Are you dramatically different? by
Troy WhiteOne of the best books you will ever discover to help you grow your business is Doug Hall's 'Jump Start Your Business Brain'. It is an underground classic that is absolutely wonderful advice - it is the book that helped me break free of mediocrity into a life I absolutely love.
One of his biggest points in the book is how you can create a company that is *dramatically different* than any, and every, competitor in your marketplace.
It doesn't sound easy at first.
Honestly, how many hairdressers or dry cleaners or grocery stores are there in your city that are DRAMATICALLY different?
Few and far between.
In fact, it appears to me that most business owners lose all sense of creativity when they start their business.
The typical process they go through?
Look at what all their competitors do, where they advertise, the types of advertisements they run, the marketing materials they use, the web sites they have... and then they COPY everyone else.
Open your yellow pages for proof... in house painting or carpet cleaning... what is DRAMATICALLY different? Or any section for that matter.
How do you create a dramatic difference in your business? And why should this be considered important?
First, having a dramatic difference gives you a 353% better chance of succeeding (based on thousands of business success stories being ran through a computer model Doug Hall invented). That alone should be enough.
So - tripling your odds of making your business the leader in your industry is all you need to know at this point.
NOTE: 80% of copycats end up failing in their business - so this is very important.
Now, let's get into how to create your own dramatic difference.
1) List out all your biggest benefits you provide right now. If you struggle with this - list out all your features on the left side of the page then the benefit of that on the right.
2) List out your competitors biggest benefits as well - same method.
3) Cross out the benefits on your list that are the same as your competitors.
(great service is not a benefit - everyone says that - unless you do something different with your service offerings)
4) Is there anything left over? If so, you have the start of a dramatic difference. If no, you need to get real serious about this. If your customers can't tell the difference between you and your competitors you are in trouble (and they judge this by this same process - who appears to be different or better?)
5) Can you create a dramatic difference from this so far?
6) Can you answer - ' is the first to offer _________ in this industry' or 'What makes different is that we are the only company out there that offers _________'?
Write out 6 answers to each of those.
Does it SHINE? Or does it suck?
If your statement doesn't leap off the page as a big breakthrough - keep working on it. What difference could make your business 10 TIMES greater than all your competitors?
With so many daily distractions in front of your potential customers - you have to create a MASSIVE difference in their eyes.
What would make them stop everything they are doing to visit your store, read your ad, or answer your letter to them?
Find a way to become dramatically different and you will succeed. Probably the best way to find your own dramatic difference is to look at what your competitors are doing - and do the opposite! And the easiest way to do the opposite is to look at OTHER industries to see what they do differently than you do - THEN find a way to use their difference in your own business.
If you paint houses - copy the service ideas behind cleaning companies, window cleaners, tree trimmers.
If you run an accounting firm - copy the service ideas behind printing companies, marketing consultants, house painters, car detailers.
If you run an information product business - copy the service ideas behind luxury property rentals, artists, paving companies, fence builders, moving companies or pizza delivery companies.
YES - these are completely off-the-wall, unbelievably abstract ideas. That's the point!
Find out what works best in other industries (stands out as the most bizarre way to do business in your own industry) - and copy that idea. Try it out for a few months and see how people respond.
You will be pleasantly surprised.
Troy White, The Marketing Results Mentor and Expert Copywriter helps clients achieve HUGE growth surges in their business in very short periods of time. He is a very sought after marketer and advertising specialist who has helped launch some of the world's most profitable marketing systems. For more info visit White's site at
http://www.SmallBusinessCopywriter.com or sign up for his Free Cash Flow Surge Newsletter at
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Are you dramatically different?
How To Compete With The Big Boys by
Jerry Bader -Every business needs to do everything it can to stand out from the crowd, to differentiate itself from the competition. This is a major challenge for companies that sell substantially the same thing as their competitors.
The average business does not have the resources of a multinational corporation that often uses its substantial marketing muscle to buy market share or to drive competition out of the marketplace. Big business also uses its deep pockets to flood various media with advertising, making them a pervasive presence.
The Web has always been an egalitarian environment where smaller companies could present themselves using the same techniques as the big boys, and if these companies did it well they could stand side-by-side with their competitive behemoths.
One thing that small and medium sized businesses should take some comfort in is that many large corporations are notoriously poorly run, relying on brawn rather than brain to get the job done. Many survive because over time they have acquired huge resources, become oligopolies, or they use predatory marketing practices to stifle competition.
As the Web becomes more and more a multimedia environment, corporations are starting to use their financial resources, and inventory of commercial assets and programming (not to be confused with computer programming), to deliver their marketing messages. The question is can smaller businesses compete, and if so, how?
Slipstream Marketing
Dr. Max Sutherland, a Marketing Psychologist and Professor at Bond University, has written about a concept he refers to as 'slipstreaming.' Anyone who is familiar with motor racing or even bicycle racing understands that slipstreaming is a drafting method where a racer tucks behind a front-running rival reducing wind resistance and saving fuel and energy, and with a quick move, the challenger can slingshot past the race leader.
The clever implementation of slipstream style marketing campaigns can allow you to blow by your competition by using the momentum of well-known and instantly recognizable campaigns.
Slipstreaming references a collective audience memory, a kind of shared consciousness. Skillful execution draws instant recognition and an "Oh I Get It!" reaction without a lot of wasted setup or groundwork.
"Give Me The Same Thing, But Different!"
The key of course is how you make your version different. What's the twist? Blake Snyder, a Hollywood screenwriter and author, writes about entertainment executives' constant refrain, "Get me the same thing, but different." What Snyder has learned and what he preaches is that movie moguls understand it's easier to get people to go to a movie they understand and that was already a success, but the trick is making the new version different, that is different but the same.
