What does your brand position say?

What is a Brand Position?

At its core, your brand position is the unique space that your brand occupies in the minds of your target customers compared to other players in the marketplace. It’s how people think, feel, and talk about your business. Whether your brand comes across as warm, friendly, reliable, sophisticated, or quirky, your brand positioning is the central idea that sums up what your business stands for. It’s what sets you apart from your competitors. Your brand is not just your logo or tagline; it’s the collection of perceptions that people have about your company based on every interaction, from customer service to social media posts to product packaging. It’s the personality your business conveys worldwide and must be cultivated and curated intentionally. If you don’t consciously choose your brand position, you risk having one by default—and often not a favorable one.

Considerations for Choosing Your Brand Position

When you intentionally choose your brand position, you can define how your brand connects with your customers in a way that feels authentic and memorable. Consider what your brand says about:

• How do you serve your customers? (Fast, friendly, efficient, fun, relaxed)
• The way your business looks: (Clean, engaging, humorous, retro)
• The way your phone is answered: (First ring, cheerfully, specific opening phrase, automated menu)
• How involved are you in your community? (Volunteer support, monetary support, not involved)

Each of these elements impacts the perception of your brand. For example, suppose your business prides itself on being a community-focused, friendly, and approachable brand. In that case, your customer service style, community involvement, and visual identity should reflect that. Conversely, those considerations will differ if your brand aims to convey exclusivity and luxury.

Evaluating Your Brand Position

Once you’ve brainstormed and defined what you want your brand position to communicate, evaluate whether it aligns with your core business values and goals. Think about how it will guide your day-to-day decisions and interactions. If your brand position feels right, especially considering how it will shape everything you do, congratulations—you’ve found your new brand identity! Everything else is just implementation—which we will cover in the following steps.

Communicating Your Brand Position

Continuing from this branding beginning, the next step is to share your brand position with your stakeholders. This includes investors, management, employees, and critical customers. It’s important to communicate:

• What your brand position is: Clearly define what your brand position represents.
• What it means for your company: Explain how this brand position will affect your business’s operations.
• Why this brand position was chosen: Discuss why this position is a good fit for your business and its customers.

Explain why the brand position will resonate with your current and potential customers. Most importantly, it helps stakeholders see how they can contribute to making the brand successful. This is an exciting time to involve your team because if the brand position feels right, it will create energy and motivate everyone around the shared brand vision.

Leveraging Stakeholder Creativity

Sharing the brand position with stakeholders also provides an excellent opportunity to tap into the collective creativity of your organization. Ask your stakeholders to brainstorm all the different ways to implement your brand and tagline in everyday business operations. These ideas could include:

• How to incorporate the brand in customer interactions (greetings, phrases, or specific actions).
• How your business’s physical or virtual environment should look (store designs, website themes, social media visuals).
• How to use the brand in advertising campaigns to convey the desired image and emotions.
• How can you keep your employees connected to the brand position, ensuring they consistently deliver the desired experience?

This type of brainstorming not only enriches your brand strategy but also ensures buy-in from the people who will live and breathe the brand every day. When people feel involved in creating the brand, they feel more ownership and pride in ensuring its success.

Bringing Your Brand to Life

Once your brand position is defined and shared, it’s time to bring it to life through practical implementation. This includes considering every touchpoint where a customer might interact with your brand. Your brand should be reflected consistently across:

• Customer Service: Ensure that every interaction, whether in person, on the phone, or via email, reflects the tone and personality of your brand.
• Marketing Materials: Your advertisements, social media posts, website content, and printed materials should all reflect your brand’s values and tone.
• Company Culture: How your employees talk about the company, their behavior, and their internal culture should align with the brand position. A customer-focused, friendly brand should be reflected in a supportive and positive work culture.
• Visual Identity: Your logo, colors, and overall design aesthetic are critical to your brand position. They must align with and convey the right messages to your target audience.

For example, if your brand is all about fun and creativity, everything from your email footers to your social media responses should be playful. If your brand is positioned as professional and authoritative, your tone should be formal, your visual design sleek and minimal, and your customer interactions polished and efficient.

Measuring Success

Once you have implemented your brand position, tracking and evaluating how customers and the overall market are receiving it is crucial. You can do this by:

• They monitor social media engagement to see how people respond to your messaging.
• You gather customer feedback via surveys or direct interactions to understand whether your brand resonates with them.
• You are tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as customer satisfaction scores, net promoter scores, and customer retention rates to gauge success.

These measurements can help determine whether your brand position is helping you achieve your business objectives or if you need to tweak some aspects to better align with your customer’s expectations.

Conclusion

Brand positioning is about controlling your narrative and shaping how your business is perceived by your audience. It requires intentionality, careful consideration of every touchpoint, and consistent communication with stakeholders. Choosing your brand position thoughtfully and implementing it thoroughly across all aspects of your business sets the stage for a cohesive and powerful brand experience that resonates deeply with your customers. Once you find the correct brand position, implementation becomes the journey that brings it to life. Whether it’s how your phone is answered, the tone of your marketing materials, or the design of your office space—every detail should align with the story you want to tell. Through these consistent details, your brand will not only come to life but thrive in the hearts and minds of your customers.