How to Create a Market Positioning Map

A market positioning map is vital to determine the marketing strategy for a firm. This process is generally an effort meant to influence consumers’ perception of a certain product or brand relative to perception of competing products or brands. The objective is to effectively occupy a unique, advantageous and clear position in the mind of consumers.

How to Create a Market Positioning Map

1. Determine which features of a product are consumers’ hot buttons It’s crucial to ask your entire market what is important to them. This can be effectively achieved by doing a focus group or a survey to find the hot buttons that effectively control consumer behavior. A properly designed CRM (customer relationship management system) can also be used to see what the consumers’ hot buttons are entirely based on the actual purchase behavior. 2. Survey the market After identifying the consumers’ hot buttons, you are then required to find out exactly how the consumers rate your product and also how they rate the products from your competitors. One of the best ways of effectively doing this is to have the consumers identify all competing products and then rate them accurately based on the hot button criteria. It is also advisable to obtain demographics, some psychographic and some geographic information to see if there may be segmentation value. 3. Graph results Normally the computer programs makes this easier. Computers are also very necessary if you have got more than two dimensions that you need to graph. You can comfortably use Excel, although there is a specifically designed software for market positing mapping, you can also get SPSS which is more costly but can be efficiently used for many analysis projects. The map shouldn’t only display position of the various brands, but the brand’s size on this map should accurately reflect the market share of the brand (so one needs to gather this information from secondary sources) 4. Interpret the market positioning map This is where you obtain strategic value from your map. The important things to carefully look for on the map include;

•  Do the consumer’s attitudes towards your brand match what you want them to think about your brand?

•  Do the consumers’ attitudes towards your competitors match what you thought about them?

•  Which competitors do the consumers see as being closest to your brand?

•  Are there holes on the map indicating some potential for completely new brands?

5. Make changes in the marketing strategy If consumers do not see your brand in a good and favorable way, then you are required to make some changes. If there is something wrong with the brand that is causing poor consumers’ attitude, then it’s recommended to fix your brand. However, if not, some changes to your promotional campaign and advertising are required to assist moderate these attitudes. If the consumers view the competitors brand as being similar to your own brand, then you should think about how you can make your brand become unique and stand out. Advantages  1. Creating a map allows you to understand what the consumers think about your own brand 2. They help you understand what the consumers think about the brands from your competitors 3. They help you build a more effective marketing strategy Creating a market positioning map is definitely very important if you want to increase the sales of your products and generate more profit than your competitors.