Strategy & Positioning Workshop

Strategy & Positioning WorkshopColin Lewis

• Professional marketer, blue chip brands

• MBA, undergraduate / post grad Marketing

• 25 years experience in UK, Australia, Asia

• Marketer of the Year / Top 100 Marketer UK

• Teaching 9 years!

• Advisor and Investor: eCommerce,Start-Ups

Colin Lewis

@colinalewis

linkedin.com/in/colinlewis/

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Today’s Rules

Ask Me Anything

Our Goal today: ‘Understanding’

• Understand Strategy

• Understand Segmentation + Targeting

• Understand Positioning

• Understand Propositions

• Understand Execution in market –> ‘tactics’

• Understand how to join them all together.

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1. Introductions

2. Objectives

3. Create the context: What is Strategy?

4. The Marketing Mindset

5. STP: Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning

6. Positioning and Propositions

7. Putting the Fun in Funnels: Creating Funnels

8. Creating a complete strategy

9. Joining the dots and closing.

Today

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Creating the context• What is strategy?

• What is the difference between strategy +

tactics?

• The difference with ‘classical’ & ‘digital’

marketing

Session 1 – Strategy

Question: What is strategy?

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““

Richard Rumelt: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy

Strategy is designing a way to deal with a

challenge.

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What is a strategy?

A strategy is a coherent set of analyses, concepts,

policies and actions that respond to a challenge.

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What is in a strategy?

A Diagnosis: define or frame the nature of the

challenge

An approach: creating an approach based on the

insights learned

Use the approach + insights to provide guidance for

subsequent actions

Identify an appropriate, coherent set of tactics.

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Why is Strategy hard?

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Bad strategy in action

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The reason why marketing strategy is

hard to deliver

• ‘Strategies’ and ‘tactics’ as terms are often used interchangeably

• The fragmentation of channels

• The emphasis on tactical plans

• Plans resources are not aligned with strategy, with business objectives

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What is a bad strategy?

• A list of high sounding sentiments

• A list of objectives

• Ignoring the power of focus

• Conflicting goals

• Strategy = goals

• Laundry list of desirable outcomes

• Plan to spend more to get better

• Words like ‘desire’, ‘drive’ or ‘determination’

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Why is strategy confusing? Lazy

language

Word(s) What we think it means

Strategic Very important

Strategic Decision Maker Senior manager

Strategically Cleverly

A Strategy Ambition

A difficult goal

Innovation

Determination

Vision

Inspirational Leadership

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Once more: what is in a ‘good strategy’?

Diagnosis Design Actions

• Identification +

diagnosis of the

challenge to be

overcome

• Simplify complex reality

down to a simpler story

by identifying certain

aspects of the situation

as critical.

• Make it simple which

helps suggests a

domain of action.

• Design of a way to

overcome these

challenges

• The overall approach

chosen to overcome the

obstacles identified in

diagnosis

• A coherent set of

actions

• Co-ordinated use of

resources, policies, that

support each other

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Good strategy - even simpler…

The core of strategy is always the same: discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way

of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors.

Define the problem (correctly) Make (hard) choices.

Implement them.

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Strategy Framework The model we are going to follow today

Strategy

Brand positioning

Product & Proposition Product / Brand Activation

Execution in Market

Our Strategy Framework

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Strategy• Devising a ‘strategy’ means diagnosis, deciding ‘where to play’ and ‘how to win’ based on a real understanding of the

market, the consumer, the opportunity, and how the product or brand can grow

Brand positioning• Defining the positioning of the product of brand relative to other brands in the category

Product & Proposition• Create the products and services combination

that maps to customer needs

Product / Brand Activation• Creating the communication programme and

activation relevant for the target audience

Execution in Market• Choose the ideas, the creative, the media and the assets to achieve the brand’s goals that create an activity schedule with

associated measurable objectives based on performance

Understanding strategy, segments and targeting helps research, reframe and refine positioning and links to brilliant briefs

Understanding positioning drives insight to create better products and brilliant briefs

Proposition and Product Activation are brilliant briefs in action

Brilliant briefs drive excellence in execution with SMART objectives, cut-through creative and targeted media

Strategy Framework in detail

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‘Tactics without strategy is

the noise before defeat’.

