Cutting out business competition by specializing

Mark Twain stated that the wise man keeps all his eggs in one basket - then watches that basket. This could be great advice for the smaller firm: spreading the resources too thin, or trying to please everybody, is likely to finish in tears since bigger firms can do this effortlessly.

Specializing means cutting out competition - big firms have real trouble in specializing, not because they lack the resources but because they can't convey a specialist brand message easily: no one will think that they can specialize in everything.

Young's House Brew is a specialist wholesaler dealing only in products for people who brew their very own wines and beer. Young's has a website that has a section for retailers (Young's clients) and a section for consumers offering guidance and information about home brewing.

This provides information that may not be easily available elsewhere - for example, special yeasts are now available that will survive in alcohol strengths as high as 40 percent, creating the possibility of brewing full-strength spirits at house.

Young's has managed to establish a reputation second to none in terms of specializing in house brew. They've turn out to be the first port of call for any retailers, and the consumer site encourages more individuals to ask for Young's products when setting up their own home brew operation.

Resist the temptation to attempt to please everybody - this will blur your brand values. Make sure you really ARE the professional in your chosen specialism. Convey your specialist status to all interested parties - intermediaries, suppliers, consumers, everyone. Use the internet, but not exclusively: why not get in touch with your local TV, radio, and press to tell them you're accessible as an professional commentator? Being a specialist means you're not going head-on against the big firms. You would need to be extremely drunk to pick a fight using the bouncers - so why do it in business?

Giving people a totally free sample or perhaps a totally free trial is an old ploy, but in some cases it's difficult to do with out giving away a great deal more than was intended: for instance, offering a totally free trial of a credit rating service might give the potential customer everything he or she wanted to understand, without the need to subscribe permanently towards the service.

Finding a way of making individuals want the product with out in the exact same time giving away the main advantage is a difficult tightrope act to carry out. When Oasis (the pop band) wanted to promote their Heathen Chemistry album, they followed the typical route of seeking airtime on radio, of advertising in music enthusiast magazines, and so forth: obviously these routes are used by every other band, so they needed something else to attract the attention of their target audience.

The band arranged to give away encrypted CDs with 4 tracks from the album, attached to the Sunday Times newspaper. The CDs could only be played four occasions before they automatically wiped themselves clean, so the recipients could not replay the tracks without buying the entire album. From the sale of each album, 50p was donated to the Prince's Trust, a charity for helping young individuals.

This distinctive method enables individuals to try the album with out gaining possession of its key advantages, thus compelling them to make a full buy. Make certain that the freebie you are offering does not contain the main advantages that the customer would wish to own. At the same time, ensure that it contains sufficient advantages for individuals to judge the quality of what is on offer. As usually, try to ensure that only your target customers are given the free sample, otherwise you are wasting your samples.

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Cutting out business competition by specializing

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