… let’s think about brand positioning.

In this use case scenario … you are responsible for Brand Positioning at ACME Corporation.

Acme Corporation has a brand positioning problem.

Brand positioning is the perception your target audience has about your company … and its products and services when compared to your competitors.

Wikipedia defines positioning as:

Positioning refers to the place that a brand occupies in the minds of the customers and how it is distinguished from the products of the competitors.

As the new CMO of Acme … you have noticed the Acme marketing website makes claims that are exaggerated and in some cases, false.

You’ve also noticed that product and service web pages on your marketing website do not do a good job of communicating value, benefits and features.

For example, the Acme homepage has a headline that reads … “The Leader in Widget-Making“.

While this headline sounds authoritative and impressive … it’s not true.

Acme is not the leading widget-making company. In fact, they may not be in the top 10 in the U.S.

If Acme can not prove that they are “the leader in widget-making”, but claim to be on their website and in marketing campaigns, then this incorrect positioning will inevitability damage the Acme brand. And potential prospects and buyers will lose trust. The end result of incorrect positioning is lead generation and sales problems.

From past experience, you know that correct brand positioning requires you to conduct voice-of-the-customer (VoC) research.

This type of research is also called qualitative research.

It requires you to ask open-ended focus group, survey and user testing questions to your customers about your business, products and services. It also requires you to collect, organize and analyze the VoC research findings.

In your analysis of the data … you want to look for trends and patterns … and then group the data into buckets.

How to Prepare

Prepare for brand positioning research by obtaining a master excel file of your customers and their attributes.

Study the list of customers and design a research campaign that you think will produce the most participants and respondents.

This involves tying an incentive or grand prize to your research campaign.

Go big! Because most companies incentivize their customers too small or not at all for their valuable feedback.

As a result, their surveys don’t get enough respondents. And marketers have to email their customers multiple rounds of surveys to get a large enough sample size of feedback.

For example, you can email a survey to your customer list asking them to participate in a short survey for the chance to win a $1,000 Amazon gift card.

It’s a very big ask of your customers to take time out of their day to help you by taking a survey.

But more importantly, rewarding customers for their feedback is a GREAT marketing strategy that shows your customers that you value them.

What tools to use:

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Next Steps:

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