How to be better with brand positioning
When you try to be everything to anyone, you become nothing to everyone. The best brand leaders define their brand and stay focused on a specific motivated consumer audience with a message that combines both functional and emotional benefits. They can summarize their positioning with a brand idea that is interesting, simple, unique, motivating, and ownable.
To be good at brand positioning, force yourself to engage with abstract concepts. First, look for a space in the consumer’s mind to influence how they think and feel. Ensure it is a unique space that is distinct from how they think or feel about other brands.
Our process will make it a bit less abstract. However, to be successful with brand positioning, you still need to keep your mind open to be comfortable with creative thinking. I will also show how to build a brand idea that leads every consumer touchpoint of your brand, including the brand promise, brand story, innovation, purchase moment, and experience. And finally, you have to know the tools for how to write a winning brand concept and brand story.
You will see some of our brand positioning tools from our Beloved Brands and B2B Brands playbooks. Here, our focus will be more on how to use these tools so they become part of your skillset that you can use throughout your career. Challenge yourself to get comfortable with the emotional side of brand positioning.
The four brand positioning skills you need
- Define your ideal consumer target. Build out consumer profiles framed with need states, consumer insights, enemies, and the desired response.
- Take a consumer-centric mindset to turn brand features (what you do) into functional benefits (what consumers get) and emotional benefits (how it makes them feel)
- Find a winning brand positioning statement that is ownable for your brand and motivates consumers to build a tighter bond with the brand.
- Develop a brand idea that can be stretched across every consumer touchpoint, including the brand promise, story, innovation, purchase moment, and consumer experience.
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