Differentiate and Dominate:
10 Ways to Make Your Business Stand Out
by John Jantsch
Quite often small business owners will ask me to reveal the most
powerful marketing strategy I have seen. I can say without hesitation that
the most powerful marketing strategy has little to do with advertising,
direct mail, web sites, referrals or blogs.
No, before any of those things will really have any impact on your
business you've got to uncover and communicate a way in which your
business is different from every other business that says they do what you
do. You've got to get out of the commodity business. You've got to stake
your claim on a simple idea or position in the mind of your prospective
clients.
Here's what I mean. I have a client that provides custom computer
programming. Essentially, they use programming languages to build custom
applications for businesses. What they do is often hard to explain and
even harder to put a price on, making it difficult for a prospective
client to compare different companies. As a way to differentiate their
business, they have begun to offer something they call Perfect Coaching.
Perfect Coaching is a unique blend of training and programming and, here's
the key, no one else in their business is offering anything like it.
Prospects like the sound of it and are asking to know more. It's too early
to tell but I suspect this point of difference will open a lot of doors
for them.
Ways to differentiate
Let's look at a number of tried and true ways to claim a unique point
of difference.
Product - Can you offer a product that is so unique or even
trendy that your business is associated with that offering? Or, can you
extend a product and offer a valuable service to make the product more
useful to the customer.
Service - Same goes for a service. Many times this can be the
packaging of a service as a product. Consulting is often delivered on an
hourly basis. Packaging a consulting engagement based on an outcome, with
defined deliverables and fixed package price is a very effective way to
differentiate a service offering. Don't forget to give the service a
powerful name!
Market Niche - Carve out an industry or two and become the most
dominant player serving that industry. A really nice bonus to this
approach is you can usually raise your prices dramatically when you
specialize in this manner.
Offer - Can you become known by an offer you make? I know an
accountant that offer his tax preparation clients a 100% refund on their
preparation fee when they refer four new clients. They are the 100% refund
tax guys.
Solve a Problem - Is there something that prospects in your
market fear or seem to believe is universal for what you do? If so, focus
on communicating how you have the answer. Painless dentistry for example.
I know a remodeling contractor who found that what his clients appreciated
the most was the way his crews cleaned up at the end of the day. He began
to promote the fact that he owned more ShopVacs then any other remodeling
contractor on the planet.
Message of Value - Many times there are things that you do that
don't get communicated. Extra that you provide or services you think
should be included. Your positioning might just rest in more effectively
communicating what you do. I know an office furniture dealer that has
adopted the message - We Make Your Business More Valuable - to communicate all the things
they bring to the party. Now, everything they do is focused on delivering
on that statement. Everyone else in the industry sells furniture.
Unique habit - I know a financial planner who has his client's
car detailed right out in his parking lot when they come in for their
annual review. They can't help but rave to their friends about this unique
touch.
Guarantee - Can you offer a guarantee so strong that no one else
in your industry would dream of doing it. This one frightens some people
but, you probably guarantee your work anyway, you just don't say so. Come
out and boldly announce that you guarantee results and watch what happens!
Customer Service - Everyone knows the story of over the top
customer service provided by Nordstrom's Create your own over the top
customer response system and word of mouth advertising will flow
liberally. One of the greatest ways to kick this off is to over deliver on
your first customer contact. Give them something more than you promised,
give them a gift, give them a related service for free.
Against the competition - Many times you can create your
category niche by looking for holes in the offerings of your competitors.
If every one in industry fails to address a certain problem, boldly grab
on to solving that problem and use your competition as the point of
difference.
Clues to uncovering your difference
Look at your current clients. What common elements exist among your
best clients? Interview your clients. See if they can tell you why they
chose to work with, why they stay, why they refer? Study your competitors
more closely. What do they do that you could do better, what don't they
offer they you could, how do they position themselves?
Communicate the difference
Once you find your chosen strategy or combination of strategies to
differentiate your business, all of your advertising and promotion should
be centered around shouting about that difference.
Commit to it, stay at it and resist the temptation to wander off in the
next new direction. Building a brand, and that's what I'm talking about,
takes time and patience. The payoff, however, is what differentiates the
winners from the losers in this big marketing game.
John Jantsch is the owner of Jantsch Communications a
marketing consulting firm located in Kansas City, Mo. He can be reached at
816-561-3931 or
john@ducttapemarketing.com, or
visit his website.
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