We’re big proponents of SEO here at Snap, but there’s more to the success of a business than stellar search results. Smart brand positioning is the key to making your products and services memorable while growing recognition and increasing the equity of your brand. We’ve already broken down the basics of positioning, so it’s time to dive deeper. We’re sharing the secrets to creating a strategy that will put your company where it needs to be in the public sphere.
What is Brand Positioning?
Brand positioning involves strategically building up your brand to a point where it occupies a specific niche in the minds of consumers. A strong branding plan takes into account everything from the message and personality you should be executing to the demographics you want to target in order to grow brand equity and publicize exactly what sets your products or services apart from competitors.
Ultimately, your brand should speak for itself, remaining consistent across all channels and doing exactly what it says it does. Whether it’s through strong customer service, memorable products, or witty tweets, you can attract your target demographic and derive more than just conversions. When you execute a strong enough positioning strategy, you’ll begin to grow a community around your company. Consumers who love what your company does will get other people on board, and your brand recognition will increase. But how do you get there?
Setting Your Brand Up for Success
This isn’t something that can be done in a day—creating a positioning strategy requires scrutiny and analysis at all levels of your company, from part-time employee to stakeholder. Here’s a look at what you need to do to get results.
Assess Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
To get the ball rolling, start off with a SWOT analysis to better understand where your company and brand currently sit, and what your business needs. If you just launched your company, take this as an opportunity to survey the competitive landscape and assess potential future challenges and opportunities.
At a basic level, your business likely provides the same products or services as your competitors. To make your brand stand out from the crowd, you first need to understand what your competitors are doing right, where they’re going wrong, and what gaps your company can fill. Look at where your brand currently sits, and identify both open opportunities and potential threats.
At this stage, you should also consider conducting stakeholder interviews to understand your company internally. In their opinion, what does your business need to do to flourish? What will ensure their satisfaction while growing your brand? Starting off with everyone on the same page creates a steady foundation on which to build your positioning strategy.
Craft Detailed User Personas
Before you start speaking to consumers, you must first understand your ideal target audience. Take time to create personas that cover your current and desired demographics. Whether you put them together through Google surveys or geographic research, these personas should ultimately identify with the core of your brand. Once you’ve created these personas, you can focus on commonalities between them that say something about what your brand should aspire to be. Maybe your ideal audience appreciates innovation, or something as simple as a good pun. Whatever the case, you should build your brand to be the perfect complement to these characteristics.
Create a Solid Positioning Statement
Now that you have all of this data, feedback, and usable personas, it’s time to begin crafting your strategy. A succinct positioning statement provides an essential internal guidepost from which you can build out your external messaging. This statement should cover what your brand does and why, while explaining what sets you apart from your competitors. Everything involving brand messaging should stem from this resource.
Keep Messaging Consistent
At long last, you can begin executing your new strategy! You’ve built out your internal resources, so now you can start creating external communication procedures and copy. Remember that everything from the customer experience to your brand’s unique personality should resonate with your target personas. When things ring true with your intended audience, you’ll get the results you need.
What does your brand promise to provide? High-quality products? Dependable solutions? Be sure to deliver what you’re selling in a way that remains authentic to your established brand personality. That means that every piece of communication across all channels, from social media copy to email marketing campaigns, needs to be consistent with your set tone and voice.
Bring in the Professionals
Between concepting audience personas, evaluating current practices, and strategizing for future needs, the process of establishing your brand’s identity and positioning it for success can quickly get overwhelming. The good news is that you don’t have to do it alone! While you know your business best, a third party can offer an objective viewpoint and invaluable feedback that can give your positioning strategy a boost. Consider partnering with a digital marketing agency to make the most of your brand’s strengths.
Create a Powerful Positioning Strategy with Snap
Here at Snap, we’re passionate about helping businesses reach their marketing goals. With our wide range of services, from SEO to social media marketing, we’ll give your brand the attention it deserves and the marketing expertise it needs to thrive. Contact us today—we look forward to working with you!