The difference test
Kevin Mason
Fractional CMO | B2B Marketing Strategist | Manufacturing & Engineering Specialist
This week, ask your team to do this for you. Copy the positioning statement from your website and those of your competitors, and paste them into a document – just the words.
Gather the team together, put the statements up on a screen and see if you can identify who’s who.
Then, switch the screen off, and see how many you remember.
Chances are, they’ll all read pretty much the same:
“We’re a leading supplier of X”
“We’re specialist experts in Y”
“We have a proud history of Z”
And when the screen’s switched off, you won’t remember any of them.
If you can’t tell the difference between you and the competition, and you remember nothing of what was said, imagine how your customers feel. To them, everyone’s an expert, everyone’s leading and proud. No matter how deep they dig into the details of what you’re saying, they have no way of verifying any of it. The only tangible thing they’ll have to base their decision on is price.
The conclusion? In your sector, marketing’s not done it’s job: to grow market share and protect margins through differentiation.
The good news is, you have an opportunity to claim a different, memorable, unique value proposition, and stand out in the sea of mediocrity.
The threat is that everyone else in B2B land is waking up and thinking the same right now.