It can be challenging for a business to find its voice in this competitive market, but there is one element that can quickly change the power dynamics – Brand Positioning. A notable shift in your company’s market hold can be carried out by banking on a knockout brand positioning strategy, which essentially helps a brand to create a unique impression in the minds of the target audience. Strong brand positioning can help you distinguish your products and services from the others in the market on the basis of brand attributes, consumer experience, and more.
According to a Forbes report, 64 percent of consumers say that shared values help them create a trusted relationship with a brand.
You might have the best product line that can beat the current market leader. However, if you fail to convey the same to the audience, you might get lost in the crowd. That’s where the power of Brand Positioning comes into the picture. A proper brand positioning can give your business a voice to stand out among the competitors in the market. Also, it allows you to prove your brands distinctiveness in the marketplace. This helps your customers to easily choose your product over others without having to do any brainstorming.
In this article, we will discuss why you need to pay attention to your brand positioning tactics and how it can help add value to business.
What Makes Brand Positioning Vital To A Business’ Lifecycle?
Brand positioning is vital since it facilitates you to differentiate your product or services from the market competitors. As a brand, your target audience should have a clear idea about the company’s mission and vision. They should know the brand story and what you do in order to build a connection with the brand. Effective brand positioning helps you to reach the intended targets. It showcases what your business brings to the table and what is different about you.
Sentiments and matching wavelengths always have a huge impact on the customer’s buying habits. You will observe that a brand that successfully vibes with the audience wins all the attention and loyalty. Since a business label is non-living, the only way to make your products and services marketable is to provide the brand with a voice and persona that appeals to the ideology and mindsets of your potential customers.
Brand Positioning also makes it easier for people to purchase your products and services. A consumer or potential customer will gauge the benefits of your brand and your capacity to meet their demands before purchasing from you. The way you position your brand to meet such demands will determine how likely they are to buy from you.
How Brand Positioning Adds Value to Your Business Presence
Social media has the firmest grasp on consumer engagement today. One of the most effective means to reach out and stay relevant to your potential customers is to stay active across the various social media platforms. Creating an online brand positioning can give you a lot of brownie points and drive your sales. Here are some reasons why brand positioning is essential for your business:
1. Provides Meaning to Your Brand:
To strengthen your presence in the market, the brand needs to resonate with the intended audience. If people cannot establish a connection with your product or services, they will have no interest or loyalty whatsoever. With the help of brand positioning, you can easily identify and understand the needs, driving factors, buying behaviour, and psychology of your customers, which will help you get their attention, and they will listen to you. Remember, a proper brand positioning has to be very specific, clear, and unique compared to your competitors in the market.
2. Reinforces Business Strategy:
The way you position your brand can act as a foundation for a strong brand marketing strategy. By letting the audience know about your brand ideologies and distinctiveness through a brand positioning statement, you are prompted to build a solid marketing strategy. When done correctly, brand positioning can work wonders for a business. It increases brand visibility and helps shut out the competition.
3. Segregates you from the rest:
Effective brand positioning can help you decide how you want your brand to be positioned in the market. It allows the intended audience to identify the factors that make you unique when compared to your competitors or similar businesses across industrial verticals. Today, when every other company in the market is doing its best to grab customer attention, a clear brand position allows you to communicate easily with your target audience.
How to Create a Brand Positioning Strategy?
Whether online or offline, brand positioning is an internal process that requires you to answer three critical questions.
- Who is your target audience?
The “who” aspect of market segmentation determines the audience who are most likely to purchase your products and needs you the most. Once you find your “who”, they are called your target or ideal customer; your priority will shift towards wooing and attracting them so that they can be coaxed into the sales funnel.
- What can you provide to your audience?
The “what” refers to the problem, or the void in the market or lives of your potential that your brand can solve.
- Why should the audience listen to you?
“Why” is a reason to believe that your brand is better than others in the market.
Implementing Your Brand Positioning Strategy
Once you figure out the three W’s of your brand positioning, it’s time to embrace the power of branding and implement your positioning strategy. You can follow the following steps as a guide:
- Identify Your Target Audience:
Study your services or products and the competitors in the market. Conduct research and carry out a survey to understand where your brand stands in league with the competitors. Zero down on the types of consumers you plan to target. Settle the mission, vision, and value statements, and determine the personality you will use to send the message across, depending upon the character and psychology of your target audience.
- Emphasize What Makes Your Brand Unique:
Find the factors that set you a step apart from the rest in the market. What are your brand’s strengths? Cash on these advantages and create a unique selling proposition (USP) that will grab their attention instantly.
- Curate a Brand Proposition Statement:
Bring all your findings together to create a statement reflecting your values and USP loud and clear to your target audience. An unbeatable brand statement packs a powerful punch with these four factors:
- Target Audience: Study the profile, demography, and behaviour of your audience.
- Relevant Market: Identify the right market for your products or services.
- Brand Claim: State your brand’s promise that no other competitor can provide.
- Support to your Claim: Back your claim up with supporting evidence.
- Test Your Statement: To check whether your brand statement will work out successfully in the grand scheme of things, consider sampling with the audience. Ask your customers what they think about the brand’s statement and message. Based upon such feedback surveys, modify and revise the statement till it gathers the highest approval rate.
An important note to consider will be if you’re a challenger brand in the market that already has a leader in the niche. You cannot claim to be the best in town but can constantly challenge the top brand’s claims by stating what distinguishes you from them.
For instance, McDonald’s and Wendy’s, where the latter is a challenger brand. Here are a few snippets of their online persona on Twitter:
Source: Reddit
We observe a very millennial style of brand positioning in these snippets because the target audience consists of a broad youth base that enjoys an excellent online roast session. While McDonald’s doesn’t have to prove their worth as much, Wendy’s statement has a cheeky and satirical expression where it challenges McDonald’s and other brands with pure sass.
Bottom line:
A brand positioning strategy may seem like the light outside a tunnel for new brands that are trying to make their mark among industrial sharks. However, it is also essential to understand how the bigwigs have their teams of branding professionals that dedicate themselves solely towards keeping the strategy moving with the times.
As a new or small to medium business, this can be pretty challenging to do by yourself, which is why we exist! The Go-to Guy! is at your service with our creative and strategic branding experts. With our help, your business can receive a complete branding makeover that will have customers knocking at your doors in no time.
Disclaimer: We have used existing brands like – McDonald’s and Wendy’s to illustrate the concepts of brand positioning and have used the brand examples to show positive information only.
