SNCF were tasked with improving their customers’ rail journey within France. They spent £12bn and placed a healthy order for new trains to run on tracks across the country. The idea being that customers would get from A to B in a smoother more comfortable fashion.
SNFC are state-controlled. The improvements would be funded by the taxpayer, but in return, the taxpayer would travel at great speed and in greater comfort. Somebody decided that the trains should be an extra 20cm in width. Somebody forgot to check whether those new trains would actually fit through the platforms of the country’s rural stations. It turns out that that somebody made a grave miscalculation. The trains wouldn’t pass through 1,300 of the stations in France.
Stations that were built more than 50 years ago – those that would have benefitted from the new infrastructure – were narrower than those that were measured in the towns & cities. That’s the problem when you don’t do your research. When you build a product that has to meet exact specification. Exact requirements. To the very last centimetre.
What’s on your customer’s list of specifications?
Picture you’re stood at the mic, with your family by your side, on Family Fortunes (UK version of Family Feud)… ‘We asked 100 people to name a product that has to be built to specific size guidelines…’ Would a train carriage receive a big fat X? I doubt it.
What about your products, your craft, your services? Are you constrained in the same way as SNCF’s train designers? Would your product be worthless if you shift the spec by a fraction? If not, why begin by restricting yourself with specifications?
When the service we offer, or the products we create, are delivered at our own discretion, why do we fixate on the work of our competitors? We’re unlike the French transportation industry. We don’t have to adhere to infrastructure dating back 50+ years. We have the freedom to deliver as we see fit. We can break convention.
The ever converging marketplace
Whilst some businesses are determined to offer a craft with difference, many industries are converging into one non-subscribed specification list. The way we present our businesses is converging into one. ‘The leading supplier… the UK’s best… We are trusted by our clients… We care about our customers…’ Businesses are now ‘talking’ in a singular voice… and it’s all getting rather dull.
Get off the track! whose rules are you following?
The rules of the marketplace. The rules that are governed by your competitors. The rules you think your customers know about. You do have a right to do things differently.
What if you’d never set eyes on your competitor websites? Would your website be the same as it is now? Those ideas you’ve mimicked such as the free guide, the free consultation, the ever-so-similar products or promotional content? Maybe even the same blog headlines telling me of ’10 ways that your business is better than your competitors’?
The rule breakers
Casper could have offered dozens of variants of their mattresses. Instead, they did their research and decided upon one. James Coffee Company could have told their audience that their coffee was a leading brand… instead they pride themselves in sharing the story of their artisanal approach. Singapore Airlines could have reduced their overheads in order to reduce their flight prices. Instead, they focused upon creating a journey that made us feel like we were at home.
If I used your service over your competitors, the end results may well be the same. Does one coffee really taste outlandishly different to its competitor? Aren’t we really just all trying to get from A-to-B when we board a plane? The great marketers know to focus upon the experience. How that experience makes us feel. That’s the embodiment of unconventional marketing. To present our craft differently, but to fulfil our duty with the service we provide.
Whilst your competitors unknowingly merge into one market-offering with their indecipherable marketing messages, take a look outside of your industry walls. There’s a lot to be learned from the great startup stories, the great methods, by which businesses are breaking convention within their own marketplace.
There’s still a lot of fun to be had making your brand stand out. You don’t have tracks you need to fit to, or points along the journey you have to pass through. You control your craft. It’s a powerful tool. With it, you control your marketplace.
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