Categories and Brand Development

Positioning and the brand development process

In my previous post I wrote about brand development and the importance of positioning your brand as the first in your prospects mind. If you can position yourself as the first to offer a particular product or service you have a distinct advantage. But what if you’re not the first in your industry to offer a particular product or service? This is where your creativity as an entrepreneur comes into play.

When you launch your brand, the question isn’t “How is this product better than my competitors”. The question is “How is my product the first in it’s category?” Thus, rather than getting people to prefer your brand, help them to perceive it as a category all of it’s own. Prospects are continually confronted with brands that proclaim to be the preferred choice. Understandably this causes many prospects to become defensive when yet another brand touts how it is better. Few people are interested in better. What they find more interesting is what is new.

Maybe you are the first physiotherapist in a particular geographic region to offer consultations online. To be “Melbourne’s first online physio service” is much more powerful in the prospects eye than Melbourne’s preferred physio service. You have essentially created a new category of “online physio services” of which you are the first. In essence you have no competition, as no-one else can claim this. Promoting the category of “online physio services” will have more traction in the mind of your prospects. So how do you get this idea into the prospect’s mind? More on that in my next post…