Positioning: an ongoing process

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May, 1989 by Hershel Sarbin

Positioning: An ongoing process

During my student years at Harvard Law School, the question I encountered over and over, day after day, year after year, was, "What is the issue?" Those Harvard professors would make us cut away all the fringe questions and get straight to the real issue.

In the magazine world, the perennial question that must be addressed is. "What is your magazine's position in the marketplace?" Over the years at Ziff-Davis, as we moved from one special interest area to another, we did our best work when we tirelessly confronted this question of editorial and market positioning. Although I have touched on positioning in previous columns, it is such a crucial factor in every analysis of a magazine's prospects that it bears additional attention.

One way to approach positioning is to ask, "What is the unique benefit my publication delivers to its readers?" When you answer that question, you should then be able to address its important follow-up question: "What is the unique benefit my audience delivers to advertisers?"

Editorial positioning, then, is very closely related to an understanding of your magazine's reader and the advertiser marketplaces your magazine serves. If you don't understand and cannot articulate the dynamics of a market, it will be very difficult to find a necessary or desirable positioning.

It is also important to try to clearly understand your competitors' positioning vis-a-vis your own. Don't just accept what you read about it in their media kits. Is the editorial position the magazine takes really consistent with the position the advertising department is selling? Look for your competitors' Achilles' heel.

I see positioning as a dynamic, ongoing process--not just something you do when you launch a magazine or when the market changes. Using language that is positive and sales oriented, a positioning statement--or product profile, as it is sometimes called--should be part of every sales meeting and every annual business plan. If, for example, you relate advertisers' objections to your basic positioning and to your competitors' positioning, you will, I believe, address them more effectively. Moreover, if you understand the positioning of your primary magazine properties, you are much more likely to discover potential new revenue streams, spin-offs and new publications.

In my last column, I talked briefly about positioning as an important element in selling a magazine property. It is of enormous help to a potential buyer, who needs a clear view of the prospective property compared to its competition.

Unlike mass market magazines, smaller, special interest publications can't afford to spend substantial advertising promotion dollars to reinforce their position in the marketplace. Instead, they must make sure that everything that they do reinforce their position. The publisher should, for example, examine all promotion, circulation and editorial pieces for their adherence to the positioning statement.

Putting it together

How do you construct a positioning statement? If you have trouble defining your audience in terms other than straight demographics, you might look at your statement in the Standard Rate & Data Service (SRDS). Another jumping-off point might be your circulation pieces, or media kit. And talk to your editor. The editor, not the ad director, is the first person I talk to when preparing a positioning statement.

It's all right to glamorize your positioning statement. Everyone who sells a product makes it look more glamorous than the real thing. When you say the audience is 35 plus, there may be people under 18 or over 70. But always remain faithful to the basic editorial mission.

Slogans, or one-liners, can express a magazine's position and convey the image and benefit you want the advertiser to understand. But not always. Advertising slogans may work well with beverages (the Un-Cola) or car rentals (We Try Harder). But in the magazine business, consumer or trade, it's generally very difficult to describe your essential selling proposition in a single phrase. (On the other hand, don't be verbose--a positioning statement should be confined to a single page.)

Prevention's cover slogan--America's Leading Health Magazine--doesn't distinguish it in any advertiser's mind. But the magazine's franchise is made clear in the following positioning statement: "The Prevention reader is an active, attractive, busy woman, 35 plus, who believes that wellness is truly the basis for better living. She feels that the active encouragement of good health is her own responsibility. Her interest in nutrition and exercise is an important, positive force in her life. She is confident that both her mind and her body are working to full capacity. She feels great about life, and the lifestyle she has advocated for years--active, natural, joyful--is one that million of Americans have come to appreciate and follow." The implication is clear that this reader is committed to spending money to achieve her health goals.