You may own a business or work for a company or even a multi-million dollar corporation. Whatever the case may be, brand positioning is an ultra-important factor that contributes to the success of a business. Brand positioning is the act of making your brand stick out from the other brands in the target market.
This is often most effective when you are looking to cater to the needs of the target market. That way you will appeal to them more quickly and emotionally. Keeping this in mind, many types of branding positioning will help you accomplish the goal of appealing to the target market.
There are many kinds of brand positioning and each type serves a different purpose. Depending on the target market which are the people you are trying to cater your products or services to, you will identify which kind of brand positioning will work best. Here in this article, we have compiled a list of different types of branding positioning with the hopes that anyone reading can find better strategies on how to market their brand.
1) Quality Positioning
Quality positioning is one of the most basic forms of branding positioning. Simply put, consumers should trust your brand to be reliable, durable, and worth the cost. When people know that your product or services are of good quality, they will buy from you because they know that they can trust your product to last a long time without problems.
A good example of this would be if Company A made laptops that had more apps, while company B had more durable products that were reliable. Consumers may be more willing to purchase from company B since their advertising and brand positioning are geared towards selling durable products.
Using this when targeting a specific market means you have to advertise the durability of the product. The market you will target is those people who are tired of buying cheap products that break easily. Building a reputation for strong and durable products means the market will gravitate toward your product because they know it will not break down easily. This is an example of quality positioning.
2) Price-Value Positioning
The concept of value or price positioning is to create a psychological effect through increasing or decreasing price. This makes the target market think about the potential down points and value of the product when they compare the different prices for each brand on the market.
In other words, the higher-priced item will prompt consumers to hold it at a high value and the lower price will raise interest as well because of affordability.
3) Benefit Positioning
Benefit positioning involves highlighting the benefits and features of your product. This is seen all the time, especially with smartphones and data plans with providers highlighting everything from the features of their products to their great customer support.
Here, the target market is drawn to your brand because of the potential benefits your product or services can give them.
Benefit positioning is a marketing strategy in which the seller creates perceived value for the buyer not inherent in the product, but in its uses and benefits.
For example, with an iPod, you might say “provides access to a huge library of music and other entertainment on the go.” This positioning would call out its primary benefit (accessing music while mobile). This is much more effective than the alternative “in-your-pocket entertainment.”
4) Problem and Solution Positioning
Problem and Solution Positioning is a type of brand positioning that does not center on the product’s features or its performance results in the marketplace, but instead addresses a consumer problem and offers a solution.
For this kind of positioning, brands will identify what problems consumers are experiencing and then offer a solution with their product. The advertisement may feature an assurance to the consumer that this product will solve any problems they may be facing with other similar products or even some of the brand’s own products.
Your company brand listens to its customer needs. People want to buy from companies that will listen to their needs, meaning that by using problem and solution positioning, you can pinpoint those needs and use that as an advantage to brand positioning.
Target markets should trust you and your company to listen to what they want. This also acts as a chance to step in when another brand is failing to listen to the needs of your consumers. It is an opportunity to give them a product or service that better fills their needs.
5) Celebrity-Driven Positioning
This type of positioning involves using celebrities to market your brand. For example, Gatorade uses a lot of professional athletes to show how their product stands out. This works because it implies that drinking Gatorade moves professional athletes to be at or above their normal level of performance.
Likewise, using celebrities to advertise any other product will create unique brand positioning. For example, using a world-class chef to advertise your cooking product could be very effective. Consumers will see this product and agree that it is a reliable product simply because their favorite world-class chef uses it.
6) Quality of Service Positioning
Advertise your services as better than the quality of other services. This is similar to regular quality positioning except, in this case, it deals with services instead of products. This kind of positioning is not very effective because most customers do not want to buy from firms that advertise solely on the best service.
Quality service however is of course something that everyone wants and is willing to pay for, but when it comes to positioning, it is not usually what will reel in the customers.
