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Creating market share that generates positive returns rarely happens by accident. It requires business awareness, a workable vision, a team of experts, and a thoughtful expression of your values—to investors, suppliers, customers, and employees alike.
Stakeholders, including the community, will form conclusions and opinions about your organization without your help, so it’s best to proactively post branding messages to the world that reflect how you want to be recognized.
And above all successful branding should help you stand out from the rest.
1. Principles that help you stand out from the competition
Let’s start with a definition: Brand positioning is the act of purposefully creating a perception or image of your organization in the minds of investors, employees, and other stakeholders. This includes building trust, projecting values, demonstrating a unique value proposition, differentiating yourself from competitors, and building a good reputation.
For example, some differentiated brand positions for entrepreneurs include leadership in:
- Operational and financial transparency.
- Development of companies that generate market returns.
- Support and participation in the life of the community.
- Environmental protection and resource conservation.
- Commitment to and development of employee skills, well-being and creativity.
- Economic, financial and liability risk management.
A brand position can include any combination of differentiators, and it can be complex. If it is not consciously controlled and developed, it can do more harm than good. A targeted brand positioning strategy is needed to exercise greater control over how to relate to the market.
Connected: The Importance of “Positioning” Your Brand When You’re Starting
2. Rethink your brand position so it works for (not against) your growth efforts
Every brand has a position, created intentionally or organically developed. Some companies manage to succeed without considering how their brand is perceived in the industry. Yet many more people are falling behind in the race for lack of an appropriate strategy that lets the community and potential customers know what it stands for, what it excels at, and whether the organization aligns with the community’s values and preferences.
Customers and end users want more than competitive prices and the best benefits. Similarly, investors want more than promises of high returns. These benefits (such as demand drivers for patronage and business investment) are widely shared in many businesses’ brand messages, but it’s important to go one step further.
Connected: Why does an entrepreneur need an Elevator Pitch?
3. Thinking about core competencies
Any plan to learn, improve, and grow begins with an assessment. Think of it like enrolling in an educational program, hiring a consultant, or visiting a new doctor—all of these processes start with a baseline.
Indeed, we may be looking for new (perhaps different) business opportunities, or we may be investing in marketing and other traditional income-generating activities. But the most cost-effective and highest growth comes from improving the efficiency of current operations and highlighting these core competencies in branding and presentations.
Connected: Six Reasons Why Branding Matters More Than Ever Before
4. How to adequately measure performance
Most of us would like to be leaders in our field and magnetically attract opportunities, capital, and talent. Fortunately, this is quite achievable with good strategic planning, data management, and brand development.
However, sometimes this seems like a lofty goal, especially if we don’t have an objective understanding of where we excel and where improvement is needed. Because of the complexity of enterprises, analyzing performance in such a detailed and holistic way can be overwhelming.
However, when we have the infrastructure and team to collect real-time data from every department or subsidiary in an organization, timely information is immediately available. With operational and financial data like this at hand, it becomes clear where we are moving forward and what we need to do to stay ahead and move forward. Combine this knowledge with corporate performance benchmarks, and the result is useful information to create a plan to improve and expand core competencies.
But how do you define and quantify what you do best?
- Seek feedback and views from stakeholders.
- Think like a team with leaders and frontline members.
- Collect and analyze departmental and enterprise performance data.
We may know that we know how to make a profit, capture market share and develop the necessary products and services, but it is much more valuable and convincing to know Why — what allows us to work well and how to support it. A value proposition, backed by well-defined core competencies and supporting data, gives dimension, personality, and credibility to a brand’s image.
Connected: 6 Secrets to Writing the Best Brand Positioning Statement
5. Taking the enterprise to the first place
By looking at the data, you can probably understand why stakeholders choose to work with and support you. If you can effectively articulate the factors that give you a competitive advantage, it will be easier for you to start new and profitable business relationships.
What creates a compellingly differentiated brand position?
- Share your story and the human side of the organization.
- Highlighting evidence of values and ethics.
- A demonstration of how you create stable returns for investors.
- Demonstrating how you create long-term value and consistently make the right decisions using innovative business practices and technology.
- Creating a memorable visual brand (development of an attractive logo with attractive colors and images).
- Tailoring the brand voice to the communication preferences and style of the target market.
Potential and current investors, clients, employees and other stakeholders have many opportunities to lend their capital, patronage, time and expertise. In such a case, continued and enduring success requires you to hone your abilities and project them with clarity and confidence.
By pulling together actionable data, identifying what an organization does best, working to make it perform even better, and convincingly expressing strengths, the result is a brand that is synonymous with reliability and performance. This will inevitably lead to a great experience for all stakeholders.