What Is Positioning in Marketing? Definition and Tips

By Indeed Editorial Team

Updated July 21, 2022 | Published June 8, 2021

Updated July 21, 2022

Published June 8, 2021

Brand positioning is a strategy companies can use to cultivate their brand and attract the attention of their target customers. Effective positioning can help improve a brand’s relevance so it can stay competitive within its market and connect with audiences more successfully. If you want to improve your marketing strategy and company brand, it's helpful to understand brand positioning and how you can incorporate it into your marketing strategy.

In this article, we define positioning, list its benefits and offer tips you can use to better position a brand.

What is positioning?

Positioning is a strategy companies can use to build their brands. Positioning is carefully cultivating a brand by differentiating it t from its competitors and attracting the attention of target customers. Businesses can create brand positioning strategies that encourage customers to perceive their brand in specific ways. Brand positioning strategies typically include:

Highlighting what makes a brand unique from competitors
Identifying and researching the brand's top competitors
Telling a story about the brand
Creating a positioning statement

What are the benefits of positioning?

Brand positioning is a marketing strategy that can benefit organizations by:

Distinguishing brands from their competitors

One benefit of brand positioning is that it can help companies distinguish their brands from competitors in their industry. Distinguishing a brand from competitors can make customers more likely to buy from that brand rather than from others in the industry. Positioning a brand as unique within its market can increase sales and help attract loyal customers to the company, which can heavily contribute to the business’ overall success.

Cultivating a brand's perception

Brand positioning can also benefit brands by allowing them to cultivate the brand's public perception. The way current and potential customers perceive the brand is important because it can affect how likely those customers are to engage with the company. Brand positioning allows organizations to edit public perception, which can make customers more likely to purchase their products or services and become loyal to those companies.

Making brands memorable

Another benefit of positioning a brand is that it can make the brand more memorable to customers. Brand positioning can tell a story and highlight what makes the brand unique, which can make it more appealing to target customers. Becoming more memorable can help companies retain customers and attract new ones, which is crucial to success.

Providing direction

Brand positioning can also provide direction to people within a company and help them make marketing decisions. A brand's positioning can drive marketing strategy, because brands can weave their branding into all of your marketing materials, including:

Copy: Aligning written marketing content with brand positioning strategies can help create a unique voice for a brand.
Customer messaging: Keeping customer messaging consistent with brand positioning can create an identity for a brand. This can help keep customer relationships strong and build customer trust.
Social media graphics: Businesses can reference their brand positioning when designing social media graphics by including their logo, color scheme and other visual details so they can build customer familiarity. This can help keep brands visually consistent across all company platforms.

Tips for positioning

If you’re working on a brand positioning strategy, here are some tips that can help:

Stay focused on your target market

One important tip for positioning your brand is to stay focused on your target market. Your target market is the specific group of people that you want to reach with your products or services. Some businesses choose to represent their target market with a target customer persona, which is a fictional character who embodies the traits of the target market.

You can use your target customer persona to guide your brand positioning strategy. As you develop your brand positioning strategy, it's also important to consider your customers' exact wants, needs and tastes to help you build a brand that can appeal to them.

Pay attention to aesthetics

Aesthetics are a crucial part of branding, so it's important to spend time developing the right visual elements to represent your company, including:

Color palette

A color palette is a combination of colors that you can use to represent your brand consistently. Try to choose colors that look visually appealing together. If applicable, pick colors that represent your industry or ignite a particular emotion in your customers. If your company has always used certain colors, be sure to keep your color scheme recognizable for your longtime customers.

Font scheme

A font scheme is another important aesthetic choice. You can choose serif fonts, sans serif fonts or a mix of both to represent your company. Be sure to pick fonts that are easy to read in both print and digital formats. Additionally, try to pick fonts that look good together and match the visual tastes of your target customers.

Logo

A logo is one of the most recognizable parts of a brand, making it a crucial element to consider when developing a brand positioning strategy. Consider whether you want to keep your company's current logo, update your logo or design a new logo altogether. Make sure that your logo is easy to understand and matches the aesthetic of your branding. If you've chosen a new color palette or font scheme, ensure that these are consistent with your logo.

Show your value

Another tip for positioning your brand is showing your value. A key way to convey your value is clarifying what specific problem your company can solve for your target customers. Try to relate your brand messaging to the specific problem faced by your customers, this can help you connect with them more easily.

Related: 4 Steps to Building a Brand

Keep a clear vision

While creating your brand positioning strategy, try to stay in alignment with the company's mission, vision and values. Staying true to these core components of the company can help you stay connected with loyal customers and keep building customer trust. During every phase of your brand development, refer ‌to your goals and values to ensure you’re maintaining the brand’s central elements.