A Handy Guide To Creating A Practical B2B Brand Positioning Strategy

How To Create A Winning B2B Brand Positioning Strategy

Why should people choose you over your competitors?

Affordable? Safe? Agile?

Finding the answer to this question isn’t as straightforward. Rising above competitors needs a mindful positioning strategy to influence consumer perception.

Despite widespread assumptions, brand positioning is not merely crafting a witty tagline and eye-catching graphics but how your audience wholly perceives your brand. Brand positioning sets you apart from competitors, from developing a unique selling point to building brand awareness to justifying pricing.

This article will explain the detailed steps to help you create a powerful B2B positioning strategy and build market influence.

6 Steps to Create a Unique Brand Positioning

People subconsciously organize products and services into categories and associated brands. Good positioning enables you to tap into these existing connections in your customer’s mind. Here are some practical and actionable steps to help you establish authority in the market:

Learn what your customers have to say

To avoid blind guessing, start talking to your customers first. This will help you understand why they choose your products or services over your competitors.

You can contact them via email, phone, social media, or even host a webinar to learn about different opinions about your brand.

Ask questions like:

• What do you like about our product/services?
• Why did you switch to our product/services?
• Is there anything we could do better?
• Is there any feature you can’t leave without?
• How likely will you recommend our product/services to your friends and family?
• What is your biggest complaint?

Every consumer may have different problems, and your job is to solve these pain points by providing a solution. To effectively target each need, start creating a buyer persona. It will help you consolidate the needs your company should focus on filling and position your statement around.

For example, a jewelry dropshipping supplier might create buyer personas for different segments, such as online boutiques, marketplaces, and retail chains.

To choose which persona to pursue, identify the ones in the highest distress. If their needs are not currently met, they are more likely to choose your solution.

Also, use usage and attitude research to attempt to understand consumer habits and motivations. This will help you create relevant marketing campaigns and identify new exploration opportunities.

Understand the competition and the market

Competitor analysis examines the market landscape and its prominent factors to uncover information on competitors' strengths, weaknesses, and marketing strategies. You can either focus on one specific market aspect or conduct a thorough analysis to assess as many competitors as possible. 

It is also crucial to evaluate the structure of your industry’s market. Techniques like perceptual mapping enable organizations to visualize how the target market perceives their product. 

You can either focus on one specific market aspect or conduct a thorough analysis to assess as many competitors as possible. For instance, to build a no-code e-commerce platform, you must analyze established market leaders like Shopify and Bigcommerce. Comparing their features, pricing, and customer engagement strategies helps you identify industry standards, uncover gaps, and determine how to position your platform effectively in a crowded market like eCommerce.

Consider these steps to gain practical insights about your customers and the market:

• Identify your direct and indirect competitors and evaluate the geography of their operations to determine market concentration areas
• Find the features, pricing policy, places where consumers can find the products/services, such as a website or social media, and their promotional tactics, such as Facebook ads.
• Understand your competitor’s USP or why a purchase decision is made. Get insights from motivations, aspirations, and pain points often missed in traditional research. Identify common themes in customer narratives and compare how your competitors address them.
• You could create a unique and compelling offering by using consumer descriptions of experiences and struggles to identify gaps in the market.
• Use modern networking tools, such as the digital business card, to share your brand details and other details with potential customers and business partners. 

Establish your unique value proposition 

Your unique value proposition should be your customers' first consideration when considering your brand. It clearly explains the product's benefits, how and what problems it solves, and why it differs from the rest.

An ideal value proposition for lead generation should be:

• Relevant
• Deliver specific benefits
• Tell customers why your brand is perfect for them and not your competitors.

The goal of establishing a UVP is to cater to customers in the best and most unique way possible. It should revolve around your ideal customer and how you, as a brand, can help them achieve their goals. 

Use clear, concise, and easy-to-understand language, and utilize customer testimonials and case studies to illustrate your UVP in action. 

For example, 360Learning, an enterprise LMS, uses customer reviews on its website to help decision-makers understand how it will help build a collaborative learning environment and foster employee growth. 

In this review, they highlight the specific benefits of using the tool and the outcome measured against their goal, which is achieved perfectly. This acts as a powerful source of social proof and nudges the decision-makers to buy the product. 

Based on such reviews, brands can identify their strong areas and use them to craft a positioning statement that is true to their claims.

Create your positioning statement

A positioning statement is a compelling way to convey your UVP to your target audience. Ensure that it is clear and concise, as it enables prospects to understand the business at first glance. Even without buying the product, a positioning statement will tell buyers how your product differs from the rest of the market.

Here are some ways to write a captivating positioning statement:

• Be concise and brief. Keep the statement short and try to fit it into two or three sentences
• Make it simple and brief by avoiding long sentences, jargon, and complex concepts
• The statement should reflect the company's core values. Ensure to maintain the consistency of your brand awareness and loyalty efforts.
• Mention your core benefit and how uniquely you can solve your customer problems.

Let’s try to understand it better with the help of an example. Trello makes its positioning clear with a clear statement. It tells you what it does in the heading, with an elaboration in the subheading. They have also featured relevant images to show collaboration in action.

Adjust your brand to fit your positioning

Once a positioning statement is ready, ensure it aligns with the brand's values, aesthetic, and messaging. This will help create a consistent story that people will remember. When everything complements each other, the brand positioning strengthens, making customers want to return.

Consider these tips to ensure your brand aligns with your positioning:

• Understand your brand’s core values, mission, and vision. This will serve as a reference point for alignment efforts.
• Every design, picture, font, and logo should reflect your brand positioning and remain uniform across all social media platforms and marketing materials.
• Carefully craft your positioning statement and avoid generic marketing messages. Use themes that resonate with your audience’s pain points.

Let’s talk about a brand that does this correctly. 

Slack is a team communication tool with the positioning statement:

Why it works:

• The brand constantly reinforces its positioning message when talking about its communication tool. The brand identifies with productivity and happier work environments to target broader customer markets
• It uses social proof with numbers and mentions that Fortune companies use Slack. If the most successful brands use Slack, it must be amazing, right?
• Clear and simple heading outlining how Slack can help companies- by making work life simpler, more pleasant and productive

Continuously monitor and adapt

Brand positioning is a continuous process, not a one-time event. It requires constant monitoring and adaptation to measure its impact on your target audience, competitors and business goals.

The best way to do this is to gather customer feedback and track how your brand is being discussed online. Based on the data you collect, you must be flexible and willing to adjust your strategy for better positioning.

IBM’s positioning strategy is a perfect example of positioning evolution. Its brand positioning has gone through several shifts over the years. First, it was “Think,” which shifted to “Solutions for a Small Planet,” “E-business on Demand,” and “Smarter Planet.”The brand has continuously adapted to the changing needs of its customers and the market.

Today, IBM’s positioning is based around the slogan “Let’s create something that changes everything” to show its commitment to using technology to improve the world. The brand’s positioning is about utilizing technology to enable people to solve real-world problems.

Prepare to win 

Your positioning can either make or break your brand. Remember that you only have a few seconds to influence prospects with a clear, unmistakable positioning statement. If a tiny mistake is made, people will start searching for other options. 

The strategies and tips we have shared will help you identify and analyze market forces, understand your competition, and establish an authoritative position in the market. Now, get back to the drawing board and start working on your positioning. Good luck!