A strong brand is what sets apart in a vast competing world of business. For example, if you cut yourself, you will not ask the pharmacy for a bandage but a Band-Aid. Any company should prioritize in strengthening ding. A study shows that companies that invest in strengthening the branding show an average revenue increase of 23%.
Brand positioning is the method of placing your brand in the mind of your customers. It is referred to as a positioning strategy, brand strategy, or brand positioning statement.
You need to place the brand in the market to position your niche for the customers to distinguish your products and services. It includes price, promotion, distribution, packaging, and competition. The aim is to create a unique impression to the minds of the customers and look at you to be distinct and unique from the rest in the marketplace.
Taglines and Positioning statements
Often, companies are confused with company taglines or slogans to brand positioning statements.
Brand positioning statements are for internal use that will guide the business in marketing and making decisions in the operations. The positioning statement can help you make decisions that can influence the perception of your brand.
A tagline is for external use to maximize marketing efforts. However, there are best practices that brand positioning statement turned to slogans. It becomes easy for decision-makers to track down results. Nevertheless, at a corporate perspective for planning and decision making, it is still essential to distinguish tagline and positioning statement.
Strategies to Growth Hack Your Brand
Your brand can be an influence on your industry. Brandlaureate Awards is magnifying the brands that position as key opinion leaders. The following are the key strategies that your company should consider to be on top of your industry;
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Determine what is your current brand positioning
- Determine if you are really marketing your product or you are only placing another item on the market, or are you promoting it as something distinct. You need to understand your current position and analyze the dynamics of the competition.
- Who your customers are. Identify the goals, mission, and values of your company that makes it different from the rest of the market. Take a stand on your values and transpire them to your brand persona and brand voice.
- Assess the language that your brand is using. Does your brand communicate well with your target consumers? For example, the language of millennials is used by mobile phone companies when making their taglines.
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Know your competition
- Whom you are competing. It is useful if you can conduct competitor research and use the results to develop a better strategy to gain the edge. The following are the best ways to know the dynamics of the competition:
- Conduct market research
- Customer feedback
- Social media- use forums or trigger questions with the netizens
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Conduct the competitor study
- In-Depth competitor research and analyze their positioning in the marketplace. At the minimum, you need to know the following:
- The products and services your competitors are capable of offering
- Strengths and weaknesses
- Their successful marketing strategies
- What is their current position in the market?
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Determine the unique features of your brand
- What makes you different and what works best for you. Know the patterns of your competitors, and you can see their strengths and weaknesses. Determine if their faults are your strengths because that will start you to define your strengths and uniqueness. It is the perfect starting point to draw your brand to the position in the market.
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Create the positioning statement
- The recent results to create your positioning statement. The following questions are your best guide;
- Who are your target customers?
- What are your product and services offered?
- What is the evidence of benefits from your products or services?
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Test if your brand positioning statement works
- Feedback from your customers and checks if it achieves your goal. Do not be afraid to make adjustments and improvement until you reach the desired effect. Be consistent in asking feedback from your customers.
The World Brands Foundation TWBF is the opinion leader for setting the standards of branding that will lead to business success. It is a great platform for great brands & great personalities and is the world’s only branding foundation and a non-profit organization dedicated to developing brands in a myriad of business backdrops.
“Branding has the power to transport you to the realms of the unimaginable.” – Dr.KKJohan, founding President of The BrandLaureate.
Get in touch with us for more tips on how to do branding and digital marketing in Singapore.
The Ultimate Guide to Successful Brand Positioning in 2022
Proper brand positioning will enable you to unlock the full potential of your online business. Borrow a leaf from renowned companies such as Coca-Cola, who are so influential in the market that their names are used as generic names for similar products.
Like SEO, you need a robust brand positioning strategy to succeed in the competitive business landscape. Companies that are consistently presented to the target customers enjoy an increase in revenue of 10%-20% on average. Other benefits include more customer loyalty, increased competitiveness, and improved image.
What is Brand Positioning?
Brand positioning to a host of strategies or processes that you do to position your brand name in the minds of the target customers. It’s more than the logo and tagline. It’s the strategy that sets your business apart from the crowd.
A brand positioning strategy is considered adequate if a brand is deemed valuable, credible, and the best option in the market. Once you win the trust of your customers, they will naturally gravitate towards you, and it will be difficult for anyone to convince them otherwise.
