Hey there! If you’ve ever wondered why one brand can charge more for the exact same product as its competitor—say, coffee in a pod versus a packet, or a battery based on ‘trust’—you’ve witnessed the incredible power of brand positioning.

The way your brand is positioned ultimately determines how consumers view you, your ability to meet their needs, and even how much they are willing to pay. In short, the stakes are high.

To nail this crucial strategic element, you need two things: a solid strategy and a smart visualization tool. We’re going to walk through both, focusing specifically on how a brand positioning map can guide your success.

Why Your Brand Needs a Strategic Position (The Foundation)

If you’ve ever been told you could charge more for coffee in a pod instead of a packet, or sell batteries based purely on “trust” alone, you’ve seen the raw power of brand positioning. Businesses constantly need to use the right strategies to compete in the fierce marketplace. When strategic positioning is implemented correctly, it gives your products or services the best possible advantage to win.

The way your brand is positioned in the market ultimately determines how consumers view you and your ability to meet their needs. It defines who your competitors are in your category and, if done correctly, it can even determine precisely how much people and businesses will pay for your offerings. In other words, the stakes are high. Fundamentally, brand positioning stands at the heart of marketing strategy, providing the necessary direction for both strategic and tactical activities.

The Power of Brand Positioning: Beyond Price and Product

Simply put, brand positioning is all about owning a unique position in the mind of the target consumer. It’s how you articulate what you want your brand to be for your customers.

Positioning is essential because it signals differentiation relative to your competition. When you’re selling a product that is highly similar to others—like batteries, where the chemicals are often identical—the differentiation often comes down to the emotion evoked (like trust or peace of mind), not just technical specifications. Positioning helps you communicate to the world what you offer and, importantly, what makes you different.

The History: From Advertising Tactic to Strategic Heart

If you feel like brand positioning is a timeless concept, you’re right! Many marketers still view it as the basis for brand strategy, even though it was first coined by Jack Trout in 1969.

The concept brand positioning map truly revolutionized branding after Trout and Al Ries published their classic book, “Positioning: The Battle of Your Mind,” in 1981. Fundamentally, successful brand positioning stands at the heart of your entire marketing strategy, providing the necessary direction for both strategic and tactical activities.

Defining the Strategy: The Three Cs and the Internal Compass

Defining the Strategy: brand positioning map

Your positioning journey starts internally. Before you brand positioning map spend a single dollar on external communication, you must articulate the core strategy for your business.

Building Your Brand’s Foundation: The Three Cs Methodology

The strategic articulation of your brand positioning typically addresses three key questions:

1. Who: Who is the target customer you are serving? This is where market segmentation happens, identifying the audience most likely to buy from you.

2. What: What need are you serving, or what problem does your product solve?

3. Why: What is the reason your audience should believe you? This is the core justification that your brand is better than others at solving the problem.

Here’s a crucial piece of expert advice: Remember that positioning is the art of strategy, not tactics. If you focus too much on the tactics (how you’ll communicate the brand), you risk neglecting the fundamental ‘why’—the reason your audience should believe you—which is much more vital to your success.

Crafting the Brand Positioning Statement (The Internal Guide)

Brand positioning map: Once you’ve answered the Three Cs, you need to consolidate your analysis into a brand positioning statement. This is a short strategic document that reflects the competitive advantage you’ve defined.

Unlike a slogan, the statement is developed primarily for internal purposes. It acts as a “guiding principle” that should be easily conveyed across the organization.

You can use a template to structure your thinking:

“For [target market], Brand X is the only brand amongst [competitive set/category] that [unique claim/benefit] because [reason to believe/support points].”

Remember, while the statement should be aspirational, it must also be realistic. It can’t be so far removed from the current reality that it loses credibility in the minds of consumers.

The Visualization Tool: Creating and Interpreting Your Positioning Map

To truly understand where your brand stands relative to competitors, you need to visualize the market using a brand position map.

What is a Brand Positioning Map?

A brand position map, also known as a perceptual map or brand perception map, is a diagram or chart that helps you identify and assess your company’s unique position in the eyes of consumers.

The goal of this brand mapping exercise is to find the “place” where your products can be most effective and profitable, leading to improved sales, greater brand awareness, and better market segmentation.

Step-by-Step: Creating a Brand Perception Map

Here is the straightforward methodology for building and leveraging your market positioning map:

1. Draw the Position Map: Grab a piece of paper or open a digital tool. Draw a vertical (Y) axis and a horizontal (X) axis to create four quadrants.

2. Choose Two Important Attributes: Focus your map wisely by selecting two attributes that are important, meaningful, or desired by your customers. For example, you might use affordability (X-axis) and friendliness (Y-axis).

3. Add Your Business and Competitors: Place your brand and its competitors onto the map, positioning them based on how they are perceived in the marketplace. For added insight, you can make the size of each circle representative of their market share.

Expert Tip on Objectivity: It is vital to be objective. People tend to overestimate their own brand’s benefits. You should consider using an impartial third party or a quantitative survey to accurately determine customer perceptions.

4. Determine the Positioning Gap(s): The purpose of your positioning map is to find the positioning gap—an area of the market with low competition that you can profitably occupy. Use your map to assess which quadrants offer the best opportunity.

5. Repeat with Alternative Attributes: If your first version didn’t yield valuable insights into a desirable niche, repeat the process with different attributes (like speed, reliability, or ease of use). It’s a case of trial and error until you find a profitable and rewarding niche that you can own.

6. Create the Positioning Statement: Once you have identified the best placement for your brand, use the analysis to craft your unique positioning statement.

7. Develop Your Tagline: Finally, create an external slogan, tagline, or strapline—a condensed version of your positioning statement—for external communication with customers and stakeholders. Think of Nike’s “Just do it,” which is the external creative interpretation of their internal positioning.

Brand Positioning Map: Execution, Alignment, and Long-Term Vision

Brand Positioning Map: Execution, Alignment, and Long-Term Vision

Creating the map and the statement is only the beginning. The biggest challenge lies in the execution.

Aligning the Map with Customer Experience

You’ve “talked the talk,” so now you’ve got to “walk the walk”. The experience you provide to customers must match up to the expectations set by your positioning. This is why one of the biggest mistakes brands make is creating advertising that is far away from their brand.

You must back up what you say with what you do. The positioning statement must be communicated internally to all key stakeholders, including leadership, marketing, sales, operations, and Human Resources. It needs to be reflected in every business decision you make.

Repositioning: Why Change is a Long-Term Strategy

Brand positioning map: Sometimes, market conditions change, or consumer needs evolve, requiring a shift in your brand position map. However, brand repositioning is not a quick fix.

If you are a large brand, this might be a strategy that spans years. Any decision to shift must be undertaken only after extensive research and informed by data.

You need a clear vision backed by data to guide those “tough conversations” internally and act as a point of reference to measure success. It takes time and effort to shift people’s external perception of your brand.

Another warning to keep in mind: Brands sometimes risk creating a conflict between what they say and what they do when they become too eager to focus on societal or environmental issues, often forgetting the original need they set out to meet. Maintain focus on your core strategy and competitive set.

From Brand Mapping to Market Mastery: Claiming Your Unique Position and Driving Profit

Using a market positioning map is a beneficial technique that helps you gather essential ongoing information regarding your brand’s and your competitors’ perceptions.

By brand positioning map mastering the strategy behind brand positioning and utilizing the visualization power of the positioning map, you can effectively find the right gaps to target, build a more effective marketing strategy, and ultimately generate more profit for your business. Start your brand mapping today to take control of your market success!