Competitive brand positioning defines how your organisation will establish – as well as maintain – a competitive advantage. It’s one half of your brand platform while the other is your brand identity. In other words, what your brand stands for.
Your competitive brand positioning positions your company in terms of who you are selling to, what the scope of your business is as well as what you do to create value for your customers. Your competitive brand positioning drives your business strategy and operating plan.
In order to successfully compete, you must recognise what you’re competing against, for whom in addition to how best to position your brand in order to leverage your strengths as well as to take advantage of market opportunities.
Why Is Competitive Brand Positioning Important?
Without a competitive brand positioning, your brand may only remain an abstract vision or a collection of cultural values which sound fantastic but don’t actually make a difference in the marketplace. A meaningful, powerful and valuable brand is based on a clear, crisp articulation of your competitive strategy.
Every business has competitors so in order to compete effectively, you must understand what you’re competing against for whom as well as how best to position your brand so that you can leverage your strengths and take advantage of opportunities in the market.
When your market plainly sees how your offering is separate from that of your competition, it’s more straightforward to influence the market as well as win mindshare. Without brand differentiation and competitive brand positioning, it takes more time and budget to lure the market to engage with you. As a result, many organisations end up competing on price which is a tough position to sustain over the long term.
