When it comes to marketing a new business, one of the most important elements is brand positioning. This is how you will “position” your company in the minds of your audience. It means communicating—through your marketing messages—your company’s quality, value, and solutions to the world.
To establish your brand positioning, you must determine what your company does better, with more value, or with greater reward than your competitors. Are you the most credible, the most talented, the most experienced, or the most adequately trained? Does your product stand apart from those of your competitors?
Brand positioning takes more than just coming up with a company tagline (no matter how great it might be) or a pretty logo.
One of the most common mistakes new business owners make is trying to serve all the needs of too large an audience. You cannot be everything to everyone. When marketing a new business, it’s important to be as narrowly focused as possible in the position you choose for your audience. Finding your niche is key, because it is your uniqueness that grabs attention and eventually builds loyalty.
For example, if you wanted to start up a discount chain of retail stores in the local market, on the surface this would seem a little daunting. After all, you’d be competing with big brands like Walmart and Target. However, if you consider the total sales of just one of those companies, you wouldn’t need to capture a very large share of the market to have a successful business.
One of the most important early-stage decisions made by new company owners is selecting a name for the business—and there are some very important factors to consider when doing this:
- Does your business name reflect the brand position you’ve developed for your company? For example, Speedy Delivery, Gold-Standard Remodeling, Discount Travels or Big-and-Tall Store all imply some type of specific brand position.
- Furthermore, is your business name adaptable for all possible uses? Will it fit comfortably on a store sign, business card, as an email address or the side of a truck? Is the URL available? Have you considered the intellectual property requirements of the new name?
- Not planning for all the possible places your name will appear can be costly if you need to adapt in the future.
- Also, is your business name simple and unique enough to be remembered easily? Think about Google, Ikea, Skype, Lego, Verizon and Reebok. By coming up with something snappy, clever, and related to the services you provide, you will be giving your business a leg up. The easier your company name is for your customers to remember, the better that name will stick inside their heads.
The changing marketplace demands that new business owners consider their brand positioning strategy planning not as a one-time event, but as an ongoing process that will continue to help with the growth of the company. Give your new business a competitive advantage by focusing on your brand position and company name early and often.