Brand position isn’t simply a choice of words or the way in which a business communicates its products and/or services, it is actually an attempt to occupy a particular area of psychological space within the mind of a consumer.

Companies tend to position their brands by listing out what their brand offers and attempting to make minor improvements over a competitor.

For example, many brands use phrases like "ground-breaking," "seamless" and "consumer-first."

The result of this practice is that brands simply disappear from the view of potential customers.

As the brain functions primarily for efficiency, it is constantly categorising new information as quickly as possible to preserve energy costs related to processing information.

The brain feels compelled to categorise a new brand whenever it is encountered by a consumer.

If your brand is perceived as an inferior version of the market leader because of your positioning message, you will be categorised as an option in a larger category defined by the market leader.

When you submit to the power of another company, you lose your pricing authority, and you will inevitably find yourself in a never-ending struggle to win over the consumer.

Correct positioning of a brand will provide consumers with a strong, cognitive break through in defining a completely new category for that brand.

This is the process of isolating competitors; it’s not about being better than other brands, nor it’s about being a better fit; it’s about providing a solution for a specific context in the consumer’s mind.

Take away points

1. Absolute Isolation versus Weak Differentiation: If your brand is considered to be only in comparison to a competitor, then you are in a weak position. Absolute isolation removes alternatives from the awareness of the potential customer, providing you with the ability to create and produce more revenue with less effort.
2. Neuromarketing provides Better Data than Surveys: Consumers have provided inaccurate responses in surveys for decades, causing immense difficulties for businesses. Neuromarketing studies show that up to 73% of B2B/B2C buying behaviour is driven by the subconscious.
3. The Time in Which Someone Responds Determines Brand Positioning: The dominant brands are defined by the amount of time associated with their dominant position. Neuromarketing studies show that when brands are correctly positioned, they have a statistically significant decrease in the response times required for the consumer to respond to Implicit Association Tests (IAT).

The first step in formulating a B2B marketing strategy is to identify the emotional connection between potential buyers and your offering.

There are multiple levels of human emotion that shape buyer behavior, so you can leverage that knowledge when building your value proposition.

Buyers want and need to do business with businesses that share their values, beliefs, and ideas.

Brand alignment helps the parties build trust and fosters long-term relationships.

When buyers feel a connection with your brand, they will return again and again for products and services.

Neuromarketing as a new approach to understanding consumer behavior

For years, marketers have relied on surveys and focus groups to gather data about buyers’ motivations and behaviors.

Unfortunately, they have typically been unsuccessful at gathering accurate information because people do not necessarily recall past experiences in a way that allows them to provide a true picture of what drives their purchases.

Marketers should look at neuromarketing (the study of how consumers’ brains work) as an important tool in their marketing toolkit and begin to employ neuro-marketing techniques.

Measuring the psychological distance between brands and buyers

While there have been many advances in the field of buyer research, industry-leading companies now utilize tools that measure the psychological distance between their brands and the attributes that buyers seek in products and/or services.

They no longer rely on a typical 1-to-10 scale for rating a product’s features and benefits; instead, they use the Internet-based Implicit Association Test (IAT).

The IAT can be quite painful for a user to complete, as they are required to categorize various word and brand name combinations as quickly as possible.

The IAT software tracks the time taken by the user down to the millisecond.

After a company successfully isolates its competitors from the marketplace and has successfully created a unique subcategory within a category, the link between the two can be made almost instantaneously.

According to neuromarketing research, dominant brands can prompt the same associations as their nearest competitors 0.3 seconds faster.

That may seem like a short duration in isolation; however, from a neuroscientific perspective, it follows that at this point in time, there is absolute cognitive fluency.

In other words, the individual will not need to think.

Cognitive load – The detriments of vague positioning

From an evolutionary standpoint, the brain will do anything it can not to expend calories.

When a company has a vague (blurry) position – such as when it claims to be the "one for everything" – it places a cognitive load on the customer to determine what the software will actually do and whom it will serve.

When the cognitive load is high, it creates a mental hurdle for the customer.

As that pressure builds, doubt begins to set in.

Doubt will ultimately kill conversions.

If you eliminate the competition from the equation, there will be no cognitive load on the customer.

They will know, "We are the only platform built for high-compliance healthcare logistics."

At that moment, the customer will understand immediately the category, value, and miss out on all competing logistics platforms.

At that point in time, the psychological costs of understanding your brand will drop and the chances of your brand being purchased will spike.

The 5-step competitor isolation model

Most marketers will give you vague advice on how to generate a Unique Selling Proposition, however, in order to survive in a crowded market it is not enough.

To develop a systematic, data-driven approach to dismantling competitors and building barriers around your brand, we have created a rigid methodology called the Competitor Isolation Model.

This methodology reaches beyond generic differentiation definitions to establish ownership of a subcategory.

