Brand Positioning: What it is and how to get right

Simply brand positioning is anything that defines the space a product occupies in the market and how it is perceived in the minds of the consumer.

Kotler defined brand positioning as “The act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market”

Positioning your brand is an important aspect of running a business, it is what shapes customers’ loyalty, preference, as well as affinity. Effective and advantageous brand positioning is when the audience views the brand as a favorable one.

Here are some steps you should consider when attempting to position your brand favorably in the market:

Evaluate your current status:

Before you begin anything an important thing to do is to realize, analyze, and observe accurately where you are currently. Evaluating your current status will enable you to take the necessary steps and will also keep you well informed in order to make decisions.

This step would be more constructive if you sought fresh insight from a qualified third party since this will give you a better picture of how outsiders and your audience perceive you. Objective feedback could be extremely advantageous.

Know your target audience:

Define and ascertain who your product or service is going to be benefiting. You can commence by coming up with a vision and a mission statement expressing the same, the benefit of doing so is twofold, it helps the workforce understand what exactly they are striving for and the people realize what they are interacting with.

Figuring out your target audience will lead you to communicate with them more specifically and provide them with solutions more relevant and catered to them.

Defining your target audience is the most basic aspect that has to be covered when it comes to offering any product or service.

Scout your industry:

This step involves you charting down a SWOT analysis and doing some research about the industry you want to insert yourself into.

An important thing to do at this point is to analyze your competition and the people on the top. This is a great way to learn from other people’s experiences and also to learn what industry experts are doing right. You can use this knowledge to your advantage and ascertain what approach you would like to take and what you want to avoid.

Put in place an efficient strategy to reach your goals

Once you have ascertained the aforementioned variables all that remains is coming up with a strategy to get you there.

This step involves specifying the means you will employ to get to the end result, the communication channel you will use, the media plan, and the marketing plan.

Once a strategy has been put in place, you can proceed to execute it and tweak it if and when necessary.

Considering the appropriate variables

There are multiple factors that positioning is based on, characteristics, price point, quality, and application to name a few. It is of paramount importance to be clear about all these variables, considering they will determine the space and position your product will occupy in the market.

This step will undeniably involve some exhaustive research but will prove to be extremely advantageous in the long run.

On a concluding note, brand positioning is an extremely important aspect of business considering it shapes the expectations of your audience as well as their perception of it.

If executed right this culd be a massive advantage for any product or service.