Positioning: How To Own A Piece of Your Customer's Mind

The first folder contains reports on one to three airlines. These are the airlines which are positively positioned in your mind. For example, Here's the airlines that live in the front, positively positioned folder in the airline drawer in my (admittedly jumbled) mind.

1. Midwest Airlines.
I had't heard of Midwest until I moved up here into the great white north and discovered this incredible airline hubbed out of Milwaukee.

Midwest Airlines (provided that you fly on the airline itself, not its commuter partner) has something that I, as a 6'4" flyer absolutetly love - 100% first class seats at coach prices! The seats are nice, leather, and actually give you enough room to enjoy a flight!

But Midwest Airlines also has a signature service - at sometime during the flight you start smelling the odor of mom and home - baking chocolate chip cookies! Yes, they actually bake and distribute chocolate chip cookies during the flight. And here's a nice touch, not only do they give you one cookie, they give you two!

The only problem - the cookies don't happen on shorter flights and their commuter airline. If I were a marketer for them, I'd change that in a heartbeat - it's part of the "because" that makes them who they are.
(Hint, hint, Midwest! Spend the extra $15 on every flight, even the commuter ones, and make the cookies your trademark.)

Of course, this is all combined with excellent service, smaller passenger loads (so the plane loads and unloads faster), etc.

They fly to an ever-increasing number of cities. I recommend that you check them out at http://midwestairlines.com

More legroom, coach prices, and cookies - they're my default favorite airline. I always check whenever I fly and am willing to pay up to $20 extra to fly on Midwest Airlines.

They've positioned themselves positively in my mind!

2. Southwest Airlines.
Unlike Midwest Airlines, almost Southwest is well known. Southwest was born as a different kind of airline (wow, I like them already!) It began with one simple notion: If you get your passengers to their destinations when they want to get there, on time, at the lowest possible fares, and make darn sure they have a good time doing it, people will fly your airline. And you know what? They were right.

I like Southwest because it's cheap (I fly on my own dime), but more importantly, because they're fun. Each time I have flown Southwest, their flight attendants have performed some crazy antics that have made it an unusual and memorable flight. But best of all, these people actually generally look like they're enjoying their job, something that you rarely find outside of the first class cabin on other airlines.

That's cool!

They've also positioned themselves positively in my mind! I try to fly them whenever possible (hey, Southwest, how about entering the Milwaukee market?)

Another great driver for inclusion in the front folder in the airline business is mileage plans. People tend to fly the airline where they've accumulated 1,000,000 miles just to keep building those miles.

Then in people's minds, behind the first positively positioned folder, there's a red folder that contains the brands that are negatively positioned in their mind; the ones they won't use for whatever reason. In the case of airlines, it may contain one that left you stranded for no good reason, one that gave you incredibly poor service, or one that has had significant safety problems lately, so you won't fly them. These brands won't get your business unless there's a really compelling reason not to (only flight out, substantially lower price, etc.)

Behind these two folders, there's a messy batch of unorganized papers just shoved into the drawer. These are the brands that are unpositioned in your mind. Usually they're the commodities, the ones that aren't differentiated in your mind.

Here's how the file drawer works. You need to travel somewhere via air.

As you start checking for flights, you turn first to the airlines in your positively positioned folder. In fact, you may be willing to actually pay more to fly on those airlines (Midwest Airlines for me). You also check to make sure that you're not booking on any of the airlines in your red, negatively positioned folder.

If nothing is available from your positively positioned folder, then brand stops mattering. You're willing to take whichever airline is cheapest, because all of the other airlines are back in that jumbled mass of papers in the back of the file drawer.

Our job as marketers is to get ourselves into the front, positively posistioned folder, for each person in our target market.

Certainly, we must avoid the red folder, and it's the kiss of death to be in the unpositioned stack at the back of the drawer.

Please note that it takes much more than just name recognition to make it into that front folder. You've got to be differentiated in a way that makes them not only remember your name but feel positively about you to live in that folder!

Remember also that people are oftentimes willing to pay a premium to do business with their positively positioned companies. In other words, this is a way to get out of the price competition - position yourself positively with your potential and current customers!

Positioning is influenced by many things, especially marketing, sales, public relations and customer service. All have to be positive, and all have to be focused on the one differentiating element that clearly communicates why customers should purchase from you rather than your competitors.

Public relations can play a major role in this if you use it correctly. Unlike marketing and sales which have an innate perception of conflict of interest, public relations brings the perception of outside approval or validation. Customers tend to believe that your stuff must be good, otherwise it wouldn't have been portrayed positively in the media.

Keep this in mind as you do your public relations work. Part of your mission is to convey the key messaging for your company in every publicity action you perform. Every story must reference, or better yet, be focused around your key message - what makes you different that your competitors.

That's the stuff that positive positioning is built on!

Need help coming up with your company's messaging and how to communicate it with the media? We've discussed this in depth in our newly revised training manual Creating Powerful Press Releases.

Tags: Positioning