Our office library is filled with ideas for marketing performance collateral – marketing presentations, advertising pieces, marketing brochures, swag items – that small businesses from around our two operating regions have sent to us. This includes the BMW marketing performance.
Most of the copy, layouts, themes, titles, paper stock, and binding are similar. The differences pretty much extend to color and brand logo.
We’ve also seen a lot of businesses somehow, miraculously, come up with the same marketing campaign, tagline or website copy as a competitor or competitors.
This copycat behavior is rampant in many small businesses. And it’s deeply illogical given the job marketing has to do: tell each company’s unique story.
The whole point of branding and marketing is to differentiate, not assimilate.
I spent the majority of my adult life managing organizations and I always felt enormous pressure to innovate, but whenever I went looking for guidance, what I found was a confused jumble. Disruptive innovation, design thinking, open innovation, lean launchpads and on and on. Unlike marketing or finance, there wasn’t anyone clear framework.
Yet it is also more complex because there are so many problems and so few solutions. To solve a really tough problem, you have to look far and wide to find the right combination of ideas. That takes an enormous amount of dedication and skill. However, there’s no evidence that these talents are innate. You can learn the skills you need to up your innovation game.
Ideas for BMW marketing performance … our greatest discovery
We do competitive analyses for clients to illustrate the opportunities to stand out. We study websites, social channels, print ads, recruiting materials, PR campaigns, and property marketing to understand what our client is up against.
So far this year, we’ve researched over 30 businesses of various sizes. The themes the majority of these business markets around are:
We’re an XXX business.
We’re ethical.
We’re independent.
We’re a franchise brand you know.
We have the most business.
We sell the most marketing
We’re local.
We’re smarter.
We have market share.
We have better technology.
The problem isn’t that these things aren’t important, basic as most may be. The problem is that too many businesses are circling the same messages.
While most ideas lead to nothing, some create enormous value. Calculus, the theory of evolution and the telephone made our lives better no matter who came up with them first. That’s not because of the idea itself, but what was built on top of it. Ideas only create a better future when they mix with other ideas. Innovation, to a large degree, is a combination.
The stories of Alexander Fleming and Jim Allison are instructive. In Fleming’s case, it was scientists at another lab that picked up the initial idea and did the work to make it into a useful cure. Then they went to America to work with other labs and, eventually, pharmaceutical companies to do the work needed to go from milliliters in the lab to metric tons in the real world.
And, to make matters worse, almost none of the companies swimming in this pool explain to the world why these things matter. Or how they differentiate.
Beyond a clone
One of the easiest ways to break free from this sameness is to ask yourself, “What can my company say that my competitors can’t say or won’t say“?
Then, from your audience’s point of view, ask yourself, “Why should I care”?
Imagine, for instance, that business said this:
We’re independent, not a national franchise. This means that we are more adaptable to local market conditions and can make quicker, more informed judgments about every transaction.
We are #1 in sales here. As a result, we have more insight to share with clients about why people choose us, why they sell, what they can afford, and what people are willing to spend.
Now we’re talking.
But just writing these words isn’t enough. To be effective, a business needs to build experience and a story around them through design, content, and interactions that continuously shows people that these things are true.
BMW marketing performance … easy wins for standing out
Let’s carry this thinking through to a simple example:
Your website is a place where you should create an immediate differentiation from your competitors. Dozens and dozens of local small business websites are some variations of this:
How many other versions of the same thing exist in St. Louis? Or your city?
As a result, each of these businesses has defined themselves as marketing websites with no other added value to offer. If one has the most productive staff in town and the other has a hard-to-beat service guarantee, we’d never know by looking at their websites.
The point of clarity and what they are building meaning around.
Tell people what’s in it for them.
The way to win
The secret to success is to do the common thing uncommonly well.
-John D. Rockefeller
Suppose you’re in the market to hire the best digital marketing agency. Or perhaps your goal is to become the world’s best digital marketer. What are the attributes of digital marketing success? Would you be satisfied with doing the common thing uncommonly well as Rockefeller says?
