Know-How Exchange : Branding

A positioning statement will simply say something about your place in the marketplace VS. your competitors, the attributes and the reason for it, plus some support evidence.

Value proposition is made of three important elements:
1. Functional benefits
2. Emotional benefits
Self-Expressive benefits

Get in touch if you need help.
Good luck, Ilan Geva

In layman's terms:

The position statement is a part of the strategy and communicates to those inside the company the any and all of the following:

Placement within a market segment - which segments do you target?

Placement of the product relative to other products categories and application - within the value chain, where does the product/service sit? What products/services come before and after? If I am an Ipod, components and materials come before and music comes after.

Placement versus competitors' products - Am I low cost/high volume or high end?

Placement of the product in terms of features and benefits - Which features do I have versus the competition and which benefits to I present to the customer versus the competition?

The position statement discusses the products and services from an inside out perspective, not from the customer viewpoint. It helps set you the marketing efforts to come after.

Value Proposition: The value proposition looks at the problem - or pain - the product/service solves. It addresses the functional benefits and does this best in terms of monetary value. Think "My product saves the customer $X over the present solution (or competitive solution)." This can be stated in these terms (strongest to weakest): My product/service eliminates pain today, or delivers promise today, or eliminates pain in the future or delivers promise in the future. The value statement also addresses the emotional benefit. How does the customer feel as a result of my product or service? Sexy, in, smart, caring, valued, etc. Or what bad feelings does the product/service eliminate: Worried, frustrated, concerned, annoyed, alarmed, etc.

The value proposition looks from the outside in - from the customer's view

I hope this helps.

Wayde

a positioning claim is literally a place, a territory relative to competitors

a value proposition is more of a benefit statement

often they are used together, because of our positioning place, we can offer you this benefit

example, we are number one, so big that we can buy big and offer you the best value, or lowest costs

I'm not sure I'd confuse a non-marketing audience with the difference between your positioning statement and your value proposition.

Why not just focus on the uniqueness of your offering, the key benefit you deliver and what makes you uniquely well suited to deliver that benefit. What the "name" of that statement might be is too academic to be of use with this audience. What's to be gained by spending time on a relatively fine point? If they get the big idea, you'll have accomplished your real goal.

"Positioning Statement: At Wiglaf Pricing, we help companies set price levels, manage price discounts, and identify strategic pricing structures."

With all due respect to Tim Smith, the above statement is not really a positioning statement so much as it is a "description of services" statement.

1. set price levels
2. manage price discounts
3. identify strategic pricing structures

There are other firms, competitors to Wiglaf, that also offer these same three services.

A positioning process begins with what is in the minds of clients and potential clients. What is perceived about the firms, individually and as a professional services segment, that offer pricing problem solutions. Once these perceptions are known, a positioning strategy can be created that will reposition the competitors to the advantage of the firm (Wiglaf).

examples:

"We're number 2, we try harder"
Avis claimed to be number 2 in the car rental business, that is a position statement. "We try harder" was a benefit Avis could claim because they claimed to be number 2. National Car Rental couldn't say "We're number 3, we try even harder". It wouldn't work.

NyQuil claimed to be the "night time cold medicine" and repositioned all other cold medicines as "for day time use"

Check out this article for a more complete explanation:

https://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/res_detail.asp?resID=349