Are you building your brand positioning strategy?
If you have started up your business and you’re caught up in the momentum of everything to do with your website, your logo, your brand colour palette, your communication tone, your brand positioning strategy… Let me tell you, you should begin your Segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy from scratch? This will help you define your brand positioning strategy step by step.
Molly’s Bakes – The Fresh GF (case study)
Molly wants to run a gluten-free bakery. She knows everything about gluten-free products, brands and healthy living for people who consume free-from products because of a medical condition or just as a personal lifestyle choice.
But she has no precise idea of how many gluten-free people live in the UK, or even in her county. Nor is she clued up about the on/offline purchasing behaviour of gluten-free buyers. After doing her research, she is much more able to get a view of the portion of her potential market, that is, how many people are looking for her product range in the area she is planning to serve.
Conversely, in Molly’s case, she might find out that there is no market there for her products, so she will have to create the need so as her service can get started.
A side on the map
Building your brand positioning strategy
Whatever the situation is, Molly needs to decide the positioning of her brand in the market. She wants to be well-known as a local small shop with a selection of gluten-free products, or she wants to be the biggest reference in her local area. But this must be connected to perception.
If she has the right information, she will be able to make better choices around the design of her brand.
Competition around the area and online
At this next stage, she must understand how her potential buyers shop. She needs to take a look at the competition – in the local area as well as online – so that she can see where she is in comparison with both direct and indirect competitors, and get a clear idea of where she wants to be.
If she has the right information, she will be able to make better choices around the design of her brand. This will help to attract the desired target market.
Build a brand for your potential clients
- Doing research about the sector. It is essential to find out the buying behaviour, tastes and lifestyles of her potential clients. This will make a difference when making decisions about branding colours, typography, etc. By research, I mean reading about and finding out about GF shops, and also listening to every single person she knows and asking around to canvass opinions. Where to find the information? Social media, friends, parent’s groups, gluten-free associations, and becoming part of a GF group could really help get well informed.
- A positioning statement is here! Especially in a sector where most outlets use just the owner’s name… Molly’s Bakes – The Fresh GF. Nothing will help a GF shop more than having fresh in the name. All GF products come in packages and look like they’ve been inside transparent plastic for ages! So now, she has decided how her brand will be perceived in the market and what will make her business unique.
- Waiting for results. Knowing whether your STP works or not will take time. You need to be gentle with yourself and don’t rush.
If your message is clear and you have a unique proposition that is authentic or different or irresistible, or all of these together, people will choose your brand and that will prove it works!