How to Differentiate Your Online Business By Crafting a Point of Difference and a Reason to Believe (Even if you are Just Starting off )
A successful Brand positioning statement requires the frame of reference, point of difference and the reason to believe to be aligned in a way that maximises demand.
The frame of reference tells us what product category we are in. It is the basis for the point of difference. The point of difference is the unique proposition that separates us from our competitors. The reason to believe is a clear articulation of the benefits consumers will gain by choosing our brand over another.
When we combine these elements, we create a Brand positioning statement that describes who we are and why people should buy from us.
The benefits selected should be significant to the your consumers
Read on to find out more .
Recap of Brand Positioning
The brand positioning simply verbalises how the company would like consumers to think about the brand.
The power of brand positioning, therefore, lies with the owner of the business. The business has to depict its products to the world in a remarkable way and emphasise its superiority to competitors.
The beauty of marketing, as previously mentioned, is that marketing is an art and science; there is more than one way of positioning your brand in the minds of your target audience.
The brand positioning simply verbalises how the company would like consumers to think about the brand
The positioning statement should be a concise and compelling description of what our brand is and what it offers. It should communicate the unique value of the brand to customers, not just as a promise of what it will deliver, but also as an articulation of how that value will be delivered for them.
It should be memorable, simple and easy to understand. It should be an effective means for communicating with customers, employees and other stakeholders.
It must reflect the brand’s true essence, not a contrived image that is simply the result of clever advertising or marketing. The Brand positioning statement must capture the essence of everything that the brand does well – in short, it must fully represent what we are about!
Elements of the Brand Positioning Statement
In the last blog, we mentioned the four elements that the business owner must include in the formal positioning statement, these are: –
- A target
- A frame of reference
- A point of difference
- A reason to believe
This statement becomes an internal document that is used to align all consumer-facing decisions related to the brand
The Four Elements of The Brand Positioning Statement
The target consumer, the ideal customer avatar (ICA), the brand persona (BP ) is selected based on many considerations. In a previous blog, you can read about how to craft an ICA and the importance of attracting the correct target to your small business.
…that brands don’t sell products; they sell benefits!
What role does the frame of reference play in the Brand positioning statement? It informs consumers about the goal of using the brand. In general, there are roughly three ways of conveying the purpose of using a product:
- Specify the category in which it holds membership.
- The frame of reference can also be conveyed by comparing the brand to a different
- A frame of reference can be communicated by showing the goal that is achieved by using the brand.
It informs consumers about the goal of using the brand.
Point of Difference and Reasons to Believe.
A successful Brand positioning statement requires the frame of reference, point of difference and the reason to believe to be aligned in a way that maximises demand.
The benefits selected should be significant to the consumers and one that the brand can own.
The choice of benefit depends on your brand position in a given category. Is your brand a leader? or a follower? Does it want to be a leader?
A successful Brand positioning statement requires the frame of reference, point of difference and the reason to believe to be aligned in a way the maximises demand.
Brand Category leaders have the privilege to select the benefits
Category leaders such as Uber choose the benefit that reflects the main reason for using the category. In its inception, Uber was focusing on moving people from point A to point B on demand. Lyft and other companies have joined this category. Uber’s point of difference was then diluted, which challenged Uber to innovate further to stand out as a leader and apart from the competition.
Maintain leadership by adding value and diversification
Uber has branched out into other market sectors and now talks about its advanced technology that brings the future closer with self-driving, urban air transport, helping people order food quickly, and delivering this food with Uberfoods. If you visit the Uber website, it has a lot of content on sustainability diversity and safety.
Never forsake humble beginnings
Many companies often start off selling essential products, and with time they morph into a form of technology lead multi-billion international conglomerate. Case in point Amazon started by selling books online and Apple selling home computers.
There is a lesson to be learnt by small business owners like ourselves. Starting small does not limit your potential. Your small business will one day sell something different from what you are currently marketing (that is why we should choose our brand names very carefully!).
The road less travelled
We should point out that the success of Amazon and Apple was not overnight. While studying for an MBA in the 2000s, Amazon MBA case studies showed the losses Amazon was making (in 2005, its share price was approximately $47 per share). As of the time of writing this blog, Former CEO Jeff Bezos is one of the world’s richest men. His wealth is attributed to the high price of Amazon shares (currently $ 3300 per share). Yes, we should have bought shares then …
Mindset
The entrepreneurial journey will take you on the road littered with many landscapes, and these will be challenging. The ability to stay focused on the end goal will be the mindset that will sustain you through the rough terrain. As they said in the 80s,’ keep on keeping on!’.
The ability to stay focused on the end goal will be the mindset that will sustain you through the rough terrain
Brand Category Followers reflect the niche benefits
Did we digress? Follower brands such as Lyft are left to mirror the niche benefit, ‘Wherever you’re headed, let’s get there together!” in this case, on demand’ Taxi services’.
Tell the world of your most attractive brand attributes
The Uber example shows that a brand should select the frame of reference that will attract the most substantial demand for the brand while also providing a defensible point of difference.
Both Uber and Lyft offer on-demand Taxi services, but only Uber claims to have a superior technology to make the whole process seamless.
Brands must furnish their target audience with a reason to believe, which is concrete proof that gives credence to the claim that a brand has the benefit. In Apple’s case, the reason to believe that Apple makes the consumer smarter is a series of cutting-edge products that the company has produced. iPhone, iPad, iPod, Macintosh computers.
Testing your Brand Positioning Statement
Once you have developed a positioning statement, Using the four elements that we’ve discussed above and in previous blogs, it is helpful to check it for the following three qualities; –
- clarity,
- credibility
- distinctiveness,
Do not panic; this is a simple process! You could show your Brand positioning statement to one or two trusted people outside your company; this could be family or friends. Ask them to read the Brand positioning statement and specify the situations in which the brand would be used, why it is claimed to be superior to other options, and whether they believe these claims. If your chosen focus group (people outside the company) cannot grasp the Brand positioning from the statement. It lacks clarity.
If they do not believe the statement, it lacks credibility.
The next step in testing the brand positioning statement is to substitute a competitor brand in the positioning statement with yours. If the statement still seems to reflect the competitor brand then, your Brand positioning statement lacks distinctiveness.
Back to the drawing board
A brand positioning statement that does not meet any of the three test qualities shows you may need to rework your brand positioning statement.
Hurrah! You’ve made it!
On the other hand, if your Brand Positioning statement meets all three qualities, i.e., clarity, credibility and distinctiveness, it’s a Eureka moment and time for you to move on to the next goal!
Final Thoughts on the Importance of Crafting a Point of Difference and a Reason to Believe For Your Online Business.
The frame of reference, point of difference and reason to believe are aligned in a way that maximises demand.
Remember that a successful brand positioning statement should be simple, memorable, credible and have emotional appeal.
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