Carefully defining your business, and its differentiation, will help you
understand who you are, what you do and what makes you different. not many
small businesses take the time to answer those fundamental questions about their business,
but those answers are essential to create a strong brand identity, focused
effective marketing messages and materials. Having these will make a stronger
impression on your target audience: once you stand out, they’ll be more likely to
they remember you when they need your products or services.
Taking this step will make you stand out from your competition. just think of you
competition, and how they communicate and market their businesses. So
many people are promoting their business without knowing these basic facts
about their businesses, which if you have these elements in place, will overshadow your
competence.
To define the difference for your business, you need:
Determine the characteristics of your business:
Oh Who are you: What is your business about? What is your mission and
What are your values?
Oh What are you doing: What are the unique services and/or products that you
offered?
Study and contrast your business with that of the competition:
Oh Who is your competition: Who offers the same or similar services or
products like you? Against whom do you constantly quote your service, or
competing with you for shelf space? These are your closest competitors, the ones with
that should concern you most in the definition process.
Oh What makes you different: How are you different from those
competitors? Do you have a specific area of expertise, whether in the industry you
service, the problem you solve or the service/product you provide? You
serve a certain geographic area? Be careful to avoid “better” differentiators,
“faster” and “cheaper” – are either too subjective or too difficult to maintain as
your business grows and matures. Your differentiators must stay with you during the
life of your business.
Plan for your best clients:
Oh Who you can best help: Determine who constitutes your target market.
It is best to determine the demographics of both of you: data such as age, race, gender, occupation
–and their psychographics–their motivations, hobbies, desires, and other factors
that make up your personality.
Oh The best way to reach them: Once you know who you want to help, the
The next step is to determine how to let them know that you can help them. This means
determine how to market your business and what types of media are best to get
your message out.
Oh What differentiators will compel them: The creation of differentiators
also help your target customers identify with you. If you tell them that you specialize
in your industry and your issue, then you are much more likely to get hired.
Defining your difference by answering all of these questions allows you to
thoroughly understand your business and communicate better with your
customers. When you are specific about what you do differently than your
competition, customers can easily identify you as the most appropriate business for
knows your needs. It really simplifies your marketing, promotion and passive.
income processes.
And, when you define your difference first, before you create your brand or marketing
materials, you will ensure that your brand and marketing efforts make you stand out
of your competition simply by communicating these elements of your Brand
Differentiation.
