7 Brand-Positioning Mistakes To Avoid At All Costs

Whether you’re building a new business or your company is established, defining your brand position is helpful.

After all, if you developed your brand name, tagline and your messaging 20, 10 or even 5 years ago, chances are, things have probably changed. A lot.

It’s highly likely that much of your branding no longer communicates what your business or products/services offers now. Or how it helps customers.

It’s time to reposition your brand.

As your team comes together to position your brand in 2023, here are several mistakes you should avoid.

1.) Not defining the problem

Start out by clearly defining the problem your company solves.

After all, if you begin with the wrong problem to solve, you won’t be able to clearly define the solution (your brand) to this problem.

Give your team lots of time to brainstorm this step and kick the tires on several different versions of the problem until you land on a detailed description of a single problem.

2.) Focusing too much on the benefits

While the benefit that your customers want from your solution is certainly important, it’s not the only lens through which you should look at to develop your brand positioning.

Knowing the benefit will help you express how your brand uniquely delivers that benefit to customers.

3.) Ignoring real people

The best way to position your brand as the ideal solution to people’s problems is to focus on the real people behind your customer avatars or categories.

A few things to consider when thinking about your customer includes their daily activities, circumstances, how they think about themselves, and how they use your brand.

4.) Not giving differentiation enough attention

Don’t let your team fall prey to this fatal mistake.

Differentiation is critical to your brand’s success.

In fact, if you fail to effectively differentiate yourself from the competition, you won’t give customers a compelling reason to choose you over another brand.

5.) Letting one voice rule the process

An effective brand positioning project is one that includes convergent voices coming together.

So don’t let one voice dominate the process, or you’ll end up with ineffective messaging when it’s all over.

6.) Avoiding “what’s worked”

It’s normal for marketers to fall back on methods that have worked well in the past.

However, relying on these approaches when you’re redefining your brand is a recipe for disaster.

While it’s easy to fall into the same old, same old, in a changed environment, you and your team need to think creatively and outside of the box to innovatively address today’s challenges.

7.) Failing to get buy-in

After all is said and done and your team has come up with an amazing final result, your new brand positioning won’t gain traction if you didn’t get buy-in across the entire organization.

When your sales team, R&D team, marketing team, product team, and others are all on board, and have a chance to give input throughout the process, you’ll create collective ownership that drives strong implementation.

Be sure to avoid these common mistakes when you work through a brand positioning exercise. Doing so will help your company identify market opportunities that are current with today’s consumers.

If you need help identifying your company’s branding opportunities, give us a call!