Positioning development

In simple terms, what is positioning and why does a business need it

Positioning is an integral part of marketing, branding, communication, and other strategies. It is the process of defining how a company or product is perceived by customers. Positioning helps to understand how you differ from competitors, what value you deliver, and why customers should choose you.

Why is brand positioning needed?

The importance of brand positioning in the market is hard to overestimate, as it helps to occupy a place in the consumer’s mind, be understood, and differentiate from competitors.

“Today the market no longer responds to strategies that were effective in the past. There are simply too many products, companies…
The only protection for people in our over‑communicative society is over-simplified consciousness.
…the best way to deliver the desired information to recipients is through over-simplified messages”

(Jack Trout, Al Ries “Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind”)

Back in 2017, scientists measured the volume of data entering the brain and found that the average person today processes up to 74 GB of information per day (equivalent to watching 16 movies) through TV, computers, mobile phones, tablets, billboards, and many other devices. Each year this is about 5% more than the previous year.

Developing a brand positioning strategy

Answers to the following questions can help in forming the right brand positioning:

• how do your clients see your business (products/services)?
• what is the customer value of your products/services?

It is especially important to hear the answers from the clients themselves, not only from the owner, sales specialists, and others.

For this, it is often necessary to conduct a full marketing analysis (research), including interviews, to develop proper positioning.

The positioning strategy consists of:

• target audience, customer profile
• unique selling proposition (USP), other advantages and arguments that differentiate from competitors
• positioning concept

For developing a positioning concept, a useful tool can be the “Golden Circle by Simon Sinek”

Its essence is to answer three sequential questions – “Why?”, “How?”, and “What?”

Most companies can easily answer the question “What?” they produce/offer to the consumer, fewer can answer “How?”, and very few – “Why?”

Of course, developing brand positioning is a very labor‑intensive process that requires professionalism and deep immersion in a specific case. At seven mountains, we approach this task systematically, as we believe that small businesses deserve a comprehensive marketing approach to become more competitive and valuable.

Learn how we developed positioning for ECONIKO – a Ukrainian manufacturer of modular houses with an ambitious eco‑mission.