Are you building a new product, service or business unit, and you need to be better than the competition?
Sorry to say, but you are probably in a rat race to the bottom.
Instead of being better, try to be different.
Since discovering the Category Pirates, I've been a huge fan and highly recommend following them. 🏴☠️
Their book The Category Design Toolkit offers you 8 levers to be radically different from the queens in a category you designed.
Lever 1: Radically different Benefit (For a radically different problem)
Success is not about capturing market share but offering the best value possible for problems your category faces.
Lever 2: Radically different brand
Your branding only becomes a differentiator in light of your complete category. If you are supposed to look better than the competition, you won't make it. If you are radically different, you stand out.
Lever 3: Radically different experience
You want to offer a radically different experience to what people are used to. Optimise your webshop for returns instead of keeping them in your shop for as long as possible.
Lever 4: Radically different price
Your price shouldn't be anchored to your competitors or used to determine your desired profit. Instead, you should analyze how the delivered value will benefit your customers and design a pricing model they won't expect.
Lever 5: Radically different manufacturing
Category design is a philosophy that extends beyond marketing. It can drive your production processes, leading to innovative solutions that benefit your superconsumers. For instance, Royal Canin's ability to produce pet foods for different breeds at scale has set them apart in the market.
Lever 6: Radically different distribution
Distribution is not just about efficiency, you should be where your superconsumers work, live and play and figure out how you distribution can be a revenue model (Like Amazon Web Services or Prime) instead of a cost.
