"Positioning, the battle for your mind", a must-read by Al Ries & Jack Trout
13 Comments 
Too often do high-tech people focus on the technology only, rather on the customer experience.
Al Ries and Jack Trout, and Philip Kotler who writes a foreword, explain in “Positioning, the battle for your mind” how marketing in general, and branding in particular, helps you build a position in your prospect´s mind.
I enjoyed a lot reading the book. The lessons I will remember are the following:
- position well, wisely. Make sure you target a corner of the prospect´s mind that´s still virgin;
- think outward (ie from the customer´s viewpoint), always look for a niche to occupy before the competition, and give the customer what (s)he wants to listen about my company;
- the message you convey should be your actual strategy; keep your message as long as possible to achieve your strategic goals: don´t change your mind or the customer will change his/hers as well.
Some examples are a bit outdated (the book was written more than 20 years ago!), but still, Al Ries and Jack Trout provide great insights through them: why Xerox always failed to invest business different to the copy machines one (because Xerox MEANS copy in the customer´s mind), why IBM failed to even think about competing with Xerox in the copy-machines business, etc.
In a nutshell, I recommend this thin book to all techies that are willing to brush up their marketing skills in less than a week.
PS: many thanks to my former Marketing Professor at HEC Paris, Frédéric Dalsace, for granting his students with a great strategic marketing reading list. “Positioning, the battle for your mind” was on the list.
Like
