The dynamic development of the e-commerce market is also followed by ever-increasing competition. As a result, it is impossible to achieve success without appropriate marketing activities. In order to gain loyal customers, you need to stand out from other companies and take care of the positioning of your brand and products.
Positioning is a marketing slang term, generally associated with efforts to improve a brand's position in Google search results and is related to Digital Marketing. Positioning Branding, however, is a much broader concept. In the layer of traditional marketing, this term refers to the position a brand occupies in the mind of the customer. In other words - how customers perceive the brand compared to the competition and what they think the brand stands out for. 
Brand positioning is thus a marketing process aimed at establishing the position of a brand or product in relation to competitors and to customer expectations. The aim of this process is to achieve a situation in which the brand is unambiguously associated by customers with a particular niche in the market - ideally it should be the first association in a given context. At the same time, positioning concerns both the practical aspects of the brand - price, target group, quality class - and less tangible issues - friendly brand, ecological brand, brand with traditions.
What is positioning?
Positioning begins with market segmentation, i.e. the identification of market niches, or in simple terms, the groups into which potential and existing customers can be divided, called segments. A segment can be a specific demographic group - women, older people, educated people, better or worse off, etc. - but it can also refer to the specific needs of the customer - the customer's needs. - A segment can be a specific demographic group - women, older people, educated people, better or worse off, etc. - but it can also refer to specific customer needs - a segment can be, for example, people looking for a new provider of a particular service, expecting a certain prestige or social goals (fair trade, ecology, etc.).
The next stage of positioning is to define the targets (targeting), i.e. the market segment or segments to which the company wants to give special attention. So, for example, a telecoms brand might target young people who are looking for a new service provider and are prepared to give up personal service for lower prices. Or a car manufacturer may target middle-aged people with an improving financial situation who want to upgrade to a more prestigious yet safe car. These segments become the company's target market.
The final stage is positioning itself, i.e. all activities aimed at consolidating in the minds of (potential) customers the image of the brand as meeting the needs of specific segments. This is done both through real actions - such as adjusting the price, quality and parameters of the product to the selected segments - and through adequate communication - the presentation of those brand attributes to be displayed, in a form that will reach the selected customer groups. 
Positioning - what is particularly important?
One of the key elements of positioning marketing activities is the formulation of a so-called positioning statement, i.e. a clear statement of what the key market segments are for the company and what brand characteristics are to be emphasised in marketing communications, so:
- what are the characteristics of a typical buyer of a brand's product or service
- in which market sector the brand operates
- what benefits the brand offers customers
- which brand attributes should be the focus of marketing communication
- which of these characteristics is the most important
- which attributes associated with the brand are better kept quiet or even suppressed
The latter may relate to brand perceptions stemming from the brand's history (if the company is changing profile or entering a new market sector), but also (and perhaps most importantly) industry specifics or external circumstances. For example, many Chinese companies struggle with the perception of a cheap but poor quality product, and the e-commerce industry with the stereotype of the risks associated with online shopping.
It is worth noting that a company can target many different market segments, but it is important to develop a consistent brand image. This, among other things, is what the positioning statement is for - it shows in black and white whether the segments can be combined into such a unified image. If this is problematic, it is better to divide the company's offer into several product lines aimed at different segments, or even into several brands (e.g. clothing companies having several clothing brands with separate shops, or food manufacturers offering many beverage brands). This allows one company to occupy multiple market sectors and, in some cases, give customers a sense of false choice (so that a customer choosing between, for example, peach and berry cola would not even consider the option of drinking water).
Positioning methods
There is a wide range of ways to position your brand, company or product. Among the most commonly used are:
- through the weaknesses of the competition - is based on highlighting the strengths of one's own company/product by contrasting them with the weaknesses of a competitor in the same industry (including characteristics attributable to the industry as a whole)
- through attributes - is to evoke unique characteristics of the products, preferably ones that are not available on the market,
- through origin - is based on arousing positive correlations in the customer, related to the origin of the product, which can be linked to existing customer beliefs (e.g. Italian pasta) or be an appeal to the customer's emotions (e.g. "good because Polish" or a regional product),
- through price - This is, of course, to suggest that a particular product is the cheapest, but not necessarily the cheapest on the market, but also that it offers the best price in a given category (well, generally in terms of quality, but also in terms of specificity) of products,
- by product category - it is the effort to develop in customers a specific association with the position of the offered product in a given category, be it through the definition of the category itself (high-speed Internet, elegant furniture, sports clothes) or the definition of the position in relation to other products in the category (the safest city car, the cheapest phone with a given technology, the only ecological product in the category, etc.),
- through a group of customers - This form of positioning is based on dedicating products to a specific group of buyers defined, for example, by gender (soap specifically for women), age (e.g. energy drink for teenagers, razor for mature men), etc.
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