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Last month, I was invited to a webinar where I talked about positioning for the AI era, for software development companies.
One of the takeaways from that webinar is this: positioning is all about focus.
That focus doesn’t just shape your marketing. It sets the direction for your whole business.
It’s how you build a competitive advantage.
A lot of the time, that focus doesn’t come from inside your company. It’s handed to you by the market.
The iPhone had just launched, and suddenly there was this huge opportunity.
Almost overnight, tons of companies started positioning themselves as mobile app development shops.
It made total sense at the time. It was a focused position.
But as more and more companies jumped in, that position quickly became crowded.
“We build mobile apps” went from being a strong differentiator to just another line on a website.
A lot of companies are racing to position themselves as custom Agentic AI solution providers.
And it makes sense. There’s demand.
Gartner predicts that 40% of Agentic AI projects will be cancelled by 2027. Sounds bad. But it also points to how many of these projects are being attempted in the first place. There’s momentum.
But give it 2 or 3 years.
Once everyone jumps on the Agentic AI bandwagon, this positioning, just like “mobile app development” before it, will blur. It will lose its edge.
So what do you do?
Keep reinventing yourself every few years?
You can. Plenty of companies do.
When a real competitive edge has drained, brand is the only thing that keeps you top of mind.
I came across this idea in a newsletter by Alex Smith.
He made a point that companies like Apple, IKEA, and Airbnb are still leaders in their categories, even though they’re surrounded by competitors offering almost the same thing.
Why? Because of brand.
Jack Trout, one of the original minds behind positioning theory, said that positioning is how your product is perceived by your audience.
No matter how many smartphones try to position themselves as “premium,” “innovative,” or “simple,” if that’s what you’re looking for, you’re probably still going to buy an iPhone.
Apple has carved out that space.
And they’ve reinforced it again and again.
The perception sticks.
That’s the power of a strong brand.
You’re staking out territory in the market.
Brand is what defends that territory.
The stronger your brand, the more copycats will come flooding in.
But here’s the twist: the stronger your brand, the less you need to worry about it.
You won't get dragged down into the commodity pool because your audience knows who you are. They trust you over every copycat.
There’s nothing to copy…and nothing to protect.
You can’t really have a bad brand if you have no brand at all.
But that also means you’re invisible. Replaceable.
Years ago, I was the first marketing hire at Yalantis, a software development company.
I started as a content writer and eventually became CMO.
We focused hard on building a strong reputation for marketing, and it paid off.
At our peak, we were getting 100+ inbound leads every month just from organic traffic. Our content was recognized as some of the best in the industry. The company tripled in size.
That was seven years ago.
I haven’t worked at Yalantis in a long time. Their team has changed. The market and positioning have changed. Their marketing results today are probably very different.
But here’s the thing: people still bring them up.
Other companies in the same niche look at their site structure, their content, and even their design, and try to copy it.
Just this week, in a conversation with another company, a client said: “Why do we need to change the link structure? Yalantis doesn’t do it.”
Seven. Years. Later.
That’s the power of brand.
That’s why you need it.
Kate
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