Brand Positioning Strategy for the Professional Services Industry

 

The concept of brand positioning for the professional services industry is just as important as the business itself, because today’s professional services marketplace is more crowded than ever. Buyers have a bewildering array of firms to choose from, and with the rise of the Internet, local firms are contending with companies across the nation, if not the world.

Certain questions that arise are: What can a firm do? How can they compete when there is barely any room to breathe? That is where brand positioning comes into play. Aaron Branding’s professional services brand consultancy can help your firm carve out a place in the minds of potential customers through effective brand positioning and strategy.

5 Types of Brand Positioning Strategy

Our brand consulting firm in London utilises positioning strategies that take many forms, but not all are appropriate for professional services firms. Below are five strategies that are most relevant to positioning a professional services firm like yours:

1. Cost-driven positioning. The message is, “We offer everything those other firms do, but we cost less.” This is a very challenging strategy unless you have an inherent cost advantage. Technology can be your tool if you are using it more effectively than your competitors or your worst enemy if you are behind others in a cost-driven strategy.
2. Niche service specialisation. In this approach, you focus on offering a service that is not widely offered by your competitors. You offer specialised expertise that, presumably, the average practitioner would not have. This approach can work well unless the service begins to generate strong demand and new competitors emerge to dilute your “uniqueness”
3. Industry specialisation. This is a popular and often effective way to position a professional services firm. It is another form of specialised expertise, and it allows you to tightly focus your marketing and evolve your services as your market changes. The implication of industry specialisation is that your firm has deep experience working with similar businesses. This approach comes with risks, however. If your industry experiences an economic decline, your fortunes may follow.
4. Role-focused specialisation. A message like, “We help CEOs succeed” is an example of role-focussed positioning — targeting a particular function in the organisation. Instead of specialising in a particular industry or service, you target a niche group of people. These buyers will perceive you as more tuned in to their needs and expectations that you offer specific knowledge or expertise that will make their job easier.
5. Quality of service positioning. This is one of the most utilised strategies implemented by professional services firms, and more often than not, it is one of the least effective. Messages like, “Nobody’s more committed to quality,” “we deliver the best service” and similar messages are so ubiquitous in the marketplace that they consistently fail to impress buyers.

Conclusion

Our brand consulting from in London has encountered a plethora of  professional services firms that are poorly positioned in the marketplace. They typically believe that they can get more clients by opening their arms wide to everyone — the broader their reach, the more business will float into their embrace. But that is rarely ever the case. Spanning all the way to our extension branding agency in Dubai, we have consistently observed that  when buyers look around and see awkwardly splayed arms everywhere, they have nowhere to gravitate.

That’s why we stress the importance of having a great brand positioning strategy. It gives your prospects something to get interested in — and will ultimately convince them to buy from you. If your firm isn’t positioned to consistently attract premium clients, just remember. You’re not alone. Any firm can sharpen its positioning and build an enviable competitive advantage. All it takes is a little courage to take the first step.

 

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