B2B Brand Positioning: Choose Who to Ignore
Most business-to-business companies are utterly, painfully invisible.
They exist in a thick, grey fog of sameness. They use the same stock photos of diverse teams smiling at a whiteboard. They use the exact meaningless words—innovative, synergistic, robust, streamlined. They sound the same, look the same, and feel the same.
The result? They are ignored. They become a line item on a spreadsheet, forced to compete on price because there's nothing else to distinguish them.
This isn't a branding problem. It's a positioning problem. And it's a choice. You can blend in or make the hard choices required to stand out. This is about those hard choices.
- B2B brand positioning distinguishes companies in a crowded marketplace by defining a specific, defendable space in customers' minds.
- Positioning is about making tough choices; clarity and specificity beat generalization and corporate jargon.
- Effective positioning addresses customers as individuals with emotional responses, rather than faceless corporations.
- A strong positioning statement guides marketing and sales efforts, ensuring alignment across business functions.
- Regular reviews of brand positioning help maintain relevance amidst changing market conditions and customer needs.
What B2B Brand Positioning Is (and What It Isn't)
Too many people think positioning is a fluffy marketing exercise. It’s not. It’s the most ruthless business strategy you'll ever work on.
It’s Not Your Logo, Your Website, or a Clever Slogan
Your logo is a visual trigger. Your website is a destination. Your slogan is a memorable line. These are artefacts of your brand. They are the expression of your positioning, not the positioning itself.
Putting a brilliant new coat of paint on a car with no engine won't make it go anywhere. Many businesses spend a fortune on the paint—the visual identity—before building the engine.
It’s the Specific, Defendable Space You Own in Your Customer’s Mind
Positioning is the deliberate act of claiming a piece of mental real estate. It's the answer to the question: “When a specific type of customer has a specific type of problem, is your name the first that comes to mind?”
If you're a law firm, do you want to be “a law firm” or “the law firm that helps tech start-ups navigate their first funding round”? One is a category. The other is a position.
If you sell software, are you “a CRM platform” or “the CRM platform designed for independent consultants who hate admin”?
The difference is everything.
The Big B2B Myth: Are You Selling to a Soulless Corporation?
There's a persistent, lazy idea that B2B selling is a purely rational process, devoid of emotion, aimed at a faceless entity called “The Company.”
It's rubbish.
You aren't selling to Barclays Bank. You are selling to a specific human being at Barclays Bank. A human named Sarah in procurement who is overworked, under pressure to cut costs, and terrified of making a decision that gets her fired. Or you're selling to David, the Head of IT, who will look like a hero if your project works and a fool if it fails.
These people are just as driven by emotion as any B2C consumer. Their emotions are just different. They're driven by fear of failure, the desire for professional recognition, the need to save time, and the craving for certainty. Your positioning must speak to their reality, not their employer's logo.
Why Most B2B Positioning Is a Catastrophic Failure
Before you can fix the problem, you need to recognise the symptoms. Most failing B2B positioning commits at least one of these four sins. Frankly, many manage all four.
Sin #1: The “We Do Everything for Everyone” Trap
This is the biggest killer of them all. It's born of fear. The fear of missing out. The fear of turning away a potential cheque.
So, you create a laundry list of services. “We offer strategic consulting, digital transformation, cloud services, data analytics, and project management…”
You know what a customer hears? “We are a generalist with no particular expertise.”
Clarity is power. Being known for solving one specific, high-value problem for a particular audience is infinitely more powerful than being vaguely capable of solving 20 issues for anyone who listens. You have to have the guts to be specific.
Sin #2: Drowning in a Puddle of Corporate Jargon
Here's a fun game. Go to the websites of three of your direct competitors. I'd bet a month's salary they all use some variation of these words:
- Leading-edge
- Solutions
- Leverage
- Streamline
- Bespoke
- Impactful
- Partner
These words are fluff. They are linguistic placeholders for a lack of clear thought. They sound “professional” but communicate absolutely nothing of substance. They are the ingredients of the Fog of Sameness. If your positioning statement is filled with them, you don't have a positioning statement.
Sin #3: Obsessing Over Features, Not Painful Problems
Your customer doesn't care that your SaaS platform uses a Kubernetes architecture and has 12 integrations. They just don't.
They care about the outcome. They care about what your product does for them.
Does it stop them from having to work weekends? Does it eliminate the most annoying part of their job? Does it give them the data to walk into their boss's office and ask for a raise?
Your positioning must be anchored in the problem you solve and the outcome you deliver, not the list of features you offer. A feature is what it is. An outcome is what it does for me. Focus on the latter.
Sin #4: Mistaking ‘Professional' for ‘Deathly Boring'
This is a particularly British affliction. To be taken seriously in business, we must be formal and reserved and strip all personality from our communication.
The result is a sea of blue and grey websites with anodyne text that could put an insomniac to sleep.
