12 Differentiation Tips from a PR Pro

Recently I read a post by Andy Beaupre from Beaupre & Co., a high-tech and clean tech PR firm in Portsmouth, NH, about differentiation. The Rockingham Roundtable has had many discussions on this very topic. Below is a reprint from Checkmate – the Beaupre blog – on “How to differentiate.”

How to differentiate

Posted At : July 2, 2009 1:37 PM | Posted By : Andy Beaupre
Related Categories: Branding,Strategy,PR,Marketing,Public Relations,Commentary

One of the things I learned from Geoffrey Moore’s seminar is the notion of unique differentiation. He said a true “position” isn’t the one you’d like your company to have, but rather the position it actually occupies within a system you didn’t create.

 

In other words, positioning and differentiation isn’t an exercise in myopic navel gazing. It’s got to be externally driven and take into account the strengths and weaknesses of your real competition while also focusing on customer value. Understand what’s out there – and what’s needed – to set your organization apart.

To differentiate, go outside-in, and bottom-up:

• Identify real people – Start by finding your organization’s real customers/consumers. Don’t focus on big picture targets (e.g. “this Fortune 500 company”), but rather specific individuals who may buy – and have bought –your products/services.
• Talk to them – Differentiation isn’t about “making up” your company’s difference, it’s finding what objectively sets it apart. Understand what people want and why. If a customer, uncover what their experiences have been. Use social media to query larger samples. Online discussions and chat rooms are an effective way to gather opinions. Capture enough perspective so you can make accurate interpretations.
• Understand customer value – Value is the difference between the benefits consumers realize minus the cost to buy, use and maintain your product or service. Differentiation is successful when the value perceived exceeds the cost of usage. For example, if someone buys a more expensive product with more features, but it takes longer to install and use it, then this competitive “uniqueness” may not be valued highly enough, thus eroding differentiation (and credibility).
• Analyze your competition –Read blogs, troll social nets, and read articles and industry analyst reports to determine which particular companies “own” various strengths and leadership attributes within your market category. Also analyze competitive Web sites to capture their strategic messaging, leadership claims and customer testimonial insight. If other companies claim superiority in an area you believe your company has greater uniqueness, then you’ll need to work harder to create stickiness.
• Evaluate core competencies – With external insight in hand, shift inward and identify core competencies. Most reliable? Easiest to use? Superior service? Higher quality? Remember, to successfully differentiate, a core competency has to be competitively unique but also be perceived by consumers as valued uniqueness. Matrix your core competencies into the external insight you acquired.
• Isolate “the one thing” – As you zero-in on a core differentiating competency, force your company to articulate this in a “one thing” manner. Stand for one distinctive thing and people will remember.
• Don’t forget longevity – Short-term differentiation isn’t ideal. Anticipate and discuss things like price erosion, imitation and competitive leaps. While you can’t plan against disruptive technologies, you can proactively assess what currently exists and try to factor-in competitive incrementalism in differentiation claims.

• Fine-tune – If necessary, fine-tune your “one thing” differentiation to make it more appealing. For example, if your solution is more expensive, can you find ways to reduce costs in areas that are unimportant to the buyer? This will improve profitability while reducing the likelihood of competitors gaining ground from a price position.

• Proof points – Claiming leadership and differentiation – by yourself for yourself – doesn’t cut it. You have to supplement this internal view with third-party perspective, viewed by the marketplace as credible and true. Consumers, customers and prospects are the best way to differentiate. So are objective (non-paid) direct comparisons. Get credible sources to step up to the plate and validate your differentiation. Also remember to identify any and all proof points that will credibly back-up your differentiation claims.
• Be bold – To differentiate, you can’t be a wallflower – you have to stand out. Express differentiation in a colorful way so people notice and remember it.

• Communicate – Once you’ve built your differentiation, work hard to integrate this messaging platform across all communication vehicles. Your Web site. SEO. Advertising. Web-news. Presentations. Great messaging is pervasive and consistent.

• Experience is everything – What you say has to be consistent with what you do. If a company claims “best service” but a customer is frustrated dealing with one of their people, then brand position erodes in the mind (and heart) of that consumer. Walk the walk at every touch point.

Got Sales Leads, Now What? 6 Tips on Closing the Sale.

In the world of entrepreneurship and small business ownership, generating sales leads is only half the battle. The other half is actually turning that lead into a sale. At the “Roundtable”, many of us are responsible for generating the leads, qualifying, and closing the sale – sometimes all in the same client meeting.

