What Makes You Different? And The Answer Is…

Everyone one of use is bombarded from more channels than ever before to grab our attention. So, what makes you different?

The key to standing out is to make people’s lives easier.

It has now become more commonplace to blend in with everyone else, most products or services that are out there just form part of a landscape that is full of ‘me too’s’. Couple that with a world where attention spans are now very short, it certainly is a challenge to identify what makes you and your product different.

Here are a couple of examples from the same night that puts this into practice, by packaging something up differently from the rest of the competition.

First it was the Friday night empty fridge and something to have for dinner. The answer was within the realms of Marks & Spencer’s ‘Dine In For 2, For £10.’ What this is, is effectively ready meals to heat up in the microwave (with a bottle of wine), but packaged in a way that it felt a bit of a treat (and in no way can I say that putting a plastic carton to heat up in a microwave is a treat). This is what I mean by avoiding being a ‘me too’ product (a ready meal), by doing something different (packaging up as ‘fine cuisine’).

Then example two happened fifteen minutes after the cooked trays went in the bin (can you see what weekend’s I have here!). I took advantage of watching a film via Netflix. This is an example of a medium that has changed an entire industry with a simple idea. Netflix didn’t change a product, they just packaged it up differently, to stand out from the competition and to make the customer’s lives easier (in this case watching films instantly).

Coming back to our products and services that we strive for attention in our marketplaces, the key is to provide a benefit that solves problems for others and positioned in a way that others/prospects take notice, with the knock on effect to know, trust and like us.

Too often, brands end up mimicking other brands, so how can you stand out? For instance, within Dorset (which is where we are based), the industry (which The ID Group is within), there are approximately 150 companies providing design/brand/marketing/digital services. That is a huge number of companies fighting for the same attention. So, the challenge for The ID Group is to make what we do, worth talking about. Big thanks to Matt Desmier from Wise Old Uncle for that stat, by the way.

What makes you stand out is to provide a service that people care about and instead of blending in with everyone else, go in the opposite direction. If you provide people with a reason to pay attention, they will listen.