After spending many decades developing marketing messages, advertising, and integrated digital marketing campaigns, there are attributes and skills of a great digital marketer that stand out to me.
You can use them to help your self-development or as criteria to find your value proposition. Here are some differentiation ideas.
BMW marketing performance … curiosity
Great marketers are like six-year-olds; they always want to know why. Curiosity is the gateway to clarity. As Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.“
Clarity
The difference between a marketer and someone who writes is that the former enlightens the reader while the latter tends to confuse the reader.
BMW marketing performance … Self-editing
Arrogance undermines quality. Great marketers know when their messages stink and treat them accordingly.
Some marketers are uncomfortable with the concept of a hard sales pitch; others are uncomfortable with “boring” assignments. Both are uncomfortable when not working campaigns.
Knows when to ask for help
A good marketer has two choices: struggle endlessly with a vexing problem or get help from a subject matter expert. The latter option improves speed and accuracy.
Has perspective
Great marketers don’t make mountains out of molehills. Those who continually get hung up on small matters of style or approach infuriate coworkers and bosses.
BMW marketing performance … knows when to skip the rules
Selectively breaking the rules is a sophisticated technique for capturing attention. Apple’s “Think Different” campaign succeeded in part by departing from the boring and pedestrian phrase, to think differently.
Understands the business world
The best marketers are ones that work best with what they know. Thus, a first-rate marketer understands the business process, customer behavior, and basic business concepts such as features and benefits.
Anticipates reader questions and concerns
Because great marketers understand the business world, they can identify probable reactions from the target audience – and address them in the marketing strategy.
Also, this knowledge enables them to discard messaging points that are not pertinent. An ounce of anticipation is worth a pound of verbosity.
BMW marketing performance … tells stories
Today’s content strategies have circled back to perhaps the oldest technique of all, storytelling. The ability to spin yarns is essential for grabbing and holding attention as well as influencing audiences.
Listens
Most great marketers I know are better at listening than talking – maybe because they are often introverts by nature. Listening is crucial to many aspects of business, including content creation, because it is the surest way to understand the needs of a company’s leadership and its customers.
Think logically
Most business writing is aimed at influencing action – influencing prospects to buy, customers to stay, investors to invest, etc. Since business decisions are made in part based on compelling arguments, marketers must be able to lay them out logically.
Influences with emotion
Because business decisions are also based on feelings, marketers must be able to provoke emotional responses in their messages. Warm prospects freeze when exposed to cold messages.
Not a desk jockey
Great marketers aren’t just about reading and writing. Instead, they go out into the real world and talk to employees, customers, and even competitors. Without this, they lose their feel – or never acquire it.
Is imaginative
Although in some business situations, imagination may be seen as negative, employers should not come down too hard on marketers who appear to be daydreaming or throw out lots of ideas.
Have a sense of humor
Sylvia Plath and Edgar Allan Poe were brilliant writers, but neither would be particularly effective or happy writing an infomercial script for miracle meat slicers. A lighthearted spirit helps marketers plow through “boring” and “trivial” assignments, connect with readers and work well collaboratively.
Improve your message & marketing
If you’re ready to take your brand to a new level with simple, clear and distinct messaging, we should talk.
The bottom line
The battle for service personnel and consumers is red hot. While traditional staff copies each other, new brands are sandblasting their value by going into differentiated directions.
To win, you can no longer continue this pattern of saying anything, designing nothing or being just a slightly different version of their competitor. Instead, you must dig deep, figure out what your difference is and articulate it clearly.
If you’ve been around for a century, that matters. Tell that story.
If you have the best service personnel in the market, that matters. Tell that story.
If you know things, others don’t because you have data they do not have, that matters. Tell that story.
If being part of a franchise gives you advantages others don’t have, that matters. Tell that story.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing created by remarkable customer service. And put it to good use.
It’s up to you to keep improving your creative marketing strategies. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of a small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
