What Is Brand Positioning?

We could affirm that brand positioning is the place a brand occupies in the consumer’s mind when thinking about a product or service. For example, when thinking about mobile phones, Apple comes to mind, which means that its brand positioning in the US is excellent.

Because have you ever stopped to think why they should buy from you instead of your competition?

In large part, this is due to a company’s brand positioning. Any company (regardless of its size) must have well-defined marketing strategies that will allow them to achieve its objectives.

This is where brand positioning strategies come into play.

It may sound very radical, but in such a competitive market, we have to be clear about the competitive advantage of our company.

We will see all this in detail throughout the article, so do not worry.

What Is Brand Positioning?

The term positioning became viral thanks to two publicists, Al Ries and Jack Trout, in 1982, who defined it as:

«Positioning begins with a product that can be a merchandise, a service, a company, an institution or even a person. But positioning is not what is done with a product, but rather what is built in people’s minds, that is, how our product is positioned in people’s minds “
Despite the years that this concept has been around and everything evolving in the market, it continues to be an essential strategy in any digital marketing plan.

In other words, brand positioning is the place a product or service occupies in a consumer’s mind compared to competing products.
That is, the positioning of a company is the priority that a client has in choosing my company over another of the competition. For this, it is important to define at the marketing level the image by which we want our customers to know and remember us.

This is what is essential.

What is the reason my client should buy my products or services instead of buying them from my competition and that they fall in love with my brand?

Also Read: Branding And Brand Creation

Strategies To Work on Brand Positioning

This strategy is only a matter for large companies or multinationals. But if the positioning consists of preferring our company over our competition, don’t you think it is an essential strategy in any business, no matter how small?

Much of this strategy must focus on stopping to think and define precisely what we are going to differentiate and excel in the market.

We can differentiate ourselves mainly by:

• Price
• Quality
• Experience

It will also mean that we have to study the competition and find out precisely what it stands out for and how it is positioned to find our real difference concerning it and the most appropriate way to compare ourselves.

When developing a brand positioning strategy, we must take into account the following:

The Target Audience That The Company Is Targeting

A primary strategy is market segmentation to define who our target audience is.

If the positioning is to tell our client how to remember us, it is essential to know exactly who our target audience is.

This way, we can focus on it, knowing where it is and what it values ​​the most to offer it precisely what it is looking for differently from the rest.

How My Company Differs From The Rest of Our Competitors

Brand positioning also helps each company decide how many characteristics it differs from its competition.

The benefits for which we will position our products or services in the mind of our consumers must have characteristics that genuinely stand out.

There are different criteria so that we can distinguish ourselves very clearly from what the rest do:

• The benefit of the product or service must be significant and valued by a sufficient number of customers: if the segment that needs us is tiny, it will make sense to spend our efforts on something other than this.
• The difference offered by that service or product is greater than the benefit provided by other competitors; better yet, they cannot show it.
• Knowing what competitive advantage distinguishes us from the rest and that is profitable for the company. Let’s imagine that we find a competitive advantage that many consumers are looking for, but it has very high costs and would not be profitable. In that case, we should scrap the idea since profitability comes first for a business.

Although it is challenging to find in such a saturated market, our differentiation should be difficult to plagiarize.

Justification of My Competitive Advantage

Now we should be clear about our competitive advantage.

The next step will be to make it clear that all the features are justified and proven, that we can really offer them, and that they stand out from the competition.

The Correct Definition of The 4 P’s of The Marketing Mix.

Another critical point for which brand positioning also serves is to solve the problem of the 4 P’s of the marketing mix.

A company that wants to position itself as the best quality proposal on the market must manufacture or offer a high-quality service at a high price, distribute it through recognized intermediaries and promote it in prestigious media.
Everything has to go in harmony and aligned in the same direction to get our client to perceive us as we have proposed to remember us.

Communication Of Our Brand Positioning

Getting our position to our target audience will be an essential part.

It is useless to define and develop this strategy if I am not going to be able to communicate it to my market later.

We can use different types of communication to communicate our brand positioning.

Big brands can bet on both media due to their large budgets to carry out an advertising campaign.

In the case of small and medium-sized companies, there is an increasing commitment to the online medium.

Advertising on social networks is an excellent alternative for small and medium-sized companies as they do not need large advertising budgets.

We are a small company and have decided to bet on online media. Well, imagine how important it is to develop and define this brand positioning strategy well.

We want to boost our visibility in the online environment because we want to get more customers and more sales, and we also have clear digital marketing strategies that we must carry out to achieve it.

We invest a large part of our resources in each of the strategies, and we manage to have many visits to our website.

Why do we want to attract many visitors if everyone who enters it needs to understand our message, identify themselves, and know our main virtue precisely?

Therefore, it is essential to start at the beginning and define how we are going to be perceived and remembered by our target market, and thus we will make the rest of the strategies effective.

We will manage to have a strong brand.

It will only be helpful to apply and spend our resources in the different media if we have defined exactly what we are for our consumers.

Conclusions

Are you already clear about what your client associates you with? Do you have a clear definition of how you differ from the competition?

I hope you understand more about the importance of defining the brand positioning strategy.

Considering how to highlight our brand, service, or product so that our target audience remembers and thinks of us when they buy or need our assistance, instead of recognizing our competition, is to consider this strategy very seriously.