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Classical marketingvs

Digital marketing

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Marketing technologies 25 years ago

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Marketing technologies today

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Just data + insight

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Classical Marketing…….

• STP (Segmentation, Targeting,

Positioning)

• Advertising

• Brand management

• CRM

• Loyalty Marketing

• Distribution

• Events and Experiential

marketing

• Market research

• Packaging and labelling

• Product development

• Promotions

• PR

• Sponsorship

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…Digital Marketing

• Performance-based marketing

• Google Adwords

• SEO

• Digital display advertising

• Content marketing – copywriting,

video

• Conversion rate optimisation CRO)

• Customer/user experience

• Digital analytics and measurement

• Email

• Influencer marketing

• Social media marketing

• Facebook Advertising

• Community Management

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Classical v Digital

• STP (Segmentation, Targeting,

Positioning)

• Advertising


• CRM

• Loyalty Marketing

• Distribution

• Events and Experiential

marketing

• Market research


• Product development

• Promotions

• PR

• Sponsorship


• Content marketing – copywriting, video

• Conversion rate optimisation CRO)

• Customer/user experience

• Digital analytics and measurement

• Digital display advertising

• Email

• Influencer marketing,

• SEM: Paid – and SEO

• Search engine optimisation (SEO)

• Social media marketing

• Facebook Advertising

• Community Management

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Modern marketers fuse classic and digital

marketing

Source: Econsultancy research, 2013 - 2019

MODERN

MARKETING

EXCELLENCE

DIGITAL

EXCELLENCE

CLASSIC

MARKETING

EXCELLENCE

Consumers demand their

brand blend Classic &

Digital Marketing

• Advertising


• CRM & Loyalty

• Database marketing

• Distribution

• Events and experiential

marketing

• Market research

• Marketing strategy


• Partner marketing

• Pricing


• Content marketing

• Conversion rate optimization

(CRO)

• Digital analytics &

measurement

• Data driven marketing –

schemas, feeds, APIs,

metadata, machine-to-machine

data

• Digital display advertising -

including retargeting and

programmatic

• Product & service

development

• Promotions

• Public relations

• Retail & shopper

marketing

• Sponsorship

• STP (Segmentation,

Targeting &

Positioning)

• Telemarketing

• Email & eCRM: marketing

automation, personalization

• Mobile marketing

• Influencer marketing

• Reputation management

• Paid search marketing (PPC)

• Search engine optimization

(SEO)

• Social media marketing:

community building,

collaboration/co-creation,

social CRM, social customer

care, social

monitoring/listening

© Econsultancy 2019 29

Exercise: Good Strategy / Bad Strategy

Developing a successful strategy is always

required a combination of rigorous thinking,

creativity in action and discipline in execution.

How do these brands stack up?

• Apple

• Vodafone

• Aldi + Lidl

• Barcelona – Case Study

Task: group discussion asking what is their

strategy, how do they display the strategy in terms

of execution.

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The MarketingMindset

Session 2 – Developing Objectivity

Source: Econsultancy Skills of the Modern Marketer 2019.

✓ Being comfortable with the relentless

pace of change

✓ Being open to and seeking out

opportunities for learning

✓ Knowing your biases

✓ Taking responsibility for self-learning

✓ Knowing yourself

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Profile of the Modern Marketer

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The ‘Marketing Mindset’ supports it all

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The ‘Marketing Mindset’ - The ‘Inner

Game’

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Question: What sort of car do you have ?

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#1 Availability Heuristic

Overestimating the importance of the first (or last) piece of information

that you hear.

See also – ‘Recency effect’

Example:

‘Smoking is not bad for you, as my granny lived to 100 and smoked 3

packets a day’.

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# 2 Choice-supporting bias

When you choose something, you tend to think positively about it –

even if the idea has flaws.

Example:

My dog, Rover, is great.

(The fact that he bites people every once in a while is ignored.)

