Basic marketing tells us to differentiate. Good advice – no, great advice. Then why don’t more business people actually do it? Here’s what we find: they say they differentiate, but they really don’t. We are awash in the business world with sameness. You cannot gain a competitive advantage if you do the same things your competitors are doing. All you can do to be different is change your price and that’s not a great strategy if you want to be successful.
Differentiation requires thought. You need to define and articulate your value clearly; by that we mean, how you/your product/your service will improve the customer’s condition. If you are not clear on it, neither is your buyer. You need to identify potential buyers who are interested in your value. For most of us this is not broad based, it’s targeted.
In the 2004 Presidential election, marketers segmented the voters into distinct buyer personas. This is referred to as “microtargeting” in the political world. In his book – The New Rules of Marketing & PR, David Meerman Scott provides some examples of microtargeting in the 2004 Presidential election. The campaigns targeted “NASCAR Dads” (rural working class males, many of whom were NASCAR fans) and “Security Moms” (mothers who were worried about terrorism and concerned about security). They literally took millions of voters, broke them down into microtargets and designed marketing campaigns that appealed specifically to each group. Scott mentioned this because it is an excellent concept for the business world – especially the small business world.
Differentiation is a powerful tool for all businesses, especially small businesses that face strong competition. Define your value, identify your microtargets, and execute – correcting, modifying and enhancing along the way.
Copyright 2010 Kubica and LaForest
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