We live in the age of the brand.
To a large extent, we define our identities in terms of the brands we purchase, and the mere mention of a brand name instantly triggers a set of emotions, images, and ideas. As a business owner, every critical business decision you make should be informed by how your brand is positioned in the marketplace.
Neglecting the process of uncovering a solid brand positioning will have serious consequences for your business, causing you to run in circles as you seek a clear direction – something we have experienced first-hand at our e-commerce business.
Getting it right, however, gives you a huge competitive advantage.
A solid brand positioning allows you to:
Having a strong vision as a founder is only the first step. You must clearly communicate what your brand stands for to employees, partners, the media and customers. You should use whatever means at your disposal to express the vision, from pictures to words to videos and stories.
Here is the brand positioning process we used at our e-commerce business to define what we stand for in our market. In general, it is best to approach this process with at least one or two other people who are familiar with your business and with whom you can brainstorm ideas.
It is critical, especially for smaller brands, to define the audience that you will be targeting with your products. This will allow you to hone your message and focus your marketing efforts on a “niche” or a definable subset of the general population.
These could include details such as age, gender, occupation, income, education, location or preferences. For example, our e-commerce business defines its primary customer target as mothers between the ages of 30 and 40 with a university education and a household income of at least $80,000. They tend to live in major urban centers. They care about design and aspire to an eco-conscious lifestyle
This is an opportunity to create a fictional character that represents your ideal customer. Be creative in describing the details of their lifestyle including habits, passions, preferences and daily activities. Use images to deepen the experience and add nuances to your persona. Ultimately you want to create as much detail as required to hold an image of this person in your head, which will help you make clearer product and marketing decisions.
In this stage, you will look at the current landscape to understand what the major themes and audience concerns are. This will allow you to uncover which attributes to emphasize in your branding and whether there are opportunities that are being overlooked by other brands. It’s best to do this with at least one or two other people so as to encourage brainstorming and discussion.
The purpose here is to understand the primary concerns of the target audience. Look at the ads and editorial. Get a feel for the current marketplace including practical and emotional concerns. In our e-commerce business’s case, our target audience is 30-40 year old mothers, so we looked at publications like Parents Magazine, Fit Pregnancy and Oprah Magazine.
Look for themes or messages that carry across advertisements and editorials.
Examples from our e-commerce business’s process:
Here you want to pare down the themes to those that apply most directly to your products. These are the baseline requirements that people are seeking in your product.
Examples from our e-commerce business’s process
This is an opportunity to look a little wider and take note of what brands beyond your immediate competitors are doing. Take a moment to discuss competitive, fast-moving industries like consumer packaged goods, electronics, and entertainment. Note any new trends or changes you see in how products are being developed, manufactured, or marketed.
Examples from our e-commerce business’s process
This is the trend you see as being most relevant to your products and audience.
Example from our e-commerce business’s process:
Trend: Socially Conscious Brands with responsible / eco-sourced materials
In this phase, you create models of a brandscape. A brandscape is simply a visual map of how the competition in your sector might be compared in terms of brand perception, allowing you to understand where you might fit in and spot opportunities.
You need to choose two main themes or attributes that define your place in the competitive landscape. These become the two axes. Look back at the previous step to get ideas and try different ones out. You may need to take several attempts at it before you find a combination that fits.
Place the other brands in your industry in an appropriate position within the four resulting quadrants. There is no “right” way to do it so don’t get too caught up in getting it perfect. The main idea is to spot trends and opportunities.
In our e-commerce business’s case, we decided the axes we would use are high vs low eco-consciousness and fashion vs function emphasis. (see example below). This allowed us to see gaps and opportunities in the top right sector that would allow us to position our brand in a unique space.
In this stage, you will be identifying the specific words or terms that you use to define your brand through the process of ideation and filtration. It’s best to do this with at least one or two other people so as to encourage brainstorming and discussion.
Gather as a group and divide a shared document or whiteboard into 2 columns. In the left column, make a list of the attributes that you associate with the dominant trend you identified in Stage 2, step 5. In the right column make a list of attributes that best describe your brand.
Eliminate any attributes from the left column that are not associated with the trends you identified or that do not meet the needs of your consumers
Eliminate any attributes from the right column that do not align with your values or represent your brand
Bring the lists side-by-side and view them together.
Divide Words into 3 tiers: Necessary, Valued, and Unique.
Insure you have 2-4 examples that meet the “Unique” criteria.
Now you will pull all your work together to create a set of brand positioning statements.
Identify the one word that best meets the needs of our audience according to the necessities/needs identified in step 3 (our e-commerce business example: “Beauty”)
Generate a cluster of words from the original generation of attributes that define the overall theme of the concept, perhaps making it more specific than the more general meaning of the word
Here is the exercise completed using our e-commerce business’s example
**This process was adapted from 20 Steps for Creating a Brand, Developed by Bloom Consulting
This 5 step brand positioning process will give you a much clearer idea of how to express your brand’s value to stakeholders, including customers, partners, the media, and potential investors.
While this process does not explicitly define the creative expression of your brand, it does provide a strong foundation for any brief you might prepare for a designer or creative agency.
Most importantly, it provides you and your employees with a framework in which to make critical strategic decisions and maintain a consistent vision for your brand.
