What is Brand Positioning?
The health and wellness market has become very crowded. We say that so often it’s almost become a cliché, but it’s true. Wellness consumers are constantly facing information overload. It’s hard for them to know who to trust.
The good news is: Where there is competition there are buyers. And buyers mean money and an opportunity to achieve growth. But how can you stand out in such a competitive market?
You stand out in a crowded market with brand positioning.
When you’re in a crowded market the worst thing you can do is copy what everyone else is doing. In the world of infinite choices, there is one choice you should be making to differentiate yourself: Build an authentic brand with solid positioning.
It’s the marketer's role to make sure wellness customers know how the product or service does and why they should care. How your brand differs from everyone else and how your service and product will improve your customer's life is the positioning.
Today, your brand is the only true market differentiator.
Successful health and wellness brands get positioning right. So, what is positioning exactly? Brand positioning is how you position yourself in the mind of your ideal customers. It’s how they think about you, as defined by you. It’s how you set yourself apart from everyone else.
The objectives of brand positioning are becoming relevant to your customer, generating leads, and establishing customer loyalty and lifetime value. Think about positioning your reputation with your customer.
According to April Dunford, the queen of positioning and author of Obviously Awesome (a must-read btw), positioning is, “how we help our best-fit customers intuitively understand the value of our products.”
The keywords here are intuitive and value. Your customer will choose your product time and time again, over others, when the value you provide is so intuitive they don’t even realize they are making a choice. It’s just a natural, intuitive choice to use your product or service.
Positioning Examples
Think about some of the brands you use intuitively. When you think about coffee, you might think about Starbucks or Blue Bottle. When you think about healthy food you might think about Whole Foods or Amy’s. When you think about clean beauty you might think about Honest company or Tata Harper.
These associations are a result of their brand positioning. You can position your brand based on several factors. Here are a few examples to help think about the way you can approach your brand positioning (this list is not exhaustive):
Pricing positioning
Convenience-based positioning
Time-based positioning
Customer service-based positioning
Sustainability positioning
Social impact positioning
Example: How to use price positioning in your strategy
Brand positioning can be used to drive the justification for your pricing. It can justify why your price point is higher than others who sell similar products.
For example, if you sell natural skin care using the highest quality ingredients that are fair trade sourced, packaged sustainably, and give back to the communities they are sourced in - you’ve justified why your pricing is higher than your competitors.
If you make an organic, apoptogenic drink that provides energy and relieves stress while being refreshing and balancing hormones, then you’ve proven why your product is a healthier alternative to Red Bull. Positioning here is being used to explain the value of the product. Does price positioning make sense for your brand?
Sales and Positioning
Branding is the foundation of marketing, but positioning is the foundation of branding. Positioning defines how your product or service is different and better than the alternatives in the market. Once you have your market positioning sorted, your brand messaging, lead generation, and sales funnels will all ladder up to this. This is how intricate and important brand positioning is.
Take a look at your sales pipeline and materials. The way you sell to your prospects is based on how you want to be seen by your customer. You sell in a way that reinforces the reputation you want to have and keep. All of this is positioning.
Positioning Strategy Questions
So how do you develop positioning that accelerates marketing and sales? Here are five core questions you should answer as you begin to create your positioning strategy:
1.Who is your ideal customer?
If your ideal customer personas are wildly different you may want to create separate positioning for each.
2. Who are the competitors?
If customers aren’t buying from you, who are they going to? List the top contenders here along with their weaknesses in comparison to you.
3.What is your unique differentiator?
What about your product or service makes you stand out from the competition? The emphasis here is on the unique, if your competitor offers the exact same thing, it doesn’t belong here. You might have more than one unique differentiators - if you do, list them all.
4.What are you solving for?
What problem(s) are your customers facing because of a lack of this product or service?
5. How do you solve it?
How does your unique attribute, approach, system, etc... solve that challenge? Draw on emotion, utopia visions, and real-life quotes where possible.
Your positioning work is by no means a one-off job. Markets change. Your product or service might even change. Always pay attention to if your positioning is still working.
It's crucial to test and gather feedback from your target audience on whether your positioning is having the effect you intended. Listen on social and in customer services conversations.
Conclusion
Positioning a brand can seem overwhelming at first — with so many touchpoints, it can be hard to prioritize messaging. A brand positioning framework can help you define your positioning strategy and make sure you’re making the best decisions for your customer and market.
Your success as a health and wellness brand is dependent on your ability to position and articulate your value to your target audience. Branding is the true differentiator in today’s oversaturated marketplace. Don’t sell your brand short by skipping over the most crucial step of branding - positioning.
If you’re looking for support with your brand positioning, we’re always here to help. Set up a free 20-minute discovery call to go over your top branding questions with one of our consultants and learn more about how we can help. Book an appointment here.
https://calendly.com/holistic-design-group/free-20-minute-branding-session
About the HDG Brand Development Work
We’ve help companies create authentic brands that customers covet and connect to. If you need help aligning your vision to your concept, reach out for a free discovery call. We can guide you to the becoming the brand you’re meant to be. Learn more.
