A brand’s positioning is one of the single most important things that impact the success of a business.

I experienced this first-hand with our own firm, RSW/AgencySearch and its positioning. I knew there were a million agency search consultants out there in the market, all singing the same song and operating the same way.

I also knew there were a lot of mid-spend marketers that either didn’t want to spend big bucks on a search consultant, didn’t know where to turn to manage a search on their own, or simply didn’t have the time.

And I knew there were a lot of great mid-size, best-in-class marketing agencies that weren’t getting a look by the big search consulting firms.

It was in late 2009 that our positioning was born: “The No-Cost Way to Find Best-in-Class Marketing Agencies” – at a bar after work.

We found a way to address both needs in the market:  Give marketers access to the search consulting world and give the mid-size, best-in-class agencies a chance to win a marketer’s business.

It has been a great business since the day we opened up our doors 13 years ago.

Can you say the same thing about your brand and your business?

If you can’t describe your brand’s point of difference in less than a sentence (short one, please), then you probably should re-think how you’re presenting yourself to the market.

I’ve interviewed about 40 marketers for our “The Marketer’s Edge” interview series and in most cases, these marketers have a pretty solid sense of where their brand stands in the market and the uniqueness of their offering.

Whether that be a commercial seed company, a company that manufactures Nasa space suits, a women’s personal care products company, or a regional pizza restaurant…they all seem to have a very sure sense as to what makes their brand stand out.  And the great thing about all of them is they live and breathe their brand’s positioning in everything they do in/around the brand.

The other important thing to consider is this:

Straying off of messaging and positioning can be just as bad as possessing a less than differentiating positioning.

Your marketing should embody your brand.  Whether it’s a digital ad you’re using for re-targeting, a partnership you’ve established with another business, or the way in which (and where) you engage in the social space.  Picking the right partnerships, the right publications, the right social platforms all can greatly influence how your brand is perceived.  Pick a bad partner or platform and it can be a real equity killer.

The other thing to consider once you have your brand positioning straight and you have the right kind of plan in place to support your brand, is the equity of your brand.  RSW/AgencySearch’s equity (at least in my humble opinion) is defined by “quality”, “efficiency”, and “value”, so any new service offering we introduce under the RSW/AgencySearch umbrella needs to reinforce those characteristics.

As you look to launch new initiatives, or new products or services, ask yourself: “Is this in keeping with the character of my brand?  Will it help build my brand’s equity or diminish it?”

A Credit Union (that typically is all about community) launching a training program for community members to help them be more financial literate is a good brand builder.

A pizza restaurant launching a line of homemade gnocchi to complement their Italian heritage family recipe pizza is right on with their “homemade” equities.

And a clothing company building a new clothing line around their foundational character: Genuine Spirit of the Pacific Northwest helps this brand revive and reinforce an equity that has plenty of years on it.

So don’t just think about marketing in the traditional, linear sense of the word.  And don’t get all caught up in the sexiness of hot shiny objects like AI.  Think fundamentals of your brand.  It all starts with a solid, unique, point of difference.  All else is built up from there.