Differentiation is created when two “friends” have a “conversation.” Differentiation is defining your product so strongly in the minds of your customers that they take your product off the shelf without thinking about it. Differentiation is a critical element in creating world-class preeminent brands in the age of social media. Differentiation is a perception strategy.
The great asset of social media is its scale. This scale is both a salesperson’s best friend and their biggest enemy. Social media has made it easy for a company of modest means to create and market products effectively. That is why our market is flooded with products. In an average supermarket, there are 40,000 brands. The average consumer only needs 85. This is just the food space. How does a seller get a consumer to focus and buy the seller’s product, one out of 40,000? The simple answer to this is through consumer engagement. In short, a brand has to become a “friend” of the consumer.
This is the strength of social media. Social media revolves around the personal relationships that engagement generates. Three critical elements on a Fan Page are the “comments” section and the “Like” and “Dislike” section. The comments section is critical because it tells a seller how to improve the product. The comments section explains to the seller about the real needs that a consumer has. By understanding exactly what a consumer really wants, a company can create products that have true differentiation from the other brands in its market space. The comments section explains to a salesperson how to position the product so that strong differentiation is created.
One CEO who understands the power of social media is Allan Mulalley of Ford Motor Company. Through Ford’s Facebook page and other outlets, Mr. Mulalley speaks directly to customers about Ford products. These conversations are monitored by Ford’s marketing, engineering and product development staff. Mr. Mulalley has an engaging personality with great people skills. He has the ability to get people to say exactly what he thinks of Ford products. Because of this direct customer engagement, Ford was able to overhaul its production lines to add and remove features that customers wanted or didn’t want in Ford products. Conversations with customers allowed Ford to produce cars that stood out from competitive offerings.
From these discussions, Ford was able to understand that what customers wanted was a car that was “fun.” Ford was able to understand that customers wanted a car that was more than just a means of transportation. This is how the concept of the Ford Fiesta was created and marketed. Ford was able to differentiate the Fiesta as a “fun” car. This differentiation was created by “conversations” between “friends”. Without conventional advertising, the Fiesta differentiated itself so well that it sold 11,000 units in its first week of availability.
Dean Hambleton [email protected]
