It does not matter who a business believes will buy its product or service. What matters is who does. Positioning is the strategic process of aligning a company with the right audience by understanding customer behavior, decision-making patterns, and actual purchasing trends. When businesses fail to ground their positioning in real customer data, their marketing and sales efforts become ineffective, leading to wasted resources and missed opportunities.

The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute has shown that brands with a distinct and well-defined position in the market outperform those that rely on broad or vague targeting. Their studies demonstrate that businesses grow by increasing mental and physical availability, which are achieved through clear positioning that ensures customers recognize and remember the brand. Additionally, research on category entry points confirms that buyers associate brands with specific needs, contexts, and moments.

Without positioning that aligns with these factors, a company risks becoming invisible in its market. Harvard Business Review has published findings on how companies that misjudge their target market experience lower conversion rates and higher customer acquisition costs. Positioning determines how customers perceive a business and how sales and marketing teams communicate value. When a company understands its audience and aligns its offerings with the way buyers think, marketing becomes more efficient, sales cycles shorten, and brand recognition strengthens.

Without positioning, marketing and sales efforts lack focus, resulting in campaigns that fail to gain traction. When a company defines its place in the market based on real customer insights, it creates messaging that resonates, demand generation that attracts the right buyers, and a competitive advantage that drives long-term success.