If you think slipstreaming is an easy way to be creative you're wrong. Being different but the same is not as simple as it sounds, but success can depend on it. Done poorly slipstreaming comes off as lame and imitative, but done correctly you appear clever and cutting-edge, and more importantly you deliver the marketing message in a way your audience will remember.
There are an endless variety of things you can slipstream: personalities, icons, slogans, music, advertisements, news events, pop culture phenomena, movies, television shows, commercials, and sporting events.
Personalities
One of our favorite personality slipstreaming techniques is the use of voice-over. It can be implemented as part of a video campaign or as a stand-alone feature. We have used sound-alike actors to portray Rod Serling, Sam Elliot, Steve Irwin, Paul Winfield, Tom Brokaw, and many others.
What makes this approach so valuable is that most people will relate to the voice as someone they know, or are familiar with, but not immediately recognize.
This method captures people's attention with the familiar sound of a famous voice but without the cost of hiring the celebrity. Often the voice does not even have to be that close to the original, it's the cadence, deliver, tone, and script that makes people sit-up and take notice.
Cutting through the jungle of advertising noise is a challenge for everyone in business and this technique is a very effective method of getting heard and being remembered.
Television Shows
Another slipstream technique we've used is to play upon the audience's knowledge and familiarity with certain television shows. We have created Web-videos, written scripts, added dialogue and composed music that reminds people of the old 'Twilight Zone' series and the popular A&E show, 'City Confidential.'
Commercials
One of our most successful Web-promotion campaigns was the 'Multimedia Versus SEO Campaign' (http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads) where we took advantage of the well know Macintosh Versus PC television commercials. Nobody needed an explanation or setup to understand what was going on in the commercials. We basically slipstreamed Apple's television campaign.
Slogans
Slogans are another resource for slipstreaming and if you think only small companies slipstream, think again. The A&E Network used the slogan "Time Well Spent" for many years, while The Comedy Network slipstreamed it with their own twisted version "Time Well Wasted" - the same thing, but different.
Music
With the popularity of Hip Hop music, the milk marketing board developed a series of commercials with diary farmers rapping to a catchy Hip Hop tune well prancing around their farm animals. Hip Hop was also slipstreamed by Smirnoff in their Raw Tea campaign and 'Tea Partay' viral video.
Pop Culture
With the popularity of poker and the World Poker Tour, we developed a Mike Sexton style character, host of the television show, for one of our projects. We've even created nostalgia radio-style audio pitches that hark back to the olden age of radio plays.
Movies
We created an entire campaign for a client based on the idea, "Life Deserves A Sound Track" where everyday situations were described in dramatic style with familiar voice-over announcers, which was our take on Will Ferrell's hit movie 'Stranger Than Fiction.'
Sports
We've created presentations using the personas of famous sports figures like Hall of Fame pitcher and broadcaster Dizzy Dean and Mel Allan. We created scenarios and scripts using the voices and personas of World Champion racecar driver Jackie Stewart and one crazy script fashioned in the style of college basketball analyst Dick Vitale.
Conclusion
As you can see from these examples, there are an endless number of ways to take advantage of the public's shared experience. So the next time you need to come up with a new Web marketing campaign for your company, think like a Hollywood mogul: Come Up With Something That's The Same, But Different.
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.
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How To Compete With The Big Boys
What Marketing Is For by
Keith Awen -Marketing is an action who’s result is an increase in the selling of products and services. These products and services should completely satisfy customers while at the same time making money for the company that is promoting and making this product.
Marketing is not supposed to be an underhanded forced fed take no objection affair. Marketing is and should be a win-win situation in which the customer purchases a product that fills a need they have and in compensation for excellent service or a fantastic product then pays that company money. This profit allows the company to continue to do business in order to continue creating and helping people through the service they provide.
If this is the definition then it becomes obvious that one of the first steps in your marketing campaign should be to find out what a customer needs. A focus on what the customer wants or needs is essential to successful marketing efforts. Once you know what a customer wants, then the next thing is to make sure that you can maintain a volume of sales that will continue to produce a profit for the company.
The marketing campaign is a continuously morphing creature that is always trying to create the optimum balance of complete client satisfaction and increasing company profits. Marketing starts with the filling of a need and the bigger that need, the more potential for profits and increasing the quality of life for your customers.
The process of marketing begins with discovering what product customers want to buy. This bears repeating because if there is no need, then the job of marketing becomes quite challenging. Nobody is looking for what you have to offer. It is always better to put your bait into a pond of hungry fish then into an empty bathtub. This is of course only if you want to catch fish.
After you know what you will be selling and that there is a demand, things become easier. From here it is a matter of letting people know where to get your product, how to deliver it to their hands and setting the price in a range that will entice a purchase.
One of the biggest things to remember about marketing is that it is easier to keep every customer happy, than to constantly go and find new ones. Once you get a customer, make sure they love your product or service. When you get to the point that you have thousands of customers singing the virtues of your company or product, your job marketing and getting the word out gets that much easier!
With happy customers, you have a business. Once you establish the reputation of putting out quality products, your future marketing efforts are more warmly received. If a customer is happy with your xyz product and then you come out with the xyz2 then that product is almost pre-sold. Mr. Smith knows you put out quality stuff. He trusts you and if you are offering to fill a need that he has for a reasonable price, he will buy your new product. The best part is that he will buy it from you instead of your competition because you have built a relationship on quality and trust. Mr. Smith will be a customer for life as long as you treat him well.
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What Marketing Is For
