Brand positioning: take your brand from pedestrian to powerful

You’re building a brand, and you’re worried about cutting through. It’s no wonder; the world is cluttered with brands vying for attention. And people are busy.

And more and more, people are feeling disconnected. Sceptical. And empowered. They are looking for something more than just a quick buy – they’re looking for a reason to connect. They’re looking for something different.

We’ve all heard the data: millennials are 73% more likely to engage with a brand that wants to make a difference. But word to the wise: it’s not just millennials. Gen Xers and Baby Boomers are increasingly assessing businesses based on their values. The volume of consumer-generated social media content about company values doubled in 2018.

So it’s about vision, purpose, and values. The way words make people feel. The story behind the story. 

But how do we define those? And even if we know roughly what they are, how do we articulate them? How do we show that we’re different?

It all starts with brand positioning. 

What is brand positioning?

Let’s look at the technical definition. There are actually loads of different interpretations of exactly what a brand positioning is, but I like HubSpot’s the best: 

“Brand positioning is the process of positioning your brand in the mind of your customers. More than a tagline… brand positioning is the strategy used to set your business apart from the rest.”

Powerful stuff, right? Here’s another way I like to think about it.

Imagine, for a minute, that your brand is a song. 

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
You could be singing an awesome tune. You could be singing the business equivalent of ‘You’re The Voice.’ (One of the greatest songs of all time, thanks Farnsy). 
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
But imagine that everyone in your business sings different words. All of a sudden, that awesome song sounds confused. Disjointed. The people listening were desperate to join in, but instead they walk away, because they don’t know the words either, and they can’t really understand it anyway.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Imagine then, that everyone knows the words. ⠀⠀⠀⠀

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Your song becomes louder.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Your song becomes prouder.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
And everyone wants to join in.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Brand positioning gives you the words to your song, so that everyone sings the same tune, and so that your brand becomes more potent, powerful and amplified. And stands out.

Farnsy. Distinctive, powerful and perennial. Every brand should be like Farnsy.

OK, but what’s actually in a brand positioning?

All brand positionings are slightly different, but here’s a sample of what yours might include. 

Brand strengths

What is your brand known for? What do you do exceptionally well? You might glean these strengths from customer testimonials or editorial reviews. Or, you may instinctively know what your brand does well.

Typically, identifying your brand strengths is all about looking back and acknowledging what has madeyour brand strong, so that we can carry it into the future.

Competitive environment

If your customer is going to spend money, what other brands, products or services might compete with yours? 

It could be your direct competitors – those in your category – but it could be other things outside your category. It’s important to consider all these different competitors so that we can help address why the customer should purchase from you instead. 

For example, Uber’s direct competitors might be Silver Service Taxis and Yellow Cabs, but they are also competing against people deciding to take public transport or drive themselves.

Looking at the competitive environment means looking what makes those competitors unique – so you can identify the space they aren’t occupying.

Target audience

Who is your target customer? This goes beyond demographics and looks at their problems and motivations. What drives them to buy? 

It’s important to get really specific here. Often, a business might make broad generalisations about their customers. Think about a wellness organisation who runs wellness workshops in organisations. They might think that their target customer is ‘Big multi-national corporations’ – but who specifically makes the decision? Who influences the decision-maker? What’s their gender and rough age? Where do they live?

The customer might actually be the HR manager, who is typically female, between 30-45, living in metro areas. And she will probably won’t want to be marketed to like she’s a ‘big multi-national corporation’.

Customer insights

Any good business knows it has to be customer-centric. And big brands can spend millions of dollars on research and data. When we create a brand positioning, ideally we’d have loads of data – and more importantly, insights – at our disposal. But even in the absence of reams of data, we can draw some clear insights. There are clever ways we can go about getting that information. 

Insights draw on the little nuggets of truths that we have gleaned from identifying and understanding our customer and start to inform us about how they evaluate and make decisions. If we can understand how they make decisions, we can better serve their needs.

Customer benefits

This is different to strengths. Here, we identify ‘what can we do to we make our customer’s world better’? Sometimes this might include things that as a business, we aren’t delivering on yet. That’s ok. This is more of a visioning document than capturing the status quo.

If you’re familiar with Simon Sinek’s work (and if you’re not, check this video out), this is where he talks about ‘what’. This is ‘what’ your business does that delivers a benefit to the customer.

Brand values

Brand values give us guidelines for how we should behave. The moral compass that guides us. The moral yardstick that we should measure ourselves against. They are the things we stand for, believe in, and would feel shaken by if we were challenged on.

Brand personality

How does your brand express itself? Is it savvy, bold and unshakeable? Or is it considered, refined and supportive? It helps here to think about the brand like it’s a person. How would you describe that person? Is she/he fun to be around and good for a laugh? Does she/he have boundless curiosity or a silent observer? How would they walk into a room? What would people say about them?

Purpose

This is the higher calling. The thing that we’re good at, that we love, that we strive for, that we want to change about the world. This is the reason the company exists. It’s the WHY.

Discriminator – the brand positioning statement

This is the thing that sets us apart from everyone else. It is the distillation of everything in the document that communicates your business’s unique value to your customers, in relation to your competitors. It’s the ‘why choose me’. In other words, it’s the elevator pitch. 

Words are power. Brand positioning is a super power.

Sounds epic! How can I get one?

Give me a buzz – or ping me an email – and I’ll talk you through all the details. 

For me, developing a brand positioning is an awesome privilege, because I get to know a business, its people and its customers so intimately. It’s something that I’ve done for multi-million dollar brands to help them build better relationships with their customers, and I’ve helped start ups get started with their best foot forward. I’ve also helped the businesses in between, who felt like they needed to supercharge their business.

It’s an unbelievably valuable exercise to go through, because it asks the big questions and helps the people in the business define who they are, what they stand for, and why they are different.

I’ve seen brands be transformed from pedestrian to powerful.

Are you next?

Psssst. Want to hear me talk more about brand positioning? You can check it out in an interview here, with Business Coach Clare Wood.