Brand positioning helps you define your current situation and give your business direction. What is it for and how can you create one? Find out in this article, including 11 specific questions you should ask when positioning your brand. 

 

What is positioning? 

Brand positioning is a part of marketing strategy and business. It places the brand in the context of the market, customers and the business itself. It serves to describe as accurately as possible the situation in which the company finds itself, its goals and values. 

  

The form of positioning 

Positioning can take any form. It can be a presentation, a multi-page document or a short summary. The important thing is that it is suitable for the purpose for which it is being prepared. This can be, for example: 

 

• strategy development 
• launching a new product on the market 
• outsourcing marketing to an external agency 

 

Why is brand positioning important? 

Positioning describes in detail the situation in which a brand finds itself. And it is the starting point for most important management decisions. A company needs to know where it stands in order to define its strategy, set goals, launch a new product and make other strategic decisions. 

Positioning is then particularly important in marketing. It allows you to create a marketing plan and determine the tone of communication, choose the right conversion arguments, create a working website or even choose the right social networks.  

 

How to create positioning step by step 

Brand positioning should be based on thorough analysis and numbers. The more information you get before creating it, the better. For example, the following can help you: 

 

• SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) 
• BCG matrix (analysis of the products or services you offer) 
• competitor analysis (benchmarking) 
• marketing market research 

   

Based on the information you have gathered, answer the following 11 questions: 

  

1. What is the brand story?

When was the brand created? By whom and with what idea was it founded? How has its product portfolio changed, and its values evolved? Has the brand had any significant successes? 

  

2. What is the vision of the project?

What do you want to achieve? What is your mission? What is your vision? What are your goals? What problem do you want to solve with your services or products? 

 

3. How are you better than your competitors?

Who are your competitors? Why should a customer buy from you? What are your strengths that your competitors don’t have? In what ways are you weaker than your competitors? 

  

4. Who are your customers?

How old are they? Where do they live? What is their educational background? What are they interested in? What are their lifestyles, attitudes and opinions? Where do they work and what do they do in their free time? Where can you reach them? 

 

5. What problem do your customers solve?

What do your customers want? What are they worried about? What problem do they want to solve? How will your products help them solve the problem? 

  

6. How do you want to appear externally?

What values do you want to communicate? What do you want customers to think of when they hear your brand name? 

   

7. What adjectives define your brand?

For example: reliable, conservative, controversial, local, traditional, global, organic, consumerist, fast, slow, luxury or cheap. 

   

8. What are the rules of communication for your brand?

Are you strictly professional or, on the contrary, informal and friendly? Do you shout at your customers, or do you chit-chat with them? Do you use emoticons in your written communications? Do you use professional terms? 

Tip: How to communicate with your customers?  

 

9. Why should customers trust you?

Can you show any reviews, testimonials or case studies? Do you have any certificates? Do you attend industry conferences where you present yourself as an expert? Have you won any awards? 

   

10. What are the rational selling points?

For example: price, size, weight or warranty. 

  

11. What are the emotional selling points?

For example: luxury, comfort, relaxation or simplicity. 

   

Two approaches to positioning: Customers or competitors? 

There are two ways to approach brand positioning – you can start with either customers or competitors. 

In the first case, first define your target group. Find out what your customers’ needs are and tailor your products to them. In the second case, benchmark first. Research the competition and find their weaknesses. Take advantage of it, differentiate yourself and define yourself against the competition. 

If you want to get a comprehensive view, do both and then compare the results. Does your idea of how to set yourself apart from the competition match what your customers want and need? If not, keep looking. 

Tip: Build your favourite brand in 8 steps. 

 

Choose your strategy: Positioning by Kotler 

In Principles of Marketing, Kotler states that a brand can take one of five strategies with respect to price and utility: 

  

• More utility at a higher price: The brand offers more utility than competitors and at a higher price. This strategy is typical of firms that offer premium goods and target customers who demand quality and are willing to pay more for it (e.g., Porsche). 
• More utility for the same price: The brand offers more utility than competitors and at the same price. This is usually possible because it has better resources: for example, more modern technology or more educated employees. 
• More utility at a lower price: The brand offers more utility than competitors and at a lower price. This strategy can only be afforded by firms that, for whatever reason, have lower costs than their competitors in the long term (for example, employing cheap labor). 
• Same utility at a lower price: The brand offers the same utility as competitors, but at a lower price. Its strategy is not focused on increasing quality but on reducing costs. It targets price-sensitive customers. This strategy is often found in brands that are just entering the market and need to attract customers (e.g., Xiaomi entering the market). 

• Less utility at a much lower price: The brand offers less utility than competitors and at a lower price. Often these are so-called low-cost goods where price is the most important parameter. 

  

When you create a brand positioning, determine which of these strategies your brand adopts.  

  

What else do you need for a functioning business? 

Understanding what positioning is is just the beginning. You can do so much more for your business: 

  

• Analyse your website and find out how your customers behave on it. 
• Perfect your customer service. 
• Increase customer trust through references. 

• And much more. 

  

myTimi can help you with everything, including positioning. Why should you trust us? Here are our results: 

  

• We increased Lamael’s website traffic by almost 500% in three months. 

• On Algotech’s social media, we managed to increase engagement by a whopping 900%. 
• Thanks to the personalized newsletters we send to our own customers, we increased repeated sales by 21%. 

 

This is all thanks to having experts in different areas of the business on our team. This allows us to see marketing holistically and in line with the overall company strategy. 

Want to try our services? Contact us for a free consultation.