Positioning Research: Mapping the Competition in 5 Steps

Positioning research, and especially a competitor analysis, is essential for good positioning. When was the last time you really analyzed the competition? Many companies are stuck in their view of the market and competitors, leading to poor decisions. Positioning in particular suffers from this; the company is no longer distinguishable from competitors, resulting in poorer outcomes. How do you put a stop to this and determine where there is room for differentiation? By researching and analyzing the positioning of the competition. In this article, we discuss the 5 steps to map out the competition.

Once the decision is made to overhaul the positioning, we almost always need to go back to the beginning. For some clients, this sometimes feels like a repetition. Many aspects of thorough positioning research have already been briefly discussed in the conversations leading up to the positioning project, so why is research still necessary? The answer is simple: market and organizational blindness. People who have been active in a company and market for years often unknowingly wear blinders and no longer see important changes, trends, or opportunities. A fresh perspective works wonders and provides you with fascinating insights into the changing market. Good research gives us the ammunition to spar firmly with clients about the direction and opportunities in the market.

Positioning research: what should you investigate

But what do we investigate? That varies per company and market. Many industrial companies have a small (potential) customer group where target group research, for example, provides little additional insight. This is a completely different situation than a bleeding-edge ICT company where the market may change every year. What we investigate therefore differs per company and market, but there is one aspect we always investigate: the competition.

Your position relative to the competition is ultimately what positioning is about, and we often spend most of our time on this. What do we investigate to map out the positioning of your competition? We discuss that below.

Positioning research: mapping out competitor positioning

The goal of the competitor research in this case is simple; to determine based on which factors, characteristics, or concepts the competition distinguishes itself or wants to distinguish itself in the market. By determining the ‘mix’ for each relevant competitor, we can later place them in a clear framework opposite ourselves. Additionally, this is often a refreshing starting point to look at your own organization.

Researching the competition within positioning research can lead to interesting and sometimes confronting questions. For example: “That’s interesting! Three competitors focus heavily on delivery and response times, why do they do that? How do we actually perform in that area?”

A common pitfall in practice is looking at the competition from the wrong perspective; you look at your competitors differently than your target audience does. For example, you know that competitor does not deliver the ‘highest possible quality’ or is not ‘customer-oriented,’ but does the target audience know that? The target audience makes a choice based on the information they have, and you need to map out what that information is.

1. Analyze the competitor’s slogan and/or proposition

What is the core of the positioning of the specific competitor? What positioning, proposition, pitch, or slogan drives all marketing and communication of the organization? Translate this into your own words and, if possible, into more general characteristics. For example, Coolblue’s ‘alles voor een glimlach’ = customer satisfaction or Philips’ ‘innovation and work’ = innovation.

Examples:

• Coolblue ‘alles voor een glimlach’ = customer satisfaction/service
• Philips ‘innovation and work’ = innovation
• Miele ‘Er is geen betere’ = quality
• Mercedes ‘Das Beste oder nichts’ = quality

In practice, competitors often have no focus in their slogan or proposition and try to use as many of these terms side by side as possible. Therefore, it is often quite a task to determine which aspect a competitor focuses on.

2. Analyze the competitor’s offering

What exactly does the competitor offer? Which products do they sell and which services do they add to those, or vice versa? It’s easy to think that Coolblue simply sells electronics, but what the company actually offers is something very different. We wrote a blog post about Coolblue that goes into this in more detail.

By mapping out the complete offering and all its facets per competitor, it is possible to compare competitors’ offerings with each other and with your own. Additionally, you can analyze which relationships exist between offering and proposition.

The desired end result is a schematic overview of the complete offering per competitor.

3. Analyze the competitor’s message

The follow-up to a slogan or positioning is the message. When evaluating the message, we discuss many ‘soft’ aspects such as tone, style, word choice, and form of address (formal or informal) that are essential for the later analysis. For example, by categorizing tone into 5 categories (e.g., from personal to distant), you can quantify and compare these soft aspects.

The desired end result is a short ‘pitch’ of a competitor’s message and, for example, an actual piece of text used, followed by an overview of the categorized elements and their evaluation.

4. Analyze the competitor’s visual identity

Good positioning connects all aspects of marketing and communication. And the visual identity naturally belongs to that. Especially for more technically oriented companies, the saying often applies: content over form, while for the customer, form often determines the first impression. Just like with the message, we use several ‘soft’ aspects here to compare competitors. Color usage, shapes and lines, photography style, white space, and typography are all aspects you can investigate and categorize.

The desired end result is an overview of the different factors and a categorized evaluation of them per competitor.

5. Analyze the competitor’s tools and channels

“The medium is the message” said Marshall McLuhan, referring to the fact that the medium influences how we receive a message. That was in 1964, and since then many channels have been added. When we talk about tools and channels, we are essentially talking about the carrier of your message.

Why is the choice of channels and tools so important? How much is an ad in a newspaper worth if your target audience doesn’t read that newspaper? This seems obvious, but the vast majority of marketing budgets still go to the ‘old reliable’ channels.

Therefore, the question of which tools and channels the competitor uses is so essential. Combined with information from your target group research and analysis, you can then determine where the opportunities lie to stand out.

The desired end result for the competitor research is therefore an overview of the tools and channels used per competitor.

Positioning research: analysis of competitor research

The above 5 steps have undoubtedly given you a good insight into the positioning of your competition. Often you can already make enough ‘steps’ without formally analyzing this, but we recommend you take the trouble anyway. What are interesting aspects to analyze? For inspiration, here are some examples:

• By using the Merkelijkheid Competitor Matrix, you can create a very clear overview of the different positionings in the market and compare this to, for example, tools and channels, visual identity, and offering. This really makes decision-making easier.
• Comparing the tools and channels the competition uses with those the target audience uses can point you to opportunities for differentiation. Make sure you are where the target audience is!
• Comparing visual identity against the positioning of the different competitors. Which aspects do they emphasize most, should you follow this or is there room here for differentiation?

For many companies, the competitor analysis is the basis for the next steps in positioning. It gives them essential insight into how the market has developed recently and what opportunities exist to stand out. The above 5 steps certainly provide plenty of food for thought and discussion and will even be a revelation for the most entrenched colleague.

Positioning is what you can wake De Merkelijkheid up for day and night. This article discusses one of the first steps in actually working on your positioning, but in many cases, this is not where it starts. Often you first need to clarify the necessity, the burning platform (what if we do nothing?). Finally, we give you some questions that can lead to the right conversation:

• How should your brand be known among your target audience?
• What can you deliver that the competition cannot? Or not as well?
• Which positioning aligns with your business objectives and vision?
• Is there sufficient budget available to really work on your positioning?
• Are you actually thinking about the long term?

Want to know more about positioning and how you can get started yourself? Read our page positioning and find, besides in-depth articles, dozens of examples and models for every possible positioning challenge.