Brand Strategy · 17 min read
How to position a business when every competitor sounds the same
If your website says innovative, trusted, customer-centric and world-class, the problem is probably not copy. You need a position that creates a meaningful choice for a specific customer.
There is a particular kind of website that should make a marketer nervous. It looks polished, the photography is good, the headline is confident, and the company describes itself as innovative, trusted, customer-centric and world-class. The problem is that the competitor can say exactly the same thing.
Positioning is a choice about meaning
A useful position answers four commercial questions: who is this especially for, what problem or outcome does it own, which alternatives is it trying to beat, and why should the customer believe it? Positioning therefore requires exclusion.
Start with the situation where your advantage matters
Do not begin with demographics. Begin with a buying situation. What changed for the customer? What are they trying to achieve? What alternatives are available? What makes the decision risky? What would make one option clearly more attractive?
The narrower the situation, the easier it becomes to discover a meaningful advantage. A consultancy for everyone is difficult to differentiate. A consultancy for businesses whose growth has stalled because acquisition, positioning and conversion are pulling in different directions has a clearer job.
Your competition includes doing nothing
Alternatives include keeping the current process, building internally, delaying the project, using a cheaper generalist, or solving one part of the problem without changing the system. Understanding these alternatives changes the proposition.
Turn differentiation into proof
If you claim speed, show the process and time to value. If you claim expertise, show the depth of decisions you can make. If you claim better outcomes, explain the mechanism and evidence. A case study should explain what changed and why the change plausibly produced the result, not merely display a percentage.
Make the position change the business
A position that only changes website copy is branding theatre. A useful position should influence targeting, product emphasis, sales language, proof, partnerships, content and sometimes what the business refuses to sell.
The strongest test is behavioural: after adopting the position, did the company make different choices? If nothing changed except the headline, the positioning work is unfinished.
Now turn the thinking into a working document.
This article gives you the reasoning first. If you want the framework in a format you can use with your team, I can send the Brand Positioning Worksheet to your inbox.
If the problem is real, it is worth diagnosing properly.
I help founders, business owners and marketing teams work through strategy, positioning, growth and go-to-market problems. No generic retainer pitch. Start with the problem.
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