What are the best practices for conducting a competitive positioning analysis?

2 Analyze your competitors

The next step is to analyze your competitors' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). This will help you understand their value proposition, target market, differentiation, and messaging. To collect and organize data, you can use various tools and methods such as competitor websites, reviews, social media, surveys, interviews, or benchmarking. When analyzing your competitors, focus on their value proposition to see what benefits and solutions they offer their customers. Also look at their target market to identify their ideal customers' demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and needs. Additionally, consider their differentiation to determine what makes them unique in the market. Lastly, pay attention to their messaging to see how they convey their brand personality and voice.

3 Compare your brand

The third step is to compare your brand to your competitors based on the same aspects that you analyzed in the previous step. This will help you to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) as well as your points of parity and points of difference. You can use a SWOT matrix or a positioning map to visualize and compare your brand to your competitors. When doing so, consider questions such as: does your value proposition differ from competitors? How do you communicate it? How does your target market differ from others? How do you differentiate yourself from others? What is the tone and voice of your messaging?

4 Define your positioning

The fourth step is to define your positioning statement based on your points of difference and points of parity. A positioning statement is a concise and clear statement that summarizes how you want your target market to perceive your brand, and should include the target market, category, benefit, and reason to believe. This statement should follow the format: [Brand name] is the [category] for [target market] that [benefit] because [reason to believe]. As an example, Zappos is the online shoe store for busy professionals that delivers exceptional customer service because they offer free shipping, free returns, and a 365-day return policy.

5 Test and refine your positioning

The final step is to test and refine your positioning statement with your target market and stakeholders. This will help you validate your assumptions, gain feedback, and enhance your positioning strategy. Surveys, interviews, focus groups, or experiments are some of the methods you can use to test and refine your positioning statement. It is important to answer questions such as: Is the positioning statement clear and relevant to the target market? Is it distinctive and defensible from competitors? Is it consistent with the brand identity and values? Based on the results and insights obtained from the testing and refinement process, you should revise and refine your positioning statement.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?