Determine how you want to be understood compared with other artists. Develop your positioning, differentiation, unique selling proposition, and clear positioning statement.

Outcome. Write a positioning statement that says where you sit relative to the artists you are compared to.

Positioning is comparative by definition. It is not what you are, it is what you are instead of. An artist who cannot name who they are being chosen over has not positioned anything, and will be positioned by whoever writes about them first.

Map the field honestly. List the artists your audience already listens to, then find the axes that separate them: sound, subject, scale, polish, proximity. Place yourself on those axes. The space you want is the one that is both open and true, and the second condition is the one people skip.

Then compress it. A positioning statement names the audience, the category, the single distinguishing claim and the reason to believe it. If it could be printed under a different artist name and still work, it is not finished.

What you will produce

A positioning map, your point of differentiation, your unique selling proposition, and a positioning statement short enough to say out loud.