A brand positioning map can help you visualize your business’s standing in the competitive landscape and understand market trends. With this insight, you can assess what sets your brand apart, identify opportunities to stand out in the market, and grow your business.
As her business gained traction, Hero Packaging Cofounder Anaita Sarkar became more conscious of the company’s competitive position. “I started to see smaller competitors come up, and I did get a little bit worried,” she says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. But the sustainable packaging company’s branding, digital marketing, and customer education gave her confidence as competitors entered the market. “I knew we were still ahead of the game,”she says.
Read on to learn what a brand positioning map is, why it's important for your business, and how to create your own.
What is a brand positioning map?
A brand positioning map is a chart that visually compares your brand with competitors based on attributes that matter to your customers. A typical positioning map uses two axes to divide the chart into four quadrants. This lets you see where your brand is compared to competitors, and which brands occupy similar or different positions.
Each axis represents a spectrum between two values. Common brand positioning map axes compare:
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Price vs. quality
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Innovation vs. ease of use
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Sustainability vs. affordability
The attributes you choose should reflect your market, your customers’ priorities, and what you want to learn from the map. In addition to the factors above, you might compare product features or target demographics.
For example, a skincare company could place target market age, from younger to older, on one axis and luxury to affordable on the other axis. Plotting competing brands by those attributes would show which brands occupy similar positions and where competition may be lower.
Brand positioning maps are closely related to perceptual maps, but they differ in an important way. Instead of showing how a brand positions itself and competitors, perceptual maps reflect how customers perceive brands. These insights are gathered through surveys, focus groups, reviews, interviews, social listening, and other customer research. Marketing teams often use the two maps together to compare brand strategy and customer understanding.
Benefits of brand positioning maps
A brand positioning map can help you:
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Understand your market and competitors. See how your market is operating, including which areas are more and less saturated and how the competitive landscape changes over time.
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Identify opportunities for differentiation. Identify market gaps and consider ways your products, pricing, messaging, or other brand attributes can help distinguish your business.
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Inform your brand and marketing strategy. Compare your current position with your intended position and use those insights to guide your marketing strategy.
Differentiation can have significant value for brands. A 2024 study by Kantar found that brands that stood out from competitors while meeting customer needs had up to five times the market penetration of low-scoring brands. A positioning map can help you assess where your brand is already differentiated and identify opportunities to stand out further.
How to create a brand positioning map
- Define your target audience and market segment
- Choose two key attributes you want to compare
- Research your competitors
- Plot and analyze your brand and competitors
An effective brand positioning map starts with understanding your market and choosing attributes that meaningfully distinguish the brands within it. From there, research helps you determine where your brand and its competitors belong on the map. Follow these steps to build your brand positioning map:
1. Define your target audience and market segment
Start by defining the market segment you want to analyze. Consider the types of products or services you offer, the customers you serve, and the other businesses competing for those customers. Setting these boundaries will help you determine which brands belong on your positioning map.
You’ll also need to consider your target audience—the people currently purchasing or intended to purchase your products and services—and what matters to them. Use customer surveys, reviews, purchase history, social listening, focus groups, and other customer research to identify common needs and preferences. These customer insights can help you select your axes.
2. Choose two key attributes you want to compare
Select two attributes that matter to your target audience and differentiate brands in your market. These will form the axes of your positioning map.
Consider common customer priorities, your unique selling proposition (USP), or the positioning you would like your marketing strategy to explore. For example, if customers in your market weigh both price and product quality when making a purchase, those attributes could form the two axes of your map.
3. Research your competitors
Gather comparable information about your direct and indirect competitors based on the two attributes you selected. Depending on those attributes, you might use product pages, pricing information, customer reviews, surveys, or other market research.
Use consistent criteria and sources wherever possible. Factors such as price and sustainability measures can be compared using objective data. You may need to look at customer research to gauge qualities such as prestige or ease.
4. Plot and analyze your brand and competitors
Use your research to place your brand and each competitor on the map according to the attributes you selected. Once you’ve plotted each brand, look at their market positioning relative to one another and identify patterns such as clusters, outliers, and open areas.
Pay particular attention to competitors positioned closest to your brand. Clusters can indicate where multiple brands occupy similar positions, while unoccupied areas may reveal opportunities for differentiation or expansion. Consider whether your brand occupies the position you intended.
Using your brand positioning map to inform your brand strategy
A brand positioning map can help you turn the valuable insights you’ve learned about the competitive landscape into strategic business decisions. Here are three ways to use it:
Clarify your positioning
Your map can help you assess whether your current marketing and branding reflect where your brand fits in the market. If they don’t, you can identify a position that better reflects your competitive strengths and appeals to your target audience.
De La Calle Founder Alex Matthews reached this conclusion after considering the categories surrounding his tepache (a fermented Mexican beverage) brand. Traditional Mexican sodas had an established US audience, while a growing number of brands were bringing better-for-you sodas to the market. Alex realized De La Calle could position itself more clearly within that competitive landscape by calling it a “modern Mexican soda.”
“I started to realize tepache alone is not enough,” he says in a Shopify Masters interview.
Clearer positioning—appealing to both Mexican soda drinkers and those looking for healthier drinks—gave De La Calle a familiar product category, a broader potential audience, and an easier way to explain what is sold. It also informed decisions beyond messaging. The company updated its packaging, photography, website, and social channels. It also lowered its pricing to reach a broader customer base and adjusted its distribution strategy.
Emphasize your USP
Your map can help you pinpoint what separates your brand from nearby competitors and determine whether you’re doing enough to maintain that distinction. Gloria Hwang, founder of bicycle helmet brand Thousand, uses what she calls “an x-y axis of competition” to think about the brand’s position.
“The goal is always to … not get close to your competition, to always get more and more differentiated,” she says on the Shopify Masters podcast.
When Thousand began moving closer to competitors in the market, Gloria responded by taking a more active role in Thousand’s product road map. She refocused the brand on the qualities that had originally differentiated it, including style, convenience, safety, and a deep understanding of its customers.
“Rather than being a little fearful of the competition and trying to adapt to them,” she says she decided to “just double down on what we’ve been doing great all this time.”
Track brand positioning over time
Your brand’s position can change as your business, competitors, and customers evolve. For example, Gloria realized that Thousand had drifted toward competitors and a more conventional positioning, which led her to adjust the company’s strategy.
“It’s not that our competition was changing to get better; it’s that we changed to get more common,” she says.
Consider updating and reviewing your map after a product launch or rebrand, a change in customer feedback, or when new competitors enter the market. Comparing maps over time can help you spot changes in the market and your positioning before they undermine your differentiators.
Brand positioning map FAQ
How do you make a brand positioning map?
You can make a brand positioning map by defining your target audience and market segment, choosing two brand attributes to compare, researching your competitors, and plotting and analyzing your brand and competitors on the map.
What’s an example of brand positioning?
Brand positioning is how you define your brand’s ability to solve a problem for your target audience. You may position your brand based on factors like price, quality, availability, or product features. An example of brand positioning is a skincare business defining itself as an affordable alternative to luxury brands.
