Differentiating Yourself the Guerrilla Marketing Way
I had blogged recently that in the world of services, it’s difficult to differentiate your services from your competitors down the street who provide a similar service. And when prospects see little differentiation in value, they judge on price.
I recently picked up the book Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants, which has been pretty interesting so far. Jay Conrad Levinson and Michael W. McLaughlin address the problem of differentiation extremely well - describing how consultants try to position themselves with well meaning, but generic terminology:
A typical web site states, “Our service offerings are designed to help our clients generate revenue, reduce costs and access the information necessary to operate their businesses on a timely basis.” Sounds good, but how are they going to do that? Check out 15 other consultant web sites and you’ll find lots more of the same. Not only do the sites look alike, they all make equally ambiguous, noncompelling claims.
What are some of those ambiguous claims that don’t work? According to Levinson and McLaughlin, you should stay away from the following:
- Quality service: Everyone claims they offer “quality” service.
- Best price: Most clients won’t hire the cheapest consultants to handle their toughest problems.
- Methods, tools, and approaches: Clients expect that every serious consultant have an arsenal of tools to use to complete the job quickly and efficiently.
- Service responsiveness: Clients demand “on time” and “on budget” from you or will find someone else.
- Credentials: Clients care more about what you’ve done on similar projects and how that can help them.
- Importance to the client: Clients see this as hype unless they already have a previous relationship.
- Testimonials and references: Instead, show prospects your complete client list and have them choose who to call.
- Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD: Clients ignore such a ploy.
After seeing such a list, you might wonder what the authors suggest does work. They respond with:
- Category authority: Be a specialist, not a generalist.
- Simplicity. Make sure clients understand your offer and feel good about buying it.
- A real guarantee.
- Giving something away. Demonstrate your expertise by providing a complementary seminar, phone briefing or research report.
- Honesty. Tell clients what they can realistically expect.
- Highly recognized, third party testimonials. Get testimonials from well known institutions or authority figures to add credibility.
- Being first (at something). Stress one benefit that you are the first or only to provide.
- Innovation. Bring new ideas that drastically improve your client’s business.
- Defy conventional wisdom. Don’t follow everyone else when something is hot, but take a reasoned approach to entering the new area.
Now, take a look at your marketing materials and website copy. With these points in mind, how can you make your differentiating factor stronger? How can you show prospects that you can do what you say?
For more insight into Guerrilla Marketing, you can visit their blog.
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Categories: Marketing Planning
