Differentiation: Winning the race with only one competitor.

Defining a business’ differentiation and applying that to their content, campaigns and tactics is foundation work at Yakkazoo and usually a straightforward exercise. However, when you have several clients all playing in the same space to very similar customers, things get trickier. In this blog we look at how Yakkazoo finds and activates the USP for such a group of clients and how we help them run their own race.

Yakkazoo has over the last year or two worked with several Salesforce partners in Australia on campaigns to drive new leads. These businesses at first glance seem to be quite similar. They are mostly 50-200 sized teams, ISP and consultants, with one or more offices in Australia, working with SMB to enterprise size customers to create CRM solutions using the Salesforce platform.

The experience has drawn on all our skills in terms of brand and business strategy, content and campaign creation. But the muscles that have really been given a workout are our differentiation ones. How do we sell similar offerings to similar audiences from similar companies and ensure they are all very different? Here are some insights.

Targets Matter

While we might imagine that all of these partners are looking to target the C-suite the reality is more nuanced. Some partners target and have been successful with the C-suite audience, but size matters, so enterprise C-suite is far harder to reach than SMB. SMB C-suite are generally more broadly experienced so our content can balance technical details and business benefits.

Some prefer non-IT audiences - they are chasing the key influencers in specific business lines such as sales, service or infrastructure/operations. The content and approach to influencers is quite different, often very technical or specific to their day-to-day lives and less ‘big picture’ - they are looking for point solutions to solve quite specific problems. While these may seem small fry the ‘land and expand’ method has proven to be very successful for some partners.

Another overlay is the sectors they are targeting. These can vary greatly, although ones such as the financial sector and energy and utilities pop up across most of their business plans due to their higher expenditure and reliance on top-level customer service to attract and hold their customers. They all seem to want them.

Leason: Ask lots of probing questions about their audiences and get past the ‘everyone with a C title’ answers to really understand who will actually take a call from the sales team and build the content and approach for them.

Customer Journey

Content such as whitepapers and guides along with eDMs, invites and demos often appear throughout and can move through an organisation. They are forwarded, shared or just discussed around the coffee machine, so understanding your desired and likely path can influence the type of content and its structure. ‘Passing along’ needs to be considered and can be a very successful strategy. For example, C-suite likes to see ROI and growth potential, so our content is balanced to deliver that along with enough technical details that if the content or a proposal gets ‘passed down’ the recipient has enough information to believe it will work. In the reverse situation we ensure we have a strong executive summary up front filled with business value and then dive into the technical details quickly to appeal to the IT crowd.

Campaigns also have multiple tactics, launched over time through varied channels, to different audiences and at different venues. The matrix and calendar of these channels/dates/places is critical and content and creative teams need to understand the nuanced differences in each. We will adapt messaging to channels and over time and when considering events or webinars, and then modify to the audience. For example if the CEO is attending a roundtable we ensure the message suits that audience and then build in the talking points that match what the IT teams may have been sent separately. Any later conversations between the two will hopefully align and help build consideration.

Customer journeys are always idealised scenarios and quite often don’t go to plan, but as long as the messaging aligns with the audience and the scenario, and the value proposition fits their needs then you are in a good place.

Leason: Always match your message to your audience and scenario but don’t forget the conversations that stakeholders will have and ensure the messages you have provided align and the level of detail matches their role and build your argument over time to help drive awareness to interest and then action.

Tone of Voice

This is a biggy. The Tone of Voice (ToV) of companies are rarely similar. Their histories matter too; some come from a technical background and have become consultants over time whereas others may have been business consultants who now offer systems integration services.

This history and their values and internal machinations form their ToV. Leveraging that is the foundation of good messaging and content. Followers become use to their tone and seek out their point-of-view because of that tone and their approach.

For an agency understanding ToV is more than reading their brand guidelines (if they have one), it includes finding their thought leaders, tapping into their personalities and drawing out their preferred language and approach to engaging. When we understand this, we can gauge how much guidance they will need in content creation and dissemination. For example, when crafting webinar or event content we will determine who need full scripts, which they dutifully learn and recite, while others need just talking points and we let their personality, confidence and knowledge shine through.

ToV also impacts tactical choices. Some will suit ‘standard’ tactics and reasonably dry delivery while others want to, and have the personality to, be a bit different, to stand out, make proactive statements and use unusual channels to say them. As long as they can back them up with proof-points and educated reasoning you can provide great cut-through in noisy markets.

Leason: Listen and learn from the business and its people. Seek out those outside of the marketing departments and engage them to learn about their culture, their approach and their point-of-view. There is gold there to leverage when building a campaign, content and messaging.

Customers, Sectors and Partners

These can be grouped because when done well they are closely aligned. All businesses will tell you the market segments they are in and want to be in. Building relevance in a new market is one of the hardest things to do. As an agency when we are told “we want to engage with X sector” and we know they have not had great success there, it is a red flag. Throwing money at LinkedIn targeted ads won’t do the job. But what can help is partners - by that I mean ecosystem partners, for these clients we mean the software or hardware providers they use and the customers they have worked with before.

Success stories from one sector can be totally compelling to another, but how it is framed and delivered matters. Finding aligned business goals (improving customer service) is a first step but there are other ways. Using case study customers is obvious but how you do it is the trick. A well briefed customer can spin their story about one sector to make it very thought provoking for another.

The process outlined in the case study also matters here - describing how the company got them from A to B and their way of working can be very attractive to prospects. Their concerns about a lack of sector experience fade as they understand the approach works regardless of sector. Bringing in the ecosystem partners is also important. They often work right across business types and can talk up the company’s ability to handle any challenge and their understanding of business and technical challenges are great proof-points for prospects.

Leason: A case study story, shaped for a different sector can make for great content. A good agency will help them shape that to suit the sector and draw out the cross-sector value. Throw in endorsements from ecosystem partners and you can deliver a strong argument.

People and Passion

Similar to ToV but even more important is people and their passion - they can be the heart of successful campaigns. I’ve seen highly experienced CEOs from major corporations deliver dross content with little passion to an audience and lose them in the first two minutes. No amount of speaker training can help here. Identifying the key people who bring passion and confidence to the table is key. They may not have the ideal job title but enthusiasm, pride, a sense of humour and ability to ‘wing it’ will have an audience leaning in straight away, and the content becomes far stickier because the audience is totally engaged.

Leason: This can be a hard call to make but as an agency suggesting that one person take the lead over another, potentially more senior person, can make or break a piece of content, and in particular in webinars and live face-to-face events. Find them and make the call. The client will thank you later.

Summary: Run Your Own Race

Business is a competition, but there is no one winner. Two athletes who are physically identical, have trained together, compete side by side, under the same coach, and can have very different results. Their approach is key and the personality, experience and heart they bring matter most. But unlike a running race, in business, there can be many winners. Each business seeks to win, in their race, with their strengths, on their terms.

At Yakkazoo we see ourselves as a coach - helping them find those strengths and develop them, bring out that heart, define their experience and then help them show the world what they’ve got. What we know is we can coach many businesses at once, because each wears a different logo on their chest and they are not starting from the same blocks or aiming for the same line. They are racing against themselves.

Grant Whitehouse

Head of Strategy