Positioning Strategy: a brief and clear explanation

Positioning strategy is not only a fancy buzzword but also an important aspect of the marketing strategy. Unfortunately, it is somewhat overlooked because it overlaps a lot with more common components. In this article, we pause to consider the place of the positioning strategy in the bigger picture and how you can use it to achieve your strategic goals.

The different strategies

A company often has multiple strategies, for example a corporate strategy or marketing strategy, so where does the positioning strategy belong? The corporate strategy addresses the long-term goals of an organization and how (resources and activities) it will achieve them. The marketing strategy does the same within its own field and thus follows the corporate strategy. Positioning is probably an integral part of the marketing strategy, and the specific positioning strategy therefore discusses how the desired positioning will be adopted.

That was a lot of complex sentences. For those who got dizzy, a TL;DR:

The positioning strategy discusses which positioning a brand will take and which resources and activities will be used to achieve this.

And that’s it! In the rest of the article, we explain the role of positioning and the positioning strategy in the marketing (strategy) process.

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What is positioning

In our article; Positioning in the market: How does it work? we write that opinions about ‘what is positioning’ sometimes differ. Therefore, we explain the origin of positioning and its use in daily practice with an example and cover some tools. This is probably a good article to read before you continue.

What comes first, positioning or positioning strategy?

In marketing, it is common that the marketing strategy is determined first and only then a campaign is designed. With the positioning strategy, it is the other way around. A brand must first determine the desired positioning and then think about how it will claim/adopt it. Why? Because the how has a huge influence on the perception of your brand by the target audience. A brand that mainly wants to appeal to teenagers, for example, naturally communicates differently than a business bank.

Your positioning therefore already says a lot about the resources, activities, message, channels, etc. that you can use to adopt it.

Is the positioning clear? Then we can proceed with the positioning strategy.

Positioning strategy

When establishing the positioning, you have already considered the most important factors for a positioning in your market. These are things like:

• Channel
• Message
• Style
• Frequency
• Tone
• Transparency
• Quality
• Price

This has led to a desired positioning, the place you want to occupy in the minds of your customers. You then use the positioning strategy to clearly and concretely define your interpretation of these factors, what influence this will have (objective/expectation) on the positioning, and how you will assess success. For example:

A teen brand will sponsor popular Instagrammers with free products so that the target audience sees the brand as ‘hip’ and ‘young.’ They assess success based on visits to the site, new followers on their own channel, the hashtags used, and actual purchases.

Marketing strategy

The overlap between the positioning strategy and the marketing strategy is probably obvious. Almost every expression influences positioning, and every expression aimed at influencing positioning probably also has a place in the marketing strategy.

Make the positioning strategy an integral part of your marketing plan. Some considerations are important for this:

• Ensure the positioning is crystal clear
• Set clear positioning goals (How will you claim the desired positioning!)
• Spend time on the key factors that determine a brand’s positioning in your market and how these best align with the positioning
• Once you are at the level of actions, resources, or channels, also think about what influence these have on the positioning. Use this as a kind of measuring stick to check whether this really is the right activity for your brand

Want to know more about positioning and how you can get started yourself? Read our page positioning and find there, besides in-depth articles, dozens of examples and models for every possible positioning challenge.