How to Safely Differentiate Your Business
Email Marketing - Marc Kline - May 24th, 2007 - Permalink
Can being different alienate you from your customers? Michael Cage points out that although sometimes differentiation can help small businesses, it can also help to turn away viable prospects.
But this begs the question: does all differentiation present this risk? Read on to find how you can safely set yourself apart from competition and how email marketing fits into the equation.
Testing the Waters
Imagine you’re running a profitable family owned restaurant selling hamburgers and fries. But there’s lots of other burger joints and you’d like to carve out a more profitable niche.
You decide to take the plunge and go veggie. Instead of burgers, you do soy burgers. French fries on the side? Nope, a baked sweet potato instead. There’s lots of vegetarians in town and no vegetarian restaurants, so you think the odds of success are in your favor.
The Results
What’s the outcome in this fictional story? There are so many factors its results hinge on that it’d be tough to say. For instance:
- How great is the market for a vegetarian restaurant? Is there a reason why there are none in town?
- How much cost do you take on attempting a drastic change?
- How many customers would be receptive to “trying something new”?
In this article, we’re focusing on the last point. I think it’s pretty clear that there would be at least a few people who aren’t interested in vegetarian cuisine and would never return to your restaurant.
In this type of case, differentiation comes only with a risk, and not everyone is so adventurous.
Is Differentiation Always a Risk?
In The Different Trade-off and Marketing to Values, a few more examples are given that illustrate how it certainly can be (with tips on how to do it right).
But is setting your business apart from your competition always a risk? Think about how ludicrous that question is for a second. You can find aspects about your business that are exceptional that won’t alienate.
For example:
Often times our support team gets calls that start off with pleasant surprise because people aren’t used to quickly getting in touch with a real person on the phone, especially when they’re dealing with an online company.
This is one way we differentiate our service from our competition, and we let customers and prospects know it all the time. If that’s ever driven away a customer, they probably weren’t from earth. 
Email Marketing Shows Your Edge
On the topic of differentiation, think of your email campaign for a second and how it can help you. Effective follow up is a rare art these days, and email provides a simple and powerful way to stay in touch in a way that your competitors probably aren’t doing.
Since good follow up is uncommon, that in itself is a differentiating point, and surely you can find others to highlight within your messages.
Step back and look at your business for those unique selling points, and write up a few messages that highlight them in the proper light.
You’re a real person who has their customers best interests in mind, aren’t you? Write some content that reflects your understanding of their needs and concerns.
You don’t need to assume the risk of reinventing your business. Take the product you already have and market it the right way.
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 8:44 am and is filed under Email Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment response, trackback from your own site, or permalink.
May 24th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Some excellent pointers. With one of our online businesses we try and be very personable as our target market is mothers with young baby’s. To do this our “face” of the business, (who is a real person but I wont mention here) includes some personal insights from their life in the monthly newsletter. This helps prospects know that they are dealing with a real person not just an online business after their money.