How To Use Functional Positioning To Differentiate Your Brand

Form over function is not always the objective. While someone might enjoy wearing stilettos to a once-in-a-lifetime red carpet occurrence, they’ll discover those same shoes impractical on a day-to-day basis. Consumers favor attractive products, yes, but many of their purchases are based on longer-term functionality, practicality, and reliability. Brands can seize this chance by using functional positioning, marketing their products as the most functional and practical solutions available.

What is functional positioning? 

Functional positioning is a way for marketing your product or service by highlighting its practical benefits. Brands that employ a functional positioning way typically focus on the product’s tangible characteristics.

Positioning, broadly, is a marketing way for shaping how a target spectators views a brand or product compared to its competitors. Many brand positioning strategies involve identifying and conveying the distinct benefits and characteristics that set your brand apart. Effective positioning creates an identity and reputation that resonates with your target customers. The objective of positioning is to influence purchase decisions and develop brand loyalty through obvious, compelling marketing that demonstrates a brand’s ability to align with the values of the target trade while offering practical products with measurable benefits. 

You can implement a functional positioning way as part of both product positioning and brand positioning. Product positioning with a functional positioning way communicates the specific solutions a product offers. Brand positioning, meanwhile, helps brands define their distinctive identity to communicate their worth proposition. The objective of brand positioning with a functional positioning way is to convey to consumers why your brand can uniquely and practically meet their needs. 

Why do brands use functional positioning? 

Brands use functional positioning to differentiate themselves from their competition and construct customer loyalty and depend. By creating a powerful brand identity that emphasises function, you can become shoppers’ leave-to brand for your product category.

selection fatigue is real for both in-store and ecommerce shoppers. ponder about the amount of options for something as straightforward as shampoo—there are dozens of brands to choose from at the store, and the options are endless if shopping online. Functional positioning can make the selection-making procedure for purchasing easier for customers, especially in saturated industries where it can be helpful for customers to clearly comprehend how a specific brand’s product will serve them best. 

Best practices for using functional positioning

• Conduct trade research
• Demonstrate functional benefits
• distribute proof to back up your claims
• borrowing customer feedback
• receive a balanced way
• Communicate your functional positioning way to key stakeholders

Here are some best practices to keep in mind if you’re pursuing a functional positioning way:

Conduct trade research

How you position your product may depend on your target spectators’s practical needs and the current competitive landscape. Conducting trade research can assist you comprehend more about each of these elements and provide you insights into how to pitch your product and which benefits to highlight. You can collect data through focus groups, surveys, and social listening tools to get a complete picture.

For example, trade research may reveal that customers of your recent line of watches are more interested in your precision timing technology (a functional advantage) than the vegan leather straps (which don’t affect how the product functions). You may also discover that your most direct competitors are differentiating their products primarily on design. You can then use this information to navigator your functional positioning messaging, highlighting the timekeeping tech. 

Demonstrate functional benefits

The key to functional positioning is to make marketing messages that highlight your product’s distinctive features and superior functionality. Honestly communicate the practical attributes that make your product useful. Demonstrate your product in action through things like how-to videos or tutorials. Providing in-depth demonstrations of how your product works can showcase its functional qualities, allowing customers to view firsthand how it can positively impact their lives. 

distribute proof to back up your claims

construct credibility in your functional marketing campaign by sharing proof to back your claims. While it might be tempting to highlight the general features of your product in bold claims, customers can view through dubious marketing messages. Providing evidence that your product can deliver on its promises is an significant reassurance to potential customers. 

Use data such as case studies to validate your product’s benefits. One of the most straightforward ways to prove your marketing claims is to quantify results in areas such as period reserves, expense reserves, increased productivity, overall product standard, or longevity. Quantitative data can assist customers visualize the specific, measurable impact your product can make in their lives. For example, if you’re marketing a financial planning tool, a quantifiable metric might be “Users boost their reserves an average of 17% year over year.”

borrowing customer feedback

Customer testimonials, interviews, and reviews are valuable tools for showcasing your product’s benefits. distribute real stories from prior customers to demonstrate the worth of your brand from their perspective. Whenever feasible, explain the original challenges they faced, how your product solved them, and the results that followed. Using authentic customer feedback builds credibility and provides relatable proof that your product will perform as advertised. 

receive a balanced way

A purely functional positioning way can leave your brand open to the hazard of commoditization, where products become indistinguishable from competing products, and worth is the primary differentiating factor. If other brands receive a similar functional positioning way, it can become challenging to gain a competitive advantage and brand apart based on its functional qualities or characteristics. 

To account for this, equilibrium your functional positioning way with marketing strategies that tap into the emotional and aspirational factors influencing a customer’s purchase selection. This can provide consumers a rationale to feel inspired and construct a deeper connection with your brand, creating long-term brand loyalty. 

Communicate your functional positioning way to key stakeholders

Positioning isn’t just relevant to a business’s marketing department. make a positioning statement that highlights your functional positioning way and distribute it with key stakeholders. A positioning statement is a brief description, usually around three to five sentences, that clearly defines your product, the intended target spectators, and the brand’s worth proposition relative to competitors. 

A compelling positioning statement can assist your entire business align with your positioning way and assist solidify your identity. To gain buy-in from your product advancement throng, highlight how the functional positioning aligns with customer needs and trade demands. Involve technical teams so you’re accurately communicating how the more technical aspects of the product are involved in delivering the advertised benefits. 

How To discover Your Niche trade + 5 Examples to Inspire You

Effective functional positioning example

Samantha Kent, chief growth officer of household-run LaDove, started a pure beauty line, The Cleanest Lab, after her younger sister Ashley’s leukemia diagnosis. The Cleanest Lab is a hair worry and skin worry line that crafts products for people with sensitivities or solemn health concerns.

The Cleanest Lab evaluates its ingredients around the health concerns of customers. “A lot of preservatives get a impoverished rep. However, it’s more risky to somebody with a disease to have a potential exposure to a bacteria than an exposure to that preservative,” Samantha says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast.

Functional positioning is a natural pillar of the Cleanest Lab marketing way because the brand genuinely revolves around being the healthiest alternative for a target spectators. “The special part about the Cleanest Lab is the truth that it is specially formulated for people with extra sensitivity, and you’re selecting ingredients and formulations in a considerate way,” Samantha says.

Functional marketing and a obvious objective allowed Samantha to gain a competitive edge in an already crowded trade. “There is always space,” she says. “Just when you ponder everything is there, somebody comes up with something that pushes the boundaries and gets everybody enthusiastic again.” The Cleanest Labs markets its formulations to a hyper-specific spectators in require of specific functional benefits. The hair worry and skin worry industries are crowded markets, but even in a saturated marketplace, The Cleanest Labs makes it obvious to its target customers why its products are an straightforward selection.