How to find the product positioning

How products should be positioned has always been a concern of product developers, because in the mobile internet age, so a product positioning, almost can determine the fate of this product.

So, how should we go about product positioning?

How to do product positioning? It may be said that directly to the product positioning, and then according to the characteristics of products, combined with the product target customers to product positioning.

In fact, this way of positioning seems to have no errors, but in the actual operation, it is very easy to have problems, and many times, to do the original origin of the product, not because of the target market customer demand, but because the company's top leaders decided to do a certain product, so in a decision issued by the time, On the way to positioning the product, it may be easy to mistake the direction

First of all, the product must be the leader has thought and hope you to do the product. Because the leadership has already had the very rich experience in this profession, he put forward the concept of products are often really have a certain market value, and the target customers "as if" "It seems" has been very clear, the demand has been ready, coupled with the leadership is also determined to do, so you dare not say more directly to start planning, design prototypes, and to find similar products on the market for the auction analysis, and finally the competitor's product advantages all brought over, suddenly make a powerful and in line with the boss ordered products. It seems that the process does not seem to have any problems, put forward the concept (discovery requirements), identify competitors, auction analysis, product planning, design ux/ui, improve the prototype function, development.

But in fact, from the outset, the problem arose.

The students who have studied marketing have a lot of basic positioning ideas, in the traditional marketing, the basic steps of positioning is the market analysis, and then combined with the results of the analysis STP target market positioning, through the market positioning is the product positioning, can be in reality, a part of the enterprise is often the process upside down, First the prototype of a product is presented, then the user is found, look at similar products users are those, and then product positioning, on the surface, also through use case analysis, and users have talked about demand, as if it is so, also made passable products, but such practices, strictly speaking, is very strict. Many practitioners in the IT industry are accustomed to finding target customers based on prototypes and scenarios that have been previously imagined, one of the problems with this is that the user is not particularly strong on the demand, you just provide a look good choice, so the user tells you that this is good, I will use it, but in fact, Users sometimes don't know what they want.

Can draw a conclusion, does not carry on the market analysis and the market position puts forward the demand, directly carries on the product localization, is not rigorous.

We can understand it based on one case:

Coca-Cola Everyone knows, is the Coca-Cola industry leader brand, Pepsi-Cola Everyone knows, is the second Cola brand. I ask you, if I let you blindfold to drink, you can be very accurate to distinguish which is Pepsi, which is Coca-Cola? For normal people, it is still difficult to distinguish, so in fact, we can find a problem, whether it is Coca-Cola or Pepsi, in the taste, almost no difference, We can equate it with that the two products are functionally similar.

If this time, the boss patted the head, said Coca-Cola only one, we do another out to do it, you see how, I feel good. This time you think, also Ah, the Coca-Cola formula is confidential, but we can also do a similar, should also be able to, so you follow the boss's meaning, to study a similar taste of cola, and then take some of the Coca-Cola product analysis came to do research, and even found a large number of customers, Let them feel that it's better to drink, and finally the user who took the experiment gave you a bunch of data, you based on the data found that your own coke in taste slightly better than Coca-Cola, seems to be very promising, you directly to the boss to see the report, the boss to see their own ideas were confirmed by the data, and immediately grant you to produce , you get money in the exhibition of the hands and feet, suddenly spread the channel to push the product out. Sales were bad at first, you and the boss said brand war to slow down, we first reduce the price grab market share, the boss listened to a reasonable, immediately approved, so the price drop again, and finally dropped to half of Coca-Cola, but you found, even so, sales are still miserable.

At this time, we all wonder, why is this? The function of the product is similar, half the price is unable to keep the consumer?

The above positioning mode, is a typical positioning dilemma, a lot of companies are based on the idea of the boss, to do similar with the above series of positioning, that is, I started at the beginning of the hypothetical scenario, the first idea, then the user, first design the prototype, and then add some user analysis in the product positioning, thinking that the market positioning can be ignored, Looks right, the data is many, the user contacts also many, the channel also did not have the shop, but is nobody wants, perhaps you will say, you this cola example too many hypotheses, does not have the reference, then I can tell you, this one example, is the early Pepsi.

The result of the Cola war, as we all know, Pepsi-Cola rethink the positioning, no longer to take the form of thigh to the function of positioning, but the new market research and analysis, selected a specific market, and then after the market positioning, began to the core brand packaging, so a few years later, Pepsi has overtaken Coca-Cola in sales, and has become a very successful beverage brand.

Combining the positioning method described previously, maybe everyone will find a similar place where Pepsi starts to fail and many of the same ideas now used by mobile internet companies are to put forward an idea and then find out about similar products in the market, study their users, and plan to grab a portion of the market after the launch, So a lot of zombie apps were born.

There are several reasons for this problem:

1, the first based on the idea of product positioning, and then find the user data analysis, such a method is not reliable

Direct prototyping and then product positioning may also be successful, but often such products are innovative and very strong, similar to FB. But if the market already has such an application, but also has a certain user, you follow the product function to locate, even if you sell cheap, users will not choose your products. The reason is very simple, since you all have the same function, why should I change? The problem that half of Pepsi's price reduction is still unresolved, I think the application developer can not try such a thing.

2, the function of the product positioning, always only suitable for functional and particularly obvious products

Like something unique, it is not necessary, if the other people are likely to make products (often in reality), we must first market segmentation, competitor research, and then find in addition to the function of multiple dimensions to explore, in order to market positioning, and then product positioning.

3, positioning the highest state is not based on product positioning, but based on the positioning of the mind.

It can even be said that positioning itself is based on the mind of a methodology, is now used in various industries for a variety of uses, so that the original intent is distorted, is also no way to do. The mental positioning, plainly is that consumers feel that your things are good, only value, if your things consumers think it is bad, even if you are not bad, it will not sell well, if you want to pay the consumer, it will occupy a position in its mind, like speaking of cola, we usually remember only two, delicious and Pepsi, Do you have any other cola? Absolutely, there are a few in China, but can you remember it? It must be very poor quality. Maybe it tastes better than Coca-Cola, but consumers don't think so, so the rest of the coke will not survive, it is going to fail.

If I say now, a certain shampoo than you commonly used a well-known brand good, you will not use? You definitely use your original brand, although some of it is driven by your habits, but the fundamental reason is that in your mind, you already feel that the shampoo you use is the right one for you, and you don't feel the need to change it. I recommend the shampoo is really good, you do not even know the desire to have no, this is the power of the mind.

Positioning this topic is broad and profound, will never be conclusive, a moment of thinking about the industry, then chest, without it.