By This is intelligence that, hopefully, you are constantly re-evaluating throughout your brand’s journey. How do you compare with what is available in the marketplace you are in? What is it that you bring to the table, why should customers/clients choose you and who is it exactly that you serve?
Why is Brand Positioning important?
By narrowing this down into key phrases and intel you can use – you can communicate this (very clearly), over and over again to the outside world. This may be through networking, marketing campaigns, sales conversations or even in your team interacting with your customers/clients directly.
If you are foggy about what you do, what value you bring and why you are different – how can you expect your dream clients to “get” you in order to choose you? Well, you can’t.
Gaining clarity on your positioning means that you can differentiate your brand with meaning and context, to express your value FAST.
How do you articulate your Brand Positioning?
Gosh, this bit of work is one of the chunkiest in the work I do with Brand Strategy clients. Positioning touches so many areas of your business. I’ll share with you what I normally work on for brand positioning (as every strategist is different).
I am one of those recovering brand owners who were foggy on what my “thing” is, and found it incredibly hard to stand up in networking meetings and do my 60sec pitch. However, once I’d done this work on positioning – it became clearer and I had practical sentences I could pull into those tough pitching situations.
In my positioning work with clients, I concentrate on:
#1 Value proposition statements
Now that sounds awfully fancy, but what it means is: say what you do, how you do it and who you do it for – in a short, clear way.
For me, there are few different proposition statements you need to craft. Trust me, over time, these will be a blimming lifesaver when it comes to drafting content for websites, marketing campaigns, or even in briefing your customer support (or VA) team who deal with incoming enquiries. And, of course, in the big-pants world of pitching to stakeholders, investors or fund-raising institutions.
Here are the statements I advise working on:
- Your brand’s overall value proposition
Why your prospective customer/client should choose your business over others in the marketplace. (What do you do, who do you do it for and what’s your unique differential?)
- Entrepreneur’s proposition statement
A well-crafted statement that clearly describes your value, experience and expertise as the name behind the brand. (People buy people – so this is important)
- Definition of your offer
This is really a couple of clearly thought-through sentences about what your offer REALLY is as a brand. No jargon here – try and work in the aches you solve, the pain you relieve and what it feels like once you’ve solved/soothed them. (Could be a part of a longer value proposition statement, or standalone as a supplementary bunch of sentences you can pull when you need them.)
- Product proposition statements
This is highly valuable and helpful for your team in marketing, customer support and communications. Look at each of your products (or categories of products) and design very specific proposition statements for each of them. (What it is, what it does, who it’s for and what it solves / fixes / soothes / transforms.) If this isn’t much different to your brand’s value proposition, then don’t worry about doing this.
#2 Brand principles (points of view)
Work on really distilling what you do in the delivery of your service/product for your customers/clients…that makes you different. There will be specific principles you stick to (or avoid) that make your approach unique. What are they?
#3 Value ladder and proprietary system/method
What will make you stand out is if you have created a system / way / method / framework / model that guarantees an outcome (that solves the customer/client’s ache/pain). Give it an identity of its own. This is an asset and will differentiate you from others.
Work this proprietary model into your products and services and define a ladder in the value of your different products. I usually advise 5 product categories here that define the rungs on your ladder:
1. Attraction products (mainly used to get people to start a data relationship with you – i.e. add to your email list).
Looks like: lead magnets (downloads, e-books, webinar, quiz)
2. Gifts (no exchange of email or anything, just giving pure value and building your goodwill).
Looks like: Podcast, YouTube channel, Live Show on Facebook, Blog.
3. Products for prospects (low price, easy to buy, under £100 – get a better flavour of you with minimal risk).
Looks like: Book, Intro level course, short webinar / online lesson.
4. Core product (see aforementioned proprietary model – with a focus on a high-end main, transformative service/product)
Looks like: signature programme (the one you want to become “famous” for running); a transformational coaching programme, a 12-month mastermind group).
5. Products for clients (lower margin, retained income in add-on products you can provide your clients with)
Looks like: paid community groups, membership groups, maintenance service, retainers.
(My categories 2 to 5 are influenced by the work of Daniel Priestly of DENT GLOBAL. I find his explanation of product categories much easier to relate to and grasp, than much of the posh, highfalutin jargon in the world of business development and online product creation. So, thank you Daniel!)
Make sure you don’t over complicate things and end up competing with yourself – when your customer/client can’t work out the differences between your products/services.
Positioning is quite a hefty topic isn’t it! I hope at least that this post gives you a guide to what you should focus on. Have a look at my full Brand Strategy session work and see if you’d like to book a Discovery Call with me. If not, and the above has helped enough – fantastic! Do let me know, its nice to get feedback.
