Market positioning for brand success

After months of hard work, your team launches a new product, only to hear crickets. It’s high quality, competitively priced, and well-designed. So why didn’t it take off? The problem isn’t the product—it’s the positioning.

Without a positioning strategy that explains who it’s for, why it matters, and how it stands out, even the best offerings can get lost in the noise.

Market positioning is the foundation for differentiating your brand, connecting with your audience, and making a lasting impression.

This guide to market positioning will help your business develop a successful market positioning strategy. Learn about the key aspects, types of positioning, mapping, and more. By the end, you’ll be equipped to develop a robust market positioning strategy for your brand. 

Market positioning is a strategic effort to shape how consumers perceive a brand and what sets it apart from competitors.

By emphasizing distinct attributes—such as price, quality, or innovation—it creates meaningful differentiation. A clear, focused position helps a brand stand out and stay relevant in a crowded market.

Market positioning helps a business understand its customers, differentiate its offerings, and communicate a clear value proposition. Strategic positioning enhances customer perception, sharpens marketing efforts, aligns internal teams, and supports long-term growth by keeping the brand relevant and compelling in a competitive market.

We’ll explore eight key elements that together form a successful market positioning strategy. Understanding each component will give you a clearer view of how effective positioning is built.

The first aspect of market positioning is identifying your target audience. Businesses need to define who their ideal customers are and understand their preferences, needs, and behaviors. This insight informs how a brand should position itself in the market.

For example, if your target audience is eco-conscious consumers who value premium quality, you might position your brand as offering high-end, environmentally friendly products.

Competitive positioning helps you gain an advantage by understanding how your brand compares to others in the market. You can identify gaps and opportunities through competitive analysis, which examines competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, differentiators, and strategies. This insight reveals how other brands are positioning themselves and informs how to stand out effectively.

A unique value proposition (UVP) is a clear and concise statement that highlights the key benefits of your brand or product and explains why it’s the best choice over competitors. It should address customer pain points directly and show how your offering effectively solves them.

Points of differentiation (PODs) are benefits or characteristics of a brand that set it apart from competitors. PODs make a brand stand out and superior to competitors, and these characteristics are what consumers remember about a brand. 

Points of parity (POPs) are the characteristics that make a product or brand viable in the market. They are shared attributes with competitors and can be thought of by consumers as “must-haves.”

Market segmentation, targeting, and positioning is a three-step marketing process that helps businesses focus on the most promising market opportunities.

It involves dividing a broad market into distinct segments, selecting the most relevant ones to target, and developing a marketing strategy tailored to those audiences. A market positioning statement is often used to communicate the brand’s value and attract ideal customers.

Once a brand has defined its target audience and developed its UVPs, PODs, and POPs, the next step is communicating them effectively. Consistent messaging that aligns with your market positioning strategy is essential. 

Consistency reinforces consumer expectations, builds trust, and fosters brand loyalty. It also enhances the customer experience by delivering a reliable and recognizable brand presence across all touchpoints.

A business’s branding and visual identity are crucial to effective brand positioning. Distinctive, memorable visuals help consumers recognize and recall your brand. Think of your favorite brand—chances are you can easily picture its logo and colors. Strong branding creates instant recognition and leaves a lasting impression on customers.

Brands must continuously monitor and evaluate their market positioning to remain aligned with customer expectations. Use tools like customer feedback surveys, brand perception studies, and performance metrics (e.g., market share, brand awareness, customer retention). These tools will help you assess how your brand resonates with consumers so you can make improvements. 

The two primary types of market positioning are strategic and competitive. Both positioning strategies address customer needs and ensure your brand resonates strongly in the marketplace.

Your research and work to develop and define your value proposition and marketing positioning statement all contribute to establishing and executing your overarching strategic positioning.

Your strategic positioning provides the blueprint for how you aim to fully leverage your unique niche in the marketplace to most effectively meet your customers’ needs while growing your business.

In essence, strategic positioning represents a blend of the playbook and action plan that will guide ongoing decisions and activities regarding marketing, product development, customer engagement, and your overall public persona.

Strategic positioning should not be developed in a vacuum. In addition to the research and customer insights you have gathered and analyzed, it’s important to get perspectives from those inside your company, particularly leadership, sales, product development, marketing, and communication. This allows you to gather new ideas and get affirmation that the positioning resonates effectively among all of these groups.

Collaboration such as this not only helps develop the most optimal strategic positioning but can also enlist an engaged team of advocates from across your organization to assure greater alignment and buy-in from all employees and greater consistency of message to external audiences.

Focusing on competitive positioning is key as you develop your overarching strategic positioning. Through market research and customer insights, you should have a clear picture of how your competitors have positioned themselves in the market, their unique strengths, and their potential weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

Against this backdrop, you can more precisely stake your claim to where you fit within the competitive landscape, what your differentiating strengths are, and how to promote those strengths to build deeper customer loyalty while attracting new customers who may be dissatisfied with your competitors’ offerings.

Ultimately, your company needs to be “known” for something in the market. Were you the first, the largest, the newest, the most innovative company in your industry? Have you won awards for technology, customer service, or best place to work? Do you focus on interacting with customers in fun or creative ways? These are all features that have the potential to distinguish you in your market.

