Learn How To Make Money Online

If you are in the midst of creating an online business, the last thing that you want is to add to your “to do” list. However there is a topic that needs your attention during these early stages of business planning.

Basically a marketing position describes your unique place in your niche. The key word here is unique. What makes your enterprise different from your competitors? What benefits do you offer your target customers or clients that the other players don’t?

-Customer Service – Almost any enterprise you can think of boasts that they have good service. However, think how many you’ve encountered who don’t live up to those promises. The first step in making quality service a part of your unique position is to fulfill everything you promise. However, you still must identify for the customer what makes your serviceoffer special. Maybe you have round the clock live help available; perhaps you have next day shipment or they receive their shipping free. Find something that makes your business stand out in this way.

-Extraordinary Features and Appealing Benefits – Positioning is not just about what makes you different, it’s also about what you emphasize. Folgers announces to the world that it’s “mountain grown coffee” ( a feature). Guess what? All coffee is mountain grown. Folgers just claimed this feature before anyone else thought to mention it. What’s something that none of your competitors are talking about?

-Price Point – This doesn’t necessarily mean you have the lowest price. You may be the most expensive in town, and that’s OK if you convince your customers you’re worth it.

-Negative Features – People probably find some things at your competitors annoying. Maybe they feel that they have to wait too long to get an answer to their questions. If that’s a good angle for you, try not phrasing it as a special positive feature, but frame it as a negative that they don’t have to worry about with your business. For example, you might say, “You’ll never have to wait for an answer to your questions with us.”

-Authority – Many companies tout how long they’ve been in business. All of these things build trust in the mind of the consumer. What trust-building factors do you have that the competition does not?

-Others – Whatever you can think of that allows you to demonstrate that you are different from your competitors (in a good way, of course) is useful. That’s really all positioning is. Spend some time thinking through each phase of your business to see what you can point to in order to stand apart.

Proper and effective positioning is critical from the day that you open your website for business. Traffic to your website is a precious resource. You need to be sure that your unique position is visible and clear as soon as that first potential customer shows up. After all, you need that person to return time after time. You’ll have time later to worry about other types of your continuing online business development, but the time is now for clear positioning.

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