How to do market research for branding and positioning

When you launch a company or begin to seriously market an existing one, it’s important to understand the concept of brand positioning. It can be key to reaching the consumers who are most likely to become your customers.

A well-positioned brand makes it easy to convert those potential customers into paying ones and makes your brand more memorable. This improves your marketing efforts’ return on investment (ROI). It will even give you the tools you need to refine your message and increase conversions.

In this article, we’ll look at what brand positioning is and how market research can help you position your brand for success.

Brand positioning is when a business establishes and maintains a distinctive image and identity for its brand. This is typically thought of in relation to the brand’s competitors.

A brand’s positioning is the unique attributes, values, and benefits it offers that set it apart in the marketplace. When done correctly, brand positioning can help your business create a lasting impression on customers, increasing their loyalty and driving business growth.

So, what makes brand positioning effective?

1. Target audience: the specific group of consumers your brand aims to reach

2. Market segmentation: segmenting potential customers into distinct groups with similar needs and characteristics

3. Value proposition: the unique benefit and value you offer your customers

4. Brand promise: a concise message that communicates your brand’s commitment to customers and keeps employees focused

5. Differentiation: the elements of your business that stand apart from other competitors in your space

When starting a business or growing one, there’s a lot to do and even more to think about. Brand positioning can impact many decisions you make, so it should be one of the top things on your mind.

Effective brand positioning is key as it allows you to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Unless you’re in a non-competitive industry, standing out from all the other options your potential customers could choose is difficult. Brand positioning requires you to think about what makes your business unique. This unique value proposition can form the backbone of your marketing efforts, positioning your brand as the go-to choice.

Another part of brand positioning is determining who your target audience is, the values you have in common with them, and how these customers think. This knowledge is what allows you to position yourself as the best option for that audience, establishing a loyal customer base.

Before we go into any more detail, let’s take a moment to look at some examples of successful brand positioning. This will help you better understand what it means to position a brand and how you can use it to bring in a specific customer segment.

Apple: innovation and premium quality

From Apple’s first days developing home computers to the continually evolving iPhone, Apple has positioned itself as a company that innovates, creates products with a sleek design, and offers a premium user experience. As a result, they are positioned as the brand of choice for consumers who are both tech-savvy and design-conscious.

Nike: inspiration and motivation

With the introduction of Nike’s slogan: “Just Do It,” they established themselves as a brand that inspires and motivates athletes of all backgrounds and abilities.

The company emphasizes athletic performance and achievement, positioning itself as the brand of choice for athletic consumers—from backyard warriors to professional athletes.

Tesla: sustainability and innovation

As one of the first successful electric vehicle manufacturers, Tesla is a leader in sustainable energy and automotive technology. They have positioned themselves to appeal to environmentally conscious tech enthusiasts. To bridge those two demographics, Tesla ensures that the technology in their vehicles is state-of-the-art.

Airbnb: belonging and community

Airbnb first launched with a unique business model. Allowing homeowners to rent their homes to travelers provided a unique vacation experience that feels more like staying at home.

They positioned themselves as a brand that believes in the power of community and embraces the idea of belonging anywhere. In doing so, they were able to attract customers looking for unique experiences.

You won’t be able to position yourself effectively in the market if you don’t understand it. Only then can you know how you compare to your competitors and what unique value propositions to offer.

Understanding the market also requires you to gather customer insights and preferences, which can further aid your branding efforts.

Here are some of the advantages of market research for branding and positioning:

It can help you avoid mistakes

As you evaluate the market and the trends associated with your industry, you’ll gather data that can help you avoid mistakes.

For example, you may identify problems that your competitors have experienced themselves, such as products that didn’t take off or pricing models that weren’t profitable. The data you gather throughout the process will give you insights to make more informed decisions and avoid these issues yourself.

It can help you create a customer-centric brand

Deep market research provides key customer insights that play a key role in brand positioning. These insights show you what your customers need and value, enabling you to develop a value proposition that will appeal to them and create a customer-centric brand. You’ll also have the data you need to craft marketing messages that resonate with your customers and address their needs more directly.

Ultimately, building a business focused on customers’ needs and desires supports long-term relationships with those who purchase from you.

It helps when launching a new product or service

Sometimes, you might think you have a great product or service idea only to find out that it doesn’t work as well as you’d hoped once it hits the market.

Perhaps there wasn’t enough market demand for the product. Perhaps you didn’t position your product effectively and the people who wanted to buy it didn’t receive the message that would have prompted them to do so.

Whatever the cause, when you deep dive into the market and its customer base before launching your product or service, you’ll know what customers are looking for and how to craft targeted messages that reach them.

It improves brand perception

The way customers perceive your brand will change over time. If you’re careful, your brand perception will improve. If you don’t monitor brand sentiment, the opposite could occur.