Remember Sarah and David from the bank? They are bored. They are scrolling through dozens of identical vendors. The one with a bit of personality, a clear point of view, and a human voice is the one that will cut through the noise. Having a personality doesn't make you unprofessional. It makes you memorable.
A No-Nonsense Framework for Finding Your Position
This isn't a mystical art. It's a logical process of making choices and being honest with yourself. Follow these steps. Don't skip any.
Step 1: Who, Specifically, Is Your Customer? (Beyond the Job Title)
“Mid-sized manufacturing companies” is not an audience. It's a vague demographic.
You need to get painfully specific. What's the company size? The industry? But more importantly, who are you selling to inside that company? What's their role? What pressures are they under? What do they secretly worry about? What does a ‘win' look like for them in their job?
This is your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). If you can't describe them in detail, you can't position for them.
Step 2: What Is Their Actual, Hair-on-Fire Problem?
Now, think about that specific person. What is the one problem they have that your business is uniquely equipped to solve? I mean the real, nagging, painful problem.
This is often called the “Job-to-be-Done.” They aren't buying your accounting software. They are “hiring” it to do a job—the job of “making year-end reporting less of a soul-crushing nightmare.”
Don't list problems. Find the problem. The one that, if you solve it, makes all the other, more minor issues fade away.
Step 3: What Is Your Unique Point of View on Solving It?
How you solve the problem is your point of differentiation. It's your “secret sauce.” This isn't about a feature but your approach, philosophy, and methodology.
- Everyone else may sell complex, customisable software, but your point of view is that simplicity beats features. Your software does 80% of what the others do, but it is 100% easier to use.
- Other consultants may deliver a 100-page report, but your point of view is that implementation is everything. You provide a one-page plan and execute it with the team for 30 days.
Your point of view is your argument for why you are the only logical choice.
Step 4: Who Are You Really Competing Against? (Hint: It’s Often the Status Quo)
Your competitors aren't just the other companies that do what you do. For many B2B businesses, the biggest competitor is inertia. The “good enough” solution they already have. A spreadsheet. An internal process, or simply doing nothing.
Your positioning must not just argue why you are better than Competitor X. It must say why the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing. You are fighting against “we've always done it this way.”
Step 5: Draft a Positioning Statement That Has a Pulse
Now, assemble the pieces. A great, practical template comes from Geoffrey Moore's book, Crossing the Chasm. It's a simple fill-in-the-blanks exercise that forces clarity.
For (target customer)
Who (statement of need or opportunity)
The (product name) is a (product category)
That (statement of key benefit – that is, compelling reason to buy)
Unlike (primary competitive alternative)
Our product (statement of primary differentiation).
Don't just write one. Write ten. Play with the wording. Make it sharp. Make it simple. Read it out loud. Does it sound like something a human would say? Does it have a point of view? Or is it full of the jargon we talked about earlier?
This statement isn't for your website. It's your internal focus. Every marketing decision, every sales call, every product update should align with it.
From a Statement on a Page to a Force in the Market
A positioning statement is useless if it lives in a drawer. You have to activate it. It has to become the beating heart of your business.
The Litmus Test: Does Your Website Scream Your Position in 5 Seconds?
Open your website's homepage. Start a five-second timer.
Can a first-time visitor, who fits your ICP, understand precisely what you do, for whom, and why you're different in those five seconds?
If the answer is no, your website is failing. It doesn't matter how pretty it is. Your headline, sub-headline, and primary image must precisely scream your position.
How Positioning Stops You Wasting Money on Marketing
Without precise positioning, marketing is just guesswork. You're throwing money at different channels, hoping something sticks.
When you know your exact position, your marketing becomes focused and efficient.
- Content: You stop writing generic blog posts and start answering the specific, burning questions of your ICP.
- Channels: You stop advertising on every platform and focus only on where your specific audience spends their time.
- Messaging: You stop talking about features and start talking about the customer's painful problem and your unique solution.
Precise positioning is the ultimate budget optimiser.
A Brand Identity That Serves the Position, Not the Other Way Around
This is where the logo, the colours, and the typography come in. Your visual identity should be a direct translation of your positioning.
If your position is “the simplest accounting software for freelancers,” your brand identity should feel clean, approachable, and minimalist. If your position is “the most secure cybersecurity firm for financial institutions,” your identity must convey trust, strength, and authority.
The visual design is the uniform your strategy wears. It's critical, but it must follow the plan, never lead it. Designing a brand identity without a rock-solid positioning statement is like getting dressed in the dark. You might look interesting, but won't be dressed for the occasion.
Case Studies in Clarity: The Good, The Bad, and The Invisible
Theory is fine. Let's look at reality.
Good: How Slack Didn't Sell ‘Chat', They Sold the Death of Internal Email
When Slack launched, there were already dozens of chat apps. Their genius was not positioning themselves against other chat apps. They positioned themselves against a much bigger, more hated enemy: internal email.