Instead of using service as the primary strategy for branding positioning, it can be seen more as a competitive advantage once you have the customers. Keeping the customers loyal to your brand because of your quality service.
7) Lifestyle Positioning
Sometimes, certain brands will use lifestyle positioning to depict a certain kind of personality or culture. Therefore, those who buy from this brand are also of the same lifestyle. A good example of this is found in many alcohol commercials, using the party lifestyle to promote the product.
Therefore, if this is your lifestyle then you should also buy from this brand. This strategy is used more along the lines for aspirational value, in pinpointing where the consumer identifies. When you understand the various identities of your customer base, you can position your business toward them.
8) Emotional Positioning
Emotional brand positioning provides a relationship that facilitates self-expression and ensures the brand stays intimately connected with its consumers.
This positioning is based on the brand’s commitment to building long-lasting relationships with its customers. This commitment is demonstrated through three core values: a human and caring approach, transparency, and competence.
The power of using emotions is to build and define your identity as an organization. Emotional branding can be used in many ways by marketers, business leaders, product developers, psychologists, or just about anyone who wants to get connected with their client.
Every company is a brand, it’s just some companies haven’t figured that out yet. And even if they “get” branding, very few companies know how to put the “emotion” into their brands which is why there are so many bland, boring, even horrible brands out there.
With consistent communications about brand personality, emotionally adept brands are distinct from competitors. They are memorable, likable, sticky, and different.
9) Disruptive Positioning
Traditions, routines, and “everyday normal life” are all meant to be broken and shaken up, right? Well, a brand that practices disruptive positioning is out to disrupt the market and change things, whether for better or for worse.
When thinking of disruptive positioning, think of brands like Uber, DoorDash, Robinhood, and Netflix.
Why Brand Positioning Is Important?
When consumers are deciding what brand to buy, they create a working mental map that helps them distinguish between the various brands available to them. The consumer mental map contains different dimensions that vary from person to person and category to category.
In the car-washing fluid situation, for example, some consumers might construct a mental map that combines ease of use, cost, and washes per gallon.
Positioning is a strategy of creating and communicating the advantages of a brand relative to competing brands in the minds of customers. Increasingly, marketers are positioning their brands based on emotional benefits or values important to consumers. When done right, this approach can create truly distinctive brands.
A distinct and differentiated brand positioning can be the key to unlocking the competitive advantage that comes from consumer loyalty. An enduring position, communicated consistently and reinforced by all marketing communications, is a widely recognized promise of value for which competitors will have to try hard to match or beat.
Related Questions
What are the 3 C’s of positioning? The three C’s of the brand positioning approach will help you optimize three key dimensions of your market: consumers, competition, and company. The purpose of this model is to determine the most important attribute of a brand and its competitive advantage.
What is a brand positioning statement? The brand positioning statement is the heart of every marketing plan. It tells you where you want to position your product, and how your brand will be perceived by the customer against its competition. A good goal is to differentiate your product from other products in the market
What are the four components of brand positioning statements? Much of the marketing strategy is defined by the brand positioning statement. A well-crafted brand positioning statement has four main components: a target market, a competitive set, a unique value claim, and reasons to believe.
Conclusion
If you are thinking about starting a brand, finding the right branding positioning is really crucial. To understand which approach will be the best to take, you must understand what the target market will cater to.
Some kinds of positioning will be effective and some ineffective. The thing to remember is to find the best branding positioning that will fit the needs of your target market.
We have come to the end of the road. We examined 8 types of brand positioning in detail. You learned about the benefits of each one, which ones you can use, and any potential risks involved. As you know by now, the kind of positioning that is right for your business will depend on the industry that your business operates within, among other things.
Now that you have all the information to make an informed decision, you can create a positioning strategy that will help your business succeed.
Thanks for taking the time to read this article. We hope you found it helpful and educational. If you found any of this interesting, please share this with anyone that might benefit from this knowledge. Have a great day 🙂