Why brand positioning is important for brand success
What is brand positioning?
Brand positioning is the space your brand takes in both the market and minds of consumers.
Envision McDonald’s for a moment.
What was the first thing that came to your mind? Was it their slogan “i’m lovin’ it?” Or, their big ‘M’ logo and their red and yellow colour palette? Perhaps they are your go-to fast food chain, and you instantly craved your favourite burger. That is brand positioning.
Benefits of good brand positioning
It allows you to differentiate your brand:
There will already be a multitude of businesses in your niche. Having a brand positioning allows you to highlight your target audience, your values, what is unique about your brand, and give consumers reasons to choose you over your competitors.
It gets you more sales:
Everyone is constantly being bombarded with media and advertisements, often catered to their interests based on their social media usage. This makes it harder to convince a customer to buy from your business, as they may already be seeing ads of similar products or services multiple times a day from other businesses. However, if you have good brand positioning your target audience is specific. This means you’re more likely to trigger an emotional response within them to make them buy from you. Some examples of things that can resonate with your audience are: them learning about your brand’s backstory, your inspiration or journey, or how your product can help with something they worry about.
Value > Pricing:
When you are able to get inside the minds and hearts of consumers with good brand positioning, pricing becomes less important. You are able to justify your pricing choices based on the value you provide, and the competition against other business, who charge less, decreases.
It helps your other marketing strategies:
Whether you are writing blog posts, or recording videos or running events to market your business, having a brand positioning helps. It allows you to have a deeper understanding of your brand, what your brand goals are, what your story is, where you stand in the market and what consumers think of you. This will make other marketing forms, such as social media, easier to communicate through.
It improves your brand identity:
Your brand will mean more to consumers than a logo or location, as they will able to connect more to your well-positioned brand. Being aware of your brand’s position in the market also means that any design choices you make will not clash with others in the market, encouraging you to be more creative and unique. Customers will then be able to associate your brand with your design choices, and remember you by them. This will boost your relationships with customers as well as your brand’s reputation.
How to position your brand
Now you know why brand positioning is important for brand success, you’re probably wondering how to position your brand.
Analyse your current brand positioning:
You need to determine where you currently are to grow to where you want to be. Think about who your target audience is, and then assess if your current consumers fall into the same category. If you are just starting out, think about what you hope to achieve. Write a mission statement and upload it onto your website to identify as well as highlight your goals.
Study the competition:
Look at your competitors and measure your brand against theirs. What are their goals and how are they achieving them? What do you and others associate their brand with? How did they achieve this?
Highlight your value:
Upon studying your competitors, you should have been able to identify what is different about your brand. Use this difference – it is what makes you unique. Use it as your unique selling point and stand out from the competition.
Write a brand positioning statement:
This is a very important step. A brand positioning statement is something you can continually refer back to. It is a written format of all of the steps we have just covered. In your brand positioning statement, you should cover:
- Who your target audience is
- What your brand’s unique selling point is – what sets you apart from others
- How you benefit consumers
- What your short-term and long-term goals for your brand are
- How you will try to achieve these goals
Implement and review:
Once you have written your brand positioning statement and pulled a brand positioning strategy together, you can begin to implement it. After a month, review the changes you have made and measure up their success. You can do this by asking customers for feedback or using analytics to track your brand’s development.
Summary
Brand positioning is important for brand success as it allows you to establish market differentiation amongst competitors, increase your brand’s value, sales, reputation and its relationships with customers. Brand positioning can align and enhance your other forms of marketing, such as copywriting. Positioning your brand for success involves studying your current position, that of your competitors and writing a brand positioning statement.
Read our other relevant blog posts to help you improve your brand positioning:
