When I first started an online business I struggled to define what exactly I offered my customers. My focus was on cashflow – getting dollars coming in – and I really didn’t think too much about presenting a clear positioning statement to the marketplace.
A positioning statement is a single sentence or paragraph that explains exactly what your organization’s purpose for existence is AND very clearly outlines the benefits it provides to customers.
Positioning though is a lot more than a good statement. It should be part of every aspect of your business. Everytime your business comes into contact with the outside world the position it takes in the marketplace and the unique specialization on offer must be clear. Internally staff need to understand what your business is about so their motivation is aligned with your company’s core purpose. Externally all who come in contact with you should instantly understand what it is you do. A scrambled message or weak purpose will have a negative impact on sales and reduce business efficiency.
My Position
When I started my first “real” online business, BetterEdit.com, I was fairly green but I did at least know one thing – I didn’t want to be the guy actually doing the work. I was inspired by an American young entrepreneur who had started an essay proofreading business while he was studying at university. I decided to do the same for Australia, or at least my home town of Brisbane to start with. I knew I could use contractors to complete the proofreading and I would go to work running the business.
My ability to market my service was crucial during the early stages. I tried various marketing methods and while I received some generally encouraging results it was far from anything I could ever consider living off one day, which was my long term goal – to be self sufficient. In an attempt to increase my cashflow I decided to branch out and offer more services. I added transcribing and language translation to go with the proofreading and editing.
I sourced contractors from online directories and freelancing sites using an “on demand” method. Whenever a job came in I would circulate the details and request quotes from contractors. The system wasn’t always very quick and it meant I had to do a lot of emailing each time a job came through. The profit margins weren’t great but definitely good enough to make it worthwhile, work wasn’t very consistent however because I closed a very small percentage of the queries I received.
In that first year if you looked at my website and attempted to determine my business position you would probably have thought something along the lines of “secretarial services agency”. I acted as a middle-man to get quotes from freelancers to complete transcribing, proofreading and language translation. Basically BetterEdit was just like every other secretarial service out there so my only way to compete was based on price, which is the worst way to compete in my opinion.
The one advantage I did have was I knew the web and my search engine optimization skills meant that my website was slowly gaining prominence in the search engines resulting in some overseas customers taking advantage of the Australian dollar prices I offered.
Refining My Position
Over the next four years a few things happened. I learnt about the importance of positioning my business as a specialist (niche marketing) and I grew tired of chasing up contractors for slim margins. The result was a transformation of how I positioned BetterEdit. It went from a general secretarial service to a specialist student editing service positioned in the marketplace as the editing service that “Gets you Better Grades”. My niche became laser focused and the benefit clearly presented.
The result of my positioning evolution has meant that I can charge a premium price for a premium service. I don’t have to compete on price anymore. The business focuses 100% on doing one thing, student editing, and as such as I have built a team of specialist editors around that focus. The service is easier to sell because there are less things to market. Our client fit is a lot better which means that my staff can better meet the needs of an ideal client.
Branding Myself As Royalty
This year I’ve launched a new business to teach people how to build traffic to blogs. While brainstorming domain name ideas I came up with the concept of calling myself the “Blog Traffic King”. I thought it was a bit cheesy at the time but registered the domain BlogTrafficKing.com anyway.
The more I thought about it the more I realized how good the persona Blog Traffic King could be. I went to work and created an image of myself with a clip-art oversized crown to use as my public image for this business (you can see me as the King at BlogTrafficKing.com). While it’s certainly cheesy, branding myself as the blog traffic king clearly demonstrates what it is I specialize in (blog traffic) and using the statement “How to grow your blog from 0 to 1000 daily readers” presents the benefit I provide (focuses the niche on a specific outcome for my customers).
My entire campaign is circulated with this image and positioning statement. The outcome will hopefully see me become synonymous with building blog traffic.
What Is Your Position?
Right now can you clearly present your business positioning statement in one or two sentences? Do you offer a clear benefit to a very specific niche or consumer base? It’s vital that what you present to the outside world clearly separates you from everyone else out there doing the same thing. The perception is more important than the reality.
Yaro Starak
Blog Royalty
Yaro, I appreciate your position on marketing positions! Mainly because in my work helping people package themselves to attract media on the web … I find the position is what makes or breaks ’em every time. Specifically the USP — that little phrase that actually describes your market position. As in ‘Blog Traffic King. He who helps you drive twice as much traffic with one third the effort’ (or something like that.) Often people use these ‘slogans’ as a catchy phrase that should be memorable. But memorable is not as important as differentiation. That’s what market position is all about, eh?
Suzanne Falter-Barns, http://www.getknownowblog.com
Great post – I referenced it on my blog where I also outlined what I think are some an oft-ignored pre-requisite for optimal positioning.
Great postYaro about one of my favourite marketing topics.
Any books by Al Ries and Jack Trout on this subject are also worth their weight in gold – particularly “Positioning”, “Focus” and “Differentiate or Die”.