I drive MGs.

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# 3 Confirmation Biases

We tend to listen only to the information that confirms our preconceptions

Example:

Leave v Remain.‘Climate change is fake’.

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#4 Outcome bias

Judging a decision on its outcome rather than on how it’s made

(AKA – getting lucky)

See also – survivorship bias

Example:

I gamble all my money - and win – in Vegas.

I float my software startup for billions, so now I am an expert on

everything.

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#5 Blind spot bias

Failure to recognise your own cognitive biases

Example:

I can easily spot other people biases.

I, however, am perfect.

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#6 Illusion of truth effect

‘The tendency to hold statements and information as true after

repeated exposure’.

Regardless of the validity of that statement, people are more likely

to agree with it after seeing it or hearing it multiple times, because

repetition creates familiarity.

Example

£350m a week

‘Build the wall’

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7 Rules to Create a Marketing Mindset

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7 Rules for the Marketing Mindset

1. I’m willing to learn & constantly improve

2. I know what I don’t know

3. I examine the sources of information that I’ve used to

form my opinions

4. I know my own personal, cognitive biases

5. I am NOT my customer

6. I am totally objective

7. I am obsessed with understanding other people

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form my opinions





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form my opinions





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Exercise: How might we…

Explore with Empathy +

Curiousity

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Get into the mind of a Experian customer and develop a deeper understanding of them across their whole lives

#1 Target Experian Customer

#2 Target Experian Customer

Task: Break into two teams, select two target Experian customers and ‘get into their lives’. Use whatever means necessary including the Internet and your imagination and be able to spend minutes discussing the target customer at a very deep level.

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SegmentationTargeting

SESSION 3 - STP

““

What is market segmentation?

‘Market Segmentation is the process of dividing the total

market for a product / service into several segments.

Each segment has a tendency to be homogeneous in all

significant aspects with others within the segment, and

heterogeneous from those others in the segments’.

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Professor William Stanton

What are we trying to do?

Research, analysis and segment the market in order to identify

market attitudes, behaviours and the most basic meaningful

differences between prospective buyers.

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Why do we segment?

Segmentation is the cornerstone of modern marketing.

We use it because:

Not all customers are created equal

Helps maximise resources

It enables more effective marketing

It allows better targeted marketing programmes

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How do we segment?

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Millennials

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““

Phil Barden: Decode Consulting

What is all this Gen Y, Z, b*llsh*t. Brains don’t

change in a decade. We’re still driven by the

same goals as our ancestors.

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““

Professor Mark Ritson

If marketers start thinking all millennials are the same, they

reject the behavioural and attitudinal nuances of a hugely

heterogeneous population and collapse them into one big,

generic mess.

If you buy the idea of millennials, then you reject the

concept of segmentation and of consumers holding

different perceptions and experiences.

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““

David Ogilvy

Consumers don’t think how they feel. They don’t say what

they think and they don’t do what they say.

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““

Question: how might we segment?

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Segmentation in action

Examples….

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7 Step Segmentation Checklist

1. Have we got name / population / value / share?

2. Is the whole potential market included?

3. Can a customer belong to only one segment?

4. Are names based on behaviour?

5. Is the segment sized and valued correctly?

6. Are segment dynamics included?

7. Would a (non-marketing) team member recognise these segments

clearly?

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““

Question: WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE

BETWEEN

SEGMENTATION & TARGETING?

The difference.

Segmentation is

descriptive.

It’s about the market.

Targeting is strategy.

It’s about your brand

Experian Logo

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““

Question: why do we TARGET?

““

Michael porter: what is strategy?

The core of strategy is deciding what NOT to do.

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Exercise: How might we… Segment and Target

• Break into two teams

• Select two product customers

• Work out their customer segments and targets

• Decide why you think they chose those

• Be able to explain why (20 minutes)

Products:

• Competitor to Experian Credit Score

• Monzo

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Positioning:The Battle for the Mind

Session 4 - Positioning

What do you think when you say these?

