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Positioning Research

In order to know how customers and prospects perceive your company and your competitors, research may be required.

There tends to be a reluctance to perform any more than a cursory discussion with members of the sales force regarding customer opinions of the company and of the competition. After all, sales people are on the front line, listening to buyers compare and disparage their suppliers daily.

But it is good to remember that sales people may have a one-sided perspective - they may perceive and communicate only the poor image the company has with those they cannot sell, and attribute that image to factors other than their own efforts. And for the “A” customers, sales people will tend to convey their own efforts as the reason there is a positive relationship with them. They are biased.

A more impartial and objective survey of the market needs to be performed - as seen by customers and prospects themselves, not as management and sales people informally interpret their impressions.

Establishing research scope: The first step in positioning research is to determine the market/market segment, and the product category you will be studying.

Different markets may have different perceptions of the same product category. For instance, a study of physicians about a prescription drug category may have a completely different outcome than a study of allergy sufferers. They will likely have different attribute ratings and perceptions  based on different priorities and experiences. So first, define any markets, influencer groups and segments that need be studied. In the example above, there will actually be two different studies performed, and results of the two wont be consolidated until the final report is written.

Defining the product category is important as well. There are times when there are no “direct competitors” for, lets say, a new type of PDA. Yet, the research needs to encompass the PDA models of competitors that the new type is targeting to replace, and perhaps the other technology options to PDAs

Identifying meaningful attributes and parameters: Once the scope has been established, product attributes common to all identified competitors need be identified. These attributes may be product features, customer service, price points, and other parameters associated with customer perceptions of product (or service) performance and acceptance.

Once a preliminary list has been built, it should be reviewed by several customers from each market segment to be sure no important ones were left out. Now the first research stage can be performed.

Weighting attributes and parameters: One or more questionnaires now need to be developed and used to determine the relative importance of each attribute in the study.

The questionnaire design is usually a scaled response (semantic differential) to the importance or insignificance of each attribute. A number of  customers/prospects of each market segment are surveyed. We may use telephone interviews, Internet sites, mailed questionnaires or even mall intercepts for general consumers. If the number of attributes and the number of competitors studied are small enough, it is possible to combine the attribute weighting questions into the front of the assessment questionnaire (described next).

Assessing opinions about attributes: A questionnaire is developed to determine how people perceive company and competitor performance for each of the attributes studied. Semantic differentials provide a means for respondents to rate each supplier.

Once completed and data tabulated, analysis begins. The weights elicited from the initial customer questionnaire are applied. A statistical and empirical process “maps” customer perceptions of each competitor against each parameter, and then produces composite profiles of each competitor and “clusters” the competitors by parameter pairings.

The result is the discovery of each supplier’s position within the market, the identification of supplier strengths and weaknesses as perceived by customers and prospects, the determination of attractive and strong positions no one has yet pre-empted, and a guide to future marketing strategies and messages to strengthen or change an existing position.

Click here for a simple  example of  positioning research.

Click here for methodology discussion.