What is Brand Positioning and Why is it Important for Your Online Business ?

 

What is Brand Positioning and Why is it Important for Your Online Business ?

 

What is Brand Positioning?

Why is brand positioning and why is it important for your online business ?Brand positioning is the foundation for building a solid brand or business. We tend to use these two terms interchangeable here at Hippos to Horses Marketing.  The two things responsible for developing a concrete brand positioning are the product (service) and the customer. The brand positioning simply verbalizes how the company would like consumers to think about the brand.  

The brand positioning simply verbalizes how the company would like consumers to think about the brand

All a business has to do, is to describe its product in a remarkable way and emphasize the products predominance in relation to competitors’ products in the environment in which it operates. The beauty of marketing, as previously mentioned, it is an art and science. There is more than one way of positioning your brand in the minds of your target audience.

The Business Owner develops the Brand positioning statement

The business owner has the extraordinary task of selecting and developing the company brand positioning statement. This brand positioning statement should be captivating to your tribe, appeal to a sizeable market and be defensible in the face of competition.

The brand positioning statement should be captivating to your tribe, appeal to a sizeable market and be defensible in the face of competition.

How can you develop and sustain a strong brand positioning in an ever-changing marketplace?

Well, we can start by reflecting on the company’s overall positioning strategy in the positioning statement. Next, we shall examine the steps we need to follow to ensure sustainable brand positioning over time. Finally (in part 2), we shall look at potentially repositioning a brand and identifying the circumstances in which this strategy is likely to be successful.

The Brand Positioning Statement

In some cultures, your word is your honour, you make a promise, and you keep it. On a personal level, it is good to honour your word indeed and the spirit of it. However, since we live in a world where such practices do not exist, and most people would take advantage of such a situation, it is always good to formalize and document everything.

The Brand positioning strategy should be summarised into a formal positioning statement that includes the following  four key elements:

  1. A target
  2. A frame of reference
  3. A point of difference
  4. A reason to believe

This statement becomes an internal document that you, the business owner, should use to align all consumer-facing decisions related to the brand or business. The choices include but are not limited to brand design elements, social media posts, website design, branding of content, etc.

This statement becomes an internal document that is used to align all consumer-facing decisions related to the brand

What is in your brand positioning statement? Let’s have a look at Apple’s brand positioning statement. It says, ‘…For consumers who want to feel empowered by the technology they use, regardless of their skill level, Apple offers electronic devices that make you feel more intelligent because they incorporate leading-edge technology that is sophisticated yet intuitive to use.’

Let’s take a breakdown of the statement to see if, indeed, it has all the four elements of a brand statement.

  1. A target: – consumers with varying tech levels
  2. A frame of reference: – electronic gadgets
  3. A point of difference: – that Apple electronics make you feel more intelligent than you do when using a competitor’s brand
  4. A reason to believe: – the brand features superior technology

 

 

 

 

 

The Four Elements of The Brand Positioning Statement

Target

The target consumer, the ideal customer avatar (ICA), the brand persona (BP ) is selected based on many considerations.  We must remember that we are operating our businesses in an environment where we encounter limited resources.

How do you, as a business owner, choose a target customer (ICA, BP)? They are many factors that come into play, such as business goals and financial resources. Generally speaking, it is easier to target them in terms of demographic and psychographic features. Describing a target in these terms is helpful for two reasons: –

  1. It allows you to estimate the potential size of your tribe and, consequently, whether it has the critical mass for you, the business owner, to allocate resources and make profits.
  2. It will influence your marketing mix strategies.

The goal here is to craft a description that has sufficient detail so that you can develop a suitable frame of reference. In the Apple example above, the positioning statement only described the target’s behaviour, i.e., technological skill. It is crucial to keep things simple and doable.

The goal here is to craft a description that has sufficient detail so that you can develop a suitable frame of reference.

Your target description in your positioning statement should include some insights about the motivation to use your product/business. We go back to the Apple example; the positioning statement’s insight is that the consumer’s goal is to feel empowered and use Apple’s technology intuitively.

Have you ever seen the ease with which toddlers’ swipe across screens on an iPhone or iPad to look at photos or play a game on an App? Fascinating!

A key thing for you to note here, as a business owner is that, the consumer insight used usually references a consumer pain point that your product /business can overcome.

We have mentioned before in a previous blog that businesses don’t sell products; they sell benefits. If you position your products to your tribe as beneficial to them, it changes their perception of your brand. It now looks like you are offering them something of value. It is no longer just a product; it’s a benefit!

…that brands don’t sell products; they sell benefits!

To learn how to incorporate the other 3 elements of the into your Brand positioning statement read next weeks blog.

Final Thoughts on the Importance of Developing Brand Positioning For Your Online Business

The brand positioning simply verbalizes how the company would like consumers to think about the brand.  The thoughts that your dream customers have towards your business determines their willingness to purchase your products.

If the association is positive , you will start to experience growth in your business . The growth really means that you will start to make money on a regular and consistent basis .

 

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