Working in brand development for small businesses looking to grow, you begin to see strong patterns over time, like a lack of real-world brand positioning. The pattern is significant because brand positioning is one of the strongest of all brand elements, illuminating where you stand, which need you are fulfilling in the market, and where you stand among your competition. Without it, small businesses rarely have a clear picture of how they will succeed.
Why do companies skip positioning? It’s simple, positioning is the easiest hard work there is. As a concept, branding is hard as hell. You create something, a service or product, and you want to sell it so that you can keep creating. That’s the basic desire of creators in a market-driven society. But branding? What the heck is that going to do for me? Then we start down the seeming rabbit hole of branding elements, and sometimes you start to see eyeballs crossing. Branding takes people out of their comfort zone, which for the small business owner, is usually centered on the cash-flow aspects of quickly turning all marketing efforts into sales.
The good news is brand positioning is easy for people who know how to do it. I’m writing a series on this over on the Train of Thought blog.
Kelly Hobkirk - teaching marketers how to harness strategy, goals, reality, and purpose to connect and do better work.
Kelly Hobkirk has been helping companies succeed in creative ways for nearly 25 years. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, and books by Rockport and Rotovision. Get exclusive articles when you sign up for his monthly newsletter.