When creating a brand or business, it is crucial to define what will be our brand differentiator. Having a strong brand differentiator will allow you to stand out from the competition and be memorable to customers.
What is a Brand Differentiator?
A brand differentiator, whether for a product or service, consists of the elements or characteristics that distinguish you from others and your competitors, enhancing your brand loyalty, sales, and growth.
There are various ways to differentiate your company, and understanding how you can do so will help you create a clear and focused strategy. To achieve this, consider three main types of differentiators:
• Sales
• Branding
• Usage
• Service
Sales-Based Brand Differentiator
Using sales as a differentiator allows you to use the process as a tool to persuade consumers to buy your product or service.
Cost Differentiator
Cost is a very effective differentiator for separating your products from others. However, it’s important not to misunderstand; if there’s a trend to differentiate by being more economical, you can also differentiate by being a more expensive product, which helps change the perception of the brand.
Example of a Sales-Based Brand Differentiator:
Pepsi once differentiated itself by advertising that one Pepsi was worth more than two Coca-Colas, although this was merely allegorical.
Branding as a Differentiator
Using branding as a differentiator means using aesthetics and experiences as tools to achieve good results.
Marketing Differentiation
Having completely alternative, innovative, and unique marketing strategies can help you stand out from the crowd, making your communication and marketing a powerful tool to differentiate yourself.
Brand Differentiation
The brand is the first thing a buyer sees, and it can be a significant differentiator. Being seen differently from others and standing out aesthetically among competitors is a great way to be distinctive.
Experience Differentiator
Brands that offer unforgettable experiences and memorable moments around their product or service allow other companies to be overshadowed, and your customers will constantly remember and think of you.
Example of Branding as a Differentiator:
Popi, a brand, distinguishes itself aesthetically by breaking away from the classic communication of a soda or soft drink, using a clear and direct design that helps users identify what the refreshment is.
Service Differentiation Strategy
A strong and important differentiator is the way companies treat you throughout their process, and the attention, follow-up, and support offered to customers are excellent ways to strongly and significantly differentiate yourself.
Attention Differentiation
Providing good customer service and making customers feel like they are the most important part of your company is an excellent differentiator. 96% of consumers say their buying decisions are based on the customer service provided by the company (information from HubSpot).
Follow-up Differentiation
Having an effective CRM or a follow-up on our customers’ purchases allows us to provide adequate and efficient follow-up, and having the right follow-up and an unforgettable experience allows us to differentiate ourselves from others.
Listening Differentiation
Actively listening to your consumers and making effective changes based on their comments is not only a great differentiator but also allows you to create a large community and stand out from other companies and competitors.
Example of Service Differentiation:
The video game Helldivers made changes that the community disliked, leaving reviews that they did not like the changes, so the developers decided to revert to the previous version and gave all players a new costume to use in the game.
Usage-Based Differentiation
Differentiating by usage is sometimes one of the most relevant because it changes the perception of a product or service, and achieving this is not easy.
Quality Differentiation
Having quality products is a great differentiator because it ensures that your customers will recommend you due to the quality of the product or service and continue buying.
Convenience Differentiation
Users are increasingly looking to save time and have more convenience at all times, so achieving a differentiation by convenience will not only benefit you, but your customers will thank you, especially if you simplify their lives, whether through automation or any type of convenience you can provide.
Innovation Differentiation
When products manage to make significant changes or propose their products or services in a different and innovative way, it is highly valuable to customers or users, and this definitely causes users to look at you differently from how they perceive your competitors.
Example of Usage-Based Differentiation:
Philips Hue smart bulbs, although many bulbs do what they do, stand out from the rest due to their intense colors, the quality of the app, and their interaction with smart assistants.
Although many of the differentiators you must have because the public expects their brands and companies to always have these features, having different elements that separate you from others is essential for achieving good results. Do you already have any of these differentiators in your business?
When working in marketing, one of the most important points is to achieve very good results within each strategy, and one of the best ways to obtain excellent results and know what is good for the company is to measure the ROI.
What is ROI?
ROI, which stands for Return on Investment, is a foolproof metric or tool to validate whether what you did has given you a return on investment. It is important not to confuse it with ROAS.
