What Is Repositioning in Marketing?

What Is Repositioning in Marketing?

In a world where your marketing strategy should always be customer-centric, repositioning in marketing gives you a unique opportunity to update perceptions of your product or service. By changing how your product or service is seen, your brand may be able to compete more effectively in the market or enter new market segments so that you can create targeting for new audiences.

What is repositioning in marketing usually caused by?

Some reasons you may want to start repositioning your product or service may include:

• Changes in your competition: A competitor’s innovation may have made your product less appealing, or their pricing may have caused a dip in your sales. 
• Changes in the market: There may have been a recession, or people may have more disposable income. There may also have been social forces at work dictating purchasing decisions, such as sustainability.
• Changes in consumer habits: These may include evolving preferences such as using the internet as a resource to decide or find information on your product or service.
• Changes in your internal business environment: This may include a change in management or strategy, new technology being introduced, or the acquisition of something that enables you to better differentiate from your competitors.

What does repositioning in marketing look like?

The first part of repositioning is usually to develop a marketing plan as to how exactly you will appeal to new segments of the market. This may include amending elements of your product or service, including:

• Price: Here, you may offer more tiers of pricing, decide to produce a premium offering, or ensure you have low-cost options for customers.
• Marketing strategy: You may change the channels through which you try to reach customers by offering more of a digital presence, for example, or creating more experiential, event-based marketing. 
• Target audience: Here, you may switch the size of companies you aim to reach if you are a B2B business, for example, or try to reach a different age or location cohort.
• Customer engagement: You may look at growing brand loyalty through things like exclusive discounts, newsletters, or events.
• Color scheme: If you are aiming to reach a new age group or international market, you may use color schemes to differentiate from competitors, for example.
• Logo design: Here, you may get your design team to create a new logo to spark renewed and first-time interest in your brand.
• Tagline: If you are using outdoor marketing or digital marketing, you may also want to use your tagline to reshape customers’ perceptions of your product or service.

Whatever direction your organization chooses, repositioning in marketing provides a new and unique opportunity to reach new customers at scale with a message that resonates.