11 Proven Reasons to Build a Brand Positioning Strategy
Brand positioning strategy is the key to becoming the preferred solution provider in your market. But getting the buy-in, time, and resources to put a strategy in place can be a hard sell. Use these facts and statistics to make your case.
Image created with DALL-E2.
Ready to become the go-to solution provider in your market category?
Then you’ll need a brand positioning strategy.
Let’s talk about it.
Brand positioning strategy is the deliberate and strategic process of becoming known for a specific thing by a specific audience segment within your industry.
The “becoming known” part of the equation requires you to have an authentic brand identity and a consistent market presence.
The “specific thing” you want to be known for should be your top-level unique value proposition—or, the carefully crafted solution that only your business can provide to customers.
The ultimate goal with brand positioning strategy is to become the top-of-mind choice when consumers are ready to buy in your category.
A strong brand positioning strategy ensures your business:
Brings unique value to the market, at the right price point, while remaining true to your mission, vision, and purpose
Targets a viable market segment that wants what you sell
Stands out from competitors in a way that’s meaningful
Uses the right messaging to connect with prospects and communicate value
Remains relevant to your audience over time
It’s only with the consistent consideration of these factors—value creation, audience segmentation, competitive differentiation, resonant messaging, and cultural relevance—that a brand can come to hold distinct space in the minds of its consumers, and become their preferred solution provider.
Roadblocks for getting buy-in
As a marketer, getting buy-in for the creation and implementation of a brand positioning strategy can be a challenge.
It requires total executive alignment; the resources to implement the strategy across initiatives, teams, and channels; and faith that investing in a strategy (rather than a tactic) will have a good return on investment (ROI).
If you’ve been a marketer for long, you know these things can be hard to come by.
When it comes to brand positioning specifically, there are two misconceptions that can make getting support for an org-wide plan difficult.
Let's cover both so that when you start the conversation within your company, you'll be prepared.
Misconception 1: It’s just a marketing thing
There’s a common misconception that brand positioning strategy is “just a marketing thing.”
I don’t think this is an unfair assumption.
Marketers help shape public perception, and brand positioning is largely an exercise in shaping perception.
However, if a customer has a poor experience with a brand, it’s that experience that ultimately shapes their perception of it. Not the marketing that influenced the customer’s initial purchase.
This isn’t to say that brand positioning isn’t a marketing thing. Of course it is.
It’s an essential marketing thing—a north star to shape brand guidelines, connect with the right audiences, inform messaging strategy, drive brand awareness efforts, and more.
But it’s a business strategy thing too. The entire organization bears the responsibility of delivering on the promises made through marketing. Especially when it comes to value creation, a brand positioning bedrock that is often beyond the direct control of marketers.
When the full executive team—and by extension, the whole organization—owns the brand positioning strategy, it ensures alignment across all departments.
This alignment is crucial for consistently delivering the specific and unique value that customers expect. Consequently, this is how a business becomes renowned for providing specific value, which reinforces its market position and fosters long-term customer loyalty.
McDonald’s, Domino’s, Salesforce, and Hubspot are all great examples of businesses that put customer value at the center of their operations, and became leaders in their categories as a result.
You can read more about their stories in 4 Brands That Used Their Unique Value Propositions (UVPs) to Grow Profits.
Misconception 2: There isn’t a clear ROI on brand positioning
The business metrics used to measure the efficacy of a brand positioning strategy typically include brand awareness, brand recall, and brand affinity.
Brand Awareness: The extent to which consumers recognize and recall your brand when presented with your product category.
Brand Affinity: The emotional connection and positive feelings that consumers have towards your brand.
Brand Recall: The ability of consumers to spontaneously remember your brand when prompted with a product category.
Each of these metrics provide insight into different aspects of brand performance, including how you’re being perceived by your target market–especially in relation to competitors–and what you can do to either improve your offer or articulate it better.
Yet, these metrics are notoriously difficult to attach ROI to.
Which means getting buy-in for new top-of-funnel marketing efforts harder to get.
For example, let’s say you’re running a brand awareness campaign and you decide to invest in four billboards knowing they will bring you x number of total impressions.
The question becomes, how do you tie those top-of-funnel (TOFU) campaign impressions to bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) conversions?
A multi-touch attribution model, designed to find relationships between brand-building initiatives and conversions, is one path to quantifying the billboard investment.
But these types of models require sophistication and dedicated expertise to set up and manage, and don’t guarantee an exact figure on TOFU ROI.
So what’s the next best way to talk about ROI on brand positioning efforts?
First, it’s important to set expectations with company leaders that although TOFU marketing may not have an immediate conversion rate to assess, it does have a clear ROI over time.
And then you support that claim by sharing third-party research which says as much. Luckily, there’s plenty of research out there that does that.
11 facts that prove brand positioning pays off
To help you navigate brand positioning buy-in conversations, I’ve compiled a list of 11 reasons why brand positioning is a smart business investment.
Backed by reputable sources, this list of benefits includes preference over competitors, increased sales, better profit margins, and shorter conversion funnels.
Read on to learn more.
A strong brand positioning strategy leads to…
1. Preference over competitors: Consumers prefer to buy from brands they’re familiar with over lesser known brands–even if the well-known brand is more expensive.
2. Increase in sales: A report from Neilson indicates that a 1-point gain in a metric like brand awareness can lead to a 1% increase in sales.
3. Better profit margins: A well-positioned brand can price based on perceived value, rather than the cost of goods.
4. Shorter conversion funnels: It’s faster and easier for consumers to make purchase decisions from brands they’re familiar with.
5. Attract new investors: 82% of investors believe that name recognition is important in guiding them in their investment decisions.
6. Attract new customers: 71% of consumers say they’re more likely to buy a product or service from a name they recognize.
7. More repeat purchases: High levels of brand awareness drive repeat purchases.
8. Increased revenue: Consistent brand positioning can contribute to revenue growth by at least 10%.
9. Financial stability: When brands halt top-of-funnel advertising, sales decline over time.
10. More BOFU ROI: Investing in TOFU tactics leads to a disproportionally larger ROI on BOFU tactics.
11. More ROI over time: Long-term investments in upper funnel tactics yield more ROI than short-term, lower funnel tactics.
Getting started with brand positioning
If you need guidance as you kick off your brand positioning initiatives, check out The 5 Commandments of Brand Positioning, which will give you a basic framework to reference in your work.
If you’re looking for someone to jump into the ditches with you and sort things through, I can help with that.
Send me a message on LinkedIn or an email at ashley@peoplethebrand.com.
We’ll set up some time to connect and I can learn more about what you’re trying to accomplish!
