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A solid market positioning strategy answers three fundamental questions: who you’re serving, what promises you’re making, and why your audience should trust those promises.
With those answers ready, you’ll have an effective market positioning strategy that influences, well, everything. It’s a starting point for creative campaigns, it guides product development and touches every other element of your business and brand, which will make it noticeably easier to make decisions that are in line with your brand positioning.
If you’re a brand manager or marketer looking to build a brand that turns your target audience from curious to convinced, this article is for you.
Successfully positioning your brand means having a distinct place in the market – a place you can own.
An effective positioning strategy ensures your brand isn’t just wandering around, trying to fit in everywhere and ending up not truly belonging anywhere. It’ll ultimately make it easier for your ideal target customer to find you.
So why is market positioning important? For one, it helps you play into market trends in a way that feels authentic to your brand. This will strengthen brand recognition and gives your entire organization guardrails for decisions to make. It also helps you build a stronger emotional connection within a specific market segment, by matching your brand identity to what your target customers relate to.
The list goes on: your brand messaging will become stronger by becoming more focused. This will help you create effective marketing campaigns with more ease.
But the best way to describe its benefits, is by comparing it to a more scattered approach – AKA a business and brand without market positioning:
Ace your market positioning!
Win and protect market share with a positioning strategy based on solid consumer intel – check these top market analysis tools
There’s no positioning that is ‘simply the best’ in the market. The ”market” is composed of so many different elements and factors, and what is viewed as the best by one consumer might be a complete miss for another.
So it’s up to you to find a positioning that makes sense for your business, and for your target audience. Instead of looking at the market as a whole, positioning can often be done on three different levels:
This focuses on how your brand stacks up against the competition, making it clear why you’re the better choice.
This highlights what sets your brand apart, whether it’s an innovative feature, exceptional service, or value for money.
This involves tapping into specific customer groups and tailoring your messaging to meet their unique needs and preferences.
Better yet: mix these strategies to create a strong, multifaceted approach.
You can’t just ‘choose’ a market positioning. In the real world, it’s the results of research and making data-driven decisions.
Here’s how you go about finding your brand positioning strategy:
Market positioning can be done on all levels and checking in on your strategy is always a good idea. Here are two examples we love.
University marketing is boring and cliché, right? It doesn’t have to be. psLondon took a fresh approach by focusing on what makes each university distinct.
They used market research to put together marketing messages that resonate with the unique values of each institution’s target students. For instance, they discovered that freedom was a core value for one university’s audience.
By highlighting these unique values, psLondon helped universities stand out with a brand positioning strategy that attracts the right students by speaking directly to their aspirations.
Manscaped made its mark by identifying a specific niche in the male grooming market: below-the-waist grooming.
This focus allowed Manscaped to address a unique customer need, setting itself apart from competitors with a mix of quality products and a distinctive brand voice.
Their clear, humorous branding is a great example of how products can shape a positioning strategy that affects marketing strategies.
A strong market positioning strategy is easily recognizable and understandable for your target market. Here are some examples of positioning strategies you could consider:
Here are the steps to take to create your very own unique brand positioning strategy, with tips on how to conduct market research, defining your current market position and creating a compelling positioning statement.
Start with getting knowledge about brand perception, competitors and your target market. The best way to do that? Surveys. Follow these steps to gather meaningful data for your market positioning:
Look at who’s already out there.
What are they doing in their positioning strategies that resonates with customers? More importantly, where are they dropping the ball? Do consumers need an alternative to them, or something completely different? Analyze the competition not only from your brand’s POV, but more importantly from the eyes of your target customers.
Now, let’s do some self reflection.
How do people see you right now? Are you the go-to for something specific, or are you blending into the background? How would you describe your current positioning? You can use surveys, social listening, and customer feedback to get a clear picture, and nail your positioning strategies.
When analyzing your brand’s current position, several aspects need careful consideration:
Before explaining what a great positioning statement is, let’s look at what it isn’t.
It’s not a slogan or tagline.
It’s not marketing talk.
It’s not an empty promise or a dream for the future.
An effective market positioning strategy needs to have authentic, reasonable and actionable positioning statements. That should include the following elements:
A perceptual map is a visual tool that helps you see where your product stands in the hearts and minds of your customers compared to your competitors. Here’s how to create one:
By understanding where you stand, you can navigate your brand towards uncharted territories or strengthen your position in the market. It’s a visual guide to making strategic decisions that resonate with your target audience, and communicating about said decisions with stakeholders. It might seem silly, but it’s a lot more clear than just using words.
Implementing a strategy that maintains your brand’s reputation and perception is about consistency and responsiveness. Here’s how to stay on top of your game:
It’s important to recognize the signs that your current market positioning isn’t serving your brand as effectively as it could. Here are some indicators that it might be time for a shift:
Repositioning doesn’t mean starting from scratch but refining and realigning your strategy to ensure it’s as effective as possible. It’s about staying attuned to the ever-changing market and ensuring your brand continues to resonate with your target audience.
The right positioning can transform how customers see your brand, making your products and messaging resonate more deeply with them. But markets and consumer preferences are always changing. Regular research and analysis are crucial to stay aligned with your audience’s needs and ahead of the competition.
Make sure you fill your toolkit with solutions that simplify this process. Read on to find a market analysis tool that helps you find your most effective positioning strategy.
Senior Customer Research Manager
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