Brand position: What's yours?

When you look at your sector and your competitors, where do you position yourself? Are you at the top end, targeting the customers with high expectations and budgets to match? Are you at the bottom end, with the customers looking for a cheap deal? Or do you sit in the middle, hoping to catch everything else?

The question of positioning is an interesting one, and it's a topic that came up during our last brand seminar, in January. We had the usual interesting mix of organisations join us for the evening, from a start-up in their first 12 months of business, to one company close to celebrating 25 years of trading. There were not-for-profits, manufacturers and professional service firms. A variety of backgrounds, but one purpose: to understand what their brand can do for their organisation.

We were discussing customers, and the importance of identifying who they are, and what it is they're looking for from you. One of the guests gave an example of their experience as a customer, and the poor service they had received, at Primark. Their point was that it wouldn't take a lot to improve customer service at Primark, and with a profit of £340m, they can afford to invest in it! The response from another guest was: if you can make a profit of £340m with poor service, why change?

And this is where the question of positioning comes in. It doesn't really matter where you position your business, as long as you can make a profit. The Primark model is fairly crude: Low quality product, low quality service, low cost, but massive profits. A successful business model. Their brand proposition is value. Customers know what to expect. If they want higher quality - and higher prices - they'll go somewhere else.

So what lesson can we learn from Primark?
• Choose where you want to position your business.
• Be clear about who that positioning will appeal to.
• Use your brand to engage that audience.
And if you get it right, you'll make a healthy profit too!

If you would like to unlock the value of your brand and join us at one of our free seminars, you can book a place here. It would be good to meet you.