Teams often chase cheaper clicks or fresh creative to fix acquisition. It rarely works: fuzzy positioning muddies value, slows decisions, and depresses price. The enduring approach is brand as a demand system—clear choices, consistent signals, credible proof—converting intent into lower acquisition costs, quicker cycles, and stronger margins.
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What this means for leaders navigating growth, change or transformation in their organisation.
When acquisition gets pricier, the instinct is to tweak channels or creative. Useful, yes—but often beside the point. Rising customer acquisition cost (CAC) is frequently the price you pay for a fuzzy market position. If prospects can’t quickly grasp why you’re the clear answer, they either hesitate or push you into a price fight. Harvard Business Review notes that winning a new customer can cost 5 to 25 times more than keeping one, which means every ounce of confusion compounds the expense.
Think of positioning as upstream economics: it sets who notices you, what they infer, and how much proof they need. Clarity pulls fit buyers closer sooner; vagueness stretches the journey and inflates the bill.
Positioning isn’t a slogan; it’s an operating choice that removes friction from the buying path. When value is indistinct, demand generation fills the top of the funnel with people who look right but never convert. Cycles lengthen, discounts creep in, and teams flood the field with materials to cover gaps that strategy should have closed.
In our experience with scale-ups, this normally shows up as a busy pipeline that doesn’t move, sales decks that multiply, and a creeping reliance on price-led offers to get deals over the line. None of that is a media problem. It’s the consequence of a brand that isn’t directing demand to the right doors.
If the goal is lower CAC, make selection obvious. That requires choices leaders feel—and buyers see.
When the offer, story, and proof cohere, poor-fit interest filters out early, and the right buyers progress with less help and fewer concessions.
A positioning shift isn’t cosmetic; it reorganises effort and spend around a sharper bet.
Treat brand as the system that directs demand and you convert more of what you already reach. The reward is a quieter, faster pipeline where margins hold as scale increases and each new customer costs less to win.
Curious how this applies in your market? We’re speaking with leaders across industries every week. Let’s talk.