Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, by Al Ries and Jack Trout
Positioning is the book about a golden rule of marketing, “Don’t try to appeal to everybody or be all things to all people, but carve out a specific niche in the market and try to be the best at that.” It’s an incredibly important book about communication, and one that every marketer and business owner should read. Although it’s not a new book, it’s had many revisions, and most of its’ arguments still hold true. Even in a world that’s sped up by a technological pace that’s supercharged by the power of the Internet.
Today, because most information is at consumers’ fingertips, focusing on a niche, and building up expertise in one product or service area, has never been more important. People prefer specialists, over generalists.
In this book, the authors describe a revolutionary approach to help you create a “position” in your target audience’s mind, along with real events’ analyses to support their argument for the concept of positioning. This book is viewed by many experts as one of the biggest breakthroughs in marketing in the past century.
For entrepreneurs who’ve just started or are about to start a business, this book provides valuable insights, and could be a lifesaver. If you’re leading a medium to large businesses and you are not yet familiar with, or are not fully practicing, the concept of positioning – this book could save you time, money, or more. Another book I would recommend along the same lines as this one, is On Strategy by Michael E. Porter. It’s on a list of the Harvard Business Review’s 10-must-read books.
