Today’s marketplace has a lot of clutter. There are a large number of options available to the customer of any product or service. Each product is trying to seek the customer’s attention. The customer’s mind has a limited ability to remember products and brands. To be successful in such a crowded marketplace, our product or service must have some unique features which are not offered by our competitors.
If our product is just similar to other competitor products, it will not be recognized and remembered easily. The customer will notice and remember our product only if it is different from others in some way. This differentiation is essential to create a distinct position in the customer’s mind. We, as a customer, remember products or services based on their uniqueness or differentiation which appeals to us. All successful products in any category have some unique attributes which set them apart from others in the customer’s mind.
Some examples of unique differences:-
Among pizza delivery services, one company offered an assured delivery within 20 minutes. Customers noticed this faster because nobody else did so till then.
A TV has maximum number of warranty years, more than every other competitor.
A car has some security features which are unmatched by its competitors.
Sometimes, businesses copy some successful product and design a product which looks like it. This is a very bad approach. Being a “me too” product, i.e. being a copy of some product without any significant difference is a serious disadvantage. In the customer’s mind, it will always keep our product as a follower or inferior copy of some leading product.
The unique differentiating feature can provide a competitive advantage to the product. It will keep the product ahead of the competition in the customer’s mind.
The unique differentiation can help the product to charge a premium, if it provides some very important advantage or benefit to the customer.
Such a unique difference must be difficult to copy or duplicate by competitors. If, for example, the 20 minute delivery promise of pizza supplier or the feature provided by a car vendor is duplicated by other vendors, the differentiation advantage is lost.
The LSBF is the best source to learn more about how to make your product different from others in the marketplace.
