Better or different?

Maybe I just opened the Pandora Box?

We’ll see…

I saw this “battle” over and over: Better vs Different.

Your business, service, marketing, whatever… should be better or different vs competitors?

Well, let’s see what happens from a marketing point of view when you do it better:

You probably end up highlighting this over and over on your website, content, messaging… because you’re better.

And don’t get me wrong, this is not necessarily an issue…

The real issue is that too often “better” doesn’t really mean anything.

I mean, let’s accept it: everyone is saying they are better in one way or another.

So “better” isn’t a measuring unit… it’s kind of a norm.

Which means in reality when the focus is only on “better”… it’s just “the same”, written with different words.

Your service could be better, your marketing could be better, but if you just say “it’s better” – it is not.

So… maybe you should try to be different?

Let’s see what “different” really means:

Well, it means that from a potential customer point of view, you’re not put in the same bucket with the same ease.

That’s because in one way or another… you’re different.

And when the potential customer enters the “comparison mode”, they will find it hard to compare your company with others.

It feels like comparing apples with meat in a supermarket… both feed you, but in different ways and with a different scope.

This means by being different you manage to escape the “competition race” – where too often the winner is based on price.

But…

The thing is that you don’t have to say you’re different, you have to be different.

Because if you’re just saying it, it’s like trying to highlight that you are better using the word “different”.

And you just saw what happens in those cases.

Truly being different is 99% a result of Positioning.

Which is the outcome of a well-defined business context, deep customer research, proper segmentation, and competitive analysis.

This is how you can find your differentiation and highlight it in your positioning.

This is how you make competition irrelevant. And when you’re doing this… you will finally get those leads and customers easily and faster.

That’s because potential customers see your company as “better” because… you’re different.

Funny, huh?

So…

In a world full of “better”, beat them at their own game by being different.