What is Brand Positioning?
Posted on 01. Mar, 2010 by Kelly Hobkirk in Brand Positioning, Branding.
I gave a talk on branding last Friday at the beautiful new Bellevue City Hall. One topic that spurred many questions was Brand Positioning. It is difficult to explain such an important step of the branding process in roughly ten minutes, so here’s a little more detail. I’ll be visiting this topic often.
Brand positioning is perhaps the most shunned part of branding that exists, especially for small businesses. Creative professionals don’t like it because it is quite involved and less on the creative side. Clients don’t like it because it costs money, and it can reveal that your golden egg is perhaps a little more on the silver side.
We all like to believe that our ideas are completely original, and often times they are. But – and this is a big but – sometimes your original ideas are not so original.
Brand positioning brings to light the viability of your product or service. It can also show alternate paths, and even reveal new opportunities.
Brand Positioning is a difficult task which can rarely be completed by one person alone. Good brand positioning is a question and answer proposition, requiring hours and days of intense research, along with a nearly inhuman amount of objectivity.
Combined with brand strategy, positioning is a potent step in brand development. Brand positioning and strategy will provide you with a clear direction and a wide-angle view of the future for your marketing. It will also give your graphic designer exactly what they need to be able to design your corporate identity with purpose and meaning.
Brand positioning clearly defines the following crucial things, before you invest time, money, hopes, and energy in realizing your vision:
Originality – Is your idea unique? You may think it is, but now is the time to do some intensive research to discover whether or not other companies are marketing the same product or service.
Establish your unique position in your chosen market - If your product is totally unique, you may have hit a home run. If there are other products just like it, you may have to position yours as being different in one important way, which can capture the attention of your audience, and can garner enough sales to justify the effort.
Identify competitors - Everyone has competition. Everyone. I once had a boss who liked to tell his employees that the company had no competition. He wanted them to think only about their own success. There is wisdom in that approach, because it can help people focus, however, a strong competitor is a valuable asset. It gives you a peer, a potential equal whom you can rise above, or set incremental goals against, to capture a market. All great athletes have competitors. Businesses do too.
Determine required budget to compete - Do you have the needed budget? You may have the drive and determination, but if a larger competitor has the marketing budget to outgun you at every crucial step, you are going to need to change your strategy, and you may need to consider a different position in the market.
This is often a hard process. When you’re excited about getting your business started or launching a new brand, objectivity is usually the one key ingredient most people lack, and often in a big way. I highly recommend pairing with a brand consultant or graphic designer who truly understands branding.
At the end of the process, you should have a brand position summary that clearly states your market position, and can guide your product development, brand development, and marketing planning.
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