Positioning

Short answer: positioning is the choice of which customer you are the best option for, why exactly, and compared to which alternative. It is not a slogan or a logo. It is the decision your brand, website, pricing and campaigns are built on. When that choice hasn't been made, marketing becomes expensive and slow.

Most companies don't have a positioning problem you can see. They have one you can feel. The website sounds like three competitors. Sales conversations end up being about price too often. Ads attract clicks, but not the right people. And internally, everyone gives a different answer to "why do customers choose us?". These are all symptoms of the same thing: a sharp choice was never made.

What positioning is (and what it isn't)

Positioning is the place you occupy in a buyer's mind, compared to what that buyer would otherwise do. The term comes from Al Ries and Jack Trout, who wrote a book about it in 1981. Their point still stands: the battle isn't fought in your product, it's fought in the customer's mind.

It helps to see what it is not:

The five building blocks

Useful positioning answers five questions. April Dunford describes this structure in Obviously Awesome (2019), and in practice it proves the fastest route to something you can actually work with.

1. What would the customer do if you didn't exist? That's your real competitor. Often it isn't another company but Excel, an intern, doing it themselves or doing nothing.
2. What can you do that those alternatives can't? Your unique attributes: a method, a specialism, technology, a team, a way of delivering.
3. What does that give the customer? Attributes only become valuable when you translate them into an outcome: faster, more certain, cheaper over three years, less hassle.
4. Who values that most? Not "SMEs", but the customers who care most about that value. You usually recognise them among your best existing clients.
5. Which market do you want to be compared in? The frame decides what the buyer puts you next to. A "marketing tool" is judged differently from a "sales system for installers".

If you can fit these five on one page and your team agrees, you have a positioning. The rest is telling it.

The classic sentence, and why it isn't enough

Many people know the template from Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm:

For [target customer] who [need], [brand] is a [category] that [key benefit]. Unlike [alternative], [differentiator].

It's a good check. If you can't fill it in without vague words, you're not done. But the sentence is the result, not the work. The work lies in the choices behind it: who you let go of, which alternative you name, and which benefit you dare to put above the others.

Three ways to position yourself

Roughly, there are three routes. They aren't mutually exclusive, but one always leads.

• Specialist in a niche. You pick an industry, a type of customer or a problem and become the obvious choice there. Example: not "accountant" but "accountant for dental practices". Your market gets smaller, but your conversion, pricing and word of mouth get better.
• Different in an existing category. You stay in a market buyers already understand, but win on one dimension others ignore: speed, simplicity, transparency, a different way of paying.
• A new category. You tell the market there is a new way to solve the problem. That can pay off big, but it takes a lot of explaining, budget and patience. For most companies it isn't the first choice.

Honestly: most companies with an unclear position aren't afraid of choosing the wrong route. They're afraid of losing customers by choosing. In practice the opposite happens. You don't lose customers you weren't winning anyway. You win the customers who finally understand that you're for them.

Positioning versus brand awareness

There is a second school of thought you should know. Byron Sharp (How Brands Grow, 2010) shows with a lot of data that brands mainly grow by being better known and easier to choose, not by having a unique story. Buyers rarely remember how you're different. They remember that you exist and when to think of you.

That seems to contradict positioning, but it complements it:

• Positioning makes sure the right people find you relevant and that your price and story make sense.
• Distinctiveness (recognisable colours, shapes, voice, presence) makes sure they recognise and remember you.
• Moments of need (Sharp calls them category entry points) decide when they think of you: "when my website is slow", "when we expand", "when the ERP needs replacing".

A strong position nobody notices yields little. Awareness without a position becomes a price war. You need both.

How to tell your positioning isn't working

You don't need research to spot the signs:

• Sales conversations start with "so what exactly do you do?".
• You mainly lose deals on price, even when you're not the most expensive.
• Your best clients describe you differently from your own website.
• Your copy would fit a competitor with a different logo.
• New hires need weeks to explain why customers choose you.
• Your ads get a good click-through rate but poor conversion. The promise attracts the wrong people.

