Speaker 1: What's up Brand Builders, Stephen Horahan here at brandmasteracademy.com and in this video you're going to learn what brand positioning is so you can clearly articulate it to your client so they finally understand exactly why they need more than just a logo. Now if you're a subscriber, welcome back. If you're new to the channel and you want actionable brand strategy tips and techniques to grow your business, well then make sure you hit that subscribe button and the notification bell and you will be well on your way. Now the term branding has absolutely been through the wars over the last decade or so because there are literally millions upon millions of entrepreneurs out there that think that branding their business is all about going out and getting themselves a pretty logo and then deeming themselves branded. But if you know anything about branding and brand strategy, you know the branding is about far more than that. Branding is about bringing a business and an audience closer together to make that business seem more appealing to that audience and you need far more than visuals to do that. Now don't get me wrong, good design is an absolute prerequisite and non-negotiable. If you're building a brand then you want that brand to be as visually appealing as possible to who that audience is. But when it comes down to influencing decisions, your audience wants far more than just those good looks. So let's dig a little deeper into what brand positioning is and where it's come from. Now back in 1980 there was a book written that's widely considered to be the Bible of positioning. Now that book although it is really dated now at this point, it's over 40 years old, it's still very very relevant and in fact it's possibly more relevant today than it was back then and that book the authors are called Al Reese and Jack Trout and the title of the book is called Positioning the Battle for Your Mind. Now if you do have an interest in brand strategy and positioning and you haven't read the book, well then I highly recommend that you read it. But there's been a lot learned in the last 20 years through neuroscience about our understanding of how humans behave, how we work, how our mind works and it really pulls into context how ahead of its time that book was. That was back in 1980 and really over the last 20 years we've learned a lot through neuroscience that confirms a lot about what we know from that book. And probably the biggest takeaway is right there in the title Positioning the Battle for Your Mind because it highlights the fact that the position that you want to own is actually in the mind of your audience. So branding therefore is not a game of logos and fonts and colors and typography, it's a game of influencing perceptions and those perceptions live in the mind of your audience. Now Martin Neumeier once famously said that your brand is not what you say it is, it's what they say it is and essentially here he's saying the same thing. He's saying that your brand lives in the mind of your audience and they perceive it how they will perceive it and you don't really have any control over that. Now you do have some influence but you don't have control and that influence comes in the form of yes your brand identity, how that looks, your logo and your messaging and more importantly your biggest tool of influence, your positioning. So what exactly is brand positioning? Well it's how one brand distinguishes itself to its audience from its competitors. So essentially what brand positioning is, it's how a brand defines why they're different to their competitors and why their audience should care. Now this is critically important to new brands because as any new brand coming into the marketplace they're never really coming into a place where there are no competitors. There are already competitors in the marketplace offering products and services to your targeted audience and what you need to do as a new brand on the block is come in there and show your difference. There is absolutely no point in you coming into the marketplace and offering what your competitors are already offering because they have one up on you, they already have brand awareness, they already have a brand presence, their audience already knows who they are and they don't know who your brand is. So if you are coming into the market as a new brand you better have a well-defined positioning strategy and a well-defined differentiator to highlight why you're different and why your audience should care. Now one of the most critical components of an effective positioning strategy is, going back to the title of the book, positioning a battle for your mind. Your mind or your audience's mind is such a critical component for effective positioning. You need to understand who this audience is, you need to understand where they're coming from, the journey they're on, what they're going through, what their desires are, what their fears are and what outcome do they want because if you don't have all of that information then you're not going to be able to effectively position your brand. Only when you understand what it is they want, only when you understand the journey they're on and what they're going through and what they already have in the marketplace as an option through your competitors can you then define an effective positioning strategy. So how do you identify an effective position? Well it's all about defining the difference that you're going to make in the lives of your audience. So what are you going to mean to them? Are you going to be faster, stronger, quicker, more convenient, more efficient, newer, better designed, cheaper, more luxurious? What is the difference that you're going to own in their mind? What do you want your audience to remember you for? Because at the end of the day if you come into the market and again you're offering the same, you're the same level of luxury as the other brands, you're the same level of efficiency, you're the same price, you're the same design, you're the same everything then you're not going to make any kind of noise in the marketplace, you're not going to get the attention of your audience. So defining your positioning strategy is really about identifying, clarifying and articulating the difference that you're going to make in the lives of your audience. When you become crystal clear on exactly what that difference is and exactly why your audience should remember you and more importantly the value of that difference to your audience, well then you are on to an effective positioning strategy. Now one of my favorite examples of effective brand positioning is from the Dollar Shave Club. Now the Dollar Shave Club broke onto the scene back in around about 2010-2011 as a startup in the men's razor blade sector. Now Gillette absolutely dominated this sector, they owned about 80% of the market share but Dollar Shave Club came into the market with a fresh positioning strategy. So they understood the pain points of their audience, they understood that their audience didn't like paying the high prices for razors that Gillette was charging, they didn't like all the unnecessary features that they were offering to justify those prices and they wanted something simpler and more convenient. So Dollar Shave Club understood that, they researched their audience, they understood their pain points and they came into the marketplace as a cheaper and more convenient option. Their blades were much more affordable, they had this convenient subscription model where the blades were dropped right to their customers door and they spoke to their customers differently to Gillette. They spoke to them with a sense of humor, with this light-hearted tone and language and that really appealed to who the audience was. Now the reason I love this example and the reason I use it time and again is that Dollar Shave Club were just a startup, just like any other startup and they went into the marketplace with little other than an effective positioning strategy and a unique tone of voice but they were able to go in there and ruffle the feathers of an absolute giant of a brand in Gillette and then they went on to steal a huge amount of market share from them as well and nobody would have expected that and it gives any startup real confidence that they can go into any marketplace with an effective positioning strategy and just by understanding who the audience is and understanding their pain points and presenting them with an alternative, they can put themselves on the map. Now I could sit here and give you over 100 reasons why branding is more than just a logo or a website and positioning is just one of those reasons but it's my go-to and the one that I go back to time and again because at the end of the day when we talk about branding we have to look at the end goal. What is the end goal of branding? Well it's to bring an audience and a business closer together and the best way, the most effective way that we can do that is by shaping their perceptions of what that brand means to them and the biggest tool of influence here is your positioning strategy. It's by defining what difference you're going to make in the lives of your audience and then clearly articulating that difference and making it easy for them to understand and remember your brand. If you'd like to learn more about positioning including how to position your brand effectively, the different approaches that you can use and plenty more examples as well, well then I've got plenty more videos on positioning. I'll leave some links in the description below and some links above as well but I would love to hand it over to you. I'd love to hear from you as to what your challenges are when it comes to positioning. Do you have processes in place and what are your experiences when it comes to positioning brands? Please let me know what those challenges and those questions are. I'll do my best to answer all of those. If you like this video please give it a thumbs up and hit that subscribe button and the notification bell as well. It really helps the channel and it will let you know when we've got new videos coming out as well but if you want more exclusive tips and techniques like this well then head on over to www.brandmasteracademy.com and get yourself signed up for the list. It is free and I will drop those tips and techniques right into your inbox but as I said please let me know in the comments below any challenges or any questions that you have. Until next time, brand like a master and I will see you in the next video.