Photo by Cameron Cassan

When you’re just like everyone else, no one notices you. To make your business stand out, you need to be different…for the right reasons.

Being different for the sake of being different is likely to get you noticed, but create the wrong impression. You’ll create a marketing “double-take”, but what will be remembered is “that’s unusual” not “that’s unusual and incredibly important to me”. In fact, this is the problem with shock marketing – upping the “wow” factor, but not upping the relevance factor.

Being different takes guts. It’s safe to place yourself in the mainstream message (it’s the right thing to say, since all my competition is saying the same thing). Being different isn’t financially prudent. Being different is risky.

Being different takes leadership. You need to clearly articulate why being different is the right thing for your business and your customers. People want to feel special. If your business is likewise “special”, there’s a great opportunity for alignment.

Being different can fail spectacularly. Compare a slow slide down to obscurity as opposed to going out in a blaze of glory. You don’t want your marketing to kill your business, but look at the writing on the wall. If you don’t innovate, you’re likely to keep losing market share from those that do.

Being different is painful. You’re likely to suffer some ridicule from the pundits for saying something that no one else is saying. But if your message resonates with your audience, it doesn’t matter what the “experts” say. It matters what your customers do.

Businesses that are first-to-market or first-to-niche have a much higher probability of success than those that come later. Create a new opportunity for your business by sticking out in a way that truly matters.