How to create your Company Market Position Statement

Most small and mid-sized companies completely SUCK at defining their own market position. They’ll use ambiguous and overused terms like “Incredible Customer Service”, “Industry Leading Expertise” or “We Focus on Delivering Greatest Possible Value” to describe their offerings. Garbage.

That stuff doesn’t tell anyone anything and just makes you sound like all the rest. This guide runs you through a thought process aimed at real details to help you differentiate, attract the right customers, and grow your business through Inbound Marketing. It’s the very beginning of the story you’re going to tell.

Here are some starter questions:

• Who are our best customers and who are we selling to?
• Why does our company exist?
• What specific value are we delivering?
• What are we best at compared to our competition?
• How are we unique?

This guide outlines the steps you need to follow and all the questions you should have answered before you’re able to truly market your offerings. Honestly, it probably won’t be that easy (if you’re doing it right), but it’s always time well spent.

Use the ebook to guide your thoughts and be sure to provide as much detail as you can. Include key members of your team as you’ll want their input and alse their buy-in eventually. In the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of where your company is posistioned and how you compare with your competition.

This process is kind of like going to therapy…if you’re not up for it, it’ll never be helpful. Falling into boring clichés to describe your company will just fill space on a page. It won’t tell anyone anything about you. It won’t be interesting, and it certainly won’t grab anyone’s attention.

Terms like “Market Leader” or “Best Customer Service” are complete garbage. This is what everyone is writing. What is it about your customer service that make you the best? Be specific. Isn’t something like this more interesting? :

“Every client has the mobile telephone number for their dedicated sales representative. Dial directly any time, day or night.”

Own your niche. Be specific.

Take stock of how differentiated you are today. Use this analysis of your stengths and weaknesses to define your market positioning moving forward. Don’t try to be all things to all people.

Why do you show up at work every day? What would your customers miss if you weren’t in business tomorrow? Telling people why your clients love you or why anyone should consider hiring you will always be an interesting story for your prospects.

Who to you want to do business with? Perhaps more importantly, who DON’T you want to do business with? Define your target audience specifically…what are they concerned about? Where do they get their information? What are their pains? You can’t address these questions with your marketing unless you consider them first.

What are you expert in? What makes you better than your competitors? If you can’t identify these differentiators, then you either need to find them or shift into a different niche. Eithe way, knowing what you do best is hugely helpful information when you start competing for business.

What is is like to work at your company? What kind of people do you hire and what does it take for them to be successful. Would you ever turn down business on the basis of your values? This makes for great conversation in your marketing materials.

In the end, you’ll come up with your company’s market positioning statement…taking into account everything you’ve written and considered to this point.

Here’s Web Design Phoenix’s Positioning Statement if you need an example:

“We provide Value Driven Website Design for sales oriented companies
that are run by people we LIKE because:
1) We don’t enjoy working with people who aren’t nice
2) We believe that successful online marketing is not a project, but a process requiring planning, agility, data-driven decisions, and continual improvement”

If I haven’t said it enough in this post, take your market position statement seriously. It’ll help you become more intriguing to both your prospects and also to future employees. Define who you are and stand for something…everyone likes that in a person and a company. Good luck!

Download our ebook or write in some comments or questions below. I’ll be glad to address anything you’d like to know about.