Branding For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 5

Profiling and Positioning Your Brand

In This Chapter

Determining your brand’s point of distinction

Researching your customers and your competition

Finding the available, meaningful market position only your brand can fill

Depending on who’s counting, consumers face up to 5,000 promotional messages every single day. And guess what? They ignore most of them. They tune out anything that doesn’t appeal to their interests, wants, and needs. And they brush off messages for products and services they already buy from trusted brands — unless the offering being presented is one that seems to be meaningfully and attractively different and better than their current choice. And that’s the whole point of finding and protecting a position for your brand.

It’s your job as a brand-builder to figure out who is likely to want or need what you offer, how to reach that person, and what to say to motivate interest, purchases, and loyalty. If you have ESP, you can divine the answers. If you’re like everyone else, this chapter helps you take the steps and do the research to learn what you need to know about your customer description, target market, purchase motivations, preferred purchase channels ...