Brand positioning is the strategic process of getting your target audience to know your brand and positively associate it with specific positive attributes and characteristics. One of the first steps an experienced marketing and branding agency takes is to generate a company positioning statement that details what you do, whom you do it for, and what differentiates you from your competitors in the marketplace.
By going through the process of developing a positioning statement, your branding agency should work with you to define your company and your audience base by defining your customer concerns and the unique solutions and innovations your company delivers. Once your positioning statement is created, it will help align your organization with a single, consistent message, increase content generation efficiency, and ensure consistency throughout said content.
Let’s begin by creating the foundation of your brand’s positioning statement: quickly compose a few sentences that describe the uniqueness of your company, not one of your best selling products or services but your company – and then what separates you from your competition. Let this come naturally and do not overthink it; at a maximum, this should take a minute or two write these sentences.
Reflecting and reading the description you just wrote, does your company sound unique or does it sound similar to other businesses in your industry? Was your description easy to compose? Do you like the description you wrote? Do you believe that stakeholders inside and outside your company would agree with what you wrote? Does it match what is on your company’s website? If you answered no to just one of these questions, your corporate positioning statement needs urgent attention.
First, you must define the following elements of your positioning statement. At Dreamweaver Brand Communications, we utilize the following framework and brand positioning questions daily to guide our B2B and B2C branding and marketing clients to develop the right tone, words, and phrases to uniquely position them in the marketplace.
It is vital that when you are working through each step, be as focused and precise as possible.
| Who | Your potential customers and end users |
| Where | Their industries or type of organization |
| Why | Ease their pain points |
| What | Your unique industry leading solutions |
| How | The special methods your company uses that provide solutions and help the customer |
It is vital to think beyond your current customer base and projects when identifying elements of your brand positioning statement. List out the different product and services that your company delivers to your ideal client.
These questions will guide your brand development further:
What goods and services do your team know best?
What do you and your team prefer to work on more than anything else?
What are you better at than any other competitor?
What market niche can you dominate?
What pain points do your customers have and how do you solve them?
What are the three most significant future growth opportunities for your company
(new regions, market segments, customer type, etc.)?
This process requires sometimes difficult introspection and bringing in a branding agency to help in this process. If you decide to continue developing your brand positioning statement, one should query key team members of the company and also key customers and suppliers if possible. You could use an anonymous questionnaire, an email survey, or quick face to face interviews to learn what other think your company’s strengths and weakness are. Answers to these questions often become great conversation starters for your senior leadership team and spur further debate and discussions to create each piece of your brand positioning statement elements.
Following this process and going step-by-step, through the brand positioning workshop, will lead to a strategically crafted brand positioning statement that can be utilized on your website, in your content, and as new talking points for your outside sales team. From your new positioning statement, you can create a crisp elevator pitch that all your employees can use to describe who your company is, what customer pain points you solve on a daily basis and how you are differentiated from your industry competitors. In today’s global and crowded marketplace, having a everyone in your organization using and speaking with a consistent brand positioning statement, will ensure that your that your target audiences receive the same messaging in every interaction with your target audience.
