Instructions:
Brand Positioning Workshop
A handy toolkit for distilling down your company’s brand positioning
Objective
After this, but not included in here, you need to…
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How to do it
Identify what we are doing differently in the category with the reasons to believe
Who is our audience and what are the functional and emotional drivers of their purchase making
What are the traits that we have and what do we want to project in market
Then, bring it all together…
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Exercise 1:
Who are we and what make us different?
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Who are we
What is the big relevant changes in the world affecting our customer and/or category?
These are:
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Who are we
What are 3 things that we do that address this differently than everyone else?
These are:
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Who are we
Where do we see ourselves against our competitors?
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Leader | Disruptor | Challenger | Niche |
This is the established, dominant brand in the market, often recognized for its high market share and strong brand recognition. | A disruptor is a brand that introduces a new product, service, or business model that fundamentally changes the industry landscape, often challenging the status quo. | A challenger brand is one that aims to gain market share from the leader, often by offering a unique value proposition or targeting a specific segment. | A niche brand focuses on a specific segment or customer group, often with a specialized product or service. |
Who are we
Lets ask an LLM.
Prompt your favourite LLM (or all of them) to ask what their perspective on the market situation is.
The prompt: Act as a competitive intelligence analyst for [Your Company], looking to create a unique competitive differentiation versus our key competitors. For [Your Company, Competitor 1, Competitor 2, Competitor 3, etc], generate a competitive positioning analysis that includes the following sections. For each section, provide specific, actionable insights. Evaluate [Your Company, Competitor 1, Competitor 2…] brand messaging across their website, social media, and marketing materials. Extract their core value propositions, target audience segments, and emotional appeals. Review customer review sites like G2 and Capterra, and look for recurring themes in both positive and negative feedback on features, service quality, and price.
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Exercise 2:
Who is our customer?
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The Customer
What are all they key customer insights and pain points our customers have and how do we address them:
Insights Benefits
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Write down a short list of key customer insights that are universal to your industry or Target Audience
Example:
New technology is making is harder for owners to set up their small business.
Write down some corresponding benefits that you can provide to help them with their pain.
Example:
Make is simple
The Customer
Let’s describe them in a few words:
Try to use as few words as possible to create focus.
Example:
Enterprising entrepreneurs
Time-starved urbanites
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Exercise 3:
What is our personality?
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Personality
Write down traits our customers would use to describe us as a company.
(Better yet, get a customer panel to get them to describe you, look into product review sites and use data to feed this).
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Personality
What do we want to be known for? Do the traits we have already listed match up or do we have some we have that are aspirational?
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Personality
Put all these traits down and pick the ones that are consistent and the ones you want to lean into more. Refine that list to a final 3 - 5.
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Personality
Lets define those 3 - 5 traits in to fully understand what these traits are, and aren’t:
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| Trait 1 | Trait 2 | Trait 3 | Straight-forward |
Which means | | | | Simple, clear |
Doesn’t mean | | | | Basic, naive |
Should sound like | | | | We tell it like it is, without being convoluted or sales-y. We don’t sugar coat things or use analogies. We say what we mean. |
Example…
Exercise 4:
Let’s bring it all together…
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Brand Positioning
Let’s pull all this together and write a positioning statement (or two, or three).
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Brand Positioning
The company
What is the big relevant change in the world affecting our audience and category (the truths)?
There is the promised land - what are we doing differently to address this change (how we answer the truths)
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Brand Positioning
The company
What is the role that we are playing in the category? Leader, challenger, disruptor, niche?
What are the brand or product features that overcome the obstacles to the promised land?
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Brand Positioning
The audience
Who are we targeting? In one word description (or as short as possible)
What is the one thing that motivates them?
How do we want them to feel about us as a company?
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Let’s write a Positioning
We are:
Who targets:
So they can:
By providing:
Unlike others who:
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Let’s write a Positioning (an example)
We are: The CRM industry black sheep
Who targets: the entrepreneur who is building and growing their business
So they can: best the best in their game
By providing: tools that anticipate their customers needs and service them automatically
Unlike others who: makes people do it manually
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Let’s write it another way
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What | ...is our category? |
How | ...are we different? |
Who | ...are our customers? |
Where | ...are they located? |
Why | ...are we important? |
When | ...do they need us? |
Finalize it…
Take these inputs and write your positioning statement.
There is no right or wrong, it is about what you want for your company.
Make sure you address who you are, who you customers are, and what makes you different from everyone else.
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What’s next?
Positioning is a marathon.
You need to do the branding things:
You also need to make sure positioning is in everything you do:
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Thanks!
If you need a hand you can also reach out to me.