‘I want us to be the Apple of this category’

‘I want us to be the Mercedes of this category’

‘I want us to be McDonalds of this category’

‘I want us to be the Ryanair of this category’

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““

Al Ries and Jack Trout

The act of designing a brand’s image and value

offer so that the segments’ customers understand

and appreciate what the brand stands for in

relation to its competitors.

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What is positioning?

Positioning is always important

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Why?

‘Positioning’ means that by the time prospects arrive,they are:

• pre-disposed

• pre-interested

• pre-motivated

• pre-qualified

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What is a unique selling point?

The best question to get the answer to ‘what is my USP?’

Why should I, your

prospective

customer, choose

you

versus

any & every other

alternative available

to me? A USP should:

•Differentiate from all competition

•Emphasise a positive, desirable benefit

•Be easily understood

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Positioning in action

Examples….

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Copy as positioning….77

Copy as positioning….

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Your Positioning template

What is it? Target Segment

(Short) statement that describes what the product

is

Specific target market targeting in the short term

Market Category Competitive Alternatives

Market that you compete in If your customers don’t use it, what do they use?

Primary Differentiation Key Benefit

The one thing that sets you apart Biggest benefit target market derives from your

offering

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Positioning Concept Evaluation Criteria

Which need state(s) does this Positioning speak to?

Is it persuasive?

Is it believable?

Is it ownable?

Is it defendable?

Is this a media / messaging targetable positioning?

Is this valuable to the customer?

Pros: _______________________________________

Cons:_______________________________________

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Propositions

““

Peter Drucker

The customer rarely buys what the business

thinks it sells them.

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What is a ‘Single Minded Proposition’?

Most positioning work wants to weld a JCB to a Ferrari.

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““

Colin Lewis

Blessed are the friction-reducers, as they shall

inherit the cash.

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Exercise:Shaping your product + proposition


• Select two Experian products / propositions

• Define the positioning using the template (20 minutes)

• Present the positioning (5 minutes)

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Putting the ‘Fun’ in Funnels

Session 5

(Simple!) Definition of a Funnel

•Attract a large number of prospects

to enter the funnel at the top

•A percentage drops off at each stage

of the funnel

•Actual customers at the bottom!

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Funnel definition & Usage

A marketing funnel is a set of stages that map the

customer journey.

Using a funnel, we can measure how effectively we

are filling the funnel with new leads, & how well

those leads convert through each stage.

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Familiar?

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#1 The Daddy of all Funnels

A – I - D – A

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#2 DAGMAR

‘Defining Advertising Goals For Maximising Advertising Effectiveness’

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# 3 McKinsey Funnel

Awareness

Familiarity (Brand Perception / Knowledge)

In-market / Active Evaluation

Purchase

Loyalty / Advocacy

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Application of funnel

Awareness

Familiarity

In-market

Purchase

Loyalty / Advocacy

Reach & Impact

Engagement, Freq & Education

Service + Web experience

Communicate & Reward

Conversion: sales through offers

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Reach / Impact

Engagement,

Education

Get the Sales

Great UX

Reward & communicate CRM – Email for offers,

reminder, news

Facebook Ads

PPC / SEO Email for offer

Content, Facebook Ads.

Video, Email for

Social Media, Content

Digital Display, Email

User experience

Email for confirmation

Objectives Media Type

What works at each stage?

Awareness

In-market

Purchase

Loyalty / Advocacy

Familiarity

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Exercise:Create your funnel


• Select two Experian products /

propositions

• Define the customer funnel (20 minutes)

• Present the funnel (5 minutes) – and be

able to justify it

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Exercise:Bringing it all together

Session 6

Strategy

• Devising a ‘strategy’ means diagnosis, deciding ‘where to play’ and ‘how to win’ based on a real understanding of the













Apply the Strategy Framework

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Exercise:Create the Strategy Framework for two Experian Products


• Select two Experian products

• Define every aspect of Strategy Framework (up to Brand

Activation)

• Combine all previous exercises

• Make a single presentation from each group

• 90 minutes preparation – 15 minutes presentation

• (Worksheets provided)

Exercise

In your teams divide into half

Half will play as ‘Account handlers’ in the agency

The other half will play as ‘Creatives’

The Creatives have produced some work that you need to

‘feedback on’(i.e. change!)

