There are millions upon millions of entrepreneurs who think that branding their business is all about getting a pretty logo. But for brand positioning, you need far more than just a logo. Branding is all about bringing a business and an audience closer together and making that business appealing to that audience. And yes, a good logo and visuals are an absolute prerequisite and non-negotiable when you’re building up a brand, as you want it to be as visually appealing as possible to the audience. 

But when it comes to influencing decisions, the audience wants far more than just good looks. And that’s when brand positioning comes into play. From our years of experience in branding renowned companies and events such as SiGMA ‘21, Cannabiz World Summit, European Capitals of Culture – Valletta ‘18, iGaming NEXT and many more, we have provided a simple yet effective guideline on how you can effectively position your brand in any marketplace. 

What is brand positioning?

In simple terms, brand positioning is positioning your brand in the mind of your audience. It’s how one brand distinguishes itself from its competitors and gives the audience reasons to care about that particular brand. Branding, therefore, is not just a game of logos, fonts, colours and typography, rather, it’s a game of influencing the perceptions of your audience. Take home this famous quote on brand positioning – 

Your brand is not what you say it is, it’s what they say it is.

Marty Neumeier

The American author and brand strategist is essentially saying here that your brand lives in the mind of your audience, and you don’t really have any control over how they perceive it. Now, you may not be able to control it, but you do have some influence over the audience’s perception of your brand. In this article, we will take a look at exactly how you can do that. But first, let’s find out why you need brand positioning. 

Why is brand positioning important for you?

Brand positioning is critically important to new brands because when they come into the marketplace, there are already competitors in the marketplace offering products and services to your targeted audience. As the new brand on the block, you need to show the difference. There’s really no point in coming into the marketplace and offering what your competitors are already offering to the customers because they already have brand awareness, brand presence and brand reputation. 

When entering into the market as a new brand, you better have a well-defined brand positioning strategy and a well-defined differentiator to highlight what makes you different and why your audience should care. When we branded the leading iGaming events SiGMA ‘19 and SiGMA ‘21, one of the key differentiators was a cross-cultural theme that established a connection with audiences across continents. 

How to effectively position your brand?

One of the most critical components of an effective brand positioning strategy is the mind of the audience. That’s why, for effective positioning, you need to understand who your audience is, where they’re coming from, what they’re going through, and what their desires, fears and pain points are. You also need a good understanding of what outcome they want from your products or services. Without this information, any brand positioning strategy will be ineffective. 

An effective brand positioning is all about defining the difference that your product is going to make in the lives of your audience. It’s about what your business is going to mean to them, for example, it may be faster, stronger, more convenient, more efficient, better designed, cheaper or even more luxurious. At the end of the day, your product is only going to be remembered for the differences it has from its competitors. 

Below we have listed a few simple yet effective steps for successfully positioning your brand –

  • Determine your current position in the marketplace. 
  • Identify your competitors so you can decide how you can gain an edge over them. 
  • Conduct in-depth competitor research – what products your competitors offer, their weaknesses and strengths, strategies that make them successful, their current position in the market etc. 
  • Recognise patterns that will start to form after you conduct competitor and market research. Try to find a gap in those patterns and see if your business can fulfill that gap.
  • Build your unique value proposition – one of the most important aspects of effective brand positioning.
  • Prioritise a key message, preferably something that matches your brand personality, for example, care/empathy, bold/confident, creative/inventive, playful/fun etc. 
  • Create a brand positioning statement. A brand positioning statement is a one or two-sentence declaration that explains how your brand is beneficial to your customers in contrast to your competitors. 
  • Gather feedback from your customers to understand the effectiveness of your brand positioning.

With an effective brand positioning strategy, any newcomer can ruffle the feathers of an established giant corporation. That’s why there is absolutely no reason for startups to feel any lack of confidence when going into the marketplace. Just by understanding who the audience is and their pain points, new brands can easily present an alternative and generate a big noise in the market. Once you properly position your brand, marketing, which should only be done after proper branding, will become much easier. To know more, read Branding and Marketing: Here’s How They Go Hand in Hand.

If you are looking to effectively position your brand, we can help with our years of experience in the marketing field. Let’s get in touch!