Brand Positioning: Why It Matters and How to Get It Right

Did you know that a strong brand position can be the difference between your business standing out or blending in?

Everyone wants their business to be one which stands out from the crowd, but brand positioning isn’t just about having a catchy tagline or a really eye-catching logo; it is also about how your brand is perceived by your target audience and how well this is portrayed against your competitors. If you do this well, it can provide great clarity for marketing strategies, help strengthen your customer loyalty and grow your business long-term.

What is Brand Positioning?

Brand positioning is the strategic process which identifies your brand’s unique value to your target audience and helps you communicate consistent value across every touch point, whether that is via a shop, online or through social media or news articles.

Creating your brand positioning is really the answer to the following questions:

• Who is your brand for?
• What problem do you solve?
• Why are you different?

Once you know these answers, this brand positioning will allow potential customers to recognise your brand instantly, even with lots of competitors and a noisy marketplace.

Overall, brand positioning covers all elements such as brand promise, brand reputation, brand personality, customer perception and the competitiveness of the landscape of your business. Effective brand positioning can give organisations a space in the minds of customers, one which makes them think of you first, which is great if you have a lot of competitors.

Why Brand Positioning Matters

1. Helps Your Brand Stand Out

Whether you were shopping on the High Street, looking for a credible tradesperson or looking online for a credible business, consumers nowadays are inundated with choice. It doesn’t matter if you’re a tech provider, retail brand, service business, or food outlet; you need clear positioning to make sure your position stands out in the market. Without this, you risk being just another brand and not the obvious choice.  This is where strategic PR and communications come in. This can help you articulate and promote the difference, making sure you’re aligning external messages with your unique strengths, directly to your target audience.

2. Builds Trust and Credibility

Everyone navigates to brands that they trust. Whether that’s because they know them well, they’ve used them in the past, or have heard positive feedback from family or friends. Trust is what builds a brand, and a well-positioned brand always appears more authoritative and confident, which, of course, helps build this credibility whether you’re working B2B or B2C.

Strategic leadership and consistent marketing messages often deliver effective PR strategies. Can further reinforce the trust over time. For more insights into building authority, see our blog on Integrating PR with B2B Marketing for a Cohesive Brand Strategy:

3. Guides Marketing Strategy

Your brand position should inform every part of your communication strategy. This includes PR and social media, to digital campaigns and content creation. When a brand has a defined place in the market, all of the messaging should work together to reinforce the brand’s identity, rather than pulling audiences in different directions.

4. Improves Customer Loyalty

Loyal customers buy into the why as much as the what. If your audience believes in what you stand for — and this is reflected in your messaging and behaviour consistently — they’re more likely to stay loyal and advocate for your brand.

Customers often buy into the why of a business as much as the what. If you have loyal customers, your audience will believe in what you stand for, and if this is reflected in the brand messaging and brand behaviours, customers are more likely to stay loyal to your brand.

The Core Elements of Effective Brand Positioning

To position your brand effectively, focus on several key elements:

1. Know Your Audience Inside Out

Understanding your audience’s needs, behaviours and pain points is essential. Brands that really understand their customers can craft messages that resonate deeply and keep hold of customers or clients longer.  At Peppermint Soda, insights play a central role in shaping communication strategies. Find out more about this approach here.

2. Define Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)

Your unique value position is the heart of your positioning. This answers the questions of what makes you different and what makes you better than the alternatives. If your UVP isn’t clear, your brand won’t be either.

3. Understand the Competitive Landscape

Whatever business you are in, there will always be competitors, and the landscape will always be a bit of a playing field. Effective positioning means you have to have a realistic view of what your competitors are doing. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What positions are competitors occupying?
• Where are the gaps?

Asking these questions and researching these points will allow you to position your brand in a space that is meaningful but also defensible.

4. Align Messaging Across Channels

All brand messages need to be consistent. You can’t post on social constantly for one month and then drop off the face of the earth for six. Everything must be consistent. Make sure that all touch points, from PR and social media to customer service and news, reinforce the same story and messages.

Take a look at our blog on ‘How to approach a PR agency effectively’ to look at how useful aligning goals of your communication tactics can be.

Steps to Get Brand Positioning Right

Step 1: Conduct Internal and External Research

Self-Reflection is a great place to start, so start by auditing your current brand perceptions internally and externally. Do customer surveys, analyse your competitors, and assess how your brand is currently performing and positioned in the market. This can then form the foundation of your brand positioning strategy.

Step 2: Define Target Audiences and Personas

No two customers will be the same. So make sure to prioritise and define who your most valuable customers will be. Create customers with details on motivations, challenges and their preferred communication channels.

Step 3: Craft Your Positioning Statement

A positioning statement should answer:

• Who the brand serves
• What it offers
• How it’s different

This statement should guide all future messaging.

Step 4: Integrate Across Communications

Once you have your positioning sorted, you need to reply to everything you do. This includes PR campaigns, thought leadership articles, social media content and customer service.

Step 5: Monitor and Adapt

Brand positioning isn’t static. You need to continually assess how your audience perceives you and adapt as needed. Use analytics, feedback and insights to stay relevant and proactive.

Our Final Thoughts

Brand positioning is a strategy that influences every aspect of your business and its communications. It isn’t about being louder in the marketplace, but it is about being clearer, more relevant and more compelling to the people that you want to reach out to.

By understanding your audience, defining your UVP and aligning all of your communications behind your brand positioning, you can strengthen your brand’s impact and accelerate growth.

If you’d like to explore how strategic PR and communications can help refine and amplify your brand positioning, get in touch, as we help brands every day find the space they deserve in their sectors.

Want to talk more? Contact us today – [email protected]