Positioning Happens in the Customer’s Mind, Not on the Page
Ries and Trout’s (1981) central insight about positioning applies just as directly to a marketing plan: the plan is only ever read by the person writing it, but its message is only ever received the way the customer’s own mind processes it. A plan built entirely around what Colorado Ricardo wants to say about itself, rather than around how a first-time e-bike buyer actually researches and decides, risks talking past the very customer it is meant to persuade.
Where to Intervene in the Decision Process
Worked example
A first-time e-bike buyer typically starts from uncertainty – range anxiety, price comparison against ordinary bikes, and doubt about whether a small manufacturer can be trusted for parts and service. Ries and Trout (1981) note that a company gets the greatest leverage from addressing the point where a competing idea already occupies space in the customer’s mind; here, that is the trust and reliability question, not the technical specification sheet Colorado Ricardo’s engineers are proudest of. The marketing plan should therefore lead with reassurance – local servicing, a real warranty, the factory’s track record – before it leads with battery range or motor torque.
Key point
Ries and Trout (1981) argue that a marketing plan succeeds or fails based on the position it creates in the customer’s mind, not on how complete or well-written it looks internally. Checking a plan against the buyer’s actual decision process, before finalising it, catches this kind of mismatch while it is still cheap to fix.
This same first-time buyer’s decision process is examined in more depth in the Consumer Buyer Behaviour exercise.
