The Magic Of Differentiation

There's nothing cultural about it, nothing historical happened there. There's not even a giant ball of string, or the world's largest set of wooden dentures there to be viewed. (Those of you who have driven the length of fly-over country recently know what I'm talking about.)

In fact, it's a truck stop.

Yep, a truck stop.

It's called Little America and it's about halfway between Evanston and Rock Springs Wyoming, off of I-80. And it's actually on the Rand McNally atlas's map. There's nothing there but a truck stop, and a hotel...

So why in the world is a truckstop a must-stop location (or on the map, for that matter!)

I could say that's it's a pretty amazing truck stop. For example, it's open, light, and clean inside. The floors are marble (really) and they're actually clean, the store's stocked with everything from Remington sculptures to sweatshirts (though the prices clearly aren't Wal*Mart). And my favorite thing - this truck stop's bathrooms are spotlessly clean marble with Kohler fixtures and expensive faucets.

But that's not why we stop.

And it's not why thousands of others stop every day, each contributing to Little America's revenue stream by buying their overpriced gasoline and products.

We stop because of the billboards.

Little America is probably one of the top ad spenders for billboard space in the State of Wyoming. Coming from the east you see the first one 250 miles out. Then as you get closer you see them more frequently, until within 75 miles you see a sign what seems like every couple of miles.

By the time you're within 35 miles you definitely know that there's a place coming up called Little America, and you believe that it must be quite a place for them to be doing this much advertising.

Not everyone is a fan of billboard advertising, as they clutter up the beauties of nature. But in Wyoming, there's only so much scrub oak and sagebrush you can see before a well crafted billboard draws your eye like a magnet.

But then at about 50 miles out the signs take a masterful twist - suddenly you see a giant picture of an ice cream cone. The copy says 35 Cent Ice Cream Cones Little America 50 miles

This message gets repeated over and over again, until when you have reached 20 miles from Little America your mind has moved from "hey, an ice cream cone might be nice" to "aren't we there yet!?!" (There's not much to think about in that part of Wyoming, so obsessing over a lump of frigid chemicals put into a tacky flour-based cone is easy.)

Plus, somewhere in there the kid factor kicks in, they start asking for a cone, and suddenly this truck stop in the middle of nowhere has become a must-stop attraction!

It clearly works. During peak summer months I've had times where I've literally waited in line at Little America to buy overpriced gas then went inside and spent another 5 minutes in line just to get our ice cream cones.

Let's put on our marketing hat for a moment and look at this as a case study.

You own a truck stop. It's waaaayyy out there. You sell a commodity (gas is gas!). How do you get people to stop at your place when they know that 35 miles down the road they could get that exact same commodity at a lower price? Your goal is to get thousands of visitors per day.

You could do the traditional and cut your profit to the bone and feature your low price for diesel and regular unleaded.

But you're not going to get thousands of daily visitors and it won't be very profitable if you do. (The foolishness of competing based on price is the subject of a whole additional article.)

You could advertise that you have the best gas around. But that would be a lie.

You could advertise your marble restrooms. But there are lots of places that say they have the cleanest restrooms in town, and frankly, I simply don't believe their claims.

So the owners of this Little America (by the way - note that there are a number of Little America's around, but none that I know of are destinations like this one is) chose to differentiate themselves with 35 cent ice cream cones.

Differentiation is the process of making yourself different than your competitors in your target consumer's mind.

Differentiation is best when it is something exclusive, something that only you can claim: your product has a whatzamaggick that prevents leaks, it's patented formula is proven to improve performance, we're the only one who offers this in the state, or we only offer this product to alumni of x University.

Lacking exclusive differentiation, you can also differentiate your business based on non-exclusive claims: it makes your lashes appear 25% longer, it's specially engineered to work with the Hampco 687 (when your competitors offer a generic version only), or... you offer 35 cent ice cream cones.

What differentiates you from your competitors? What could you add that would make you do so?

The next thing Little America did correctly was to tell literally everyone who can read who passes by their truck stop that they have this differentiated feature available. Come to think of it, years ago, when my youngest was 2 years old and couldn't read, he was begging for an ice cream cone because he saw the picture.

If you don't tell anyone about your differentiation, it's useless. Shout it, scream it, feature it everywhere, and focus every communication about your product/service on your differentiating point. You can list the other features you offer as sub-points, but your differentiation needs to clearly be first and foremost.

How are you communicating your differenting point?

Third, they supported their differentiating point with excellence. I can guarantee you that 35 cent ice cream (by the way, up 'til this trip, it was 25 cents!) might draw us once, but not a second time if their facility was dirty, bathrooms filthy, and it felt like a truck stop. The marble floors, extra long handles on the windshield washing squeegees, even the Remington sculpture in the store all make us feel comfortable with the purchase, and more likely to buy more (this trip, they got revenue for extra food purchases, some lemon drops and a Mission Impossible 2 DVD from us in addition to the ice cream).

In other words, once you've differentiated yourself to get them there, it's still vital to exceed expectations if you want to close the sale, generate additional sales, and most importantly, generate repeat sales into the future.

What are you doing to go beyond your differentiating point, to exceed expectations?

I can't think of anything more important for a business to do than to figure out what differentiates their products/services from their competition and to better communicate that differentiation to their target consumers.

This really works, for businesses, service providers, even in personal relationships.

Try it out, I'm sure you'll be pleased.

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