Positioning is one of my favorite topics. Positioning is KEY to differentiating your brand from your competitors. The most dangerous competitors are those that are most like you. And the best way to separate yourself from your competition is to own a distinct market “position.” In talking about positioning, marketers and agency folks define it in different ways. It’s the story you want to imprint in people’s minds about your store and why it’s better, the solution your store is offering to address buyers’ problems, the bundle of attributes and benefits you want to tell people about, or simply your unique selling proposition—the reason consumers should shop your store rather than someone else’s. It’s highly advantageous for a company to stand for something important, to be remembered for something significant. To have a powerful positioning is clearly a good thing. A positioning tells a customer what a brand stands for, what the brand believes in, and what the brand can deliver. It gives the buyer a reason for trying the brand once, and coming back to shop there over and over again. An effective positing offers a company the opportunity to both defend and attack. It helps a company retain [...]

For two decades, there have been “New Resident” programs available to supermarkets. For the most part, the programs included: Mining a list of residents “new” to an assigned marketing area. Mailing (direct mail/US Mail) a letter or packet from the supermarket, welcoming the new resident with a preformatted “welcome” letter from the store manager/owner along with some special offers to encourage repeat visits. In some cases, tracking the response rates of redeemed offers to determine who isn’t responding to the initial offer. In the case of a new resident not responding, determining if an alternate offer should be mailed. Fast forward to 2010. Many of these programs have evolved, and some of the best programs are worth implementing as a way to increase your customer counts and sales per transaction levels in 2011. If you google “new resident marketing program,” you’ll be overwhelmed with over 460,000 offerings. Many of the programs are pretty much identical. So what should you be looking for in a great “new resident” marketing program? Here are seven suggestions to consider in your new program: First, a warning about some of the new resident lists that some companies offer: be aware of the sources from which [...]

Right about now, you may be thinking, “Our stores are strategically positioned; what can this guy tell us that we don’t already know?” But it’s all in how you define strategic positioning.

Strategic positioning means different things to different people. We define strategic positioning as the creation of a unique and valuable position, supported by a system of activities distinct from those of your competitors. The key words here are “unique,” “activities,” and “distinct.”

“Success means never letting the competition define you. Instead you have to define yourself based on a point of view you care deeply about.”
—Tom Chappell, Tom’s Of Maine