Being recognized as unique, different and desirable is what every company strives to achieve to stand out in their marketplace. Unfortunately, this appears to be easier said than done.
Take a look at these three tag lines:
Achieve Dramatic Cost Savings, Increase Operational Efficiency and Business Agility
Reduce Costs, Improve Service Delivery, Enable Business Innovation
Reduce IT Costs, Improve Performance, Do More with Less
Do you see anything unique that sets one apart from the others? If you had to choose a vendor based on this, which one would you choose? And yes, they each sell the same type of solution.
“Only 14% of the ‘unique benefits’ promoted by companies drive enough preference to have a commercial impact.” Corporate Executive Board
Every single one of us likely has a slew of competitors trying to sell a similar product or solution to the same markets. The problem is that what we think is important and “differentiating” about our products quite often misses the mark for what the prospect is trying to buy.
You’ve all heard the adage that you may think you’re selling a drill, but what the buyer wants is really a hole. We get so wrapped up in our products that we forget that we know too much. We all believe our products and solutions are the best possible choice for solving our prospect’s problems. We know the nitty-gritty details about just why that’s so.
What we forget is that customers don’t really care. They care about what they’re going to get, the difference it’s going to make for them and how certain they are that they’re really going to get what you promise.
Sadly, what we promise isn’t always what the prospect wants. Or we're up at the 30,000 foot view so our messaging doesn’t have any immediate impact that’s easy for the prospect to hone in on.Which could be why research from IDG discovered that buyers say they only find relevant content 42% of the time. Yep - less than half the time. That should serve as a wake-up call.
[Unless of course you've convinced yourself that your content is well within that 42%. But I'd encourage you to take a look anyway.]
If our content is going to serve as a differentiator, we’ve got to think differently about how we seek to establish a dialogue with our prospects. We’ve got to flip our focus to what they’re buying instead of what we think we’re selling. It’s not about the solutions, products or services. It’s about what they enable your customers to achieve that they couldn’t do before. It’s about why that’s important to them.In case you think it's not that big a deal, IDG also found that the lack of relevant content perceived by buyers is responsible for reducing the vendor's chance of closing the sale by 45%!
That’s a big deficit. And one we can't afford to allow to continue.
