Brand positioning is the process of positioning your brand in the mind of your customers. Brand positioning occurs whether or not a company is proactive in developing a position, however, if management takes an intelligent, forward-looking approach, it can positively influence its brand positioning in the eyes of its target customers.
What’s interesting, and actually quite ironic, is that even though the world is more connected than ever, when it comes to companies and their customers, many of the relationships couldn’t be further apart.
This is the reason why content strategy is still important and plays a central role. The challenge is that your content must be the best search result anyone can find, but just because you have great content doesn’t guarantee you anything.
What is content strategy?
Content strategy helps organizations provide the right content, to the right people, at the right times, for the right reasons.
You just can’t pour your brand’s presence on every channel available and expect return on investment. People are already numb to that approach.
The need to build meaningful relationships with your customers is not an optional approach, but a requirement. Identifying and communicating your purpose as a brand is just one part of making this happen. The rest is delivering a seamless, authentic experience. But, in order to be able to do this, you have to begin form the beginning, by placing the right attention to the positioning of you brand.
So, if you haven’t seriously thought about the positioning of your brand yet, try using this framework, to explain what your product or service is about. Once you figured it out, you will have the key to develop the right content strategy for your target audience.
For (target customer)
Who (statement of need or opportunity),
(Product name) is a (product category)
That (statement of key benefit).
Unlike (competing alternative)
(Product name) (statement of primary differentiation).
Nailing down your positioning from the beginning makes everything else easier. This is crucial in marketing, because you can't be everything to everyone, but you can be something great for someone, and for that you not only have to know your product/service, you have to know who you are trying to reach.
To actively position your brand takes courage; you will have to stand for something. Everything you do has to be an expression of your desired positioning and, only then you will be able to create something special, to own your very own position in the mind of your customer.