Step 1: Audit the frame of reference

The first step in the model is conducting a full review of the competitive frame of reference.

You cannot isolate that which you do not fully comprehend.

Your target buyers have an exact perception of their competitor set. It is very unlikely that you have a similar view of that competitor set.

For example, many mid-sized companies that provide CRM solutions view Salesforce as their main competition.

In reality, for these midsized companies, the "customer competitive frame of reference" will likely be "staying with our mess of spreadsheets" or "using free Notion templates."

You will need to create a minimum of 15 in-depth customer interviews.

Instead of asking your customers about what features they like, you will need to determine what triggered a solution and what alternatives they were considering at that time.

Capture the words the customer uses.

Step 2: Create a scored, perceptual map

Visualizing the market is required; however, generic two-axis grids with random placements are not viable.

You will want to create a scored, perceptual map by using actual, weighted customer data from your target audience.

Using actual metrics, you will plot your competition against characteristics that affect the customer's purchasing decision and assign them a score between 0 and 10.

Below is a snapshot from a B2B perceptual map scoring matrix, used to find vulnerabilities in a crowded SaaS marketplace:

The data shows that the Market Leader dominates customisation and trust but is severely deficient in implementation speed and niche compliance.

Conversely, the Cheap Upstart exhibits speed in implementation but offers no compliance whatsoever.

Step 3: Identifying high margin white space

Looking at the table above reveals the white space, or fallow ground.

There is an enormous opportunity to provide a tool with a fast implementation time specifically for highly regulated compliance-heavy niches.

Competing against the Market Leader in customisation will suck up cash and lead to losses as this is the area where they are the strongest.

White space is where there is a high level of customer pain among customers and a low level of capability from competitors.

Step 4: Subcategory ownership strategy

After identifying the white space, you won't simply promote your features.

Instead, you will create the subcategory name.

You draw an imaginary fence around that specific challenge and declare yourself the sole owner.

The market will be compelled to see this sub-category as a must-have.

Whereas saying “We’re faster than competitor X” indicates a focus on speed; saying “We’re the world’s first Compliance-Native CRM,” creates an entirely different context.

The terminology you define sets the entire stage for the buyer’s experience.

Now when a buyer views the Market Leader’s Offering, the buyer may question, “Wait – is this Compliance-Native?”

If they answer “yes”, they’re likely diluting their primary mass-market positioning.

Your isolation strategy has therefore achieved success in isolating your competitor.

Step 5: Measure behavioral metrics

Positioning is a live system and must be measured in hard data.

Don't depend on anecdotal input from the salespeople to measure whether your isolation strategy is successful; utilise hard behavioural metrics as a means to quantitatively measure the effect of your isolation strategy:

• Win/Loss Rates with Specific Competitors – If you have successfully isolated your competition, then you should have a substantial increase to your win rate when you compare yourself to the Market Leader in your specific niche.
• Time to Close Pipeline – The clearer your positioning, the faster your pipeline moves because there are fewer mental hurdles for the buyer to clear.
• Brand Branded Search Intent Shift – Track how many organic branded searches are done by users with your new sub-category keywords.

The positioning psychology of a brand

It’s different to hear how the theory works than to see how it has changed the entire paradigm of the market.

Typically, B2C examples like Apple or Glossier are overused and are not applicable in a more complex business environment.

A $5,000-a-month software contract requires a vastly different psychological methodology than a $20 lip gloss.

An example of B2B competitor isolation is a pragmatic instance in our ever-changing world.

The incumbent vs. the challenger

For the sake of context, let’s use an actual example of an average-size (niche) data analytics company.

They entered a marketplace that was overwhelmingly controlled by two large, long-established companies.

For two years the young company attempted to compete with the "better data visualization" of the old companies with a somewhat cleaner presentation on the dashboards and slightly lower prices than those charged by the legacy companies.

They were devastated.

The two legacy companies had massive advertising budgets and a long-standing reputation for being trustworthy.

The positioning of the young company was weak because it focused more on subjective words like "cleaner" and "better" than it did on presenting facts to the potential customer.

The positioning forced the customer to be able to evaluate both companies' products and make a nuanced evaluation.

Pivoting to psychological isolation

Our analysis of the marketplace exposed a critical psychological hurdle for potential customers.

The legacy companies generally took six months to deploy because buyers hated this but accepted it because it was viewed as normal for the industry.

In contrast, the young company could deploy a product in 14 days.

Instead of trying to position the young company's product as a "cleaner" alternative to the product of the two legacy companies, the young company developed a brutally effective competitive isolation strategy.

The young company completely rebranded itself around the concept of "time-to-value" instead of being merely known as a data analytics platform.

The young company positioned itself as a "Rapid-Deployment Analytics Engine."

The young company published calculators showing how much money a company lost during the six months that an old company would take to deploy.

