How To Make A Great Online Brand Positioning Strategy Effectively

 

Introduction to Online Brand Positioning Strategy:

Creating a compelling online brand positioning strategy is essential for companies looking to differentiate themselves in the crowded digital market. Organizations may build a distinct perspective that connects with customers by effectively establishing and communicating their distinctive value to the target audience.

Like branding, positioning a brand in the marketplace is crucial for a business concern. In this context, every business organization always emphasizes how to develop a branding strategy effectively. Brand positioning is a marketing tactic through which a company sows the seeds of its final product deep into the minds of its target audience so that they can reap the benefits of brand loyalty in the long run.

Brand positioning is the process of creating a distinctive brand name that sets your brand apart from competitors, conveys perceived value, and maintains consistency over time.

What Is Brand Positioning?

According to Philip Kotler, “Brand positioning is the act of designing the company’s offerings and image to occupy a distinctive place in the target market’s mind.”

Brand positioning is nothing but creating a recall value for your brand in the minds of your customers. You must apply a unique positioning strategy to flag your brand in your customers' memories.

Why is brand positioning so important?

Any organization’s successful marketing relies heavily on positioning. A brand that hasn’t established itself clearly in the minds of consumers is quickly forgotten and replaced by one that has. The customer’s belief that the product or service in question is unique is a key factor in premium pricing and competitive advantage.

Developing a brand is not an easy task to complete. While branding is a way to spread awareness about a brand, on the contrary, positioning denotes how you are going to convey the awareness message and who you are so that people can associate your brand with that message.

We can take a few examples of brand positioning here and see how people can associate these brands with the message they convey, such as:

When it comes to insurance, we think of LIC.

When it comes to butter, we think of Amul.

The above companies have created distinctive positions in the marketplace through a unique brand positioning strategy. Through brand positioning, a company conveys the message of:

Who are they?

What do they do?

How do they do it?

Why are they different from their competitors?

Why should people consider their brand?

The main factor influencing consumers’ purchasing decisions is positioning. Prospective clients are drawn to your brand’s items by their strong placement. A strong brand positioning strategy encourages current customers to keep buying your brand’s goods. As a result, brand positioning techniques should always be closely related to the idea of target markets as a whole. Orthodox marketers use traditional and guerrilla guerrilla marketing strategies as offline marketing platforms

 

How do you develop an online brand positioning strategy?

To develop an effective online brand positioning strategy, we need to find out the answers to the below questions:

What position?

Do we have any position in our prospects’ minds?

What kind of position do we want to occupy in prospects’ minds?

Who are our competitors?

Do we have enough resources to occupy and hold the position?

Does our creative approach match our positioning strategy?

 

10 Steps of an Online Brand Positioning Strategy

Developing an online brand positioning strategy is crucial for establishing a strong presence in the digital market and differentiating your brand from competitors. Here are some steps to help you create an effective online brand positioning strategy, step by step:

 

Conducting Market Research:

The act of market research and analysis includes discovering insights about your target market and its nature. You may identify what type of online brand positioning would be suitable for your brand by analyzing market trends, consumer behaviour, and industrial variables, which are elements of market research. Because it enables companies to better understand their target market, competitors, market trends, and consumer needs, market research is an essential part of online brand positioning. Through comprehensive market research, businesses may obtain important information that directs their online brand positioning strategy.

Understand Your Target Audience:

Do audience research to learn about your target audience, their psychological characteristics, habits, needs, wants, preferences, and demographics to target them successfully? This will help you understand their objectives and pain points while developing your online brand positioning. Here you need to identify what kind of audience segment can be captured using PPC ads or organic way.

 

Define Your Unique Value Proposition:

Develop a unique value proposition (UVP) that distinguishes your business from competitors by emphasizing the advantages of your goods or services—such as affordability, ease of use, innovation, and quality—and the reasons why consumers should pick your brand over others.

 

Conduct A Competitive Analysis:

Learn about the positioning and web presence of your closest competitors, and do competitive research and analysis. To identify market gaps and chances for distinctive brand positioning, analyze your competitors' SWOT—strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Make use of market research tools to understand your competitors’ keyword strategy, communication strategy, distinctive value propositions, and online brand positioning strategies.

 

Create A Brand Persona:

Building a suitable brand persona is a must for online brand positioning. A brand persona is a crucial tool for establishing a lasting impression on your target audience. It goes beyond logos and taglines, encompassing the personality and values that define your brand. Research your customers, understand their goals, tasks, needs, and pain points, and validate your data with real customer insights. Segment your audience into meaningful groups based on demographics or behaviour, and decide on the layout of your persona profile. Set demographic details, describe the persona's background, and define their motivations and frustrations. Identify their goals, whether they're seeking convenience, status, or emotional fulfilment.

Establish Key Messages:

Develop content that supports your brand's positioning and uses the same language and tone across all platforms to successfully communicate your brand's unique UVP. Decide on core messaging that conveys to your target audience the positioning, benefits, and distinctive value proposition (UVP) of your brand. 

 

Select The Right Online Platforms:

When choosing online platforms for your brand promotion, keep things like user behaviour, demographics, and engagement levels in mind. To effectively communicate your messaging and content, be aware of the characteristics of your target audience, such as age, gender, income, location, education, and work titles. Select online platforms based on the objectives and content style of your brand and where your target audience is active to implement your online brand positioning strategy effectively. You can consider Twitter for real-time updates, LinkedIn for professional networking, Facebook for a wide range of audiences, Instagram for visual content, Pinterest for visual inspiration, and YouTube for video content.