What is ROAS?
ROAS stands for Return on Advertising Spend. It is a metric that allows you to measure the return on investment of your advertising campaigns.
Difference between ROI and ROAS
Although they may seem similar, they have small differences. For example, ROI is not only a metric for marketing or advertising but applies to any area, unlike ROAS, which applies only to ads. Another big difference is that ROI already considers the payment of taxes unlike ROAS, which measures gross money.
Best Platforms for Your ROI or ROAS
First of all, if you’re reading this, it’s because you’re looking for shortcuts, and unfortunately, there aren’t any, but we’ll guide you on how to choose the best platform to get better ROI in your advertising campaigns.
First of all, we need to understand how our business works and know who we sell to. For this, you can read our blog about buyer persona or target market, or simply identify if your business is B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Consumer).
Knowing the above, it’s time to identify what each platform is useful for. Be aware that each platform has its focus and achieves different things, but we will land them in the B2B and B2C models.
Below you will find a list of networks and platforms you should use depending on your business:
Web = B2B, B2C LinkedIn = B2B Instagram = B2C Facebook = B2C Facebook Merchant = B2C Instagram = B2C TikTok = B2C TikTok Shop = B2C X (Twitter) = B2C Pinterest = B2C Mail = B2B, B2C Google = B2B, B2C Google Merchant = B2C
Once you identify which channel works for you, select the ones you can start using. It is very important that you consider the following factors: the budget you have for your campaign, the trained personnel to manage that account, and the tools your sales team has.
If you have defined the channel you are going to use, it is time to start creating your campaign and measuring. It is important to consider testing no longer than 3 months on each platform. The important thing here is that you measure each action you take and start seeing your ROI and ROAS at each step. Once you manage to measure it, it’s time to assess where or where you should invest all your budget.
Now that you know which platform works for you, your business, and your target market, it’s time to direct your budget to this platform. Always thinking that when you have more possibilities, you expand the channel to obtain more conversions in other channels, because it is necessary to be everywhere, all the time.
This strategy is a summarized form of a book called Bullseye Marketing written by Louis Gudeman. It’s an excellent book that I recommend for achieving effective marketing strategies that will allow you to achieve effective results.
It’s time to achieve your goals and obtain excellent ROI and ROAS. Start today and begin seeing results.
As I know nothing about American football, every year the Super Bowl happens, I prefer to focus on what I do know and like: the commercials or the marketing. So, like every year, we bring you the commercials we liked the most from the Super Bowl 2024.
Good or bad, every year the Super Bowl commercials surprise us for better or worse, or just by the great artists they manage to get and even greater the productions they make for this event. Here are the 5 most interesting commercials from this Super Bowl:
Mountain Dew Commercial Super Bowl 2024
Featuring my crush Aubrey Plaza and leveraging her public persona characterized by being very indifferent and not paying much attention to things, comes the commercial she developed with Mountain Dew.
Squarespace Commercial Super Bowl 2024
Squarespace, a management tool, and in this beautiful commercial where aliens are invading the planet, but since everyone is on their phone, they don’t pay attention until the aliens make a website, showing the importance of having a website. If you still don’t have one, you can make it with the best marketing agency in Monterrey, BLNK 😉 😉
Google Pixel SB Commercial Super Bowl 2024
This commercial is very nice because it shows how the cell phone interacts with the user’s daily life and how having a cell phone impacts their life.
Dunkin Donuts Commercial Super Bowl 2024
We all love donuts, and in this delicious Dunkin Donuts commercial, we see Ben Affleck trying to impress Jennifer Lopez with the collaboration of Tom Brady and Matt Damon.
E*Trade Commercial Super Bowl 2024
A trading company with digital tools mocks the sport of pickleball, which is like tennis with small rackets, while talking about their finances, demonstrating how easy the sport is, just like managing your finances.
These commercials are not as interesting as they used to be, nor are they as fun and innovative as they were. Currently, few companies manage to make an impact. I believe this is something we will continue to see as they create commercials with decent narratives, and occasionally we will have very interesting commercials.
What do you think of the Super Bowl 2024 commercials? Did you like them, or were they as disappointing as the halftime show?
