Chapter 8 – Perceptual Mapping: Positioning

Now that you have understood the importance of segmentation and targeting in the previous chapters. Let us start with positioning and its relevance for you as a budding marketing professional. In this section, we will focus on perceptual mapping in marketing as a positioning tool.

Let us first understand what is positioning and why positioning is vital in marketing. Refer to the this article on positioning  for better understanding.

Consider you are a brand manager who has clearly determined the segment group and has planned targeting strategies for your brand. The next thing you will need is a message you will like your brand to deliver to your target audience. Perceptual mapping in marketing will help you create a distinct brand message for this purpose.

I will now further explain what is the main goal of perceptual mapping, what are the benefits of perceptual mapping and some perceptual mapping examples.

What is the main goal of perceptual mapping?

Perceptual mapping helps you to understand the perspectives of customers towards a particular brand through a diagrammatic approach. The main goal of perceptual mapping in marketing is to represent the position of a product graphically in comparision to its competitors in the market.

You can also use this framework to analyse and understand the competitive position for a product line, brand or even a company. This is why the framework is also often referred to as positional mapping.

Though perceptual mapping is usually done to map the customer's perspective. You can also use this framework to map the competitive landscape of a specific product/brand based on marketing data and research. This will help you understand the position of your product/brand w.r.t. your competitors.

How to make perceptual mapping for any product?

To prepare a perceptual mapping of any product/brand, you have to select two attributes for comparison. These attributes can be qualitative as well as quantitative, like price, quality, product design or packaging. After you've decided which attributes to concentrate on, plot the brands to see how they stack up against these criteria.

In terms of mapping, the process of mapping both the qualitative and quantitative remain the same. However, the purpose of quantitative mapping data and qualitative data differs. Let us look at those differences in the following sections.

Mapping Qualitative Data

A perceptual map based on qualitative data will help identify subjective sentiments and thoughts of customers about a brand/product/service. Direct communication with customers or clients is required for perceptual mapping in marketing using qualitative data. You can collect the qualitative data through interviews, surveys, polls, review systems, feedback inputs, and other methods.

Mapping Quantitative Data

A perceptual map based on quantitative data is typically helpful for objectively analysing the quantifiable facts about a brand/product/service. To map quantitative data, you have to map the attributes based on actual evidence. This can include information such as a company's location, the number of stores, sales volume and market share of rival items. You can also use different-sized circles to represent the quantification of data, like bigger circles for bigger numbers and smaller circles for smaller numbers.

Perceptual Mapping Examples

Let us now look at two perceptual mapping examples  - one for qualitative data and one for quantitative data to develop a better understanding.

To understand the mapping of qualitative data, let us focus on the example of chocolate bars. The attributes chosen for this mapping are brand perceptions. This example is shown in the picture below.

Let us focus on the online website for the mapping of quantitative data. The example below shows the position of WordPress w.r.t. its competitors in terms of total engagement and time spent by users on site.

Sometimes, we can create a hybrid perceptual map for products/services by taking one qualitative and one quantitative attribute. Let us look at one such perceptual mapping example.

The example above shows the position of different OTT platforms in terms of the type of content and annual subscription rate.

What are the benefits of perceptual mapping?

Now that you have understood what is the goal of perceptual mapping and the mapping techniques with the help of perceptual mapping examples. You must be wondering what are the benefits of perceptual mapping. Let me give you some key takeaways to understand the relevance of perceptual in marketing:

• It will help you to gain a better understanding of market sectors.
• This framework will depict how the target market views the brands available in the marketplace.
• It will help you access the effectiveness of current marketing campaigns and other modifications to the marketing of any brand mix w.r.t. its competitors.
• This framework will also be helpful to understand whether the perceptions of customers about a product/brand is in line with its original objectives.
• To create a distinct positing for a brand/product you would like to launch in the market.
• This framework will also aid you to keep track of rival companies of any brand/product and note the shifting market positions of the competitors.
• It will help you to analyse the market gaps.

Summary

The previous two chapters of this blog have helped us understand segmentation and targeting. In contrast, this chapter focused on positing thus, covering the entire STP process. As a budding professional, the next step is to understand how to create a marketing plan for any product you would like to launch in the market. In the next chapter, I will cover the framework for developing a marketing plan.