Today we’re going to talk about a terrible place called the Sea of Sameness. If your brand is in the Sea of Sameness, I guarantee that you probably don’t even know it.
So what is it? And how can you and your brand get out?
Why is the Sea of Sameness So Bad?
Well, the Sea of Sameness happens when your brand is saying pretty much the same thing as every other brand in your category. This happens all the time! A little while back, we did some awesome work for a cybersecurity company. If you’re not familiar, cybersecurity is probably the most crowded industry on the planet right now. Do you know how hard it is to help them find truly unique words that they can stand for?
Well, we did it. We found the words. Instead of just copying what everybody else was doing, we found words that we could stand for.
… And How to Escape!
In order to make sure that you’re not in the Sea of Sameness, you need to do three things: look at your brand positioning, look at your buyer personas, and find the customer’s words. The amount of websites that I look at that are using jargon and buzzwords is making me crazy! That’s not how your customers talk, and that’s not what they’re looking for. They don’t care about AI, machine learning, data mining – how is that solving their problem?
You need to talk in the words that your customer will understand, and you need to talk about exactly how you’re going to solve their problem. I guarantee you that when you find the words that are unique to you and that solve the problem – AKA your unique value proposition – you’ll be out of the Sea of Sameness.
The Bottom Line
So, it’s time to look at your unique value proposition and your brand positioning against all of your competitors. Do that right now. Make sure that the words that you’re using to describe your value – not what and how you do business, but the value that you provide to your customers that only you can provide – are all your own, and you’ll avoid the Sea of Sameness.
Good luck, and giddy up!