Branding 101: Crafting The Internal Brand Positioning Statement

Get Results: what customer thinks is what matters
Get Results: what customer thinks is what matters

Your Brands positioning statement is just a formal name for a sentence or short paragraph which really sums up what your brand is about and where it stands in the world and the market place (its position).

A positioning statement has several uses, and all of them are valuable to you.

It clearly explains what the brand is about, for your staff (including new recruits and those who’ve been with you from the start), your backers, the media, and your bank manager.

It reminds you what your brand is meant to be about, which is very handy when you’re under stress, losing your nerve or thinking of developing something new.

Although it is primarily for ‘internal’ use, a good positioning statement also gives a ‘ready to use’ piece of text for press releases and a host of other places where you might need to describe your brand without having to invent something every time.

A positioning statement paints a picture of the brand’s ambition and its vision in three ways:

  • by defining what ‘success’ means for the brand;
  • by laying down the ‘rules’ of how success will be achieved;
  • by explaining how customers ‘benefit’ from that success.

Blimey, that still sounds all techno-marketing doesn’t it? But let’s look closer.

‘Success’ just means describing what your brand is trying to achieve.

‘Rules’ just means how you are going to go about doing that.

‘Benefit’ just means describing how your customers are going to be better off, happier, more fulfilled, or satisfied by all your efforts.

For example

“Get lasting results aims to be the best-known independent brand strategy advisor in the UK, giving accessible brand advice (through consultancy, workshops, conference speaking, writing and broadcasting), so that all kinds of non-marketing specialist people can learn to use the power of branding for their businesses.”

‘Success’ for my brand means becoming the best-known independent brand strategy advisor in the UK.

‘Rules’ in my case means: giving accessible brand advice (through consultancy, workshops, conference speaking, writing and broadcasting).

‘Benefits’ to customers are: that all kinds of non-marketing specialist people can learn to use the power of branding for their businesses.

  1. Keep it short and fairly simple. Positioning statements don’t tell all the ins and outs of how the company works and all its different products and services. They tell a big story in a very few words.
  2. Don’t be so detailed as to be inflexible. You really don’t want a positioning statement that you have to alter every time you launch a new product. Keep it flexible and strong, not brittle.
  3. Stay clear and specific. Avoid being too grandiose or too broad in scope.

We’ve established what a positioning statement is for and how to construct one. Now it’s your turn. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is in by using the three elements of success, rules and customer benefits.

So. . .

  • Success: Describe here what success looks like for your brand. You can think of it in geographical terms, or size, or reputation.
  • Rules: Describe here how you will achieve that success, by describing what you are going to provide in terms of products, services, expertise, etc.. Remember not to get too detailed.
  • Benefits: Describe here how your customers’ lives will be enhanced by what you do.

Now the crafting bit. Once you are happy with your three elements you need to shape them into a sentence or two which you feel is authentic, convincing and genuinely descriptive of what your brand is trying to achieve.

Branding 101