How to approach it

Positioning isn't a sticky-note brainstorm. It's an analysis with a few hard choices. This is the order that works:

1. Look at your best clients. Pick the ones who bought quickly, pay well, stay and refer you. What do they have in common? Industry, size, situation, trigger?
2. Ask them why. Not through a survey but in a conversation. Ask what they'd do if you weren't there, and why they ultimately chose you. Write down their exact words. You'll need them for your copy.
3. Map the alternatives. Including the invisible ones: doing it themselves, a freelancer, postponing, staying with the current supplier.
4. Define your real differentiator. What can you prove that the alternatives can't? Cut everything you can't back up.
5. Choose the frame. In which market does that differentiator make the biggest impression?
6. Write it on one page and test it: with three clients, with sales, with the team.
7. Translate it into everything the customer sees. Homepage, proposition, pricing structure, sales deck, ads, job postings. A positioning that only lives in a strategy document doesn't exist.

Positioning in an online world

Online, positioning is tested harder than it used to be. Three reasons:

• Comparing takes seconds. A buyer opens five tabs and scans your homepage in moments. If your top line doesn't say who you're for and why, you're gone.
• Ad platforms reward clarity. Google and Meta optimise for who responds. A sharp promise attracts the right people, and the algorithm learns from them. A vague promise attracts everyone, and the algorithm learns the wrong lesson.
• AI search engines summarise you. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews describe your company in one or two sentences. They take what is said consistently on your site and elsewhere. If that's vague or contradictory, you don't get mentioned, or you get mentioned wrongly.

Positioning in the world beyond the screen

Positioning doesn't stop at your website. Offline is exactly where you see whether it's real:

• How you introduce yourself at a networking event, in one sentence.
• Which trade shows you do and which you skip.
• What your quotes look like and what's in them.
• Who you hire and what you teach them to say.
• What you don't do, even when a client asks.

If your positioning differs online and offline, people believe neither.

What it delivers

Sharp positioning doesn't make a bad product good. But with a good product it demonstrably delivers more:

• Higher conversion, because the right people recognise themselves.
• Less price pressure, because you're no longer compared with the cheapest.
• Cheaper marketing, because every euro lands on a smaller, better audience.
• Easier choices internally: which client, which channel, which feature, which hire.

That's why a good marketing strategy starts here, and only then moves to channel choice.

When you'd better not do this (yet)

• If your product is still searching for a market. Then you don't know who your best clients are yet. Sell, learn, and choose afterwards.
• If you only want a new logo. That's fine, but don't call it positioning. It doesn't solve the real question.
• If leadership doesn't want to choose. A positioning without support from the top is watered down within three months.

Further reading

Want to turn the position into a brand with a face and a voice? Continue with branding. Want to know which channels deliver most after that? Continue with channel choice. And for the bigger picture, see strategy.

Frequently asked questions

What is positioning in marketing?

Positioning is the choice of which customer you're the best option for, why, and compared to which alternative. It defines the place you hold in the buyer's mind and forms the basis for your brand, pricing, website and campaigns.

What's the difference between positioning and branding?

Positioning is the strategic choice: who you're for, why you, and against which alternative. Branding is the execution: name, visuals, voice and story that make that choice recognisable. Position first, then brand.

How long does a positioning project take?

Analysing and choosing usually takes weeks, not months. Rolling it out through your website, sales and marketing takes longer. Expect it to take a few months before the market recognises your new position.

Can you change your positioning?

Yes, but not every quarter. A position works because you hold it long and consistently. Change it when your market, your product or your best clients fundamentally change, not because one campaign underperforms.

Does a small business need positioning too?

A small business especially. You have less budget to stand out, so every euro has to land on the right people. A sharp niche is often the fastest route to growth for a small company.

What is a positioning statement?

A short, internal sentence that sums up your choice: for whom, which need, which category, which benefit and how you differ from the alternative. It's meant as a compass for your team, not as copy for your website.

How do you know positioning is working?

You see it in faster sales conversations, less discussion about price, better conversion on your website and ads, and clients describing you in their own words the way you intended.

Sources

• Al Ries & Jack Trout, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (1981)
• Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm (1991, revised edition 2014)
• April Dunford, Obviously Awesome (2019)
• Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow (2010) and Jenni Romaniuk, Building Distinctive Brand Assets (2018)

Want to test out loud whether your positioning is sharp enough? Book a no-obligation call. You'll hear honestly what's working and what the first step is.