Stating what value you bring to your industry will help you distinguish your company and become a memorable brand. According to the book Positioning: The Battle for your Mind, the authors Trout and Ries say the goal is to “look for the solution to your problem not inside the product, not even inside your own mind. You look for the solution to your problem inside the prospect’s mind.”

To make your company and brand memorable, it helps to be “first” or “unique.” The three ways that companies become leaders in their industry include:

Companies rarely excel in all three areas. Typically, it makes sense to focus on one leadership area and use that to position your company and your brand in the market. Competitive positioning helps you establish a strong brand identity in your customers' minds, making you the go-to solution for their problems.

Market positioning mapping is used to understand brand perceptions compared to your competitors. We’ll outline four main market positioning map types and how to use perceptual maps to differentiate your brand. 

A price vs. quality map focuses on how consumers perceive your brand or product quality relative to the price in terms of the market. It visually shows where your brand or product is positioned relative to competitors. 

Products or brands are plotted on a two-axis graph—price on one axis and quality on the other. For example, a high-quality, high-price brand would appear in the top-right quadrant, while a low-price, low-quality competitor would be in the bottom-left.

The benefits of price vs. quality mapping include:

A performance vs. cost map highlights a product’s functionality or effectiveness compared to its cost, helping businesses and consumers assess overall value. This map type focuses on whether a product offers strong performance for its cost or falls short of expectations. 

Brands or products are plotted on a graph with cost on one axis and performance on the other. High-performance, high-cost products appear in the top-right quadrant, while low-cost, low-performance products sit in the bottom-left.

The benefits of performance vs. cost mapping include:

A benefit vs. cost map illustrates how a product's perceived advantages or value compare to its cost. This helps businesses understand if customers view a product as worth the price based on its benefits. This type of map emphasizes the customer’s perspective and measures the benefits they get from a product. 

Products or services are plotted on a graph with cost and perceived benefit on separate axes. High-benefit, low-cost products land in the top-left quadrant—an ideal space for competitive advantage. Conversely, low-benefit, high-cost offerings fall in the bottom-right, signaling a need for repositioning.

The benefits of benefit vs. cost mapping include: 

A market share vs. product differentiation map uses a two-axis layout to compare a company’s market share against how distinct or unique its products are from competitors. This type of map visualizes where brands stand in popularity and uniqueness.

Market share is plotted on one axis, and product differentiation on the other. This helps identify brands that are both widely adopted and highly differentiated—typically market leaders—and those with low visibility or minimal distinction.

The benefits of market share vs. product differentiation mapping include: 

Now that you’re familiar with the key elements of market positioning and the different types of positioning maps, you may be wondering how to craft a strong brand position. The following section will walk you through a step-by-step guide to building a brand positioning strategy tailored to your business.

The first step is to evaluate your current brand positioning. Identify what’s working, what isn’t, and where adjustments may be needed. Ask critical questions to uncover gaps or misalignments. Use positioning maps to visualize where your brand stands relative to competitors and spot opportunities for improvement.

Next, define your unique value proposition to establish the foundation of your brand positioning. What unique value does your brand offer? What sets your products apart in a crowded market? Ensure your UVP aligns with customer pain points to clearly demonstrate how your brand meets a specific need.

Analyzing competitors and their positioning strategies can help your business find its place. Use market positioning mapping to find gaps in the market that your products can fill. Evaluate your competitors’ messaging to understand how they target your ideal audience. 

With a solid understanding of your brand, audience, and competition, it’s time to develop a concise positioning statement that captures your brand’s identity and value. The statement should highlight your target audience, what your brand offers, and why it's better than competitors. Your positioning statement should guide your marketing, sales, and internal teams, ensuring everyone communicates your brand consistently and effectively. 

Craft messaging and marketing strategies to reach your target audience using your positioning statement. Communicate your brand consistently across all channels and touchpoints to provide a cohesive brand image. 

Continuously monitor your brand positioning and measure using surveys and KPIs like market share and customer retention. Adjustments should be made over time as the market changes and new players are introduced. Staying on your toes ensures you can adapt quickly to support a strong position in the market. 

Here are several market positioning examples with brands you’re probably familiar with. 

Known for its unique products, great prices, and fun staff, Trader Joe’s has positioned itself as the “national chain of neighborhood grocery stores.” Its high-quality food and unique shopping experience are on par with its competitor, Whole Foods. “Maintaining our everyday focus on value is vital, which is why we don’t have sales, loyalty programs, membership fees, or any other gimmicks.”

What does the average guy want from a shave? Dollar Shave Club knows its target audience wants a great shave at an affordable price. It shouldn’t be hard to buy razors or expensive ones, and Dollar Shave Club made its mark with a simple approach to grooming. As the brand says on its website, “Everything you need in the bathroom—from razor blades to grooming products—is automatically delivered to your door. It doesn't get any simpler than that.”

Southwest Airlines offers a unique flight experience due to its employee promise. Employees promise to “demonstrate my Warrior Spirit by striving to be my best and never giving up. I will express my Fun-LUVing Attitude by not taking myself too seriously and embracing my Southwest Family.”

Market positioning helps your brand stand out from competitors and drive sales. With SurveyMonkey, marketing teams or brand marketing managers can test messaging and claims, research usage and attitudes, and measure brand health.

Check out our market research survey templates, concept testing templates, and product development surveys. Sign up for SurveyMonkey today to collect feedback and inform your market positioning.