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Being different, or more accurately, having a point of differentiation that matters to a market, is one of the most critical marketing strategies for the small business.
Intentionally finding and centrally communicating that point of difference is what sets the truly successful business apart from the businesses relegated to compete on price.
See, the market must have difference, a point of reference with which to compare competing businesses - that’s how decision are made. So if you don’t give them something that makes you uniquely suited to serve their needs, they will fall back to the only measurement of difference you do have - price. And, as I’ve said often - price is a terrible place to compete because there will always be someone willing to go out of business faster than you.
But what makes you different? That’s the question small business owners have a tough time with because, at the end of the day, people are a little uncomfortable really being different. So, they hang their hat of things like “solution driven blah blah” and “superior customer service” and “unique set of fill in the blank” that everyone in their industry is saying.
Don’t believe me? I dare you to take the “Sameness Test.” Go to the website of your top five competitors and copy and paste the first paragraph you find there onto a blank page. Now add the first paragraph from your site. Then black out any reference to company names and pass this document around your office and see if anyone in the office can pick your site out or identify any competitor. It’s my experience that this will probably make you laugh and cry at the same time.
Use this Sameness Test as motivation to step out and really identify some way for you to create, perfect, and communicate, in the simplest terms possible, how your business really is unique.
Don’t know where to look? Ask you customers, research your industry around the world, look for opportunities presented by your competition. You don’t always have to be the first one to create a revolutionary innovation in your industry to be different. Sometimes it’s enough to package your services differently, approach a niche market differently, price your products differently, add services to products, add products to services, create outrageous guarantees, or add some truly remarkable habit to your sales and marketing process.
Just know this, it’s OK to be different, in fact, it’s the only way you can grow.
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This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at Aug 25, 08 | 6:36 am and is filed under Marketing Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Terrific article on differentiation. I find that a lot of small businesses focus more on just getting their name out there rather than creating a true distinction from their competition. For entrepreneurs that need a little help, the SCORE Association has a great article on niche marketing, http://www.score.org/m_pr_5.html.
I just read Creating Competitive Advantage by Jaynie L. Smith. While geared perhaps towards larger companies, it did a good job of showing that one’s business differentiation pretty much already exists, that it just takes some focus to find it or just articulate it. But John I do like how you constantly emphasize the folly of competing on price (unless you’re Wal-Mart, of course). Not only is what you say true, it compels a small business owner to look deeper at what advantages they truly possess and should exploit.
I don’t have so much of a problem differentiating my business, my problem is differentiating my name. Because I’m a writer, my name is my brand, but there are a lot of other Bill Bennett’s out there, some in similar lines of work others in different areas of activity but with a much higher profile.
So far the only strategy I’ve come up with is to make a bit of a joke out this problem and add a Bill Bennett disambiguation page” to my web site.
Funnily enough I’ve been getting better and higher quality traffic since I added the page, but for the life of me I don’t really understand why this should happen as I still don’t appear on the first 10 pages if I google “Bill Bennett”. I can only guess that the new page must include some magic keywords.
Good article and yes, you need to stand out to be noticed especially owning your own business!
9 out of 10 times when I see a company in trouble or needing marketing help it is a result of differentiation. It is hard sell to tell a company that they need to say no and narrow their focus. On the flip side, when companies take off it usually is a result of a narrow focus.
I was just amazed that you could go through the whole article and not use the word, differentiation. Thanks for the spell check!
Although I completely agree with what you are saying, it is easier said than done. I am currently trying to start my own social networking site, rectivities.com. It is under development so I don’t want to give too much detail for obvious reasons, but let’s just say it is a site which helps people find others nearby to play sports with. Now there are already many sites like mine, including meetup.com, so it was, at first, very difficult to see how my site is different. To solve this problem, I found a niche where I could start my company, and so far it has worked very well.
From my experiences I have found that finding a niche market is the best way to stand out in any industry. Having a more specific target leads to a faster understanding of the market and the ability to market your products directly, and fulfill your customers needs. If you have any questions relating to my experiences, you can follow/message me @garbarrassing on twitter.
P.S. You mention in your article that changing price is the worst way to differentiate, and then at the bottom you recommend changing the price. You may want to fix that.
Hahaha, I ask SME business owners all the time what is it that you do that makes you unique and they say what you say. Its our great service. This does not help when marketing, but when a company deals with you, make sure the service relative to the cost is what they expect and they will always use you.
I think differentiation in advertisements make no sense anymore for small businesses.. Differentiation starts with “word of mouth” and spreads everywhere..And It is just related with how good you are doing your job and how much your customers satisfied with your job. You do not need to invent anything new to differentiate and effective marketing..