Differentiation is the primary thing that fosters brand awareness, justifies the pricing, and communicates the value of your product or service to the customers. Messaging and positioning vary across industries, but common brand positioning strategies work well for most businesses.
Let’s look at seven brand positioning strategies you can use to get your business to the next level of success.
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Price-Based Positioning Strategy
As the name suggests, price-based positioning is a strategy that companies use to show their service and product is the most competitively priced or affordable option in the market.
Positioning your service or product as the cheapest yet most effective option has an immense potential of expanding your clientele base since no customers like spending more money than they should on a product or service.
Offering low prices is an easy and no-fail way of encouraging potential customers to buy from you. However, there are some drawbacks and risks that you should keep in mind. One risk is the perception that the quality of the product or service is low. That’s why it’s priced lower than other similar products in the market.
There is also the risk of hurting your profitability by charging low prices. The price-based positioning strategy should be carefully planned and executed to avoid plunging your business into financial turmoil. The operating costs should be factored in the prices. If not, you will soon run out of cash to support daily operations such as paying wages and purchasing raw materials.
The strategy can also result in a fierce price war in the industry that could see small businesses without much financial muscle closing shop. This effect is common in air travel, where renowned brands offer low rates to knock the small airlines off balance.
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Customer Service Positioning Strategy
Quality of customer service is one of the primary factors customers consider before buying from a particular company.
Companies operating in industries known for not paying attention to the quality of support rendered to customers can benefit from a customer service positioning strategy.
That is, offering quality support that is friendly and in line with the customers’ expectations differentiates them from the rest. Also, companies that provide sophisticated products such as computer software can flaunt their client-oriented and robust support system to expand their market base.
One of the highlights of this strategy is that top-quality customer service can justify the high price tag on a product or service. A good example is Apple products – their prices are premium, but that doesn’t deter customers from buying them because of the quality, friendly and timely support they get from the company.
Concisely, the quality of support service is integral to the company’s success. An unsatisfied customer can eventually become your leading promoter if you offer a good customer service experience. Transparency is vital when applying this brand positioning strategy.
If you promise quality customer service, make sure you keep your word. Otherwise, negative reviews and angry tirades on call and social media platforms will hurt your branding efforts. Invest in modern customer service software and train your staff to use it to offer exceptional support to your customers consistently.
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Quality-Based Brand Positioning
Companies opt for quality-based brand positioning to emphasise the quality of their products or services. They use this factor to justify the premium pricing model.
The quality aspect is further cemented by exceptional craftsmanship, high-quality raw materials, small-batch or limited production, and adherence to sustainable production practices. The results further prove that it’s OKAY to spend a few hundred dollars extra on the product or service.
Glowing customer testimonials also fuel the growth of the companies and give them a firm footing in the industry. They are considered an authority since the products are rare and the similar ones in the market don’t match up in terms of efficiency, quality, and durability.
Nonetheless, customers on a tight budget are not favoured by this strategy. Take time to research your target customers and create buyer personas. Information such as shopping habits and income will help you decide whether implementing this brand positioning strategy is good for business.
Consult widely and check the results other brands that implemented the strategy have achieved to avoid regrets down the road. For example, you can learn from their mistakes and use their results in the market to prepare accordingly.
Be vigilant not to make the same mistakes or assumptions. All decisions should be based on accurate market data and don’t assume or leave anything to chance.
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Social Media Positioning Strategy
Social media marketing has proven to be effective in helping brands gain exposure online. One tweet or post can go viral, resulting in a massive stream of organic traffic and new customers.
The social media positioning strategy focuses on multiple networking sites, not just one platform. The channels that you settle for equally radiate the desired messaging. Contrary to popular belief, your brand does not have to be active on all platforms.
If you try to do that, you will spend hundreds of hours marketing your brand but get low results from some. The secret to success in social media positioning is focussing on channels that the target customers use the most.
Here are three questions you should ask yourself to decide which platform to use.
- Which social media platforms do your ideal customers spend leisure time on daily?
- Where do the customers spend money?
- Where do the target customers search for advice and information related to your industry?
