How to position your brand for success

By Mark Dye on 13 December, 2017

TBE contributor Mark Dye, managing director of Bath and London-based full-service digital and content agency WLM.digital gives us his thoughts on positioning your brand for success in 2018.

How well do you know your brand? Okay, let’s start again. How is your product or brand positioned? Take a moment to think about it. Count to five, and then say your positioning statement out loud. It should be compelling, easy to understand, unique to your market — and your customers and staff should believe it.

Ok, so how did you do? If you didn’t come up with a short convincing statement of where your brand sits in the market and why people should care, you have a problem. Your positioning statement is your elevator pitch, not to investors but to your customers. You should know it better than your name and so should everyone who works for you.

If you’re not sure what I mean, answer me this: what does Yahoo do? Or more importantly, what does Yahoo do for consumers that none of its competitors do as well? Struggling to come up with an answer? So did Marissa Mayer.

Btw, if you haven’t formulated a compelling positioning statement, that doesn’t mean your brand won’t be positioned in the market. Best-case scenario is that your customers will position it by comparing your brand with competitors and collectively deciding that you’re “the cheap one”, “the luxury one”, “the steady-eddy reliable one”. This is unlikely to lead to a scenario in which you maximise the value of your brand.

Far worse, is if your competitors position you. They will be swift to notice your lack of clear position and may try to use their own marketing to push you into the negative space created between their brands. This can sometimes happen when you have different product lines and divisions, struggling to get out a consistent driving message or idea.

That’s not a great place to be — or, more importantly, to let your competitors put you.

Need an expert to help you position your brand in the market — and then communicate that position to your target audience? WLM.digital can help. Drop me a line at mark@whitelabelglobal.com.