If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete. Good advice from Jack Welsh. New market leader? Just thinking about what it would take? Scary? Almost regardless of whom you are or what you do, you have bigger and often better competitors. The market leader. And if you have no competitive advantage, no unique selling proposition, you really can’t compete.
Sailing with no wind? Difficult? Like marketing with no business differentiation. Almost impossible.
We have found many businesses that cannot articulate how their business is truly unique. What analogy to this situation stands out in our mind? Trying to win against your competition without good business differentiation is like trying to sail with no wind.
What works best for value proposition design in your business? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? Be the one who starts a conversation.
People won’t ever buy from you if they don’t even understand why they should pay attention to you. And they notice you only if you have a strong and unique selling proposition.
The usual definition of a unique selling proposition is incomplete. It describes it as a promise of something competition cannot or does not offer. It must be strong enough to move the masses, i.e., attract new customers
A unique selling proposition, if you define it like that, is a decent—but incomplete—internal tool that can guide your decisions in the right general direction. But nothing more.
My market leader … secret # 2
A more useful definition of unique selling propositions is a believable collection of the most persuasive reasons people should notice you and take the action you’re seeking.
This way, it guides your decisions much more clearly and can be used as the basis for marketing messages.
If you don’t have a strong selling proposition, people don’t have good reasons to do either of those.
For example, if your online bookstore has an average selection, decent prices, delivery, a guarantee, good customer service, and a website, why would anyone buy from you? There’s surely a competitor who beats you in at least some of those aspects.
You don’t have to be the best in every way. Sure, it’s great if you are. But realistically, it’s difficult enough to be the best in one way.
However, if you’re the best in at least one way, you’re the best option for the people who value that proposition.
Starbucks doesn’t have the lowest prices. Amazon isn’t the most prestigious. Zappos’ isn’t the easiest way to shop.
People buy from them for other reasons.
So, if your bookstore has the largest selection, for example, but the other things are “just average,” the people who value a large selection have a reason to buy from you.
You must have some product or service element that is unique. Something has to make you the best option for your target customers.
Otherwise, they have no good reason to buy from you.
Can you demonstrate the proof?
If you say, “My pizza is the best in the world,” will people flood your restaurant?
No. They won’t believe you.
Without proof, you can’t say much before it starts to sound like marketing talk. No one pays attention. Or remembers. They just don’t believe. No believing, no trust. It is all downhill after that.
For example, I recently saw a digital marketing competitor site where that claimed to be the secret weapon of digital marketing for the most successful companies in the world. Needless to say, we doubt anyone can take that seriously when nothing supports the claim.
Secret # 3
Being the best isn’t enough. People need to believe you’re the best option for them.
As long as you don’t prove your claims, people are unlikely to really believe them. And your unique selling proposition becomes of no use.
Use studies, testimonials, and common sense, among other methods, to prove your claims.
Impressive numbers can be the right choice, but they don’t always work.
Instead, a few expert testimonials make the idea credible. They can even take away the need for you to make any claims—the testimonials can make the claims for you.
Similarly, you can use testimonials to build your product’s overall perceived value and take away the last doubt people might feel about your promises.
You must act
Many businesses don’t help people see what sets the company apart from its competitors. This always amazes us.
They are better than others, and they could prove it. They just don’t do it.
Instead, they try to persuade people with general promises, corporate babble, and feature lists. If your website doesn’t clearly tell visitors what makes you worth their attention, they won’t spend the time to figure it out on their own.
Secret # 4
It’s your job to hit people in the head with what makes you different and worth attention.
When people understand why they should buy your product instead of any other, they’ll do it.
Your unique selling proposition
When you start creating (or refining) your unique selling proposition, the first step is to find the core of it.
Secret # 5
The core of your unique selling proposition is made up of the ideas that make you clearly the best choice for target customers. As perceived by these customers. Not you. So test your assumptions.
Those few sentences can give you an unfair advantage. To keep the advantage, keep refreshing your uniqueness for your target customers.
Using them well can make you the new market leader. It is the best thing that can do. The current leaders got there because they knew how to do it. Beat them at their game.
Remember this: Information is cheap. Attention is expensive. Time is priceless. Customer time and convenience is a great place to look for business differentiation.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential clients?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And this struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. 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.
More reading on value propositions from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Increasingly, these “curiosities” are attracting the interest of content marketers and bloggers who are looking to find better ways to attract and connect with audiences online.
If you want to stimulate your audience’s curiosity, as a marketing technique, make them aware of something they don’t know. Find the information you can use to tease their perceptions.
If you want more attention for your content, learn to excite customers’ curiosity.
Curiosity is one of the growing levers successful content marketers use to sell products, services, and ideas in this increasingly noisy world.
Let’s take a look at the research.
What creates curiosity?
According to research by Carnegie Mellon’s George Loewenstein, curiosity occurs when there is a gap between what we know and what we want to know. Curiosity is a kind of cognitive thirst that wants to be quenched.
But that’s only half of the story. Equally important is this follow-up study from Caltech which shows that curiosity increases (to a point) as knowledge increases and then drops off.
The important thing to note is that a lack of information will, in general, create curiosity. At the same time, once a sufficient amount of information is received, curiosity decreases.
