E-MarkeTIP




		MARKETING



		BRANDING



		POSITIONING



		DESIGN & LAYOUT

		For more information on building your brand, contact: john@mengassociates.com

E-MarkeTIP is a monthly marketing column by John Meng of Meng & Associates Inc., a full-service marketing firm, specializing in strategic positioning, brand building and public relations custom-fit to the needs of small- to medium-sized companies.

No virgin markets. For untold years, idyllic marketers have fantasized about virgin markets where marketing is a two-player game between the company and the customer. In this dream world, the company produces a product or offers a service that is appealing to the customer and then the company simply uses marketing to reap the rewards. Very easy. Very effective. If I build it, they will come.

Unfortunately, this is fantasy on an epic scale so unrealistic that it makes J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings read like a seventh-grade history book. In truth, a robust capitalistic society such as ours rarely allows a virgin market to exist for longer than a nanosecond. For every one good product that’s introduced to the market, dozens of ‘me-too’ products appear faster than relatives to a lottery winner. The fact is that it’s never really a two-player game at all. It’s a three-, four- or five-player game. Often more.

For all of us in the real world, a market consists of countless consumers committed (by varying degrees) to a variety of players, aka competitors. On any given day, we may have a dozen or more companies producing the same product or service, and all saying “I have built it, now they’ll come.”

"It is from the character of our adversary’s position that we can draw conclusions as to his designs and will, therefore, act accordingly."

Karl von Clausewitz

In a competitive environment, a company that pretends it is in a virgin market and conducts a two-player strategy is courting disaster. Alternatives are the raw material of decision making, and the consumer’s ability to choose between products becomes the turnstile between success and failure.

So, in order to incorporate consumer choice into a marketing strategy, a company must first find some attribute than makes their product truly unique. Perhaps it’s 24-hour service. Perhaps it’s a patent that your widget has over other widgets. Perhaps it’s your company’s unique heritage. But before you take ownership on a point of difference, look at the rest of the market. Remember, it’s not a two-player game. A sound marketing campaign must consist of holding on to your existing customers while simultaneously trying to take customers away from the competitors. So, a strong point of differentiation not only shouts to the world how your product is different, but it should also be an attribute that exploits a competitor’s weakness and/or fills a void in the competition’s product line.

Listerine had the mouthwash category bottled up, despite the fact that it tasted bad. Then, Scope looked at the market, and defined itself as a good-tasting alternative. Emery was flying high as the leader in shipping, then FedEx defined itself as the overnight specialist for small packages. Domino’s looked at the market and defined itself with two words, home delivery.
So, as you build your brand by defining your own unique point of difference, take a good look around at the market. There are a lot more players than you think, and often they can be tremendously helpful in determining your strategy.