It is commercial suicide to not strongly differentiate your business from the sea of sameness – all of your competitors.
Every industry has a cloning effect.
- The market leaders think, act and communicate similarly.
- Their smaller competitors fall into the same groove.
- The cloning effect occurs in every industry and country in the western world.
Yet, your ideal buyers, customers, and clients want your business to tell them the answer – Why should I only buy from your company rather than any of your competitors?
To succeed requires the business to differentiate itself.
There is an exhaustive process to successfully differentiate – these are some critical points for your consideration.
- Be a challenger business – challenge the norms in your industry,
- Your business needs to be campaignable – that is, your leadership – sales, and marketing, will benefit significantly from a strategic narrative – powers HR, culture, and performance -with a more significant strategic story than just your products and services,
- Disrupt, stand out and campaign differently and better,
- Base your decisions on facts, data and proven steps,
- Attention spans are 8 seconds on average – it is vital to capture more than 8 seconds at every step of your potential buyer’s journey – as they engage with your business more – your business will sell more.
Industry assumptions –
- Fast food advertising always needs to show the food,
- One can only buy a new car at a dealership,
- Banking must be a stodgy experience,
- Funeral businesses can only be dark and sombre,
Times change, cultural traditions and perspectives move – identifying and changing while preserving the former can discover new growth opportunities for your brand.
Some examples
- Men only appear in shaver advertising for men – Gillette uses women to sell razors to men.
- From commodity to design – Miele vacuum cleaners placed advertising in design and architectural magazines.
- Change the distribution channel – Direct-To-Consumer brands skipped the traditional retail channel.
- Change the pricing model – from selling products to selling memberships or subscription services,
Challenger thinking – where to start
1. Workshop with a professional – start with nothing is off limits – list all the conventions you can identify.
2. Review your list, and list how your brand could challenge these conventions.
3. How could this list of challenges be translated into re-positioning your business?
Challenger education – Brian Balfour – www.reforge.com ( google it!) runs a highly successful MBA | USA type Growth Programs – applications just opened. Not everyone can pass the high bar to gain entry. These are the growth courses-
Product: Finding Product Market Fit (NEW!), Product Leadership, Product Strategy, Product Management Foundations, Mastering Product Management, Data For Product Managers, User Insights for Product Decisions
Engineering: Engineering Management, Scaling Product Delivery, Technical Strategy
Cross-Functional Growth: Growth Series, Advanced Growth Strategy, Retention + Engagement, Experimentation + Testing, Monetization + Pricing
Marketing: Brand Marketing (NEW!), Marketing Leadership (NEW!), Marketing Strategy, Growth Marketing
Want to know more – [email protected].
It is time to ACCELERATE communities of PASSIONATE NEW BUYERS by fuelling and facilitating their insatiable hunger for authentic content and conversations – so your business captures enormous attention and engagement – influence and sell more.
Now the most valuable asset in the world today is attention.
The FASTEST growing businesses have one thing in common they get more attention on multiple social media platforms – every day.
- Get more attention first.
- Next More engagement
- Influence and Sell More.
Our business reflects the human truth: we are a social and human-first digital agency built on strategic narrative and pitch across platforms.
We accelerate powerful buyer insights gained through micro-content that ultimately influences actual business results.
Your ideal buyer truth is our lifeblood – we are loyal to it, defend it and accelerate it.
There is no longer a single, generic message served to a mass audience – now drive buyer attention and revenue growth by speaking specifically and differently based on who they are, by listening and understanding more.
If you have read this far, thank you for your attention.
It means a lot. I hope this helped you even a little bit in better making sense of this topic. If so, please, share it with a friend who might also benefit from it.
Thanks for reading,
David
