Does your product need differentiation?
Hello!
Merry Christmas!
Is it too early to be saying that? It is? Ah well.
Let’s chat product marketing.
Do you need to differentiate your product?
Differentiation is coming up a lot right now when I’m chatting with other product marketers.
There’s a realisation happening among us that you can’t solely rely on the features you offer to own your position in the market, because there is nothing stopping your competitors - both new and old - from copying the best parts of your product.
Even the biggest of brands are willing to do it - all of the time. Remember how Instagram copied Stories from Snapchat? Or look at how Twitter is making Clubhouse redundant with the emergence of Spaces.
So you shouldn’t be too dependent on your product offering when it comes to differentiation. Some would even challenge whether you actually need to differentiate at all: just focus on your own product and customers, and the rest will fall into place. But we can get into that debate another day...
Moving away from product-led differentiation
Peep Laja, an OG on this topic, has long championed the idea of winning via messaging, instead of product and feature-led differentiation. But, for me, there’s three broad buckets you should think about when trying to define how you stand out in the market.
1. Stand for something
Brand is so important for long-term differentiation. Whether it’s your tone of voice, the values you stand for, the companies you partner with, or the visual identity you choose, this is the stuff that matters to consumers in the long run.
Think about the products you are most loyal to, the places you shop at, the bars or restaurants you go to. Do you stick with them because they offer a feature or service that no one else does? Or is it because being a customer of theirs says something about you?
When every feature imaginable has been built and three near-identical products are vying for the same customer, often all that remains is brand differentiation and the emotional reaction that each of these companies invokes in the consumer.
2. Champion the customer
I’ve mentioned this before, but your customer support and success teams might just be your top secret weapon.
For pretty much every app, product and service I’m signed up to, I’m confident I would switch to an alternative if I could be sure of quality, reachable customer support.
There’s so much to learn from the amazing success story of Slack, but the company’s commitment to customer experience - and making it as easy as possible for users to give feedback - undoubtedly helped accelerate growth and make it stand out next to the old incumbents.
It’s hard work but becoming regarded as a company that truly invests in customer experience is a really meaningful way of differing from the competition.
3. Be #1
A lot of companies differentiate by being (or claiming to be) the best at something. This might mean you’re the fastest product, the easiest to use, the most reliable, or even the cheapest.
This is tricky for a bunch of reasons. First, you have to get to #1 for the value you’re going after - and then you’ve gotta maintain that status indefinitely!
But just as hard is telling that story.
“You’re the easiest to use product in your category. So what? My current provider is easy enough, and switching sounds like hard work. Plus, how are you even quantifying ease of use?”
That means this approach to differentiation takes time, and often won’t be strong enough on its own. So you’ll likely want to pursue this as a goal alongside a brand or customer experience strategy.
So, yes, differentiation is incredibly important, but relying on product features alone is not a long term strategy. Partner up with your Brand, Support, Success and Product teams to start building something truly special.
See ya! 👋