Put simply, the space that you hold in the mind of your customers and what sets you apart from your competitors is your brand position. Apart from basic branding tools like your tagline or colour palette and typography, brand positioning covers how people think and feel about your brand.
A well-positioned brand gives you leverage over the competition, to the point where people might even associate certain products or services with one particular brand, which is why many companies invest a lot of time and money into their brand strategies.
Benefits of strong brand positioning
One of the most notable benefits of a strong brand position is engagement. Being able to make authentic connections with your people, partners, investors, and communities means that you will build higher levels of affinity, engagement, and trust.
When people trust your brand, you will find yourself with a loyal customer base that finds your differentiators important and become advocates for your brand; so you not only benefit from a loyal customer base but also free word-of-mouth advertising thanks to your strong brand position.
Defining your brand position
While your brand guidelines may cover your mission, vision, values, and USPs, your brand positioning strategy should be defined around the following questions:
What does the brand offer?
By focusing on your specific offering, you can immediately highlight how you’re different from your competitors. Even if the difference is subtle, you can still establish yourself as unique or exceptional compared to the alternatives.
How do you do what you do?
In a highly competitive marketplace, it’s crucial to consider the ‘how’ of your brand over and above the ‘what.’ How do you go about providing your products or services that are better than your competitors? If you can answer this, you can position your brand with a more engaging style and personality.
What is your brand purpose?
Why do you exist? This is especially important if you are championing some sort of social cause, aim, or message.
How to create a brand positioning strategy
Once you have defined your brand position, you will need to create some sort of strategy to ensure that you are positioning yourself well. Here are some steps you can follow:
Assess your current brand positioning
You won’t know where to begin if you don’t know where you currently are. Unless you’re just starting out, you already hold some sort of brand position in the market. The first step is to figure out what that is. To do this, you’ll need to review your existing customer base and understand who they are. Do they align with your target audience? What products or services are the most popular? How do they interact with you and where? If the answers do not align with your goals, it’s time to review your messaging, goals, and vision.
Identify and research your competitors
Now that you know all about your customers, it’s time to look at the competition. After you’ve pinpointed those that are the most similar, you can start digging into their strategy, reviewing what their customers say about them, review their marketing tactics and observe how they interact on their social media channels. You could even add in a SWOT analysis to highlight where your brand shines and where it might be falling short. Once you’ve done all this, you should be ready to fill any gaps in the market you identified in this process.
Compare your brand positioning to your competitors
Once you know what your competitors are offering you can start looking at how you compare. Apply what you discovered about the industry, the target audience, and the market in general, and use it to draft a brand positioning statement. Are you more cost-effective or convenient? Or are you much better at customer service than your competition? Once you understand your competitor’s position, you can figure out where to place yours best.
What’s unique about your brand?
Something that your competitors fall short on is where you can shine. Maybe you offer a higher-priced service or product, but you know that your exceptional customer service team shines above the rest in an industry that lacks good customer service. And maybe that’s because you pay your employees a better wage than competitors because you are more ethical, which resonates strongly with your target market. Once you know where all the gaps are, you can hit the right points.
Whether you’re in the market for a rebrand or simply need to create a brand positioning strategy, teclan can help. Join us for our branding workshop here in Inverness on the 25th of October or contact us today for a free consultation.
