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Before a new company or product is launched, a team of marketers has been busy behind the scenes, carefully curating the complex set of pieces and parts that make up the brand. From the brand name to the tagline and messaging, they've likely considered—and focus-grouped—various options before finally deciding on the mix that best portrays the business and what it has to offer.

It's a lot of work. So it should come as no surprise that few companies are eager to go through the entire process again. But, over time, most businesses are going to find themselves in a position different from the one that their original branding represented. Perhaps they've expanded geographically or made significant changes to their product offering. Or maybe it's the world around the business that changed: new technologies, shifts in customer behavior, or a global pandemic driving a misalignment in their identity.

Whatever the root cause, if your firm's branding, taglines, and messaging no longer capture the full picture of what your business and your product line really offers, how it differs from competitive solutions, and what category it belongs in, then as painful as it might be... it's time to reposition.

At Livestorm, the decision came after we realized that the way our product was evolving was moving us away from its original value proposition. That happened because the way our customers were using our product wasn't how we'd originally intended, and we were developing features and capabilities to meet a different set of needs than we'd envisioned.

So we knew our positioning needed to change. We also knew that we had to be the drivers of the change: If we didn't do it, the market would do it for us. And if that were the case, we would run the risk of getting "stuck" with whatever identity it assigned us, right or wrong.

In going through the process, some things came easily and others didn't. Here are do's and don'ts that can help make your own repositioning process a smooth and painless one.

DO: Get help from the outside

Bring in an outside consultant who has experience in positioning and messaging. You need an outside, unbiased perspective for honest feedback and for getting to those hard-to-ask, honest questions from customers on what they like and don't like about your technology or other offering, and what sets you apart from competitors.

One of the best moves we made was hiring a marketing consultant to guide us on our journey.

She began by interviewing our customers, and because she had no skin in the game, she could ask the hard questions and get honest feedback. She gathered intel on what they liked and didn't like about our platform, how they felt it compared with competitors, and what they felt was missing.

She then moved on to interviewing various C-level executives in our organization, getting their input on the company's objectives and how they wanted to be perceived by prospects and differentiated from competitors.

Her in-depth analysis of both the outside and internal perception of our company allowed us to build a holistic brand with which employees, executives, and customers could feel aligned.

DO: Honestly assess the competitive landscape and how you fit into it

Create a detailed, brutally honest matrix of the competitive landscape and how you fit in. It's a task that should not be taken lightly or done in a hurry, because it's critical to ground your repositioning in reality.

Having that outsider with an unbiased point of view can be incredibly valuable here, especially since we marketers are so accustomed to accentuating the positive and leaving it at that.

In an exercise my team members found helpful when trying to define our position in a manner that was both true and differentiated, we each would write 3-5 sentences about what made our organization unique. We would review each one, determining whether we could claim the traits as ours or whether they could be equally applied to a competitor. If the latter was true, then we moved on. It wasn't until we had found the unique points that were ours and ours alone that we started the process of developing things such as taglines and boilerplates about the company.

DO: Build a detailed plan for rollout

Put a clear, actionable plan in place for rolling out your new messaging.

It's critical to have internal buy-in before all else.

At Livestream, we started delivering the message from the top down. Our CEO held an all-hands meeting during which he clearly presented to the entire company the new positioning along with the explanation of the reason it needed to be done.

The second step was to work with the teams responsible for most of the company's outbound communications: Sales, Customer Success, and Business Development.

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Be Positioned or Get Positioned: Do's and Don'ts for Transforming the Perception of Your Brand

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Marie Hillion

Marie Hillion is the head of marketing at Livestorm, a videoconferencing software company.

LinkedIn: Marie Hillion