8 Tips for Generating Sales Leads

In a down economy, every business professional is looking for new and inventive ways to generate sales leads. We discussed some great lead generating ideas at our roundtable discussion. Here is just a sampling of what we discussed:

• Go to networking groups – stand in the corner and people come to you. Also by standing in a corner you get to see who is new
• Attend a chamber with a purpose. Know who you want to talk to and talk to them towards the end of the event – you’ll be fresh in their minds.
• Offer something for free with the intent to generate contacts for your database. Free offers typically result in 10% sales.
• Look in business mags like NH Business Review to get the name of the person you wish to get in front of. For example: if you’re target contact is a marketing director, look at the press releases to see which companies have recently hired a marketing director. Now you have the name.
• Look at companies in monster.com who is hiring for the person you want to talk to. Example: if your target contact is a sales person, look for companies hiring sales people.
• Teach a workshop or a class at a local college.
• Ask for referrals from current clients
• Don’t give up. be persistent, be positive and be creative

Next meeting, on May 26th, we will talk about what you do with the leads once you get them. Hope to see you all there.

Continuing To Develop Your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)

On 1/27 We had a great discussion continuing what we started 2 weeks ago on 1/13 on the topic of USPs. As well as backtracking a little to get attendees who had missed our previous discussion up to speed, we heard from a few people who had given some additional thought on what makes their business unique. I’ll mention just a few comments that emerged during the meeting. Following are some advantages a few felt are worthwhile taking advantage of that make their services unique:

• Mortgage Broker – could expand upon the benefits of having an in-house underwriter for the relationship that exists between the broker and the underwriter
• Realtor - playing on her name, this Realtor prides herself in always staying on top of her customers needs with speed and accuracy

Another way that we discussed developing your USP, was to ask your customers or others how they describe you and your service. Here are a few example of what was discussed:

• Financial Planner – a comment was made that this person would make a recommendation because she had complete trust - is there any bigger goal than achieving this to a Financial Planner?
• Massage Therapist – Customers have described their service as “magic fingers”

Once you develop a USP that you feel best describes what makes your service unique, use it everywhere you mention your business name.

Debbi

Your USP – Unique Selling Proposition – Recap of 1/13 meeting

Thank you to all who attended our 1/13 meeting where we discussed our USPs (Unique Selling Proposition).

For those of you that missed the meeting, we broke up into smaller groups and each of us focused on defining our USP – what it is about YOU that makes you different than your competition.

Your USP is more than price, more than your great product and more than your incredible service. Your USP is what defines you and your mission to why you are in business.

We  had some great discussions and agreed that we would continue to work on our USPs and would bring a “final draft” to the next meeting (1/27). Any volunteers that would like to share what they have come up with to the group will be welcome to do so.

Thanks again to Janine Parsons of Radical Results for being there and as a great resource and to Tom Kennedy of Tardis Advertising for providing the worksheets for us to use.

In our next meeting, we’d also like to discuss what to do with our USPs once we’ve developed them. To help you think more about this, check out
this article from Entrepreneur.com.

Hope to see you at our next meeting.

Patti, Tim & Debbi

Small Business Tips for 2009

I just read a great series of articles on www.breakingeven.typepad.com by Nicole Ouellette, owner of Breaking Even, Inc. These articles focus on small businesses and the small business owner and cover a lot of what we’ve been discussing in our meetings -  from the business plan, to setting goals, to marketing.

I especially like Nicole’s point to “Make measurable and attainable goals that align with yur mission statement.” For 2009, I plan on doing just that. Below are the links to the articles. Happy reading!

Part I:  Focus On A Small Business: The Little Things

Part II: Focus On A Small Business: Learning More

Part III:  Focus On A Small Business: Getting The Word Out

Part IV:  Focus On A Small Business: Growing Smart

Hope you all enjoy reading these articles. I look forward to seeing you at our next meeting when we discuss our USPs.

Patti

December 16th Meeting Recap: When to offer clients credit

On December 16th, the Rockingham Roundtable met at Kittery Estates, the Maple Suites of Kittery, Maine. For those of you who missed the meeting, you also missed our gracious host feeding us all sorts of goodies like cheese and crackers, holiday cookies, juice, and coffee. The meeting room was decorated for the holidays and features a beautiful fireplace and a Wii!

