We are experts at ignoring and tuning out. We especially ignore things that are like other things we’ve seen before. It’s a natural response to the clutter that surrounds us every day. Our brains have learned to look for the new and the different, and to ignore that which is undifferentiated. Most of marketing is about efficiently defeating this built-in, natural reflex, and causing potential customers to see our offering as new and different and valuable. In product and service positioning, it’s vital to stand out. In this article I will talk about some simple ways of setting yourself apart from the pack. First, some preconceptions that we might as well remove right at the beginning.
Here’s an instructive story about differentiation in the most difficult of circumstances:
more >You might think that construction sand is the ultimate commodity. You can get it from anywhere, the standards are very basic. It comes off the back of a truck. Well, it turns out that construction sand is a critical deliverable in the life of a building project. In large cities with unionized workers, the cost of an idle construction team is crippling. So if the sand is late, it can cost you a fortune.
One construction sand company in New York figured this out, and added a performance guarantee to their product. They charge significantly more than ...