Relationships

The most common way to start a business is to leave your employer, steal a customer and go off and do the same thing as you did with your former employer. In that case, the relationship with the customer is the differentiator. It gets the fledging business off the ground.

The challenge with relationships as your differentiator is that they are hard to scale. (This, of course, is what BeTuitive does with its one-to-one marketing solutions; it scales relationships.)

Location

A location can be a real differentiator for a retailer, a restaurant or another service provider – like an auto repair shop. Customers often select the store that’s simply closest to their home or office.

Hours

If you save your customer valuable time or provide convenience, that's a differentiator. If you are open more or different hours than competitors are and customers value that added convenience (consider the value of a 24-hour pharmacy to the parent of a sick child), you may stand out from competitors.

Selection

Having a broader selection of what customers need can be a differentiator. An example in the B2B market is W.W. Grainger, which boasts a considerable array of facilities maintenance supplies.

A Unique Suite of Services

Once a unique suite of products or services is entrenched, a customer may not wish risking a switch to a competing vendor’s offerings. For example, at BeTuitive we offer a suite of services that includes strategy, content-creation, list management, software and results analysis. We don’t price components of our service individually because we don’t want to compete on price with 80-plus software vendors in our space or the 20,000-plus independent writers. The value we deliver is with all of the components of our service offered together, so that is the only way we offer it. (Due to the increased value of a suite of services, we also get an increased gross profit.)

Strategies and Philosophies

Strategies and philosophies, the higher-level thinking to conducting a business, can translate into differentiators. If a company approaches its work in a truly different way, it can stand out. An example would be a company that emphasizes educational marketing when all of its competitors favor blatant sales pitch-driven promotions. The company that educates its customers rather than constantly trying to manipulate them may be perceived as a more trustworthy partner.

Evaluate Your Differentiator

There are weak differentiators, which are not easily sustainable, scalable or defendable. They are hard to keep going and grow or competitors can easily copy them.

Consider these weaknesses:

• Relationships can be a weak differentiator. With a single relationship-based business, business growth inevitably stalls. It stalls because the entrepreneur has run out of relationships. Unless that entrepreneur can cultivate new relationships at the pace he or she wants that business to grow, the business will stagnate or even falter.
• The store that has a great location may not stand out for long solely on location when the competition moves across the street. The same logic applies to other differentiators related to convenience, including hours.
• For intellectual property, the clock may be ticking on the number of years you maintain control. Rights depend on the type of intellectual property and the law governing it.
• A brand may be the most difficult differentiator to establish and maintain because it requires deep pockets.

Communicate Your Differentiator

If no one knows how you are different, are you?

If you want customers to consider your products and service on more than just price, you must help them understand how your offering is distinct. You must explain your differentiator in easy-to-understand terms to the right audience. You want to target and tailor your communications so that they are directed at the right customers with the right message.

You need to make these differentiators credible and keep them in front of customers.

At BeTuitive Marketing, we believe e-newsletters are a powerful means to reinforce your distinctive message, consistently serving educational, customized content to customers and strengthening relationships with those customers along the way.

Creating and communicating a differentiator can be difficult, requiring time and investment. But, you can easily justify the effort if the premium you attract over your competitors is greater than the energy, attention and money that you put toward the differentiator.

To borrow a great line from the beloved American poet Robert Frost, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”

Todd Smart is the President of BeTuitive Marketing. A "serial entrepreneur" -- as described by Crain's Chicago Business --Todd has founded and been president of four successful businesses since the age of 22. In addition to Crain’s, Todd has been featured and quoted in a number of publications, including Forbes, Success magazine, ePraire and a cover article of Inc. magazine. Todd is an entrepreneur who possesses a deep understanding of the complexities of nurturing a business and offering guidance on relationship building.

Return to page 1.

Copyright © 2005 BeTuitive Marketing