Making yourself stand out from the competition is key to success in business and sometimes, your product does that for you.
If you develop a product that is unlike anything else on the market, you have already differentiated yourself from the competition and given your business a unique selling point. But what if you sell a very common product?
If you sell winter coats, for example, there are thousands of other businesses around the world that sell the same product. How can you make yours different from everybody else’s because that’s the key to catching customer’s attention?
Here’s how you can differentiate an everyday product from the competition.
Change Your Packaging
The packaging is the first thing that people see when they’re browsing products on a shelf, and it has a big role to play in the purchasing decision.
If you can make your packaging more interesting and do something that nobody else is, it immediately draws the customer to your product. Just remember that the customer still needs to know what the product is, so don’t go overboard and forget all about practicality.
The mobile accessory company, Juice, are a great example of how to use clever packaging to differentiate a basic item. They sell a lot of phone charging cables but instead of packing them in a simple box or bag, they created packaging that looks like a small juice carton, complete with a lid.
It’s transparent, so the customer can easily see the product, but it’s different from all of the other products around it. It’s also related to the company name and it is now a central part of their brand. They are further improving this packaging innovation by making it 100% recyclable too.
Find A Niche
Many businesses struggle to differentiate their products because they are too broad with their branding. If you are selling kitchen equipment, for example, think about who you are targeting.
You might think that anybody that cooks, which is most people, are good potential customers. But there are countless other companies out there doing the same thing, so you have to find a niche.
Create a range of time-saving cooking gadgets and target them at busy parents, for example. Maybe you can focus on a specific cuisine or method of cooking? Whatever you decide, you need to position yourself as an expert in a specific area, instead of aiming for a general audience.
Build A Reputation
Reputation is so important if you want to set yourself apart from the competition. If you’re selling an everyday product, you must work hard to build and maintain the right kind of reputation.
Take Levi’s, for example. They’re not the only company that sells jeans, in fact, there are thousands of them. But everybody associates Levi’s with quality and there is a general consensus that their jeans are better than anybody else. You can get cheaper jeans elsewhere and they probably look much the same, but people are still willing to pay more for Levi’s because of their reputation.
Differentiating everyday products from the competition is tough, but it’s the only way that your business will survive.
