As each new year rolls forward the market places are saturated with more and more new products and new businesses. The consumer is assaulted at all corners with ads, each one in competition for his attention. The business owner is faced with a challenge: how do I get the consumer to buy my products and not my competitor’s?
This wasn’t always necessary. There was a time where one did not even have to advertise. All one needed to do was have a store front and a sign. These were the days when there was much demand and very little supply (businesses/products).
So what is a company to do today to differentiate itself from the pack? And when there can be hundreds of similar products or businesses your consumer could choose from?
Some say, “well you should be the ‘best’, and be better than all your competition”. This has some workability. But it falls short. For example, imagine every pizza company promotes itself as ‘the best’ pizza company. Result: 0 differentiation. Every pizza company is the same in the consumer’s eyes, no differences. No particular company is different, because they are all the same… being ‘the best’. Every ad showing each company as the ‘best’ pizza. The consumer won’t have a lasting impression.
What should a company be?
A company should be… different.
When a company promotes/advertises/positions itself as being something that no one else is, or something different, then the consumer will notice that difference, and will then associate the company with that. The company wins a ‘space in the mind’ of the consumer. Business ABC = ‘something’.
For example: If every car company strived to make ‘the best’ vehicles, then there would be no differentiation, and nothing for the consumer to distinguish between them. But if a car company took a different approach and sought to be not the best but… ‘the fastest’ and promoted that in all its ads and imagery, then the public would then associate that car company with ‘fast cars’. This is Lamborgini and Ferrari. By that, people who were interested in fast cars would naturally attracted to that company.
But greedy business owners will say ‘nay’! They don’t want to cut their potential audience by only catering to those who want a specific type of product. In this case they would say that Ferrari misses out on people who want ‘economical’, ‘reliable’, ‘luxury’ and ‘safe’ by only catering to those who want ‘fast’. This is true, Ferrari will miss out on anyone who is not looking for speed.
But what is the alternative? Be everything for everyone? Make every type of car possible, to cater to every possible audience? Is this what a business must do? Absolutely not. That is the road to failure. A business must differentiate or die.
A company that has ‘everything for everyone’ is not memorable. It is a generality, it does not win a place in the mind of the consumer. It gets forgotten.
A company that is a specific thing for a specific audience, will get associated with that in the mind of the consumer, and is primed to dominate that sector.
The difference
There are over 100 different water bottle companies in the USA alone. The product is plain water. There are hardly any real differences in the products of these companies. How would you differentiate your water bottle brand from the rest? If your product is exactly the same?
1) You could emphasis where it came from (special natural untapped springs)
2) You could emphasis cutting edge technology which created it, which others don’t have (reverse osmosis, etc)
3) You could state outright WHO this product is for (athletes, children), and package it appropriately.
4) You could use a secret ingredient, which no one else has.
The above are some ways one could take a generic, over-saturated product like ‘water’ and cater it to a specific audience, and thus corner and dominate that niche.
Conclusion
It is absolutely essential that the business owner finds out who his target audience is, what they want, and find a way to promote himself as being different from his competition. Also, one must not be afraid to narrow down their audience/consumer base to avoid the generality of ‘being everything for everyone’.
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