Differentiation is a source of competitive advantage for your products. Developing a position that your target customers see as unique and attractive is needed to gain this advantage.

In this intensive, one-day workshop, you'll learn how to use a step-by-step method to identify and achieve the most attractive position for your product. Unlike other positioning techniques that focus on crafting the words in a positioning statement, this approach will help you to act strategically on where you want to be and how to get there.

You and your team will benefit from:

• An attractive, differentiated product for your target market 
• Insights about how your target customers perceive your product relative to direct and indirect competition
• Knowledge of the best available positions in the market
• A strategy to achieve a differentiated, valued position in the market
• Reduced debates about the right words to use and more strategic decision-making about how to move your product and market to the target position
• A clear, specific and defensible product positioning
• Improved communications across the team and organization

Throughout the workshop, you will have an opportunity to directly apply the approach and templates to the positioning for your product (bring your notebook computer!)

Who Will Benefit:

This workshop is designed for the practitioners who develop, manage, or approve a product positioning strategy or research the customer's needs and perceptions, and the competition. This includes:

• Product managers, product marketing managers, product planners
• Marketing managers, brand managers, and market analysts
• Directors and vice presidents of product strategy, product management, product marketing, marketing, market research and competitive intelligence

Topics Covered:

I. Getting started with Product Positioning Strategy

In this section, we will introduce the PSN Symphony™ Method for Positioning Strategy and establish what you need to get started. The approach applies for new product concepts, products in development, products to be launched, and existing products that need their positioning optimized. This Symphony method was created from our research of the proven practices used by experienced practitioners and general positioning techniques.

• What product positioning strategy is and how it is different than product positioning for messaging
• Why developing product positioning early in the new product planning cycle is powerful and important
• The information and decisions you need to begin developing a product positioning strategy effectively

II. Defining, mapping and analyzing the customer's perspective of their choices

The key to effective product positioning is to understand the market from the customer's perspective.

• Identifying and organizing the customer's view and perceptions of the direct and indirect competition
• Capturing the key purchasing dimensions that customers have for products like yours
• Creating, analyzing and using positioning maps 
• Identifying unique, desirable and available positions in the market for your product

III. Determining a Product Positioning Strategy and its Implications

The strategy begins with selecting the best position for the product and then deciding how to align your product and marketing with this position in the minds of your target customers.

• Analyzing your product's positioning versus the best available positions
• Make decisions to keep your product position or to target a different, more attractive position
• Matching positioning choices to the stage of the market
• Determining the implications of your decisions on your product and marketing strategy

IV. Fulfilling the Targeted Position with your Product and Marketing 

Product positioning involves using elements of the product-marketing mix - especially product definition and communications efforts - to gain desirable product perceptions compared to alternative products. 

• Determining how to change your product definition to be more aligned with your targeted position
• Identify the specific needs and perceptions of different purchasing roles in complex sales and analyzing their impact on your product positioning strategy
• Aligning your positioning with each of the purchasing roles
• Identifying your key differentiators from the customer's perspective
• Deriving a product positioning statement from your strategy to communicate the targeted position internally
• Deriving product positioning statements for each of the different purchasing roles in a complex sale
• Gaining independent validation of your product positioning strategy

Our Instructors

The Product Strategy Network instructors are highly experienced managers and executives who have a unique blend of practical business experience and teaching experience. The instructor for this workshop will be either Tom Murray or Erin Cosgrove.

Registration and Fees:

$895 per person with early registration by two weeks prior to the workshop date. $995 per person thereafter.

Take Two! Attend our Product Roadmapping Training Workshop in Boston on April 30 (the next day) and pay a total of $1,495 per person.

Teams of 3 or more receive an additional $100 per person discount when registration and payment is received together.

The workshop fee includes a workbook, case materials, Microsoft Excel-based templates, and continental breakfast, lunch and refreshments. We recommend that you bring a notebook computer to the workshop as you'll have an opportunity to use the templates to work on your product positioning strategy.

Private on-site training for teams is available. Contact Us for details.

For specific locations, to register and for further details, click here.