What question does positioning help answer for the consumer about the product?

Once your positioning is defined, create a brief product positioning statement that describes your target audience, what sets your product apart, and why customers should care about it. Here is an example of a positioning statement template:

For [group of users] that [need/want], [company/product] is a [category/solution] that uniquely solves this by [benefit].

It would be helpful to use an example company to talk through this. Let’s use Fredwin Cycling, a fictitious company that builds a cycling app. The target market is predominantly cycling enthusiasts who are interested in improving their fitness. Your customer and market research reveals that users are concerned about their health but are struggling to stick with an exercise program. Users want to stay motivated by connecting with like-minded friends. The product addresses this need by providing a social cycling community that promotes friendly competition and tracks workout performance.

Here is an example of a product positioning statement for Fredwin Cycling:

For cyclists who want to connect with other athletes, Fredwin Cycling is the leading social fitness application that uniquely brings the cycling community together by promoting healthy competition.

What influences how a product is perceived?

Your product positioning shapes how you want your product to be known in the market. But there are many different factors that can affect how your product is perceived. The major influence is what customers experience when they actually use your product and interact with your company. It is the summation of the Complete Product Experience (CPE) that determines what customers think and feel about your product.

There are seven core areas that contribute to the CPE:

Marketing

How potential customers learn about your product and decide if it might be a fit

Sales

How prospects get the information they need to make a purchasing decision

Technology

The core set of features that customers pay for

Supporting systems

The internal systems that make it possible to deliver the product

Third-party integrations

The ecosystem of products the customer uses

Support

How customers receive product training and assistance

Policies

The rules that govern how your company does business

Remember, every touchpoint with your company either reinforces or undermines your positioning. So while you should consciously plan how to position your product, you should think broadly about every aspect of the adoption process. Because your customers will decide what they really think about your product.

What are some types of product positioning strategies?

Customer perceptions of your product can be altered — positively or negatively — by any aspect of your CPE. Clearly defined product positioning will help you maintain a cohesive message about your product's unique value at each touchpoint. But while your product's value should be unique, your positioning strategy does not have to be completely original.

There are several standard types of product positioning strategies that companies use to differentiate their products. Here are some common types of product positioning:

Price

Position your product as the more affordable option on the market

Quality

Convey that your product is high quality or luxury. This can be an effective positioning strategy against product rivals that are competing on price.

User

Target a specific user group, demographic, or application that is relevant to your product.

Product type

Shift customer perceptions and reach new market segmentations by selecting an alternate category for your product.

Competitor

Demonstrate directly or indirectly that your product is better than a competitor's product.

Differentiation

Show that your product is a completely unique offering in the market that can not be easily duplicated.

The positioning strategy that is best suited for your product depends on your customers' needs, the results of your market research, and the goals you have as a business or product leader. But regardless of the strategy you choose, well-defined product positioning will show that you have honed in on what makes your product uniquely valuable — and that you know how to communicate this value to your customers.

You can set product strategy, gather customer feedback, and report on roadmap progress — all in one place. Try Aha! Roadmaps free for 30 days.

Once you understand your audience, you want to position your product as a better solution than your competitors. But you can't do that unless you know the competitor's product and how they're positioning it.

Conduct market research to analyze your competitors' new and old products to understand how they're helping customers, which features they have, and what benefits they offer. 

Identify whether you have any distinct features that can set you apart. If not, iterate on your product and focus on being more customer-centric than your competitors, so you have something that sets you apart in the market.

3. Identify your unique selling proposition

Once you understand what gaps you can fill in the market to meet customer needs, it’s time to identify your unique selling proposition (USP). 

Your USP is the one thing that sets you apart from your competitors and acts as a big draw for your product. Find a unique product angle, a unique feature, or any purpose, use, application, or factor that sets you apart from your competitors. 

For example, Gilette and Dollar Shave Club are both popular grooming companies. But Gilette entered the market with their razors first and became a recognized brand. Soon, Dollar Shave Club came up with a similar product but positioned it as affordable by using pricing as their USP. 

More than conveying your product positioning to your users, you need to ensure your team members are crystal clear about it. 

Everyone from employees to stakeholders needs to understand the product positioning you want to achieve, how it will look, how the product messaging will change, and what it means for their day-to-day product-related activities.

Here are a few tips for doing this:

Create a product positioning document

Your product positioning statement is just one aspect of how you want to place yourself in front of your customers; other values, benefits, and features define what your product stands for. 

A product positioning document helps communicate how your organization should look at your product, and how exactly they should convey it to your customers to create a solid product image in their minds. 

The document defines everything around messaging, including what words should be used to talk about your product and to communicate the value of its various features with customers. 

The more detailed this document is, the better your existing and new colleagues and team members will understand how your product should be represented to ensure consistency in messaging and perception.

Image source: https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/what-is-product-positioning

Establish a cross-functional collaboration workflow

Product positioning is not a one-person job. 

The product management team understands the customer, ideates the product, and recognizes what customers love about it. But they work with the entire company to develop the desired product positioning, then the marketing and communication teams relay this positioning to the customers. 

Working towards a shared goal and vision requires a cross-functional collaboration workflow, which will ultimately help you nail product positioning and provide customer delight. 

5. Establish and implement a positioning strategy

With your organization onboard with your positioning vision, you need an air-tight positioning strategy to take you from how your customers currently feel about your product to how you want them to feel about it.

