One of the things we talk about regularly on this blog is digital marketing. We love working with clients to identify their goals and objectives, creating a digital strategy to help them reach those goals, and providing them with measurable results. So it makes sense that we would enjoy sharing our knowledge here as well. When we talk about digital marketing, it’s almost exclusively in the context of your company and your prospective customers. That perspective is right and necessary. This should be your primary focus, because it’s how you reach your goals.
But in order to succeed in your digital strategy, you also need to be aware of the competitors in your market, specifically how to set your company apart from them.
This awareness of your competitors and your use of that knowledge to distinguish yourself from them is known as brand positioning. Your business is competing against a large number of others for the attention of the same prospect. That means you have to set your brand apart in your specific market in order to earn the attention and trust of prospective customers.
The blog shared above takes a deeper dive into what brand positioning means. In this post, we want to look more in-depth at how you build and execute a strategy to create strong brand positioning for your business in your market.
Establishing the presence and standing you want to distinguish your company from your competitors requires an intentional plan, time, and effort.
The foundation for your brand positioning strategy is a deep, intimate knowledge of your company and your ideal customer. Who exactly are you, and what do you offer? What do you stand for and value? What makes you worthy of choosing over your competitors? How do you want to be known by your customers?
What specific problem are your customers trying to solve? How do they phrase this question when they look for solutions online? If you can’t answer these questions, how can you expect to reach prospects and earn their business – especially when other businesses in your market are willing to do the work?
Once you lay this foundation, you can focus on building a brand positioning strategy that identifies you as an expert worthy of your prospect’s trust.
There is so much that goes into positioning your brand well. Your visual presence is one of the first things prospects see and that will attract them to your brand. Is your website clean, up-to-date, and easy to use and navigate? Is your visual branding (logo, colors, fonts) clean and appealing? If it’s been awhile since you had things updated, it might be time to consider rebranding to help your brand be distinct and memorable.
The meat and potatoes of brand positioning is your content. It’s where you get to take the attention you’ve earned from your prospective customers and turn it into a belief that you can help. Through your content marketing, you can take the questions, needs, and concerns of customers and provide answers.
This is where you have the opportunity to really outpace your competitors: helpful blog posts that address concerns they might have; video tutorials that make it easy to see how your product or service works in real life; podcasts that allow you to have more of a conversation with brand partners, other industry leaders, customers, etc. The more value you can offer prospects in the form of this content, the more likely you are to stand out in your market.
This content positions you as an expert in your field. But it offers no good to you or your audience if it just lives on your website. Once you have created this valuable content, it’s time to share it. While your website serves as the hub for your content, channels like email, social media, and digital ads serve as the means for distributing it. This is where knowing your ideal customer is important: where are they most likely to spend their time, and what will they be most likely to respond to?
So far, everything we’ve talked about here has to do with your digital presence and strategy – it’s real and important, but also mostly virtual. Once you’ve earned the trust of your customers, it’s critical to be exceptional in tangible ways: your customer service, the results you provide, your communication. When you serve your customers well, they are delighted, and they will want to talk about you. They’ll tell your friends, they’ll share about you on social media, they’ll mention you to an acquaintance at the park, they’ll gladly write a review or testimonial about you online.
It’s one thing to read about all of this in a blog post. Everything is neat and tidy in less than 1,000 words. But real life doesn’t end up quite so clean or easy. Creating and executing a strategy to position your brand well in your market requires a lot of work and knowledge. You need to know how to design and build a website, to create content that is valuable and intentional, and excel in digital ads – not to mention expertise in creating video and podcasts. It’s almost too much for one person or company to think about.
Which is why you need a partner, a partner with the experience, knowledge, and talent required to help your brand stand out in your market. We’ve walked alongside dozens of companies like yours, and we would be delighted to meet with you, hear about your company and your goals, and flesh out whether or not we would be the right partner for you. Interested in learning more? Just hit the image below to get started!