Related: 12 Fundamental Laws of Content Marketing
Here are two important principles of curiosity to consider:
To make a person curious create a gap between what they know and what they want to know.
To maintain curiosity we must “leak” our knowledge a bit at a time without giving away too much.
Utilize the curiosity gap.
For marketers, using the curiosity gap generally means:
Introducing something new that existing knowledge or previous experiences can’t explain
Starting a story, pausing at a climactic moment, and delaying the conclusion of it
Introducing an idea or concept and connecting it with an unexpected outcome or subject
Withholding key information for a manageable period of time (not too long)
We receive many questions on whether using curiosity in marketing is a ‘new age’ type of marketing. In our opinion, it is not. Why may you be wondering?
Well, in our opinion good marketing has had curiosity as a marketing technique since the beginning.
The only thing new is the expanded reach and usage that a business has in our new age of the internet, digital happenings.
I love finding brilliant utilization of curiosity in marketing creative that makes me wish I thought of it. And I especially love it, when it’s for a client that’s trying to make the audience think and imagine a little more.
That’s what curiosity in marketing is all about. It can be powerful when done well.
Chances are, you’re either withholding all the specific information or giving it all away.
To get attention and engage the curiosity, look for ways to turn information into a quest.
Strive to make the information personally relevant
Make your missing information tease interesting
Offer the promise of something worthwhile
Use visuals to suggest or create the perception of mystery
Avoid using material that is given away freely elsewhere.
Maybe you need to consider creating some curiosity in your content. Consider these 5 points that will convince you:
Without curiosity
… there is less imagination.
Without imagination
… there is limited creativity.
Curiosity leaves open
… the possibility of surprise, newness, and the desire to explore.
Offering somethingunanticipated
… provides drama, excitement, and anticipation.
Creative curiosity
… can be the secret to improving your social media engagement.
For the sake of curiosity … here are three examples to illustrate this technique:
The first is an interesting promotion from California Pizza Kitchen, one where creating curiosity was used to engage consumers. At the end of my dinner, I was given the bill and a CPK ‘Don’t Open’ Thank You Card.
It’s a coupon with an interesting twist: you bring this card with you the next time you come to CPK. You’ve already won something, from a free appetizer up to $50 dollars (or more).
But you won’t know what you’ve won until your next visit.
The instructions are pretty clear: whatever you do, do not open the card or your prize is null and void! A manager has to open the card for you when you return.
You are guaranteed to get something worthwhile, and this is a critical part of arousing curiosity.
Now I’m curious: which prize have I won?
A second example is from Steve Jobs during his time at Apple. He was the master of exploiting natural curiosity to the company’s advantage.
Jobs would hint at a product demo, would leak a product prototype and then Apple would embargo all official information between the demo and the release.
By the time the product was released the world would be abuzz with bloggers and Apple loyalists interpreting and speculating as to the latest features and design.
This practice consistently helped Apple receive expressions to buy, reaching far into the millions before their products were even released.
The third and final example was from the final episode of the HBO hit series The Sopranos. David Chase, the creator of the Sopranos, used curiosity to achieve what many critics now hail as the most innovative hour of viewing in recent episodic television history.
Fans of the show waited with anticipation to find out the fate of Mafioso Tony Soprano, the main character and from whose viewpoint the story is told. Would he or wouldn’t he be “whacked?”
Debates had been raging for the many months since Chase had announced the final airdate. But instead of a concrete finale, television screens suddenly went black seemingly in mid-scene during the final seconds.
Credits rolled within a few more seconds, and The Sopranos series came to an end.
What is so fascinating about the abrupt ending is not the decision itself, although it was unprecedented and broke new ground artistically.
Rather, it is the aftermath that was most interesting.
No fully-developed conclusion would have engaged viewers with nearly the same lingering depth and intensity. The ending had little to do with the storyline.
What is interesting here is not the reaction itself, for that might have been predictable in this age of satellite and cable TV, but that everyone had the same reaction in that no one saw it for what it was, as the ending.
They saw it as something gone wrong.
And that made viewers stop and think. So it’s what occurred over the course of the next 48 hours or so that is worth noting.
Realizing that every frame was carefully crafted by Chase, who both wrote and directed the episode, viewers re-examined scene after scene, noting both blatant and subtle visual clues, soundtrack hints, veiled dialogue, and post-show references.
Theory after theory popped up in both online and traditional media. The debate took on a life of its own. Viewers crafted their own endings, filling in the missing piece with the trail of code Chase had provided.
David Chase did what many of the best innovators are doing in many different domains: creatively engaging people’s imaginations by leaving out the right things.
What information can you eliminate that arouses maximum curiosity and creates the best imagination of your audience?
Bottom line
In this article, we’ve explored a multitude of creative ways small business marketing can use curiosity to increase engagement and build customer imagination.
The key takeaway is to know your audience and what they’re most likely to respond to. Give them more of that.
Here’s the thing, curiosity isn’t just a new way of marketing, it’s really a new way of building intrigue with your messages.
The best marketers certainly have figured this out and are using the technique to rapidly grow their business.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. 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:
11 Steps to Media Framing Messages for Optimum Engagement
Digital Storytelling … 4 Ways to Employ for Message Persuasion
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 small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