Their position was: “For teams buried in endless CC chains and internal email, Slack is a collaboration hub that organises communication into channels, unlike the chaos of your inbox. Our product makes your working life simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.”
They sold a vision of a better way to work, not a list of features.
Good: How Gong Created a Category Called “Revenue Intelligence”
Gong records and analyses sales calls using AI. They could have positioned themselves as “a call recording tool for sales teams.” That's accurate but boring.
Instead, they created and owned a new category: “Revenue Intelligence.” This elevated them from a simple tool to a strategic platform. Their position is: “For revenue leaders who are flying blind, Gong is a Revenue Intelligence platform that captures and analyses customer-facing conversations, unlike relying on salesperson opinions and incomplete CRM data. Our product gives you a complete view of reality to drive revenue.”
It's bold and authoritative, creating a space in which they dominate. A recent report showed that “revenue intelligence” adoption has soared, reaching 60% in 2023 [source].
The Invisible: The Tale of a Thousand “Bespoke IT Solutions Providers”
I once sat with the directors of an IT services firm. Their website proudly listed 47 different services. I asked the MD a simple question: “If I were your absolute perfect customer—the most profitable, most enjoyable client you could ever wish for—who would I be?”
He couldn't answer. He waffled about “SMEs” and “companies looking to grow.”
They had no position. As a result, every new lead was a surprise, and every proposal was a race to the bottom on price. They were utterly interchangeable with hundreds of other firms just like them. They were competent, but invisible.
Final Thoughts: The Choice Is Yours
Let's be blunt. Finding and committing to a sharp B2B brand position is hard. It requires courage. The courage to say “no” to potential customers who aren't the right fit. The courage to be specific when everyone else is being vague. The courage to have a personality.
The alternative is to remain in the fog, hoping a customer stumbles upon you by accident. To compete on price. To wonder why your marketing isn't working.
The choice to be ignored or noticed is entirely up to you.
If you’ve read this and realised your positioning is stuck in the fog, you're not alone. We observe this pattern constantly. Explore our other articles for more brutally honest takes on branding and design.
If you need direct, expert thinking applied to sharpening your company's position, that’s precisely what our services are for. Get in touch to see how we can help.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is B2B brand positioning?
B2B brand positioning is the strategic process of defining how you want your business to be perceived in the minds of your target business customers, relative to your competitors. It’s about owning a specific, valuable niche.
What's the difference between a brand strategy and brand positioning?
Brand positioning is a core component of a brand strategy. Think of the positioning statement as your North Star (the “what” and “for whom”). The brand strategy is the broader plan for how you will communicate and deliver on that position through your messaging, identity, culture, and customer experience.
How is B2B positioning different from B2C positioning?
The core principles are the same, but the context differs. B2B often involves more decision-makers, longer sales cycles, and a higher need for rational proof points and trust. However, the biggest mistake is forgetting you're still selling to humans driven by emotions like fear, ambition, and the desire for simplicity.
How long does it take to develop a strong B2B position?
The process can take a few intensive workshops and months of research and validation. The critical part isn't the time spent, but the quality of the insights and the courage to make a definitive choice.
Can we have more than one target audience?
You can, but you shouldn't start there. The strongest positions are built by first focusing on a single, primary Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Once you dominate that niche, you can strategically expand. Trying to target multiple, disparate audiences from the start dilutes your message and makes you a generalist.
What is a positioning statement used for?
Primarily, it's an internal tool to ensure everyone in your company—from sales and marketing to product development and customer support—is aligned. It's the filter through which you should make all strategic decisions about your business.
How do I know if my current positioning is working?
Ask yourself: Do your ideal customers easily understand what you do? Are you attracting the right kind of leads? Can your sales team clearly articulate why you're different and better? Are you competing on value, or are you constantly being forced to discount your price? The answers to these questions will tell you everything.
What's the biggest mistake companies make in B2B positioning?
The biggest mistake is fear. Fear of being too niche. Fear of alienating potential customers. This fear leads to vague, generic positioning that tries to appeal to everyone and, as a result, truly connects with no one.
Why is a unique value proposition important for positioning?
Your value proposition is the promise of value you'll deliver. It's the core of your positioning. It must clearly state the benefit a customer gets from your product or service and how that is different from the alternatives. Without a clear value proposition, your position has no substance.
Our service is complex. How can we simplify our position?
Focus on the outcome, not the process. Your customers don't need to understand how your complex service works. They need to understand the clear, simple, valuable result it creates for them. Your position should reflect that ultimate benefit.
Does our company size matter for positioning?
Not at all. Precise positioning is more critical for small and medium-sized businesses. It allows you to compete with larger players by owning a niche they have overlooked. It’s the small company’s greatest competitive weapon.
How often should we revisit our brand positioning?
You should review it annually to ensure it's still relevant. However, you should only consider changing it if there has been a fundamental shift in the market, your customers' needs, or your core business strategy. Strong positions are built over the years and do not change with the seasons.
