Differentiating your differentiators

Arguably the most important part of positioning and messaging for any business is to build a powerful answer to the question, "Why us?"

As product marketers on the hook for all things messaging, we should be considering differentiation from every layer of the messaging stack. What makes the emerging market we’re playing in (e.g., Generative AI) different from the legacy markets we’re disrupting (e.g., search, analytics and reporting, etc)? What makes our company a great place to do business with, work for, or invest in relative to alternatives? What makes our products and services compelling and valuable compared to other solutions available??

It’s extremely easy to fall in love with whatever it is you’re building. Especially if you have a passionate and charismatic engineering- or product-centric founding team who likely built the entire business because of “those features” and can tell a compelling story better than anyone. But leadership does not validate product-market fit and differentiation. They can only hypothesize. The only real validation comes from the market: customers and prospects willing to pay real money for it.??

The most important differentiators can only be the ones that are perceived as relevant and valuable to your target ideal customer profiles and buyers.?

In this article, I’m going to share some things to focus on and some things to avoid when narrowing down your organization’s most compelling differentiators.?

Avoid the “first, best, and only” fallacy

I once had a manager that insisted if we couldn’t prove we were the first, best, or only solution to the problem, he would not consider it as a differentiator. And in some cases these can be useful messages, but as I stated above it’s only useful if it’s relevant to your buyers. And the majority of the time in my experience, customers couldn’t care less or feel these are dubious claims in the first place.? Consider:

• First! Because the first one to bring a product or capability to market is usually the one to do it best? Today we all think of IBM Simon as the gold standard for smartphones, right? I guess BlackBerry was a flash in the pan and no one thinks about Androids and iPhones today. Being first to deliver something can demonstrate your innovation and creativity, but it does not prove your ability to deliver value or your staying power. Use “First” as a differentiator only if you’re confident the product or capability you're innovating is 1) solving a real need, and 2) has already proven to be valuable through user adoption. This means don’t launch the new capability claiming ‘first’ day one, but be patient and ensure it’s moving the needle - then go for it.
• Best! Because the word ‘best’ isn’t at all subjective! Best by whose standards? Hopefully this isn’t simply your opinion and you’ve captured some 3rd party source that you can cite. Perhaps an analyst firm your target buyers trust like Gartner or Forrester published a vendor evaluation where you’re in the upper right. But uh oh, these firms have pretty strict citation guidelines about how you can discuss your placement in these reports. You can’t say you’re “The leader,” you have to say you’re “A leader.” Why? Because analyst firms are clear that their reports are only based on one view of the market’s requirements, and that some of the lower performing vendors in these reports may be “best” suited for other types of use cases. Okay, maybe you’re “best” because you have the highest ranking in a crowd-sourced review site like G2 or Gartner Peer Insights? But are you the highest ranking in every single review site that exists (there are so, so many). If not, then you have to specify which sites you’re best in and can’t claim best across the board because that will open you up to scrutiny and competitive FUD. Perhaps you have really high CSAT and retention rates, which makes you feel confident in that claim. But do you really know the satisfaction scores and retention rates for every potential competitor to compare? See the problem here? Best is just too subjective to be trusted and risks being accused of sounding like “marketing fluff.” (No greater insult to anyone crafting messaging!)
• Only! Because being the ‘only’ vendor providing a capability makes customers feel confident that it’s a non-risky investment that’s been proven valuable by their peers? Similar to the “first” discussion above, this is only a useful differentiator if your innovation and the capability itself is significantly relevant to your target buyers. Oh, and by the way, there’s no way this is a long term differentiator. Let’s say it truly is a game-changer for your business. Imagine that this ‘only’ capability or product hockey-sticks your revenue and market share into the stratosphere- you nailed it! Even if this capability is patent-protected doesn’t mean every competitor isn’t investing massive R&D to come up with their alternative ways to skin that cat. (Gross idiom, but you get the point!)? It’s a relatively short window between “only” and “commoditized.”

Litmus test for bulletproof differentiators

When I’m working to define the right differentiators to use across our go-to-market messaging, I constantly challenge myself and my teams to defend them by asking four questions.? Are they distinctive, credible, easily provable, and valuable??If any of these questions are no, then we keep working on it. Here’s what I mean:?

• Distinctive. Clearly it’s not a differentiator if everyone can do it. But unfortunately, even if everyone can’t do it as well as you, it’s also not a differentiator if everyone is saying it. I learned this lesson in my first few months as a new analyst with Forrester. I was receiving dozens of briefings from vendors introducing themselves to me. They all had their version of a differentiator slide in their pitch decks. And I was shocked (and candidly overwhelmed) by the fact that so many of them were claiming near identical differentiators! How the heck was I supposed to cover this market if the vendors themselves didn’t even know what made them unique? If everyone is saying it (e.g., our technology is AI-driven!; we can connect to anything!), but they then expect you to sit for a 30 minute demo to prove it - it’s not the best differentiator. (See “Easily provable” below)
• Credible. It doesn’t matter if whatever you’re claiming as a differentiator is true or not if your target buyers don’t perceive it as credible or realistic. You’re an early stage start-up claiming to offer a fully functional, mature solution on par with your 15 year old competitor? Not credible. But say you’ve focused on delivering 20% of the functionality that 80% of the competitor’s customers truly value? Credible. Maybe you can do more - but you suddenly are in a debate of credibility vs a compelling value discussion that can lead to a deal. Credibility is also where your customer advocates are most critical. No matter how well crafted and reasonable your differentiator claim may be, having a quote or value statement from a happy customer transforms the claim from compelling to real.?
• Easily provable. This is the toughest, but in my view the most important characteristic of a differentiator. I often say if a differentiator requires a demo or a white paper to prove - it’s not a good differentiator. You should be able to prove it in just a few sentences. This is where you load up on user data, benchmarking, industry proof points, 3rd party research, customer quotes, etc to back up whatever claims you are making. While easily provable is incredibly important, in the end you need to know your target buyer. Some highly technical, but valuable differentiators may in fact require a demo to prove because of its complexity. Understand your buyer and if your “Distinctive” and “Credible” tests pass, that may be enough to earn that demo time.??
• Valuable. ?Have you created a distinctive, credible, and easily provable differentiator that no one cares about? I’ll say it again, because it really is the most important box to check - the differentiator must be relevant to your target buyer. Does it deliver value in some measurable way that your customers care about? Faster time-to-value? Better user experience? Increased adoption? Significant ROI? Reduced risk? If you can build the case that the differentiator will solve a problem your customer cares about, you’re doing great.?

Anything else you’d recommend when crafting your bulletproof differentiators??