tag line and backing it up. For instance, 'Strong and Secure' would be a bad choice of a tag line for a donut company but with work would be great for a software security product.
Your positioning statement must be realistic and as unique as possible while reflecting the strengths of your product or service. Don't attempt give your product/service an image that it does not deserve. Make its image believable. The more knowledgeable consumers are about your product or service, the more believable your positioning statement becomes. Market promotion plays a major factor in this perception, especially when things are new. Word of mouth and mouse is another variable to be aware of when your product or service does become known. Make sure your product or service lives up to the name you make for it.
Things that you should know to help you to achieve realistic positioning versus wishful positioning include information about your competitions positions. How your product or service fits into the prevailing picture and in the public image of your product or service. What makes your product or service different form your competitors? How can you positively influence the image that the public now holds, specifically not generally.
Once you have data on how your service or product can stand out from the crowd of competition, you need to be able to translate that into a short one sentence phrase, at best, that embodies that difference in a strong positive light. Make it simple and straightforward so that it sticks in the minds of your target market. Nothing is more easily forgettable than a fancy sounding slogan that your everyday persons fails to remember because they fail to understand it. If they can't remember your tag line or slogan, chances are they won't think about your product or service either.
Tag line check your slogan to make sure that it is true, realistic, understandable, specific, and makes your product stand out from and above your competition.
When you find a positioning statement that works keep it. Don't overly modify it or don't modify it at all if you can truly avoid doing so. The strongest reason for changing your product or service image is that the changing situation in the world, technology, competition or other major factors make your positioning statement invalid.
Even though you may want your product or service to occupy a certain position in the market, it will inevitably fall into the category in which the public places it. Your only influence in this process is how well you product/service and positioning statement reflect and compliment one another. The times when this will be easy is when there is a new product or service that you are presenting. The going is a little rougher is you are presenting an already existing product in which the public already hold a position in their minds for. This can be to your benefit if the product has consistently shown to be productive and with that leverage you can differentiate your version of your product/service from the others.
Whatever your final decision, make sure that you consistently present your slogan to the world, over and over, repeatedly. Think of it as wearing a groove into the brains of the public. This is how we learn and remember so this should be a major promotional tactic in your marketing arsenal.
