Brand Positioning That Creates Confidence & Clarity for Your Brand
The right brand positioning process transforms your brand with clarity and confidence to drive revenue.
Uncover Who You Are to Overcome Core Brand Challenges
Picture this: your brand has grown in size and scope, and the definition of your business – who you are, what you sell and how you do it differently – has become unclear to your employees and customers.
Or, you’re a new brand struggling to define your unique value to new audiences. Overcoming these challenges can feel daunting without a proper communication plan in place.
Here’s where brand positioning can help you get out of the weeds.
Brand positioning not only helps you reach your ideal customer, but also creates a strong foundation that anchors your internal team. This is essential because, as your brand continues to grow and evolve, you’re bound to face communications challenges. To smooth your path forward, lean on the brand position as your guiding light.
A strong brand position can bring clarity to what you do, how you do it and why it matters. All are vital for effective, efficient communication to internal and external audiences. Successful brand positioning shows up as:
- Differentiation in your own brand portfolio from competitors in your market
- Unity among key functions and team members
- Confidence in your mission, vision and brand narrative
- Value alignment across all stakeholder groups
Streamline the brand positioning process with a strategic partner who has worked with hundreds of brands. Read on to learn how the Muse proven positioning process unleashes your brand’s hidden potential.
Leverage a Proven Brand Positioning Process
Clear, consistent communication is the foundation of customer trust and loyalty. Once leaders commit to a brand positioning process, there are a number of critical decisions to make at each step. We’ve conducted – and refined – our brand positioning process over 80 times to inform the decision-making process and ensure our clients can make confident, objective approvals that result in a go-forward strategy.
Here’s what you can expect from our distinct process phases: Insight Gathering and Messaging Development. What makes this process unique is that we start from the inside out. This is important to maintain authenticity to the core values system of the organization while making changes to address modern challenges.
Phase I: Insight Gathering
Key Action Steps
- Before we can make recommendations about the future, we dive deep into understanding where you are today. We explore how you got to this point and where your hurdles are with quantitative and qualitative inputs from executives and employees.
- We test internal assumptions against external motivators to identify alignment, while competitive context is used to ensure distinction.
Phase I Deliverables
- Internal Assessment: After we pull everything out of the closet (so to speak!) we can begin to put it back together in an organized and meaningful way. This is where we make recommendations for communicating what you do, how you do it and why it matters. If there are multiple brands at play, we present a brand architecture to determine placement and purpose of parent, product and sub-brands.
- External Analysis: It’s important for your brand position to be rooted in who you are internally, not to be influenced by the ever changing competitive and cultural landscapes. However, it is necessary to understand where your position fits among the competition and how you are distinctly different to inform key messaging strategy through each phase of communications.
Phase II: Messaging Development
Key Action Steps
- During a brand positioning exercise, we gain approvals from your team on the framework that communicates the true story of your brand, defined in ways that can be easily recalled and replicated.
- A messaging platform arms you with the tools to confidently (re)introduce your brand to internal and external audiences. You’ll have an authentic and ownable brand personality, defined messaging journeys, as well as a powerful narrative that communicates your brand essence.
Phase II Deliverables
- Brand Book: This is the culmination of your brand positioning engagement. With approval on the messaging platform, we’ll compose a brand book that presents your new brand position and its key elements in an exciting and captivating format. You can use this book to (re)introduce your brand to team members, stakeholders and external partners.
- If the development of a new visual identity is required, that process typically begins at the conclusion of your positioning engagement; your updated visual guidelines will be added to your brand book once complete.
How Long Does Brand Positioning Take & How Much Should I Plan to Invest?
Typically, a brand positioning engagement spans three to six months. We outline factors that often influence this timeline here.
A successful brand positioning engagement requires significant investment but can yield even more significant returns as everyone inside your organization can express the brand narrative – what you do, how you do it differently and why it’s important – to the outside world.
You can expect investments of your time, thought and finances. While the degree of each resource can vary greatly, it’s important to enter the project with a growth mindset and the understanding that you have a strong partner on this journey.
Our team will work closely with you and your leadership team throughout the entire process. Together, we can uncover your brand’s unique value proposition to create a distinct perception in the minds of your audiences. We’ll help bring clarity to what you do, how you do it and why your brand matters.
We look forward to connecting with you to showcase our proven brand positioning process and clearly define this investment in context with your brand.
Ready to Start the Conversation?
More Good Reads
Why Hire a Brand Agency…and How to Make the Most of It
See which business experiences mean that it’s worthwhile to hire a brand agency, what to look for as you vet agencies and how to make the most of your engagement.
Is It Time to Change Your Brand & Brand Strategy? Jackie on the Business Strategy Podcast
Delve into the significance of connecting with audiences on a deeper level through an updated brand strategy.