The goal of a brand positioning strategy, sometimes referred to as a market positioning plan or positioning strategy, is to set a brand apart from its rivals. In 1969, the concept of brand positioning became increasingly popular. By clearly articulating a brand’s competitive advantage, market positioning strategies aim to change consumer perception.
In this post, we will study in depth the fundamentals of Brand Positioning Strategy, its fundamentals, and different types of Brand Positioning Strategies, with examples.
What is Market Positioning Strategies?
A market positioning strategy is the process of influencing consumers’ perceptions using a brand image or a brand identity. A positioning plan will be more effective the more specific it is. Businesses can affect their target audience’s purchasing behavior by cultivating a positive image in their thoughts.
A solid brand positioning strategy can assist businesses in establishing themselves as leaders in their industry, standing out from rivals for greater brand recognition, or even opening up new markets by discovering unmet customer demands.
Businesses may choose these brand positioning strategies while competing with more seasoned competitors who have been in the market longer and with companies with more extraordinary distribution channels.
Examples of brand positioning
- Many customers associate Tesla with being a carmaker. But the corporation is gradually positioning itself as a high-performance energy provider with a forward-thinking attitude.
- Coca-Cola has always emphasized on the importance of joy, friendship, happiness, and sharing to position itself within the market better. This has aided in encouraging consumer interaction.
- The Nike brand is centered on athletic innovation that supports your best performance at all times. Nike did an excellent job of positioning itself to appeal to serious athletes.
- Starbucks has created a brand connected with quality, ease of use, and experience while being synonymous with coffee.
- An internet rental marketplace called Airbnb enables users to list, find, and book holiday properties. Offering distinctive travel experiences, you won’t find elsewhere has been the foundation of their brand development.
- Customers of Apple think that their product is of outstanding quality. This is a result of the positioning Apple has established among its users. Users get the impression that the product is aspirational due to its brand positioning.
The market positioning strategy can only succeed with many factors coming together.
Fundamentals of Market Positioning Strategies
A company’s awareness of the market and target audience is crucial for successful branding. The essential elements of a successful positioning strategy are listed below:
1. Channel: Your channel is how people communicate with your brand. Depending on the business model, your marketing or sales team may serve as your channel.
Utilize data from market research to better engage with your customers by gathering consumer preferences and behavior metrics.
2. The customer: Every effective brand positioning strategy needs a solid understanding of the target market and the client’s needs. Knowing your target audience will assist you in making decisions while creating marketing strategies.
This knowledge is essential to ensure you utilize the best pricing plan possible to optimize profits.
3. Competition: Consider how you match up against your main rivals in the market. A positioning map often referred to as a perceptual map, can be a crucial tool for guiding the overall business strategy since it makes it easier to see where your company sits in the minds of consumers.
You Must Read: Make Your Brand Stand Out with These Brand Development Strategies
Brand Positioning Strategy Criteria
The following criteria serve as the primary divisions for market positioning strategies:
Comparative Techniques: Businesses create a long-term marketing plan to safeguard their position in the market and obtain a competitive edge. Businesses may make better-informed judgments and continuously enhance their goods or services with a well-thought-out competitive strategy.
Differentiation strategies: Organizations use a tactic to attract clients by offering them something distinctively different from what their rivals could be selling in the market. Increasing competitive advantage is the primary goal of implementing a differentiation strategy.
Segmentation strategies: To best reach your target market, segmentation strategies assist you in identifying the clients you can develop connections with, how to categorize them, and what marketing actions to implement.
Types of Brand Positioning Strategies
There are various types of efficient market positioning strategies for addressing your target audience, such as competitive and product positioning. Here are a few efficient positioning strategies:
Product cost: Assembling your product with a competitive price is a solid differentiation tactic.
Unique value proposition: What distinguishes your product from others? Emphasize the features and advantages of your product as being well-suited to satisfy the special needs of your target market.
Product quality: Whether real or perceived, customers are used to paying more for better-quality products. This tactic works particularly well in the luxury sector, where factors like excellent quality, scarcity, and well-known brand ambassadors affect consumer decisions.
Competitive positioning: This tactic compares your product to your rivals to demonstrate how it is superior or different.
After conducting the necessary research and selecting a positioning strategy, it is crucial to internalize this information. Key stakeholders and the marketing team develop a brand positioning statement and collaborate with them to create messaging that aligns with it.
What is Brand repositioning?
Brand repositioning is how a business alters its position in the market while keeping its identity intact. Changes to the marketing strategy, such as those to the product, pricing, location, or promotion, are frequently made as part of this process.
Repositioning of the brand is done for the following reasons:
- A decline in sales trends.
- A declining core clientele.
- Changes in the industry due to new technology, business models, and competition.
- There needs to be a better link between marketing messages and the issues raised by actual customers.
- Product changes that conflict with your previous brand promise.
- A value proposition that is no longer relevant to the culture or market.
- The youth appeal of the brand needs to be improved.
- Need to change course to avoid brand ambiguity or unfavorable connections.
Repositioning is typically done when a business decides it is time to make some adjustments and grow. This is essential if they want to keep the brand alive and remain aware of consumer requirements and desires.
Examples of brand repositioning
Airtel has experienced multiple transformations. They developed the motto “Har Ek Friend Zaroori Hota Hai” to position themselves as a warm and welcoming company, and it was reasonably well-liked.
Domino’s Pizza- To improve its reputation, it changed its recipe and started a marketing campaign focused on “new and better” pizza. With the updated brand message, a new logo, and changes to its delivery areas and website, Domino’s team was able to restore its reputation.
Conclusion
It takes work to select the market positioning strategy for your brand. It is a significant transition that needs calm judgment and a vast array of resources to be carried out successfully.
To develop a market positioning strategy, gathering as much information as possible from various sources is essential. It will assist in improving your campaign.