The young company weaponized the size of the old companies against them.

Measurable outcomes

The immediate results were indisputable when mathematically analyzed.

By changing the discussion to "who can deploy before the end of the quarter" instead of who has the best charts, the young company was able to completely isolate the two incumbent companies.

The buyer was left with no other alternative except to make a binary decision.

They could either receive data in 14 days or in six months.

• Average deal velocity increased by 41%.
• The number of inbound demo requests resulting from very qualified enterprise prospects increased by 28%.
• The amount of Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) decreased by 15%, primarily due to effective ad copy creating a significant difference between Tech Companies' ad copy and generic tech messages across the market.

They fought the battle in a different manner.

They changed where the battle was being fought.

Psychological triggers supporting isolation

The principles behind Isolation are based on Cognitive Biases that go well beyond simple introductions.

These deep-seated cognitive biases must be triggered within your buyer's mind with an intentional structure to your brand narrative to bypass the logical resistances that your buyer will deploy when making their purchasing decision and establish your brand as part of their deeply held beliefs.

Priming your buyer's mind

Priming is the psychological effect of how exposure to a particular stimulus can subsequently influence the response to another stimulus.

To effectively isolate your competition from the marketplace, you should start the process by creating an environment where your potential buyers will look for the specific weaknesses of your competition.

If your competition has a significant onboarding fee, for instance, your content strategy should focus on revealing the hidden costs and risks of adopting Enterprise Software.

You create content that speaks to "The Sunk Cost Fallacy of Enterprise Software Onboarding" for example.

You have primed your buyers.

Now, when they've completed a sales conversation with your competitor, the onboarding fee your competitor charges will elicit a negative emotional reaction because of the negative emotions you've implanted in their minds.

You've poisoned the well.

The effects of scarcity and exclusivity

As human beings, we are naturally attracted to what is scarce.

As a result, broad based positioning destroys the attraction factor of scarcity.

When a brand is identified as providing solutions for everyone from freelancers to Fortune 500 companies, it loses its appeal.

It is just another utility.

Utilities are purchased based upon price, not value.

In contrast, Isolation creates Exclusivity.

Stating the exact group of customers that your product does not serve allows the ones it does serve to view your product as much more valuable.

An example of this is the statement "We specialize in Series B SaaS companies at or above $10M ARR Only".

When a Series B SaaS founder sees this, their mind reacts to that message and immediately recognizes that this company must have expertise and "insider information" that other companies do not possess.

As a result, he will often pay a 40% premium for access to that expertise, despite the fact that the company is using a similar underlying codebase to what has already been developed.

Conclusion

The internet has turned experienced professionals into commodities.

It is no longer sufficient to be competent; in fact, being competent is now the base line standard to exist as a business.

All competitors have immediately available to them an effective product, a reasonably good website and a reasonably effective sales force.

If a company utilizes generic forms of differentiation, by claiming to be just slightly faster, slightly cheaper, or slightly stronger than competitors, it will likely become irrelevant.

This company becomes just another generic entity floating through a sea of similarity, vulnerable to the same algorithms that govern online sales, the same price wars that govern online sales, and ultimately will be crushed by the enormous weight of market leaders.

The future of branding, in one form or another, will belong to those who truly understand human psychology.

The future will belong to those who refuse to allow their competitors to exist in their own space.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How do I know if my brand positioning is actually working?

Look at the specific questions your sales team fields during initial discovery calls.

If prospects are asking, "How are you different from Competitor X?" your positioning is failing. It means the prospect still views you as part of the same homogenous category.

If, however, prospects are asking, "We realize we need a solution for [Your Specific Subcategory], how quickly can we transition?" your positioning is working.

You will also see quantifiable shifts: a lift in Net Promoter Score (NPS), shorter sales cycles, and an increase in direct, brand-name organic search traffic.

What if a competitor already owns the attribute I want?

Do not attack them head-on. You will waste resources and likely reinforce their market position.

Instead, use attribute recombination. Take the attribute they own and combine it with a completely new variable to create a fresh subcategory.

If the market leader owns "Reliability," do not try to be "More Reliable." Combine "Reliability" with "Speed for E-commerce."

You concede the broad attribute to them, but you absolutely dominate the specific intersection of those two traits.

You carve out a profitable niche that they are too big and sluggish to defend.

How much research is needed before positioning a brand?

Guesswork is the enemy of strategy.

Do not rely on internal brainstorming sessions. Your executive team is too close to the product to view it objectively.

You need a minimum viable research threshold: 15 to 20 deep, qualitative customer interviews with recent buyers and, more importantly, recent lost prospects.

Supplement this qualitative data with a rigid competitor audit. Map their exact claims, their pricing models, and their perceived weaknesses.

Only when you have actual data on how the market perceives the current landscape should you begin crafting your isolation strategy.