It’s unlikely to get the same answer for all three questions, but that is still possible. Focus on two or three platforms to avoid cutting yourself too thin. Take time to create custom messaging to meet and interact with the customers via platforms they are fond of.
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Convenience Based Positioning Strategy
Convenience-based position strategy is pillared on why a particular service or product is more convenient to purchase and use than what the competitors offer. The convenience factor is based on various factors such as compatibility with multiple platforms, ease of use, location, and global accessibility.
Product design may also influence the convenience factor. For instance, Swiffer, a renowned company that sells household cleaning products, markets its bestseller, WetJet, as a convenient and ideal alternative to the conventional mop. The main difference between it and the latter is that it comes with disposable mopping pads.
In a nutshell, positioning your service or product as the most ideal and convenient replacement to other similar products in the market will attract tech-savvy and busy online customers. The functionalism and suitability of the product to the customers can justify the high price tag.
Using the same example of Swiffer, the brand’s WetJet is currently retailing at $26, whereas its main competitor O-Cedar is only $10.
Convenience often makes the product more expensive and inaccessible to some customers. Making the product is also high due to the many factors that come into play.
For example, suppose you’re a B2B company in the SaaS industry and create software compatible with different computer operating systems. In that case, you will need a team of professional developers to meet the target customers’ expectations.
The developers will need to be available round the clock to solve bugs and other issues promptly. The cost of having such as team will leave you with no option but to offer the software at a high price to cover your operating cost.
In addition, you need to check if the product is truly more convenient and valuable to the customers. Some WetJet mop customers may feel the product is inconvenient and expensive to use since they have to buy refills now and then.
If your brand has a similar product model, consider providing better subscription plans to satisfy the customers’ expectations amicably. If not, they will soon ditch your brand for the competitors. Swiffer can retain its top position in the market by introducing affordable and automatic refill programs.
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Differentiation Positioning Strategy
Earlier, we mentioned the importance of identifying what makes your product or service different from others. If nothing piques the customer’s interest in choosing your brand over the rest, you will have difficulty convincing them to buy.
A differentiation positioning strategy is based on this concept. It’s hinged on the product or service’s innovative qualities and uniqueness, making it better than the competitors. Tesla is a perfect example of a brand that uses this positioning strategy to endear itself to customers who desire to drive technologically advanced cars.
Before the inception of Tesla cars, there wasn’t so much hype about electric vehicles. Today, millions of people are ditching fuel-based cars for electric and self-driving cars. Other tech industries have followed suit to develop their versions of electric cars to rival Tesla’s models.
However, Tesla is still at the helm of this new technology, as evident from its high annual sales figures. Their customers are tech-savvy and want the very best cars as well as other related products. Recently, the company announced it would release smartphones and smartwatches to compete with Apple and Samsung.
Like the convenience-based positioning, this strategy is costly, and only brands with the financial resources required can implement it. One of the challenges of the differentiation positioning strategy is target customers may be concerned about the quality of the products. The lack of enough information about its efficiency and durability can discourage some from buying.
When launching a brand-new product, ensure that you provide accurate details of the research, experiments and tests done in each development stage. Also, educate the customers on how the new technology works and will improve their lives.
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Role-focussed Positioning Strategy
Role-focussed position strategy focus on specific functions in the business or organisation. For example, a digital marketing agency can decide to only focus on helping brands grow through email marketing.
A PR firm may decide to target only company CEOs who are keen on scaling up their businesses. It works by convincing the customers that your business is laser-focused on their specific needs and that you are the most knowledgeable service provider. Your expertise and reputation in the market will significantly help you to dominate the market.
Those are the seven most valuable brand positioning strategies you can use to give your brand a higher cutting edge. Below is a recap of the benefits of correct brand positioning.
- It enables brands to focus their resources on a specific target audience/market.
- Clarifies how your products or services vary from the rest.
- Provides a blueprint for attracting new customers and retaining the existing ones.
- Fosters creative decision making
Monitor the results to know if you need to tweak the adopted brand positioning strategy. Stay abreast of trends in the market to get to the top, and the selected strategy should complement the other processes such as digital marketing.
MediaOne Marketing is a fully licensed digital marketing agency that is best known for offering stellar branding services to companies from across the globe. Call us today on +65 6789 9852 for a free and non-obligatory branding consultancy session.
