Can prospects really understand what makes you unique?
Let’s face it. Technology buyers have lots of choices. They don’t HAVE to do business with us. They can almost always solve their problems in other ways or with someone else’s product or service. The trick is to make them want to do business with you – and you alone.
Lost in the Pack
Unfortunately, a lot of technology companies take a “me too” approach to messaging and positioning, and they attempt to mimic what their competitors are saying.
More than once we’ve conducted a little experiment with a client’s competitors. We take their website home page, collateral and ads; remove the logo and company / product names; and along with the client try to identify the owner of each piece. The companies that stand out in any meaningful way are few and far between.
Try it with your competitors.
As painful as it may be for us to admit, quite often in the minds of buyers, one solution is pretty much the same as the others. Research has shown this to be true especially among the top three software applications in a market.
It doesn’t matter if the solutions are the same or not – it’s what your prospects believe. If you don’t give them some specific – and valuable – way your solution is unique, they default to the only thing they can really compare: price.
And that is something we definitely want to avoid.
Technorati Tags: marketing, technology, software, tactics, messaging, positioning
This article was first published October 8, 2007 on the Tatum Marketing blog
Let’s face it. Technology buyers have lots of choices. They don’t HAVE to do business with us. They can almost always solve their problems in other ways or with someone else’s product or service. The trick is to make them want to do business with you – and you alone.
Lost in the Pack
Unfortunately, a lot of technology companies take a “me too” approach to messaging and positioning, and they attempt to mimic what their competitors are saying.
More than once we’ve conducted a little experiment with a client’s competitors. We take their website home page, collateral and ads; remove the logo and company / product names; and along with the client try to identify the owner of each piece. The companies that stand out in any meaningful way are few and far between.
Try it with your competitors.
As painful as it may be for us to admit, quite often in the minds of buyers, one solution is pretty much the same as the others. Research has shown this to be true especially among the top three software applications in a market.
It doesn’t matter if the solutions are the same or not – it’s what your prospects believe. If you don’t give them some specific – and valuable – way your solution is unique, they default to the only thing they can really compare: price.
And that is something we definitely want to avoid.
Thu, Nov 5, 2009
Conversion Rates, Traffic
Written by: Susan Tatum