PR?s Secret Role in Positioning

This article will define positioning for the business owners and how to use PR to boost their market position.

Positioning has come to mean the process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its product, brand, or organization. It is the ‘relative competitive comparison’ their product occupies in a given market as perceived by the target market. It is about what is already in the mind of the target market. You must be in touch with reality, the reality of what is already in the prospects mind. It is very difficult to create something that does not already exist in their minds. Your goal is not to create something new and different. Your goal is to redirect what is already in their minds and retie those connections. Because people are constantly screening advertising information, we have to use positioning to get to our target market. By making our message super-simple we can overcome these filters.

As the business owner you to select the information that has the best chance of getting through to your target market. In advertising and business perception is reality. Getting your super-simple message through may seem like good luck. It is merely the result of great communication to the right audience. One of the easiest ways to get into someone?s mind is to be first. You also have to combine that with NOT giving the customer a reason to switch. Letting your target market know what you are doing is a great way to be first in their minds. School children are taught that Christopher Columbus found America. However, America is named after Amerigo Vespucci. Why? Because Vespucci spent a lot of time writing about the new world, his discoveries and theories. When he wrote Mundus Novus, it was translated in over 35 languages. Europeans credit Vespucci for discovering America and named it after him. Vespucci understood publicity and PR of his day. Columbus did not communicate a lot about what he found or did not find. No one really knew or understood what he was looking for. Vespucci came to America 5 years after Columbus and communicated, thus making himself first in the minds or Europeans.

Avis is a great example of a similar type story of using the combination of a super-simple message and PR. Avis is a great example of a similar type story of using the combination of a super-simple message and PR. Hertz is number one and Avis number 2. They had a slogan that went like this: ?we Try Harder?. Many people think they came up because they try harder. It was successful because it found a way to connect itself to Hertz. This is called an ?Against position?.