 

Develop A Content Strategy:

Develop a content calendar that appeals to your target audience and is consistent with the positioning of your brand. To effectively express your message, make use of a variety of mediums, including blogs, videos, social media posts, and images. To establish credibility and strengthen the position of your brand, modify content formats regularly. Use proper PR tools for content curation.

 

Implement Consistent Branding:

A successful and everlasting online brand positioning demands consistency in online branding. Use the colour wheel to identify the primary and secondary colours for your brand, use whitespace wisely to create clarity, and add personal touches like team portraits and behind-the-scenes looks to do this. Make use of top-notch photos and thoughtfully position your brand in a prominent location on the page. To keep your branding elements in line with your changing brand story, apply these guidelines to all online platforms, and revisit and update them regularly. Establish a recall value by maintaining brand consistency. It involves more than simply appearances; it also entails giving your audience a seamless, unforgettable experience.

Monitor And Measure Results:

Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, conversions, lead generation, and social media interaction to assess the success of your online brand positioning strategy and make any required modifications.

 

Types Of Online Brand Positioning

Brand Positioning By Product Attributes And Benefits:

Define your product attributes and benefits. It includes brainstorming about your product’s main USPs (unique selling propositions), which make your product different from your competitors’ products.

Brand positioning through product attributes and benefits is a strategic marketing approach. It aims to differentiate a product from its competitors by emphasizing its unique qualities and advantages. By effectively communicating a product's characteristics, functionalities, and benefits to consumers, companies can establish a strong position in their target market and create a distinctive brand identity.

This process involves identifying key product attributes that resonate with the needs and preferences of customers, as well as emphasizing the specific benefits that set the product apart from others in its category. Businesses may strengthen their competitive advantage, foster customer preference for their products, and foster brand loyalty by strategically positioning their products based on their features and advantages. To effectively demonstrate how their product surpasses alternatives in meeting customer demands, businesses must conduct comprehensive market research, understand client perceptions, and craft impactful messaging.

 

Online Brand Positioning By Corporate Identity:

Businesses that want to establish a strong online presence need to focus on their corporate identity. This involves carefully shaping the company's image, values, and personality across various online platforms such as websites, social media, and advertising. By doing this, businesses can effectively communicate their unique selling points to their target audience, build trust with consumers, and ultimately increase engagement and loyalty by creating an authentic and recognizable brand identity. A well-defined corporate identity can help businesses form strong emotional connections with customers, increase brand awareness, and stand out from competitors.

In today's competitive digital economy, companies must prioritize strategic online brand positioning through corporate identity to achieve long-term success.

Companies that already have the identity of a trusted household brand just coin this established name and fame to position their new brand in the marketplace.

 

Emotional Brand Positioning:

Emotional brand positioning is a strategic brand positioning approach that focuses on establishing a deep emotional connection between a brand and its target audience. By utilizing emotions such as happiness, trust, or nostalgia, companies can create strong bonds with consumers, leading to increased brand loyalty and customer retention. This strategy goes beyond merely promoting products or services; it aims to create meaningful experiences that resonate with consumers on a personal level. Companies must understand their target market's values, beliefs, and desires to effectively implement emotional brand positioning. Through storytelling, visual imagery, and authentic communication, brands can evoke specific emotions that influence consumer behaviour and shape perceptions of the brand.

Emotional brand positioning is hugely effective if you know how to play with your prospects’ emotions, which trigger your brand. People do not buy products; rather, they buy emotions. People indeed buy products to fulfil their needs and demands, but with every product, there is always an emotion attached. When successfully executed, emotional brand positioning can differentiate a company from its competitors and drive long-term success in today's competitive market.

 

Seasonal Brand Positioning:

Seasonal brand positioning is a technique for matching a company's marketing and messaging to the current season or holiday. Businesses may develop customized advertisements that connect with their target audience during important periods of the year by utilizing seasonal trends and themes. This approach allows companies to stay relevant and top-of-mind with consumers, as well as capitalize on increased consumer spending during peak seasons. Effective seasonal brand positioning requires careful planning and a deep understanding of customer preferences and behaviours throughout the year. By adapting their messaging, products, and promotions to reflect the changing seasons, businesses can differentiate themselves from competitors and drive engagement and sales. Ultimately, seasonal brand positioning is a valuable tool for maintaining brand consistency while staying flexible and responsive to market dynamics. Seasonal brand positioning depends on product type. If you are selling a seasonal product, then you need to have a seasonal brand positioning strategy for that particular brand.

 

Price-Based Brand Positioning:

Price-based brand positioning is quite powerful in countries like India, where we find different kinds of people coming from various socio-economic backgrounds. In India, people like to concentrate on savings rather than investing. People think twice before buying a new product, and people always look for products with good quality at a lower price. So if a company can develop a quality product at an affordable and competitive price, then it will be easy to position that brand in the minds of prospects.

 

Conclusions:

Online brand positioning requires a lot of effort, attention to detail, and dedication. However, you cannot develop until you are aware of your starting point. You may begin effectively competing for your segment of the market once you have a clear understanding of your distinct position and your positioning objectives.

Defining a proper brand positioning strategy in the market is the first step if you want to expand your business while building stronger relationships with your customers. It is always better to consult with an online marketing expert for online brand positioning.