5 Easy Steps to Build a Brand Positioning for Your Startup

“81% of consumers need to be able to trust a brand to buy from it.”

“59% of them prefer to buy products from brands they’re familiar with”, and

“64% of them have a relationship with a brand due to shared values.”

How can you achieve all of the above?

Here’s where brand positioning comes to light.

It enables you to highlight your values and unique points to your target segment and market, build a positive brand recall and recognition, and win their wallet and market share.

You can let your team work on it or bring a brand consulting firm on board.

In this blog, we will share the 5-step process our brand consulting firm uses to build a brand positioning for our clients.

• What is Brand Positioning?

Brand Positioning highlights what you do and don’t, whom you serve and don’t, your values and purpose, what you offer, and what sets you apart.

It helps your business’s strategic planning and brand-building endeavours.

• How to Build a Brand Positioning?

You can follow these steps to establish your brand positioning –

1. Specify your Market Category

You first need to know what’s the category in which you want to build a business and be known for.

It can be as broad as “food restaurant” or as specific as “vegan food restaurant” or “Indian vegetarian food restaurant.”

It’s a vital first step as it’ll help you move forward and know your target buyers are in the space, their needs, where they search and shop at, and who else is targeting them.

2. Define your Target Audience

You should specify whom you want to target, nurture, and sell to.

Doing this won’t limit who might buy or who you might sell your product to.

It helps you define your core target audience – the ones most important for your business to focus on and cater to.

You can build an ideal customer profile to get a clear picture of your buyer – what they do, where they live, what they buy, from where, when, and how.

3. Determine Your Target Market’s Need

You now know your target audience, so it’s time to describe their needs (unmet) and pain points that you can address with your product or service.

You should dig deep and find the products and services they currently use to fulfil their needs or solve their problems.

It’ll give you a list of your direct and indirect competitors that you’ll need the most while building your brand positioning.

4. Identify Your Points of Difference

Here, you find and specify the unique associations to your brand (benefits only you offer, the experience you give, or the image you have built).

You should choose a point of difference that your customers value and desire, cannot be easily copied by others, and is sustainable for your future goals and changes in the landscape.

5. Write down Your Reasons to Believe

Here, you give a reason for your target audience to believe in your differentiation.

You need to back up your claim with points relevant to your customers and strong enough to defend.

That’s it.

Let’s put all of this in a standard template by Hubspot and we have a brand positioning statement ready to use and guide our future decisions.

What to Consider While Crafting Your Brand Positioning?

• Defendable and Sustainable: It should be immune to competition and changes in the marketplace.

• Clear and Memorable: Your brand positioning should be easy for everyone to believe and remember.

• Relevant and Distinctive:  It should be desirable to your customers and help you set yourself apart from competitors.

That’s all on how to build your brand positioning and the factors to consider while crafting one.

Pandora’s Box is a brand consulting firm that empowers startups and emerging corporates to build a brand, position it, and expand it for growth.

You can schedule a masterclass/ session with Mili Kataria to learn the art of branding and how to use it to bring profits to your business.