The challenge of differentiating your products

Have you noticed that there are lots of products out there these days that look exactly like other products. When you go to the store to purchase something you have a choice between tens of products that seem identical. Many people finally choose based on the price of the different items, but they wish they could figure out some other difference. They can buy an insecticide that kills bees or they can buy another one that kills bees. How can you tell which is better than the other? In many cases there is no difference, which should tell you something if you are trying to sell a product. Product differentiation is a very important part of marketing and selling a product or service. Differentiation refers to the process of altering your product just enough to make it stand out from all the rest. When you develop a new product you need to always ask yourself if it is different from the other ones that will sit next to it on the shelf. However, this can be a fairly difficult thing to do because there are so many products and good ideas out there. Just taking a look at the products on the shelf of your local department store makes it perfectly clear that you have a challenge in front of you.

One great way to figure out how to differentiate your product is to ask your customers about what would make ti different. Conduct a focus group study or ask your customers about their preferences. What would make them think of your company as somehow different from all the others? Would it be price, service, delivery time, some additional feature that others do not have? After conducting some market research you should be able to find ways to differentiate your product that will really make it stand out.

Differentiation occurs in many different forms and you will want to make sure that your new product or style will sell. You can change your product through altering the way it is packaged or advertised. Even changing the name of the product could be a form of differentiation. Often a business will advertise their products by suggesting that they last longer or have a better smell than others. Does the product have better reliability or some new chemical agent that makes it much more superior than its fellow products. Any sound of a breakthrough in research is a sure fire way to differentiate your product from all the rest. However, you don't need to dramatically change everything the product does in order to differentiate your product.

As you can imagine, product differentiation can be the key to making a product fail or succeed tremendously. When a customer is faced with twenty products that all do basically the same thing they are going to look for the one product that has a little extra something. If the product promises to last longer or to provide some other benefit it is sure to sell. One way to get good ideas for product differentiation is to look at current products and think about how to make yours different. You will notice how other companies have differentiated their products and what might help you make yours different in a truly unique sense. Besides this you should consult a professional marketer to see what kinds of ideas they might have for improving your particular product. Be patient and keep trying to develop new ideas that will differentiate your product. With some work and good ideas you will have a breakthrough.