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The Undeniable Value Of Differentiation
With all the people offering products and services online, what sets yours apart from the crowd? You can't argue this, to succeed you need to differentiate yourself. Online businesses come and go every day and about 90% fail. The reasons online businesses fail vary from situation to situation, here's a few:
All of the above reasons are valid and one of the most common reasons the product offering itself fails, is because the niche market that the business owner is marketing in is semi-saturated and the marketer had no "differentiator". A differentiator is anything that makes your unique selling proposition differ from any other by the benefits it delivers to the user. Those benefits need to be itemized in the sales copy to make sure the prospect will understand what makes the offering specific to his/her needs. A differentiator could simply be a different angle or viewpoint on some problem or product not currently realized by anyone else. How many ebooks have been written about Internet marketing? Hundreds if not thousands...the ones that make money have easily identifiable differentiators. A differentiator could be an added bonus to your product offering that the prospect can't get anywhere else. **Simple example: Suppose there are 2 products that a prospect is considering purchasing. * Product offering #1 offers a bonus that can be easily found on the Internet. * Product offering #2 offers a bonus that is exclusive to this offering itself that cannot be obtained anywhere else other than through this specific offering. If both products are equal in benefits to the user and have the same price, which product offering will the prospect choose? Of course, the prospect will choose Product #2 because of the "exclusivity" of the bonus. That exclusivity is a differentiator. A differentiator could be a discount on a service that no one else in your niche offers. A differentiator could simply be a promise to respond to customer inquiries within 24 hours. The trait that defines a truly effective differentiator is uniqueness. A differentiator could even be something as simple as the packaging of the sales process of a product or service itself. The packaging of a product includes graphics, format of delivery, appearance of web presence, etc. With regards to graphics, it is important to understand that people respond positively to visually pleasing graphics regardless of whether the end product of offering is actually affected by those graphics. Due to the average person's reluctance to buy online, the better things look, the better the prospect feels about moving forward with a purchase. In the online world, the prospect decides to purchase a product or service that is being marketed to them somewhat "virtually"...it is intangible to them until they buy. In this instance, a differentiator could be something as simple as slick graphic or choice of product format-pdf, exe, audio, RAM, MP3, etc. Before you can actually identify a truly effective differentiator for the product offering, a good amount of competitive intelligence needs to be done within the appropriate vertical niche market. Begin by reviewing all products and services that could be perceived as competitors in that niche market and define the differentiator from there. Whatever type of differentiator is chosen, it's vital to make certain the prospect clearly can understand the value of it by itemizing the benefits it brings to them. This is often overlooked and equates to unrealized sales. Be humble, work smart, keep it simple. Karl Augustine
About The Author Karl Augustine Author of "9 Deadly Mistakes To Avoid When Starting An Online Business". Publisher, "Starting Smart" bi-weekly ezine for new and semi-seasoned Internet marketers. http://startingsmart.9mistakes-online.com
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Some of them pretty trivial thoughnot without importance, like the fact that marketer usually is much more exposed to contact with offersfrom online businesses.Marketer also has some needs that can possibly be satisfied by buyingthings online. Two sorts of needs in fact. Firstly, the same needs that everybody else has. Secondly,specific needs related to Internet marketing. By being rather more exposed to Internet ads and offersthan an average person, more used to it and understanding it better, marketer would probably buy morethings online. But the other type of needs is far more important here.Now for the second type of needs. Marketer will need marketing tools, resources, information...These things change and develop in an enormous pace. This is of course a truism but it's absolutelytrue. If you're able to quickly find new promotional tools, opportunities and/or informationon Internet marketing, you will be in position to sell (more or less directly, we will notplunge here into discussing downlines and referrals) these information - for after all it isexactly information! - to other marketers. I personally see no reason why marketers should beless receptive to this sort of information than average person. In fact they are probablymuch more receptive, as they know perfectly well how much in their personal lives depends onthose tools, information and opportunities.It is probably not true that whole 95% of people trying to earn online is not earning any money, butit must be obvious that most marketers still have not found their way of doing business online andthere's no reason to believe that this situation ever radically changes.So it's not only information on new available services and opportunities that is sought after,and therefore sellable. 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One of them,perhaps the most important, is that you only deal with one (big, that's true) issue: online marketing.As X marketer you would need to handle both marketing itself and the market niche you're in. Thisfact has some further interesting effects. For example this that by attaining success as N marketeryou're becoming a Guru, or "almost a Guru", and this time I'm using this term without irony. WhatI mean is simply that you've become an accomplished expert in your field, which of course isInternet marketing. While if you attait even the biggest success in selling widgets online, youwill be a "Great Expert In Selling Widgets Online". Which means that you will be generally seen asa crossing between "widgets expert" and "marketing expert". Nobody will be certain how good you arein any of those two parts of your activity! Effect of which will be that your success will bemuch harder to duplicate! You will have much more difficulty in teaching people your tested businessmethods. 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The simpler form cosists of just twomain parts: the Lead Generating Module (more often multiple Resources) that are constatly being sold by something thatcan be called the Selling Module to the leads they generate. One program that I remember that worked like that wasCommisionSpyder. In another, more advanced, version is probably best represented by the new "Explosive" ebook byStephanie L. Woolford, a very successful online marketer. (This ebook can be for example found on http://ebiz-guru.com.)Here one can three conceptual modules:the Lead Generating Module, the Selling Module, and an ebook (that can be either free or paid) that ignites thewhole process. I'm not sure I managed to describe the idea clearly enough, but it can be understood when seen in action.Ebooks are supposed to be the almost-perfect business and in near future they may really become that. If we assumethat this statement is true, we can say probably risk an opinion that X marketers have greater chance of publishinga competent book on topics related to their chosen niche they know lots about, while N marketers seem to have muchgreater chance of publishing purely marketing ebook, "viral" ebooks, and ebooks of the sort mentioned in previousparagraph included. Which seems to be another advantage of N marketing. So after all Selling to Sellers may notbe so stupid idea, wouldn't you agree? The 10 Success Basics For Your Online Business It's always a good time to review what's been working or not working for you in your marketing efforts. Take the time to be honest with yourself about whether or not you're moving forward. 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