What's up brand builders Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video you're
going to learn how to find your sustainable competitive advantage so you don't just gain
an edge over the rest but an edge that will stand the test of time now there are certain companies
out there that have a sustainable competitive advantage over their nearest competitors in
layman's terms this means that they are absolutely bossing it they're bossing it
so hard that they dominate their product market share and their competitors can't get close to
their profit margins so what is a sustainable competitive advantage well the essence is this
some companies have worked out that they can meet their customers needs better than the competition
and the result is that they perform better so if they do this consistently over a longer
period of time they're said to have a sustainable competitive advantage now the reasons companies
or brands succeed in this way vary there are different types of competitive advantages based
on things like consumer loyalty core competencies price power and market research to name a few
so how do you go about finding a sustainable competitive advantage for your brand well
first off i'm not going to beat around the bush here there is no silver bullet or quick fix that
guarantees any kind of success that being said there are proven processes that can help you to
find a competitive position this in turn gives you a great chance of finding a competitive advantage
for your business and your brand step number one is to segment your audience now as the old saying
goes you can't please everybody your product cannot have everybody as the target market
you need to get specific and segment your audience so that it's more narrow than it is vague for
instance instead of targeting men narrow that down to stylish single men in their mid twenties number
two develop a buyer persona now building on step one your buyer persona is a fictional character
that represents a specific potential customer segment so you may have more than one segment but
get each one as specific as you can you need to know their likes their dislikes their hopes
and dreams their aspirations their biggest fears and their biggest desires as well so really get
really granular with who your audience is because the more you understand about them the more you
feel connected to them the better your messaging is going to be the more you're going to be able
to resonate with who they are now a really good starting point to do this is to uncover their
demographics and their psychographics and that is essentially the situations and circumstances of
their lives and their behaviors as well the demographics you aim to uncover can include
information such as their age their gender their ethnicity geographic location marital status and
income to name a few knowing these for your buyer persona will help you to build a picture of what
their life looks like then their psychographics are what really makes them tick what their
personality traits are and you know we're talking here about really getting into their psyche what
makes them tick what they believe what they do on a daily basis what they do to entertain themselves
you know what kind of restaurants they go to what music they listen to what sports or hobbies they
have because this is where their passions really lie and we can learn a lot about our customers
by really understanding their behaviors number three evaluate the competition now your audience
is out there they already exist they are people within the market but who also exists are your
competitors because they're already out there providing their services or their products to
your potential customers so you need to understand exactly who these competitors are but not just who
they are what they're actually doing what they're doing well what they're not doing so well because
it's in what they're not doing so well where the opportunities lie now of course we can learn a lot
through what they are doing well and what your customers like about your competitors and you
know the the differences that they offer and what kind of value they place on that difference but
there are also a lot of opportunities to be had and there are gaps within the market for unmet
needs where the needs of your potential customers are not being met and these gaps represent an
opportunity for you to develop a position that is completely unique to give them something different
and an alternative to what's already out there in the market now a tool that we can use to find
those gaps and opportunities is by using a markup map now a markup map essentially looks at how
your competitors fit within two variables shown through four quadrants on a graph so in doing this
exercise you can plot where your competitors lie what their strengths are what their weaknesses are
and where those potential gaps are in the market if you have a quadrant that's not being filled
and there is potentially some value within that quadrant then you will be able to go in there
and fill that gap and provide your audience with something that they don't already have
now as a hypothetical example a cafe might look to their local market area and plot all of their
competitors on a market map and they might use the variables fast and slow and cheap and premium and
they might plot a lot of their competitors in the fast and cheap area of the market map and
that might leave a gap towards the bottom or top depending on where they plot those points
to show that there is a gap in the market for a more premium slower kind of service one that
doesn't focus on how fast it is but more takes the time to really enjoy the process and you know to
to sell that nostalgia about the coffee beans and taking the time within your day to slow down now
this is a relatively simple example but market maps can really help you to visualize a gap in the
market to find an opportunity for your brand to position effectively number four evolve your gap
into an idea so finding a gap is great if you find a gap in the market that is the first point of
finding a competitive position or your positioning strategy but a gap is not a fully fledged idea you
really need to develop that out and when it comes to evolving this idea go as big and bold as you
can possibly be you can always scale that back later on but think big think as big as this idea
could possibly be and really branch out different directions and different opportunities that may
lie within this gap so really take the time to apply some creative and strategic thinking to
this and give it the time that it deserves if you really push this idea as far as it can possibly
go you could end up with three four or even five potential positions for your brand number five
define your competitive advantage now if and this is a big if you've evolved your opportunity into
a fully formed idea that you know is a winner then the hard work really begins just because you think
you have a winning idea doesn't mean that your target audience is really going to go for it
you need to put in a lot of work a lot of effort to communicate the idea and make it sit within
their mind as to exactly why they should value it why they should want it why you're different what
experience they're going to get that they're not going to get with your competitors and you
need to make sure that you've really defined that position and that makes sense you've got
clarity within that position and as your messaging goes out into the market your audience can see
that you offer something different that you offer a value that's not already there in the market or
at the very least a unique way of providing that value that your competitors don't offer now once
you've found your competitive advantage you want to document that in a positioning statement now a
positioning statement is not a client-facing piece of marketing it's really an internal document
for clarity within the brand leadership team to understand what exactly they're going out into the
market and saying because if the brand leadership team don't have clarity on their position then
nobody outside the brand is going to have that clarity so it acts as a document that
guides decisions and actions and ultimately marketing communications as well so i'll give
you an example here amazon is for customers who want to purchase a wide range of products online
with quick delivery amazon provides a one-stop online shopping site amazon sets itself apart
from other online retailers with his customer obsession passion for innovation and commitment
to operational excellence now as i said this is not a piece of marketing and it's probably good
because it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue but what it does do is it provides clarity within the
brand internally as to why amazon is different so that they have that navigational compass they know
when they go out into the market and they communicate the brand and not only communicate
the brand but within the operations as well that they are focused on that customer experience
they are focused on that end-to-end innovative and fast quick and easy experience that people
have now come to know and love about amazon it's so easy now to jump on amazon and buy something
really really quickly and that's the position that they have taken in the market and that's
what they want their customers to experience every single time now look in all honesty
finding a sustainable competitive advantage is like finding a unicorn i'm not saying that it's
not possible to find a competitive advantage in the market it absolutely is and you should aim
for a sustainable competitive advantage because the more sustainable your advantage is of your
competition the longer you're going to stand out in front when we think of sustainable competitive
advantages though we think of the likes of amazon or nike or apple and in all reality creating an
advantage like that is very very difficult that said this process is still the same to finding
your competitive advantage but if you aim for the stars you might just hit the cloud so really
try to push your process as far as it can possibly go look into the market try to find those gaps and
opportunities develop those gaps out into ideas and as i said you might get three four five ideas
if you do this well enough and then hone in on one of those to develop it out into your competitive
advantage and ultimately your brand position but remember finding an effective position is not just
about being disruptive there are only one or two brands that can sit at the top of each category
but there are many brands that can be very very successful sitting in the number three four five
or six position but it's all about really thinking about who that audience is what
they want and how you can give them what they want in a unique way when compared to your competitors
now if you want to dive deeper into brand strategy i'm going to leave a video up here
that will help you do that but before you click on it make sure you hit the like and
subscribe if you want to become a master of brand i'll see you in that next video