Uncovering the Insights B2B Teams Need for Better Brand Positioning.

A practical positioning framework gives teams a shared foundation for making decisions, creating content, enabling sales and presenting a unified story to the market. But to get there, organizations must first conduct a discovery — the strategic intelligence gathering process that uncovers critical insights that anchor the brand around its value proposition and means of differentiation.

We’ve previously written about the importance of brand discovery, but the specifics of what to look for when you’re in the research trenches still eludes some B2B teams. This practical framework offers four key questions that lead to insights designed to shape a powerful positioning — one that will center the enterprise around a differentiated brand story. 

What business goals are we trying to support?

Brand positioning should not exist in isolation. It should connect directly to the organization’s commercial priorities and strategic direction. At AvreaFoster, we work to align business strategy with brand strategy by first meeting with executive leaders to talk about the trajectory of the business. Is the brand entering a new market, launching a new solution or service? What is its M&A strategy? Are there plans to go public or a need to attract more investors? The answers to these dictates not only the path to discovery, put the specific questions that need to be asked during the materials audit and stakeholder interviews. The goal: Uncover what could get in the way of success for the business and what more must be done to ensure its future vision. 

Who is the most important audience and what are their challenges?

Especially in the B2B arena, businesses must often appeal to a range of stakeholders — decision-makers and influencers. More often, brands serve multiple buyer types such as those in different industries or channels like distributors versus direct purchasing. It’s important to prioritize these personas in alignment with historic and future business growth. Sometimes this is an easy question to answer. Other times it takes pulling apart the sales journey to identify the highest value buyer and/or expand the persona category to encompass a more comprehensive buyer type that stretches across multiple industries or channels. 

As the discovery team is working to identify the lead persona, it must simultaneously dig into the key challenges of buyers. The objective is to clearly connect buyer challenges to what the brand can solve. This isn’t as obvious as it sounds. Internal teams sometimes get hung up on the value the brand delivers, and reverse-engineer into what they assume their buyers are struggling with. But that’s not differentiating. While it’s important to understand macro challenges that bring prospects to their business or a competitor, discovery teams must also look at micro challenges. For example, asking what buyers might be struggling with after they select a partner and onboard. What do they wish a partner would do that’s not yet being done? The goal: Identify hidden opportunities for the brand to differentiate and demonstrate a deeper level of understanding of its target audience. 

What value does the brand provide and is it unique to the competitive landscape?

Clients will often state that they don’t have any true competitors because what the brand offers is different. But make no mistake, every business has competitors. Your largest competitor may be the option for buyers to do nothing — partner with no business, buy no solution or build a solution in house. During discovery, it’s critical to speak to sales leaders who can lend color to why prospects say, “no thanks.” It’s equally important to speak directly to customers to better understand the brand experience and value the business is delivering. These conversations often lead to powerful insights on comparative brands — details on why customers made the switch, what the current partnership delivers that their previous one did not, and how they hope the partnership will evolve. 

After developing a short list of key competitors, whether from customers, executive leaders or the sales team, you’ll want to conduct a messaging audit of owned digital channels to understand how those competitors sell — how they’re positioned in market, their value proposition and supportive claims. The goal: Identify recurring themes — those messages everyone is saying and therefore may be table stakes — while also looking for white space that the brand can use to differentiate. 

What supportive details does the brand have to back up its claims of value?

At this point in the discovery process, you should have a clear view of the most important challenges the brand can authentically solve for its most valuable audience. But claims alone won’t move the needle. Brands must defend their promise with reasons to believe. Without proof, positioning becomes aspirational rather than strategic. 

As the discovery team conducts audits and interviews, the most important question it can ask is, “How?” When claims are made, AvreaFoster pushes clients to answer how that claim is brought to life, how it is differentiated and why it matters. It’s important to think like a buyer in these situations — a very busy buyer that hears the same pitch weekly. What is the data point, the technology or the case study that makes the buyer lean in and ask more questions? The goal: Stress test the draft value proposition to ensure it can be supported by evidence and, ultimately, made even more differentiating.

While the details behind reasons to believe aren’t always included in a brand positioning statement, they do help substantiate the strategy and, as positioning is finalized and the extended messaging is developed, proof points give marketing and sales teams the confidence to communicate boldly and consistently.

Discovery is a business success tool.

For B2B teams, brand positioning is not simply about finding sharper language. It’s about uncovering the insights that clarify value, focus communication and align the organization around a consistent brand story.

When teams understand the audience, problem, value, differentiation and proof behind the brand, they create a stronger foundation for marketing that resonates, sales conversations that convert and stakeholder alignment that lasts.