BSK: Positioning
In this session, we are going to talk about Positioning.
What is Positioning? Positioning is how you stand out and differentiate yourself from others in the market.
Whatever your Product or service, someone else (a competitor) is likely out there offering an alternative that can provide the same thing you do.
To make sure your value proposition is clear and compelling - to stand out when clients are comparing to others offering the same thing - you need to develop your brand Position.
To help you understand this, let's put it into the example of a literal market, like a Sunday market, where you can buy fruit, vegetables, and other random goods.
There isn't just one seller offering fruit at the Sunday Market (that would be a monopoly, which ends up being bad for everyone attending the market).
No, when you go to the market, you'll see many fruit sellers offering different combinations of quality, price, and variety. One will be the cheapest, the next is the most organic, the sourced locally, and the other will be all of the above.
These differentiators - quality, price, variety - make each fruit seller stand out in the market.
Outside the Sunday Market, there are many ways to differentiate and Position yourself alongside competitors beyond quality, price, and variety; there's also geography, brand, speed, features, and many more.
Your Positioning will be informed by your Story, who your Audience is, your set Values, and what Product you are selling.
With all of that in mind, how are you standing out? It doesn't have to be competitive. But it does need to be distinct.
Let me explain using Storytime Studios as the case study.
We (Storytime) are a creative agency that does branding. Many people offer similar services. Brand Identity can be tackled by pretty much any designer - to varying degrees of detail or competence. To help with this, we Position ourselves by focusing on strategy and ensuring we address the brand's plan and architecture before we work out the specs for a project.
Is this a revolutionary way to Position Storytime? Not really, and our Positioning is also not a direct and blatant counterposition to others in the market. That would sound something like, "We focus on strategy because everyone else is stupid".
That's not the case; everyone has their own approach, and this is ours. People know that when we take on a branding project, it will usually be a sizable project because we're looking at a bigger picture. Focusing on strategy is not revolutionary but distinct in this space.
In my last example of positioning, thinking about cars is always helpful.
Are you selling a Rolls Royce, which takes six months to build a single unit, or are you making Toyota Corollas, which get pumped out of the factory as fast as possible? Both cars have wheels and an engine, but both are Positioned (and priced) very differently.
That's Positioning: have a think, have a ponder, write it down, and see you on the next one.
Last Updated: 29/Dec/2023