Brand positioning: the key to defining your firm

When it comes to business, it’s important for everyone to understand how much your brand positioning matters.

Wikipedia defines brand positioning as “identifying and attempting to occupy a market niche for a brand, product or service.” This is how you begin to craft your brand identity and is a crucial starting place for the branding process, whether you’re a new company or rebranding your existing organization.  

Identifying your brand positioning is critical in that it helps define a brand’s uniqueness, differentiation and value. Basically, these are all the reasons customers should come to you and pay you for services rendered. This is true for consumer brands, and essential for AEC firms as well.

You may have great services or products, but as pointed out in this Fast Company article,  a great product does not necessarily equate to a great brand.

Brand positioning is hard work — almost as much work as you put into your services themselves. It involves identifying the target market, analyzing the competitive landscape, reviewing your current positioning, identifying viable areas for distinction and differentiation, and creating a positioning statement with missives that can be used in all your internal and external communication. Brand positioning is not about a catchy tagline. It is much, much more than that. You need to do a brand audit, talk candidly to your customers, and most importantly, be open to their feedback on how they perceive your brand identity and who they think you are. (Equally important is uncovering their wants and needs, and then applying that to your plans, but more on that at another time.)

Once you get through the legwork and understand all the elements that go into creating your brand positioning, you need to find a way to communicate this across all your marketing platforms. It’s important that your brand positioning (and your company, for that matter) be authentic, or you risk having it come across as contrived and disingenuous. Those are two qualities that never go over well with clients or consumers. 

You need to live your brand positioning everywhere – on social media, in your marketing videos, in your office environment, and in your direct and indirect communication with clients. It is foundational to who you are and what you say. Some B2B brands differentiate themselves simply by doing this well and garnering positive attention for it. They find a way to not only communicate their services but to also communicate the emotional benefits of engaging with their brand. Others flop because they’re trying to be something they can’t support in their marketing or services.

It’s a big job. Fortunately, you don’t need to do it alone. We work with many new or existing AEC brands to develop a strong brand identity and walk them through an entire branding process, from head to toe. We incorporate brand positioning to develop a unique approach for your firm in the market. Our process is calculated and methodical, and it happens over time. If you are ready to go, start here to see what we mean. We ask a ton of questions, and like most things in life, we do our best work when we have all the facts and understand how all the cogs in the wheel fit into place.

If you have any thought or comments, please let us know.