Before a business is established — yet to emerge from its early phase as a written business plan — critical research is conducted that will have implications for how that business is marketed to the world. The market analysis. Any savvy entrepreneur will spend the time and resources necessary to carefully evaluate the anticipated competition of their landscape, identifying both direct and non-direct competitors. Once they’ve done their assessment, they’ll have an understanding of where their business will fit into the market. With that understanding, they can then begin building a plan for exactly how their brand will break through.
That plan is inspired by what’s called the brand positioning and it’s something every business should have. In this blog, we’ll explore why brand positioning is so important, how it’s different from other parts of a brand’s identity, and where to get started developing a brand positioning statement, with a helpful template.
What is brand positioning?
Brand positioning is a strategy for how a business positions itself within a particular market, relative to its competitors. It’s the impetus for how a company will differentiate and market itself as the unique and best fit for its target audience, compared to the other available options. Spending the time and attention to define your brand positioning statement — or working with a branding agency to create one — will produce a valuable resource you can use throughout the evolution of your brand.
Why do you need a brand positioning statement?
A brand positioning statement is the articulation of your standing in the market and in the minds of your customers. If you have a well-written brand positioning statement, you can refer to it throughout every stage of your brand development and growth.
Your brand positioning statement doesn’t need to be complicated, or overly verbose. Your strongest statement should actually be quite succinct. Before you begin writing it, there are several things you’ll want to consider about your business and market, including:
- Characteristics of your target audience
- The problem or need you’re trying to solve or fulfill for customers
- The unique solution you can offer
- Any evidence that supports the value of your solution
How does brand positioning relate to brand messaging?
A brand positioning statement isn’t typically shared with external audiences. It’s more of an internal strategic exercise done to establish clarity and alignment around your business’s key differentiators. It’s a helpful resource that is often circulated among marketing and sales teams to inform go-to-market and growth strategies.
Brand messaging is the external expression of your brand positioning — it’s what will be shared with your target audiences. Because your brand positioning statement will inspire and inform your brand messaging, it should be created first.
What’s the difference between a brand positioning statement and a brand promise?
Brand positioning, brand messaging, and brand promise are all strategic elements that help establish a brand’s overall verbal identity. The verbal identity is just how a brand communicates to its audiences. Think of it as everything that makes up the voice of your brand.
The positioning and promise may seem like overlapping elements at times, but they’re actually created separately to accomplish two different things in the development of your brand. When it comes to the differences between the brand positioning statement and the brand promise, this is how we like to think about them:
The perfect formula for writing a brand positioning statement
Crafting a brand positioning statement might feel a bit intimidating, especially if you’ve never created one before. With a blank page staring back at you, you might have a lot of questions before you start writing. Where do you begin? How could you possibly include everything unique about your business in one statement?
We have a go-to template that will help you get started on your own brand positioning statement. The goal is to make crystal clear your business’s unique offering and why your audience should care. Just remember to keep it simple — don’t overthink it. Along the way, if you find you’d like the support of branding experts, we’re always here to help.
To help you understand what the finished product can look like, we’ll apply this template to a real-life example. Let’s break down the brand positioning statement for Slack:
Position your brand strategically and boldly
As a B2B branding agency that supports growing brands, we developed the simple formula above for writing a brand positioning statement to help businesses confidently define themselves within their market. With strong brand positioning, you can go boldly into the world and tell your story to audiences ready to hear it.
Whether you have a million iterations of your brand positioning statement or haven’t given it a single thought, distilling the details and differentiators of your business can help guide every stage of your growth. Define your strongest brand positioning and make a plan to break through, with Mutiny — we’re ready when you are.
