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How to write your positioning statement

A positioning statement states how you wish to be perceived. Once you get it right, it gives you the basis for defining who you are and communicating that to customers and clients.

You can create one yourself by answering the following seven questions:

  1. Who are you?
  2. What business are you in?
  3. Who do you serve?
  4. What are the special needs of the people you serve?
  5. Who are you competing with?
  6. What makes you different to those competitors?
  7. What unique benefit does a client derive from your service?

The questions may seem obvious – but it's worth going through this process and making sure you all agree with the results. It then gives your copywriter a message to communicate.
Of course, you could also get your copywriter involved in producing this statement, possibly by interviewing a range of people in the company – and asking them these questions.

But you could do it yourselves quite quickly. However, don't spend just two minutes on it. It's worth giving it some thought. You can also state these questions like this:

  1. Who?
  2. What?
  3. For whom?
  4. What do they need?
  5. Against whom?
  6. What's different?
  7. So ?

This is the positioning statement for my business:

  1. Who: Simon Townley
  2. What: Writer
  3. For whom: Large businesses and public sector organisations
  4. What they need: Who need high-quality professional writing for their communications and marketing
  5. Against whom: Unlike non-specialists
  6. What’s different: Writes and thinks clearly, gets the work done on time and sets high, professional standards
  7. So: Marketing and communications are more effective

This becomes: Simon Townley - a UK copywriter, journalist and editor providing specialist writing services to businesses and public sector organisations that need high-quality communications and marketing.

It's not snappy. But it does define my business and it leads to the creative ideas, such as:

Clear thinking – colourful writing

And

The writer that speaks your language.