As you would expect, the creatives do not want to change it!

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Summary

Session 8

Strategy Framework

Strategy

• Devising a ‘strategy’ means diagnosis, deciding ‘where to play’ and ‘how to win’ based on a real understanding of the













What is a strategy?

A strategy is a coherent set of analyses, concepts, policies and actions that respond to a challenge.

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form my opinions





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Segmentation: What are we trying to do?

Research, analysis and segment the market in order to identify

market attitudes, behaviours and the most basic meaningful

differences between prospective buyers.

107

What is it? Target Segment

(Short) statement that describes what the product

is

Specific target market targeting in the short term

Market Category Competitive Alternatives

Market that you compete in If your customers don’t use it, what do they use?

Primary Differentiation Key Benefit

The one thing that sets you apart Biggest benefit target market derives from your

offering

Your positioning template

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Fun with Funnels

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Reach / Impact

Engagement,

Education

Get the Sales

Great UX

Reward & communicate CRM – Email for offers,

reminder, news

Facebook Ads

PPC / SEO Email for offer

Content, Facebook Ads.

Video, Email for

Social Media, Content

Digital Display, Email

User experience

Email for confirmation

Objectives Media Type

Awareness

In-market

Purchase

Loyalty / Advocacy

Familiarity

Thank you

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• Source material for seminar

• Definition of brand

• The 9 Elements of an Effective

Marketing Campaign

• Further Reading.

Added bonuses

What is the source material used through the

workshop?

Strategy

Devising a ‘strategy’ means deciding ‘where to play’ and ‘how to win’ based on a real understanding of the market, the

consumer, the opportunity, and how the product or brand can grow.

This enables the creation of brand goals and criteria that will drive the rest of the framework.


Product & Proposition• Create the products and services combination that maps

to customer needs




associated measurable objectives based on performance.

SOURCES

• How Brands Grow

• Sustainable competitive

advantage

• Evidence-based Marketing

• Other brand propositions

• Current Experian propositions

• Competitive propostions

• Consumer journey

• Understanding the audience

• Customer Journey

• Creating brand assets

• Mapping assets to channels

• Measurable, relevant KPIs

SOURCES

• Positioning: Ries and Trout

• Brand key

• Examples: Unilever, Coca-

Cola

• Current insights

• Brand Assets

• Audience segmentation

• Micro-targeting versus

going broad and target

everyone

• Marketing effectiveness

(Binet and Field) as a

lens

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What is a brand? 3 Levels

Psychological level: a brand is the sum total of interactions

customers have with a product / service…

Perceptual level: brands are a collection of distinctive assets

(icons, colours, jingles, etc.) employed to make products

easier to notice, understand and buy.

Risk-reduction level: brands assists consumers in making

decisions under conditions of uncertainty by ensuring certain

characteristics of a product.

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The 9 Elements of an Effective Marketing Campaign

1. Diagnose the challenges (qualitative and quantitative)

2. Create clear strategic objectives that are grounded in reality

3. Ensure tight, differentiated positioning

4. Use long term, mass-marketing branding

5. Use targeted performance tools to drive revenue results in the short term

6. Heavy, consistent use of distinctive brand assets

7. Have fantastic creative driven by an amazing brief

8. Use multiple integrated channels – again, driven by a great media brief

9. Greater investment in marketing than competitors

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Further Reading

•Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: Richard Rumelt

•Positioning: Al Ries + Jack Trout

•Positioning: April Dunford

•How Brands Grow: Professor Byron Sharp

•Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion: Robert Cialdini

•The Choice Factory: Richard Shotton

•Michael Porter: Competitive Strategy

•Michael Porter: Harvard Business Review – What is strategy?

•Hamal and Pralahad: Harvard Business Review – Core Competency

•The Rouser Manifesto 2019: www.rouser.se

•Martin Weigl:

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Strategy & Positioning Workshop

Documents