The most successful brands are, above all else, known for something. They have a unique value proposition that customers easily understand, thus differentiating them from their competitors. Identifying what makes your company’s products or services one-of-a-kind can go a long way to developing a solid following. Known as brand positioning, that sort of identification plays a critical role in any viable marketing strategy.
What Is Brand Positioning in Marketing?
Before discussing how to develop a proper brand positioning strategy, the base-level question — What is positioning in marketing? — must be answered.
At its core, brand positioning identifies the traits that a company’s products or services unique within its particular market sector. It can also refer to specific qualities that a single company possesses: Walmart, for instance, is known for being an inexpensive retailer that attracts cost-conscious consumers looking for affordable groceries, clothing, and home goods, whereas Apple is known for producing high-value electronics with clean and sleek designs.
Types of Positioning Strategies
Multiple types of positioning strategies may suit your business, though a few of the most common include customer service, convenience, price, quality, and differentiation. You’ll want to carefully examine your company and what it has to offer to determine the positioning strategy that best suits your organization.
Developing a Successful Positioning Strategy
Determining and forming a suitable market positioning strategy for your organization is a relatively easy process, so long as you follow the series of steps below:
Step 1: Conducting Market Research to Identify Target Audience and Competitors
You’ll want to start the process by thoroughly evaluating all aspects of your target audience, including their demographics, buying behaviors, geography, and income. Knowing your buyers can help you better understand their needs and why they continue to choose your company.
Your buyer analysis should unveil some characteristics that will make it easier to determine what your brand positioning strategy should be. For instance, if you’re targeting wealthier individuals in their 40s, you might position your products as high-quality and equally classy.
You’ll also want to examine your competitor’s positioning. Check out their website and social media accounts to understand the strategies they’re using and how you might be able to improve upon them.
Step 2: Defining Your Unique Selling Proposition and Value Proposition
Once you specify your brand positioning, you can develop its unique selling proposition (USP) and value proposition. You’ll want to communicate these two throughout all of your external messaging to ensure that potential buyers clearly understand what you have to offer.
Competitor analysis can also help you define your USP. Through your evaluation, you should pick up on certain trends. For instance, you might see that your competitors don’t offer free trials for their services or that their pricing is much more expensive than yours. Ensure you communicate the strengths you provide over your competitors in your value proposition.
Step 3: Crafting Your Brand Story and Messaging to Connect with Your Target Audience
Your next step is to develop your brand’s story and messaging. Your brand’s story will clearly explain what you have to offer to your buyers and why your company is the right choice for them. You can showcase your story through text, but a simple video that’s visible on your website alongside pages that fully describe your company can help fully convey your message.
Once you decide on your approach to messaging, it is critical to maintain it whenever you communicate with your customers.
Step 4: Choosing the Right Communication Channels to Reach Your Target Audience
You can use multiple communication channels to connect with your audience, but you don’t need to be everywhere at once. Instead, concentrate on where your buyers are most likely to congregate.
For a B2B organization, for example, developing a social media presence on LinkedIn and through industry conferences can help you reach your target audience. Meanwhile, an e-commerce company seeking to attract younger buyers might find TikTok and Instagram better alternatives.
Step 5: Creating Consistency Across All Touchpoints to Build a Strong Brand Image
Once you establish your messaging and positioning, you’ll need to maintain consistency to strengthen your brand image, or else your buyers will lose sight of your value proposition.
As such, if you position your brand as high-quality, you must stick with that positioning throughout all your communications and advertising. If you suddenly decide to change your positioning and focus on a low price point, it could damage your company’s reputation and ultimately confuse your buyers.
Stand Out in a Competitive Business Landscape with MARION Marketing Services
In the early days of your business, figuring out the correct positioning for your company’s products and services can be challenging. You’re new to the market and want to grow your revenue fast, so you might ignore brand positioning in favor of generating quick sales, but that’s a mistake, to put it bluntly.
You’ll want to establish a USP and value proposition early on to guarantee you can create consistent messaging that resonates with your target buyers and grows your company’s following.
MARION can help you build the right market positioning strategy for your organization — reach out to us today to get started!