Our guest speaker for this meeting was Frank Scearbo of Serve First Solutions. Frank informed the group about our options for accepting credit cards from clients. Frank discussed a lot of details, so if you have any specific questions for Frank, please post them in a comment and we’ll be sure to have Frank answer you.

Here is a summary of what we discussed:

• There are three different types of credit card terminals – a Virtual terminal, Purchased terminal and a Leased terminal.
• Mastercard and Visa have base rates that they charge by the industry you are in, types of goods or services, and geographic location.
• Mastercard and Visa look at your gross monthly sales vs. your industry to determine your transaction costs.
• Credit cards have two fees associated with them – Processing rate and Transaction cost
• Debit cards have fixed costs (debit network platform) + bank fee.
• Depending on what you are selling and the cost of what you are selling, debit cards have fewer fees.
• Virtual terminals are most expensive – you have the monthly hosting fee which is usually $20/month + 5% transaction cost + your predetermined processing fee.
• Leased terminals cost typically $25/month but have a lower processing rate – however there is a 4 year lease term with a 4 year warranty.
• A Purchased terminal usually costs around $600 and have only a 1 year warranty.
• Wireless terminals – which we had not discussed – cost $1000 to buy and $60/month to lease.
• For most of us who wish to offer credit cards to our customers, a leased terminal would be the most cost effective due to the lower processing rate – however Frank did stress that each business has unique needs

Most of us agreed that offering the option of paying via credit to our clients makes sense, but it is up to the individual business owner to decide if it’s the right option for them.

Our meeting was very informative and we thank Frank for making the long drive from Georgetown to Kittery to explain the credit card process to us.

Please feel free to ask a question in the comments area – or make a comment. We’d love to hear from you.

Our next meeting will be back at the Three Chimneys on Tuesday, January 13th where we will discuss our USP’s (unique selling points).

See you there,

Patti Fousek

Shoreline Traders Website Critique

Please take a moment to review www.shorelinetraders.com and give your honest feedback in the comments section.

October 28th Meeting Recap

Thank you to all who attended the October 28th Roundtable meeting. We had a great discussion on how to find your target market. During our discussion, it was clear that some of us have a good grasp on who their target market is, and some of us need a little direction.

During the discussion, we also touched upon these points:

• 80% of your profits will come from 20% of your customers. The more you can learn about  those 20%, the better chance you’ll have at making a profit.
• A target market can be described in terms of shared characteristics (age, income location, life style, gender, etc.)
• Who influences your customer’s decisions (spouse, neighbors, peer groups, children, media, etc.)
• Is your market large enough to provide adequate sales or are there other possible areas you may need to turn to in the future?

One of group’s participants, Chris Nevins from www.shorelinetraders.com, has an interesting challenge. He only sells his product (quality leather jackets) online – which means that he doesn’t see his customer face-to-face. Many of us had lots of suggestions for Chris, one of which is his online presence and what his website “says” about his company.

This brings us to our next topic. We’d like to have everyone take a look at Chris’ website, www.shorelinetraders.com and give us Chris your honest feedback. See the post entitled Shoreline Traders Website Critique, and put your feedback in a comment.

Thanks again for all who attended. Please see our Meetings page for details on our next meeting.

October 14 Meeting Recap

Thank you to all who had participated in the Rockingham Roundtable meeting last night.

Before the blogging presentation began, the roundtable participants broke into groups to discuss challenges we each face. The entire group discussed each of the challenges and came to a determination that each challenge happens to be a section of a business plan.

For the next few meetings we will discuss the basic parts of a business plan that help us all conduct business. We’ll start with “Finding Your Target Market”.

We then moved on to our Blogging presentation. In case you were not at the meeting, here is a rundown of what was discussed:

• Blogs are websites that are similar to online diaries.
• Blogs are used for personal or professional use (you’re reading one right now)
• The topic of your blog can be on anything and everything
• Blogs are easy and affordable marketing tools
• Help to establish an individual or a company as an expert on a topic
• Helps to build your reputation and trust

If you’re interested in starting a blog, follow these simple steps:

1. Know your niche – what are you good at?
2. Know your audience – who are you speaking to?
3. Choose a blogging platform (WordPress or Blogger – easiest to learn)
4. Write great posts – be yourself, be funny, informative, and consistent

Stay tuned for details about our next meeting.

Patti Fousek