Demystifying Brand Positioning: The Real-Life Steps for Standing Out

Everybody’s saying it… You already know it…

“You HAVE to stand out in your industry if you want your business to grow.”

People really like to sling around terms like “unique value proposition” and “brand positioning” and “messaging” and frankly (if you’re anything like me) you might be up to your ears in jargon that’s just not doing it for you.

I scroll past far too many posts on Instagram that pay lip service to these ideas yet give no practical steps for digging into the nitty gritty so we can all get our hands dirty doing the work and actually reap the benefit.
(This is not shade, btw. Just an observation. And to the good souls who ARE laying out the details, I wholeheartedly thank you.)

So here’s my attempt at breaking through the noise and giving you some actionable steps for utilizing brand positioning to stand out in a sea of online businesses.

What the heck is BRAND POSITIONING?

Brand Positioning (Noun) – “The process of developing how a brand is different from its competitors and where, or how, it sits in customers’ minds” (source).

In other words… Brand positioning is the process of intentionally forming the way your business shows up so that your brand gains the reputation you want it to have.

Your Brand = Your audience’s perception, feelings, ideas, etc. of your business

Your Brand Positioning = Your efforts to make them perceive, feel about, think about, etc. your business the way you WANT them to

HOW do you develop brand positioning?

This is where the other fancy-schmancy terms come in. Phrases like…

• Unique Value Proposition
• Marketing Strategy
• Visual Identity Design

These are all useful terms that are important to your brand positioning (and I go into them in depth in another post), but sometimes the terminology can leave you lost in the weeds…

So let’s keep it simple!

This is how you develop brand positioning – You intentionally cultivate how your audience perceives your business by…

✔ Offering quality products and services, and

✔ Clearly conveying the value of those offers with the words and visuals you share.

It all boils down to the VALUE of your offers and how you CONVEY that value to your people.

If you convey it clearly (with effective messaging and appealing visuals) and you succeed at setting yourself apart from others in your industry as THE ONE your audience wants to buy from… cha-ching! Deal closed.

It can really be that simple.

And yes, of course, there is a LOT that goes into crafting effective offers, messaging, and visuals, but let this at least encourage you that you can get started in a truly simple way just by understanding this.

So I hope this helped to demystify brand positioning for you!

What other questions does it spark for you? Curious to dig into any of the pieces I mentioned along the way?

Comment below – Happy to hear from you!

Grace,

Lydia