Despatches March-April 2015
Breaking the mould How do you differentiate yourself in life or business, when there is so much noise, so much competition? How can you get noticed? It’s all about being different. Be it classy, loud, cheap, or on the cutting edge of innovation you have to have something that makes you unique. And the people that focus on and develop their differences create a brand loyalty tailored by the people that those qualities appeal to. It’s all about your target market. Finding your niche. And to make yourself or your company very desirable for that niche to hang out with. Here at Diamond we are the champions of small business. Our target market is the businesses who really need our services and can’t get that quality or breadth they need elsewhere, nor the tailored and personal service their businesses needs. It’s all about the quality delivery of services at a local level. That’s why we have locally owned and managed depots, not a centralised call centre – because it’s very relationship based. And that’s rare in our kind of logistics.
Know your market, drill into what that market particularly desires, and pitch your focus on fulfilling those specific desires. The great news is the better you tailor your message the more passionate an advocate for your business will be – because it ticks so many boxes. And it also means that there is plenty of room for competition – because this specific niching down, tailoring of services, appealing to a very specific audience, means there are plenty of niches for businesses to target regardless of their industry. Whether a grocer, be it Aldi or Waitrose, a car manufacturer, be it Bugatti or Kia, or a hotel, Premier Inn versus The Ritz, there is a market – as long as you define it well enough – for everyone.
Whether you need to be the crème de la crème in your industry (like Burberry) or the cheap and cheerful (like Poundland) it is the successful tailoring of your message to match the desire of your prospective clients that makes it so very important. Where it starts to go wrong is when your message gets diluted. If a luxury car producer starts making a small, cheap version of their luxury marque doesn’t that potentially endanger the perception of the brand by their core audience? It’s dangerous waters I think.
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