The importance of Brand Positioning

As consumers, we all are influenced by brands, making us choose one over another. That is why is so important for a brand to be well positioned and differentiated.

But before talking about brand positioning is important to know what a brand is.  A brand can be defined like the sum of all available information about one product or service.

The brand conveys this information in two ways:

• Direct experience with the product and this relation is divided in two factors:
  • Functional satisfaction: Functional provides the basic information required to be recognized in the market.
  • Emotional satisfaction: Sometimes brands go beyond just promises creating loyalty and that is where emotions enter to the game.
• Communications drivers: Advertising, public relations, name, logo; all used to create perceptions about the brand.

Direct experience combined with all these communications drivers will create an impression in customers, employees and investment community. The success is in the right combination or both ways, it will lead to positive or negative brand impression.

Three components are needed to create a good bran definition:

• Vision: Vision for a brand has to be sustainable; the most successfully positioned companies and brand in terms of growth, financial performance, visibility and market share are those that have linked a powerful brand positioning.
• Meaning: Meaning for a brand is what the brand represents in the market place; is generally manifested in images attributes.
• Parameters of relevance: The parameters of relevance are the limits you can extend your brand beyond its core without compromise your credibility.

Now that you know what a brand is, for brand positioning you have to consider:

• Relevance of your brand: The more obvious the connection is between you potential customers’ daily activities and your brand more will be the chances of selling your product.
  
  
  • Think: Who is my market target? I'm targeting the right public?

• Genuine offer: Many companies are interested in create trust with a genuine message of products. Be clear in what you are offering and the added value of it.
  
  
  • Think: Is your product or service more genuine than competition products? Do you manufacture your product or service?
• Message: It doesn't matter if you have the best product ever, if you don't have a clear, concise and focused message it will be worthless.
  
  
  • Think: Is your message relevant for your product or service? Can your message be misunderstood? Could the message be more accurate to represent your product?
• Trust based in a promise: Give your potential customers a promise only when you can comply it.
  
  
  • Think: What promises you can do about your product, service and company? Can your product or service promise more than someone else in the market?

As you can see there are a lot of considerations in brand positioning but with all the previous elements, good marketing skills and passion, you can have a recognized and well positioned brand in the market.