Brand Positioning: How to Define It for Your Business

What brand positioning is

Brand positioning is the decision about where your business sits in a customer's mind, next to the other choices they have. It comes before the logo, the colours and the slogan, and it makes all three easier to choose.

Brand positioning is the place your brand holds in a customer's mind compared with the alternatives: who it is for, what it offers and why it is different. To define it, choose a specific audience, name the alternatives they use now, state your main benefit and the proof behind it, then write it as a short internal statement.

Brand positioning is a choice about who your business is for and how it differs from the other options that person has. It is made inside the business first. Customers never see the positioning statement. They see its effects in your wording, your pricing approach, your images and the things you decline to do.

It helps to separate positioning from the things around it.

• Positioning is the decision. It is private and written for your team.
• A value proposition is the promise to the customer, written in their language.
• A tagline is a short public line that may express the positioning, though it does not have to.
• Brand identity is the visual and verbal kit that makes the positioning visible.

A business with no deliberate positioning still has one, because customers form their own view. The work is to choose it, so that every message points the same way instead of leaving customers to guess.

The parts of a brand positioning statement

A brand positioning statement is one or two sentences that record five decisions. The usual template is: for a certain customer with a certain need, your brand is the kind of business that gives a certain benefit, because of a certain reason to believe. The table breaks it into parts and shows an invented example for a bicycle workshop.

Put together, the example reads: for people who ride to work every day, the workshop is the bicycle repairer that fixes most common faults while they wait, because it keeps common parts in stock and books by the hour. That is the entire statement. Notice what it leaves out. It does not try to serve racing cyclists, collectors or families buying a first bike.

How to define your brand positioning, step by step

1. Choose one main customer. Describe the situation they are in, not just their age or job. If you serve several groups, pick the one whose needs shape the business most and treat the others as secondary.
2. List the real alternatives. They include competitors, but also doing nothing, doing it themselves and asking a friend. The frame of reference decides what counts as different.
3. Find out why customers chose you. Read emails, reviews and enquiry forms, and note the words customers use. Ask five recent customers what they were worried about before they bought.
4. Pick the main benefit. One benefit is easier to remember than five. If two seem equal, ask which one customers mention first.
5. Gather the proof. Proof can be a process, a promise you are allowed to make, a specialism, work you can show or a way of working that others do not offer. Use only what is true and can be checked.
6. Write the statement, then rewrite it in plain words you would say aloud to a stranger.
7. Test it. Show it to a few customers and a few people who are not customers, and ask what kind of business it describes. If they describe something else, the statement or the business needs work.

Expect to cycle through the steps a few times. Positioning that arrives complete on the first attempt is usually positioning that has not been tested.

Where to find the answers

The raw material is already in your business. Sales conversations show what people ask before they buy. Support messages show what confuses them. Reviews, including those of your competitors, show what people value and what disappoints them. Lost sales show where you were not the obvious choice.

Three questions put to a handful of customers go a long way: what were you using before, what made you look for something else, and what nearly stopped you choosing us. Record the answers in the customers' own words. Their phrases are better material for headlines than anything written in a meeting room.

Look at competitors' websites and social profiles side by side. If every business in the category says "quality, service and value", a position built on those words has no room. Look for the territory nobody has claimed that your business can honestly take.

How brand positioning differs from a tagline

A tagline is one possible output of positioning, not a substitute for it. Positioning answers who you are for and why you differ. A tagline compresses an idea from it into a few words that can sit beside a logo. You can have strong positioning and no tagline. You cannot have a good tagline without knowing what it is meant to say.

Because the positioning is private, it can be longer and plainer than anything you would print. The tagline then has to be short, memorable and still true to it. Write the positioning first, and write the tagline second.

Turning brand positioning into brand decisions

Positioning earns its keep when it settles questions that would otherwise be argued over. The table shows where it reaches.

If you want an outside team to run the workshops, interview customers and turn the result into a full identity, that is the work described on the branding service page. The thinking itself needs no designer, and a small business can draft a first version from its own records.

Common brand positioning mistakes

• Aiming at everyone. A position that suits all customers rarely feels made for any of them.
• Using claims every competitor makes, such as quality and great service. A claim that anyone could make does not position you.
• Describing the brand you hope to be. Positioning must be true now, or be a plan you are actually carrying out.
• Copying a competitor's position because it appears to work. You then compete on their ground.
• Relying on being the cheapest. Someone can always undercut you, and it leaves no story to tell once they do.
• Making claims you cannot support. Advertising rules about what you may claim differ by country, so check them or ask an adviser before you publish a comparison.
• Changing the position every few months before it has had time to be understood.

How to check that your brand positioning is working

Look for signs that the position has taken hold. Enquiries should come from the kind of customer you described. Staff should be able to say in one sentence who the business is for. Sales conversations should spend less time on explaining what you do. Your website, social profiles and printed material should all make the same claim.

The last check is the most practical. Gather what customers see and compare it against the statement. That review has its own name and method, set out in our guide to how to do a brand audit. Revisit the positioning itself when the audience, the product range or the competitors change. Without such a change, an annual look is enough.

Questions and answers

What is brand positioning?

Brand positioning is the place a brand holds in the customer's mind compared with the alternatives. It covers who the brand is for, what it offers and why it is different. It is decided inside the business first and shows up in everything customers see.

How do I write a positioning statement?

Use the template: for a certain customer with a certain need, your brand is the kind of business that gives a certain benefit, because of a certain reason to believe. Fill each part from what customers have told you, then rewrite it in plain words and test it on a few people.

How is brand positioning different from a tagline?

Positioning is the internal decision about who you are for and why you differ. A tagline is a short public line that may express part of it. You can have positioning without a tagline, but a tagline written without positioning has nothing to rest on.

Is brand positioning the same as a target market?

No. The target market is one part of positioning. Positioning also covers the alternatives customers compare you with, the benefit you offer and the reason to believe it.

Does a small business with few competitors need brand positioning?

Yes, because customers still have alternatives, including doing nothing or doing the job themselves. Naming those alternatives is part of the work. A clear position also helps when a new competitor appears.

How often should I review my brand positioning?

Review it when the audience, the offer or the competitors change, and read it through once a year to see if it is still true. Changing it too often stops customers from understanding it.