Part of market research is monitoring how customers perceive your own brand and your competitors’ brands. With this information, you can respond to negative feedback about your brand promptly and reinforce positive attributes in your messaging. You’ll also be able to take advantage of negative sentiment that develops around your competitors.

It’s easy to see how using market research to drive branding decisions can play a major role in your business’s success. This section will detail the six steps of the process, telling you everything you need to know to start planning your own market research.

1. Define what you want to research

The first step is setting clear objectives. Don’t get started before you precisely define what you will be researching.

You’ve seen many examples of what market research can illuminate for you. Rather than trying to catch all of them in a large net, break your research down into logical groupings and approach them one at a time.

2. Decide on your research questions

Next, determine the key research questions you’ll be asking. These should be informed by the goal you established in the first step.

For example, if you want to research how you compare to competitors, define the key metrics you’ll be using for the comparison. Remember, if you plan to collect feedback from potential customers, take care to define who your target audience is so that you’re gathering the information that is most relevant to your business.

3. Talk to the people who matter

Many of the market research topics we’ve discussed involve talking to customers—your customers, other brands’ customers, or potential customers of both. Regardless of who they are, you need to give them a convenient way to answer your questions and provide as much detail as you need.

Sometimes, surveys may be enough to get the information you’re looking for—but if this data requires more of a back-and-forth than a survey allows for, one-on-one interviews and focus groups are a good approach. With these methods, you can get deeper insights into consumers’ minds.

You can also engage directly with your customers on social media. Keeping an eye on what people are saying on your competitors’ social feeds can also provide useful information.

4. Test your branding

Large brands that have been around for a while have typically had several different logos and branding strategies over the years. They have adapted to market forces, and you can do the same. You want your brand to resonate with your target audience as much as possible.

One approach to finding the branding that works best for your business and its customers is A/B testing.

A/B testing involves one group of customers being shown one version of your branding and another group being shown a secondary version. When you see which version of branding works best, you’ll know which is the most profitable. You can repeat this process until you’re happy with the metrics. Repeat it regularly so your appeal remains relevant to changing consumer preferences.

In addition to A/B testing, you need to be proactively listening to what consumers are saying. When you get feedback about your branding or your brand’s perception, respond to it and adapt your strategies. Regularly ask for feedback about your branding so you can gather useful data without waiting for your customers to say something.

5. Be consistent and check in on your brand awareness

Consumer preferences change over time, and successful companies adapt to them. Your company must do the same.

By conducting regular brand audits that test for things like brand recognition and brand perception, you’ll be able to stay ahead of a changing market landscape and remain as relevant as possible to your target audience.

Perform regular brand audits and record the key metrics you use to track your branding efforts. This will reveal a set of trend lines that allow you to see how your brand awareness and perception are shifting—information that will help you determine when a change is needed and how well it works.

Building a coherent brand identity requires consistency across all channels. Every interaction your customers have with your company should feature messaging with the same tone and values. This will establish a more cohesive and memorable brand identity and ensure that the metrics you track are relevant to a particular message and tone.

6. Use market research tools to be in control of your research

Technology has provided businesses with a wealth of tools for gathering and analyzing market research and customer data.

• Online survey tools will help you collect data from your customers or target audience easily and in a way that’s convenient to them.

• Social listening platforms will help you monitor and respond to online feedback.

• Detailed customer feedback tools like Dovetail provide you with deep analysis of the data you gather to help you develop actionable insights from customer interviews, product feedback, and everything in between.

As you develop your market research strategy, look at the tools available to you and see which ones best fit into your goals. By utilizing these tools, you’ll be able to streamline your tasks, keep them better organized, and get deeper insights into the data you have collected.

As you plan out your messaging strategy, follow the tips below to help you make the most of the data you gather.

Identify core benefits in your customers’ own words

Your messaging will be most effective when you align it with the tone your customers use to convey their needs and opinions.

Analyzing customer feedback will unlock this language and enable you to discover the aspects of your business that existing customers like the most and find most valuable. You can use this to craft your key value propositions so your messaging aligns with their needs.

Avoid testing “shades of gray”

Many people make the mistake of asking overly broad questions in surveys. Without further clarification, these questions don’t always provide actionable insights.

With surveys and other non-interactive forms of feedback, you must be careful to ask questions with clear and distinct options from the beginning. Ensure they are phrased unambiguously so the answers are as direct and relevant as possible.

In focus groups or interviews, you can pivot on the fly and ask for these clarifications.

Get the “why” as well as the “what”

Make sure that the feedback you’re getting is as actionable as possible.

People may tell you how they feel about something, but unless they tell you why, your solution might not actually align with their needs. This is why it’s important to conduct in-depth qualitative research that drills down into your target audience’s underlying motivations and emotional drivers.

Agree on what success looks like

Improving your brand alongside its reputation and positioning all require continuous effort. However, you should approach this process in stages.

As you begin to act upon the market research you’ve conducted, you should have a clear set of goals to shoot for. These goals must be realistic and attainable.