What's up brand builder Stephen Houraghan here at brandmasteracademy.com and in this video you're
going to learn what market mapping is so you can understand this effective brand positioning tool
to uncover gaps and opportunities that you can take advantage of
now if you're new to the channel and you want to build brands that go beyond the visuals and the
logo using strategy psychology and creative thinking then you're in the right place hit
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one of the foundational principles of branding and marketing is positioning that is defining a unique
position in the market that's both different from your competitors and valuable to your target
market but competitive positions aren't just sitting about waiting for the next company to
show up and snap them up they're hidden and they require tools and deep creative thinking to be
found now without a doubt market mapping is one of the most effective competitive positioning tools
available and in this video i'm going to show you exactly what they are and just how effective
they can be so what exactly is market mapping well market mapping refers to the mapping of
your competitive landscape so it's the process of using a graph to visualize
a given competitive environment by plotting individual competitors using a set of two criteria
so this mapping process brings the market to life visually helping to uncover gaps and
opportunities for brands to take advantage of through the unmet needs of the consumers
now the right set of criteria used to plot the map can help to uncover untapped opportunities or
voids or gaps in the market that the audience wants so in other words the market map in
the right hands is a very valuable positioning tool so why exactly is market mapping important
well when you hear the word market you might think of traditional market stalls with vendors selling
fresh produce such as vegetables cured meats or cheese but most markets aren't physical places
and the landscape of competitors aren't easily seen or visualized in a way that's effective
for comparison or competitive analysis it's also very easy for business leaders to make assumptions
and to believe that they have the full picture of their competitors strengths and weaknesses
though this can result in costly missed opportunities now when it comes to competitive
positioning and competitive analysis there is no magic key or silver bullet like most industry
tools the positioning map has some advantages and it also has some disadvantages as well so
let's take a closer look at what these are now there are plenty advantages to using a market map
market mapping has been used by business leaders and marketers for decades
and although this tool isn't on the cutting edge of science it still can be used to great effect
so here are some of the advantages of using a market map it creates a visual snapshot
it displays entire markets it's easy to understand you have direct comparison with competitors
there is unlimited variable combinations and it's easy for quick market analysis but there are also
some disadvantages to using a markup map as well now despite those many advantages using a market
map is not a foolproof science and there are some disadvantages that should be considered
and some of those disadvantages include a lack of scientific accuracy they can
be subjective they can be biased there are no real facts or statistics and it's only based
on two variables as well so let's take a look at some examples of markup mapping variables now
in reality the positioning map or the perceptual map is overly simplistic but there is power
in that simplicity and the value of the map or the results that it produces is largely dependent on
the importance and the creativity of the variables that are used on the map now you can plot pretty
much any variable though the closer you are to the important buying decision factors of your audience
the more impactful and valuable the gaps and opportunities that you find will be so here are a
few examples of market mapping variables or market mapping dimensions high price versus low price low
quality versus high quality low tech versus high tech simple versus complex short turnaround versus
long turnaround low capability versus high capability necessity versus luxury unhealthy
versus healthy inconvenient versus convenient now the reality is market mapping has been around for
decades it's not based on cutting edge software and it's not a science either but some of the
best tools in the world are so effective because of their simplicity and market mapping is the
exact same so take the time to uncover what's important to your target market and use a market
map to uncover gaps and opportunities that might be lying and wait for your brand now if you want
to learn more about creating market maps using a step-by-step markup mapping template then my
next video will help you out until next time brand like a master and I'll see you in the next video