Brand positioning is the process to identify how your customers perceive your brand. More than selling products, you are selling the culture and values surrounding your business. So you need to find and market those unique values that only your company offers and that describe how you are different from your competitors.
When you manage to do an efficient brand positioning, the brand is engraved in such a way in the minds of your consumers that they identify very quickly your business and what your products and services are just by hearing your company name or seeing its logo.
But this is a process that can take a lot of work and investment. Some brands might get confused about how the positioning is less about the technical aspects and features of their product and more about how the customers perceive their narrative as a brand.
Let’s take a look at ways to carry out brand positioning using a market value-based approach, which can pay off more quickly.
Customer Price Perception
Picture the scene: You’ve been running a store known for its low prices for years, but one day you decide you are going to raise the price of your most popular product well above what your competitors charge. For the next few weeks and months, your customers, already used to your low prices, would probably buy this one that has gone up in price without even realizing it.
Therefore, customer price perception is the consumer’s idea of how much your products cost, and this is often more important than the price itself. Most companies want to be perceived as having lower prices than competitors – except luxury brands, which cultivate elitism through higher pricing –, or products of such quality that they justify the price charged.
Have you analyzed whether your pricing strategy reflects your brand positioning and marketing value? To better understand how your customers see your prices, answer the following questions:
- Does the price of the product justify its unique features or quality?
- Are the values meeting customer expectations, or do a lot of people come into your store just to “look around”?
- Are the values competitive and consistent compared to what the competition charges?
- If your prices are above market prices, do you offer interesting promotions or outstanding post-purchase customer service?
Value-Based Positioning Strategy
Adding value to improve the customer price perception is often a tricky task; if done poorly, the practice can destroy the financial health of your business. Several simple moves and pricing strategies are old but gold, such as the following:
- Ending price digits in .99 or .95 rather than rounding up can make customers think that prices are cheaper than competitors.
- Promote deals like “10 for $10” to weed out some low-cost products that you have in excess of inventory.
- Promotions with phrases like “limit 3 per customer” lead shoppers into thinking the product price is really low and they cannot afford to lose the bargain.
- Offer free shipping or freebies to encourage larger purchases that reach a certain amount of money.
If in doubt about the best practices for a value-based positioning strategy, look for expert advice and tips through newsletters and articles, especially when it comes to newer marketing approaches that are primarily digital, including the most modern and enigmatic of all, AR Print Ads.
Identify Target Market and Customer Needs
You need to identify your target market and customer needs properly to do successful brand positioning. Even if you’ve done all of this before, it may be time to reassess and determine whether your previously identified segment and needs are still relevant – after all, as your business grows, your positioning may also need to evolve positively.
The simplest way to do this is to compare your services or products to competitors in the same niche. Try to understand where your brand is positioned against them and how it is perceived by consumers. Then focus on the types of consumers you want to reach. For example, only men or only women within a certain age range or geographic location.
Position Your Brand
Once you know your customers and your values compared to competitors, it’s easier to position yourself in your market niche. But it is equally important that you get ascertained what you want your business to reflect and be associated with. In other words: what makes your brand unique so that customers turn to your company first?
Try to find the factors that set you apart from the rest and the strengths of your brand or products, and stick to them. For example, there are countless bakeries on the market, but only a handful of them sell products aimed exclusively at vegans.
If you have something like that, which makes your business unique, don’t be shy about disclosing it as your strength and differential.
Integrate Your Marketing Strategy
We saved this one for last, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less important. Your marketing strategy is one of the most crucial aspects of your success because this is the first thing most of your customers will see. And in a commercially saturated world, first impressions are everything.
These are some successful strategies to make your brand attractive to the consumer:
- Create a consistent narrative that makes your customers interested in following your marketing.
- Combine your marketing channels to spread this narrative both on traditional media and the Internet.
- Use the same language, colors, and visuals in all advertising pieces to make your brand more recognizable.
- Collect and analyze customer data to find out which marketing tool has the most engagement.
Brand Positioning Can Make You More Competitive
There’s an avid but tough market out there, and it can be challenging for new brands to earn their place in the sun when faced with large commercial conglomerates. But you can also learn a trick or two from these large corporations.
They have teams that work 24/7 to keep their marketing strategies in motion. You, with a small or medium-sized business, just need to study and adapt some of these strategies to your reality to understand the link between brand positioning and market value. At the end of the day, you’ll be able to attract new customers and stay one step ahead of your competitors.
