Brand Differentiation

There is a disease out there and a lot of companies are suffering from it, it’s called surfing the sea of sameness. Companies are looking the same, they are talking the same, they are offering the same kind of products, they are showing up in the same places, and they are doing the same things. Personal brands can suffer from it, entrepreneurs suffers from it, creative pros suffers from it and all sort of businesses suffers from the lacks of brand differentiation. There is this saying that “different is better than better” and when it comes down to business, differentiation is everything in business success.

What is Brand Differentiation?

“Brand differentiation is establishing a core essence of a company product or service that is distinct from the competition.” Why do you need to know about it? As a designer, you need to be able to help your client recognize and establish a level of differentiation in their business. Entrepreneurs as business owners has to be able to look inside of their company and recognize the fact that they may in many cases in some aspect of their company many not be differentiated enough.

How Can You Be Different?

Well the first thing you have to do and so many companies never do this and it just blows my mind when I work with clients, how many of them don’t really understand or haven’t really looked at in detail their competition.

Do a Competitive Audit

When you do a competitive audit, what do you look at? You look at the companies who are your competition, their names, what kind of products and services they offer, what kind of market they are in, what categories are they in, how they look, their brand name, their design, their trade dress, how they visualize their brand, how and where they market themselves, their customer avatars, and how they price their product and services. After you audit your competition you want to ask these questions, is the market crowded? How many competitors do you have in your category? How do the other brands (competitors) differentiate themselves from each other? When you look at the whole landscape of competition, what is the whitespace? Is there any area in that competition where people aren’t playing, where there is room for opportunity to establish a foothold in the market, where the other brands in the other competition is not necessarily doing it or marketing in that particular way? And then the other question is, can you move your brand to take advantage of that whitespace, that area in the market that you can outfly some of your competition? And if you can’t, how can you create a level of differentiation in your company?

What are the levers that you can pull to differentiate yourself from your company’s competition?

•Pricing

•Quality

•Service Level

•Delivery

•Trade Dress

•Marketing (how and where)

•Customer Targets

After you’ve determine that lever you are going to pull, you have to figure out how to make your brand stand out.

Constant Innovation

There is a saying that “the only thing that remains constant is change itself” and someone who doesn’t want to change is someone who wants their business to die. You don’t want that for your business do you? If you want your business to constantly grow, you have to look at the services or products you are offering and constantly innovate and improve them. Once you keep innovating, you are using the feedback that you get from your customers and constantly improving your product. You need to look at your products and completely innovate often as the market prescribe because your clients do not want the same products you are offering some years ago as the same products you are offering now. You need to provide new products.

Additionally as an entrepreneur, you need to have a heart of learning so that every single time you make a misstate you’ll always make sure that your processes and systems are better so that when you move to the next client, you don’t make the same mistakes, you are always improving and that way you can be able to offer better service as you go on.

Niche Down

The reason for this is because when you concentrate fully on a particular market, you can be able to dominate that market. When a person wants a particular product or service that you are offering they can always refer back to you. You have to niche down in order to dominate that market and perhaps when someone is looking for a product in your particular niche you are always on top. If you are able to do that, you can then branch out.

If there are any other tips you can give to entrepreneurs or brands to make them stand out, please share in the comment box below. Thank you❤