国际贸易、市场营销类课题外文翻译——市场定位策略(Positioning_in_Practice)

Positioning in Practice

Strategic Role of Marketing

For large firms that have two or more strategic business units (SBUs), there are generally three levels of strategy: corporate-level strategy, strategic-business-unit-level (or business-level) strategy, and marketing strategy. A corporate strategy provides direction on the company's mission, the kinds of businesses it should be in, and its growth policies. A business-level strategy addresses the way a strategic business unit will compete within its industry. Finally, a marketing strategy provides a plan for pursuing the company's objectives within a specific market segment. Note that the higher level of strategy provides both the objectives and guidelines for the lower level of strategy.

At corporate level, management must coordinate the activities of multiple strategic business units. Thus the decisions about the organization's scope and appropriate resource deployments/allocation across its various divisions or businesses are the primary focus of corporate strategy.Attempts to develop and maintain distinctive competencies tend to focus on generating superior financial, capital, and human resources; designing effective organizational structures and processes; and seeking synergy among the firm's various businesses.

At business-level strategy, managers focus on how the SBU will compete within its industry. A major issue addressed in business strategy is how to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage. Synergy for the unit is sought across product-markets and across functional department within the unit.

The primary purpose of a marketing strategy is to effectively allocate and coordinate marketing resources and activities to accomplish the firm's objectives within a specific product-market. The decisions about the scope of a marketing strategy involve specifying the target market segment(s) to pursue and the breadth of the product line to offered. At this level of strategy, firms seek competitive advantage and synergy through a well-integrated program of marketing mix elements tailored to the needs and wants of customers in the target segment(s).

Strategic Role of Positioning

Based on the above discussion, it is clear that marketing strategy consists of two parts: target market strategy and marketing mix strategy. Target market strategy consists of three processes: market segmentation, targeting (or target market selection), and positioning. Marketing mix strategy refers to the process of creating a unique

blend of product, distribution, promotion, and pricing strategies (the four Ps) designed to satisfying the needs and wants of customers. Target market strategy and marketing mix strategy are closely linked and have a strong interdependence. The position of a product identified from the target market strategy serves as a guideline for formulating marketing mix strategy.

Market segmentation is the process by which a market is divided into distinct customer subsets of people with similar needs and characteristics that lead them to respond in similar ways to a particular product offerings and strategic marketing programs.Targeting or target market selection is the process of selecting a segment or segments to serve by evaluating the relative attractiveness of each segment, the benefit sought, and the firm's relative business strengths.Finally, positioning is the process of designing product offerings and developing strategic marketing programs which collectively create an enduring competitive advantage in the target market.

The concept of target market strategy especially positioning is well-known and widely accepted by most marketing practitioners especially consumer goods managers as useful Atheoretical concepts in formulating marketing mix strategy. In practice, however, marketers tend to bypass formal positioning and go directly to formulate marketing mix strategy. This may be due to the fact that these managers do not know how to obtain perceptual maps, which are maps that show the positions of products on a set of primary customer needs.

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate a practical way for marketing practitioners to obtain perceptual maps for positioning and marketing mix strategy formulation. Specifically, perceptual mapping and its relation to positioning are first discussed. This is followed by discussion of statistical techniques that can be used to create perceptual maps. Finally, a example of positioning process by factor analysis is demonstrated.

Perceptual Mapping: Identification of Strategic

Benefits

Positioning is the perceived fit between a particular product and the needs of the target market, and thus positioning concept must be defined relative to the customer’s needs and competitive offerings.It is one of the most important strategic concepts because it is concerned with differentiation. Positioning reflect the careful efforts of marketing firms to portray the benefits they offer customers and to differentiate themselves from competition. Positioning is critical for a product=s success. Not only must the product deliver the benefits the customer needs, but it must do so better than competition.

Effective positioning requires assessing the positions occupied by competing products, determining the important dimensions underlying these positions, and choosing a p osition in the market where the organization’s