Are You Selling the Industry or the Institution?
Take your institution’s name off your ad.
Now, swap in the name of a competitor.
Does the ad still work?
If the answer is yes, you’re not marketing your institution - you’re marketing the industry.
And that’s a problem.
Because at the end of the day, if you’re not careful, you’ll spend your hard-earned marketing dollars promoting value propositions shared by everyone, rather than weaving in what makes your institution so unique.
Now it's not to say shared value propositions don't have a place - they certainly do - but elevating and celebrating unique differentiators is a necessity to not just driving action, but building affinity over time.
So seek to do both: Address what the market needs - shared value propositions - while making the case for what they should want - the things that make your institution so unique.
Because if you don't, you may just find yourself selling the industry and not the institution.
And that's a quick path to inaction and getting lost in the noise.
- Seth
About The Author
Seth is the founder and CEO of Kanahoma, a San Diego-based performance marketing agency on a mission to build a better agency for organizations building a better world.
You can learn more about who we are and what we do at www.Kanahoma.com.