November 18, 2010

Competitive Positioning: Avoid Aspirational Intent

An essential component of building a BE DiFFERENT strategy or your organization is declaring HOW you intend to compete and WIN. This is all about deciding what you will do to convince targeted customers to do business with you and only you.

Unfortunately, most organizations that I have studied come up with answers to the HOW to WIN question that describe what they aspire to rather than laying out detailed, specific and concrete reasons for people to buy from them as opposed to others.

Claims like these pervade the marketplace:
- we provide the utmost in service and selection
- we offer the best quality anywhere
- we provide top notch service
- we have been in business for over 50 years
- we provide a wide range of services
- we provide the best network in Canada
- we are the most technologically advanced company in our business
- we have people who care

These types of statements might pass the Vision test, but they do little to stake out a claim that will communicate precisely what the organization intends to to to differentiate itself; they do little to set customer expectations in terms of the behavior they should expect to see and the experience they should expect to enjoy. What exactly do they mean?

Every customer is likely to view the clams differently. Each employee would likely have a different definition of what each means; a big problem when it comes to delivering on the claim. Consistency is required not everyone doing what THEY think the claim means.

They are simply too general and at to high a level to be meaningful and to BE DiFFERENT.

So, examine your competitive claims. Declare your position in compelling precise terms using the only statement… ‘We are the only ones that…’

Leave aspirations out of the strategy room. Get specifc. Create The ONLY Statement that clearly articulates HOW you are DiFFERENT than the herd.

Cheers,
Roy

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Marketing | Strategy | Permalink
Posted 11.18.10 at 07:00 am by Roy Osing | Read Comments (0) | Leave a Comment