Positioning and Targeting your market

Positioning and targeting market are two of the most important factor in our marketing strategy. The basic of that understanding are the stronger your positioning the stronger your marketing strategy. Both of positioning and target market decision are based on our understanding to customer, to company's capablity, as well as to competitor's capability.

Positioning consist of one, two or three benefits offered by our products to solve the customer problems. The benefits should be better or even can not be compared to your competitors. Positioning should consist of some benefits only, some extraordinary things which you can offer to customers. Mention only the most important benefits. Try to select among these benefits and not to mention too many as the customer will hardly remember it. With the selection you will easily to put you positioning to serve your target market. Put the 3 most important benefits and set them as your positioning. For example : the engineering company will select the benefits they are able to offer to client. The ability to offer to client the financial back up, also the most economic product compared to competitor with the same quality. In order to achieve that, the company has to limit the capacity of the plant should be equal or more than 500 m3/day. So that their positioning has been set based on that capacity.

An effective Unique Selling Point (USP) communicates your firm's unique ability to fill an obvious void in the marketplace. The USP shows your target market how your firm is uniquely qualified to solve their pain or increase their gain. A USP can be your firm's single most powerful marketing weapon.To craft a USP for your firm first make a list of all the benefits of doing business with your firm. Don't leave anything out.Then cut the list down with these guidelines.

1. What things on your list are unique versus your direct competitors.

2. Which of these benefits is most important to your clients?

3. Which of these would be difficult for other's in your industry to copy?

4. Which of these can be easily communicated?

From this set of guidelines you should be able to narrow your search to the top one or two benefits of doing business with your firm.From there it is simply a matter of injecting this chief benefit or USP into everything that you do.Craft headlines that promote your USP, put a USP statement on your stationary and business cards, build your USP into all of your sales presentations.The ultimate goal is to become known to the market as whatever your USP promotes.One final word of warning. You must deliver on the big promise communicated in your USP. Failure to do so may actually do more harm then drifting along without any marketing focus.

Word of Mouth Marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing, which encompasses a variety of subcategories, including buzz, blog, viral, grassroots, cause influencers and social media marketing, as well as ambassador programs, work with consumer-generated media and more, can be highly valued by product marketers. Because of the personal nature of the communications between individuals, it is believed that product information communicated in this way has an added layer of credibility. Research points to individuals being more inclined to believe WOMM than more formal forms of promotion methods; the receiver of word-of-mouth referrals tends to believe that the communicator is speaking honestly and is unlikely to have an ulterior motive (i.e. they are not receiving an incentive for their referrals).
To promote and manage word-of-mouth communications, marketers use publicity techniques as well as viral marketing methods to achieve desired behavioral response. Influencer marketing is increasingly used to seed WOMM by targeting key individuals that have authority and a high number of personal connections.
Marketers place significant value on positive word-of-mouth, which has historically been achieved by creating products or services that generate such "buzz" naturally. The relatively new practice of word of mouth marketing attempts to inject positive "buzz" into conversations directly. While marketers have always hoped to achieve positive word-of-mouth, deliberate efforts to generate beneficial consumer conversations must be transparent and honestly conducted in order to meet the requirements of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act that prohibits "unfair or deceptive acts or practices." To help marketers understand the difference between legitimate and unfair practices, a number of professional organizations have put forward recommendations for ethical conduct.
Word-of-mouth effects in the life cycle of cultural goods has been mathematically modelled. For evidence as to the conditions under which word-of-mouth communication is effective, see Grewal et al. 2003.
With the emergence of Web 2.0, many web start-ups like Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, and Digg have used buzz marketing by merging it with the social networks that they have developed. With the increasing use of the Internet as a research and communications platform, word of mouth has become an even more powerful and useful resource for consumers and marketers.
In October 2005, the advertising watchdog group Commercial Alert petitioned the United States FTC to issue guidelines requiring paid word-of-mouth marketers to disclose their relationship and related compensation with the company whose product they are marketing. The United States FTC stated that it would investigate in which the relationship between the word-of-mouth marketer of a product and the seller is not revealed and could influence the endorsement, and said that it would pursue violators on a case-by-case basis. Consequences for violators may include cease-and-desist orders, fines, or civil penalties.

Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA)
WOMMA is the official trade association for word of mouth marketing. The organization has more than 380 corporate members who have created a word of mouth profession based on best practices and measurable ROI. WOMMA offers its members the latest knowledge, research, and training through webinars.

Society for Word of Mouth (SWOM)
SWOM is a social network and educational resource for people who want to build word of mouth into the DNA of their organizations. Over 1,800 members from around the world share word of mouth ideas and challenges with each other. SWOM provides education through online and offline events.