For this, you need to create and put an effective product positioning strategy into action. Here's what you should do:

Define your product positioning statement

This short description says what your product is, who it’s for, and why exactly customers should care about it. Here, you can use the research done in the first three steps of the framework to develop a statement for your product. Use this formula: 

(Product name) is a (product category) that helps (target customers) achieve (differentiating benefit your product offers) to avoid or solve (users' needs).

Example: Slack is the collaboration hub that brings the right people, information, and tools together to get work done.

Prepare a marketing strategy to communicate your revised product positioning

You need to communicate your product positioning to your audience and potential customers through every channel—ads, social media, emails, customer interaction, calls, etc. This can be as subtle as a plug for your product in your blog posts to tell users how your product helps solve a problem, or as explicit as a sticky promotional banner across the entire site.

Remember to tailor and align your messaging and communication with your product positioning to see positive results. 

Your product will evolve as you grow, and customer behavior and buying trends will change with time. So, can you sustain your business on product positioning you decided based on past customer needs and last year’s market research? Probably not.

Iterate on your product positioning to ensure it stays relevant and differentiates your product in the market.

Regularly ask yourself these questions to ensure you're leading with the right product positioning:

• Is your current product positioning statement still relevant for your customers and market?

• Have you introduced any new product features or new products altogether which offer a new benefit to your customers?

• Are there any new products in the market similar to yours? Are they doing something differently?

• Have the market demand or customer needs changed?

• Is there a better way to communicate your product positioning?

• Are you getting good results with your current strategy? Compare your past and present metrics like sales, customer retention, conversion rate, referrals, social media engagement, and signups to get data-driven insights.

The answers to the above questions will tell you if you need to revisit your product positioning strategy and make it more relevant for customers. 

The idea is to tell the customers what they need to know about your product so they'll believe in it and purchase it.

4 ways Hotjar can help with product positioning

Product positioning is a crucial factor for product success, and achieving it means getting closer to product-market fit—and getting more sales. However, gathering customer data for analysis and ensuring your product messaging is consistent—and that every step you take validates your positioning statement—can be tiresome.

This is where tools like Hotjar can help make the process more efficient, accurate, and seamless. Here's how:

1. Use Surveys to get feedback on your positioning statement

You've taken all the steps to establish your product positioning statement, and your entire company is on board with it. But are your customers? 

Use Hotjar Surveys to gather feedback on your product positioning statement, and understand if your customers relate to it by reading their point of view and suggestions. You can include open-ended and closed-ended questions or rating polls to know what they think about your product positioning. Ask questions like:

• How do you rate our positioning statement on the homepage on a scale of 1–10?

• Do you think our positioning statement aligns with how we’re presenting our products?

• What do you think makes our product different from others in the market?

You can then use this feedback to position your product more precisely and make it more relatable and effective for your future customers.

An example of Hotjar’s on-site Survey

2. Use Heatmaps and Session Recordings to identify customer pain points

Product positioning places your product in the right place, in front of the right users, with the information they need to convert into customers. But if they convert and aren't satisfied when they use your product, they will leave.

This is why product iteration and improvements are necessary to ensure you're addressing your customers' needs and are truly building the product they were promised through your positioning.

Heatmaps are visual representations of how users—in aggregate—view elements on your website pages. They show you which features might work (or not work) for your customers and can help you plan your product positioning based on how users move on the page.

An example of Hotjar’s Heatmaps

Session Recordings show you how customers interact with your product by showing you a replay of where they click, how they navigate, what they scroll past, and any blockers or pain points they encounter. Watching recordings helps you understand the product experience from the customer's point of view. 

An example of a Hotjar Session Recording

Analyzing heatmaps and recordings will help you identify what customers are struggling with in your product, and will highlight opportunities for improvement. You can also determine which product elements are most useful to your customers so you can prioritize and focus on them while positioning your product.

How about letting the Voice of the Customer (VOC) guide you through the product and tell you which elements they like and don’t?

Hotjar's Incoming Feedback widget places a suggestion box on your product pages to get feedback from your customers in context as they use your site. It doesn’t disturb their product experience and brings valuable insights to understand your customers better.

These insights come directly from customers while your product is freshest in their mind—as they’re experiencing it—and can help you make data-driven, customer-led product decisions to strengthen your positioning and create a distinct place for your products in the minds of customers.

Hotjar's Incoming Feedback widget

Use the Hotjar-Slack integration to communicate and improve positioning internally

Product positioning is an integral part of how your product is perceived by the market and determines what your customers think about it. Buy-in from stakeholders is necessary at every step to ensure you're on the same page and able to handle any concerns or misalignments.

Use the Hotjar and Slack integration to communicate with your stakeholders and collaborate on customer feedback as soon as you receive it. 

This will help you get instant approval or give you the time to manage opposition in the best way to deal with the customer feedback in alignment with your product positioning. 

In the end, this integration will help you communicate with customers more consistently and better position your products in the market.

An example of Hotjar-Slack integration for Surveys

Final thoughts

Nailing your product positioning and communicating what makes you different from other similar products is challenging—but not impossible.

A good way to nail your product positioning is by thinking about your customer more than your product or brand. This will help you position your product based on what your customers love and make customer-led decisions to improve your product.

Through good product positioning, you can create awareness about your brand with the values you stand for, and the product features, benefits, use case, or personalities you want to be known for. This will eventually help you manage customer perceptions and create a stellar product image in the customers’ minds. 

But remember, positioning your product is never 100% complete. You need to constantly iterate on your product and evaluate your positioning to ensure it's relevant with changing times.

What is product positioning answer?

What are the three questions answered by a positioning statement?

What are the strategic questions for product positioning?

How can you determine the positioning of a product?